Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [150]
"Something simpler, then: what about a small, cheery blaze in the shelter of the rocks, there . . ." Goruble waved a hand at the curtain of falling snow.
"Why bother?" O'Leary gulped. "Why don't you just surrender, and I'll put in a good word for you with Mr. Pratwick . . ."
"Admit it!" Goruble leaned close to hiss the words. "You're impotent to interfere! You're as helpless as the clod you appear to be!"
"I am not," Lafayette said desperately. "I have all kinds of resources at my disposal!"
"Then let's see you get yourself extricated from that piece of rug you seem to be ensnarled in."
Lafayette pulled, twisted, wrenched; but it was no use. He was wrapped as tightly as a caterpillar in a cocoon. Goruble laughed happily.
"Capital! Oh, capital! I've had a nervous night for nothing! I don't know how it is you happen to have stumbled on my little base of operations here, Sir Lafayette, but there's no harm done after all. In fact . . ." He sobered suddenly, nodding. "I can see that a whole new dimension might be added to my plans, so to speak. Yes, why not? With the new data this development places at my disposal, why stop with Melange? Why not move on—expand my empire to encompass a whole matched set of worlds, eh? In the meantime—where's the elusive doxy you stole from me?"
"Where you'll never find her," Lafayette said.
"Reticent eh? Well, we'll soon correct that. Oh, we'll have long talks, my lad. My liegeman, Duke Rodolpho, retains a skilled interrogator in his employ, one Groanwelt by name, who'll soon wring your secrets from you!" Goruble whirled, bawled orders; red-coated men with ice in their eyelashes leaped forward to lift Lafayette to his feet, peel the frozen rug away—
"Hey—a dame!" a man blurted as Swinehild appeared from the folds of the Mark XIII, dazed and shivering.
Goruble laughed merrily. "My luck has turned at last!" he cried. "The fates smile on my enterprise! I take this as a sign—a sign, do you hear?" He looked on, beaming as the grinning men pulled the girl to her feet, keeping a stout grip on her arms. For the moment, the carpet lay in an unattended heap. Lafayette made a sudden lunge for it, but was quickly grabbed, but with a final surge, he managed to plant a foot on the snow-covered nap.
"Go home!" He addressed the yell to the receiver's verbal input circuitry. "Top speed and no detours!"
In response the carpet flopped, sending up a spray of ice crystals, leaped six feet into the air, hung for a moment rippling, then, as one of the men made a belated grab, shot away into the gathering storm.
"'Tis enchanted, by crikey!" a man yelled, recoiling.
"Nonsense," Goruble snapped. "It's undoubtedly another gadget from Ajax. So you're working with those sharpies, eh, Sir Lafayette? But no matter: I have my plans for them, as well as the rest of this benighted land!"
"You've sprung your seams," Lafayette snapped. "Your last takeover bid flopped, and so will this one."
"Truss them and hoist them on horseback," Goruble commanded the captain of his guard. "We'll see what a night in the cold followed by a day on the rack does for this upstart's manners."
"Well, back again, hey, pal?" Rodolpho's physical-persuasion specialist greeted O'Leary cheerfully as four guards dumped him, more dead than alive, on a wooden bench near the fireplace in which half a dozen sets of tongs and pincers were glowing a cozy cherry red.
"Mnnnrrgghhh," O'Leary mumbled through stiff lips, crouching nearer the blaze. "Just give me heat, even if it's my own feet burning."
"Anything to oblige, chum. Now, lessee, where were we?" Groanwelt rubbed a hand over his bristled chin with a sound like tearing canvas. "We could start out wit' a little iron work, like you suggested, then move on to a few strokes o' the cat, just to get the old circulation going good, and wind up the session wit' a good stretch on the rack to take the kinks out. How's it sound?"
"A well-balanced program, no doubt," Lafayette mumbled. "Could you stoke up this fire a little first?"
"That's the spirit, kid. Say, on the other hand, maybe