The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Six

As O'Leary rounded a sharp turn in the rude path, he heard voices ahead—high pitched, almost squeaky voices:

"... only got a lousy one-percent droppage allowance."

"... three jumps and a slide outside our A-O Zone, and how we're gonna get back—"

"Never mind all that, Squirrely, I'm in charge o' this detail," a deeper voice cut in. "Hold it. We're closing fast."

Lafayette and Marv ducked aside into the concealment of a mass of foliage. At first he thought it was Trog: a stocky little man in worn leathers, carrying an immense backpack and wearing a jaunty red cap adorned with a bedraggled white owl's feather, appeared on the path ahead. He was frowningly studying a compass, which he shook repeatedly in an irritated manner.

"Damn that know-all Pinchcraft," he muttered. "I told him he was weak on theory on this one. 'Don't give it a thought, Roy', he says to me. 'I personally guarantee the tagalong out to six parameters, anyway'. Nuts and bolts! According to this thing, we're practically falling over him right now—and all I see is more o' this lousy poison-ivy patch!"

"Sprawnroyal!" O'Leary cried and burst forth squarely in the little man's path. The dwarf recoiled; then, seeing Lafayette's face, grinned from one oversized ear to the other and advanced to embrace him.

"Slim O'Leary, as I live and breathe!" he gasped. Then, turning to his companions who now formed a huddle like a cluster of gargoyles, "Boys, meet my old pal Sir Lafayette, which he's a right guy even if he is built like a beanpole." He gave Lafayette an abashed look. "Sorry, Slim, you know it ain't like me to, like, draw attention to a fella's build and all. I know there's some might think us boys from Ajax were a little on the sawed-off side our own selfs. Glad to see you, Slim! But what are you doing in this neck o' the woods? Meet the boys:. Squirrely, Casper, and Rugadoon—Security Section, you know."

O'Leary shook three calloused hands and asked how things were back at the Ajax Novelty Works.

"Slow," Roy admitted gravely. "Frankly, Slim, we ain't never really what ya might say recovered from the trimming Prince Krupkin gave us on the Glass Tree job. Which reminds me—" He slapped pockets, found and extracted a small note pad which he rifled, then applied a stubby forefinger to a well-scribbled page.

"Slim, you remember old Flimbert, our security boss. Well, he's got a bee in his bonnet you still got equipment issued on a short-turn trial basis. He's nuts, I told him so myself. I remember when you turned in the two-man rug and the blackout cloak and all. Still, Flimbert says we're spose to bring you in. Pretty silly, eh?"

"Not really," Lafayette admitted. "It seems I advertently failed to turn in the flat-walker—left it in an inside pocket of a garment I don't wear much."

"Oh, no sweat, Slim. Hand it over and we'll be on the way." Roy studied the compasslike device in his hand. "This thing is still giving us a bum steer," he said. "According to this, I'm face-to-face with Commercial Enemy Number One, Slim, and there's nobody here but you." Sprawnroyal scratched his head, his lumpy features registering deep puzzlement. He turned to his friends. "Well boys, I'm stumped," he admitted. "Any ideas?"

"Sure, Roy," Squirrely replied promptly. "Put the arm on this old pal of yours, and we can be back in time for late chow."

"What, me pinch my own old comrade?" Roy demurred in a shocked tone.

"Actually," Lafayette said, "the idea isn't wholly reprehensible, Roy; I could use some chow myself—and frankly, I'd like to get out of this silly 'mission' I'm supposed to be on."

"That's very reasonable of you, Slim," Roy said. "Better a cosy cell back at the plant than this wilderness, eh? Let's go." He turned to Casper. "How's it look, Cas old boy?"

Casper shook his head dolefully. "Still can't get a reading, Roy," he reported glumly. "We must be outa emergency range, too." He pocketed the instrument he had been holding in his hand, its dials all frozen at null reading.

Roy turned to Lafayette. "We got a little problem area here, Slim," he said sorrowfully. "We shifted out with the new Mark II phase coordinator, a tagalong, you know. Spose to stick like a burr. Brand-new model. Frankly, the Mark I had bugs, and now it looks like maybe the Mark II ain't much better. Shifted us out OK, but now it acts like it don't wanta work—like, no power—and it drawing direct from the Primary grid, too. Don't figger."

"Things are screwy all over," Lafayette replied. "I was just sitting in the garden with Daphne—you remember Daphne—and suddenly we were here, and I haven't seen her since."

"Tough," Roy commiserated. "Swell looker, too, if you like 'em that high—and I know you do. Built, too. Well, why not look around for her. She probably just went back inside the palace, eh?"

