WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
The checkerboard glitter of Foyle's question was too much for him.
'She says Olivia. Olivia Presteign. Olivia Presteign. Olivia Presteign!
He jaunted.
He fell back into the pit under Old St Pat's, and suddenly his confusion and despair told him he was dead. This was the finish of Gully Foyle. This was eternity, and hell was real. What he had seen was the past passing before his crumbling senses in the final moment of death. What he was enduring he must endure through all time. He was dead. He knew he was dead.
He refused to submit to eternity. He beat again into the unknown.
The burning man jaunted.
He was in a scintillating mist . . . a snowflake cluster of stars . . . a shower of liquid diamonds. There was the touch of butterfly wings on his skin . . . There was the taste of a strand of cool pearls in his mouth
oooooooooooooooooooooooo
His crossed kaleidoscopic senses could not tell him where he was, but he knew he wanted to remain in this Nowhere for ever.
'Hello, Gully.'
'Who's that?'
'This is Robin!
'Robin?'
'Robin Wednesbury that was.'
'That was?'
'Robin Yeovil that is.'
'I don't understand. Am I dead?'
'No, Gully.'
'Where am I?'
'A long, long way from Old St Pat's.'
'But where?'
'I can't take the time to explain, Gully. You've only got a few moments here.'
'Why?'
'Because you haven't learned to jaunte through space-time yet. You've got to go back and learn.'
'But I do know. I must know. Sheffield said I space-jaunted to Nomad... six hundred thousand miles.'
'That was an accident then, Gully, and you'll do it again . . . after you teach yourself . . . But you're not doing it now. You don't know how to hold on yet . . . how to turn any Now into reality. You'll tumble back into Old St Pat's in a moment.'
'Robin, I've just remembered. I have bad news for you.'
'I know, Gully.'
'Your mother and sisters are dead.'
'I've known for a long time, Gully.! 'How long?'
'For thirty years.'
'That's impossible.'
'No it isn't. This is a long, long way from Old St Pat's. I've been wanting to tell you how to save yourself from the fire, Gully. Will you listen?'
'I'm not dead?'
'No.'
'I'll listen.'
'Your senses are all confused. It'll pass soon, but I won't give the directions in left and right or up and down. I'll tell you what you can understand now.'
'Why are you helping me . . . after what I've done to you?'
'That's all forgiven and forgotten, Gully. Now listen to me. When you get back to Old St Pat's, turn around until you're facing the loudest shadows. Got that?'
'Yes.'
'Go towards the noise until you feel a deep prickling on your skin. Then stop.'
'Then stop.'
'Make a half turn into compression and a feeling of falling. Follow that.'
'Follow that.'
'You'll pass through a solid sheet of light and come to the taste of quinine. That's really a mass of wire. Push straight through the quinine until you see something that sounds like trip-hammers. You'll be safe.'
'How do you know all this, Robin?'
'I've been briefed by an expert, Gully.'
There was the sensation of laughter. ' You'll befalling back into the past any moment now. Peter and Saul are here. They say au revoir and good luck. And Jiz Dagenham too. Good luck, Gully dear ....
'The past? This is the future?'
'Yes, Gully.'
'Am I here? Is . . . Olivia?'
And then he was tumbling down, down, down the space-time lines back into the dreadful pit of Now.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
His senses uncrossed in the ivory and gold star chamber of Castle Presteign. Sight became sight and he saw the high mirrors and stained-glass windows; the gold tooled library with android librarian on library ladder. Sound became sound and he heard the android secretary tapping the manual bead recorder at the Louis Quinze desk. Taste became taste as he sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him.
He knew he was at bay, faced with the decision of his life. He ignored his enemies and examined the perpetual beam carved in the robot face of the bartender, the classic Irish grin.
'Thank you,' Foyle said.
'My pleasure, sir,' the robot replied and awaited its next cue.
'Nice day,' Foyle remarked.
'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot beamed.
'Awful day,' Foyle said.
'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot responded.
'Day,' Foyle said.
'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot said.
