The Universe Twister (41 page)

"Hold everything, Lorenzo," he said tensely. "Maybe we're in business."

"What are you talking about?" the other came back in his pettish voice. "Swords? Keys? What we need is a charge of dynamite, or a couple of stout crowbars."

"I may have something better," Lafayette said, extracting a flat two-inch by one-inch rectangle of what felt like flexible plastic from its hiding place under the zipper. "They missed the flat-walker."

"What's a flat-walker?"

"According to Pinchcraft, it generates a field which has the effect of modifying the spatial relationships of whatever it's tuned to, vis-à-vis the exocosm. It converts any one-linear dimension into the equivalent displacement along the perpendicular volumetric axis, at the same time setting up a harmonic which causes a reciprocal epicentric effect, and—"

"How would you go about explaining that to an ordinary mortal?" Lorenzo interrupted.

"Well, it reduces one of the user's physical dimensions to near zero, and compensates by a corresponding increase in the density of the matter field in the remaining quasi-two-dimensional state."

"Better try the idiot version."

"It makes you flat."

"How is wearing a corset going to help us?" Lorenzo yelped.

"I mean
really
flat! You can slide right between the molecules of ordinary matter—walk through walls, in other words. That's why it's called a flat-walker."

"Good grief, and I was practically outside, sneaking up on that long-legged son of a Schnauzer who pitched me in here."

"That's the spirit! Now stand fast, Lorenzo, and I'll try this thing out. Let's see, Pinchcraft said to orient it with the long axis coinciding with my long axis, and the smooth face parallel to the widest plane of my body, or vice versa . . ."

"I suppose this was all part of their torture plan," Lorenzo muttered, "to lock me in with a mental case. I should have known better than to get my hopes up. Poor Beverly. With me put away, there's no one to help her. She'll hold out for as long as she can, but in the end the ceaseless importuning of her captor combined with the prospects of ruling this benighted principality will erode her will, and—"

"I read the same book," Lafayette said. "It was lousy. How about bottling up your pessimism while I conduct a test." Lafayette fingered the flat-walker, found the small bump at the center, and pressed it.

Nothing happened. He peered disappointedly into the surrounding blackness.

"Damn!" Lafayette said with feeling. "But I guess that would have been too easy. We'll have to think of something else. Listen, Lorenzo: how high is this room? Maybe there's a hatch in the ceiling, and if one of us stood on the other's shoulders, we could reach it." He stood on tiptoes and reached as far overhead as he could, but touched nothing. He jumped, still found no ceiling.

"How about it?" he snapped. "Do you want to climb up on my shoulders, or shall I get on yours?"

There was no answer. Even the mice had stopped rustling.

"Speak up, Lorenzo! Or have you gone back to sleep?" He moved across toward the other's corner, feeling for the wall. After he had taken ten steps, he slowed, advancing cautiously. After five more steps, he halted.

"That's funny," he said in the circumambient darkness. "I thought the cell was only ten paces wide . . ."

He turned and retraced his steps, counting off fifteen paces, then went on another five, ten, fifteen steps. Abruptly, blinding light glared in his eyes. He blinked, squinting at what appeared to be a wall of featureless illumination, like the frosted glass over a light fixture. As he turned, the wall seemed to flow together; lines and flecks and blots of color appeared, coalesced into a normal though somewhat distorted scene: a dim-lit corridor, glass-walled, glass-floored, lined by heavy doors of black glass.

"I'm outside the cell!" he blurted. "It worked! Lorenzo—!" He turned, saw the walls expand as he did, stretching out into featurelessness, like a reflection in a convex mirror.

"Must be some effect of two dimensionality," he murmured. "Now, let's see—what direction did I come from?"

Squinting, he stepped hesitantly forward; the glare winked out to total darkness. He took fifteen paces and halted.

"Lorenzo," he hissed. "I made it!"

There was no answer.

"Oh—he probably can't hear me—or I can't hear him—with this gadget turned on . . ." Lafayette pressed the deactivating switch. There was no apparent change, except for the almost imperceptible sounds of moving air—and a muffled sob.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, buck up," Lafayette snapped. "Crying won't help!"

There was a startled intake of air.

"Lafe?" a familiar voice whispered. "Is it really you?"