"There's no palace," Lafayette reported. "Just ruins. Except for the tower—"

"That's it!" Roy cut in. "We duck up to the old lab and get Central on the hook."

"No go." Lafayette shook his head. "It's guarded by two or more sets of morons that are afraid to go near it and won't let anybody inside."

"This ain't good, Slim," Roy conceded. "When I seen you, I figgered we were home safe, but if you're as lost as we are ..."

"Same here," Lafayette agreed. "I assumed you could use one of those neat Ajax gadgets you fellows manufacture and get me out of here—but I can't really leave until I've found Daph, and I've already lost track of Aphasia I, the locus I last saw her in. This is Aphasia II."

"Have you tried focusing the old psychical energies, like you usta?" Roy cut in eagerly. "Maybe you could get back and get word to HQ to work up a Mark III and get us outa here."

"I've pulled off a few small tricks," Lafayette said. "I think. They could have been coincidences. But I can give it a try."

"Atta boy," Sprawnroyal said enthusiastically, clapping O'Leary on the back. "Go to it, kid, which me and the boys will wait right here for the relief party." He paused, frowning thoughtfully. "While you're there, maybe you could pass the word to Chief Pratwick that this Duke Whateveritis is as good as cuffed. As soon as we know we got a route outa here, we'll close in on him."

"Wait a minute," Lafayette interrupted. "What was that name again? Duke who?"

"Lessee." Roy pulled at his chin. "Kind of a screwy name: I guess I don't remember exactly. But the boys back at the lab have pinned enough on him to keep him on the treadmill for the next two glacial epochs."

"It wouldn't be Duke Bother-Be-Damned, I suppose," O'Leary offered.

"That's it! How'd you know, Slim? Lemme guess: you're on the same job, which is how you come to be out here outside o' your regular jurisdiction, like. No offence: we can use all the help we can get."

"Hold it," Lafayette cut in. "I wasn't sent here to nail this duke; that's something a local boss who calls himself General Frodolkin dreamed up. I'm supposed to lay this Duke Bother-Be-Damned by the heels, single-handed, and I don't even know where to find him."

"Frodolkin, huh? Seems to me like I heard the name." Roy got out his notebook and ran through it quickly. "Yep, here it is: ... a mythical figure known in many loci, regarded by some scholars as a personification of the antisocial impulse!"

"This one's real," Lafayette corrected. "He's a medium-tall cutthroat wearing a beatup Artesian uniform."

"Artesian, eh?" Roy looked thoughtful. "From your old stamping ground, eh, Slim? Maybe he came along when you switched lines."

"I doubt it," Lafayette replied. "First there was an even raunchier character named Trog. While I was in the Tower, Frodolkin ran him off, apparently."

"I heard that, Al!" the familiar voice of Trog cried from the underbrush. "Get them hands up, all you guys!" Trog swaggered into view, a gang of unshaven louts twice his height at his heels. He halted at the sight of Roy and his entourage.

"Well, if it ain't my old pal, Sprawnie hisself," he declaimed, striding forward to offer a calloused palm to the astonished Ajax rep, who jumped back.

"You!" Roy exclaimed. "Troglouse III! A deserter! Grab him, boys!" As the three little men leaped to seize the other little man, the latter's troops stepped in and laid about them with knouts, driving them back. Lafayette grabbed the club from the hands of one of the attackers and laid it across its owner's head; then the world exploded in white light. The light faded to a featureless gray. "Not again," Lafayette groaned, getting to his feet long enough to. collapse into the chair Frumpkin had occupied on his last ghostly dream-visit. Then Daphne approached out of dimness, carrying a bulldog pipe in one hand, a pair of outrageously beaded scarlet slippers in the other. She came close, hardly glancing at O'Leary. He started up, calling her name. She seemed not to hear, but looked around in a confused way.

"If you're looking for Frumpkin, Daph, he just stepped out," O'Leary said harshly. "What's the matter? Why won't you look at me?" Lafayette caught a glimpse of a tear on her cheek as she turned away. Then the dimness deepened into full dark, and Lafayette was sitting up, muttering her name and shaking his head to clear it. An unshaved lout loomed before him and swung a hamlike fist. Thereafter, Trog's men quickly surrounded their diminutive chief, holding Squirrely, Roy, Casper, and Rugadoon at bay.

"I guess we'll do all the grabbing that's gonna be done around here," Trog yelled when order had been restored. He eyed O'Leary sourly where he lay on the grass, his head still spinning.

