The Universe Twister (23 page)

"You wanted facts," Lafayette said. "Here are a few: You're sitting on somebody else's throne. You've kidnapped her Highness—who isn't your niece, by the way—because she's a potential threat to you. You brought Lod in from Outside, and his pet lizard, too. Unfortunately, I had to kill both of them."

"You—" Goruble dropped flat as O'Leary's questing finger touched a concave button on the breech of the gun and sent a round screeching past the king's ear to blast a pocket in the stone wall.

"Just a warning shot," O'Leary said hastily. "Now, open up, Goruble. Where is she?"

The king crouched on all fours, looking badly shaken; his jowls had lost their usual high color.

"Now, now, don't get excited," he babbled, coming shakily to his feet. "I'll tell you what you want to know. As a matter of fact, I'd intended all along to propose an arrangement with you." He slapped at the dust on his velvet doublet. "You didn't think I intended to hog it all, did you, my dear fellow? I merely wished to, ah, consolidate the improvements I've made, before summoning you—that is, inviting you—or—"

"Get to the point. Where is she?"

"Safe!" Goruble said hastily.

"If she's not, I'll blow your head off!"

"I assure you she's well! After all,
you
suffered no harm, eh? I'm not bloodthirsty, you know. The, ah, earlier incident was just an unfortunate accident."

O'Leary raised his eyebrows. "Tell me about the accident."

Goruble spread his hands. "It was the purest misfortune. I had come to his chambers late one evening, with a proposal, a perfectly reasonable proposal—"

"By 'he,' I suppose you mean your predecessor?"

"My, ah, yes, my predecessor. Hot-tempered man, you know. He had no reason to fly into a pet. After all, with my, ah, special resources, the contribution I would make would be well worth the consideration I sought. But he chose instead to pretend that I had insulted him—as though an offer of honorable marriage to his sister could be anything but an honor to the primitive—that is, underdeveloped—or—"

"Get on with it."

"I was a bit put out, of course; I spoke up frankly. He attempted to strike me. There was a struggle; in those days, I was a rather powerful man. He fell . . ."

"Hit his head, I suppose?"

"No, there was a sword—his own, of course—and somehow, in the excitement, he became, er, impaled. Through the heart. Dead, you know. Nothing I could do."

Goruble was sweating. He sank down in the bullet-pocked chair, dabbing at his temples with a lace hanky. "I was in an awkward spot. I could hardly be expected to summon the guard and tell them what had happened. The only course open to me was . . . to dispose of the body. I brought it down through the inner passage, and, ah, sent it away. Then what? I racked my brain, but I could evolve only one scheme: to assume supreme authority—temporarily, of course—until such time as more, ah, regular arrangements could be made. I made certain preparations, called in the members of the council, explained the situation and enlisted their support. There were one or two soreheads, of course, but they came around when the realities of their position were explained to them."

"I get the general idea." O'Leary moved up and pressed the muzzle of the machine gun against Goruble's chin. "Take me to Adoranne—right now. I'll get the rest of your confession later."

Goruble's eyes crossed as he stared down at the cold steel jabbing his throat. "Certainly. The dear child is perfectly well."

"Don't talk; just show me."

Goruble rose carefully and led the way into the passage. O'Leary glanced both ways, but saw no sign of Yokabump. The clown must have fled at the first inkling of the strange doings here in the palace catacombs. Goruble was picking his way in near-darkness, moving along toward the chamber O'Leary had likened to a walk-in refrigerator. The king fumbled out keys under O'Leary's watchful eye, manipulated locks; the heavy panel swung silently open. Goruble stepped back as bright light gleamed through the widening opening. He indicated the interior of the eight-by-ten cubby-hole.

O'Leary moved clear of the opening door, took in the dial-covered walls, the console installation like an all-electric kitchen—and at one side, Adoranne, bound hand and foot and gagged with a silken scarf and tied to a gold-brocaded easy chair. She tugged frantically at her bonds a she saw O'Leary, her blue eyes wide. She was wearing a pale blue nightgown, he saw, an imaginative garment as substantial as a spiderweb. O'Leary smiled encouragingly at the girl and motioned with the gun at Goruble.

"After you, your borrowed Majesty," he said. Goruble quickly stepped through the door, went to Adoranne's chair, skipped behind it and faced O'Leary.

