The Galaxy Builder (23 page)

            "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."