"Whatta you doin' loose, Al?" he inquired aggrievedly. "I tole Marv to lock you in the slammer."

"He did, milord, he did," Lafayette reassured the irate fellow. "But I got bored, so I left."

"And all the time you had a meet set up with this bunch of spoilsports," Trog accused.

"No, we just happened to meet here on the trail," Lafayette corrected.

"I don't believe in coincidences," Trog declared, looking around defiantly. His eye fixed on Roy. "How about it, Sprawnie, do you say you just happened to meet this character by accident?"

"Well," Roy said reluctantly. "Not entirely. You see, we were following a new Mark II tagalong, and it led us right to him."

"Ha!" Trog barked. "The way I remember the Mark 1, it had more bugs than a four-bit flop. Old Doc Pinchcraft goofed on that one!"

"Right," Roy agreed, "but the Mark II is a great improvement."

"You small-timers still scratching a living working for rubes like old Krupkin?" Trog inquired genially.

"Only as a sideline," Roy corrected. "We've recently entered into a wide-scope contract with a personage of vast importance, like they say, to handle state security. That's why we're here, actually—on a bum lay, it looks like. We were after the Number One Public Enemy of all times, and all we found was Slim here, which he's a nice kid," he added in a lower, more confidential tone. "Only he ain't got the brains to be Big Time."

"Don't tell me about the fabled Allegorus," Trog huffed. "I'm the one nailed him coming outa his tower, ain't I? So he belongs to me. You boys'll hafta find yourselfs another pigeon."

O'Leary was taking deep breaths to clear his head. He was only half-feigning semiconsciousness now, meanwhile listening to the dispute between the two diminutive men.

"... big shot around here!" Trog was declaring.

"I heard some fellow named Frodolkin had thrown you out of office," Roy countered.

"That crum-bum!" Trog snarled. "After I set things to rights again, I'll string him up by his heels and esplain the arrow of his ways to him with the cat-o'-nine-tails— two teams working in relays. He'll be worry he ever seen this place."

"Trog," Roy said in a more kindly tone, "do you ever regret the way you sold out Ajax and made off with classified materials?"

"Naw," Trog said firmly. "Anyways, I never made off with no secret stuff, nor no plans and specs neither."

"Then, how'd you get here, three octaves outside your own A-O zone?"

"It was screwy," Trog said. "I was onna trail, headin' for a big time in Port Miasma, and all of a sudden I run smack into a swamp where no swamp oughta be."

Lafayette's attention wandered, and he dropped off into a sound sleep. It seemed hours later when Sprawnroyal's hoarse voice at close range penetrated his lazy dreams of ease and comfort back home in Artesia:

"... you're too big to lug, Slim. So, come on, wake up now while we got a chanct, and let's check this out. This could be the break we been waiting for."

O'Leary opened his eyes and winced at the throb in his skull. He fingered a lump the size of a walnut above his ear. Slowly, he got to his feet. Trog, trussed from neck to ankles in stout new hemp rope, lay beside a small campfire. Around it Squirrely, Casper, and Rugadoon, bruised but cheerful, sat eating enthusiastically from small cans.

"I had a nice talk with old Trog, here," Roy told Lafayette comfortably. "I think maybe we gotta way outa this mess after all." He paused to hand Lafayette two of the small cans from his bulky backpack. "Better chow down now, Slim," he suggested. "Once we get moving, there won't be no time."

"What are you going to do?" Lafayette asked, dipping into a can of swamp-pheasant fricassee. "Good," he commented.

"Right; what we figger is a man on a tough field job needs class eats to keep up the old morale," Roy confided. "Now, you know how to triangulate, Slim, check out what parts of a locus match up with your baseline, and calibrate how far out you are, locus-wise, from where you was at when you begun."

"I've never done the calculations," Lafayette replied, "but I understand the principle. For example, we can figure Aphasia II is very close to Aphasia I, where Daphne's lost, on the basis of the similarities in the landscape, plus personnel. Trog, for example."

Roy shook his head. "Trog's a bad example, Slim. This here's the same Trog you run into before, not a analog. But you're right; you're still in the same A-range as where you lost Daphne at. But where's that at? Huh? How close are we to the Artesia range? That's a little tougher; we got to fall back on topography. Like, in Artesia, you got a desert, a dry lake bed, west o' town. Then in Melange, it's still a lake, and farther in the same direction, just in the next range, you got a bay, a arm o' the sea: that's Colby Corners and all, your old home town before you came to Artesia. So here we got a saltwater swamp. Looks like a little tectonic activity has pushed up a ridge and cut the bay off, and here it's partly drained. In Melange it's turned into a freshwater lake: The swamp never formed because the ridge wasn't that high there; so with the springs at the bottom, plus rainfall, you got a lake. In Artesia, it drained and there was a spillway open in the ridge, so it went dry and you got a desert. The swamp here puts us off on a tangent to our direct route back to the Artesia/Melange wide-range."

