The Stars My Destination ( Tiger! Tiger! )

CHAPTER FIVE

SOUTII OF SAINT-GIRONS near the Spanish-French border is the deepest abyss in France, the Gouffre Martel. Its caverns twist for miles under the Pyrenees. It is the most formidable cavern hospital on Terra. No patient has ever jaunted out of its pitch darkness. No patient has ever succeeded in getting his bearings and learning the jaunte co-ordinates of the black hospital depths.

Short of prefrontal lobotomy, there are only three ways to stop a man from jaunting: a blow on the head producing concussion, sedation which prevents concentration, and concealment of jaunte co-ordinates. Of the three, the jaunting age considered concealment the most practical.

The cells that line the winding passages of Gouffre Martel are cut out of living rock. They are never illuminated. The passages are never illuminated. Infrared lamps flood the darkness. It is black light visible only to guards and attendants wearing snooper goggles with specially treated lenses. For the patients there is only the black silence of Gouffre Martel broken by the» distant rush of underground waters.

For Foyle there was only the silence, the rushing, and the hospital routine. At eight o'clock (or it may have been any hour in this timeless abyss) he, was awakened by a bell. He arose and received his morning meal, slotted into the cell by pneumatic tube. It had to be eaten at once, for the china surrogate of cups and plates was timed to dissolve in fifteen minutes. At» eight-thirty the cell door opened and Foyle and hundreds of others shuffled blindly through the twisting corridors to Sanitation.

Here, still in darkness, they were processed like beef in a slaughter house:

cleansed, shaved, irradiated, disinfected, dosed, and inoculated. Their paper uniforms were removed and sent back to the shops to be pulped. New uniforms were issued. Then they shuffled back to their cells which had been automatically scrubbed out while they were in Sanitation. In his cell, Foyle listened to interminable therapeutic talks, lectures, moral and ethical guidance for the rest of the morning. Then there was silence again, and nothing but the rush of distant water and the quiet steps of goggled guards in the corridors.

In the afternoon came occupational therapy. The TV screen in each cell illuminated and the patient thrust his hands into the shadow frame of the screen. He saw three-dimensionally and he felt the broadcast objects and tools. He cut hospital uniforms, sewed them, manufactured kitchen utensils, and prepared foods. Although actually he touched nothing, his motions were transmitted to the shops where the work was accomplished by remote control. After one short hour of this relief came the darkness and silence again.

But every so often . . . once or twice a week (or perhaps once or twice a year) came the muffled thud of a distant explosion. The concussions were startling enough to distract Foyle from the furnace of vengeance that he stoked all through the silences. He whispered questions to the invisible figures around him in Sanitation.

«What's them explosions?»

«Explosions?»

«Blow-ups. Hear 'em a long way off, me.»

«Them's Blue Jauntes.»

«What?»

«Blue Jauntes. Every sometime a guy gets fed up with old Jeffrey. Can't take it no more, him. Jauntes into the wild blue yonder.»

«Jesus.»

«Yep. Don't know where they are, them. Don't know where they're going. Blue Jaunte into the dark. . . and we hear 'em exploding in the mountains. Boom! Blue Jaunte.»

He was appalled, but he could understand. The darkness, the silence, the monotony destroyed sense and brought on desperation. The loneliness was intolerable. The patients buried in Gouffre Martel prison hospital looked forward eagerly to the morning Sanitation period for a chance to whisper a word and hear a word. But these fragments were not enough, and desperation came. Then there would be another distant explosion.

Sometimes the suffering men would turn on each other and then a savage fight would break out in Sanitation. These were instantly broken up by the goggled guards, and the morning lecture would switch on the Moral Fiber record preaching the Virtue of Patience.

Foyle learned the records by heart, every word, every click and crack in the tapes. He learned to loathe the voices of the lecturers: the Understanding Baritone, the Cheerful Tenor, the Man-to-Man Bass. He learned to deafen himself to the therapeutic monotony and perform his occupational therapy mechanically, but he was without resources to withstand the endless solitary hours. Fury was not enough.

