The Universe Twister (69 page)

Lafayette! Help!
a silent voice rang in O'Leary's ears—or no—not in his ears. Inside his head.

Daphne! Where are you?
he cried silently.

It's dark, Lafayette! Lafayette . . .!

The elder in blue was standing before him.

"Lafayette—it is
you
, isn't it? Oh, it's all right; you may speak."

"I've got to get out of here," O'Leary said. "Daphne needs me—"

"Lafayette—don't you know me?"

"Sure—I saw you in a cave, you climbed out of a coffin and tried to bite me!"

"Lafayette—I'm your ally! You knew me as Lom, an assumed name, true, but then I was hardly in a position to trust you, eh? My real name is Jorlemagne."

"
You're
Lom? Are you out of your mind? Lom is a little shrimp under five six with a bald head and—"

"Surely you, of all people, can understand, Lafayette! Your description is of Quelius! I was caught by surprise, or he'd never have succeeded in exchanging identities with me!"

"You mean—you were Lom? And Lom was—"

"You! Simple enough, eh, now that I've explained it?"

"Wait a minute: even if you
are
Lom—or Jorelwhatsit—or whoever that was I made the jailbreak with—what makes you think I think you're any friend of mine? The way I analyzed the situation, you conned me into sneaking you into the palace so you could join forces with your sidekick, played by me—"

"But you were wrong, my boy, eh? What need to enter the palace by subterfuge if I were in fact in league with Quelius? Actually, on leaving the tower, I was trapped in a broom closet for the better part of half an hour by four palace guardsmen playing a surreptitious game of chance. When they were called away to attend a disturbance in the ballroom, I followed."

"And another thing: I've been thinking about that sudden trip to Thallathlone—wings and all. Not your doing, I suppose?"

"Oh, that. Pray forgive me, lad. At that point I was under the not unwarranted impression that
you
were Quelius' dupe. I employed a sophisticated little device which should have phased you back into what I assumed was your natural Locus—namely, Central. But naturally, since you were in fact the O'Leary ego, from Colby Corners, occupying the Zorro body—native to Artesia—the coordinates I used had the effect of switching you right out of the base-plane of the continuum. But I did keep tabs on you, and make contact as soon as you phased back in, you must concede that."

"All right—that's all gravy over the tablecloth now. What about this Quelius?"

"Ah, yes. Quelius. He planned his operation with care—but right at the beginning he made a slip. His original intention was to displace my ego into the body of a prize hog, and store my body—as well as his own—the Lom body, occupied by the mind of a pig—in a stasis tank for future use; but I was able to effect a last-second baffle and shunt my ego into his corpus, while the pig-mind occupied my unconscious body. You see?"

"No. And where was he in the meantime?"

"Oh, Quelius assumed the identity of a chap who happened along. Just as a stopgap, you understand. His real objective was to exchange identities with you."

"You mean—that wasn't really the Red Bull I met at the Axe and Dragon?"

"A large chap with bristly hair? That sounds like him. Then, after you'd been finessed into activating the Mark III, he would take over in your place, whilst you were gathered in by the local constabulary. The first part of the plan succeeded—but you slipped out of his hands somehow."

"Well—I guess I should be grateful to Luppo for that. But how did you get your own shape back?"

Jorlemagne chuckled. "I put Quelius on the spot—with your help, of course. When I pointed the sonic gun at him, he panicked and shifted back into his own body—which of course displaced me from it, to resume my own. Which in turn forced the pig personality back into its pig-body, etc, etc." Jorlemagne wagged his head. "I came to myself leaning against the royal pigsty, looking yearningly at a prize sow."

"Well—this isn't finding Quelius," O'Leary said. "How did he do that disappearing act? One second they were here, and the next—phhtt!"

"The Mark III is a more versatile device than you suspect." Jorlemagne looked grave. "Now—the next problem is to deduce where he's taken her."

"That way," O'Leary said, closing his eyes and pointing. "About ten and a half miles."

"Eh? How do you know, my boy?"

"It's just a little trick I picked up from Tazlo Haz. Now let's call out the guard and—"

"A crowd of locals would merely complicate matters," Jorlemagne cut in. "You and I, lad—we'll have to tackle him alone."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

At the door the sage paused, motioned with his left forefinger; at once, the clamor in the room broke out in full force.