Lafayette sniffed garlic? "Swinehild!" he gasped. "How did
you
get here?"

"Y-you told me not to follow you," Swinehild was saying five minutes later, having enjoyed a good cry while O'Leary patted her soothingly. "But I watched the gate and seen you come through. Happened there was a horse tied in front of a beer joint, so I ups and takes off after you. The feller on the ferry showed me which way you went. When I caught up with you, you was smack in the middle of a necktie party—"

"It was
you
that yowled like a panther!"

"It was all I could think of in a hurry."

"You saved my life, Swinehild!"

"Yeah. Well, I beat it out of there, and next thing I knew I was lost. I spent some time wandering around, and then my horse shied at something and tossed me off in a berry bush. When I crawled out of that, here was this old lady sitting on a stump, lighting up a cigar. I was so glad to see a human face, I waltzed right over and said how-do. She jumped like she'd set on a cactus and give me a look like I was somebody's ghost. 'Good Lord,' she says. 'Incredible! But after all—why not?' I was just starting to ask her if she'd seen the big bird or whatever that'd spooked my critter, and she outs with a tin can with a button on top and jams it in my face, and I get a whiff of mothballs, and that's all I know for a while."

"I believe I know the lady in question," Lafayette said grimly. "That's three scores I have to settle with her—if not more."

"After that I had some crazy dreams about flying through the air. I woke up in a nice room with a smooth-looking little buzzard that must have been the old dame's brother or something; they favored a lot. He asked me a lot of screwy questions, and I try to leave and he grabs me, and naturally, I swat him a couple and the next thing I know a strong-arm squad is bum's-rushing me down here." Swinehild sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't of been so fast with that right hook—but the slob had cold hands. But I should of known I didn't have to worry. I knew you'd find me, Lafe." Her lips nuzzled his ear.

"By the way," she whispered, "I brought the lunch. How about a nice hunk o' sausage and cheese? It's a little crumbly—I been carrying it tucked in my bodice—"

"No, thanks," Lafayette said hastily, disengaging himself. "We have to get out of here right away. I'm going to go back outside and find a key—"

"Hey, how'd you get in here, Lafe? I never heard the door open . . ."

"I came through the wall. Nothing to it, just a trick I'll tell you about later. But I can't take you out that way. I'll have to get the door open. So if you'll just wait here—"

"You're going to leave me alone again?"

"It can't be helped, Swinehild. Just sit quietly and wait. I'll be back as soon as possible. It shouldn't take too long."

"I . . . I guess you know best, Lafe. But hurry. I never did like being alone in the dark."

"Never fear, there's a good girl." He patted her shoulder. "Try to think about something nice, and I'll be back before you know it."

"G-g'bye, Lafe. Take care."

Lafayette groped his way to the wall, reactivated the flat-walker, waded forward into the glare of the corridor. Again he adjusted his eyes to the light and to the alternately stretched-out and compressed nature of visual phenomena. The narrow passage was still empty. He deactivated the flat-walker, saw the view slide into normality. He made his way stealthily along to the nearest cross-corridor. Two men in scarlet coats lounged in a lighted doorway twenty feet from the intersection. One of them, a paunchy, pasty-faced fellow with untrimmed hair, wore a large ring of keys dangling from his belt. There was no chance to approach them openly. Again O'Leary pressed the control switch of the flat-walker, saw the sides of the passage rush together while the solid glass walls beside him stretched out to a shimmering, opalescent blankness.

"Don't lose your bearings," he instructed himself sternly. "Straight ahead, about twenty paces; then rematerialize—and while they're catching their breath, grab the keys and go flat. Got it?"

"Got it," he replied, and started forward.

At the first step, the lighted corridor shifted, collapsed, became a cloudy veil. Lafayette felt about him; nothing tangible met his hands.

"Must be some kind of orientation effect," he suggested to himself. "Just keep going."

It was confusing, pushing forward into the milky glare. By turning his head sideways, O'Leary could see an alternate pattern of glass bricks which revolved away from him as he passed, like walking past an endless curved mirror. After five paces, he was dizzy. After ten, he halted and took deep breaths through his nose to combat the sensation of seasickness.

"Pinchcraft has a few bugs to iron out," he muttered, swallowing hard, "before the flat-walker is ready for the market." He forged on another five paces. How far had he come now? Ten paces? Or twenty? Or . . .

