The Stars My Destination ( Tiger! Tiger! )

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PRESTEIGN OF PRESTEIGN'S MANSION in Central Park was ablaze for the New Year. Charming antique electric bulks with zigzag filaments and pointed tips shed yellow light. The jaunte-proof maze had been removed and the great door was open for the special occasion. The interior of the house was protected from the gaze of the crowd outside by a jeweled screen just inside the door.

The sightseers buzzed and exclaimed as the famous and near-famous of clan and sept arrived by car, by coach, by litter, by every form of luxurious transportation. Presteign of Presteign himself stood before the door, iron gray, handsome, smiling his basilisk smile, and welcomed society to his open house. Hardly had a celebrity stepped through the door and disappeared behind the screen when another, even more famous, came clattering up in a vehicle even more fabulous.

The Colas arrived in a band wagon. The Esso family (six sons, three daughters) was magnificent in a glass-topped Greyhound bus. But Greyhound arrived (in an Edison electric runabout) hard on their heels and there was much laughter and chaffing at the door. But when Edison of Westinghouse dismounted from his Esso-fueled gasoline buggy, completing the circle, the laughter on the steps turned into a roar.

Just as the crowd of guests turned to enter Presteign's home, a distant commotion attracted their attention. It was a rumble, a fierce chatter of pneumatic punches, and an outrageous metallic bellowing. It approached rapidly. The outer fringe of sightseers opened a broad lane. A heavy truck rumbled down the lane. Six men were tumbling baulks of timber out the back of the truck. Following them came a crew of twenty arranging the baulks neatly in rows.

Presteign and his guests watched with amazement. A giant machine, bellowing and pounding, approached, crawling over the ties. Behind it were deposited parallel rails of welded steel. Crews with sledges and pneumatic punches spiked the rails to the timber ties. The track was laid to Presteign's door in a sweeping arc and then curved away. The bellowing engine and crews disappeared into the darkness.

«Good God!» Presteign was distinctly heard to say. Guests poured out of the house to watch.

A shrill whistle sounded in the distance. Down the track came a man on a white horse, carrying a large red flag. Behind him panted a steam locomotive drawing a single observation car. The train stopped before Presteign's door. A conductor swung down from the car followed by a Pullman porter. The porter arranged steps. A lady and gentleman in evening clothes descended.

«Shan't be long,» the gentleman told the conductor. «Come back for me in an hour.»

«Good God!» Presteign exclaimed again.

The train puffed off. The couple mounted the steps.

«Good evening, Presteign,» the gentleman said. «Terribly sorry about that horse messing up your grounds, but the old New York franchise still insists on the red flag in front of trains.»

«Fourmyle!» the guests shouted.

«Fourmyle of Ceres!» the sightseers cheered. Presteign's party was now an assured success.

Inside the vast velvet and plush reception hall, Presteign examined Fourmyle curiously. Foyle endured the keen iron-gray gaze with equanimity, meanwhile nodding and smiling to the enthusiastic admirers he had acquired from Canberra to New York, with whom Robin Wednesbury was chatting.

«Control,» he thought. «Blood, bowels and brain. He grilled me in his office for one hour after that crazy attempt I made on 'Vorga.' Will he recognize me? Your face is familiar, Presteign,» Fourmyle said. «Have we met before?»

«I have not had the honor of meeting a Fourmyle until tonight,» Presteign answered ambiguously. Foyle had trained himself to read men, but Presteign's hard, handsome face was inscrutable. Standing face to face, the one detached and compelled, the other reserved and indomitable, they looked like a pair of brazen statues at white heat on the verge of running molten.

«I'm told that you boast of being an upstart, Fourmyle.»

«Yes. I've patterned myself after the first Presteign.»

«Indeed?»

«You will remember that he boasted of starting the family fortune in the plasma blackmarket during the third World War.»

«It was the second war, Fourmyle. But the hypocrites of our clan never acknowledge him. The name was Payne then.»

«I hadn't known.»

«And what was your unhappy name before you changed it to Fourmyle?»

«It was Presteign.»

«Indeed?» The basilisk smile acknowledged the hit. «You claim a relationship with our clan?»

«I will claim it in time.»

«Of what degree?»

«Let's say . . . a blood relationship.»

