The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Seven

Dusk had deepened the gloom of the shaded path to pitch-darkness; Marv awoke, fighting off an imaginary attack by spooks.

"Geeze, Al, am I glad to see.yow!" he cried as soon as he had dispersed his phantom foes. "I dreamed I was back inna Dread Tower, onney I was lost, like. Couldn't find my way out, and these here ghosts was coming at me from all directions; wanted something, but I couldn't figger out what."

"That's all right, Marv," Lafayette soothed the excited fellow. "It was just a dream. I had one, too. But the fix we're in is real. Since we can't expect any help now in getting back to semi-civilization, we have to do something effective at once, before things get any worse."

"Sure, Cap'n," Marv agreed absently. "Onney if we go back the way we come, we'll run into old Froddie; and if we keep going, we'll be into quicksand and stuff pretty soon. We're in the swamp, you know."

"I'm going to have to try the old psychical energies again, I guess," O'Leary said grimly. "This time it has to work, because I'm all out of alternatives. Just be quiet for a moment while I concentrate. And I thought the path skirted the swamp."

At first Lafayette concentrated on his luxurious palace suite in Artesia, vividly envisioning the marble floors, the view of the gardens from the wide windows, the closet with his hundred-odd elegant costumes, the big, wide bed ...

His thoughts strayed to Daphne—dear, brave, loyal, delightful little Daphne. Where was she now, poor kid? Lost in some dismal swamp like this, or maybe dying of thirst in a desert in some locus where the swamp had drained? Or was she really hanging around in the spooky gray room he kept having visions of, waiting on Frumpy? Impossible, he decided. Loyal little Daphne would never consent to be anybody's handmaiden.

Lafayette pulled himself together. "Concentrate," Professor Schimmerkopf had urged—and he had done it before, so he could do it again. The suppressor that Central had once focused on him had long since been lifted. He remembered the time in the jail-cell back at Colby Corners when he had accidently shifted back there, under stress—but he had gotten back to Artesia by concentrating all his psychical energies.

The grayness closed in, and Daphne was standing a few feet away in front of the big chair where Frumpkin lolled at ease.

"This nonsense has gone on long enough," the Man in Black was saying. "And I've decided—" He got to his feet and paused, looking puzzled. Then he turned to face O'Leary squarely, and at once showed his teeth in a snarl of rage.

"Look here, you!" he muttered, then coughed, as if attempting to conceal the byplay from Daphne, who was looking at him wonderingly.

"You've lied to me!" she said as sharply as that dulcet voice could sound. "And that means you're not quite as self-confident as you seem. Good-bye!" She turned and had gone two steps when a pair of armed bruisers appeared and seized her arms. Lafayette jumped to her assistance and met an invisible cushion which bounced him back, while Frumpkin's eyes seemed to burn into him like laser beams.

"Hey, Al, look out!" Marv yelled as he jumped up and splashed for cover. A beam of brilliant white light lanced out from above, whence also emanated a sudden din resembling a rock truck on a steep grade, afflicted with the grandfather of all slapping fan-belts. A miniature whirlwind whipped the treetops, then swirled muddy leaf mold and other vegetable debris into Lafayette's face.

"It's only a chopper, Marv," Lafayette called, but his nervous ally was gone.

"You down there," a PA-amplified voice boomed out. "Stand fast! I got authorization to shoot." The rattle of a machine gun sounded, emphasizing the point by making confetti of a swatch of foliage and churning mud into froth only a few feet distant from the tree trunk behind which Lafayette had groped his way. Moments later, a man in a bundlesome combat suit, helmeted and goggled, appeared in midair, climbing down a flexible-link ladder. He dropped the last few feet and swiveled smartly to cover O'Leary's tree with a weapon of discouragingly effective appearance. Clearing his eyes of debris at last, Lafayette blinked, but the commando failed to disappear.

"Don't shoot, I'm harmless," O'Leary croaked, emerging. The armed man reslung his automatic weapon and drew a bulky revolver.

