The Universe Twister (60 page)

"How do you know my name?" Daphne cut in with surprising sharpness. She spun to face Belarius. "Who is this man? Does he know anything about Lafayette?"

"Do I know anything about Lafayette?" O'Leary cried. "Daphne, I guess the wings fooled you. Don't you know me?"

"I never saw you before in my life! What have you done to my husband?"

"I haven't done anything to your husband! I
am
your husband!"

"Stay away from me!" She took refuge behind a large cop, who put a protective arm around her shoulders.

"Get your greasy paws off her, you flatfoot!" Lafayette yelled.

"One moment!" Belarius thundered. "You, Raunchini! Stand where you are! You, Recruit O'Leary: for the record: do you know this Agent?"

"I never saw him before in my life!"

"Why waste time and breath, Raunchini?" Belarius grated. "You heard O'Leary's description: six feet, one-seventy, blue eyes. You're five-five, two-ten, black eyes, swarthy complected."

"I know I'm—huh?" O'Leary paused, looked over his left shoulder, then his right. "The wings!" he blurted. "They're gone!" He looked down at himself, saw a barrel chest, generous paunch, bandy legs, pudgy-fingered hands with a dense growth of black hair on their backs. He stepped to one of the framed photos, stared at his face reflected in the glass. It was round, olive-skinned, with a flat nose and a wide mouth crowded with crooked teeth.

"Ye gods—it's happened again!" he groaned. "No wonder you thought I was crazy, talking about my wings!"

"May I go now?" Recruit O'Leary requested.

"Daphne!" Lafayette yelled. "Surely
you
know me, no matter what I look like!"

Daphne looked puzzled.

"There was this note," Lafayette went on in tones of desperation. "It was from the Red Bull; he wanted me to meet him at the A & D Tavern. I went down there, and he had this gimmick—something that Goruble had stashed in a cave. Anyway, I was looking at it, and my finger slipped, and
whap!
I turned into somebody else!"

"Is he . . . is he—" Daphne looked questioningly at Belarius, circling a shell-like ear with a slim forefinger.

"No, I'm not nuts! I tried to get back to the palace to report what I'd discovered, and the City Guard grabbed me! And before I could explain matters, Luppo and a mob of Wayfarers butted in and carted me off to their camp, but Gizelle helped me get away, and—"

"Gizelle?" Daphne pounced with unerring feminine instinct.

"Yes, uh, a fine girl, you'll love her. Anyway, she took me to her wagon, and—"

"Hmmph!" Daphne sniffed, turning away. "I'm really not interested in this person's
amours
, whoever he is!"

"It wasn't like that! It was purely platonic."

"That's enough, Raunchini!" Belarius bellowed. "O'Leary, you can go. Men, take Raunchini down to Trog Twelve and prep him for brain-scrape!"

"What's . . . what's brain-scrape?" Daphne paused at the door, casting a hesitant look at Lafayette.

"A technique for getting at the truth," Belarius growled. "Something like peeling a grape."

"Well it . . . hurt him?"

"Eh? Well, it will more or less spoil him for future use. Leaves the subject a babbling idiot in stubborn cases. But don't concern yourself, O'Leary; he'll receive his full pension, never fear."

"Daphne!" Lafayette called after him. "If you have any influence with this bunch of maniacs, tell them to listen to me!" Belarius gestured; two men stepped forward, seized Lafayette's arms, helped him toward the door.

"Tough luck, pal," one of the cops said. "I'd act nuts too, if I thought it'd get me next to a dish like that."

"I'll say," another of the escort agreed. "Brother, you don't see it stacked up like that every day—"

"That's enough out of you, Buster!" Lafayette roared, and delivered a solid kick to the shin of the luckless girl-watcher. As the man stumbled back with a yell, Lafayette jerked free, ducked under a grab, and leaped for the door. Belarius rounded his desk in time to receive a straight-arm to the mouth. O'Leary sidestepped a tackle, plunged into the corridor.

"Daphne!" O'Leary shouted as she turned and stared, wide-eyed. "If I never see you again—remember I love you! And don't forget to feed Dinny!"

"Hey—grab him!" one of the waiting stretcher-bearers yelled. Lafayette ducked aside from his reach, thrust out a foot, sending the fellow sprawling. Two more men erupted from the room. More men were advancing at a run, closing in from both directions.

"The stretcher!" Daphne cried suddenly. "Use the stretcher!"