«How interesting. I detect a certain fascination for blood in you, Fourmyle.»

«No doubt a family weakness, Presteign.»

«You're pleased to be cynical,» Presteign said, not without cynicism, «but you speak the truth. We have always had a fatal weakness for blood and money. It is our vice. I admit it.»

«And I share it.»

«A passion for blood and money?»

«Indeed I do. Most passionately.»

«Without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy?»

«Without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy.»

«Fourmyle, you are a young man after my own heart. If you do not claim a relationship with our clan I shall be forced to adopt you.»

«You're too late, Presteign. I've already adopted you.»

Presteign took Foyle's arm. «You must be presented to my daughter, Lady Olivia. Will you allow me?»

They crossed the reception hall. Foyle hesitated, wondering whether he should call Robin to his side for impending emergencies, but he was too triumphant. He doesn't know. He'll never know. Then doubt came: But I'll never know if he does know. He's crucible steel. He could teach me a thing or two about control.

Acquaintances hailed Fourmyle.

«Wonderful deception you worked in Shanghai.»

«Marvelous carnival in Rome, wasn't it? Did you hear about the burning man who appeared on the Spanish Stairs?»

«We looked for you in London.»

«What a heavenly entrance that was,» Harry Sherwin-Williams called. «Outdid us all, Fourmyle. Made us look like a pack of damned pikers.»

«You forget yourself, Harry,» Presteign said coldly. «You know I permit no profanity in my home.»

«Sorry, Presteign. Where's the circus now, Fourmyle?»

«I don't know,» Foyle said. «Just a moment.»

A crowd gathered, grinning in anticipation of the latest Fourmyle folly. He took out a platinum watch and snapped open the case. The face of a valet appeared on the dial.

«Ahhh. . . whatever your name is. . . Where are we staying just now?» The answer was tiny and tinny. «You gave orders to make New York your permanent residence, Fourmyle.»

«Oh? Did I? And?»

«We bought St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fourmyle.»

«And where is that?»

«Old St. Patrick's, Fourmyle. On Fifth Avenue and what was formerly 5oth Street. We've pitched the camp inside.»

«Thank you.» Fourmyle closed the platinum Hunter. «My address is Old St. Patrick's, New York. There's one thing to be said for the outlawed religions . . . At least they built churches big enough to house a circus.»

Olivia Presteign was seated on a dais, surrounded by admirers paying court to this beautiful albino daughter of Presteign. She was strangely and wonderfully blind, for she could see in the infrared only, from 7,500 angstroms to one millimeter wave lengths, far below the normal visible spectrum. She saw heat waves, magnetic fields, radio waves; she saw her admirers in a strange light of organic emanations against a background of red radiation.

She was a Snow Maiden, an Ice Princess with coral eyes and coral lips, imperious, mysterious, unattainable. Foyle looked at her once and lowered his eyes in confusion before the blind gaze that could only see him as electromagnetic waves and infrared light. His pulse began to beat faster; a hundred lightning fantasies about himself and Olivia Presteign flashed in his heart.

«Don't be a fool!» he thought desperately. «Control yourself. Stop dreaming. This can be dangerous . .

He was introduced; was addressed in a husky, silvery voice; was given a cool, slim hand; but the hand seemed to explode within his with an electric shock. It was almost a start of mutual recognition . . . almost a joining of emotional impact.

«This is insane. She's a symbol. The Dream Princess. . . The Unattainable . . .Control!»

He was fighting so hard that he scarcely realized he had been dismissed, graciously and indifferently. He could not believe it. He stood, gaping like a lout.

«What? Are you still here, Fourmyle?»

«I couldn't believe I'd been dismissed, Lady Olivia.»

«Hardly that, but I'm afraid you are in the way of my friends.»

«I'm not used to being dismissed. (No. No. All wrong!) At least by someone I'd like to count as a friend.»

«Don't be tedious, Fourmyle. Do step down.»

«How have I offended you?»

«Offended me? Now you're being ridiculous.»

«Lady Olivia. . . (Can't I say anything right? Where's Robin?) Can we start again, please?»

«If you're trying to be gauche, Fourmyle, you're succeeding admirably.»

«Your hand again, please. Thank you. I'm Fourmyle of Ceres.»

«All right.» She laughed. «I'll concede you're a clown. Now do step down. I'm sure you can find someone to amuse.»

