The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Fourteen

"It is your contention," Frumpkin asked carefully, eyeing Lafayette keenly, "that you are a native of this desolate locus? That you are not guilty of unsanctioned shifting, that you have employed no probability device?"

"No," Lafayette replied stiffly. "That is not my contention. If you'd let me say something, I could tell you what my contention is."

"Say all you like, young fellow," Frumpkin acceded easily. "But I doubt you'll be able to say anything which will give the lie to the official recordings of your unexampled peregrinations." He tapped the papers he held in one hand. "It's all here, lad. I'm merely giving you an opportunity to demonstrate whatever vestigial sense of social responsibility you may possess, by speaking up manfully, to confess the part you've played in this gigantic crime."

"Speaking of crimes," Lafayette came back hotly. "What about kidnapping?"

"You wish to confess to a kidnapping?" Grossfarb put in gingerly.

"No. He's the kidnapper," O'Leary corrected, pointing at Frumpkin. "He's holding Daphne in a ... place."

"What place?" Grossfarb demanded.

"Sort of a vague place," Lafayette explained. "A big, misty-gray room, full of easy chairs and a big control console."

"Where is this curious installation?" the judge asked patiently.

"That's what I want to know!" Lafayette yelled. "Look, make him tell you, and we can go there and free poor Daphne—or Dame Edith, or whatever name she goes by here!"

"This person employs an alias?" Grossfarb asked coldly.

"No—it's not really Daphne, maybe, just her alter ego in this locus."

The gavel banged like a pistol shot. "It is my duty to caution you, O'Leary, that what you say will be used against you," the judge stated implacably. "Tampering with interlocal weather is a serious violation of the GRC, as you doubtless know."

"Ask the prisoner," Frumpkin put in lazily, "if he has ever visited this curious place he speaks of, and if he has indeed seen evidence of any crime there."

"Not exactly," Lafayette conceded. "It's just that sometimes things go all wivery, and then I'm there-only sometimes I'm not really there; it's just sort of a vision."

"That's enough, O'Leary," Grossfarb said coldly. "You may step down."

"Don't forget the charge I brought, Your Honor," Frumpkin spoke up, intercepting O'Leary. "Perhaps you'd best throw yourself on the mercy of the court."

"For what?" Lafayette demanded.

"Look about you," Frumpkin suggested with a wave of his hand. "The entire landscape stands as mute testimony to your infamy. Look upon a dead world, Mr., er, that is, Sir Lafayette. Look and know that you are responsible."

"Why me?" Lafayette countered. "All I did was try to stay alive, while one disaster after another hit me. If you ask me, it's some of those sharpies at Prime who got things all messed up."

"Those sharpies at Prime," Frumpkin muttered, jotting a note. "I think you'll find perfect candor your best and only hope, Sir Lafayette."

"All right—but tell me one thing first: Is Daphne all right? Did she get away from Aphasia before it dissolved? I tried to find her, but I'd barely started when someone shanghied me off to some mixed-up locus where a phony sheriff locked me up for nothing!"

"But you didn't stay locked up, did you, my boy?" Frumpkin asked rhetorically. "You departed the locus by some means as yet unknown, causing an additional temporal anomaly of Class Three. Explain your innocence of that, sir, if you can." Frumpkin looked triumphant.

"I don't know anything about any temporal anomaly," O'Leary replied doggedly. "I did what I had to do to protect myself and my partner from a work-over with the rubber hoses. Anyway, what harm did it do? All it did was put me in another batch of trouble somewhere else."

"What harm?" Frumpkin echoed musingly. "Look about you, sir. You perceive a world in its deaththroes, its mountains eroded to mere hillocks, its seas distributed evenly over its leveled surface to an average depth of three inches. This"—he made a sweeping gesture— "is one of the few habitable patches. Arid it was the blue-green jewel in the crown of the Supreme!"

"That's ridiculous," Lafayette countered. "How could using an ordinary flat-walker one time cause all that?"

"Flat-walker, eh?" Frumpkin turned to look intently at Lafayette as if to detect any deviation from strict veracity. "Used it only once, you claim?"

"Oh, I may have used it a few times before that," O'Leary conceded vaguely. "But I haven't used it since. I had an idea it was having bad side effects."