"There are a few other matters I must mention to you," he said, looking unaccountably smug. "First—"

"Never mind that. Untie her."

Goruble held up a plump hand. "Patience, if you please. I hardly think you'd dare fire the shatter-gun in such intimate juxtaposition to the object of your anxieties . . . He put a palm familiarly on the bare, rounded shoulder of the princess. "And if you should feel impelled to some more animalistic assault, let me point out that the controls are within my easy reach." He nodded to a variety of levers set in the wall to his left. "True, you might manage to halt me—but the danger of ricochets . . ." he smirked. "I'd suggest you exercise caution."

O'Leary looked from Adoranne to the monarch, noting the close-set walls, the nearness to hand of the levers . . .

"All right," he said between his teeth, "spit it out."

"The Traveler here—as perhaps you're aware—is a standard utility model. It can place its cargo at predetermined triordinates and return to base setting, requiring a controller at the console, of course. But what you
don't
know is that I have made certain special arrangements, to fit my, ah, specialized needs here."

The king nodded to a point between himself and O'Leary just outside the half-open door. "If you'd take a step forward so that I can point out the modifications—ah, that's close enough," he said sharply as O'Leary reached the threshold. "I found it convenient to so arrange matters that I could dispatch useful loads to random locations without the necessity for my accompanying them."

He pointed to a number of heavy braided copper cables dangling across the panel. "My modifications were crude, perhaps, but effective. I was able to bring the entire area of the corridor there, to a distance of some fifteen feet, well within effective range." He smiled contentedly, reached for a lever. O'Leary jerked the gun up, had a quick mental image of the explosive pellets smacking into Adoranne's soft flesh; he tossed the gun aside, leaped—

—and landed on his face. He was lying in a drift of powdery snow packed against a rocky wall that rose from a gale-swept ledge of glittering ice. He gasped as a blast of arctic wind ripped at him; through a blur of tears he saw a small purple sun low in the black sky, a ragged line of ice peaks. His lungs caught at the thin air—like breathing razor blades.

He tried to scramble to his feet; the wind knocked him down. He stayed low then, rolled, reached the inadequate shelter of a drifted cranny. He wouldn't last long here. There had to be some place to get in out of the cold . . . He picked a spot ten feet distant, where the rock wall angled sharply.
Just out of sight around that outcropping
, he thought desperately,
there's a door set in the stone. All I have to do is reach it.
He pictured it, built the image, then . . . There!

Had he felt the familiar faint thump in the orderly flow of entropy? It was hard to tell, with this typhoon blasting at him. But it had to be! It must be a hundred below zero here. The stone at his back and the ice under his hands had burned like hot coals at first. Now everything was getting remote, as though he were encased in thick plastic.

He forced himself to move, crawled forward, almost went down on his face as the full force of the wind struck him. His hands were like wooden mallets now. He made another yard, skidded back as a particularly vicious gust slammed against him, tried again—and saw the soft glow of yellow light across the snow ahead, a cheery reflection in the ice. He rounded the shoulder of rock; there it was, a glass door in an aluminum frame, a tall rectangle of warmth against the cold and dark.

No point in dwelling on the incongruity of it—just reach it. The latch was a foot from his hand. He lunged, caught it, felt the door yield and swing in. He fell half-through the door into a sea of warmth.

He rested a moment, then pulled himself farther inside. The door whooshed shut behind him. Soft music was playing. He lay with his cheek against a rug, breathing in short, painful gasps. Then he sat up, looked around at oil-rubbed, wood-paneled walls, a built-in bar with gleaming glasses and a silver tray, a framed painting showing colors aswirl on a silvery field. He got to his feet, lurched across to the bar, found a bottle, poured a stiff drink, took it at a gulp.

OK, no time to waste; no time to wonder what sort of place this was he'd found, or where it was in the universe. It certainly wasn't anywhere on the familiar old planet Earth.

He had to get back. Goruble had obviously been all ready to travel, just waiting to finish off his enemy before he left. O'Leary closed his eyes. Ignoring the throb of returning sensation in his hands and feet and ears, he pictured the dark, musty passage under Goruble's palace. Adoranne was there; she needed him . . .

