American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58 (28 page)

“Three attempts have been made on Presteign’s life,” Sheffield said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Three this morning? Presteign must have been busy.” Y’ang-Yeovil sighed. Sheffield was proving himself a resolute opponent. The Intelligence man tried another diversion. “I do wish our Mr. Presto had been more specific.”

“
Your
Mr. Presto!” Presteign exclaimed.

“Oh yes. Didn’t you know one of your five hundred Prestos was an agent of ours? That’s odd. We took it for granted you’d find out and went ahead with a confusion operation.”

Presteign looked appalled. Y’ang-Yeovil crossed his legs and continued to chat breezily. “That’s the basic weakness in routine intelligence procedure; you start finessing before finesse is required.”

“He’s bluffing,” Presteign burst out. “None of our Prestos could possibly have any knowledge of Gulliver Foyle.”

“Thank you.” Y’ang-Yeovil smiled. “That’s the Foyle I want. When can you let us have him?”

Sheffield scowled at Presteign and then turned on Y’angYeovil. “Who’s ‘us’?” he demanded.

“Central Intelligence.”

“Why do you want him?”

“Do you make love to a woman before or after you take your clothes off ?”

“That’s a damned impertinent question to ask.”

“And so was yours. When can you let us have Foyle?”

“When you show cause.”

“To whom?”

“To me.” Sheffield hammered a heavy forefinger against his palm. “This is a civilian matter concerning civilians. Unless war material, war personnel, or the strategy and tactics of a war-inbeing are involved, civilian jurisdiction shall always prevail.”

“303 Terran Appeals 191,” murmured Bunny.

“The ‘Nomad’ was carrying war material.”

“The ‘Nomad’ was transporting platinum bullion to Mars Bank,” Presteign snapped. “If money is a—”

“
I
am leading this discussion,” Sheffield interrupted. He swung around on Y’ang-Yeovil. “Name the war material.”

This blunt challenge knocked Y’ang-Yeovil off balance. He knew that the crux of the “Nomad” situation was the presence on board the ship of 20 pounds of PyrE, the total world supply, which was probably irreplaceable now that its discoverer had disappeared. He knew that Sheffield knew that they both knew this. He had assumed that Sheffield would prefer to keep PyrE unnamed. And yet, here was the challenge to name the unnamable.

He attempted to meet bluntness with bluntness. “All right, gentlemen, I’ll name it now. The ‘Nomad’ was transporting twenty pounds of a substance called PyrE.”

Presteign started; Sheffield silenced him. “What’s PyrE?”

“According to our reports—”

“From Presteign’s Mr. Presto?”

“Oh, that was bluff,” Y’ang-Yeovil laughed, and momentarily regained control. “According to Intelligence, PyrE was developed for Presteign by a man who subsequently disappeared. PyrE is a Misch Metal, a pyrophore. That’s all we know for a fact. But we’ve had vague reports about it . . . Unbelievable reports from reputable agents. If a fraction of our inferences are correct, PyrE could make the difference between a victory and a defeat.”

“Nonsense. No war material has ever made that much difference.”

“No? I cite the fission bomb of 1945. I cite the Null-G antigravity installations of 2022. Talley’s All-Field Radar Trip Screen of 2194. Material can often make the difference, especially when there’s the chance of the enemy getting it first.”

“There’s no such chance now.”

“Thank you for admitting the importance of PyrE.”

“I admit nothing; I deny everything.”

“Central Intelligence is prepared to offer an exchange. A man for a man. The inventor of PyrE for Gully Foyle.”

“You’ve got him?” Sheffield demanded. “Then why badger us for Foyle?”

“Because we’ve got a corpse!” Y’ang-Yeovil flared. “The Outer Satellites command had him on Lassell for six months trying to carve information out of him. We pulled him out with a raid at a cost of 79 per cent casualties. We rescued a corpse. We still don’t know if the Outer Satellites were having a cynical laugh at our expense letting us recapture a body. We still don’t know how much they ripped out of him.”

Presteign sat bolt upright at this. His merciless fingers tapped slowly and sharply.

“Damn it,” Y’ang-Yeovil stormed. “Can’t you recognize a crisis, Sheffield? We’re on a tightrope. What the devil are you doing backing Presteign in this shabby deal? You’re the leader of the Liberal party . . . Terra’s archpatriot. You’re Presteign’s political archenemy. Sell him out, you fool, before he sells us all out.”

“Captain Yeovil,” Presteign broke in with icy venom. “These expressions cannot be countenanced.”

