Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [200]
Light and sound burst upon O'Leary. He was staring at a plastic plate attached to his wrist, with the stamped legend:
SNAG NUMBER 1705.
LAST CHANGE, BUSTER! GOING . . . GOING . . .
"Snag number one thousand seven hundred and five!" O'Leary yelled.
From somewhere, a giant, unseen hook came, caught him by the back of the neck, and threw him across the Universe.
5
When Lafayette's head stopped whirling, he was standing in a chamber no bigger than an elevator, with opalescent, softly glowing walls, ceiling, and floor. A red light blinked on one wall; there was a soft snick!; the panel facing him opened like a revolving door on a large, pale-green room with a carpeted floor, a sound-absorbent ceiling, and a desk behind which sat an immaculately groomed woman of indeterminate age, extremely good-looking in spite of pale-green hair and a total lack of eyebrows. She gave him a crisp look, waved to a chair, poked a button on her desk.
"Rough one?" she asked in a tone of businesslike sympathy.
"Ah . . . just average," Lafayette said cautiously, looking around the room, which was furnished with easy chairs, potted palms, sporting prints, and softly murmuring air-conditioner grilles.
"You want a stretcher, or can you make it under your own power?" the green-haired receptionist inquired briskly as Lafayette edged into the room.
"What? Oh, I suppose you mean my bandaged wing. Actually it doesn't bother me all that much, thanks."
The woman frowned. "Psycho damage?"
"Well—frankly, I'm a little confused. I know it must sound silly, but . . . who are you? Where am I?"
"Oh, brother." The woman poked another button, spoke toward an unseen intercom. "Frink, get a trog team up here; and a stretcher. I've got a 984 for you, and it looks like a doozie." She gave Lafayette a look of weary sympathy. "Might as well sit down and take it easy, fellow." She wagged her head like one subjected to trials above and beyond the call of Job Description.
"Thanks." O'Leary sat gingerly on the edge of a low, olive-leather chair. "You, uh, know me?" he inquired.
The woman spread her hands in a noncommittal gesture. "How can I keep track of over twelve hundred ops?" She blinked as if an idea had just occurred to her. "You're not amnac?"
"Who's he?"
"Mama mia. Amnac means no memory. Loss of identity. In other words, you don't remember your own name."
"Frankly, there does seem to be a little uncertainty about that."
"Right hand, index finger," she said wearily. Lafayette approached the desk and offered the digit, which the woman grasped and pressed against a glass plate set in the desk top, one of an array of similar plates interspersed with counter-sunk buttons. A light winked, fluttered, blinked off. Letters appeared on a ground-glass screen in front of the receptionist.
"Raunchini," she said. "Dink 9, Franchet 43, under-category Gimmel. Ring a bell?" She looked at him hopefully.
"Not deafeningly," Lafayette temporized. "Look here, ma'am—I may as well be frank with you. I seem to have stumbled into something that's over my head—"
"Hold it, Raunchini. You can cover all that in your debriefing. I'm strictly admin myself."
"You don't understand. The fact is, I don't know what's going on. I mean, I started off in perfect innocence to have a drink with an old associate, and when I saw what he'd stumbled on, I realized right away that it was a matter for—for higher authorities to handle. But . . ." He looked around the room. "I have a distinct feeling I'm not in Artesia; there's nothing like this there. So the question naturally occurs—where am I?"
"You're at Central Casting, naturally. Look, just take a chair over there, and—"
"Central? I thought so! Thank Groot! Then all my problems are solved!" Lafayette sank down gratefully on the corner of the desk. "Look, I have some vital data to transmit to the proper quarter. I've discovered that when Goruble defected, he stashed away a whole armory of stolen gear—"
A door across the room swung open and a pair of husky young men in