The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Ten

Lafayette reached another landing and whirled through a wire-glass door into a narrow foyer with elevator doors. I'll ask all the questions later, he promised himself, and punched a button at random; a moment later feet clattered hastily past the door behind him; then the door to his left whooshed open and Lafayette stepped in among fat ladies and a spidery old fellow carrying a paper-wrapped package.

"Come on, ain't got all the day," the old boy said in a ratchety voice.

"Sorry I'm late, sir," Lafayette replied diffidently. "Want me to take over now?" He eased the big flat package from the oldster's hands and glanced at the address:

Global Presentation, A.G., 113 Bayberry Bldg, Suite B. Attn: Dr. Glovewelt.

"Say, that's square of you, fellow," the elderly courier cried, exercising his arm in exaggerated mime of severe cramping. "Goes on my ticket, o' course," he added. "After all, I'm the one signed for it."

"Hurry back and tell 'em you were mugged in the park," Lafayette suggested. "Just in case."

"Hey," the septuagenarian protested. "You will exercise due care and all like it says, won't you, fella?"

"Count on me, Pop," Lafayette reassured him; as the car stopped and the doors jolted open, he extracted himself from the plump matrons and headed for the door marked Tire Stair—Emergency Only.'

After an interminable descent, Lafayette saw the glow of daylight below and soon reached a littered floor with a big blue cold-drink machine, and stepped out into a narrow alley. He turned right and quickly emerged on the street he had seen from his room. Marv was no longer in sight, but Lafayette went across anyway and meandered casually to the corner where he had seen his erstwhile comrade. He found nothing but a candy-bar wrapper to indicate that anyone had loitered there. His eye was caught by a neon sign reading COLD BEER glowing in a dusty window across the narrow street. He started across, adroitly dodging a cab which took an abrupt right turn, nearly grazing his shins, and pushed through the heavy plate-glass door into a dim interior redolent of generations of slopped-over beers. He took a table and two deep breaths before a large man in an apron like a four-master's tops'l over an expansive paunch bellied up to the table, shifted a toothpick in a meaty face, and said, "You want sumpin'?"

"Why, no," Lafayette said seriously. "Actually I just stepped in to get out of the blizzard." He had dumped his package on the table before him. Now he stripped off the tape and tore away the brown wrapper, exposing an inner wrapping, removed that and was looking at a stack of fourteen-by-twenty-two glossies. The top print, in gaudy color, showed an ornately decorated interior, all red-and-white marble and gold wainscoting. He shuddered and examined the figures in the foreground. One, standing in advance of the others, was undoubtedly Frumpkin, in black no longer. He was wearing a species of brocaded toga, somewhere between a pope's robes and Roman senator's bedsheet. To his left was Daphne, looking relatively drably clad in a gown of shimmering silver. The others were strangers, except for a fellow who looked remarkably like Marv occupying a pew for one, raised above floor level in the background.

The other prints showed other angles of the same ceremony, except for the last, which showed a gold-uniformed Frumpkin standing in a stiff Napoleon pose amid the ruins of what seemed to be the same rococo hall.

The big man was still hovering. He shot a glance at the translucent window with REEB DLOC on it, and muttered. "Wise guy, hah? I got a good mind to throw you right back out in your own snowdrift, crum-bum, you get smart with me, which I own this here dump." He reached for O'Leary's collar with a hairy arm bigger than most peoples' leg. Lafayette dodged casually, fixed a steely gaze on the red-rimmed eyes of the owner-bouncer.

"Raf tras spintern," he said distinctly. "Raf tras spoit."

The big fellow checked his grab and rearranged the salt and pepper shakers and paper napkin dispenser instead. "Whyn't you say so?" he demanded, then straightened up, looking over O'Leary's head. "Sorry, sir. Been on-station too long, I guess. Kinda forgot the routine. You wanna wait right here, I'll have a contact man here in a sec." He backed away from the Presence, then fled.

