"That was my brand-new cloak," he said. "It must have taken years to fade that much! How long has it been, Daph?"
"I know not, my Lafayette," she replied, sniffling. "After the first year I lost count—everything was so strange."
Lafayette patted her comfortingly. "Poor kid," he murmured. "For me, it's only been a few days—I think. But it's all over now."
"Sir knight," Bother spoke up beside him, "pray forgive my intervention at this tender moment, but we must make certain decisions in haste. As you've heard, I am Chief Inspector Mobius, carrying Category Nine credentials, empowered to act for the Council. Now, it seems that if I'm to credit this fellow's boasts"—he paused to look without approval at Frumpkin—"matters are in an even more parlous state than we had assumed. I defer, of course, to your unique status; what's to be done?"
"What is my 'unique status'?" Lafayette demanded of the stern-faced inspector. "I'm just a dumb guy who got in over his head!"
"Be none so modest, sirrah!" Bother boomed. "The time for pretense is past. Now you must act!"
O'Leary turned to Roy and squatted down to put his face on a level with the Ajax rep's. "What do you think, Roy?" he appealed. "What does he expect me to do? Who does he think I am?"
"Beats me, Slim," Roy said sympathetically, "unless he knows about the Category Ultimate Anomalies and all. But how could he?"
"He's an inspector, from Prime. Prime outranks Central, I understand. But what's a Category Ultimate Anomaly?"
"Come on, Slim, you don't need to fake it with me. A CUA is what you make every time you focus, you know. By the way, I was right about Daph. The louse told her if she didn't cooperate he'd do you in, painful. That's why he kept pulling you back here, so she'd see you in trouble. But how do you focus the old PEs?"
"I don't know, Roy. But if I did know, what should I do now—before the bubble closes in the rest of the way and squashes all of us?"
"Except maybe me, Slim," Roy pointed out. "I'm not really here, remember? But to heck with that kinda talk. You use the flat-walker"—he handed it over— "and I'll see if I can punch a signal through to Ajax's field office for this quadrant. Doubt it, but I can try." Noting Lafayette's surprise at seeing the flat-walker, Roy added, "Marv lifted it off Frumpy when he was doing the Alphonse and Gaston routine, dusting him off. I taken it outa Marv's pocket. Right now, I got Marv on 'hold', till I can check out Frumpy's story."
"What should I do with it?" Lafayette asked helplessly, holding the flat-walked gingerly.
"Oh, just try the wall here." The concrete-like surface of the contracting sphere was only a few feet away now, crowding all its remaining occupants together like fraternity men in a phone booth.
Lafayette took a last, lingering look at Daphne's anxious face, kissed it lightly, said, "Here goes nothing," and faced the wall.
"If you get into trouble, Slim," Roy said behind him, "reorient the walker at right angles, OK?"
Lafayette nodded and pressed forward, the flat-walker held parallel to his body. The wall yielded easily, like dense fog, and the display of darting lights was dazzling. He took a cautious step, then another. Then the floor was gone and he was falling—or so his first impression was. Then he seemed to be hanging motionless in still air. The tiny sparks of light whirled about him more quickly than ever, vast numbers of them, which became a dazzling, whirling glow that consumed him.
The floor was hard and cold. Lafayette grabbed at it and willed it to stay under him. The darkness was as dense as the brilliant glare had been a moment—or an eternity—before. He blinked, saw a faint glimmer, held it, got to his feet, and groped toward a dim-glowing rectangle at a remote distance. He bumped against it and, feeling over it, found a door latch. He lifted it and the door swung outward, letting in cool night air. The light sprang up behind him.
"No, no, over here, my boy," an urbane voice spoke behind the glare. Lafayette blinked and groped his way toward it, averting his eyes from the bank of fluorescents above the marble-topped counter.
"I know you've had a shock, Lafayette," the voice said kindly. Lafayette turned toward it and saw a tall man in a black hooded cloak, sitting at ease in a large leather easy chair beside the crackle-finish instrument panel.
"Allegorus!" Lafayette blurted. "And I'm back in the lab! How—what?" His voice trailed off as he covered his face with his hands. "Or am I just off on another bad trip?" He looked directly at Allegorus.
"Ye gods!" O'Leary said feelingly. "Nicodaeus! Why the spook getup? If I'd recognized you the first time I ran into you, back when Frumpkin and Belarius V were conning me, we could have saved this whole thing! All the torment poor Daph has been through, for example."
Allegorus/Nicodaeus shook his head. "No, Lafayette, life is not after all so simple. What will be, will be. One way or another, the equations had to balance, and just as Bother told you and Roy—in the end it had to come to a face-to-face confrontation between you and your opposite number, so to speak—Lord Marvelous, as he's calling himself. Yes," Allegorus held up an admonishing hand. "I am indeed Nicodaeus, or at least I am the Prime-line original of the ego-gestalt of which he is a manifestation—rather a close manifestation, too, only a few zillion parameters away. But in spite of that, when elemental forces are in flux, only a rascal (Frumpkin) or a fool (yourself—no offense intended) can influence them. You see, Lafayette, when an individual of ordinary potential places himself in the path of what we may loosely call destiny, he is simply ejected from whatever locus he is occupying; thus the unexplained disappearances and other weird experiences sometimes reported—and as often ignored by the more pedestrian personalities who indeed provide the stability of such mundane loci, as for example Colby Corners."
"Sure," O'Leary dismissed the subject. "But just what was going on back there in Aphasia I? I saw the palace in ruins. And Trog, who turned out to be nothing but one of Frumpkin's hirelings, was in charge—or he seemed to be. I guess I was gullible to accept him at face value. And that Marv! Lord Marvelous, that's short for —he seems to be Mr. Big. Some disguise, coming on like a hired thug taking orders from his own servants."
"Lord Marvelous is less elementary than he may seem, my boy," Nicodaeus pointed out. "Don't be misled by the persona of Marv which he was forced to adapt hurriedly when you appeared on the scene. He assumed you'd be dealt with by Frumpkin. But he reckoned without me," he added almost with a smile.
"What did you do?" Lafayette demanded. "Except let me walk out there and get clobbered again."
"I remained here, with my equipment at hand," Nicodaeus answered coolly, "until the moment when I could safely snatch you across the plenum to relative safety. I tried a number of times, actually: each time you ventured into half-phase. But I was blocked by your Lord Marvelous—though it did give me an opportunity each time to keep Ajax informed."
"What connection do you have with Ajax?" O'Leary demanded.
Nicodaeus raised a hand. "Quietly, Lafayette. No need to adopt that hectoring tone. I don't wish to pull rank on you, but after all I am First Secretary to the Prime Postulate at Nuclear City. Why, actually, it was I who established Ajax in a small way of business back in Artesia's early days, long before you were born, of course, Lafayette. Theiittle chaps proved surprisingly ingenious as well as industrious, and soon expanded the scope of their operations far beyond anything I had envisioned. Still, I never interfered. I did, however, keep them posted as to your constantly fluctuating position in the plenum, and even supplied the Words of Power of which you made such good, though random, use."