Foyle turned to the others. 'That's me,' he said, motioning to the robot. 'That's all of us. We prattle about free will, but we're nothing but response . . . mechanical reaction in prescribed grooves. So . . . here I am, here I am, waiting to respond. Press the buttons and I'll jump.'
He aped the canned voice of the robot. 'My pleasure to serve, sir.'
Suddenly his tone lashed them. 'What do you want?'
They stirred with uneasy purpose. Foyle was burned, beaten, chastened . . . and yet he was taking control of all of them.
'We'll stipulate the threats,' Foyle said. 'I'm to be hung, drawn and quartered, tortured in hell if I don't .. . What? What do you want?'
'I want my property,' Presteign said, smiling coldly.
'Eighteen and some odd pounds of PyrE. Yes. What do you offer?'
'I make no offer, sir, I demand what is mine.'
Y'ang-Yeovil and Dagenham began to speak. Foyle silenced them. 'One button at a time, gentlemen. Presteign is trying to make me jump at present.'
He turned to Presteign. 'Press harder, blood and money, or find another button. Who are you to make demands at this moment?'
Presteign tightened his lips. 'The law . . .' he began.
'What? Threats?' Foyle laughed. 'Am I to be frightened into anything? Don't be an imbecile. Speak to me the way you did New Year's Eve, Presteign ... without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy.'
Presteign bowed, took a breath and ceased to smile. 'I offer you power,' he said. 'Adoption as my heir, partnership in Presteign Enterprises, the cheiftainship of clan and sept. Together we can own the world'
'With PyrE?'
'Yes.'
'Your proposal is noted and declined. Will you offer your daughter?'
'Olivia?'
Presteign choked and clenched his fists.
'Yes, Olivia. Where is she?'
'You scum!' Presteign cried. 'Filth . . . Common thief... You dare to. . .
'Will you offer your daughter for the PyrE?'
'Yes,' Presteign answered, barely audible.
Foyle turned to Dagenham. 'Press your button, death'shead,' he said 'If the discussion's to be conducted on this level . . .'
Dagenham snapped 'It is. Without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy. What do you offer?'
'Glory.'
'Ah?'
'We can't offer money or power. We can offer honor. Gully Foyle, the man who saved the Inner Planets from annihilation. We can offer security. We'll wipe out your criminal record, give you an honored name, guarantee a niche in the hall of fame.'
'No,' Jisbella McQueen cut in sharply. 'Don't accept. If you want to be a savior, destroy the secret. Don't give PyrE to anyone.'
'What is PyrE?'
'Quiet!'
Dagenham snapped.
'It's a thereto-nuclear explosive that's detonated by thought alone... by psychokinesis,' Jisbella said.
'What thought?'
'The desire of anyone to deton
ate it, directed at it That brings it to critical mass if it's not insulated by Inert Lead Isomer.'
'I told you to be quiet,' Dagenham growled.
'If we're all to have a chance at him, I want mine.'
'This is bigger than idealism.'
'Nothing's bigger than idealism.'
'Foyle's secret is,' Y'ang-Yeovil murmured. 'I know how relatively unimportant PyrE is just now.'
He smiled at Foyle. 'Sheffield's law assistant overheard part of your little discussion in Old St Pat's. We know about the Space-Jaunting.'
There was a sudden hush.
'Space-jaunting,' Dagenham exclaimed. 'Impossible. You don't mean it.'
'I do mean it. Foyle demonstrated that Space-Jaunting is not impossible. He jaunted six hundred thousand miles from an O.S. raider to the wreck of the Nomad. As I said, this is far bigger than PyrE. I should like to discuss that matter first'
'Everyone's been telling what they want,' Robin Wednesbury said slowly. 'What do you want, Gully Foyle?'
'Thank you,' Foyle answered. 'I want to be punished.'
'What?'
'I want to be purged,' he said in a suffocated voice. The stigmata began to appear on his bandaged face. 'I want to pay for what I've done and settle the account. I want to get rid of this damnable cross I'm carrying . . . this ache that's cracking my spine. I want to go back to Gouffre Martel. I want a lobo, if I deserve it . . . and I know I do. I want -'
'You want escape,' Dagenham interrupted. 'There's no escape.'
