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

the
Countess around?" he inquired in a bored tone.
     
                "Uh, Chief, old Mel-the-Smell's got him a
sow he calls Dutchess," a whiskery fellow volunteered doubtfully.
     
                "He don't mean no pig," Iron-Head
dismissed the suggestion. "He means a dame, a real snazzy piece too, eh,
kid?" He leered at Lafayette and belched comfortably. "Maybe we're
missing a bet at that, Chief, not collecting duh broad."
     
                Now's the time, Lafayette told himself
grimly. He eyed the seven-foot bruiser, thinking of the heavy lunch of
lobster-tails and pizza the big fellow might well have gulped down half an hour
ago. Focus the old psychic energies, he urged himself. Was there a
slight flicker, or did he imagine it? He looked at Iron-Head Mike.
     
                A stricken expression crossed the blunted
features of the bodyguard. He put one large hand tenderly against his abdomen.
His color was no longer good.
     
                "What's wrong, Iron-Head?" Lafayette
inquired genially. "You look hungry. How about a pizza and a gallon of
warm sweet port?"
     
                Iron-Head shuddered, looking distinctly green
now.
     
                "What's all this about pizza?"
Frodolkin demanded. "I've warned you fellows to stay out of my private
mess tent. You wouldn't appreciate the subtleties of smoked oysters, caviar,
escargots, artichoke hearts, pickled onions, and rare wines; that's why I
sequester such comestibles as my portion of our forage."
     
                "Ulp," Iron-Head said blurrily, using
both hands now.
     
                Oh, boy, Lafayette said to himself,
feeling a surge of enthusiasm. It's just like the old days, like the time
Count Alain was trying to keep me from getting to know Adoranne. I'm back in
business!
     
                "Hey, Mike," George said,
emerging into view from the underbrush with his unshaved jaws working hard and
holding in his unwashed paw a vast sandwich minus one sizable crescent.
     
                "Wanna bite o' my
sardine-peaner-butter-and-ba-nana samidge?" he inquired, offering the
construction, the edges of which oozed ketchup and mayonnaise—or possibly blood
and brains, Lafayette reflected, averting his eyes. Iron-Head passed him at a
trot, bound for the shelter of a raggedly overgrown hibiscus hedge whence there
emanated almost at once sounds reminiscent of a brontosauras in labor, combined
with the eruption of a small volcano. As Frodolkin stared concernedly after his
stricken minion, Lafayette unobtrusively edged off toward the vine-grown and
mildew-stained tower still, surprisingly, looming above the trees against the clear
morning sky. He was halfway there when Marv's voice overtook him.
     
                "Hey, where ya goin', boss? Not back inside
the Dread Tower, huh? I mean, I been inside wunst and got out in one piece—I
ain't innerested in, like, tempting fate and all by venturin there again!"
     
                "Certainly, Marv," O'Leary replied
firmly. "That's where the action is. Come on." Even as he spoke,
O'Leary heard his voice take on a hollow, echoic quality. Mist was settling in,
blurring things, and again he saw the gray room around him. Frumpkin rose from
an overstuffed chair, and at once Lafayette grabbed his arm, no longer clad in
coarse gray, he noticed, but in the elegant silver-trimmed black he had worn in
the Tower.
     
                "Where's Daphne?" O'Leary demanded.
Frumpkin jerked his arm free and spoke to someone out of sight behind O'Leary.
He heard a movement, ducked too late, and fell endlessly; he struck hard, and
the light of day glared around him.
     
                "Grab them, lads!" Frodolkin's command
cracked like a whip. Lafayette turned as Marv hurried back the way he had come,
giving a wide berth to George who was advancing supporting Iron-Head Mike, who
came protesting. As they