«What's happened this time?»

«Really, sir, are you trying to make me angry?»

«No. (Yes, I am. Trying to touch you somehow. . . cut through the ice.) The first time our handclasp was . . . violent. Now it's nothing. What happened?»

«Fourmyle,» Olivia said wearily, «I'll concede that you're amusing, original, witty, fascinating . . . anything, if you will only go away.»

He stumbled off the dais. «Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. No. She's the dream just as I dreamed her. The icy pinnacle to be stormed and taken. To lay siege…invade…ravish…force to her knees…» He came face to face with Saul Dagenham.

He stood paralyzed, coercing blood and bowels.

«Ah, Fourmyle,» Presteign said. «This is Saul Dagenham. He can only give us thirty minutes and he insists on spending one of them with you.»

«Does he know? Did he send for Dagenham to make sure? Attack. Toujours de l'audace. What happened to your face, Dagenham?» Fourmyle asked with detached curiosity.

The death's head smiled. «And I thought I was famous. Radiation poisoning. I'm hot. Time was when they said 'Hotter than an pistol.' Now they say 'Hotter than Dagenham.'» The deadly eyes raked Foyle. «What's behind that circus of yours?»

«A passion for notoriety.»

«I'm an old hand at camouflage myself. I recognize the signs. What's your larceny?»

«Did Dillinger tell Capone?» Foyle smiled back, beginning to relax, restraining his triumph. «I've outfaced them both. You look happier, Dagenham.» Instantly he realized the slip.

Dagenham picked it up in a flash. «Happier than when? Where did we meet before?»

«Not happier than when; happier than me.» Foyle turned to Presteign. «I've fallen desperately in love with Lady Olivia.»

«Saul, your half hour's up.»

Dagenham and Presteign, on either side of Foyle, turned. A tall woman approached, stately in an emerald evening gown, her red hair gleaming. It was Jisbella McQueen. Their glances met. Before the shock could seethe into his face, Foyle turned, ran six steps to the first door he saw, opened it and darted through.

The door slammed behind him. He was in a short blind corridor. There was a click, a pause, and then a canned voice spoke courteously: «You have invaded a private portion of this residence. Please retire.»

Foyle gasped and struggled with himself.

«You have invaded a private portion of this residence. Please retire.»

«I never knew. . . Thought she was killed out there. . . She recognized me…»

«You have invaded a private portion of this residence. Please retire.»

«I'm finished . . . She'll never forgive me . . . Must be telling Dagenham and Presteign now.»

The door from the reception hall opened, and for a moment Foyle thought he saw his flaming image. Then he realized he was looking at Jisbella's flaming hair. She made no move, just stood and smiled at him in furious triumph. He straightened.

«By Cod, I won't go down whining.»

Without haste, Foyle sauntered out of the corridor, took Jisbella's arm and led her back to the reception hall. He never bothered to look around for Dagenham or Presteign. They would present themselves, with force and arms, in due time. He smiled at Jisbella; she smiled back, still in triumph.

«Thanks for running away, Gully. I never dreamed it could be so satisfying.»

«Running away? My dear Jiz!»

«Well?»

«I can't tell you how lovely you're looking tonight. We've come a long way from Couffre Martel, haven't we?» Foyle motioned to the ballroom. «Dance?»

Her eyes widened in surprise at his composure. She permitted him to escort her to the ballroom and take her in his arms.

«By the way, Jiz, how did you manage to keep out of Couffre Martel?»

«Dagenham arranged it. So you dance now, Gully?»

«I dance, speak four languages miserably, study science and philosophy, write pitiful poetry, blow myself up with idiotic experiments, fence like a fool, box like a buffoon . . . In short, I'm the notorious Fourmyle of Ceres.»

«No longer Gully Foyle.»

«Only to you, dear, and whoever you've told.»

«Just Dagenham. Are you sorry I blew your secret?»

«You couldn't help yourself any more than I could.»

«No, I couldn't. Your name just popped out of me. What would you have paid me to keep my mouth shut?»

«Don't be a fool, Jiz. This accident's going to earn you about 17,980,000.»

«What d'you mean?»

«I told you I'd give you whatever was left over after I finished 'Vorga'.»

«You've finished 'Vorga'?» she said in surprise.