"Take it easy, chum," he said in a hard voice. "I'm Sergeant Dubose, state cops. I'm going to put the cuffs on you and then we're going for a little ride. Come over this way nice and slow."

"What's the charge, Sarge?" Lafayette asked, immediately regretting his choice of words.

"This ain't no joke, slowpoke," the sergeant returned.

"Look," O'Leary essayed desperately, "this is some kind of ridiculous mistake. I was just out for an evening constitutional, and—"

"This here whole area east of the mine is off limits to all personnel, dopey," the noncom cut him off. "If you din't see it on the tube, you shoulda read the signs—and that bob-warr you cut mighta give you a hint, too." The sergeant undipped a microphone from his belt and muttered into it. The copter moved off.

"I didn't see any barbed wire, and I don't watch the tube, " Lafayette countered in the abrupt silence.

"Tell it to the judge, Moe," the cop said wearily as he fetched his cuffs around from his hip-pocket region. "Just don't try nothing. So far all we got on you is a small federal rap for aggravated trespass." He beckoned, and Lafayette stepped forward and extended his wrists, which were at once encircled with cold steel which closed with a decisive click. The cop spun O'Leary and prodded him.

"Right back this way, pal, and we'll give you a nice ride in the whirlybird."

Lafayette started off obediently, then shied at a sudden sound from the brush as a dimly visible Marv burst from cover to barrel into the cop, knocking him down. Marv caught the pistol and aimed it at the fallen policeman's head.

"I'll hold this sucker, Al, while you beat it," Marv grunted. "I never seen a rod like this one before, but I can tell which end of it the bad news comes out of."

"Marv, wait," Lafayette yelled, "don't spoil things! We're marooned in the middle of a swamp, and this is our way out, so just give the sergeant back his gun he dropped and let's go quietly." He extended a hand to assist Dubose to his feet, muttering and slapping at the mud on the uniform.

"Al, wait!" Marv keened. "You don't mean to go off with this here magician which he come in a dragon! It might come down and eat all of us!"

"Don't be silly, Marv," O'Leary said. "It's just a helicopter."

"Don't care what you call it, I seen it sitting right there in thin air, with that eye shining down. It seen us, all right—and here it comes back!"

O'Leary hooked Marv's ankle with his toe as the latter turned to bolt back into the swamp. Marv hit with an elaborate splash as the copter's rotor beat the air directly above with a deafening whap! whap!

"Lemme go!" Marv screamed. "I can hear it flappin' its wings! It's gonna strike any second!" He leaped up convulsively as the ladder struck the mulch a foot from his head. Dubose hauled him to his feet.

"Up," he snapped. "I'll leave yer hands free till we're inside." He released O'Leary's hands as well, ordering both men up the ladder. Lafayette rubbed his cold-stiffened hands briskly to restore circulation.

Marv complied, moaning. O'Leary followed, mounting up into the warm glow from the open canopy while an ice-cold tornado beat down at them, causing the flexible metal-link ladder to buck and sway until the weight of Sergeant Dubose at the bottom stabilized it.

A fat-faced cop in the pilot's seat eyed the new arrivals over his shoulder, a dubious expression on his meaty features.

"What you two bums think yer gonna complish in the Little Dismal this time o' night?" he inquired without interest. "Anyways, the comet hit a good five mile west of where we're at now."

"What comet?" Lafayette asked. "We didn't know about any comet; we were just out for a stroll."

"Sure, and I'm waiting for a elevator," the pilot returned cynically. "What comet, eh? How many comets you think hit here to Colby County lately?"

"Colby County?" Lafayette echoed. "Oh, no!"

"Don't go knocking the county," the cop commanded. "Finest little county in this end o' the state."

"How far are we from Colby Corners?" Lafayette asked.

"Oh, you mean the ghost town. Where you fellows from, anyways? Reckon even a tourist oughta know where the Corners is at. 'Bout six mile north," he concluded. "Closed anyway, this time o' night."

"What do you mean, 'ghost town'?" Lafayette demanded. "The last time I saw it, it was a thriving community, with a high-school team rated third in the state."