"Magic?" Lafayette gulped.

"Don't be silly," Jorlemagne snorted. "Microhypnotics, nothing more."

"So that's why you were always playing with your fingers—I mean, Lom's fingers."

"Quelius' fingers, to be precise. He's a clever man, but he lacks the necessary digital dexterity for microhypnotics and manipulation. Pity. It would have saved a spot of bother."

"Well, we still have a spot of bother ahead. It's a hard half hour's ride, and we're wasting time."

The stable attendants stumbled over each other to accommodate them; five minutes later, mounted on stout Arabian stallions, they cantered out through the gates, galloped full tilt through the echoing street, and out along the dark road to the north.

5

The peak loomed like a giant shard of black glass into the night sky.

"High Tor, it's called," O'Leary said. "They're up there—I'm sure of it. But why there?"

"The entire formation is riddled with passages," Jorlemagne said, as the horses, winded by the run, picked their way up the slope of rubble that led to the base of the mesa. "It's a natural volcanic core, left standing after the cone weathered away. Quelius spent considerable time and effort tunneling it out, under the pretext that it was to be an undercover observation station. I'll wager the Distorter gear is installed somewhere inside it. And he won't waste any time getting it in full operation, if I know Quelius—and I do."

"Well—produce one of those gadgets of yours," O'Leary urged impatiently. "I want to feel that stringy neck in my hands!"

"It's not to be quite so simple as that, my lad. My pockets are empty, I fear."

"Climbing that would be like going up the side of an apartment house," O'Leary said as he stared up at the vertical wall rising before him. He dismounted, scanned the rockface, picked a spot, hoisted himself up a few feet—and came tumbling back as his grip slipped on the smooth stone.

"A human fly couldn't go up that," he said. "We should have brought the field artillery along, and blasted a hole through it!"

"Well—we didn't," Jorlemagne said. "And since we can't walk through solid walls, we'll have to think of something else . . ."

"Hey!" O'Leary said. "You may have given me an idea." He closed his eyes, willed his thoughts back to the moment in Thallathlone when he had stood in the sealed chamber hollowed from the giant tree, abandoned there to merge—or die. He remembered the smell of the waxed, resinous wood, the sensation as he had stepped forward, pressed against and
through
the iron-hard wood . . .

It was like wading through dense fog; a fog so thick as to drag him as he pressed forward. He felt it touch his skin, interpenetrating, swirling about his interior arrangements—and then the breaking-bubble sensation as he emerged on the far side . . .

He opened his eyes. He was standing in a low, stone-walled passage before a flight of rudely chipped stone steps.

6

"It's too bad about you, young woman," the cracked old voice was saying as Lafayette crept up the last few steps and poked his head over the threshold to the circular room, which, to judge from the ache in O'Leary's knees, occupied the topmost level of the Tor. Across the small chamber, Daphne, looking more beautiful than ever with a lock of black hair over one eye and three buttons missing from her jacket, was tugging at the handcuffs that secured her to a massive oak chair. Quelius stood looking down at her with an expression of mild reproof.

"You've caused me no end of trouble, you know—first by behaving in a most unwifely manner in refusing to espouse my regency, then by running off like a little fool, and now by saddling me with your person. Still, you'll make a useful hostage, once I've completed certain arrangements against interference."

"I never saw you before, you nasty little man," she said coolly.

"Tsk. What a pity you don't appreciate the true symmetry of the situation. As O'Leary, I paved the way for the deposition of your little featherweight princess and her lout of a consort, while at the same time destroying O'Leary's popularity with the mob—and simultaneously, established a workable police apparatus with an adequate war chest. The stage is now set for me to step in and set matters right."

"When Lafayette catches you," Daphne said defiantly, "he'll fold you double and throw you away."

"Aha! But that's just it, my child. Lafayette will never catch me! At this moment the poor imbecile is no doubt suffering the penalty for
my
outrageous behavior!"

"Wrong!" O'Leary yelled, and launched himself at Quelius. The little old man whirled with astonishing agility, bounded to the wall, and jerked a rope dangling from above. Too late Lafayette saw the entire section of the floor before him drop like a hangman's trap. He made a wild clutch, missed, went over the edge and fell ten feet into a net that snapped shut around him like a closing fist.