There was a thump as though the world had grounded on a sand bar. O'Leary's eyes flew open. He was standing in pitch darkness, in an odor of dust and mildewed wood. Had he made a mistake?

"Over this way, Sir Lafayette," a rumbling voice whispered. "Boy, you sure get around."

"Yokabump!" O'Leary groped toward the voice, felt a massive shoulder under his hand at belt height. "Where is he? I've got to get there before—"

"Wow! Your mitts are like a couple of ice bags!" Yokabump tugged O'Leary forward. "Just around the corner here, there's a door. I was staying out of sight and I couldn't see what was happening, but I heard you yell. Then old Goruble was snickering and talking to himself, and I sneaked a peek. I pretty near jumped him myself when I seen her Highness, tied to a chair. But then I figured—"

"Then they're still here?"

"Sure. His Majesty's working away like a one-man band, switching wires around. I'm glad you didn't stay away long."

"How did you know where I was?"

"I heard the air sort of whoosh. I noticed that before, when you did the fade from the dungeon—"

"Oh, you were hanging around then, were you?"

"Sure, I like to keep in touch."

"Shhh." O'Leary pushed through the rough wooden door into the passage he had vacated so precipitously five minutes earlier. He was fifteen feet from the open door to the Traveler—roughly the distance he had crawled on the ice ledge. Goruble was peering anxiously at dial faces; in the chair, Adoranne tugged futilely at the bell cord binding her arms. O'Leary eased out into the passage, started softly forward. He would reach the door, then in one jump, grab Goruble and hustle him away from the controls.

O'Leary's head cracked a low beam in the dark. Goruble looked up sharply at the sound, stood gaping for an instant as O'Leary, half-stunned, staggered toward him; then the usurper whirled and reached as O'Leary jumped—

—Light glared abruptly; something caught at O'Leary's foot, pitching him headlong into a mass of thorny shrubbery. Steamy air redolent of crushed foliage, rotted vegetation, humid soil and growing things closed around him like a Turkish bath. He floundered, fought his way clear of clinging tendrils of rubbery green, ducked as an inch-long insect buzzed his face. Sharp-edged red and green leaves scraped at him. Small flying midges swarmed about him, humming. There was a rasp of scales on bark; a wrist-thick snake of a vivid green hue slid into view on a leafy bough just ahead, raised a wedge-shaped head to stare. Somewhere above, birds were screeching back and forth from the tops of the towering trees.

O'Leary struggled upright, groped for footing in the tangle of fallen greenery. This time he'd fool Goruble: about ten feet in
that
direction, he estimated. The snake was still there, looking him over. He ducked aside from it, crawled over a fallen tree limb and fanned at the warming insects. About here, he decided . . .

A movement caught by the corner of his eye made him whirl. A great striped feline with a bushy yellowish mane was poised in the crotch of a yard-thick tree six feet above O'Leary's head, the green eyes fixed on him like stabbing spears. The jaws parted in a roar that fluttered leaves all around. The cat drew in its hind legs, gathering itself for a leap, roared again and sprang.

O'Leary squeezed his eyes shut, muttered a quick specification, threw himself to one side as the heavy body hurtled past. He slammed into an unyielding wall as a tremendous impact sounded behind him, followed by an ear-splitting yell, a ripping of cloth.

He staggered upright. He was back inside the Traveler, just behind Adoranne's chair. The big cat recovered from its first thwarted spring, whirled toward the fleeing figure of Goruble, whose velvet doublet had been split from top to bottom in the first near-miss, revealing a monogrammed silk undershirt.

O'Leary caught an instant's glimpse of Yokabump's bignosed face in the dark passage beyond the king. Then Goruble was going down face-first as the attacking predator sailed over him, skidded to a halt, rounded to renew the assault. O'Leary grabbed for the lever Goruble had used and pulled it down as the half-lion, half-tiger bounded across Goruble, sprang for the threshold—and disappeared with a sharp whack! of displaced air.

O'Leary sagged and let out a long sigh. Yokabump waddled to the door and bent to rub his shin.

"The old boy moves pretty good," he said. "I nearly missed. He's down for the count, though."

O'Leary went to Adoranne, "I'll have you loose in a minute." He started in on the knots. Yokabump produced a large clasp knife and sawed at the heavy cord on her wrists. A moment later she rose out of the chair and threw herself into O'Leary's arms.