"You must be older'n you look, young feller," the cop commented as Dubose arrived and settled himself, unlimbering his cuffs.

"Hey, Al," Marv said weakly as the copter lifted suddenly, banking off steeply in a climbing turn. "Now! Nows the time to do one o' your swell tricks."

"Quiet, you!" Dubose barked; and to Lafayette, "Any tricks, Bub, and I'm gonna hafta start rememberin'."

It was almost dawn. Warm and dry in a cosy cell at County Jail, Lafayette and Marv sat disconsolately on their Spartan bunks, watching the pinkening of the rectangle of sky defined by the small high barred window.

"Don't worry, Marv," Lafayette said encouragingly to his cellmate, whose expression suggested that he was on death row at Sing Sing, rather than in a provincial drunk-tank. Marv moaned.

"I dunno if General Frodolkin even could bust me outa this dump," he said, "even if he knew these magicians had one of his best boys locked up here."

"We're not in Aphasia any longer," Lafayette told his cellmate. "And that's good in a way; I mean, I'm responsible. I was trying to shift us back to Artesia, and my mind wandered; I got to thinking about the old days when I happened to slip back to Colby Corners and wound up in jail. Now I'm back there again, and bum-rapped again. Sorry to get you mixed up in this, Marv, but we'll get out somehow. Let's consider the situation."

"The situation, wise guy," said a heavy voice over the other side of the barred door, "is you dummies don't never seem to learn nothing."

Lafayette looked up to see a strange face peering in at him. Or, corrected himself, a face not precisely strange, but only half-familiar.

"Belarius!" Lafayette cried, coming to his feet. The face at the door recoiled as O'Leary approached.

"Where's Frumpkin, your old sidekick?" O'Leary demanded. "I've got an idea he's holding Daphne somewhere against her will—at least I hope it's against her will!"

The newcomer, who Lafayette realized wasn't Belarius at all, but merely a look-alike, this one half-shaved and with acne scars, paused in his retreat to look distastefully at O'Leary.

"Look," Lafayette said desperately, "I know we haven't always gotten along, but let's let bygones be bygones; get us out of here."

"I don't know whom you think I am," the Belarius-like stranger replied coldly. "But let me set you straight: I'm Sheriff George B. Tode, and I run a clean administration, and it's about time you chiselers learnt that."

"Not 'whom', Lafayette said severely. "After the verb 'to be' the nominative case is used: 'I don't know who you think I am'," he quoted.

"I know durn well whom you are," the sheriff came back. "You're the latest in the series of Light-Fingered Looies Jukes has been sending in here to try and get a piece o' the comet, so's to embarrass me."

"To try to get a piece of the comet," O'Leary corrected. "What comet?"

"First and only one to hit here in Colby County," the cop said. "Don't play dumber'n what you already are."

"You can leave my IQ out of this, you half-witted flatfoot!" O'Leary retorted hotly.

"Nix, Al," Marv hissed. "You were gonna get this feller to get us out o' here, remember?" Then he addressed the sheriff: "Ya gotta excuse my pal," he explained. "He's got problems, you know, upstairs." Marv tapped his unkempt head to make his meaning clear. "But he ain't a bad guy, except when he turns inta a bird or something. Then he can get mean. But if you was to just kind of let us outa this here dungeon, you could get on his good side, and he might fix you up with a solid gold bathtub or like that."

"You tryna bribe me, sucker?" Sheriff Tode demanded. He looked both ways and pressed his face closer to the bars. "Did you say 'bathtub'?"

"Whatever you like," Marv assured him. "If you prefer buckets o' emrals and rubies and ten-dollar bills, Al, he can—" Marv broke off as Lafayette jabbed him in the side with an elbow, at the same time easing him away from the door.

"Marv was just kidding around, Sheriff," he said. "He doesn't have any gold bathtubs on him—or even any buckets. Of course, he might turn up the odd sawbuck you boys missed when you cleaned us out."