7

Quelius lounged on the landing, smiling cheerfully at Lafayette, suspended in the open stairwell with his head in fetal position between his knees.

"And you were going to fold
me
double," the old fellow said good-humoredly. "Or so your bride predicted. Ah, well, we must excuse the ladies their predictable misconceptions, eh?"

"You're not going to get away with this, Quelius," Lafayette said as clearly as he could with a mouthful of kneecap. "Jorlemagne will slice you into pastrami—"

"Permit me to contradict you, Mr. O'Leary. Jorlemagne will do nothing. I'm quite immune to his digital trickery—and although he is indeed a clever chap, I happen to be in possession of the contents of his laboratory—so you see—I hold not merely the aces, but the entire deck."

"I noticed you left the ballroom in something of a hurry," O'Leary countered. "I suppose being in your burrow makes you feel brave. But I got inside without much trouble, you notice."

"So you did," Quelius nodded imperturbably. "My instruments indicate that you employed a rather interesting molecular polarization technique to pull off the trick. I invite you to use the same method to extricate yourself from your present situation." He cackled merrily. "You've been a sore trial to me, O'Leary. Bad stroke of luck, encountering Hymie the Ferocious, I believe he called himself, when I stepped outside the tavern that night. My, I'll warrant the red-headed ruffian whose shape I was using had skinned knuckles when he came to himself. But for that interruption you'd have been safely tucked away in the palace brig, ready to assist me in my impersonation. But then, all's well that ends well."

"Why go to so much trouble to strand yourself in a backward Locus like Artesia?" Lafayette inquired.

"Just making conversation, O'Leary? But I may as well oblige you; the Distorter won't be up to full charge for another half hour or so. Why Artesia, you ask? Well, I find it ideally suited to my purposes. Too backward to possess adequate techniques of self-defense, but sufficiently advanced to offer the industrial base I require to construct the masterwork of my career."

"So what? Nobody here will be able to appreciate it—and you're cutting off all contact with Central, so no one there will ever know."

"Correction," Quelius beamed. He rubbed his hands together with a sound like sand blocks in a kindergarten orchestra. "I estimate it will require no more than a year to assemble a high-capacity Distorter capable of acting effectively, against the Probability gradient. My, won't the pompous officials of Central—those self-appointed monitors of continuum morality—be surprised when they discover that it's their own bureaucratic beehive that's cut off from all outside contact? And then, O'Leary—then I can set about rearranging matters in a manner more to my liking!"

"Quelius—you're nuts—did you know that?"

"Of course. That's quite all right. Better embarked on an exciting insanity than moldering away in dull normality. One thing you can't deny: we psychotics lead interesting lives." Quelius dropped his bantering tone. "Now," he said briskly, "it's time to make disposition of you, Mr. O'Leary, and see to my equipment. Now, I could merely cut the rope and allow you to continue your interrupted descent—or I might lower you to a point six feet above the cellar floor and build a small fire to keep the chill off your bones. Any preference, Mr. O'Leary?"

"Sure. I'd prefer to die of old age."

"To be sure, so would we all—all but myself, of course. I'll have available to me an endless series of fresh young vessels to contain the vital essence of my personality. Possibly I'll begin with Mrs. O'Leary, eh? It might be quite a lark to be a female—until I tired of the game; but this isn't solving the problem of your brief future. Hmm. I may have an idea—if you'll excuse me a moment. Now don't go 'way." Quelius cackled and hurried off.

The stoutly woven net, of quarter-inch hemp, rotated slowly, affording O'Leary an ever-changing aspect of damp stone walls. Hanging head-down as he was, he had an equally clear view of the floor a hundred feet below. He imagined how it would feel when the knife blade began sawing through the rope. First one strand would break, and the net would drop a few inches; then another—and another—and at last the final popping sound and the downward plunge—

"That kind of thinking won't help any, O'Leary," he told himself sternly. "Maybe Jorlemagne has a trick or two up his sleeve. Maybe a regiment of Royal Cavalry are riding to the rescue right now; maybe Daphne will free the cuffs and bean the old devil when he pokes his head in the room . . ."