"I see you and Special Ed are old pals," a chipper feminine voice spoke up at O'Leary's ear. He jumped, then turned to see a small dark-haired girl with a neat figure in a tight electric-blue dress. She had a pretty face, marred by an excess of eyelash goo and an oversize slash of gore-red lip rouge. She took the seat opposite him and dumped a wicker handbag the size of a small suitcase on the table, shoving the photographs aside.

"Hi," she went on breathlessly. "I'm Mickey Jo. You sure put the fear into old Ed, all right. Who are ya? Ain't seen you around here before, I don't think."

"Actually," O'Leary said carefully, assessing this new player moved onto the board, "I've never been here before."

"New on the job?" Mickey Jo frowned in sympathetic inquiry.

"Not on the job," Lafayette replied. "Just trying to find Daphne and go home."

"What's Daphne?" the girl asked.

"Not 'what', Lafayette corrected. " 'Who'. She's a very beautiful young woman, and my wife."

"If that's a hint to me to take off," Mickey Jo said regretfully, "I get it. Just sat down to rest the dogs, anyway. Well, nice meeting you, Mr ..."

"Brown," he supplied. "Lafayette Brown. Sir Lafayette Brown in fact. Don't go. I wasn't hinting. I never hint. I come right out and say things."

Mickey Jo hesitated. "If you're sure ..."

"I'm sure," Lafayette stated firmly, realizing he meant it. "Frankly, I'm lonely. Stay and talk to me. Have a drink?"

The girl tossed her head half-defiantly, half-decisively. She resumed her seat and at once emitted a short, piercing whistle, directed at the proprietor still hovering in the background. He hurried over.

"Draw two, Ed," Mickey Jo ordered crisply. "The real stuff, not that Milwaukee soda water."

"Well, Mick, you know I always serve nothin' but the best to my prime customers," Ed said in a hurt tone. He made a ritual dab at the tabletop with a gray rag and departed at a trot, to return at once with two sudsy schooners.

"Now," Mickey Jo said comfortably, "tell me all about this Daphne dame—excuse me—your wife, I mean. I suppose she's one o' these classy broads which she don't ever let nothing slip—or slip past, eh, sir?"

"Just call me Laff," Lafayette said tonelessly. "You remind me of a girl who used to call me that."

"Laugh? That's a heck of a name, no offense," the girl commented between drags on her tankard. O'Leary tried his beer and found it to be an excellent, nutty brew. He took a long, healing gulp and his morale improved at once. Outside, he noticed, it was almost twilight.

"Daphne and I were sitting in the palace garden, just chatting about old times," Lafayette began his recital, "and I happened to be looking at the stars; noticed if you changed things a little the so-called Great Bear would look a lot like a unicorn or something. So ..." he paused. "So I just twiddled with it a little, without any intention whatever of tampering, you understand— and the next thing I knew we were in the middle of a cloudburst. We ran for it—and somehow got separated. I mean, there was only one door she could have gone through, and it led nowhere—or only to the stairs to the Dread Tower, I mean. I went up and ran into a couple of sharpies from Central, who tried to kidnap me. But I forgot: before that, I was grabbed by a couple of thugs named Marv and Omar and dragged into the presence of Lord Trog. He told me I was in Aphasia and nobody had seen Daphne. And the palace was in ruins. You see, it was almost Artesia; just the same, except nothing was the same—if you know what I mean."

"I'm sorry, Laugh, I don't—see what you mean, I mean," Mickey Jo responded. "It sounds like you been hit on the dome once too often, maybe. So let's forget all that, and just talk about us."

" 'Us'?" Lafayette echoed wonderingly. "What about us? I just met you, I hardly know you—"

"And all I know about you," Mickey Jo cut in, "is you got a chipped knob. But what the hell, the night is young, like they say, and so are we—so why be choosy? You can buy me a nice dinner in a first-class restaurant, and we'll go from there."

"I don't know if I have any cash," Lafayette said doubtfully, patting pockets. He brought out a crumpled Artesian ten spot, a corroded copper coin, some gray lint, and the flat-walker.