"I never missed no sawbuck," Tode replied hotly. "When I shake a feller down, I don't miss nothing. Hey, where you going?" He concluded, as Lafayette, easing sideways, passed from the officer's field of vision.

Or almost nothing, Lafayette told himself, checking his secret pocket for the flat-walker, finding it still safely tucked away. Not that he'd have known it was important, even if he'd found it, he reflected.

The sheriff was now bawling for someone named Cecil, turning after each yell to order Lafayette to stand "... whur I can see ye!" Marv eyed Lafayette anxiously while making soothing sounds directed to the suspicious sheriff.

"It's all right, Shurf," Marv reassured the cop. "Old Al's kinda shy is all. He's right here a-hiding in the corner. No need to do nothing hasty, Shurf, sir."

Cecil arrived, looming six inches over his chief's considerable bulk. "What's up, boss? These here jailbirds try something funny?"

"One of 'em's hiding, Cease," Tode explained. "Says he's shy, but I don't like it, a feller just kind of sliding sideways out o' sight whilst I'm talking to him. Ain't respeckful."

"Durn right, Shurf," Cease replied eagerly. "Just leave me in there to take a few minutes to teach 'em a few manners, Colby County style."

"No need, Mr. Cecil, sir," Marv cried. "We got more manners'n we can use now, don't we, Al?" He looked imploringly toward O'Leary who, flat-walker in hand, was facing the masonry wall.

"Take it easy, Marv," Lafayette said reasonably. "I'll be back for you in a few minutes." As he activated the Ajax device, he heard the rattle of a key, and from the corner of his eye saw the heavy steel-barred door swing in, slightly obscured by a haze which thickened to an opaque blackness shot through with tiny darting lights—random high-speed cosmic rays striking the retina, as Sprawnroyal had once explained.

As from a great distance, O'Leary heard Cecil's bellow. "Hey, Shurf, one of these crud-bums has busted out!"

The light-shot darkness lightened to watery gray, and through an open doorway O'Leary saw the Man in Black speaking urgently to a coarse-looking middle-aged woman, though his words were inaudible. Lafayette approached, looked into the vast, dim room he had seen before. Far away across a faded pseudo-oriental carpet, Daphne—he was almost sure—stood beside a bric-a-brac-cluttered end table, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. Then she looked up: It was Daphne. Lafayette started through the door, encountered an impalpable resistance against which he lunged in vain. Frumpkin looked up at O'Leary, at once dismissed the frumpy woman, and started toward him. Daphne hurried forward to come up behind Frumpkin.

"Clobber him, Daph!" O'Leary wished frantically. But Daphne stopped and spoke quietly:

"You promised, milord." Fumpkin whirled and snarled something at her. As Lafayette tried desperately to push through the barrier, the pale light faded to impenetrable darkness and profound silence. He pressed forward—and the barrier melted.

Then the darkness cleared and he was looking at a brown-painted concrete-block wall with a tattered and fly-specked poster exhorting the viewer to reelect 'Hoppy' Tode as Sheriff of Colby County—a document, Lafayette reflected, which, though unprepossessing, had apparently proven effective. Then he noticed the sheriff himself standing a few feet away, staring through the barred door through which Cecil's complaint was still issuing:

"... let one of these here sneak thief s break outa our jail! Jukes ain't going to like it, Shurf, and you gotta election coming up!"

Tode turned casually, then started violently at the sight of O'Leary standing nearly at his elbow. He tugged his hogleg from its holster and aimed it at Lafayette's face.

"Jist you hold it right there, feller!" he yelled. Then through the bars to Cecil:

"It's OK, Cease, I got the skunk! Get out here and get the cuffs on him! Then we got to find out where the secret tunnel is at. Where is it at, boy?" He switched his attention from Cecil to Lafayette. "You gonna tell me polite, or has Cease got to loosen you up?" He cocked the pistol. "You can have it hard or you can have it easy; up to you, wise guy." He raised his voice. "Snap it up, Cease, my trigger finger is getting twitchy!"

