Chapter Three

 

            Fists on hips, clad in a close-fitting outfit of black trimmed with silver, a large businesslike handgun in his fist, stood a man only half a head shorter than Lafayette's six-one, his face thrust forward to bring its expression of hostility within an inch of O'Leary's own features. It was the face from the dream.

 

            "Caught you red-handed, simpleton!" the familiar voice barked. "Did you actually imagine you could commit these outrages against the august peace and security of Reality Prime with complete impunity? Saucy rogue, eh, Chief, thus to bait Belarius in his very den?" The stranger's gaze went past O'Leary's shoulder to the man behind him.

 

            "Did you say 'Belarius'?" Lafayette croaked.

 

            "So, you recognize the name of the fabled Scourge of Scoundrels, eh?" Suddenly Lafayette was spun from behind.

 

            "You're not Belarius," he blurted, nose-to-nose with a stocky fellow, also in black-and-silver uniform and gun, his outfit also trimmed with black-and-gold tracings at the wrist and collar.

 

            "You picked the wrong name, wise guy!" O'Leary went on hotly. "I happen to know Belarius personally, even if he is a big shot; in fact, I was instrumental in getting him out of a serious scrape once. He's a big fellow —six inches taller than you, at least, with these really piercing blue eyes, blue like a cave of ice, and a beak on him like an eagle; not that he's not a distinguished-looking old boy—and he's lots older than you. Go on, kid me some more ..."

 

            "The description you offer is that of my grandfather's grandfather, Belarius I," the self-styled Belarius said coldly. "Is your remarkable longevity another trivial detail to be dismissed with a wave of the hand?"

 

            "I'm not really three hundred and thirty-one years old," Lafayette replied with dignity. "That is, maybe I was born three hundred and thirty-one years ago, but I've only lived thirty-one years."

 

            "So, having been cut down in your boyhood, you rose from the grave after three centuries to resume your mischievous ways, is that it?" the imposter demanded sarcastically.

 

            "That's not what I said!" O'Leary yelled. "Don't start trying to put me in one of those dumb false positions again! I'm Sir Lafayette O'Leary, and I know you're not Belarius!"

 

            "Am I not?" the fellow replied coolly. "That would come as a great shock to my lady mother, who reared me as the fifth of that ilk."

 

            "Oh, I forgot this is three hundred years later," O'Leary gobbled, his sarcasm lost on his impassive captor. "You can let go my arm now; I won't fall down. But that was quite a shock, having you creep up on me in this spooky place. How did you fellows get in here?"

 

            "Rather tell me how you gained ingress to the Sealed Chamber," Belarius demanded, releasing O'Leary.

 

            "And why, as well," his partner chimed in from behind. "What sought you here which was worth the forfeit of your existence out to eight parameters from your native locus?"

 

            "Locus? You know about loci?" Lafayette babbled in relief. "So you must be from Central, right? You discovered something awful had happened to Artesia, and they sent you out to investigate, right? Boy oh boy, am I glad to see you!"

 

            "A defense of insanity will avail you naught, wit-told!" Belarius snorted. "As for Central, be assured that it is four levels of command inferior to Reality Prime, and that regardless of what chicaneries with which you may have deluded petty Central, your career of crimes against reality has now come to an end!"

 

-

 

            "I didn't do anything, fellows," O'Leary protested wearily. "For once, I'm really innocent. I was just sitting in the garden admiring the stars with Mrs. O'Leary—I mean, Countess O'Leary, Daphne, my wife, you know, and all of a sudden—"

 

            "Yes?" Belarius prompted, "go on."

 

            "All of a sudden it was raining; and that's strange because I had just been reflecting that, from locus to locus, the weather never changes, even when everything else does."

 

            "You may as well confess all, Mr. 'O'Leary', as you have the effrontery to style yourself."

 

            "I didn't style myself," Lafayette objected. "That's the name they gave me at the orphanage. In honor of Mrs. Beldame O'Leary, the founder, you know. And there's nothing to confess," he added. "What is it you think I've done, anyway?"