«No, dear, you've finished me. But I'll keep my promise.»

She laughed. «Generous Gully Foyle. Be real generous, Gully. Make a run for it. Entertain me a little.»

«Squealing like a rat? I don't know how, Jiz. I'm trained for hunting, nothing else.»

«And I killed the tiger. Give me one satisfaction, Gully. Say you were close to 'Vorga.' I ruined you when you were half a step from the finish. Yes?»

«I wish I could, Jiz, but I can't. I'm nowhere. I was trying to pick up another lead here tonight.»

«Poor Gully. Maybe I can help you out of this jam. I can say . . . oh… that I made a mistake . . . or a joke . . . that you really aren't Gully Foyle. I know how to confuse Saul. I can do it, Gully . . . if you still love me.»

He looked down at her and shook his head. «It's never been love between us, Jiz. You know that. I'm too one-track to be anything but a hunter.»

«Too one-track to be anything but a fool!»

«What did you mean, Jiz . . . Dagenham arranged to keep you out of Couffre Martel. . . You know how to confuse Saul Dagenham? What have you got to do with him?»

«I work for him. I'm one of his couriers.»

«You mean he's blackmailing you? Threatening to send you back if you don't . . .»

«No. We hit it off the minute we met. He started off capturing me; I ended up capturing him.»

«How do you mean?»

«Can't you guess?»

He stared at her. Her eyes were veiled, but he understood. «Jiz! With him?»

«But how? He…”

«There are precautions. It's . . . I don't want to talk about it, Gully.»

«Sorry. He's a long time returning.»

«Returning?»

«Dagenham. With his army.»

«Oh. Yes, of course.» Jisabella laughed again, then spoke in a low, furious tone. «You don't know what a tightrope you've been walking, Gully. If you'd begged or bribed or tried to romance me. . . By God, I'd have ruined you. I'd have told the world who you were . . . Screamed it from the housetops . . .

«What are you talking about?»

«Saul isn't returning. He doesn't know. You can go to hell on your own.»

«I don't believe you.»

«D'you think it would take him this long to get you? Saul Dagenham?»

«But why didn't you tell him? After the way I ran out on you . . .»

«Because I don't want him going to hell with you. I'm not talking about 'Vorga.' I mean something else. PyrE. That's why they hunted you. That's what they're after. Twenty pounds of PyrE.»

«What's that?»

«When you got the safe open was there a small box in it? Made of ILl Inert Lead Isomer?»

«Yes.»

«What was inside the ILl box?»

«Twenty slugs that looked like compressed iodine crystals.»

«What did you do with the slugs?»

«Sent two out for analysis. No one could find out what they are. I'm trying to run an analysis on a third in my lab . . . when I'm not clowning for the public.»

«Oh, you are, are you? Why?»

«I'm growing up, Jiz,» Foyle said gently. «It didn't take much to figure out that was what Presteign and Dagenham were after.»

«Where have you got the rest of the slugs?»

«In a safe place.»

«They're not safe. They can't ever be safe. I don't know what PyrE is, but I know it's the road to hell, and I don't want Saul walking it.»

«You love him that much?»

«I respect him that much. He's the first man that ever showed me an excuse for the double standard.»

«Jiz, what is PyrE? You know.»

«I've guessed. I've pieced together the hints I've heard. I've got an idea. And I could tell you, Gully, but I won't.» The fury in her face was luminous. «I'm running out on you, this time. I'm leaving you to hang helpless in the dark. See what it feels like, boy! Enjoy!»

She broke away from him and swept across the ballroom floor. At that moment the first bombs fell.

They came in like meteor swarms; not so many, but far more deadly. They came in on the morning quadrant, that quarter of the globe in darkness from midnight to dawn. They collided head on with the forward side of the earth in its revolution around the sun. They had been traveling a distance of four hundred million miles.

Their excessive speed was matched by the rapidity of the Terran defense computors which traced and intercepted these New Year gifts from the Outer Satellites within the space of micro-seconds. A multitude of fierce new stars prickled in the sky and vanished; they were bombs detected and detonated five hundred miles above their target.

But so narrow was the margin between speed of defense and speed of attack that many got through. They shot through the aurora level, the meteor level, the twilight limit, the stratosphere, and down to earth. The invisible trajectories ended in titanic convulsions.