He lost count of the days, of meals, of sermons. He no longer whispered in Sanitation. His mind came adrift and he began to wander. He imagined he was back aboard «Nomad,» reliving his fight for survival. Then he lost even this feeble grasp on illusion and began to sink deeper and deeper into the pit of catatonia: of womb silence, womb darkness, and womb sleep.

There were fleeting dreams. An angel hummed to him once. Another time she sang quietly. Thrice he heard her speak: «Oh God . . .» and «God damn!» and «Oh . . .» in a heart-rending descending note.

He sank into his abyss, listening to her.

«There is a way out,» his angel murmured in his ear, sweetly, comforting. Her voice was soft and warm, yet it burned with anger. It was the voice of a furious angel. «There is a way out.»

It whispered in his ear from nowhere, and suddenly, with the logic of desperation, it came to him that there was a way out of Gouffre Martel. He had been a fool not to see it before.

«Yes,» he croaked. «There's a way out.»

There was a soft gasp, then a soft question: «Who's there?»

«Me, is all,» Foyle said. «You know me.»

«Where are you?»

«Here. Where I always been, me.»

«But there's no one. I'm alone.»

«Got to thank you for helping me.»

«Hearing voices is bad,» the furious angel murmured. «The first step off the deep end. I've got to stop.»

«You showed me the way out. Blue Jaunte.»

«Blue Jaunte! My God, this must be real. You're talking the gutter lingo. You must be real. Who are you?»

«Gully Foyle.»

«But you're not in my cell. You're not even near. Men are in the north quadrant of Gouffre Martel. Women are in the south. I'm South-9oo. Where are you?»

«North-u 1.»

«You're a quarter of a mile away. How can we…Of course! It's the Whisper Line. I always thought that was a legend, but it's true. It's working now.,'

«Here I go, me,» Foyle whispered. «Blue Jaunte.»

«Foyle, listen to me. Forget the Blue Jaunte. Don't throw this away. It's a miracle.»

«What's a miracle?»

«There's an acoustical freak in Gouffre Martel . . . they happen in underground caves . . . a freak of echoes, passages and whispering galleries. Old-timers call it the Whisper Line. I never believed them. No one ever did, but it's true. We're talking to each other over the Whisper Line. No one can hear us but us. We can talk, Foyle. We can plan. Maybe we can escape.»

Her name was Jisbella McQueen. She was hot-tempered, independent, intelligent, and she was serving five years of cure in Gouffre Martel for larceny. Jisbella gave Foyle a cheerfully furious account of her revolt against society.

«You don't know what jaunting's done to women, Gully. It's locked us up, sent us back to the seraglio.»

«What's seraglio, girl?»

«A harem. A place where women are kept on ice. After ~ thousand years of civilization (it says here) we're still property. Jaunting's such a danger to our virtue, our value, our mint condition, that we're locked up like gold plate in a safe. There's nothing for us to do . . . nothing respectable. No jobs. No careers. There's no getting out, Gully, unless you bust out and smash all the rules.»

«Did you have to, Jiz?»

«I had to be independent, Gully. I had to live my own life, and that's the only way society would let me. So I ran away from home and turned crook.» And Jiz went on to describe the lurid details of her revolt: the Temper Racket, the Cataract Racket, the Honeymoon and Obituary Robs, the Badger Jaunte, and the Glim-Drop.

Foyle told her about «Nomad» and «Vorga,» his hatred and his plans. He did not tell Jisbella about his face or the twenty millions in platinum bullion waiting out in the asteroids.

«What happened to 'Nomad'?» Jisbella asked. «Was it like that man, Dagenham, said? Was she blasted by an O.S. raider?»

«I don't know, me. Can't remember, girl.»

«The blast probably wiped out your memory. Shock. And being marooned for six months didn't help. Did you notice anything worth salvaging from 'Nomad'?

«Did Dagenham mention anything?»

«No,» Foyle lied.

«Then he must have another reason for hounding you into Goufire Martel. There must be something else he wants from 'Nomad.'»

