Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [84]
"Nicodaeus? Yes, I heard of his remarkable report, half an hour ago. You say you were involved?"
"I was there! You can't send me back here! I don't belong here! My little bride is waiting for me, my people demand their king, Yokabump needs a job, and the thought of the foundry—"
"Oh, yes, you must be the fellow Fishnet or something of the sort; quite a merry chase you led our man. Do you know you've been creating a Probability Stress of .8 for weeks now? A remarkable technique you worked out, but I'm afraid we here at Central can't let it go on. You've caused a rather severe power drain on the Cosmic Energy Source. The dinosaur alone—"
"I didn't do that! He was already there!"
"One was, true, but you seem to have brought along another. At any rate, a Suppressor has now been focused on you. It will hold you firmly in place in your present continuum. It will even eliminate all dreaming, so you can look forward to sleep uninterrupted by bothersome fantasies from now on."
"I don't want to sleep uninterrupted by fantasies! I want to go home! Back to Artesia! I belong there, don't you understand?"
"No, my dear fellow; I can understand your desire to return—a rather pleasant, though backward, locus, or so our man states in his report—but we can't have you grasshoppering about all over the continua, now can we? But thank you for your interest, and now goodby—"
"Wait! Call Nicodaeus! He'll confirm what I said!"
"I'm a busy man, Mr. Fishnet; I have a backlog—"
"If you leave me here, there'll be a . . . a Probability Stress! And with the loused-up filing system you've got, it will be forty years before you remember what's causing it. And by then, I'll be a retired draftsman, still subsisting on sardines—and no dreams!"
"Well, I'll just make a check. Hold the line, please; if you ring off, you may never get through again."
O'Leary gripped the receiver, waiting. Through the glass in the door, he saw a fat woman approach along the street, digging in her purse for a coin. She seized the door handle, yanked, then caught sight of O'Leary and gave him an indignant look.
He covered the mouthpiece. "I'll be through in a minute," he muttered, mouthing the words through the glass. The woman snapped her jaw shut and glared at him.
Another minute ticked past. There was no sound on the line but a wavering hum. The fat woman rapped on the glass. O'Leary nodded, made motions indicating that he was waiting for a reply. The woman caught the door handle, pulled it half open. "See here, you, I'm in a hurry."
He jerked the door shut, and braced a foot against it as the invading female shook it furiously.
"Come on," O'Leary muttered. "What's keeping you?"
The fat woman stalked away. O'Leary relaxed. What was that fellow on the line doing? It had been a good five minutes now. What if he never came back? A fifty-year wait, he'd said. Lafayette pictured a pert face with jet-black hair, an impish smile. Never to see her again . . . He blinked. Jet-black hair? But Adoranne was a blonde—
O'Leary turned at a sound. The fat lady was back, a large cop in tow.
"That's him!" He heard the shrill screech through the door. "Half an hour already he's been sitting there, just to spite me, not even talking. Look at him!"
The cop stooped and peered inside, looking O'Leary up and down, taking in the green doublet, the long yellow hose, the ruff at the neck, the medals, ribbons, gold chain.
"All right, you," the cop said; he hauled at the door. O'Leary braced himself, foot against the panel. The cop set himself, heaved—
The booth seemed to shimmer, faded to a smoky outline, and was gone. O'Leary fell backward off a marble bench beside the graveled walk under the towering dark trees.
He scrambled up, looked around at the