"You call the abortion of the destiny of a galaxy a side effect?" Frumpkin barked. "Remember the folk wisdom which tells us that for lack of a valve core, a tire was lost; for want of a tire, a ground-car was lost; for want of a ground-car, an order was lost; for want of orders, an army was lost; for want of an army a war was lost; for want of a victory an empire was lost; for want of a government, a culture was lost; for lack of a culture, a planet was lost, etcetera, etcetera; a system, a galaxy with a great destiny—and at last that destiny was lost—and all for want of a valve core! From trivial causes mighty repercussions result!"

"Oh, you're talking about my little slip with the Great Bear—or the Great Unicorn, as it is now."

"Tell me all about it, my lad," Frumpkin said silkily. "And perhaps a way may yet be found to obtain a reprieve for you."

"It was unintentional," Lafayette protested. "I was only thinking 'what if; I didn't really try to do anything."

"So, you destroy a great galactic destiny without even trying," Frumpkin paraphrased in a sardonic tone. He took O'Leary's arm and led him aside a few feet, out of hearing of Marv and Tode who waited uncomfortably by the door, peering out along the shadowy corridor of the half-ruined building.

"Clearly," Frumpkin whispered hoarsely, "we've underestimated you, Sir Lafayette, with tragic results. However, it's not too late to salvage something from the wreckage. Work with me, my boy, and we shall yet stand alone together. I'm no glutton; I'll share with a worthy confederate—together, I say, on the pinnacle of the reconstituted Temple of Glory at Nuclear City, with all the worlds at our feet! With your mind alone, you said? Coupled with the entropic equipment at my disposal, nothing can stand against us!" He thrust out a calloused but well-manicured hand, which O'Leary avoided.

"I have no ambition to rule any galaxies," he replied. "I just want to find Daphne and go home. Where is the gray room?"

"Greedy, eh? All or nothing at all for you, is it? But it won't do, O'Leary. Without my help, you haven't a chance; and I admit freely that without your native powers, my own victory is uncertain. But as reasonable men, surely we can resolve any points of contention to our mutual advantage. After all, the manifold is so unimaginably immense, no one can so much as conceive it, much less exploit all its potentialities for pleasure. I shall be content to be ostensibly the junior partner, unobtrusive to a fault. To you alone shall go the glory, the triumphal processions, the booze, the broads, the luxury goods, the great estates. I myself am a humble chap at heart. Give me one or two outlying galaxies of my own, and I'll be content to retire there in obscurity. I give you my word! The solemn word of a Council Member!"

"You've got me wrong," Lafayette persisted. "I'm not interested in parades or real estate: I want Daphne."

"And you shall have her, sir, be she never so cold to your attractions. She shall be placed at your feet—or in your bed, bound hand and foot, or however you desire her. She shall be your willing slave!"

"Who do you think you are?" O'Leary demanded hotly, "to be offering a countess who also happens to be my wife as a sort of door prize, as if she belonged to you?"

"She does, my lad, she does," Frumpkin returned coolly. "She and all else in this entire manifold of loci. You see, I invented her and all the rest. I, and I alone, evoked this reality phase from the infinity of the potential into realization! Who am I, you ask? Know, then, intrusive flea in the pelt of my high and mightiness, that I am the Supreme, creator and owner of this All! As such, I honor you by engaging you in personal converse."

"Why?" O'Leary demanded. "Why me?"

"Simply because you are the one intrusive element in all my worlds. You alone do not belong here, and great has been the annoyance of your presence. How dare you, petty creature, thrust your minimal ego, unwanted, into that which I created utterly?" Frumpkin had worked himself up into a state of pink-faced rage as he spoke. When he paused, Lafayette said:

"I didn't dare, if that's any consolation to you: I stumbled into this mess by accident."

"So ..." Frumpkin mused, seeming mollified. "And yet, to do this, to cross over the energy barrier between my evocation and the rest of, shall we say 'natural', creation, you must of necessity possess some secret the which you must divulge to me alone. I command you to speak of it to none other, on pain of pain, I mean on death of death; that is, on pain of death, death utter and final across all the worlds!" Frumpkin stood glaring at Lafayette and breathing heavily.

"That's easy," O'Leary replied insouciantly. "I can't divulge it to anybody. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Pah! You think thus easily to escape the full fruits of your inconceivable audacity?" Frumpkin spat, with plenty of spit.

"Beats me," Lafayette said offhandedly. "What are you talking about, anyway?"

Sheriff Tode's voice occluded Frumpkin's sputtering reply. "Somethin' funny going on in there, feller," he said casually, having come up beside Lafayette. "Big gray room, full of smoke, like. Weird-looking bunch in there—and I seen Cease—and that Doc feller was goin' to put me under arrest, and old Marv is givin' some kinda speech—and funny thing is, they're listenin'."