"... repeat, OK, Slim?" its tiny voice peeped, even fainter now. "You're way overdue at the field office. You get that address OK? One two eight South Canal, one flight up. Over to you, Slim."

"Uh, one two eight South Canal," Lafayette repeated dully. "I never heard of it. But I'll try to get there ASAP."

"South Canal?" Mickey Jo repeated in a dismayed tone. "You sure you don't mean East Canal? And whatdaya mean, you never heard of it? It was you mentioned it. All I said was—"

"I know," Lafayette said quickly. "I was just sort of thinking aloud, only I wasn't thinking. I mean—"

"Skip it, Laugh." Mickey Jo patted O'Leary's hand with a hard little palm. "We don't want to go and get you all mixed up again. Let's just go chow down." She rose quickly, and Lafayette was again impressed by her neat little body. He got to his feet and glanced toward Special Ed, busy behind the bar.

"What about the, uh ... tab?" O'Leary muttered.

"Don't kid me, Laugh," the girl said, tugging at his arm. "I know all you guys got unlimited expense accounts. So does Ed; know, I mean." She pulled at Lafayette's arm; he followed, and in a moment they were outside in chill evening air, on a gritty sidewalk beside a pitch-black street. The moonlight glowed pinkish-white on the upper stories of the facades opposite.

"Just a minute, Mickey Jo," O'Leary said, hesitating before starting across. "You seem to know more about things than I do. Do you know where the gray room is? I have to find it; that's where Frumpkin hangs out, and he seems to be holding Daphne there, and—"

"Who's this Frumpkin?" the girl cut in. "I don't know anything about the Gray Room—lousy name for a restaurant; let's go to the Schnitzel Haus over on Central."

"It's not a restaurant: this is serious," Lafayette corrected.

"If it's so serious, why don't you just go over there and break it up?" Mickey Jo asked reasonably. "After all, it's your wife with the guy."

"It's not like that. And anyway, I don't know where it is."

"Then, how do you know they're shacked up there?" the girl wanted to know.

"I saw them—lots of times—only it's not what you're implying. He's holding her there against her will."

"If you saw the place, you oughta remember where it's at," Mickey Jo stated with finality.

"Where it is," Lafayette corrected automatically. "I have no idea where it is, otherwise I'd get there as fast as I could. Poor little Daph ..."

"What's he got, chains on her, ropes, kinky stuff like that?" Mickey Jo demanded.

"Why, no, she's wearing a simple white dinner gown, very elegant."

"Then what makes you say he's holding her there? Maybe she likes a fellow provides her with elegant dinner gowns."

"You don't get it at all," Lafayette complained. "Who do you work for? Who do you think I am?"

"My immediate chief is Mel Grunge," Mickey Jo said, "if it's any of your business. He's assistant chief, Information Services—pretty big shot. And I think you're a poor boob named Laugh, which your marbles is a little scrambled—which don't mean we can't put on the feed bag together. Maybe we'll run into Daphne and her boyfriend." She tugged at Lafayette's arm.

He resisted. "It's not like that!" he objected. "He's not her boyfriend!"

Mickey Jo looked at him sympathetically. "They say the husband is always the last to know," she murmured. "But, what the hell, two can play at the game. I'll try and keep yer mind off the whole thing."

"Try to keep my mind off," O'Leary corrected tonelessly.

"That's'what I said. Come on."

"Wait," Lafayette objected. "Do you know where the Y is ? And what time is it?"

"You want the YM or the YW? The C or the J? The YMCA's about two blocks north, and it's six-thirty. Why?"

"She said 'Seven p.m. at the Y', Lafayette told her.

"Oh. 'She', huh? I got a idea you don't mean this Daphne dame—I mean Mrs. Laugh."

"No. Docter Smith. She's rather severe-looking, but not bad. But that has nothing to do with it."

"So, you already got a date, Laugh? Whyn't you say so? Hey, did you want them pictures you had? You left 'em on the table. You're a deeper one than you look, I guess, Laugh. Well, it was nice knowing ya, kid. So long. Mickey Jo Obtulicz ain't a gal to break up nothing you got going. Good luck, and thanks for the beer."

