Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [146]
"On, no!" Lafayette prayed. "She won't be killed—she'll land on a balcony just below here!" He thrust his head out the window. In the deep gloom he barely made out a slim figure clinging to a straggly bush growing from the solid rock fifteen feet below.
"Swinehild! Hang on!" He threw a leg over the sill, scrambled quickly down the uneven rock face, reached the girl, caught her wrist, tugged her upward to a narrow foothold beside him.
"You little idiot!" he panted. "Why in the world did you do that?"
"Lafe . . . you . . . you come back for me," she quavered, her pale face smiling wanly up at him. "But . . . but that means her Ladyship is all alone . . ."
"Lorenzo's with her, blast him," Lafayette reassured her, aware suddenly of his precarious position, of the cold wind whipping at him out of the surrounding night.
"Lorenzo? Who's he?"
"The clown in the floppy hat. He has some fantastic notion that the Lady Andragorre is his girl friend, some creature named Beverly. He's probably bound for that love-nest he was on his way to when Krupkin's men grabbed him."
"Gee, Lafe—I'm getting kind of mixed up. Things have been happening too fast for me. I guess I wasn't cut out for a life in the big time."
"Me too," Lafayette said, looking up at the glassy wall above, then at the sheer drop below. He clutched his meager handholds tighter and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Which way do we go, Lafe?" Swinehild inquired. "Up or down?"
He tried a tentative move, slipped, grabbed, and clung, breathing shallowly so as not to disturb any boulders which might be delicately poised. The icy wind buffeted at him, whipped Swinehild's skirt against her legs.
"What we need," he said in a muffled voice, his face against the stone, "is a convenient door in the side of the mountain."
"How about that one over there?" Swinehild suggested as a tremor went through the rock under O'Leary.
"Where?" He moved his head cautiously, saw the small oak-plank door with heavy wrought-iron strap hinges set in a niche in the solid-rock wall ten feet to his left.
"We'll have to try," he gulped. "It's our only chance." He unclamped his aching fingers, edged a toe sideways, gained six inches. Five minutes of this painful progress gave him a grip on a tuft of weeds directly beside the door. He reached with infinite care, got his fingers on the latch.
"Hurry up, Lafe," Swinehild said calmly from behind him. "I'm slipping."
He tugged, lifted, pulled, twisted, pushed, rattled. The door was locked tight. He groaned.
"Why didn't I wish for an open door while I was at it?"
"Try knocking," Swinehild suggested in a strained voice.
Lafayette banged on the door with his fist, careless now of the pebbles dribbling away under his toe.
"No need to say good-bye again, I guess, Lafe," Swinehild said in a small voice. "I already done that. But it was sure nice knowing ya. You were the first fella that ever treated me like a lady . . ."
"Swinehild!" As her grip slipped, Lafayette lunged, caught her hand, clung. His own grip was crumbling—
There was a click and a creak from beside him; a draft of warm air flowed outward as the door swung in. A small, stocky figure stood there, hands on hips, frowning.
"Well, for Bloob's sake, come in!" Pinchcraft snapped. A calloused hand grabbed Lafayette, hauled him to safety; a moment later Swinehild tumbled in after him.
"H-h-how did you happen to be here?" O'Leary gasped, leaning against the chipped stone wall of the torchlit passage.
"I came with a crew to do a repossession." The Ajax tech chief bit the words off like hangnails. "The idea was to sneak up and grab before he knew what hit him."
"Sure glad you did, Cutie-pie," Swinehild said.
"Don't call me Cutie-pie, girl," Pinchcraft barked. He took out a large bandanna and mopped his forehead, then blew his nose. "I told Gronsnart he was an idiot to keep on making deliveries on an arrears account. But no: too greedy for a quick profit, that's the business office for you."
"You're taking over the Glass Tree?"
"This white brontosaur?