Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [206]
DEAR BOY! IS IT REALLY YOU? I'D ABOUT GIVEN UP HOPE!
"Help!" Lafayette yelled. He was rotating end over end now—or was it the other way around? He could feel his sense of identity draining away like oil from a broken pot; his thoughts were growing weaker, vaguer, the voices fainter . . . HOLD ON, LAD . . . JUST A FEW SECONDS LONGER . . . DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP . . .
Something as intangible as smoke brushed over him; a vague fog-shape loomed, enveloped him like a shadowy fist. A sense of pressure, a burst of light—then darkness . . .
3
He was lying on a hard, lumpy surface, itching furiously. He made a move to scratch, and discovered that both knees were bandaged, as well as both elbows and his chin.
He struggled to a sitting position. In the faint moonlight that filtered down through the leaves overhead, he saw that he was neatly enclosed in a cage made of lashed poles. He had been lying, he saw, on an ancient mattress with a stained striped ticking; there was a bowl of water beside him, and what appeared to be gnawed crusts of bread. He sniffed; the odors hanging in the air—of unwashed laundry, goat cheese, and wood-smoke—were somehow familiar. His legs and arms ached, his back ached, his neck ached.
"I must be black-and-blue all over," he grunted. "Where am I? What's happened to me?"
There was a soft sound of footsteps; a familiar figure approached.
"Gizelle!" O'Leary's voice broke with relief. "Am I glad to see you! Get me out of here!"
The girl stood with hands on hips, looking down at him with an unreadable expression. "Zorro?" she said doubtfully.
O'Leary groaned. "I know, I look like a fellow named Raunchini. But it's really me—not really Zorro, but the fellow you thought was Zorro—only I was actually Lafayette O'Leary, of course. But I'll explain all that later."
"You don't theenk you're a beeg bird anymore? You don't try to jump off cleef, flapping your arms?"
"What? I didn't jump off the cliff, I fell—and—"
Gizelle smiled; she turned, whistled shrilly. Voices responded. A moment later Luppo's hulking figure appeared. He stared at O'Leary with an expression like a Doberman awaiting the kill order.
"Why deed you wheestle?" he grunted. "Ees he—"
"He said he ees heemself—Zorro!"
"Of course I'm myself—in a manner of speaking," Lafayette snapped. "But—oh, well, never mind. You wouldn't understand. Just let me out of here, pronto!"
"Uh-huh—that's heem," Luppo said.
"Good! Een that case—when the sun rises—we can proceed!" Gizelle cried ecstatically.
"Oh, look here, Gizelle—you're not going to start that wedding business all over again?" Lafayette protested.
Luppo looked at him, a gold tooth shining in his crooked grin. "Not quite," he said. "Would you believe . . . the Death of the Thousand Hooks?"
4
"Eet weel be very exciting, Zorito," Gizelle informed Lafayette, leaning close to his cage to hiss the words in his face. "First weel be the feexing of the hooks. Een the old days, there was just one beeg hook, you know—but naturally we've been making progress. Now we use leetle beety feesh hooks—hundreds and hundreds of theem. We steeck theem een—slowly—all over you. Then we tie a streeng to each one, and leeft you up eento the air weeth theem—"
"Gizelle—spare me the details!" O'Leary groaned. "If I'm Zorro, I already know all this—and if I'm not, I'm innocent, and you ought to free me. You ought to free me anyway; what's a nice girl like you doing mixed up in a dirty business like this, anyway?"
"Free you? A feelthy peeg who takes advantage of a poor girl who ees fool enough to love heem?"
"I've told you—I'm not myself! I mean I'm not really Zorro! I mean—I am Zorro—physically—but actually I'm Lafayette O'Leary! I'm just occupying Zorro's body for the moment! Under the circumstances it wouldn't be ethical for me to marry you. Can't you see that?"
"First you made me streep; theen you sneaked out like a policeman een the night, and locked me een my own boudoir! A meellion feesh hooks could not repay me for the pangs I have suffered for you, you . . . sheep een wolf's clothing!"
"Why didn't