Lafayette shrank back against the wall, speaking soothingly to Tode as the pistol's bore seemed to expand to the size of a tunnel.

"Here, you," Tode yelled. "Don't go pulling no tricks on me, you low-down!" The detonation of the .44 was deafening, but the slug hissed past Lafayette's ear, smacked the wall, and whined off into the distance. The light-shot darkness was closing in again. Disoriented in the sudden gloom, O'Leary took a step and stumbled; then he seemed to be falling freely, end-over-end. He yelled, but heard no sound. His breathing was getting labored. Slowly, orientation returned; he groped with his feet, felt a springy surface, and took a tentative step. He seemed for a moment to glimpse the gray room, then lunged forward—or in some direction—tripped, and fell headlong into glaring light and a half-familiar odor of office supplies and duplicating fluid. The floor was smooth and cold, regulation asphalt tile in nine-inch squares, pale gray with pink and yellow flecks, he saw as his eyes reluctantly focused.

"Oh, brother," a dispirited female voice said from somewhere above: O'Leary lifted his head and saw a desk with a telephone, in- and out-baskets, and behind it a severely handsome woman of middle age, eyeing him sharply.

"Another nine-oh-two," she complained. "Why do all the hard-luck cases have to phase in here in Reception?" She was jabbing vigorously at a button set in a small console beside the desk.

"Just keep calm; a realignment team will be here in a moment," she said rapidly to O'Leary, jabbing even more urgently. As Lafayette was getting shakily to his feet, the doors across the gray-floored room burst open and an unperturbed medical type in starched whites came through, manipulating a hypodermic to expel air and totally ignoring O'Leary to address the woman:

"I assume, Miss Gorch, that you have some adequate reason for calling me away from a staff meeting with Class Four emergency signal." His eyes wandered to Lafayette.

"Who's this fellow, Mary-Ann? I suppose he's something to do with your disaster alert?"

"Damn right, Clyde," Miss Gorch replied, coming to her feet. "That last nut-case one of you big-domes accidentally shifted into HQ from some kind of orgy in a classified locus tried to attack me before I could even get his grab number! I'm taking no chances with this one!"

"Calmly, my dear girl, calmly," the official said, moving to confront Lafayette directly.

"I'll be calm when this rapist is in irons," Mary-Ann snapped.

"Wait a minute," O'Leary cut into the conversation. "I don't know who you think I am or what you claim I've done, but the fact is I'm Lafayette O'Leary, and I'm the victim of a whole series of disasters I had nothing to do with."

The man in white dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "Take him, men," he ordered; and his two aides sprang to grab Lafayette's arms and twist them into complicated come-along holds.

"Wait!" Lafayette yelled. "Don't do anything hasty! If you'll take a minute to check your records, you'll find I'm a legitimate part-time agent of Central!" He paused. "This is Central, isn't it?" he demanded. The man in white wagged his head solemnly.

"By no means, fellow. You are now at Prime, impelled here by our irresistible Come Hither device. Now it remains merely to assess the full impact of your guilt, so as equitably to assign penance." He turned on his heel and strode away, shied violently as the uncouth figure of Sheriff 'Hoppy' Tode materialized in his path. The two musclemen released Lafayette's arms and leapt to their chief's side.

"It's an invasion!" Clyde barked. "I've been expecting this! Archie, sound the alarm!" He thrust the smaller of the two guards toward the door as the other put a hammerlock on Tode, who struggled to no avail. The .44 was back in its holster. He pointed a shaky finger at O'Leary.

"That man's my prizner!" he yelled. "Hadda shoot him, and he up and vanished. I ain't had a drop! Turned into smoke and went out, sure as I'm standing here ..." He paused; looking puzzled. "But am I standing here? Whereat am I anyways?"

"Where am I," Lafayette corrected sharply. "I told you before. And. 'anyway', without the s, is modern Artesian usage."