Lafayette ducked a wild swing, sprang aboard the slab hovering a foot above the carpet, jabbed the red button marked LIFT. The cot shot ceiling-ward, slammed him hard against the flowered wallpaper. He groped, pushed a stud at random. The stretcher shot backward, raking Lafayette across a rank of fluorescent lights. He fumbled again, dropped the cot to head height and shot forward in time to clip an oncoming security man full in the mouth, sending him bounding back against his partner. Full tilt, the cot rushed along the passage; Lafayette closed his eyes and hung on as it hurtled toward the intersection; at the last possible instant it banked, whipped around the turn, and shot at high speed through a pair of double doors—fortunately open.

The runaway steed made three swift circuits of the large green-walled room before Lafayette found a control that brought it to a shuddering halt, sending him tumbling to the rug. He rolled to hands and knees, saw that he was in the room where he had first arrived. The green-haired woman behind the desk was stabbing hysterically at her console, yelping for help.

"Here, I'll help you," Lafayette said. He scrambled up, jumped on the desk, and pushed two palmfuls of buttons, jabbed half a dozen of the keys, flipped an entire rank of switches. A siren sounded; the lights brightened and dimmed. From wall apertures, a pale-pink gas began hissing into the room. The receptionist screeched.

"Don't worry, I'm not violent," Lafayette yelled. "All I want is out! Which way?"

"Don't come near me, you maniac!"

Lafayette dashed to the section of wall through which he had entered, began feeling over it frantically as alarm horns hooted behind him. Abruptly, a panel rotated open on a dimly glowing chamber. Lafayette stepped through; the panel slammed behind him. A green light glowed on the opposite wall. There was a momentary sensation as if his brain had come loose from its moorings and was whirling at high speed inside his skull. Then darkness exploded around him.

2

He drifted among luminous flotsam and jetsam, straining every sense . . .

 . . . tinky-tinky-tinky . . .

 . . . you think you're the only bird in town with a pair o' them—

 . . . where are you? Come in, dear boy, if you hear me. Come in, come in . . .

A vast, softly glowing construction of puce and magenta noodles swept grandly past, rotating slowly; a swarm of luminous blue-green BB shot veered close, passed him by; something vast and insubstantial as glowing smoke swelled before him, swirled around him with a crackle of static, was gone. A jittering assemblage of red-hot wires came tumbling from dark distances, swerved to intercept him. He back-pedaled, making frantic swimming motions, but it closed on him, was all about him, clinging, penetrating.

It was as though a hundred and seventy pounds of warm wax were being injected into his skin, painlessly squeezing him out through the pores.

Aha! Got you, you bodynapper!
a silent voice yelled in both ears at once.

"Hey—wait!" O'Leary shouted. "Can't we discuss this?"

Wait, nothing! Out! Out!

For a moment O'Leary saw a vengeful face—the same face he had seen in the glass in Belarius' office—glaring at him. Then he was sliding away into emptiness.

"Wait! Help! I have to get word to Nicodaeus!"

"
Leave me drifting in Limbo, will you
 . . ." the voice came back faintly.

"Raunchini! Don't leave me here! I've got to get back . . ."

"
How
 . . ." the voice came faintly, receding, "
do you know my name—
" The voice was gone. Lafayette shouted—or not shouted, he realized;
transmitted
, in some way he would figure out later, after he was safe back home. But there was no answer; only faint, ghostly voices all around:

 . . . told him no, but you know how men are . . .

 . . . oopy-toopy-foopy-foom . . .

Nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .

DEAR BOY! IS IT REALLY YOU? I'D ABOUT GIVEN UP HOPE!

"Help!" Lafayette yelled. He was rotating end over end now—or was it the other way around? He could feel his sense of identity draining away like oil from a broken pot; his thoughts were growing weaker, vaguer, the voices fainter . . .
HOLD ON, LAD . . . JUST A FEW SECONDS LONGER . . . DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP . . .

Something as intangible as smoke brushed over him; a vague fog-shape loomed, enveloped him like a shadowy fist. A sense of pressure, a burst of light—then darkness . . .

3

He was lying on a hard, lumpy surface, itching furiously. He made a move to scratch, and discovered that both knees were bandaged, as well as both elbows and his chin.