Ignoring Frumpkin's expostulations, Lafayette moved over to peer in through a ragged opening in the stained tarp which constituted the facade of the improvised structure. Inside, grouped incongruously in the center of the cavernous room, he saw Lord Trog, waist-high and whiskery, thrusting for position between the iron-clad bulk of Duke Bother-Be-Damned and the dumpy form of Mary Ann Gorch. Beyond, he glimpsed her boss Clyde, and Sergeant Dubose, minus his helicopter, as well as Fred and Les, all craning for a better view of Marv, who looked impressive in his scarlet doorman's outfit. He was standing on a box, haranguing them:

"... do like I tole you. Everything's jake. I got him right here, and all you got to do is hang loose and I'll con him right in here into the grabfield just like I conned him alia way from the Big Muddy!"

"Sold out," Lafayette said mournfully to Tode, who nodded portentously. "Never did trust that Marv," he confided. "Too slick, had shifty eyes, and didja ever notice how his eyebrows grows right acrost, all in one piece, like? Sure signs o' the criminal type, never fails."

"Why did you wait until now to mention it?" O'Leary asked dazedly.

"Figgered he was yer sidekick; a feller don't like to hear nothing like that about his sidekick. Remines me: Old Cease is right in there listenin' hard, more'n he ever done when I was talkin'."

"Shhh," O'Leary whispered. "I want to hear the rest."

"... all know yer jobs," Marv was reminding his listeners. "All we got to do is nail him and sit tight. And, you, Troglouse," he addressed the whiskery runt, "none o' yer tricks. This O'Leary, he claims his name is now, he's got more slick ones up his sleeve than you ever hearn on! Now, how about it, folks?" Marv returned his attention to the entire group. "Are we agreed we got to lay this here Allegorus by the heels, onct and fer all? Yeah!" His voice was briefly drowned by an enthusiastic yell from the crowd. "So, come on, let's go an get him!" Marv jumped down from his podium and bulled through the throng which fell in behind him and headed determinedly directly toward Lafayette.

"Better take cover for the nonce," Frumpkin said. "What's that he called you? But you can't—" he broke off and dashed down the steps just as Marv emerged, hand outstretched, crying, "Al, baby, come on inside: I wancha to meet some swell folks here. They got a big welcome laid on fer us. Seems like we're some kinda celebrities, like, and all. By the way," he added, more casually, "grab that skunk." He pointed at the retreating figure of Frumpkin, who had abandoned the catwalk and was making for the rickety, top-heavy structure adjacent to the Palace of Justice. The eager beavers, among whom Lafayette noted Marv's old partner Omar, were hot on the heels of the Man in Black, but as they approached the open framework of battered timbers, their pace slackened and they stood silently in the mud and watched as Frumpkin splattered his way to a fragile-looking ladder and began a cautious ascent. Judge Grossfarb arrived on the scene and took charge:

"Now all you folks stand back there. Form up a circle, like, round this here spook-hole."

"Methinks yon Man in Black clambers to his doom indeed," the bass voice of Bother spoke up at O'Leary's elbow, sounding somewhat winded. "Aroint thee, Sir Lafayette," he went on, "tis a parlous day when gentlefolk are jostled by mean villeins in haste to their demise."

"I always wondered what 'aroint thee' means, Your Grace," Lafayette informed the duke. "Perhaps you'd be so kind as to tell me."

"Beats me, laddy-buck," Bother dismissed the query. "But in sooth it hath a right knightly ring to it. I always like to throw in a 'stap me', or a 'zounds' now and then to impress the yokels. Makes 'em more tractable—or so my old papa tole me afore he croaked."

"Duke," Lafayette said earnestly. "We have to lay that Frumpkin by the heels. He's dangerously insane. He thinks he's God."

"Indeed? Why, the miscreant thinks to outrank me, it doth appear," Bother replied indignantly.

"It's even worse than that," O'Leary said. "He's out to conquer the world—or all the worlds."

"Forsooth, he be no man of war," the duke objected doggedly. "And of liegemen hath he none. And if he should win to the Demon Chamber yonder, and fall not from the scaffold, we'll see him no more; for he'll to the infernal regions instanter, and we'll be well rid of him."

"Your Grace," O'Leary addressed the armored duke solemnly. "We have need to speak in private to him. We can't let him escape. I'm going after him. Will you dare the Demon Chamber with me?"

