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think it is—or maybe it's just the three
hundred years. It doesn't look anything like Artesia— except for the Tower,
that is." He glared sullenly at Belarius. "Artesia's my home,"
he stated, "not this dump ... Aphasia, Trog called it."
     
                "Locus designation?" Frumpkin
inquired. "Of this Artesia, I mean."
     
                "Alpha Nine-Three, Plane V-87, Fox
221-b," O'Leary replied promptly. Frumpkin looked grave and twiddled
control knobs on the apparatus inside the suitcase.
     
                "Doesn't check out, Belarius," he said
tonelessly. "Something a trifle out of sync there." He shot O'Leary a
hard look. "Why lie about it?" he demanded.
     
                "I was born there," O'Leary said.
"When I was a few months old, a renegade inspector from Central kidnapped
me and took me to Colby Corners, U.S.A. I grew up there, and then I focused my
psychical energies one evening, and was back in Artesia, where I belonged."
     
                "Better change that story," Belarius
put in after consulting a small handbook. "Artesia's listed, all right,
but as a dead locus. What we call a traumatic abort. Ceased to exist nearly
three hundred years ago."
     
                "Nonsense!" O'Leary said, and after a
thoughtful pause went on, "I was there half an hour ago—or three hundred
years and a half hour ago ... I'm not quite sure about that. Anyway, Artesia is
just as real as Melange, or Colby Corners, or Thallathlone, or any of those
other crazy places I've been—and realer than this crazy locus,
Aphasia."
     
                "Not listed," Belarius said after a
glance at his book. He turned to Frumpkin. "That's it, let's report back,
and we'll just put this fellow on hold. Later, a brain-scrape will soon have
the facts out of him."
     
                "Wait!" Lafayette demanded. "You
can't just go off and. leave Aphasia to dissolve back into entropic
energy—"
     
                "Aha! So you do know
something!"
     
                "You told me," O'Leary said hastily.
"Sure, I know about planes of reality and all that; I've been in enough of
'em. But this time I didn't meddle. I was just sitting in the garden with
Daphne, and all of a sudden—"
     
                "Get him over here, Belarius," Frumpkin
cut him off. "The shift zone on this portable rig is pretty small, you
know. We wouldn't want to leave even this poor boob stranded in
half-phase." Belarius manhandled O'Leary into the indicated spot.
     
                "Daphne's around here, somewhere!"
O'Leary blurted. "If you leave her—"
     
                "This Daphne is also a native of Colby
Corners?" Belarius asked without interest.
     
                "No—and neither am I—I just grew up there,
in the orphanage, you know. Daphne's an Artesian, born and bred ... You can't
go off and leave her stranded here!"
     
                "What about it, Frumpkin?" Belarius
queried his colleague. "Hadn't we best check this out?"
     
                "Damn right!" O'Leary yelled.
"You can't go creating a phase violation, remember, even if you are inhumane
enough to strand a helpless girl in this dismal place. YAC-19 wouldn't like
it," he added.
     
                "I suppose we'll have to fetch her
along," Frumpkin conceded. "Where is she, fellow, hiding in a dark
corner?" He looked about the shadowy room in a show of confusion.
     
                "How do I know, Flapkin, or whatever your
dumb name is?" O'Leary demanded. "Release me, and I'll try to find
her. I thought she must have come this way, but I was wrong—unless you two
sharpies grabbed her and sent her off somewhere with that suitcase of yours."
     
                "By no means, Mr. O'Leary. By the way,
Frumpkin," Belarius shifted his attention to his associate. "-Since
he's had the effrontery to preempt the honored name of Lancelot