 

            "The primary charge," Belarius said coldly, "is that you did willfully and with malice aforethought commit an act or acts of the third level of malfeasance, thereby creating an anomaly of Category Ultimate, the full repercussions of which act or acts having not yet been manifested. Shall I go on?"

 

            "No. Go back," O'Leary suggested. "What's the third level of whateveritis, and what does Category Ultimate mean?"

 

            "It means, quite simply," Belarius said harshly, "that you have forfeited whatever claim to continued existence you may have had. You're under arrest, and will be taken at once to a designated holding locus and there terminated."

 

            "He means killed," the other man contributed, "all in compliance with the Code, of course. It's quite a coup for His Lordship: he deduced you'd be here—and we've caught you red-handed."

 

            "I never heard of this code of yours," Lafayette stated flatly.

 

            "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," Belarius quoted. "But you could hardly have failed to notice the class-AA security barrier around the Chamber, or the crack regiment of guards patroling the area, or the prominently posted notices reading 'NO ENTRY', to say nothing of the type-Z combination lock on the door itself, all of which you somehow broached. Now, it will be of some interest to know how you did it, never mind 'why?' for the moment. Begin with the steel-and-concrete legtraps. The Chief of Security assured me personally that they were impassable. How did you pass them?"

 

            "I didn't notice 'em," O'Leary said. "Where are they? Must be so well camouflaged they're invisible as well as ineffective."

 

            "What of the Guards regiment, then? Do you claim to have slipped past the alert sentries of the most highly honored organization in the entire Service?"

 

            "If you mean Trog and his boys, they're overrated," Lafayette said carelessly. "And I didn't see any keep-out signs."

 

            "Clearly, Frumpkin," Belarius said to his partner, "the fellow has employed some highly sophisticated counter-security equipment thus to make mockery of my best efforts."

 

            "Just used my head," O'Leary said bluntly.

 

            "It's clear the rascal is even more dangerous than we had suspected," Frumpkin said. "Perhaps we'd best apply full Class One measures at once, after all. HQ would understand if we brought in a corpse under the circumstances."

 

            "Seems rather drastic for such an insignificant-appearing young fellow as this," Belarius responded. "Just a few more points to clear up. What about it, fellow-me-lad?" he addressed Lafayette directly. "Will you cooperate in this inquiry or shall I be forced to invoke full Class One rigor? I leave it to you. Start with your motivation for your first disruption bombing at Nuclear City."

 

            "Never heard of it," O'Leary said wearily. "Either Nuke City or a disruption bomb. Sorry."

 

            "Glibness will avail you naught, fellow," Frumpkin said, wiping a hand across his face as one sore beset with frustration. He turned to Belarius V. "We've wasted enough time trying to reason with him," he said tiredly. "I suggest we simply stasis-file him and get on with the rest of it."

 

            "I've got an idea," Lafayette offered. "Why not tell me, in simple nontechnical language, just what's going on? Maybe I could even shed some light on it if I knew what it was all about."

 

            "So you think you're in a position to bargain, eh?" Frumpkin snorted. "You'll come clean in return for ... what was your price?"

 

            "Just tell me what happened to get you boys so upset," Lafayette said, feeling the futility of his request even as he spoke. "And save the jargon. Pretend I don't know anything about whatever it is you're so worried about."

 

            "On October eight last," Belarius V said solemnly, "an attempt was made to destroy the Prime metering vault. An explosion of force seven on the TRAN scale. Inside the vault. You can see what that means. So could we all."

 

            "I hate to sound like a dumdum," O'Leary said, "but I can't see what that means. Anyway, what does it have to do with me?"

 

            "He's a resourceful devil, eh, Belarius?" Frumpkin commented. "No matter what one says, he has a disclaimer ready."

 

            "But it seems it's always the same disclaimer," Belarius replied dryly. "See here, fellow," he said more briskly to Lafayette, "Just what excuse do you offer for your presence here in defiance of the Code?"

