Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [59]
"Let's go, boy," he commanded. At once, the dinosaur set off at an easy canter—in the wrong direction. O'Leary yelled, kicked with one heel; the mighty mount veered, came about on the port tack and headed back up the pass. In five minutes, they were clear of the ravine, striding out across the parched plain at a mile-eating pace. The sun was gone now; deep twilight was settling across the desert. "Steady as she goes, boy," O'Leary commented aloud. "In about an hour we'll be giving this Lod character the surprise of his life."
Chapter X
It was dark night with no moon as O'Leary sat his mighty steed behind a dimly seen screen of tall eucalyptus that marked the edge of the grounds surrounding the great building that towered up against the stars—fifteen stories at least, O'Leary estimated. Faint starlight glinted on hundreds of windows; there was dim illumination behind three of them. Blazoned across a strip of what looked like dark plastic twelve-foot-high lavender neon letters spelled out LAS VEGAS HILTON. Between him and the nearest corner of a projecting flank of the structure, a ten-foot iron fence ornamented with spearheads thrust up.
"This isn't quite what I expected, fellow," O'Leary muttered. "I pictured a collection of tin shacks, or maybe some wooden huts we could walk right through. Wouldn't do to slam into that; it might fall on us. And Adoranne might get hurt."
The dinosaur stretched its neck across the fence. O'Leary looked down at the sharp points below.
"Wouldn't do to fall on those, Dinny," he said nervously. The iguanodon leaned against the bars; they creaked, bent like soda straws, went down.
"Nice going, boy. Hope nobody heard the clatter . . ."
The monster lowered its head to ground level. O'Leary jumped off onto a carpet of knee-deep grass which the reptile sniffed and began peacefully cropping.
"All right, boy," he whispered. "The place is big, all right, but it seems sparsely manned. Wait here while I reconnoiter—and keep out of sight."
There was a soft snort from the great head, now lifted far above him, investigating the lower branches of a big oak. O'Leary moved off silently, skirted a waterless fountain in the shape of an abstract female, crossed a stretch of pavement marked with faint white lines at ten-foot intervals, hopped a strung chain and entered the rustling, leaf-strewn shadow of a stand of poplars.
From here he had an excellent view of the building. Nothing stirred. He emerged from the trees, made his way around to the front. There was a broad, paved drive—concrete, by the feel of it—which swept past a flight of wide steps leading up to a rank of glass doors, above which a cantilevered marquee thrust out fifty feet. Great, unpruned gardenia bushes bunched up from planters set along the terrace; the warm night air wafted the heavy fragrance of their blossoms to O'Leary.
Inside, beyond the doors, he could see a plushly carpeted foyer, dimly lit, its pale fawn walls decorated by framed pictures and gilt and white lamp brackets. Large soft-looking divans and easy chairs were placed in conversational groups around low coffee tables.
The peaceful order of the scene was marred only by a scattering of papers, bones, empty tin cans and the charred ring of a small camp fire beside a potted yucca. Someone, it appeared, had desired more informal cooking arrangements than the hotel kitchens afforded.
O'Leary went up the steps, approached the doors and jumped as the one before him swung in with a whoosh of compressed air. Magic, after all? He felt the untrimmed hair at the nape of his neck rising. But then, maybe it was just electronics—magic rationalized. He edged through the door and looked around the two-acre lobby.
Adoranne was here—somewhere. It was going to be a long search through fifteen floors of rooms to find her, but he had to make a start somewhere. He picked a corridor at random, went along it in the eerie light to the first door, tried the knob . . .
An hour and a half later O'Leary was working his way through the southwest wing of