Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [78]
He forced himself to move, crawled forward, almost went down on his face as the full force of the wind struck him. His hands were like wooden mallets now. He made another yard, skidded back as a particularly vicious gust slammed against him, tried again—and saw the soft glow of yellow light across the snow ahead, a cheery reflection in the ice. He rounded the shoulder of rock; there it was, a glass door in an aluminum frame, a tall rectangle of warmth against the cold and dark.
No point in dwelling on the incongruity of it—just reach it. The latch was a foot from his hand. He lunged, caught it, felt the door yield and swing in. He fell half-through the door into a sea of warmth.
He rested a moment, then pulled himself farther inside. The door whooshed shut behind him. Soft music was playing. He lay with his cheek against a rug, breathing in short, painful gasps. Then he sat up, looked around at oil-rubbed, wood-paneled walls, a built-in bar with gleaming glasses and a silver tray, a framed painting showing colors aswirl on a silvery field. He got to his feet, lurched across to the bar, found a bottle, poured a stiff drink, took it at a gulp.
OK, no time to waste; no time to wonder what sort of place this was he'd found, or where it was in the universe. It certainly wasn't anywhere on the familiar old planet Earth.
He had to get back. Goruble had obviously been all ready to travel, just waiting to finish off his enemy before he left. O'Leary closed his eyes. Ignoring the throb of returning sensation in his hands and feet and ears, he pictured the dark, musty passage under Goruble's palace. Adoranne was there; she needed him . . .
There was a thump as though the world had grounded on a sand bar. O'Leary's eyes flew open. He was standing in pitch darkness, in an odor of dust and mildewed wood. Had he made a mistake?
"Over this way, Sir Lafayette," a rumbling voice whispered. "Boy, you sure get around."
"Yokabump!" O'Leary groped toward the voice, felt a massive shoulder under his hand at belt height. "Where is he? I've got to get there before—"
"Wow! Your mitts are like a couple of ice bags!" Yokabump tugged O'Leary forward. "Just around the corner here, there's a door. I was staying out of sight and I couldn't see what was happening, but I heard you yell. Then old Goruble was snickering and talking to himself, and I sneaked a peek. I pretty near jumped him myself when I seen her Highness, tied to a chair. But then I figured—"
"Then they're still here?"
"Sure. His Majesty's working away like a one-man band, switching wires around. I'm glad you didn't stay away long."
"How did you know where I was?"
"I heard the air sort of whoosh. I noticed that before, when you did the fade from the dungeon—"
"Oh, you were hanging around then, were you?"
"Sure, I like to keep in touch."
"Shhh." O'Leary pushed through the rough wooden door into the passage he had vacated so precipitously five minutes earlier. He was fifteen feet from the open door to the Traveler—roughly the distance he had crawled on the ice ledge. Goruble was peering anxiously at dial faces; in the chair, Adoranne tugged futilely at the bell cord binding her arms. O'Leary eased out into the passage, started softly forward. He would reach the door, then in one jump, grab Goruble and hustle him away from the controls.
O'Leary's head cracked a low beam in the dark. Goruble looked up sharply at the sound, stood gaping for an instant as O'Leary, half-stunned, staggered toward him; then the usurper whirled and reached as O'Leary jumped—
—Light glared abruptly; something caught at O'Leary's foot, pitching him headlong into a mass of thorny shrubbery. Steamy air redolent of crushed foliage, rotted vegetation, humid soil and growing things closed around him like a Turkish bath. He floundered,