«Yeah, Jiz.»

«But you were a fool trying to blow up 'Vorga' like that. You're like a wild beast trying to punish the trap that injured it. Steel isn't alive. It doesn't think. You can't punish 'Vorga.'»

«Don't know what you mean, girl. 'Vorga' passed me by.»

«You punish the brain, Gully. The brain that sets the trap. Find out who was aboard 'Vorga.' Find out who gave the order to pass you by. Punish him.»

«Yeah. How?»

«Learn to think, Gully. The head that could figure out how to get 'Nomad' under way and how to put a bomb together ought to be able to figure that out. But no more bombs; brains instead. Locate a member of 'Vorga's' crew. He'll tell you who was aboard. Track them down. Find out who gave the order. Then punish him. But it'll take time, Gully . . . time and money; more than you've got.»

«I got a whole life, me.»

They murmured for hours across the Whisper Line, their voices sounding small yet close to the ear. There was only one particular spot in each cell where the other could be heard, which was why so much time had passed before they discovered the miracle. But now they made up for lost time. And Jisbella educated Foyle.

«If we ever break out of Gouffre Martel, Gully, it'll have to be together, and I'm not trusting myself to an illiterate partner.»

«Who's illiterate?»

«You are,» Jisbella answered firmly. «I have to talk gutter a you half the time, me.»

«I can read and write.»

«And that's about all . . . which means that outside of brute strength you'll be useless.»

«Talk sense, you,» he said angrily.

«I am talking sense, me. What's the use of the strongest chisel in the world if it doesn't have an edge? We've got to sharpen your wits, Gully. Got to educate you, man, is all.»

He submitted. He realized she was right. He would need training not only for the bust-out but for the search for «Vorga» as well. Jisbella was the daughter of an architect and had received an education. This she drilled into Foyle, leavened with the cynical experience of five years in the underworld. Occasionally he rebelled against the hard work, and then there would be whispered quarrels, but in the end he would apologize and submit again. And sometimes Jisbella would tire of teaching, and then they would ramble on, sharing dreams in the dark.

«I think we're falling in love, Gully.»

«I think so too, Jiz.»

«I'm an old hag, Gully. A hundred and five years old. What are you like?»

«Awful.»

«How awful?»

«My face.»

«You make yourself sound romantic. Is it one of those exciting scars that make a man attractive?»

«No. You'll see when we meet, us. That's wrong, isn't it, Jiz?' Just plain:

'When we meet.' Period.»

«Good boy.»

«We will meet some day, won't we, Jiz?»

«Soon, I hope, Gully.» Jisbella's faraway voice became crisp and businesslike. «But we've got to stop hoping and get down to work. We've got to plan and prepare.»

From the underworld, Jisbella had inherited a mass of information about Gouffre Martel. No one had ever jaunted out of the cavern hospitals, but for decades the underworld had been collecting and collating information about them. It was from this data that Jisbella had formed her quick recognition of the Whisper Line that joined them. It was on the basis of this information that she began to discuss escape.

«We can pull it off, Gully. Never doubt that for a minute. There must be dozens of loopholes in their security system.»

«No one's ever found them before.»

«No one's ever worked with a partner before. We'll pool our information and we'll make it.»

He no longer shambled to Sanitation and back. He felt the corridor walls, noted doors, noted their texture, counted, listened, deduced, and reported. He made a note of every separate step in the Sanitation pens and reported them to Jiz. The questions he whispered to the men around him in the shower and scrub rooms had purpose. Together, Foyle and Jisbella built up a picture of the routine of Gouffre Martel and its security system.

One morning, on the return from Sanitation, he was stopped as he was about to step back into his cell.

«Stay in line, Foyle.»

«This is North-ui i. I know where to get off by now.»

«Keep moving.»

«But…” He was terrified. «You're changing me?»

«Visitor to see you.»