'I want release!'
'Out of the question,' Y'ang-Yeovil said. 'There's too much of value locked up in your head to be lost by lobotomy.'
'We're beyond easy childish things like crime and punishment,' Dagenham added.
'No,' Robin objected. 'There must always be sin and forgiveness. We're never beyond that'
'Profit and loss, sin and forgiveness, idealism and realism,' Foyle smiled.
'You're all so sure, so simple, so single-minded. I'm the only one in doubt. Let's see how sure you really are. You'll give up Olivia Presteign? To me, yes? Will you give her up to the law? She's a killer.'
Presteign tried to rise, and then fell back in his chair.
'There must be forgiveness, Robin? Will you forgive Olivia Presteign? She murdered your mother and sisters.'
Robin turned ashen. Y'ang-Yeovil tried to protest 'The Outer Satellites don't have PyrE, Yeovil. Sheffield revealed that. Would you use it on them anyway? Will you turn my name into common anathema . . . like Lynch and Boycott?'
Foyle turned to Jisbella. 'Will your idealism take you back to Gouffre Martel to serve out your sentence? And you, Dagenham, will you give her up? Let her go?'
He listened to the outcries and watched the confusion for a moment, bitter and constrained.
'Life is so simple,' he said. 'This decision is so simple, isn't it? Am I to respect Presteign's property rights? The welfare of the planets? Jisbella's ideals? Dagenham's realism? Robin's conscience? Press the button and watch the robot jump. But I'm not a robot I'm a freak of the universe . . . a thinking animal . . . and I'm trying to see my way clear through, this morass. Am I to turn PyrE over to the world and let it destroy itself? Am I to teach the world how to space-jaunte and let us spread our freak-show from galaxy to galaxy through all the universe? What's the answer?'
The bartender robot hurled its mixing glass across the room with a resounding crash. In the amazed silence that followed, Dagenham grunted: 'Damn! My radiation's disrupted your dolls again, Presteign'
'The answer is yes,' the robot said, quite distinctly.
'What?' Foyle asked, taken aback.
'The answer to your question is yes'
'Thank you,' Foyle said.
'My pleasure, sir,' the robot responded. 'A man is a member of society first, and an individual second. You must go along with society, whether it chooses destruction or not'
'Completely haywire,' Dagenham said impatiently. 'Switch it off, Presteign.'
'Wait,' Foyle commanded. He looked at the beaming grin engraved in the steel robot face. 'But society can be so stupid. So infused. You've witnessed this conference'
'Yes, sir, but you must teach, not dictate. You must teach society'
'To space-jaunte? Why? Why reach out to the stars and galaxies? What for?'
'Because you're alive, sir. You might as well ask: Why is life? Don't ask about it. Live it'
'Quite mad,' Dagenham muttered.
'But fascinating,' Y'ang-Yeovil murmured.
'There's got to be more to life than just living,' Foyle said to the robot.
'Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts'
'Why can't we all move forward together?'
'Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.'
'Who leads?'
'The men who must . . . driven men, compelled men.'
'Freak men.'
'You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory.'
'Thank you very much.'
'My pleasure, sir.'
'You've saved the day.'
'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled and collapsed.
Foyle turned on the others. 'That thing's right,' he said, 'and you're wrong. Who are we, any of us, to make a decision for the world? Let the world make its own decisions. Who are we to keep secrets from the world? Let the world know and decide for itself. Come to Old St Pat's.'
He jaunted; they followed. The square block was still cordoned and by now an enormous crowd had gathered. So many of the rash and curious were jaunting into the smoking ruins that the police had set up a protective induction field to keep them out. Even so, urchins, curio-seekers and irresponsibles attempted to jaunte into the wreckage, only to be burned by the induction field and depart, squawking.
At a signal from Y'ang-Yeovil, the field was turned off: Foyle went through the hot rubble to the east wall of the cathedral, which stood to a height of fifteen feet. He felt the smoking stones, pressed and levered. There came a grinding grumble and a three by five-foot section jarred open and then stuck. Foyle gripped it and pulled. The section trembled; then the roasted hinges collapsed and the stone panel crumbled.
