“Rather like Pip,” I told him, “though my expectations are simple things, I never realized what your export-import business was actually all about.”
He chuckled. He embraced me.
“Tut, lad. Tut,” he said, pushing me back to arm’s length again. “Let me look at you. There. So that’s how you turned out, is it? Could be worse, could be worse.”
“Byler has the stone!” Charv shrieked.
“The man who just left-“ I began.
“-shan’t get very far, lad. Frenchy is outside to prevent anyone’s departing this place with unseemly haste. In fact, if you listen you may hear the clatter of hoofs on marble.”
I did, and I did. I also heard profanity and the sounds of a struggle without.
“Who, sir, are you?” Ragma inquired, rising up onto his hind legs and drawing near.
“This is my Uncle Albert,” I said, “the man who put me through school: Albert Cassidy.”
Uncle Albert studied Ragma through narrowed eyes as I explained, “This is Ragma. He is an alien cop in disguise. His partner is named Charv. He is the kangaroo.”
Uncle Al nodded.
“The art of disguise has come a long way,” he observed. “How do you manage the effect?”
“We are extraterrestrial aliens,” Ragma explained.
“Oh, that does make a difference then. You will have to excuse my ignorance of these matters. For a number of years and a variety of reasons have I been a man whose very blood is snow-broth, numb to the wanton stings and motions of the senses. Are you a friend of Fred’s?”
“I have tried to be,” Ragma replied.
“It is good to know that,” he said, smiling. “For, extraterrestrial alien or no, if you were here to harm him, not all the cheese in Cheshire would buy your safety. Fred, what of these others?”
But I did not answer him because I had chosen that moment to glance upward, had seen something just as he had spoken and was in the process of having the 1812 Overture, smoke signals, semaphores and assorted fireworks displays simultaneously active within my head.
“The smile!” I cried and tore off toward the rear of the hall.
I had never been past the door at that end of the place, but I was familiar with the reversed layout of the roof and that was all that I needed to know just then.
I plunged through and followed the corridor that lay behind. When it branched, I headed to the left. Ten quick paces, another turn and I saw the stairway off to the right. Reaching it, I swung around the rail post and took the steps two at a time.
How it all fit I did not know. But that it did I did not doubt.
I reached a landing, took a turn, came to another, took another. The end of things came into view.
There was a final landing with a door at the head of-the stairs, all enclosed in a kiosk with small, meshed windows about. I hoped that the door opened from the inside without a key-it looked like that sort of handle arrangement—because it would take a while to smash through a window and its grillwork, if I could do it at all. As I ascended, I cast my eyes about, looking for tools for this purpose.
I spotted some junk that might serve that end, as no one had apparently envisioned anyone wanting to break out of the place. It proved unnecessary, however, for the door yielded when I depressed the handle and threw my weight against it.
It was of the heavy, slow-opening sort, but when I had finally thrust it aside and stepped out I was certain that I was near to something important. I blinked against the darkness, trying to sort pipes, stacks, hatch covers and shadows into the notches my memory provided. Somewhere among them all, beneath the stars, the moon and the Manhattan skyline, was one special slot that I had to fill. The odds might be against it, but I had moved quickly. If the entire guess held true, there was a chance …
Catching my breath, I studied the panorama. I circled the kiosk slowly, my back to it, staring outward, scrutinizing every dark patch and cranny on the roof, on the ledges, beyond. It was almost a literally proverbial situation, only this was not a coal cellar and it was past midnight.