 

            "None at all," Lafayette answered sharply. "I have a perfect right—or almost perfect—to be here. It's you two characters who have some explaining to do."

 

            "I think that's quite enough," Belarius put in abruptly. He turned to a shabby steamer trunk or large suitcase beside him. Lifting the lid, he took out a complicated-looking apparatus and turned to O'Leary.

 

            "Put out your hands, left palm up, right palm down," he ordered curtly, while Frumpkin fiddled with his gun. Lafayette complied warily, eyeing the gadget Belarius was holding. With a quick movement Belarius draped the thing across O'Leary's hands. He felt icy metal bands extrude, encircle his wrists, and tighten gently. There was a sensation of questing tendrils growing rapidly downward, searching over his body. He yelled once, tugged; there was no give in the complex shackle. When he tried to take a step toward Frumpkin, he found his legs were equally immobilized. "Hey!" he yelled again.

 

            Belarius and Frumpkin were busy over the suitcase.

 

            "Look at that, Frumpy," Belarius said grimly. Over Belarius' shoulder, Lafayette could barely glimpse a round glass screen like a cathode-ray tube, set in the trunk lid, on which glowed in pink a set of concentric arcs.

 

            "This," Frumpkin said hoarsely, putting a well-groomed finger on a short segment of a curve looking squeezed between longer arcs. "Is this ... our baseline here?"

 

            Instead of answering, Belarius turned to O'Leary, stepping back to give him a clear view of the screen. He pointed.

 

            "You can see for yourself what you've done," he grated. "You've trapped yourself in an abort. How you imagined you'd escape to make good your plot is, I confess, obscure to me."

 

            "Me, too," Lafayette said. "What's an abort?"

 

            "As the term suggests, an abort is a nonviable stem. As you see, this one ends in some seventy-two hours."

 

            "How do you mean, 'ends'?" Lafayette asked. "All I see is some kind of radar screen."

 

            "Ends, terminates, discontinues, ceases to exist," Frumpkin spoke up. "That's a simple enough concept. And if we were still here then, we'd end with it. Accordingly, Belarius, I suggest we phase-shift at once, just in case your calibration is off a hair's breadth."

 

            "What about this fellow, then?" Belarius inquired indifferently, indicating O'Leary. "Finish him off, and so report?"

 

            "As you command, my lord," Frumpkin replied in an oily tone, disassociating himself from the murder.

 

            "Why don't you just go home and leave me to my own devices?" Lafayette suggested. "Nobody would know the difference."

 

            "No?" Belarius came back coolly. "You underestimate the subtlety of our Prime surveillance net. Nothing escapes the notice of YAC-19."

 

            "Why bandy words with him, sir?" Frumpkin put in. "If we should simply shunt him into a holding locus, he'd keep until we could deal with him to best advantage. YAC-19 will want to interrogate him."

 

            "True," Belarius conceded. "Set up coordinates for the nearest holding locus, then—"

 

            "Wait," Lafayette cut in. "I can't leave this locus-Daphne's here, somewhere. And if I leave, I may never find it again!"

 

            "The point is well taken," Belarius said. "Not that your petty concerns are of any merit, but there is YAC-19's policy to consider."

 

            "Who is this yak you keep talking about?" Lafayette demanded. "Who's he to sit in judgment on a total stranger, and one close to the throne of Artesia, by the way!"

 

            "YAC-19 is a computer," Belarius stated grandly, "and Postulate One at Nuclear City, of course."

 

            "And our immediate supervisor," Frumpkin put in loftily.

 

            "Its policy is to hold phase violations to a minimum," Belarius contributed. "To remove you from this your native locus would occasion a mild phase displacement; ergo, you'll stay here."

 

            "It's not my native locus," Lafayette protested. "At least, I don't think it is—or maybe it's just the three hundred years. It doesn't look anything like Artesia— except for the Tower, that is." He glared sullenly at Belarius. "Artesia's my home," he stated, "not this dump ... Aphasia, Trog called it."