“We want and need PyrE,” Y’ang-Yeovil continued. “We’ll have to investigate that twenty pounds of PyrE, rediscover the synthesis, learn to apply it to the war effort . . . and all this before the O.S. beats us to the punch, if they haven’t already. But Presteign refuses to co-operate. Why? Because he’s opposed to the party in power. He wants no military victories for the Liberals. He’d rather we lost the war for the sake of politics because rich men like Presteign never lose. Come to your senses, Sheffield. You’ve been retained by a traitor. What in God’s name are you trying to do?”

Before Sheffield could answer, there was a discreet tap on the door of the Star Chamber and Saul Dagenham was ushered in. Time was when Dagenham was one of the Inner Planets’ research wizards, a physicist with inspired intuition, total recall, and a sixth-order computer for a brain. But there was an accident at Tycho Sands, and the fission blast that should have killed him did not. Instead it turned him dangerously radioactive; it turned him “hot”; it transformed him into a twentyfifth century “Typhoid Mary.”

He was paid r 25,000 a year by the Inner Planets government to take precautions which they trusted him to carry out. He avoided physical contact with any person for more than five minutes per day. He could not occupy any room other than his own for more than thirty minutes a day. Commanded and paid by the IP to isolate himself, Dagenham had abandoned research and built the colossus of Dagenham Couriers, Inc.

When Y’ang-Yeovil saw the short blond cadaver with leaden skin and death’s-head smile enter the Star Chamber, he knew he was assured of defeat in this encounter. He was no match for the three men together. He arose at once.

“I’m getting an Admiralty order for Foyle,” he said. “As far as Intelligence is concerned, all negotiations are ended. From now on it’s war.”

“Captain Yeovil is leaving,” Presteign called to the JaunteWatch officer who had guided Dagenham in. “Please see him out through the maze.”

Y’ang-Yeovil waited until the officer stepped alongside him and bowed. Then, as the man courteously motioned to the door, Y’ang-Yeovil looked directly at Presteign, smiled ironically, and disappeared with a faint Pop!

“Presteign!” Bunny exclaimed. “He jaunted. This room isn’t blind to him. He—”

“Evidently,” Presteign said icily. “Inform the Master of the Household,” he instructed the amazed Watch officer. “The co-ordinates of the Star Chamber are no longer secret. They must be changed within twenty-four hours. And now, Mr. Dagenham . . .”

“One minute,” Dagenham said. “There’s that Admiralty order.”

Without apology or explanation he disappeared too. Presteign raised his eyebrows. “Another party to the Star Chamber secret,” he murmured. “But at least he had the tact to conceal his knowledge until the secret was out.”

Dagenham reappeared. “No point wasting time going through the motions of the maze,” he said. “I’ve given orders in Washington. They’ll hold Yeovil up; two hours guaranteed, three hours probably, four hours possible.”

“How will they hold him up?” Bunny asked.

Dagenham gave him his deadly smile. “Standard FFCC Operation of Dagenham Couriers. Fun, fantasy, confusion, catastrophe. . . . We’ll need all four hours. Damn! I’ve disrupted your dolls, Presteign.” The robots were suddenly capering in lunatic fashion as Dagenham’s hard radiation penetrated their electronic systems. “No matter, I’ll be on my way.”

“Foyle?” Presteign asked.

“Nothing yet.” Dagenham grinned his death’s-head smile. “He’s really unique. I’ve tried all the standard drugs and routines on him . . . Nothing. Outside, he’s just an ordinary spaceman . . . if you forget the tattoo on his face . . . but inside he’s got steel guts. Something’s got hold of him and he won’t give.”

“What’s got hold of him?” Sheffield asked.

“I hope to find out.”

“How?”

“Don’t ask; you’d be an accessory. Have you got a ship ready, Presteign?”

Presteign nodded.

“I’m not guaranteeing there’ll be any ‘Nomad’ for us to find, but we’ll have to get a jump on the navy if there is. Law ready, Sheffield?”

“Ready. I’m hoping we won’t have to use it.”

“I’m hoping too; but again, I’m not guaranteeing. All right. Stand by for instructions. I’m on my way to crack Foyle.”

“Where have you got him?”

Dagenham shook his head. “This room isn’t secure.” He disappeared.

He jaunted Cincinnati–New Orleans–Monterey to Mexico City, where he appeared in the Psychiatry Wing of the giant hospital of the Combined Terran Universities. Wing was hardly an adequate name for this section which occupied an entire city in the metropolis which was the hospital. Dagenham jaunted up to the 43rd floor of the Therapy Division and looked into the isolated tank where Foyle floated, unconscious. He glanced at the distinguished bearded gentlemen in attendance.