The duke declined, pointing out that suicide by going voluntarily into the clutch of demons was not required by knightly honor. "... And I urge you, Sir Lafayette, to stay your hand. Together we can yet bring order to this rabble scum, recoup my manor, and live out our days as befits noblemen."

"Sorry," Lafayette said, starting to press his way through the rank of awed yokels gaping at Frumpkin's slow and unsteady progress upward toward his unthinkable doom.

"Hey, Al," Marv's voice came to O'Leary's ears over the babble of the crowd. "Wait up; I'm coming."

Lafayette turned to see his recent denouncer hurrying toward him, face aglow. He turned away, but a moment later Marv was at his side, excitedly recounting his experiences of the last few moments.

"I fooled 'em good, Al," he boasted. "Got 'em all worked up on a wild-goose chase."

"I heard," Lafayette told him tonelessly. "And the wild goose is me. Thanks a lot."

"You don't get it, Al," Marv protested. "None of 'em don't know what you look like, so you're safe as can be, long's you don't let on. I hadda tell 'em sumpin'; they was about to string me up."

"I don't suppose it matters," Lafayette conceded. "I noticed they weren't paying me any attention. But that fellow on the ladder: he's the one we have to nail. I think he's at the bottom of this whole affair."

"He's gettin' away," Marv stated, slowing. He pointed; Frumpkin had reached the relative security of a raftlike platform slung beneath the top-floor room, and was fumbling at something on its underside. Lafayette forged ahead, Marv complaining at his heels.

Reaching the ladder, which at close range looked even less dependable than from a distance, being crudely lashed-up of well-rotted lengths of scrap two-by-four, Lafayette started up without hesitation. Above, Frumpkin looked down at him, his pinched face pale in the shadow.

"Get back, fool!" he croaked. "You don't know the potency of the forces with which you seek to meddle."

"No, but I intend to find out, with your help," Lafayette returned, sounding more cheerful than he felt. Only a dozen feet from Frumpkin now, he could see a hinged panel set in the rough flooring between the black and cobwebbed joists. Frumpkin returned his attention to his efforts to open the rusted hasps as Lafayette gained the narrow platform. He looked down. Marv was at the base of the ladder, looking upward with an unreadable expression on his meaty features.

"Better hold on a minute, Al," Marv called in a cautious tone, as if he didn't want to overhear himself. "Fella wants to see ya."

"I can't guarantee anything, Marv," Lafayette replied. Off to his right, Frumpkin had succeeded in raising the panel in the plank floor above him and was starting through. For a moment O'Leary considered using the flat-walker to present the megalomaniacal Man in Black with a shock when he completed his climb up into the sealed chamber.

Nope, he told himself firmly. I decided to stop using it, and I'm sticking with that decision.

"Hey, you, feller, come on down here now," a beefy voice called from below. Lafayette looked down, saw the gross, hounds-tooth-check figure of Chuck glaring up at him over the sights of a fat black automatic pistol which he was holding with both hands in a position which allowed O'Leary to see the rifling inside the barrel.

"I'm sorry about your costumes, Chuck," Lafayette improvised, "but it was an emergency. Would you mind aiming that thing elsewhere? You couldn't want any holes in your fancy suit, remember."

The pistol came down. Chuck tried an ingratiating expression reminiscent of Dracula approaching a bared throat.

"Guess you and me better talk," he said. "Never mind about Ga—or Frumpkin I guess you call him. We can see about him later on."

"We'll talk, all right," O'Leary said hotly. "Start with the gray room: Where is it? What were you doing there?"

"Never played no Gray Room, Mister," Chuck demurred. "Lousy name for a night spot, anyways."

"I saw you there," Lafayette charged. "You looked as if you were taking orders from Frumpkin. Where is it?"

"You claim you seen me there, you orter know where it's at," Chuck pointed out reasonably.

"Where it is," O'Leary corrected briefly. "I wasn't really there; I just saw it."

"Oh, you have visions do ye?" Chuck chortled. "Sorry, bub, I can't use no palm-reader in the act."

"Don't you go going soft, Charles," the harsh voice of Chick came from offside. Lafayette looked over his shoulder and saw the hard-faced woman, her wig awry, climbing to the scaffolding a few feet away. She gripped a small nickle-plated .735, aimed at Lafayette's right knee.

"Go on, git down there," the lady added. "And this corn-popper ain't much, but at this range it'd smart some."