He was marched up to the end of the north corridor where it met the three other main corridors that formed the huge cross of the hospital. In the center of the cross were the administration offices, maintenance workshops, clinics, and plants. Foyle was thrust into a room, as dark as his cell. The door was shut behind him. He became aware of a faint shimmering outline in the blackness. It was no more than the ghost of an image with a blurred body and a death's head. Two black discs on the skull face were either eye sockets or infrared goggles.

«Good morning,» said Saul Dagenham.

«You?» Foyle exclaimed.

«Me. I've got five minutes. Sit down. Chair behind you.»

Foyle felt for the chair and sat down slowly.

«Enjoying yourself?» Dagenham inquired.

«What do you want, Dagenham?»

«There's been a change,» Dagenham said dryly. «Last time we talked your dialogue consisted entirely of 'Go to hell.'»

«Go to hell, Dagenham, if it'll make you feel any better.»

«Your repartee's improved; your speech, too. You've changed,» Dagenham said. «Changed a damned sight too much and a damned sight too fast. I don't like it. What's happened to you?»

«I've been going to night school.»

«You've had ten months in this night school.»

«Ten months!» Foyle echoed in amazement. «That long?»

«Ten months without sight and without sound. Ten months in solitary. You ought to be broke.»

«Oh, I'm broke, all right.»

«You ought to be whining. I was right. You're unusual. At this rate it's going to take too long. We can't wait. I'd like to make a new offer.»

«Make it.»

«Ten per cent of 'Nomad's' bullion. Two million.»

«Two million!» Foyle exclaimed. «Why didn't you offer that in the first I place?»

«Because I didn't know your caliber. Is it a deal?»

«Almost. Not yet.»

«What else?»

«I get out of Gouffre Martel.»

«Naturally.»

«And someone else, too.»

«It can be arranged.» Dagenham's voice sharpened. «Anything else?»

«I get access to Presteign's files.»

«Out of the question. Are you insane? Be reasonable.»

«His shipping files.»

«What for?»

«A list of personnel aboard one of his ships.»

«Oh.» Dagenham's eagerness revived. «That, I can arrange. Anything else?»

«Then it's a deal.» Dagenham was delighted. The ghostly blur of light arose from its chair. «We'll have you out in six hours. We'll start arrangements for your friend at once. It's a pity we wasted this time, but no one can figure you, Foyle.»

«Why didn't you send in a telepath to work me over?»

«A telepath? Be reasonable, Foyle. There aren't ten full telepaths in all the Inner Planets. Their time is earmarked for the next ten years. We couldn't persuade one to interrupt his schedule for love or money.»

«I apologize, Dagenham. I thought you didn't know your business.»

«You very nearly hurt my feelings.»

«Now I know you're just lying.»

«You're flattering me.»

«You could have hired a telepath. For a cut in twenty million you could:

have hired one easy.»

«The government would never…”

«They don't all work for the government. No. You've got something too» hot to let a telepath get near.»

The blur of light leaped across the room and seized Foyle. «How much~ do you know, Foyle? What are you covering? Who are you working for?'~ Dagenham's hands shook. «Christ! What a fool I've been. Of course you’re unusual. You're no common spaceman. I asked you: who are you workin for?»

Foyle tore Dagenham's hands away from him. «No one,» he said. «N~ one, except myself.»

«No one, eh? Including your friend in Gouffre Martel you're so eager t rescue? By God, you almost swindled me, Foyle. Tell Captain Y'ang-Yeovil I congratulate him. He's got a better staff than I thought.»

«I never heard of any Y'ang-Yeovil.»

«You and your colleague are going to rot here. It's no deal. You'll fester here. I'll have you moved to the worst cell in the hospital. I'll sink you to the bottom of Gouffre Martel. I'll…Guard, here! C…”

Foyle grasped Dagenham's throat, dragged him down to the floor and hammered his head on the flagstones. Dagenham squirmed once and then was still. Foyle ripped the goggles off his face and put them on. Sight returned in soft red and rose lights and shadows.

He was in a small reception room with a table and two chairs. Foyle stripped Dagenham's jacket off and put it on with two quick jerks that split the shoulders. Dagenham's cocked highwayman's hat lay on the table. Foyle clapped it over his head and pulled the brim down before his face.