 

            "Locus designation?" Frumpkin inquired. "Of this Artesia, I mean."

 

            "Alpha Nine-Three, Plane V-87, Fox 221-b," O'Leary replied promptly. Frumpkin looked grave and twiddled control knobs on the apparatus inside the suitcase.

 

            "Doesn't check out, Belarius," he said tonelessly. "Something a trifle out of sync there." He shot O'Leary a hard look. "Why lie about it?" he demanded.

 

            "I was born there," O'Leary said. "When I was a few months old, a renegade inspector from Central kidnapped me and took me to Colby Corners, U.S.A. I grew up there, and then I focused my psychical energies one evening, and was back in Artesia, where I belonged."

 

            "Better change that story," Belarius put in after consulting a small handbook. "Artesia's listed, all right, but as a dead locus. What we call a traumatic abort. Ceased to exist nearly three hundred years ago."

 

            "Nonsense!" O'Leary said, and after a thoughtful pause went on, "I was there half an hour ago—or three hundred years and a half hour ago ... I'm not quite sure about that. Anyway, Artesia is just as real as Melange, or Colby Corners, or Thallathlone, or any of those other crazy places I've been—and realer than this crazy locus, Aphasia."

 

            "Not listed," Belarius said after a glance at his book. He turned to Frumpkin. "That's it, let's report back, and we'll just put this fellow on hold. Later, a brain-scrape will soon have the facts out of him."

 

            "Wait!" Lafayette demanded. "You can't just go off and. leave Aphasia to dissolve back into entropic energy—"

 

            "Aha! So you do know something!"

 

            "You told me," O'Leary said hastily. "Sure, I know about planes of reality and all that; I've been in enough of 'em. But this time I didn't meddle. I was just sitting in the garden with Daphne, and all of a sudden—"

 

            "Get him over here, Belarius," Frumpkin cut him off. "The shift zone on this portable rig is pretty small, you know. We wouldn't want to leave even this poor boob stranded in half-phase." Belarius manhandled O'Leary into the indicated spot.

 

            "Daphne's around here, somewhere!" O'Leary blurted. "If you leave her—"

 

            "This Daphne is also a native of Colby Corners?" Belarius asked without interest.

 

            "No—and neither am I—I just grew up there, in the orphanage, you know. Daphne's an Artesian, born and bred ... You can't go off and leave her stranded here!"

 

            "What about it, Frumpkin?" Belarius queried his colleague. "Hadn't we best check this out?"

 

            "Damn right!" O'Leary yelled. "You can't go creating a phase violation, remember, even if you are inhumane enough to strand a helpless girl in this dismal place. YAC-19 wouldn't like it," he added.

 

            "I suppose we'll have to fetch her along," Frumpkin conceded. "Where is she, fellow, hiding in a dark corner?" He looked about the shadowy room in a show of confusion.

 

            "How do I know, Flapkin, or whatever your dumb name is?" O'Leary demanded. "Release me, and I'll try to find her. I thought she must have come this way, but I was wrong—unless you two sharpies grabbed her and sent her off somewhere with that suitcase of yours."

 

            "By no means, Mr. O'Leary. By the way, Frumpkin," Belarius shifted his attention to his associate. "-Since he's had the effrontery to preempt the honored name of Lancelot O'Leary—"

 

            "Not Lancelot!" Lafayette cut in. "Lafayette! And not Ladislaw, or Lohengrin, or Lafcadio, or any of those other nerds from other loci. That's L-A-F-A-Y-E-T-T-E!"

 

            "To be sure," Frumpkin murmured, ruffling the pages of his handbook. "The O'Leary. Of course. Why claim descent from any lesser O'Leary?"

 

            "Descent my elbow!" O'Leary snorted. "I am Lafayette O'Leary! The same one who got your great-grandpap or whatever out of the soup the time Quelius made his play. Except for me, old B-I would still be fending off Jemimah in the royal swine-pen!"

