Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [138]
"Jailbird, eh?" Lafayette panted, stalking the detestable voice. "You're a swell one to talk, sitting here in your cell—" He jumped, almost got a grip on an arm, saw stars as a fist connected with his eye.
"Keep your distance, you!" the voice barked. "Troubles enough I didn't have, they had to toss a homicidal maniac in with me!"
"You lured her out of the city with your sweet talk, just so you could turn her over to her aunt! I mean to the old bat who was fronting for Krupkin!"
"That's what Rodolpho thought—but once I'd seen her, I had no intention of taking her there, of course—not that it's any of your business!"
"Where were you taking her? To some little love-nest of your own?"
"As a matter of fact, yes, big nose. And I'd have made it, too, if something hadn't set that gang of mounted police swarming through the woods. We had to run for it, and as luck would have it, that long-legged sheik, Lord Chauncy, was out hunting and nabbed us."
"Oh. Well, maybe it's just as well. At least here she has a decent bed."
"Oh? What do you know about Bever—I mean, Lady Andragorre's bed?"
"Plenty. I just spent an exciting half-hour under it."
"You did say—under it?"
"Exactly. I overheard her fending off the advanced of that Chauncy character. I had my flying carpet—I mean my Mark IV personnel carrier—waiting right outside on the balcony. Just as I was about to whisk her away, the palace guard arrived."
"Yes, I warned Krupkin to keep an eye on Chauncy. Looks like they got there just in time, too!"
"Just too soon! I had her in my arms when they burst in on us—"
"Why, you—" An unseen body hurtled past O'Leary; he thrust out a foot and had the satisfaction of hooking an ankle solidly. The resultant crash went far to assuage the pain of his swelling eye.
"Listen, Lorenzo," Lafayette said, "there's no point in our flailing away at each other in the dark. Apparently we both have an interest in the welfare of Lady Andragorre. Neither of us wants to see her in Krupkin's clutches. Why don't we work together until she's safe and then settle our differences?"
"Work together, ha," Lafayette's unseen cellmate muttered from a point near the floor. "What's to work? We're penned in, empty-handed, in the dark. Unless," he went on, "you have something up your sleeve?"
"They cleaned me out," Lafayette said. "I had some dandy items: a two-way intercom sword, a blackout cloak, a fast-key, a fast-walker . . ." He paused, quickly felt for his belt. It was still in place. He unbuckled it, pulled it free, felt over the back, found the zipper tag there, pulled it.
"Hold everything, Lorenzo," he said tensely. "Maybe we're in business."
"What are you talking about?" the other came back in his pettish voice. "Swords? Keys? What we need is a charge of dynamite, or a couple of stout crowbars."
"I may have something better," Lafayette said, extracting a flat two-inch by one-inch rectangle of what felt like flexible plastic from its hiding place under the zipper. "They missed the flat-walker."
"What's a flat-walker?"
"According to Pinchcraft, it generates a field which has the effect of modifying the spatial relationships of whatever it's tuned to, vis-à-vis the exocosm. It converts any one-linear dimension into the equivalent displacement along the perpendicular volumetric axis, at the same time setting up a harmonic which causes a reciprocal epicentric effect, and—"
"How would you go about explaining that to an ordinary mortal?" Lorenzo interrupted.
"Well, it reduces one of the user's physical dimensions to near zero, and compensates by a corresponding increase in the density of the matter field in the remaining quasi-two-dimensional state."
"Better try the idiot version."
"It makes you flat."
"How is wearing a corset going to help us?" Lorenzo yelped.
"I mean really flat! You can slide right between the molecules of ordinary matter—walk through walls, in other words. That's why it's called a flat-walker."
"Good grief,