The first atomic explosion which destroyed Newark shook the Presteign mansion with an unbelievable quake. Floors and walls shuddered and the guests were thrown in heaps along with furniture and decorations. Quake followed quake as the random shower descended around New York. They were deafening, numbing, chilling. The sounds, the shocks, the flares of lurid light on the horizon were so enormous, that reason was stripped from humanity, leaving nothing but flayed animals to shriek, cower, and run. Within the space of five seconds Presteign's New Year party was transformed from elegance into anarchy.

Foyle arose from the floor. He looked at the struggling bodies on the ballroom parquet, saw Jisbella fighting to free herself, took a step toward her and then stopped. He revolved his head, dazedly, feeling it was no part of him. The thunder never ceased. He saw Robin Wednesbury in the reception hail, reeling and battered. He took a step toward her and then stopped again. He knew where he must go.

He accelerated. The thunder and lightning dropped down the spectrum to grinding and flickering. The shuddering quakes turned into greasy undulations. Foyle blurred through the giant house, searching, until at last he found her, standing in the garden, standing tiptoe on a marble bench looking like a marble statue to his accelerated senses . . . the statue of exaltation.

He decelerated. Sensation leaped up the spectrum again and once more he was buffeted by that bigger-than-death size bombardment.

«Lady Olivia,» he called.

«Who is that?»

«The clown.»

«Fourmyle?»

«Yes.»

«And you came searching for me? I'm touched, really touched.»

«You're insane to be standing out here like this. I beg you to let me…”

«No, no, no. It's beautiful. . . Magnificent!»

«Let me jaunte with you to some place that's safe.»

«Mi, you see yourself as a knight in armor? Chivalry to the rescue. It doesn't suit you, my dear. You haven't the flair for it. You'd best go.»

«I'll stay.»

«As a beauty lover?»

«As a lover.»

«You're still tedious, Fourmyle. Come, be inspired. This is Armageddon Flowering Monstrosity. Tell me what you see.»

«There's nothing much,» he answered, looking around and wincing. «There's light all over the horizon. Quick clouds of it. Above, there's a sort of sparkling effect. Like Christmas lights twinkling.»

«Oh, you see so little with your eyes. See what I see! There's a dome in the sky, a rainbow dome. The colors run from deep tang to brilliant burn. That's what I've named the colors I see. What would that dome be?»

«The radar screen,» Foyle muttered.

«Arid then there are vasty shafts of fire thrusting up and swaying, weaving, dancing, sweeping. What are they?»

«Interceptor beams. You're seeing the whole electronic defense system.»

«And I can see the bombs coming down too . . . quick streaks of what you call red. But not your red; mine. Why can I see them?»

«They're heated by air friction, but the inert lead casing doesn't show the color to us.»

«See how much better you're doing as Galileo than Galahad. Oh! There's one coming down in the east. Watch for it! It's coming, coming, coming Now!»

A flare of light on the eastern horizon proved it was not her imagination.

«There's another to the north. Very close. Very. Now!»

A shock tore down from the north.

«And the explosions, Fourmyle . . . They're not just clouds of light. They're fabrics, webs, tapestries of meshing colors. So beautiful. Like exquisite shrouds.»

«Which they are, Lady Olivia.»

«Are you afraid?»

«Yes.»

«Then run away.»

«Ah, you're defiant.»

«I don't know what I am. I'm scared, but I won't run.»

«Then you're brazening it out. Making a show of knightly courage.» The husky voice sounded amused. «Just think, Fourmyle. How long does it take to jaunte? You could be safe in seconds . . . in Mexico, Canada, Alaska. So safe. There must be millions there now. We're probably the last left in the city.»

«Not everybody can jaunte so far and so fast.»

«Then we're the last left who count. Why don't you leave me? Be safe. I'll be killed soon. No one will ever know your pretense turned tail.»

«Bitch!»

«Ah, you're angry. What shocking language. It's the first sign of weakness.

Why don't you exercise your better judgment and carry me off? That would be the second sign.»

«Damn you!»

He stepped close to her, clenching his fists in rage. She touched his cheek with a cool, quiet hand, but once again there was that electric shock.

