The World Shuffler by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online

out to the island city, the lights of which winked and sparkled cheerfully across the black waters.
    “I guess the old tub sank,” Swinehild said. “Used to be it ran out to the city every hour on the hour, a buck-fifty one way.”
    “It looks like we’ll have to find an alternate mode of travel,” O’Leary commented. “Come on. These huts along the shore are probably fishermen’s shacks. We ought to be able to hire a man to row us out.”
    “I ought to warn you, Lafe, these fishermen got a kind of unsavory rep. Like as not they’d tap you over the head and clean out your pockets, and throw the remains in the lake.”
    “That’s a chance we’ll have to take. We can’t stay here freezing to death.”
    “Listen, Lafe—” She caught at his arm. “Let’s just scout along the shore and find us a rowboat that ain’t tied down too good, and—”
    “You mean steal some poor fellow’s means of livelihood? Swinehild, I’m ashamed of you!”
    “O.K., you wait here and I’ll take care of getting the boat.”
    “Your attitude does you no credit, Swinehild,” Lafayette said sternly. “We’ll go about this in a straightforward, aboveboard manner. Honesty is the best policy, remember that.”
    “You sure got some funny ideas, Lafe. But it’s your neck.”
    He led the way across the mud to the nearest shack, a falling-down structure of water-rotted boards with a rusted stovepipe poking out the side, from which a meager coil of smoke shredded into the brisk, icy wind. A faint gleam of light shone under the single boarded-up window. Lafayette rapped at the door. After a pause, bedsprings creaked inside.
    “Yeah?” a hoarse voice responded without enthusiasm.
    “Ah—we’re a couple of travelers,” Lafayette called. “We need transportation out to the capital. We’re prepared to pay well—” he oofed as Swinehild’s elbow drove into his side. “As Well as we can, that is.”
    Muttering was audible, accompanied by the sound of a bolt being withdrawn. The door opened six inches, and a bleary, red-rimmed eye under a shaggy eyebrow peered forth at shoulder level.
    “What are youse?” the voice that went with the eye said. “Nuts or something?”
    “Mind your tone,” Lafayette said sharply. “There’s a lady present.”
    The bleary eye probed past O’Leary at Swinehild. The wide mouth visible below the eye stretched in a grin that revealed a surprising number of large, carious teeth.
    “Whyncha say so, sport? That’s different.” The eye tracked appreciatively down, paused, up again. “Yeah, not bad at all. What did you say youse wanted, squire?”
    “We have to get to Port Miasma,” Lafayette said, sidling over to block the cabin dweller’s view of Swinehild. “It’s a matter of vast importance.”
    “Yeah. Well, in the morning—”
    “We can’t wait until morning,” Lafayette cut in. “Aside from the fact that we have no intention of spending the night on this mud flat, it’s essential that we get away—I mean reach the capital without delay.”
    “Well—I’ll tell you what I’ll do; outa the goodness of my heart I’ll let the little lady spend the night inside. I’ll throw you out a tarp, cap’n, to keep the wind off, and in the A.M.—”
    “You don’t seem to understand!” O’Leary cut in. “We want to go now—at once—immediately.”
    “Uh-huh,” the native said, covering a cavernous yawn with a large-knuckled hand matted on the back with dense black hairs. “Well, Cull, what youse need is a boat—”
    “Look here,” O’Leary snapped. “I’m standing out here in the cold wind offering you this”—he reached in his pocket and produced a second Artesian fifty-cent piece—”to ferry us out there! Are you interested, or aren’t you?”
    “Hey!” the man said. “That looks like solid silver.”
    “Naturally,” Lafayette said. “Do you want it or don’t you?”
    “Geeze, thanks, bub—” The knuckly hand reached, but Lafayette snatched the coin