On opposite walls were two doors. Foyle opened one a crack. It led out to the north corridor. He closed it, leaped across the room and tried the other. It opened onto a jaunte-proof maze. Foyle slipped through the door and entered the maze. Without a guide to lead him through the labyrinth, he was immediately lost. He began to run around the twists and turns and found himself back at the reception room. Dagenham was struggling to his knees.

Foyle turned back into the maze again. He ran. He came to a closed door and thrust it open. It revealed a large workshop illuminated by normal light. Two technicians working at a machine bench looked up in surprise.

Foyle snatched up a sledge hammer, leaped on them like a caveman, and felled them. Behind him he heard Dagenham shouting in the distance. He looked around wildly, dreading the discovery that he was trapped in a culde-sac. The workshop was L-shaped. Foyle tore around the corner, burst through the entrance of another jaunte-proof maze and was lost again. The Gouffre Martel alarm system began clattering. Foyle battered at the walls of the labyrinth with the sledge, shattered the thin plastic masking, and found himself in the infrared-lit south corridor of the women's quadrant.

Two women guards came up the corridor, running hard. Foyle swung the sledge and dropped them. He was near the head of the corridor. Before him stretched a long perspective of cell doors, each bearing a glowing red number. Overhead the corridor was lit by glowing red globes. Foyle stood on tiptoe and clubbed the globe above him. He hammered through the socket and smashed the current cable. The entire corridor went dark . . . even to goggles.

«Evens us up; all in the dark now,» Foyle gasped and tore down the corridor feeling the wall as he ran and counting cell doors. Jisbella had given him an accurate word picture of the South Quadrant. He was counting his way toward South-9oo. He blundered into a figure, another guard. Foyle hacked at her once with his sledge. She shrieked and fell. The women patients began shrieking. Foyle lost count, ran on, stopped.

«Jiz!» he bellowed.

He heard her voice. He encountered another guard, disposed of her, ran, located Jisbella's cell.

«Gully, for God's sake. . .» Her voice was muffled.

«Get back, girl. Back.» He hammered thrice against the door with his sledge and it burst inward. He staggered in and fell against a figure.

«Jiz?» he gasped. «Excuse me. . . Was passing by. Though I'd drop in.»

«Gully, in the name of…”

«Yeah. Hell of a way to meet, eh? Come on. Out, girl. Out!» He dragged her out of the cell. «We can't try a break through the offices. They don't like me back there. Which way to your Sanitation pens?»

«Gully, you're crazy.»

«Whole quadrant's dark. I smashed the power cable. We've got half a chance. Go, girl. Go.»

He gave her a powerful thrust and she led him down the passages to the automatic stalls of the women's Sanitation pens. While mechanical hands removed their uniforms, soaped, soaked, sprayed and disinfected them, Foyle felt for the glass pane of the medical observation window. He found it, swung the sledge and smashed it.

«Get in, Jiz.»

He hurled her through the window and followed. They were both stripped, greasy with soap, slashed and bleeding. Foyle slipped and crashed through the blackness searching for the door through which the medical officers entered.

«Can't find the door, Jiz. Door from the clinic. I…”

«But…”

«Be quiet, Gully.»

A soapy hand found his mouth and clamped over it. She gripped his shoulder so hard that her fingernails pierced his skin. Through the bedlam in the caverns sounded the clatter of steps close at hand. Guards were running blindly through the Sanitation stalls. The infrared lights had not yet been repaired…

«They may not notice the window,» Jisbella hissed. «Be quiet.»

They crouched on the floor. Steps trampled through the pens in bewildering succession. Then they were gone.

«All clear, now,» Jisbella whispered. «But they'll have searchlights any minute. Come on, Gully. Out.»

«But the door to the clinic, Jiz. I thought…”

«There is no door. They use spiral stairs and they pull them up. They've thought of this escape too. We'll have to try the laundry lift. God knows what good it'll do us. Oh Gully, you fool! You utter fool!»