Two centuries before, when organized religion had been abolished and orthodox worshippers of all faiths had been driven underground, some devout souls had constructed this secret niche in Old St Pat's and turned it into an altar. The gold of the crucifix still shone with the brilliance of eternal faith. At the foot of the cross rested a small black box of Inert Lead Isomer.
'Is this a sign?' Foyle panted. 'Is this the answer I want?'
He snatched the heavy safe before any could seize it: He jaunted a hundred yards to the remnants of the cathedral steps facing Fifth Avenue. There he opened the safe in full view of the gaping crowds. A shout of consternation went up from the Intelligence crews who knew the truth of its contents.
'Foyle!' Dagenham cried.
'For God's sake, Foyle!' Y'ang-Yeovil shouted.
Foyle withdrew a slug of PyrE, the color of iodine crystals, the size of a cigarette . . . one pound of transplutonian isotopes in solid solution.
'PyrE!' he roared to the mob. 'Take it! Keep it! It's your future. PyrE!'
He hurled the slug into the crowd and roared over his shoulder: ' SanFran. Russian Hill stage.'
He jaunted St Louis-Denver to San Francisco, arriving at the Russian Hill stage where it was four in the afternoon and the streets were bustling with late shopper-Jaunters.
'PyrE!'
Foyle bellowed. His devil-face glowed blood red. He was an appalling sight. 'PyrE. It's yours. Make them tell you what it is.
'Nome!' he called to his pursuit as it arrived, and jaunted.
It was lunch hour in Nome, and the lumberjacks jaunting down from-the sawmills for their beefsteak and beer were startled by the tiger-fac
ed man who hurled a one pound slug of iodine colored alloy into their midst and shouted in the gutter tongue: 'PyrE! You hear me, man? You listen a me, you. PyrE! Grab no guesses, you. Make 'em tell you about PyrE, is all!'
To Dagenham, Y'ang-Yeovil and others jaunting in after him, as always, seconds too late, he shouted: 'Tokyo. Imperial stage!'
He disappeared a split second before their shots reached him.
It was nine O'clock of a crisp, winey morning in Tokyo, and the morning rush hour crowd milling around the Imperial stage alongside the carp ponds was paralyzed by a tiger-faced Samurai who appeared and hurled a slug of curious metal and unforgettable admonitions at them.
Foyle continued to Bangkok where it was pouring rain, and Delhi where a monsoon raged . . . always pursued in his mad-dog course. In Baghdad it was three in the morning and the night-club crowd and pub-crawlers who stayed a perpetual half-hour ahead of closing time around the world, cheered him alcoholically. In Paris and again in London it was midnight and the mobs on the Champs Elysses and in Piccadilly Circus were galvanized by Foyle's appearance and passionate exhortation.
Having led his pursuers three-quarters of the way around the world in fifty minutes, Foyle permitted them to overtake him in London. He permitted them to knock him down, take the I.L.I. safe from his arms, count the remaining slugs of PyrE, and slam the safe shut.
'There's enough left for a war. Plenty left for destruction annihilation . . . if you dare.' He was laughing and sobbing in hysterical triumph. 'Millions for defense, but not one cent for survival.'
'D'you realize what you've done, you damned killer?' Dagenham shouted.
'I know what I've done.'
'Nine pounds of PyrE scattered around the world! One thought and we'll - How can we get it back without telling them the truth? For God's sake, Yeo, keep that crowd back. Don't let them hear this.'
'Impossible.'
'Then let's jaunte.'
'No,' Foyle roared. 'Let them hear this. Let them hear everything.'
'You're insane, man. You've handed a loaded gun to children.'
'Stop treating them like children and they'll stop behaving like children. Who the hell are you to play monitor?'
'What are you talking about?'
'Stop treating them like children. Explain the loaded gun to them. Bring it all out into the open.' Foyle laughed savagely. 'I've ended the last star chamber conference in the world.
The Stars My Destination Page 22