"Wait! I haven't asked you—" Lafayette started.

"I know," the girl cut him off. "But it's A-OK, Laugh. I din't mean to butt in on nothing."

There was a scrape of shoe-leather from the darkness ahead; then a vague form took shape, moving directly toward them. Mickey Jo yelped in alarm and clutched O'Leary's arm.

"It's cool, lady," a blurry voice came from the darkness. "How's it, Sir Al? Glad to see ya, an' all, you bet." Then the mysterious figure was directly in front of O'Leary.

"It's me, Marv, your old pal," Marv said. "Doncha know me, Al? After all we been through." Marv's calloused hands clutched at O'Leary as if afraid of losing him. Lafayette disengaged gently and turned to the girl.

"Nothing to fear, Mickey Jo," he said. "This is my friend Marv I told you about."

"Al, where you been? How'd you get here?" Marv moaned. "When you done that neat sneak, right troo the wall an all, I thought our troubles was over. But you never came back, and old Cease come inta the cell to work me over and left the door open, so I clobbered him good and took off. Only some guys said they was some kind o' Feds grab me and quiz me plenty. I got lots to tell you—"

"Later, Marv," O'Leary said soothingly. "I'm sorry about ducking out on you, but I got lost—I'm still lost. This place seems a lot like Colby Corners, so maybe we're closer to home than I thought."

"Al!" Marv cut in. "You mean you don't know? You poor guy, you got a awful shock coming."

"Don't know what?" Lafayette asked, absent-mindedly encircling Mickey Jo's slim waist and hugging her gently.

"C'mere," Marv said soberly, tugging at O'Leary's arm. He followed as Marv led him off a few steps to the intersection, where the pink moonlight gleamed across the worn brick street unimpeded. His face pale in the wan light, Marv looked at O'Leary earnestly. "Now, easy, pal: Just turn slow and look up."

O'Leary complied, squeezing Mickey Jo's hand, which somehow he still held. She returned the pressure. Glancing up casually, Lafayette allowed his gaze to drift to the bright orb of the full moon. He gasped, tried to speak, but uttered only a croak.

"My God!" he managed at last. "Mickey Jo, look at it! Look at the moon!"

"Sure, I see it, Laugh. Purty. Romantic-like. But you got a late date, remember?"

"Romantic my eye!" Lafayette yelled. "It's falling! Ye Gods, look at it! You can see every crater—it can't be more than a hundred thousand miles away! Doesn't anybody care? Isn't anybody doing anything about it?" As he spoke, he was hastily measuring it with his thumbnail held at arm's length. Nearly a full degree, he decided.

"Easy, Al," Marv said. "It ain't exactly fallin; it's already fell. I mean she's spiraling in real slow, about half a mile a year, they say, and pretty soon it'll hit Roche's Limit and then we'll see some fireworks!"

"But it can't, Marv!" Lafayette protested. "That's the moon! It's been gradually receding for five billion years; it can't just turn around and start coming in!"

"I guess it can if it gets a big enough push from a near-miss by a hundred-mile planetoid. Happened back in the Cretaceous, they say; had something to do with killing off a lot o' big critters they call deenersoors or like that. Not to worry: we still got another fifty thousand years, about, before she breaks up; and then look out."

"Do you realize what this means?" O'Leary groaned. "We're in a totally different manifold of loci from Artesia and all the old familiar places! I'll never get back! I'll never find Daphne!"

"Don't take it so hard, Sugar," Mickey Jo said in a matter-of-fact tone. "After all, it ain't your fault."

"But that's just it! It is my fault," Lafayette moaned. "If only I hadn't started messing around with the constellations, this would never have happened!"

"That's what they call delusions of grandeur, Sir Laugh," Mickey Jo protested. "Like calling yourself 'Sir', only on a more ambitious scale. Better cool it. Come on, Marv, let's get him in offa the street before somebody hears him and calls for the nut squad."