They climbed through the observation window back into the pens. They searched through the darkness for the lifts by which soiled uniforms were removed and fresh uniforms issued. And in the darkness the automatic hands again soaped, sprayed and disinfected them. They could find nothing.

The caterwauling of a siren suddenly echoed through the caverns, silencing all other sound. There came a hush as suffocating as the darkness.

«They're using the C-phone to track us, Gully.»

«The what?»

«Geophone. It can trace a whisper through half a mile of solid rock. That's why they've sirened for silence.»

«The laundry lift?»

«Can't find it.»

«Then come on.»

«Where?»

«We're running.»

«Where?»

«I don't know, but I'm not getting caught flat-footed. Come on. The exercise'll do you good.»

Again he thrust Jisbella before him and they ran, gasping and stumbling, through the blackness, down into the deepest reaches of South Quadrant. Jisbella fell twice, blundering against turns in the passages. Foyle took the lead and ran, holding the twenty-pound sledge in his hand, the handle extended before, him as an antenna. Then they crashed into a blank wall and realized they had reached the dead end of the corridor. They were boxed, trapped.

«What now?»

«Don't know. Looks like the dead end of my ideas, too. We can't go back for sure. I clobbered Dagenham in the offices. Hate that man. Looks like a poison label. You got a flash, girl?»

«Oh Gully . . . Gully . . .» Jisbella sobbed.

«Was counting on you for ideas. 'No more bombs,' you said. Wish I had one now. Could…Wait a minute.» He touched the oozing wall against which they were leaning. He felt the checkerboard indentations of mortar seams. «Bulletin from C. Foyle. This isn't a natural cave wall. It's made. Brick and stone. Feel.»

Jisbella felt the wall. «So?»

«Means this passage don't end here. Goes on. They blocked it off. Out of the way.»

He shoved Jisbella up the passage, ground his hands into the floor to grit his soapy palms, and began swinging the sledge against the wall. He swung in steady rhythm, grunting and gasping. The steel sledge struck the wall with the blunt concussion of stones struck under water.

«They're coming,» Jiz said. «I hear them.»

The blunt blows took on a crumbling, crushing overtone. There was a whisper, then a steady pebble-fall of loose mortar. Foyle redoubled his efforts. Suddenly there was a crash and a gush of icy air blew in their faces.

«Through,» Foyle muttered.

He attacked the edges of the hole pierced through the wall with ferocity. Bricks, stones, and old mortar flew. Foyle stopped and called Jisbella.

«Try it.»

He dropped the sledge, seized her, and held her up to the chest-high opening. She cried out in pain as she tried to wriggle past the sharp edges. Foyle pressed her relentlessly until she got her shoulders and then her hips through. He let go of her legs and heard her fall on the other side.

Foyle pulled himself up and tore himself through the jagged breach in the wall. He felt Jisbella's hands trying to break his fall as he crashed down in a mass of loose brick and mortar. They were both through into the icy blackness of the unoccupied caverns of Couffre Martel . . . miles of unexplored grottos and caves.

«By God, we'll make it yet,» Foyle mumbled.

«I don't know if there's a way out, Gully.» Jisbella was shaking with cold. «Maybe this is all cul-de-sac, walled off from the hospital.»

«There has to be a way out.»

«I don't know if we can find it.»

«We've got to find it. Let's go, girl.»

They blundered forward in the darkness. Foyle tore the useless set of goggles from his eyes. They crashed against ledges, corners, low ceilings; they fell down slopes and steep steps. They climbed over a razor-back ridge to a level plain and their feet shot from under them. Both fell heavily to a glassy floor. Foyle felt it and touched it with his tongue.

«Ice,» he muttered. «Good sign. We're in an ice cavern, Jiz. Underground glacier.»

They arose shakily, straddling their legs and worked their way across the ice that had been forming in the Gouffre Martel abyss for millenia. They climbed into a forest of stone saplings that were stalagmites and stalactites thrusting up from the jagged floor and down from the ceilings. The vibrations of every step loosened the huge stalactites; ponderous stone spears thundered down from overhead. At the edge of the forest, Foyle stopped, reached out and tugged. There was a clear metallic ring. He took Jisbella's hand and placed the long tapering cone of a stalagmite in it.