"How do we get back?" O'Leary cut in impatiently. "At least to Aphasia I, if not to Artesia?"

"There's things I can't tell you, Slim—security, you know," Roy said apologetically. "Your best bet is still the old psychical energies. Casper's got the emergency gear in his pack, which we ain't allowed to use it except in case of what they call a 'dire emergency'. But don't worry: If we hafta pull the chain, we'll get back to you ASAP, and whip you outa here. So why don't you just go ahead and give it a try? It'll be tricky, you being outside your primary range this time and all. But what the heck: Maybe you can do it. Good luck, and I'll see you back at Ajax which we'll hoist a few in memory o' this contretemps, which we'll have a good laugh when it's over."

"Yes, but what about Daphne?" Lafayette countered.

"One thing at a time, Slim." Roy fell silent, cocking his head. "On your feet, boys," he ordered quietly. "You can come too, Slim," he added. "Listen, they're tryna sneak up on us. Hear that?"

As a twig cracked loudly, the small foursome shouldered packs and disappeared into the surrounding underbrush. Lafayette picked up a club dropped during the brief battle with Trog's bodyguard and waited, watching the spot whence the sounds had emanated, as the twilight deepened.

"Hi, Al," Marv's voice broke the stillness. He pushed into view, brushing twigs and leaf mold from his tattered garments.

"I been laying low, waiting for a chanst to duck in and rescue ya and all," he confided. "I guess now's the time, huh, while them little devils is out of sight."

Lafayette handed Marv the second can of food. "Have some lunch," he said. "The little fellows are friends of mine," he went on. "But that doesn't make your rescue efforts any less appreciated."

"Oh." Marv looked crestfallen. "They looked pretty rough and tough," he explained. "And the way they turned the tables and cleaned up on Fred and Lump-Lump and Omar was what ya might say impressive."

"A natural mistake," Lafayette agreed. "But now we have to hurry up and catch up with them. They're my only link to Artesia and Aphasia One."

"Sure, Chief," Marv acceded, finishing his can of food. He looked at the label doubtfully before tossing it aside.

"No littering," Lafayette said severely. "But with the whole kingdom in ruins, I don't suppose it really matters."

"Sure, boss," Marv said complacently. "By the way, I never had peaner butter with olives before." He belched comfortably. "Wondered what it was. Pretty good at that. O' course, hungry as I was, boiled harness woulda tasted good."

Lafayette led the way down the path, expecting to catch sight of the pack-laden Ajax crew at the first bend. But rounding the turn, he saw only more path stretching ahead into deep shade. He accelerated his pace, his feet slipping on the damp soil underfoot. Marv, at his heels, complained.

"Fer crine inta yer homemade soup, Chief, we can't keep up no gallop like this. Take it easy."

Lafayette ignored him, intent on closing the gap. There were puddles in the path now. Through gaps in the foliage pressing close on the tunnellike path, Lafayette caught glimpses of moonlight reflected on water. At the same time, the path underfoot had grown steadily soggier. He splashed on, Marv trailing at a distance.

An hour later, winded, he sat on a stump to wait for Marv to catch up, wheezing and holding his short ribs.

"Cripes, Mine Fewher," Marv complained. "I think I busted sumpin'. I got a side-ache like a mule kicked me. Okay if we rest awhile, bwana?"

"We've lost them, Marv," Lafayette said bleakly. "I was a fool not to follow at once. They probably scattered, now that I think of it, and in this jungle we'll never find a sign of them."

Marv sighed with relief as he flopped down full-length on the soggy path. "In that case, sahib, we can take it easy," he commented and at once began to snore.

O'Leary envied the simple fellow; he closed his eyes, experienced a moment of disorientation, and was back in the big gray room. He heard Frumpkin's angry voice:

"... tell you what to do. I've explained the consequences, you little idiot! If you'd any sense, you'd leap at my generous offer!"

There was a sudden flurry, and Daphne darted past his chair; before he could get to his feet, she was gone. Lafayette dropped back into the padded seat, which suddenly seemed harder than before. He squirmed, failed to find a comfortable position, then realized he was sitting on a rotting stump, his feet cold and wet.