"How do I know where you're at, boy?" Tode shouted toward O'Leary. "I don't know where I'm at my ownself! Now," he went on in a carefully controlled tone, addressing Clyde:

"You look like a responsible individual, sir. So I hope you can see you got no call to sic these here fellers onto me, which I'm a duly elected peace officer. This here feller"—he nodded toward O'Leary—"he's the one you want. Only I got first call; had him right in my jail and he snuck out and—and after that it gets kindy hazy. But I'm still shurf and he's still my prizner."

"I fear Prime's jurisdiction overrides all petty claims," Clyde countered coldly. "Now, how did you get here?"

He turned to Miss Gorch. "What's his grab number?" he demanded impatiently. "And what is your explanation for initiating a retrieval not on the master schedule?"

"Don't look at me, Clyde," Mary-Ann returned hotly. "I had nothing to do with bringing these clowns in here. Must be your Come Hither field was tuned a little too wide."

"Rather than imputing slovenly technique to your superiors, my girl," Clyde cut in icily, "you'd best busy yourself getting your voucher files in order for investigation. This incident could create a detectable imbalance in the energy budget."

Lafayette took advantage of the internecine wrangle to ease toward the door, reached it, and slid through to find himself in a long corridor which he at once saw was the precise analog of a similar passage at Central which he had once visited briefly. If the parallel held, he should find the office of the Chief of Operations behind one of these doors. He flattened himself against the wall as Clyde and his bodyguard burst through the door at a run. Neither man looked to the side, but hurried past only inches away.

"Where's he gone? He's got to be here!" Clyde yelled, sprinting ahead.

"Wait a minute, Chief," the attendant wheezed, slowing. "He couldn'ta got clear that fast! Are you sure he come this way? Maybe he done another shift."

"Nonetheless, we must give chase!" Clyde threw the words over his shoulder.

As the two pounded off along the carpeted corridor, yelling, Lafayette eased along to the first door on the right and opened it a crack to peer in. At once a booming voice cried:

"There you are at last! Messenger service is a disgrace! What's kept you, boy?" Lafayette slid inside the small office to confront a large, irate executive type with a mane of bushy gray hair and an expression of apoplectic fury.

"I'm not a messenger," Lafayette gasped. "I just need to get a few things cleared up. They sent me to you, said you'd know, if anybody would."

The seated man's expression softened slightly. "What's all that commotion outside?" he inquired offhandedly. "How's a Chief of Logistics to function in this bedlam?"

"Beats me," Lafayette conceded, sinking unbidden into a leather chair. "I'm Sir Lafayette O'Leary," he proceeded. "I've had a bad time of it, what with one or another set of barbarians determined to do me in. Something's up—I don't know what; but the Ajax crack investigation team is onto it, and a fellow named Allegorus is involved. That's about all I've managed to find out; and Daphne's lost somewhere along the line— some renegade named Frumpkin's got her, I think—and the more I try to find her, the farther away I get. Judging from the swamp in Colby County, I'm well outside my usual widerange. I seem to be shifting loci spontaneously—so what can you do to help me?"

"Why should I help you, sir?" the Chief of Logistics inquired blandly. "Outside my interest cluster entirely. The chap you want is Belarius, over in Ops. I'm Zoriel, Supply."

"I've met Belarius V," Lafayette put in desperately, "and he tried to kidnap me. He and this other bureaucrat named Frumpkin. He's no help."

Zoriel frowned. "If Belarius tried to put the arm on you, he doubtless had a reason," he mused, pressing a button on his desk-top. "So perhaps we'd best just have him in on this."

"And now Sheriff Tode's doing it, too," Lafayette added. "Popped right into Prime here, and he's never even so much as heard of focusing the Psychical Energies, I'd be willing to bet. Things are coming apart." O'Leary rose to his feet to emphasize his point. "This is an emergency," he declared feelingly. "And it's time for someone in a position of responsibility to slow down and listen to me, and then take some affirmative action!"

"Calmly, Sir Lafayette—I trust I got your style right? Calmly, we'll just get Belarius in here and get to the bottom of all this nonsense."