Something flashed and twinkled in front of him, surrounding him. There was a swirl of scarlet, a glitter of brass. Then he was staring directly into a set of what were unmistakably vertebrae, mere inches from his eyes, topped by a jellylike mass of pinkish material . . .

With a lunge, Lafayette leaped clear, gave a whinny of gratitude as darkness closed about him.

"Pinchcraft didn't warn me," he panted, "about walking through a man . . ."

It was a good five minutes before Lafayette felt equal to resuming his stalk. He picked a direction at random, took five more paces, two more for good measure, then halted and switched off the flat-walker.

"How'd you get out?" a surprised voice said as blazing sunlight flooded his retinas. Lafayette caught a swift impression of an open courtyard etched in light like a scene revealed by a flash of lightning, a grinning face under a feathered hat, a swinging billy-club—then the nearest tower fell on his head, and the world exploded into darkness.

"All I know is, yer Highness, the mug shows up in the exercise yard, blinking like a owl." The voice boomed and receded like surf on a tropical beach. "I ask him nice to come along, and he pulls a knife on me. Well, I plead wit' him to hand it over, no violence, like you said, and he tries a run fer it and slips on a banana peel and cracks hisself on the knob. So I lift him up real easy-like and bring him along, knowing yer Highness's interest in the bum, and frankly it beats me what all the excitement is about, after twenty-one years on the force—"

"Silence, you blithering idiot! I told you this subject was to receive kid-glove treatment! And you bring him to me with a knot on his skull the size of the royal seal! One more word and I'll have you thrown to the piranhas!"

Lafayette made an effort, groped for the floor, found it under his feet. He wrestled an eye open, discovered that he was standing, supported by a painful grip on his upper arms, in a large, high-ceilinged room adorned by tapestries, chandeliers, rugs, gilt mirrors, polished furniture of rich, dark wood. In a comfortable-looking armchair before him sat a small, dapper man wearing a ferocious frown on his familiar, well-chiseled features.

"Go-go-go-go," Lafayette babbled, and paused for breath.

"Sergeant, if you've scrambled his wits, it's your head!" the gray-haired man yelped, rising and coming forward. "Lorenzo!" he addressed Lafayette. "Lorenzo, it's me, your friend, Prince Krupkin! Can you understand me?" He peered anxiously into O'Leary's face.

"I . . . I understand you," Lafayette managed. "But—but—you—you're—"

"Good lad! Here, you cretins, seat my guest here, on this pile of cushions. Bring wine! How's your head, my boy?"

"Terrible," Lafayette said, cringing at each pulsebeat. "I was almost over my hangover when I fell down the elevator, and I was almost over that when this lout clubbed me down. I must have three concussions running concurrently. I need a doctor. I need sleep. I need food. I need an aspirin—"

"You shall have it, dear lad. Along with my abject apologies for this dreadful misunderstanding. I hope you'll excuse my remarks at our last meeting, I was overwrought. I was just on the point of sending for you to make amends when the sergeant reported he'd encountered you wandering in the courtyard. Ah, by the way, how did you happen to be in the courtyard, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I walked through the wall—I think. It's all a little hazy now."

"Oh. To be sure. Well, don't worry about it, just relax, have a drink. A nap will fix you up nicely—just as soon as we've had a talk, that is."

"I don't want to talk, I want to sleep. I need an anesthetic. I probably need a blood transfusion, and possibly a kidney transplant. Actually I'm dying, so it's probably wasted effort—"

"Nonsense, Lorenzo! You'll soon be right as rain. Now, the point I wanted to inquire about—or about which I wanted to inquire, we must be grammatically correct, ha-ha—the point, I say, is—where is she?"

"Who?"

"Don't play the noddy, my lad," Prince Krupkin came back in a sharper tone. "You know whom."

"Tell me anyway."

Krupkin leaned forward. "The Lady Andragorre!" he snapped. "What have you done with her?"

"What makes you think I did anything with her?"

His Highness glared at O'Leary. He gripped his knuckles and cracked them with a sound that sent new waves of pain lancing through O'Leary's head.

"Who else would have had the audacity to spirit her away from the luxurious chambers in which I, from the goodness of my heart, installed the thankless creature?"