The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Eight

"Swell," O'Leary told himself half an hour —or half a lifetime—later. He had been resting quietly, waiting, making no furthur move; and still he hung suspended in the featureless glow which he knew was characteristic of half-phase, the anomalous pseudo-space between the loci of actualization. He was lost as he had never been lost before. Perhaps, if he sculled back the way he had come in his swift fish-dart... But Roy had said to stay put before he had faded out. Maybe he was still in the vicinity, but keeping quiet.

"Oh, Roy!" Lafayette shouted, and this time he heard an echo, faint and distant. Encouraged, he tried again. This time it was the hoarse voice of Sheriff Tode he heard:

"Whunder whut that feller meant about six weeks? Ain't got no six weeks to waste; got a 'lection comin' up."

The voice, O'Leary realized with relief, was no longer coming from within his own personal mind-volume. It was close, but external. Somehow he had unmerged himself from the irate peace officer.

"That's a start," he told himself. "Maybe Roy's working on it."

"Looky here, feller," Tode's voice spoke from what seemed to be a point approximately half an inch from Lafayette's left eye. "Let's make us a gentleman's agreement, like they say: You lay off the tricks and come on out whur I can see ye, and I'll put in a good word about your cooperation and all at the trial."

"Where are you, Sheriff?" Lafayette inquired desperately. "I can't see you—just hear you."

"Why, I'm right here, settin' on this here fancy settee, just like the feller told me. Said he'd be right back, but I got a feelin' I been tooken. By the way, feller, where have you got to? Hear ya but cain't see ya nowheres."

"That's too complicated to explain, Sheriff. Just sit tight and hope for the best," O'Leary said silently.

At that point Lafayette became aware of the distant mutter of voices, distinct from Tode's hoarse croak, near at hand; more like people arguing in the next room, he decided. He tried a move toward the sound, a flick of the tail which sent him gliding from the deep shadow under the lily pads out into the dazzling, diffuse glare of open water—or open something, he corrected, noting that his gills were pumping nicely, sluicing cool, oxygen-laden something over the absorptive membranes.

"—told you it's a ghost bogie on number seven," an aggrieved voice said loudly from across the room.

"And I said you better check the Manual; this could be a type nineteen, for all we know," someone answered sharply.

"Fruits and nuts. It's just another dumb exercise they forgot to put in the OD book."

"Just humor me, Fred: run a six-oh-two on it. Please? Pretty please wit' sugar on?"

The pellucid something dimmed, grew thicker.

Lafayette waved his limbs slowly until the now rapidly jelling medium immobilized him. He made a mighty effort, managed to thrust with his pectoral fins. Cracks opened across the solid medium in which he was suspended like a fly in amber.

"Got something here!" Fred's voice yelled. "Les, maybe you better get off a Class One after all: don't know if the field's gonna hold!"

"I'm way ahead of ya, Fred; got a net team on the way already."

"Seems OK now." Fred said more calmly. "Or maybe I lost it; don't feel nothing now ..."

Lafayette tried a tentative flick of the tail, was rewarded by a stab of pain from somewhere around the dorsal-fin area; he relaxed and the pain subsided, then became a steady pressure, tugging him in some undefinable direction. For a moment he went along, then made a sudden resolution: time to use the Psychical Energies.

He concentrated on the face of Daphne, her dark eyes and snub nose, her sweet lips and the delicate curve of her cheekbones. The lustrous dark hair ...

" 'Through the black of night, I gotta go where you are, ' " he hummed to himself. " 'And no place can be too far, where you are. Ain't no chains can bind me, if you live I'll find thee. Love is calling me. I gotta go where you are ..'."

"Lafayette?" Daphne's voice said uncertainly. O'Leary squinted through the gloom. It clarified into the familiar dimness of the gray room. Daphne was nowhere to be seen. Lafayette saw a door across the room, went to it, past big chairs arranged in conversational groups, from one of which a conversation was emanating:

"... too good of a offer to turn down," a harsh female voice was saying.

"Ain't saying it wasn't," a meaty male voice replied. "Only what guarantee we got?"

"You have my word," a voice that sounded like Marv's put in. "Hurry up," he added.

"Looky here," Meaty-Voice started, "we got— ouch! Don't go doing nothing like that feller! All's I said was—"

Lafayette reached the door, found it locked. Only then did he realize that he was no longer limited to swimming through gray Jello. He paused, considering: He no longer felt the pressure of the dim-glowing substance in which he was trapped. He thrust hard, burst through a membrane and lay gasping on a shaggy surface which, he realized, was a grassy bank sloping down to a mirror surface marred by ripples.

"Got him!" the gigantic voice of Les boomed out from far above.

"What is it?" Fred inquired in Olympian tones. "How'd it get into our Y-field anyway?"

"Probably one o' them," Les replied. "Just got a little too tricky for his own good. Let's get it up under the light and check it out."

The pain stabbed in Lafayette's back; he uttered a choked yell as the giant hook jerked him upward into blinding light where two large, homely faces peered down at him.

"Hooked from the outside," Les's voice said, issuing from the face on the left, the whiskery one. That meant the round face with warts belonged to Fred.

"Fred," Lafayette gasped, "Les. Help! I'm an innocent victim, not one of them."

"Les," Fred said casually. "Did you hear this thing say sumpin'?"

"Don't be silly," Les replied. "How could I of? Only folks can talk. Let's open it up and see what makes it tick."

Lafayette caught only a glimpse of a polished, razor-edged scalpel poised over him before the light winked out and he was back in pitch darkness. He waited, but no blow fell. He slept.