«No, it's too late, my dear,» she said quietly. «Here comes a whole cluster of red streaks . . . down, down, down . . . directly at us. There'll be no escaping this. Quick, now! Run! Jaunte! Take me with you. Quick! Quick!»

He swept her off the bench. «Bitch! Never!»

He held her, found the soft coral mouth and kissed her; bruised her lips with his, waiting for the final blackout.

The concussion never came.

«Tricked!» he exclaimed. She laughed. He kissed her again and at last forced himself to release her. She gasped for breath, then laughed again, her coral eyes blazing.

«It's over,» she said.

«It hasn't begun yet.»

«What d'you mean?»

«The war between us.»

«Make it a human war,» she said fiercely. «You're the first not to be deceived by my looks. Oh God! The boredom of the chivalrous knights and their milk-warm passion for the fairy tale princess. But I'm not like that inside. I'm not. I'm not. Never. Make it a savage war between us. Don't win me. . . destroy me!»

Suddenly she was Lady Olivia again, the gracious snow maiden. «I'm afraid the bombardment has finished, my dear Fourmyle. The show is over. But what an exciting prelude to the New Year. Good night.»

«Good night?» he echoed incredulously.

«Good night,» she repeated. «Really, my dear Fourmyle, are you so gauche that you never know when you're dismissed? You may go now. Good night.»

He hesitated, searched for words, and at last turned and lurched out of the house. He was trembling with elation and confusion. He walked in a daze, scarcely aware of the confusion and disaster around him. The horizon now was lit with the light of red flames. The shock waves of the assault had stirred the atmosphere so violently that winds still whistled in strange gusts. The tremor of the explosions had shaken the city so hard that brick, cornice, glass, and metal were tumbling and crashing. And this despite the fact that no direct hit had been made on New York.

The streets were empty; the city was deserted. The entire population of New York, of every city, had jaunted in a desperate search for safety to the limit of their ability . . . five miles, fifty miles, five hundred miles. Some had jaunted into the center of a direct hit. Thousands died in jaunte explosions, for the public jaunte stages had never been designed to accommodate the crowding of mass exodus.

Foyle became aware of white-armored Disaster Crews appearing on the streets. An imperious signal directed at him warned him that he was about to be summarily drafted for disaster work. The problem of jaunting was not to get populations out of cities, but to force them to return and restore order. Foyle had no intention of spending a week fighting fire and looters. He accelerated and evaded the Disaster Crew.

At Fifth Avenue he decelerated; the drain of acceleration on his energy was so enormous that he was reluctant to maintain it for more than a few moments. Long periods of acceleration demanded days of recuperation.

The looters and Jack-jaunters were already at work on the avenue, singly, in swarms, furtive yet savage; jackals rending the body of a living but helpless animal. They descended on Foyle. Anything was their prey tonight.

«I'm not in the mood,» he told them. «Play with somebody else.»

He emptied the money out of his pockets and tossed it to them. They snapped it up but were not satisfied. They desired entertainment and he was obviously a helpless gentleman. Half a dozen surround Foyle and closed in to torment him.

«Kind gentleman,» they smiled. «We're going to have a party.»

Foyle had once seen the mutilated body of one of their party guests. He sighed and detached his mind from visions of Olivia Presteign.

«All right, jackals,» he said. «Let's have a party.»

They prepared to send him into a screaming dance. Foyle tripped the switchboard in his mouth and became for twelve devastating seconds the most murderous machine ever devised . . . the Commando killer. It was done without conscious thought or volition; his body merely followed the directive taped into muscle and reflex. He left six bodies stretched on the street.

Old St. Pat's still stood, unblemished, eternal, the distant fires flickering on the green copper of its roof. Inside, it was deserted. The tents of the Four Mile Circus filled the nave, illuminated and furnished, but the circus personnel was gone. Servants, chefs, valets, athletes, philosophers, camp followers and crooks had fled.

«But they'll be back to loot,» Foyle murmured.

He entered his own tent. The first thing he saw was a figure in white, crouched on a rug, crooning sunnily to itself. It was Robin Wednesbury, her gown in tatters, her mind in tatters.

«Robin!»

She went on crooning wordlessly. He pulled her up, shook her, and slapped her. She beamed and crooned. He filled a syringe and gave her a tremendous shot of Niacin. The sobering wrench of the drug on her pathetic flight from reality was ghastly. Her satin skin turned ashen. The beautiful face twisted. She recognized Foyle, remembered what she had tried to forget, screamed and sank to her knees. She began to cry.