«Cane,» he grunted. «Use it like a blind man.»

He broke off another and they went tapping, feeling, stumbling through the darkness. There was no sound but the gallop of panic. . .their gasping breath and racing hearts, the taps of their stone canes, the multitudinous drip of water, the distant rushing of the underground river beneath Gouffre Martel.

«Not that way, girl,» Foyle nudged her shoulder. «More to the left.»

«Have you the faintest notion where we're headed, Gully?»

«Down, Jiz. Follow any slope that leads down.»

«You've got an idea?»

«Yeah. Surprise, surprise! Brains instead of bombs.»

«Brains instead of…” Jisbella shrieked with hysterical laughter. «You exploded into South Quadrant w-with a sledge hammer and th-that's your idea of b-brains instead of b-b-b-…” She brayed and hooted beyond all control until Foyle grasped her and shook her.

«Shut up, Jiz. If they're tracking us by C-phone they could hear you from Mars.»

«S-sorry, Gully. Sorry. I . . .» She took a breath. «Why down?»

«The river, the one we hear all the time. It must be near. It probably melts off the glacier back there.»

«The river?»

«The only sure way out. It must break out of the mountain somewhere. 'W'e'll swim.»

«Gully, you're insane!»

«What's a matter, you? You can't swim?»

«I can swim, but…”

«Then we've got to try. Got to, Jiz. Come on.»

The rush of the river grew louder as their strength began to fail. Jisbella pulled to a halt at last, gasping.

«Gully, I've got to rest.»

«Too cold. Keep moving.»

«I can't.»

«Keep moving.» He felt for her arm.

«Get your hands off me,» she cried furiously. In an instant she was all spitfire. He released her in amazement.

«What's the matter with you? Keep your head, Jiz, I'm depending on you.»

«For what? I told you we had to plan . . . work out an escape . . . and now you've trapped us into this.»

«I was trapped myself. Dagenham was going to change my cell. No more Whisper Line for us. I had to, Jiz . . . and we're out, aren't we?»

«Out where? Lost in Gouffre Martel. Looking for a damned river to drown in. You're a fool, Gully, and I'm an idiot for letting you trap me into this. Damn you! Damn you! You pull everything down to your imbecile level and you've pulled me down too. Run. Fight. Punch. That's all you know. Beat. Break. Blast. Destroy.Gully!»

Jisbella screamed. There was a clatter of loose stone in the darkness, and her scream faded down and away to a heavy splash. Foyle heard the thrash of her body in water. He leaped forward, shouted: «Jiz!» and staggered over the edge of a precipice.

He fell and struck the water flat with a stunning impact. The icy river enclosed him, and he could not tell where the surface was. He struggled, suffocated, felt the swift current drag him against the chill slime of rocks, and then was borne bubbling to the surface. He coughed and shouted. He heard Jisbella answer, her voice faint and muffled by the roaring torrent. He swam with the current, trying to overtake her.

He shouted and heard her answering voice growing fainter and fainter. The roaring grew louder, and abruptly he was shot down the hissing sheet of a waterfall. He plunged to the bottom of a deep pool and struggled once more to the surface. The whirling current entangled him with a cold body bracing itself against a smooth rock wall.

«Gully! Thank God!»

They clung together for a moment while the water tore at them.

«Gully . . .» Jisbella coughed. «It goes through here.»

«The river?»

«Yes.»

He squirmed past her, bracing himself against the wall, and felt the mouth of an underwater tunnel. The current was sucking them into it.

«Hold on,» Foyle gasped. He explored to the left and the right. The walls of the pool were smooth, without handhold.

«We can't climb out. Have to go through.»

«There's no air, Gully. No surface.»

«Couldn't be forever. We'll hold our breath.»

«It could be longer than we can hold our breath.» «Have to gamble.»

«I can't do it.»

«You must. No other way. Pump your lungs. Hold on to me.»