"Look," Lafayette said desperately, "I'm no theoretician, but I know that when basic geological features like the bay at Colby Corners turns into a swamp, something is drastically wrong. Even back in Aphasia I, the weather was different—it seemed very close to Artesia, otherwise, except for some kind of barbarian invasion, but it was pouring rain in Artesia; and not a drop in Aphasia. So that must have been a bigger jump than I thought at first. Then this whole string of loci: I've been popping along from one to another, every time I ..." He paused, looking thoughtful, then took the flatwalker from his pocket and examined it closely. It seemed, he noticed, to be vibrating minutely; the faintest of buzzes was audible when he held it to his ear.

"At least twice I did a major shift when I used this gadget," he told Zoriel. "Funny; it never had that effect before." Then he noticed that the faint buzz was modulated into speech.

"Chidler ovigex, raf tras spintern," Lafayette heard clearly, followed by a moment of silence. "Repeat," the tiny voice resumed. "This device is under emergency recall. It must be returned to Ajax at once. DO NOT USE. Repeat: Chidler ovigex, raf tras spintern, uh, that's, 'This device is under IEC Bring it in at once. An Ajax rep is standing by at your local field office. Repeat, Zum vix orobalt, insham totrus bewhif groat. Raf tras spintern. Onfrac: raf trass spoit."

"Great," Lafayette murmured half-aloud. "It's declaring an emergency in some unknown tongue." He looked appealingly at Zoriel. "Do you have a translator handy?" he inquired hopefully.

"See here, young fellow," Zoriel replied sharply. "I don't think I like your having that thing in your possession, whatever it is. You'd better hand it over to me for safekeeping."

"Sorry," Lafayette said. "You're not authorized. I have to turn it in to the Ajax field office at once. It said so."

"In that case," Zoriel said coldly. "I shall be forced to place you under restraint." He opened a drawer and took out a flat, deadly looking handgun. "I hope you're not going to be difficult," he said distastefully.

"Don't count on it," Lafayette said bitterly. "I'm getting a little tired of being placed in custody for no reason." As he spoke he noted a renewed buzzing from the flat-walker. He held it to his ear. "OK, I heard that, O'Leary," the tiny voice said. Lafayette remembered belatedly that all Ajax devices included emergency two-way communications capability. "I have you on my 'A-list," the gadget chirped, "so I'll send somebody around to assist you in turning in the recalled item, IAW Section Nine."

"I'm keeping it," Lafayette told Zoriel. "It's mine, and I'm doing no harm; just trying to find Daphne and go home. So forget the tough stuff and be civilized. After all, this is Prime, not some barbarian HQ in the jungle."

"Not Prime, lad, but Supreme Headquarters itself! And you'll find SHQ is not lightly to be penetrated by nobodies such as yourself."

"I didn't penetrate your lousy HQ," Lafayette yelled. "I was yanked in here against my will by some quack named Clyde, with a Come Hither field!"

"Ah, doubtless you refer to Professor Doctor Anschluss," Zoriel said soothingly. "If the professor saw fit to bring you here, no doubt he had an excellent reason." Zoriel rose and came around the big desk. "In the meanwhile," he added, "you'll hand over that, er, item, which is producing a category-blue indication on my E-stress sensor." He showed Lafayette the compasslike instrument he was holding in his left hand, while pointing the gun with his right. Lafayette saw the needle was well into the blue range marked HIGHLY IMPROBABLE.

"I can't help that," he said between his teeth. "This whole crazy situation is improbable. Nobody just goes bouncing across the loci like the ball on a roulette wheel."

The door burst open behind Lafayette.

"There you are, you jailbird," Sheriff Tode's raucous voice yelled. "Ain't nobody ever broke from me, and it ain't gonna start now!" Lafayette turned in time to see Tode's large hand descending, clamplike, toward his shoulder. He ducked aside and Tode followed, planting himself between Lafayette and the door, barring his way, then advancing.

