Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [139]
"That's the spirit! Now stand fast, Lorenzo, and I'll try this thing out. Let's see, Pinchcraft said to orient it with the long axis coinciding with my long axis, and the smooth face parallel to the widest plane of my body, or vice versa . . ."
"I suppose this was all part of their torture plan," Lorenzo muttered, "to lock me in with a mental case. I should have known better than to get my hopes up. Poor Beverly. With me put away, there's no one to help her. She'll hold out for as long as she can, but in the end the ceaseless importuning of her captor combined with the prospects of ruling this benighted principality will erode her will, and—"
"I read the same book," Lafayette said. "It was lousy. How about bottling up your pessimism while I conduct a test." Lafayette fingered the flat-walker, found the small bump at the center, and pressed it.
Nothing happened. He peered disappointedly into the surrounding blackness.
"Damn!" Lafayette said with feeling. "But I guess that would have been too easy. We'll have to think of something else. Listen, Lorenzo: how high is this room? Maybe there's a hatch in the ceiling, and if one of us stood on the other's shoulders, we could reach it." He stood on tiptoes and reached as far overhead as he could, but touched nothing. He jumped, still found no ceiling.
"How about it?" he snapped. "Do you want to climb up on my shoulders, or shall I get on yours?"
There was no answer. Even the mice had stopped rustling.
"Speak up, Lorenzo! Or have you gone back to sleep?" He moved across toward the other's corner, feeling for the wall. After he had taken ten steps, he slowed, advancing cautiously. After five more steps, he halted.
"That's funny," he said in the circumambient darkness. "I thought the cell was only ten paces wide . . ."
He turned and retraced his steps, counting off fifteen paces, then went on another five, ten, fifteen steps. Abruptly, blinding light glared in his eyes. He blinked, squinting at what appeared to be a wall of featureless illumination, like the frosted glass over a light fixture. As he turned, the wall seemed to flow together; lines and flecks and blots of color appeared, coalesced into a normal though somewhat distorted scene: a dim-lit corridor, glass-walled, glass-floored, lined by heavy doors of black glass.
"I'm outside the cell!" he blurted. "It worked! Lorenzo—!" He turned, saw the walls expand as he did, stretching out into featurelessness, like a reflection in a convex mirror.
"Must be some effect of two dimensionality," he murmured. "Now, let's see—what direction did I come from?"
Squinting, he stepped hesitantly forward; the glare winked out to total darkness. He took fifteen paces and halted.
"Lorenzo," he hissed. "I made it!"
There was no answer.
"Oh—he probably can't hear me—or I can't hear him—with this gadget turned on . . ." Lafayette pressed the deactivating switch. There was no apparent change, except for the almost imperceptible sounds of moving air—and a muffled sob.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, buck up," Lafayette snapped. "Crying won't help!"
There was a startled intake of air.
"Lafe?" a familiar voice whispered. "Is it really you?"
Lafayette sniffed garlic? "Swinehild!" he gasped. "How did you get here?"
"Y-you told me not to follow you," Swinehild was saying five minutes later, having enjoyed a good cry while O'Leary patted her soothingly. "But I watched the gate and seen you come through. Happened there was a horse tied in front of a beer joint, so I ups and takes off after you. The feller on the ferry showed me which way you went. When I caught up with you, you was smack in the middle of a necktie party—"
"It was you that yowled like a panther!"
"It was all I could think of in a hurry."
"You saved my life, Swinehild!"
"Yeah. Well, I beat it out of there, and next thing I knew I was lost. I spent some time wandering around, and then my horse shied at something and tossed me off in a berry bush. When I crawled out of