«That's better,» he told her. «You're a great one for escape, aren't you? First suicide. Now this. What next?»

«Go away.»

«Probably religion. I can see you joining a cellar sect with passwords like Pax Vobiscum. Bible smuggling and martyrdom for the faith. Can't you ever face up to anything?»

«Don't you ever run away?»

«Never. Escape is for cripples. Neurotics.»

«Neurotics. The favorite word of the Johnny-Come-Lately educated. You're so educated, aren't you? So poised. So balanced. You've been running away all your life.»

«Me? Never. I've been hunting all my life.»

«You've been running. Haven't you ever heard of Attack-Escape? To run away from reality by attacking it . . . denying it . . . destroying it? That's what you've been doing?'

«Attack-Escape?» Foyle was brought up with a jolt. «You mean I've been running away from something?»

«Obviously.»

«From what?»

«From reality. You can't accept life as it is. You refuse. You attack it try to force it into your own pattern. You attack and destroy everything that stands in the way of your own insane pattern.» She lifted her tearstained face. «I can't stand it any more. I want you to let me go.»

«Go? Where?»

«To live my own life.»

«What about your family?»

«And find them my own way.»

«Why? What now?»

«It's too much. . . you and the war. . . because you're as bad as the war. Worse. What happened to me tonight is what happens to me every moment I'm with you. I can stand one or the other; not both.»

«No,» he said. «I need you.»

«I'm prepared to buy my way out.»

«How?»

«You've lost all your leads to 'Vorga,' haven't you?»

«And?»

«I've found another.»

«Where?»

«Never mind where. Will you agree to let me go if I turn it over to you?»

«I can take it from you.»

«Go ahead. Take it.» Her eyes flashed. «If you know what it is, you won't have any trouble.»

«I can make you give it to me.»

«Can you? After the bombing tonight? Try.»

He was taken aback by her defiance. «How do I know you're not bluffing?»

«I'll give you one hint. Remember the man in Australia?»

«Forrest?»

«Yes. He tried to tell you the names of the crew. Do you remember the only name he got out?»

«Kemp.»

«He died before he could finish it. The name is Kempsey.»

«That's your lead?»

«Yes. Kempsey. Name and address. In return for your promise to let me go.»

«It's a sale,» he said. «You can go. Give it to me.»

She went at once to the travel dress she had worn in Shanghai. From the pocket she took out a sheet of partially burned paper. «I saw this on Sergei Orel's desk when I was trying to put the fire out the fire the Burning Man started . . .»

She handed him the sheet of paper. It was a fragment Of a begging letter.

It read: . . . do anything to get out of these bacteria fields. Why should a man just because he can't jaunte get treated like a dog? Please help me, Serg. Help an old shipmate off a ship we don't mention. You can spare ~r 100. Remember all the favors I done you? Send ~r 200 or even ~r 50. Don't let me down.

Rodg Kempsey

Barrack 3

Bacteria, Inc.

Mare Nubium

Moon

«By God!» Foyle exclaimed. «This is the lead. We can't fail this time. We'll know what to do. He'll spill everything. . . everything.» He grinned at Robin. «We leave for the moon tomorrow night. Book passage. No, there'll be trouble on account of the attack. Buy a ship. They'll be unloading them cheap anyway.»

«We?» Robin said. «You mean you.»

«I mean we,» Foyle answered. «We're going to the moon. Both of us.»

«I'm leaving.»

«You're not leaving. You're staying with me.»

«But you swore you'd…”

«Grow up, girl. I had to swear to anything to get this. I need you more than ever now. Not for 'Vorga.' I'll handle 'Vorga' myself. For something much more important.»

He looked at her incredulous face and smiled ruefully. «It's too bad, girl. If you'd given me this letter two hours ago I'd have kept my word. But it's too late now. I need a Romance Secretary. I'm in love with Olivia Presteign.»

She leaped to her feet in a blaze of fury. «You're in love with her? Olivia Presteign? In love with that white corpse!» The bitter fury of her telesending was a startling revelation to him. «Ah, now you have lost me. Forever. Now I'll destroy you!»

She disappeared.