The Galaxy Builder by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online Page A

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