They supported each other in the water, gasping for breath, filling their lungs. Foyle nudged Jisbella toward the underwater tunnel. «You go first. I'll be right behind. . . . Help you if you get into trouble.»

«Trouble!» Jisbella cried in a shaking voice. She submerged and permitted the current to suck her into the tunnel mouth. Foyle followed. The fierce waters drew them down, down, down, caroming from side to side of a tunnel that had been worn glass-smooth. Foyle swam close behind Jisbella, feeling her thrashing legs beat his head and shoulders.

They shot through the tunnel until their lungs burst and their blind eyes started. Then there was a roaring again and a surface, and they could breathe. The glassy tunnel sides were replaced by jagged rocks. Foyle caught Jisbella's leg and seized a stone projection at the side of the river.

«Got to climb out here,» he shouted.

«What?»

«Got to climb out. You hear that roaring up ahead? Cataracts. Rapids. Be torn to pieces. Out, Jiz.»

She was too weak to climb out of the water. He thrust her body up onto the rocks and followed. They lay on the dripping stones, too exhausted to speak. At last Foyle got wearily to his feet.

«Have to keep on,» he sail. «Follow the river. Ready?»

She could not answer; she could not protest. He pulled her up and they went stumbling through the darkness, trying to follow the bank of the torrent. The boulders they traversed were gigantic, standing like dolmens, heaped, jumbled, scattered into a labyrinth. They staggered and twisted through them and lost the river. They could hear it in the darkness; they could not get back to it. They could get nowhere.

«Lost . . .» Foyle grunted in disgust. «We're lost again. Really lost this time. What are we going to do?»

Jisbella began to cry. She made helpless yet furious sounds. Foyle lurched to a stop and sat down, drawing her down with him.

«Maybe you're right, girl,» he said wearily. «Maybe I am a damned fool. I got us trapped into this no-jaunte jam, and we're licked.»

She didn't answer.

«So much for brainwork. Hell of an education you gave me.» He hesitated. «You think we ought to try backtracking to the hospital?»

«We'll never make it.»

«Guess not. Was just practicing m'brain. Should we start a racket? Make a noise so they can track us by G-phone?»

«They'd never hear us . . . Never find us in time.»

«We could make enough noise. You could knock me around a little. Be a pleasure for both of us.»

«Shut up.»

«What a mess!» He sagged back, cushioning his head on a tuft of soft grass. «At least I had a chance aboard 'Nomad.' There was food and I could see where I was trying to go. I could…” He broke off and sat bolt upright. «Jiz!»

«Don't talk so much.»

He felt the ground under him and clawed up sods of earth and tufts of grass. He thrust them into her face.

«Smell this,» he laughed. «Taste it. It's grass, Jiz. Earth and grass. We must be out of Gouffre Martel.»

«What?»

«It's night outside. Pitch-black. Overcast. We came out of the caves and never knew it. We're out, Jiz! We made it.»

They leaped to their feet, peering, listening, sniffing. The night was impenetrable, but they heard the soft sigh of night winds, and the sweet scent of green growing things came to their nostrils. Far in the distance a dog barked.

«My God, Gully,» Jisbella whispered incredulously. «You're right. We're out of Gouffre Martel. All we have to do is wait for dawn.»

She laughed. She flung her arms about him and kissed him, and he returned the embrace. They babbled excitedly. They sank down on the soft grass again, weary, but unable to rest, eager, impatient, all life before them.

«Hello, Gully, darling Gully. Hello Gully, after all this time.»

«Hello, Jiz.»

«I told you we'd meet some day. . . some day soon. I told you, darling. And this is the day.»

«The night.»

«The night, so it is. But no more murmuring in the night along the Whisper Line. No more night for us, Gully, dear.»

Suddenly they became aware that they were nude, lying close, no longer separated. Jisbella fell silent but did not move. He clasped her, almost angrily, and enveloped her with a desire that was no less than hers.

When dawn came, he saw that she was lovely: long and lean with smoky red hair and a generous mouth.

But when dawn came, she saw his face.