The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Pity, Lafayette. The stress of the juxtaposition was too much. Her vital energy has merged with her other self, beyond the barrier. Wave good-bye, lad. You're fated never to touch her again."

"Hard lines, Slim," Roy comforted O'Leary. "Nice dame, but now we still got a problem. Think hard: Focus the Psychical Energies one more time."

It's easy, Lafayette told himself. All I have to do is realize that this is Lord Marvelous' doing, and it's not binding—not if I can just think. What should I do? He looked up to meet Nicodaeus' sympathetic gaze.

"Look carefully, Lafayette," the older man said. "Can you find something, some tiny flaw that will invalidate this almost-world, and allow your own vision to emerge into full reality?"

Beyond Nicodaeus, Lafayette saw Marv and Frumpkin with their heads together.

After all, he informed himself doggedly, it's only their world view against mine. They believe in lies and treachery, and I don't. It's up to me to be right. I have to be right^!.

"What is it, Lafayette?" Nicodaeus broke in on his thought. "Have you noticed something that would tend to discredit the actuality of this construct?"

"The facade of the real palace is perfect," O'Leary replied, his eyes fixed on a small but unsightly scar on the polished pink marble slab inside the ballroom entrance. He walked across to it.

"Laugh, honey," a feminine voice came from behind Lafayette. He turned. Mickey Jo, slim and radiant in a trim white uniform with gold shoulder boards, was hurrying toward him across the lawn.

"I don't suppose it's important," she went on, "but my conscience got to bothering me. Remember when I put your pocket stuff in your new suit, back in the motel? Well, I kept something as sort of a souvenir, you know, to remember you by and all. Just a pebble. I figured it wasn't worth anything and if I asked you about it you'd throw it away. So I kept it. Now, it came to me I ought to give it back." She extended her hand, on which rested a lump of pink marble, polished on one side. Lafayette remembered picking it up and casually dropping it in his pocket long ago, before Trog's throne.

"Is it your lucky stone?" Mickey Jo asked wistfully. Lafayette took the bit of rock, turned and fitted it into the raw wound on the wall before him. It seated perfectly, leaving not even a visible seam. At that instant, a subtle change came over the scene. Behind Mickey Jo, Lafayette saw Daphne hurrying toward him.

"I guess it was," he said as Daphne's fog-soft hair brushed his face and his lips met hers.

The End

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