 

            Frumpkin was eyeing O'Leary intently. "I suppose a grand delusion is no more trouble than a petty one," he mused aloud, with a glance at Belarius.

 

            "Just for the record," the latter suggested, "why not take a few Zeta readings on him? His mention of Quelius suggests he may know something. The Quelius file is top SBR classification, you'll recall: the hush order came from the top. So this chap can't be as insignificant as he appears."

 

            "Very well," Frumpkin agreed, "but frankly, I think he's bluffing. A quick scan at about D-level?"

 

            "A full class-A Zeta," Belarius corrected in a solemn tone. "If there's anything here at all, it's likely to be a major fault."

 

            "A fault? Not in our records, I should hope," Frumpkin replied as he turned to Lafayette, extending what looked like an electrified acupuncture needle. "Just hold still, won't take a moment," he said soothingly, reaching for Lafayette's arm.

 

            "How could I do otherwise, trussed up in this magic hair-net of yours?" O'Leary demanded. "You're not going to stick that thing in me, are you?" he inquired in a less-than-optimistic tone.

 

            "Just a contact device," Frumpkin reassured him. The touch of the thin stiff wire was icy cold, and tingled. Frumpkin ran it along O'Leary's arm while consulting dials in his suitcase, his expression grave.

 

            "I say!" Belarius exclaimed after a glance at the dials.

 

            "Just so," Frumpkin concurred expressionlessly. Both men turned quickly to eye Lafayette without visible approval.

 

            "Where have you hidden it?" Belarius barked. Before Lafayette could protest, Frumpkin said sternly: "Young man, it is now quite clear that you have not only committed the gravest offence in the Civil Code, but have compounded the crime with a breach of the Primary Regulation itself—though how you managed such villainy remains obscure, I concede."

 

            "A mystery which will be elucidated promptly, once the full attention of I-Branch is focused upon you, 'Mr. O'Leary', as I assure you it will be in a very few minutes now," Belarius elaborated and gestured curtly to Frumpkin. "Power-up the shift-field," he commanded.

 

            "Wait!" Lafayette yelled. "What if I really am Lafayette O'Leary; after all, your own gadgets are telling you I'm not just a routine case."

 

            With a keen glance at Belarius, Frumpkin said quietly, "We might be justified in holding him for higher-level review ..."

 

            "You said we've got seventy-two hours!" Lafayette cried. "Let me go, and I'll find Daphne, and you can at least shift her to a more civilized locus! Where's your chivalry?"

 

-

 

            Belarius and Frumpkin muttered together; then Belarius touched a button on the panel in the trunk, and Lafayette felt the net fall away. He looked down, saw what looked like a wire coat hanger bent into a wad; he picked it up and, as Frumpkin jostled past him, dropped it in the latter's pocket, from which it at once extruded a questing tendril. Frumpkin halted abruptly, uttered a croak, and made an abortive grab at the filaments now busily trussing his biceps, before coming to rest red-faced, his arms half-raised.

 

            "What is it, Frumpy?" Belarius inquired casually of his subordinate. "Just remember something?" Then he came over to drape a comradely arm over the other's shoulders, started back with a yelp, and froze, locked to Frumpkin.

 

            "Seems your magic hair-net has a few bugs," Lafayette said. "It can't tell its boss from the other guy. So just hang loose, gentlemen, until I get back."

 

            While the two Primary inspectors made inarticulate sounds behind him, Lafayette went to the telephone box, seized the stubs of the cut wires, and tapped the exposed conductors together. A tiny pink spark jumped. Encouraged, he went on, tapping out an SOS in Morse, then amplified his message: TRAPPED IN N-'S TOWER BY BELARIUS V AND ONE FRUMPKIN FROM PRIMARY QUERY GET ME OUT OF HERE DASH DAPHNE TOO STOP.

 

            That done, he listened at the door. Hearing nothing, he opened it half an inch and was instantly thrust backward as a small, whiskery man even shorter and uglier than Trog burst through. As Lafayette regained his balance, the newcomer turned on him, raising a stone ax, but froze at the boom of a resonant voice from across the room:

 

            "Stop where you are, Murg."

