“Fine stuff,” Gallegher murmured. “The one time I need my subconscious, it stays buried. How the devil can I get out of here?”
There was no way. Tlie room had no windows, and the door was firm. Gallegher floated toward the piles of junk. An old sofa. A box of scraps. Pillows. A rolled carpet. Junk.
Gallegher found a length of wire, a bit of mica, a twisted spiral of plastic, once part of a mobile statuette, and some other trivia. He put them together. The result was a thing vaguely resembling a gun, though it had some resemblance to an egg beater. It looked as weird as a Martian’s doodling.
After that, Gallegher returned to the chair and sat down, trying, by sheer will power, to sober up. He didn’t succeed too well. When he heard footsteps returning, his mind was still fuzzy.
The door opened. Blazer came in, with a swift, wary glance at Gallegher, who had hidden the gadget under the table.
“Back, are you? I thought it might be Max.”
“He’ll be along, too,” Blazer said. “How d’you feel?”
“Woozy. I could use another drink. I’ve finished this bottle.” Gallegher had finished it. He had poured it down a rat hole.
Blazer locked the door and came forward as Gallegher stood up. The scientist missed his balance, lurched forward, and Blazer hesitated. Gallegher brought out the crazy egg-beater gun and snapped it up to eye level, squinting along its barrel at Blazer’s face.
The thug went for something, either his gun or his sap. But the eerie contrivance Gallegher had leveled at him worried Blazer. His motion was arrested abruptly. He was wondering what menace confronted him. In another second he would act, one way or another—perhaps continuing that arrested smooth motion toward his belt.