Still holding the flat-walker in working position, Lafayette stood his ground. Tode's bulk pressed against him—then the pressure was gone, and with it light and sound, except for a bewildering display of the highspeed particles, like those he had observed before while passing through solid matter. But they were whirling in dizzying patterns now, concentrated immediately in front of O'Leary's wide-open eyes. The nucleus of the speeding lights widened, engulfed him.

... Let this feller get past me again, Boss Jukes ain 't gonna like it none a-tall. Where'd he go to? I had him right here, and—hey, what's goin' on? Can't hardly think straight... dizzy. Better do like Boss said and call fer help ...

Carefully disentangling himself from Sheriff Tode's confused thoughts, Lafayette made a determined effort to orient himself; then took a precise step sideways, felt his foot slip, experienced a momentary vertigo, then opened his eyes to dimness. He had a view of Frump-kin's back as the latter stood before a large and complex instrument panel where colored lights blinked excitedly. Frumpkin spun around, then recoiled as he saw O'Leary.

"How?" he croaked. "Deal: Just explain how you can broach a Type Nine force-bubble at will, and I'll... well, I'll go easy on you."

"It's how I'll go on you you'd better be worrying about," Lafayette countered grimly. "Get away from that board."

"But," Frumpkin protested, "this is unthinkable. I happen to know you were relegated to nonrealization some time ago! You can't be here!"

"Too bad," O'Leary replied, and started across toward the cowering Man in Black, who turned and scuttled away behind the big panel. Lafayette peered around the corner of the massive equipment cabinet, saw nothing except a tangle of rudely cut cables and a stretch of dusty floor. He turned back to the big room. Light glared, dazzling him. He tottered; hands caught his arms, not restraining him, but easing him down into a chair.

"Take it easy, Al," the familiar voice of Sprawnroyal urged gently. "You had a bad experience there, stuck in half-phase for six weeks and all, but we got you out OK. So just take a minute to get it together before we debrief you."

"Roy," Lafayette said urgently. "Where did it go? A big gray room full of fog. That's where he's keeping her. What do you mean 'six weeks'? It hasn't been more than twenty-four hours since this whole crazy thing started. And I've only got forty-eight more to get Daphne out of Aphasia II before it disappears!"

"Easy, boy," Roy soothed. "We'll take it one step at a time. First, we have to extricate your ego-gestalt from Mr. Tode's—that's a delicate procedure. You should never have merged with him, Slim. I know you were under pressure. Still, it was a lousy idea."

"It wasn't an idea," Lafayette returned in a silent yell which echoed in blackness. "It was an accident. I walked through a man once before with that infernal device of yours and nothing happened; how was I supposed to know it was dangerous? Anyway, he walked into me. I was standing still."

"... just another few days," Roy was saying in a tone of controlled patience. "I assure you I'm as uncomfortable as yourself."

"Who said anything about comfort?" O'Leary demanded. "Just get me out of this moron's skull!"

"Who you callin a moe-roan?" Tode's heavy thought pattern cut across O'Leary's demands. "Sure is a funny kinda dream to be havin' and I ain't touched a drop all the day."

Gradually, Lafayette was becoming more able to ignore the sheriff's elemental conceptualizations. A dim, sourceless light became visible, but it revealed nothing. So far as Lafayette could see, he was alone in a vast, empty space suffused with an eerie glow which emanated from the space itself. Abruptly, he was overwhelmed with a bleak loneliness.

"Hey, Roy, where are you?" he called; as before, no sound was to be heard. He tried to draw a deep breath to reassure himself that he was breathing—but nothing happened. Still, he reflected, suppressing panic, he was quite comfortable, physically. He assessed his bodily sensations, but was unable to decide whether he was standing, sitting, or reclining. He had no idea which way was up. He tried a swimming motion, and was rewarded with a sensation of darting swiftly ahead—but with no fixed point of reference, no actual motion was apparent.

"... Slim, I told you to stay put!" Roy's faint voice seemed to ring, echoing, all about him. "If I lose my fix—hey! Where are you at?"

"Over here," Lafayette called silently, feeling a sudden apprehension. "Don't go away, Roy," he added. "You're my only contact with ... whatever I was in contact with."