 

            "Geeze, Allegorus hisself!" Murg croaked, the ax dropping from his hand. Lafayette turned to see a tall, cloak-wrapped figure stepping in through the open French doors from the balcony.

 

            The newcomer shot O'Leary a single sharp glance from piercing eyes which were the only part of his face visible in the deep shadows of the hood over his head; then he went directly across the room to confront Belarius and Frumpkin.

 

            "Stand fast, O'Leary," he called over his shoulder before he began a low-voiced conversation with the two, who responded to the terse questions with excited protestations:

 

            "... line of inquiry!"

 

            "... desperate criminal!"

 

            "... got to be done!"

 

            "... my career!"

 

            At last the hooded stranger turned away, and the two Nuclear agents fell strangely silent, still standing in rigid postures as if awaiting a command to resume activity. As the tall intruder approached, O'Leary began organizing his confused thoughts, readying his first question.

 

            "Who are you?" he blurted instead.

 

            "I am called Allegorus," the strangely authoritative man said impressively.

 

            "I heard you only come out once every three hundred years," O'Leary countered uncertainly.

 

            "Nonsense," Allegorus replied coolly. "It's just that it's been three centuries since I was last here."

 

            "Oh," Lafayette replied, as if enlightened.

 

            Behind him, there was a scuttling sound as Murg made a dash through the door.

 

            "No matter," Allegorus said with a careless wave of a long-fingered hand. "We can round up that lot when needed. But as for this precious pair you've cornered here," he went on in a lower tone, "I fear, my boy, you've gotten in over your head there. Top brass, you know. Still, we'll find a way out. As for yourself, Lafayette, you're in deep trouble, lad. I don't know how you managed to get involved in all this, but I'm glad I managed to intercept you before the next temporal segment assumed complete actualization; this way, there's at least a chance ... if you'll lend me your complete cooperation, that is." Allegorus looked inquiringly, or perhaps hopefully, at O'Leary. "You will cooperate, won't you, lad?" He voiced the wish hesitantly, almost, O'Leary thought, as if he were worried he might be refused. Strange, what with Allegorus being the high cockalorum in these parts, and himself a mere intruder ...

 

            "Perhaps," O'Leary said coolly. "Just what is the situation, as you see it?"

 

            "Disaster, in the most literal sense," Allegorus replied promptly. "It appears an entropic disjunction has occurred," he went on grimly, his eyes fixed on Lafayette. "You're aware of what that could mean, I'm sure."

 

            "Don't be so sure, Al," Lafayette countered breezily. "It sounds bad, but I never heard of it before." He paused, awaiting explanation. "But make it fast," he added. "I'm going to find Daphne. The poor kid's out there—" with a wave of his arm—"somewhere."

 

            "All in good time, sir," Allegorus hastened to reassure him. "An E.D. is the most drastic sort of temporal anomaly—"

 

            "I know about those," Lafayette cut in. "Central claimed I caused them whenever I focused my psychical energies—like the time I shifted myself to Artesia, and then when I turned that swill at the Ax and Dragon into Chateau Lafitte-Rothschilde, '29. At first I thought I was just sort of hallucinating, you know, my subconscious trying to bring my inner conflicts to my attention; but Nicodaeus straightened me out. He told me I was actually moving things around from one reality level to another. Pretty simple, once you understand it. But right now it seems I've gotten myself—and Daph, too—into another locus, and I didn't even change a daisy from white to pink! I don't get it. Maybe you know something about it: Maybe you were twiddling around with your psychical energies, and somehow loused everything up. How about it: Have you ever heard of Artesia? That's where this tower belongs, you know—it was built by Nicodaeus, or not built—but he fitted out this old garret as his lab." Lafayette looked around at the dim, cobwebby stone walls, the littered stone floor. "It used to be very impressive," he assured Allegorus. "But now it's been stripped, since Nicodaeus was recalled to Central."