“Hello, Fritz.”

“Hello, Saul.”

“Hell of a thing, the Head of Psychiatry minding a patient for me.”

“I think we owe you favors, Saul.”

“You still brooding about Tycho Sands, Fritz? I’m not. Am I lousing your wing with radiation?”

“I’ve had everything shielded.”

“Ready for the dirty work?”

“I wish I knew what you were after.”

“Information.”

“And you have to turn my therapy department into an inquisition to get it?”

“That was the idea.”

“Why not use ordinary drugs?”

“Tried them already. No good. He’s not an ordinary man.”

“You know this is illegal.”

“I know. Changed your mind? Want to back out? I can duplicate your equipment for a quarter of a million.”

“No, Saul. We’ll always owe you favors.”

“Then let’s go. Nightmare Theater first.”

They trundled the tank down a corridor and into a hundred feet square padded room. It was one of therapy’s by-passed experiments. Nightmare Theater had been an early attempt to shock schizophrenics back into the objective world by rendering the phantasy world into which they were withdrawing uninhabitable. But the shattering and laceration of patients’ emotions had proved to be too cruel and dubious a treatment.

For Dagenham’s sake, the head of Psychiatry had dusted off the 3D visual projectors and reconnected all sensory projectors. They decanted Foyle from his tank, gave him a reviving shot and left him in the middle of the floor. They removed the tank, turned off the lights and entered the concealed control booth. There, they turned on the projectors.

Every child in the world imagines that its phantasy world is unique to itself. Psychiatry knows that the joys and terrors of private phantasies are a common heritage shared by all mankind. Fears, guilts, terrors, and shames could be interchanged, from one man to the next, and none would notice the difference. The therapy department at Combined Hospital had recorded thousands of emotional tapes and boiled them down to one all-inclusive all-terrifying performance in Nightmare Theater.

Foyle awoke, panting and sweating, and never knew that he had awakened. He was in the clutch of the serpent-haired bloody-eyed Eumenides. He was pursued, entrapped, precipitated from heights, burned, flayed, bowstringed, vermin-covered, devoured. He screamed. He ran. The radar Hobble-Field in the Theater clogged his steps and turned them into the ghastly slow motion of dream-running. And through the cacophony of grinding, shrieking, moaning, pursuing that assailed his ears, muttered the thread of a persistent voice.

“Where is ‘Nomad’ where is ‘Nomad’ where is ‘Nomad’ where is ‘Nomad’ where is ‘Nomad’?”

“ ‘Vorga,’ ” Foyle croaked. “ ‘Vorga.’ ”

He had been inoculated by his own fixation. His own nightmare had rendered him immune.

“Where is ‘Nomad’? where have you left ‘Nomad’? what happened to ‘Nomad’? where is ‘Nomad’?”

“ ‘Vorga,’ ” Foyle shouted. “ ‘Vorga.’ ‘Vorga.’ ‘Vorga.’ ” In the control booth, Dagenham swore. The head of psychiatry, monitoring the projectors, glanced at the clock. “One minute and forty-five seconds, Saul. He can’t stand much more.”

“He’s got to break. Give him the final effect.”

They buried Foyle alive, slowly, inexorably, hideously. He was carried down into black depths and enclosed in stinking slime that cut off light and air. He slowly suffocated while a distant voice boomed: “WHERE IS ‘NOMAD’? WHERE HAVE YOU LEFT ‘NOMAD’? YOU CAN ESCAPE IF YOU FIND ‘NOMAD.’ WHERE IS ‘NOMAD’?”

But Foyle was back aboard “Nomad” in his lightless, airless coffin, floating comfortably between deck and roof. He curled into a tight foetal ball and prepared to sleep. He was content. He would escape. He would find “Vorga.”

“Impervious bastard!” Dagenham swore. “Has anyone ever resisted Nightmare Theater before, Fritz?”

“Not many. You’re right. That’s an uncommon man, Saul.”

“He’s got to be ripped open. All right, to hell with any more of this. We’ll try the Megal Mood next. Are the actors ready?”

“All ready.”

“Then let’s go.”

There are six directions in which delusions of grandeur can run. The Megal (short for Megalomania) Mood was therapy’s dramatic diagnosis technique for establishing and plotting the particular course of megalomania.

Foyle awoke in a luxurious four-poster bed. He was in a bedroom hung with brocade, papered in velvet. He glanced around curiously. Soft sunlight filtered through latticed windows. Across the room a valet was quietly laying out clothes.

“Hey . . .” Foyle grunted.

The valet turned. “Good morning, Mr. Fourmyle,” he murmured.