Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [236]
It was like wading through dense fog; a fog so thick as to drag him as he pressed forward. He felt it touch his skin, interpenetrating, swirling about his interior arrangements—and then the breaking-bubble sensation as he emerged on the far side . . .
He opened his eyes. He was standing in a low, stone-walled passage before a flight of rudely chipped stone steps.
6
"It's too bad about you, young woman," the cracked old voice was saying as Lafayette crept up the last few steps and poked his head over the threshold to the circular room, which, to judge from the ache in O'Leary's knees, occupied the topmost level of the Tor. Across the small chamber, Daphne, looking more beautiful than ever with a lock of black hair over one eye and three buttons missing from her jacket, was tugging at the handcuffs that secured her to a massive oak chair. Quelius stood looking down at her with an expression of mild reproof.
"You've caused me no end of trouble, you know—first by behaving in a most unwifely manner in refusing to espouse my regency, then by running off like a little fool, and now by saddling me with your person. Still, you'll make a useful hostage, once I've completed certain arrangements against interference."
"I never saw you before, you nasty little man," she said coolly.
"Tsk. What a pity you don't appreciate the true symmetry of the situation. As O'Leary, I paved the way for the deposition of your little featherweight princess and her lout of a consort, while at the same time destroying O'Leary's popularity with the mob—and simultaneously, established a workable police apparatus with an adequate war chest. The stage is now set for me to step in and set matters right."
"When Lafayette catches you," Daphne said defiantly, "he'll fold you double and throw you away."
"Aha! But that's just it, my child. Lafayette will never catch me! At this moment the poor imbecile is no doubt suffering the penalty for my outrageous behavior!"
"Wrong!" O'Leary yelled, and launched himself at Quelius. The little old man whirled with astonishing agility, bounded to the wall, and jerked a rope dangling from above. Too late Lafayette saw the entire section of the floor before him drop like a hangman's trap. He made a wild clutch, missed, went over the edge and fell ten feet into a net that snapped shut around him like a closing fist.
7
Quelius lounged on the landing, smiling cheerfully at Lafayette, suspended in the open stairwell with his head in fetal position between his knees.
"And you were going to fold me double," the old fellow said good-humoredly. "Or so your bride predicted. Ah, well, we must excuse the ladies their predictable misconceptions, eh?"
"You're not going to get away with this, Quelius," Lafayette said as clearly as he could with a mouthful of kneecap. "Jorlemagne will slice you into pastrami—"
"Permit me to contradict you, Mr. O'Leary. Jorlemagne will do nothing. I'm quite immune to his digital trickery—and although he is indeed a clever chap, I happen to be in possession of the contents of his laboratory—so you see—I hold not merely the aces, but the entire deck."
"I noticed you left the ballroom in something of a hurry," O'Leary countered. "I suppose being in your burrow makes you feel brave. But I got inside without much trouble, you notice."
"So you did," Quelius nodded imperturbably. "My instruments indicate that you employed a rather interesting molecular polarization technique to pull off the trick. I invite you to use the same method to extricate yourself from your present situation." He cackled merrily. "You've been a sore trial to me, O'Leary. Bad stroke of luck, encountering Hymie the Ferocious, I believe he called himself, when I stepped outside the tavern that night. My, I'll warrant the red-headed ruffian whose shape I was using had skinned knuckles when he came to himself. But for that interruption you'd have been safely tucked away in the palace brig, ready to assist me in my impersonation. But then, all's well that ends well."
"Why go to so much trouble to strand yourself in a backward