Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [157]
"What is your name?" Lafayette cut in with a rising sense of imminent paranoia.
"Huh? Why, it's Lorenzo, of course!"
Lafayette stared at the face before him, noting the set of the blue eyes, the untamed lock of brownish-blond hair over the forehead, the well-shaped mouth marred by a certain petulance . . .
"What's . . ." He stopped to swallow. "What's your last name?"
"O'Leary, why?" Lorenzo said.
"Lorenzo O'Leary," Lafayette mumbled. "I should have known. If Adoranne and Daphne and Yokabump and Nicodaeus all had doubles here—why not me?"
Twelve
"Hey, chums!" Crunch's subcellar voice shattered the paralysis that gripped the two O'Learys. "It's time to blow, if we don't want to miss all the fun." Lafayette looked around, saw that the room was rapidly emptying as the shouting mob of released prisoners streamed away along the passage, brandishing rude implements pressed into service from the array racked around the walls.
"Look, Lorenzo—we can sort out who's who later," he said over the fading clamor. "Right now the important thing is to save poor Swinehild and the Lady Andragorre from Goruble—Krupkin, to you. He's hatched a mad plot to take over Artesia, and the lousy part of it is, it looks as though he may be able to do it. No wonder he didn't care much whether I helped him or not: He can ring you in for me and force Swinehild to cooperate, and—but never mind that. I'm going to try to reach Rodolpho's apartment and tell him what's going on. Maybe it's still not too late to nip the whole thing in the bud. Why don't you come with me? Maybe between the two of us, one will get through. I'll brief you on the way. How about it?"
"Well—since you seem to have some notion of what's going on in this cackle factory, I may as well—but keep your meat hooks off Beverly!"
"I thought her name was Cynthia," Lafayette muttered as they selected stout clubs from a handy club stand and set off behind Crunch in the wake of the mob. Ahead, startled yells and a rising roar of enthusiasm indicated first contact with the palace guard.
"Down here," Lafayette called, indicating a side passage. "We'll go around, try for the back stairs."
"Look here, where do you fit into all this?" Lorenzo panted as they raced along the winding corridor.
"I don't," Lafayette assured his double. "I was back in Artesia, minding my own business, when suddenly here I was in Melange. The next thing I knew, I was up to my neck in accusations—" He veered aside into a stairway leading up. "I guess that was your doing; they mistook me for you, apparently. You must have been pretty busy, judging from the way the cops jumped me."
"It looked like a fairly straightforward proposition," Lorenzo puffed, keeping pace as they bounded up the steps, Crunch slogging along in the rear. "Krupkin . . . offered me a free trip home . . . plus other inducements such as staying alive . . . if I'd carry out a mission for him. I was supposed to sneak myself into . . . this Lady Andragorre's chamber . . . and set up a tryst. Well . . . I climbed a few walls . . . and paid a few bribes . . . I got in, all right. But then . . . I saw it was Beverly. We didn't have time to talk much . . . but I did slip her a note . . . proposing a rendezvous at the cottage—as Krupkin had planned. But from there on I intended to introduce . . . some changes . . . in the script . . ."
"He suckered you," Lafayette panted. "I don't know how he got you here . . . but I doubt if he had any intention . . . of sending you back to your United Colonies . . ."
They emerged from the stairhead into a wide corridor, from both ends of which sounds of mob violence rose.
"Let's see—I think it's that way," Lafayette pointed. As they sprang forward, there was a bellow from behind them. Crunch was rubbing his head and looking back down the stairway.
"Why, the