American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58 (41 page)

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 a 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 God, 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 Gouffre 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 Gouffre 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 r 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 Gouffre 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?
”

“Yes.”

“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.” Jisbella 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 ILI . . . Inert Lead Isomer?”

“Yes.”

“What was inside the ILI 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 hall, 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.”

“Ah, 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 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 . . . 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.