 

            The hooded man nodded. "But all this isn't helping us with the main problem," he pointed out. "I'm very familiar with dear old Artesia—spent some time there myself once, long ago." Allegorus sighed, lost in nostalgia.

 

            "Then, let's do something!" Lafayette cried, "... if you're as powerful as Belarius and Frumpkin said."

 

            "Ah, yes." Allegorus turned to study the two under discussion, still standing in their awkward poses.

 

            "I see you took the precaution of stabilizing them with your Mark V," he said easily.

 

            "Not my Mark V," Lafayette corrected. "I took that little gadget away from Frumpkin after he'd used it on me.

 

            "Indeed? And how, might I inquire?" Allegorus returned, sounding dubious.

 

            "He got a little careless, and I got a little lucky," Lafayette replied modestly.

 

            "You did activate the 'hold' capability of the contact device, I trust," Allegorus said blandly. "Otherwise, of course, its sphere of effectiveness is less than three minutes."

 

            "I didn't have time to read the owner's manual," Lafayette explained. "I just stuck it on them the same way Frumpkin stuck it to me—more or less."

 

            "In that case—" Allegorus began with sudden urgency, turning toward the pair, too late. Already, Frumpkin was bending over the trunk—a portable command center, O'Leary now realized. Frumpkin raised his head, shot O'Leary a haughty look, and flipped switches even as Allegorus lunged with a yell: "Get them!"

 

            Lafayette charged. There was a deep-toned boom! and the light suddenly dimmed. For an instant, O'Leary seemed to catch a ghostly glimpse of the misty gray room, where Frumpkin was fading from view even as Daphne came into sight. O'Leary yelled "Daphne!" and lunged as the glimpse faded. O'Leary slammed against the wall, empty-handed, as his quarry—both men, plus their trunk—seemed to duck aside, slipping from his grasp. Allegorus was picking himself up, having fallen heavily as he missed his grab for Frumpkin. Lafayette gave him a hand, at the same time scanning the shadowy recesses of the big room for the two agile Primary agents, in vain.

 

            He put a hand to his forehead, trying to orient himself. "I'm having visions," he muttered as Allegorus bent toward him solicitously. "Waking dreams, or something. He was there—'Frumpkin', Belarius called him—and Daphne, too. I know it's silly, but I think he knows more than he's telling about her." He stepped back from the wall and looked around the room.

 

            "Where are they?" he muttered. "Let's get some light in here. I'll cover the door—unless they made it out the window; but they couldn't have moved that fast, even without their baggage."

 

            "No need, my boy," Allegorus said in his deep voice, "they've well and truly flown. Too bad. Might have cleared this whole thing up on the spot." He shook his head regretfully. "Harm's done," he concluded. "No point in mourning. We must get busy at once."

 

            "Sure," Lafayette said weakly. "Doing what?"

 

            "Saving this entire manifold of loci from utter dissolution, for a start," Allegorus snapped. "Come, Lafayette, marshal your resources! This is your opportunity to display that dazzling ingenuity of which the Record speaks in such extravagant terms!"

 

            "I'm wasting time," Lafayette cut him off. "I'm leaving here right now to look for Daphne. Sorry I don't have time for this E.D. of yours, but I've only got seventy-two hours. Ta." He headed for the door, ignoring Allegorus' urgent plea to wait. As he set foot on the landing, the stone slab cracked and shifted, affording him a glimpse, through a quickly widening gap, of open air yawning below. He noticed a dull rumbling sound; a stone block fell at his feet, slipped through the opening, and was gone. Dust and gravel were dribbling down around him; the entire Tower, he realized, was trembling, cracks appearing everywhere. More stones fell, went bounding down the steps, knocking off chips from the worn treads. Lafayette took a deep breath and followed, leaping down six steps at a bound as the walls fell about him. He arrived at the bottom in a cloud of dust and ricoshays, leaped clear of a heap of rubble, and was out the collapsing doorway and into sunshine.