He struggled to a sitting position. In the faint moonlight that filtered down through the leaves overhead, he saw that he was neatly enclosed in a cage made of lashed poles. He had been lying, he saw, on an ancient mattress with a stained striped ticking; there was a bowl of water beside him, and what appeared to be gnawed crusts of bread. He sniffed; the odors hanging in the air—of unwashed laundry, goat cheese, and wood-smoke—were somehow familiar. His legs and arms ached, his back ached, his neck ached.

"I must be black-and-blue all over," he grunted. "Where am I? What's happened to me?"

There was a soft sound of footsteps; a familiar figure approached.

"Gizelle!" O'Leary's voice broke with relief. "Am I glad to see you! Get me out of here!"

The girl stood with hands on hips, looking down at him with an unreadable expression. "Zorro?" she said doubtfully.

O'Leary groaned. "I know, I look like a fellow named Raunchini. But it's really me—not really Zorro, but the fellow you thought was Zorro—only I was actually Lafayette O'Leary, of course. But I'll explain all that later."

"You don't theenk you're a beeg bird anymore? You don't try to jump off cleef, flapping your arms?"

"What? I didn't jump off the cliff, I fell—and—"

Gizelle smiled; she turned, whistled shrilly. Voices responded. A moment later Luppo's hulking figure appeared. He stared at O'Leary with an expression like a Doberman awaiting the kill order.

"Why deed you wheestle?" he grunted. "Ees he—"

"He said he ees heemself—Zorro!"

"Of course I'm myself—in a manner of speaking," Lafayette snapped. "But—oh, well, never mind. You wouldn't understand. Just let me out of here, pronto!"

"Uh-huh—that's heem," Luppo said.

"Good! Een that case—when the sun rises—we can proceed!" Gizelle cried ecstatically.

"Oh, look here, Gizelle—you're not going to start that wedding business all over again?" Lafayette protested.

Luppo looked at him, a gold tooth shining in his crooked grin. "Not quite," he said. "Would you believe . . . the Death of the Thousand Hooks?"

4

"Eet weel be very exciting, Zorito," Gizelle informed Lafayette, leaning close to his cage to hiss the words in his face. "First weel be the feexing of the hooks. Een the old days, there was just one beeg hook, you know—but naturally we've been making progress. Now we use leetle beety feesh hooks—hundreds and hundreds of theem. We steeck theem een—slowly—all over you. Then we tie a streeng to each one, and leeft you up eento the air weeth theem—"

"Gizelle—spare me the details!" O'Leary groaned. "If I'm Zorro, I already know all this—and if I'm not, I'm innocent, and you ought to free me. You ought to free me anyway; what's a nice girl like you doing mixed up in a dirty business like this, anyway?"

"Free you? A feelthy peeg who takes advantage of a poor girl who ees fool enough to love heem?"

"I've told you—I'm not myself! I mean I'm not really Zorro! I mean—I
am
Zorro—physically—but actually I'm Lafayette O'Leary! I'm just occupying Zorro's body for the moment! Under the circumstances it wouldn't be ethical for me to marry you. Can't you see that?"

"First you made me streep; theen you sneaked out like a policeman een the night, and locked me een my own boudoir! A meellion feesh hooks could not repay me for the pangs I have suffered for you, you . . . sheep een wolf's clothing!"

"Why didn't you do the job while I was out of my mind? Then I wouldn't have known anything about it."

"What? Mistreat a holy man affleected of Dumballa? You theenk we are barbarians?"

"Yeah—it would have been pretty tough on Tazlo Haz. The poor boob wouldn't have had a clue what was going on."

"Tazlo Haz—that's what you kept screeching wheen you were trying to fly," Gizelle said. "What does eet mean?"

"It's my name. I mean it was Zorro's name—or the name of the ego that shifted into Zorro's body when I shifted into his. He's a birdman—with wings, you know." Lafayette fingered his skinned knees gingerly. "I guess it was as hard for him to realize his wings were gone as it was for me to walk through walls."

"Zorito—you are a beeg liar—for theese I geeve you credit," Gizelle said. "But eet's not enough. Now I'm going to get a leettle beauty sleep; I want to look my best for you tomorrow—while you're hanging from the hooks." She turned and hurried away; O'Leary wasn't sure whether there had been a break in her voice on the last words or not.

5

Lafayette slumped in the corner of the cage, his aching head resting on his bandaged knees.

"I must be getting old," he thought drearily. "I used to be able to land on my feet—but now I just stumble from one disaster to the next. If I could just explain to somebody, just once, what's actually going on—but somehow, nobody will listen. Everybody seems to hear what they want to hear—or what they expect to hear."