American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58 (47 page)

“I told you that in strict confidence,” Jisbella said furiously.

“I’m sorry, dear. We’re past honor and the decencies. Now look, Yeovil, there must be some fragments of the stuff lying about . . . as dust, in solution, in precipitates . . . We’ve got to detonate those fragments and blow the hell out of Foyle’s circus.”

“Why?”

“To bring him running. He must have the bulk of the PyrE hidden there somewhere. He’ll come to salvage it.”

“What if it blows up too?”

“It can’t, not inside an Inert Lead Isotope safe.”

“Maybe it’s not all inside.”

“Jiz says it is . . . at least so Foyle reported.”

“Leave me out of this,” Jisbella said.

“Anyway, we’ll have to gamble.”

“Gamble!” Y’ang-Yeovil exclaimed. “On a Phoenix action? You’ll gamble the solar system into a brand new nova.”

“What else can we do? Pick any other road . . . and it’s the road to destruction too. Have we got any choice?”

“We can wait,” Jisbella said.

“For what? For Foyle to blow us up himself with his tinkering?”

“We can warn him.”

“We don’t know where he is.”

“We can find him.”

“How soon? Won’t that be a gamble too? And what about that stuff lying around waiting for someone to think it into energy? Suppose a Jack-jaunter gets in and cracks the safe, looking for goodies? And then we don’t just have dust waiting for an accidental thought, but twenty pounds.”

Jisbella turned pale. Dagenham turned to the Intelligence man. “You make the decision, Yeovil. Do we try it my way or do we wait?”

Y’ang-Yeovil sighed. “I was afraid of this,” he said. “Damn all scientists. I’ll have to make my decision for a reason you don’t know, Dagenham. The Outer Satellites are on to this too. We’ve got reason to believe that they’ve got agents looking for Foyle in the worst way. If we wait they may pick him up before us. In fact, they may have him now.”

“So your decision is . . . ?”

“The blow-up. Let’s bring Foyle running if we can.”

“No!” Jisbella cried.

“How?” Dagenham asked, ignoring her.

“Oh, I’ve got just the one for the job. A one-way telepath named Robin Wednesbury.”

“When?”

“At once. We’ll clear the entire neighborhood. We’ll get full news coverage and do a full broadcast. If Foyle’s anywhere in the Inner Planets, he’ll hear about it.”

“Not
about
it,” Jisbella said in despair. “He’ll
hear
it. It’ll be the last thing any of us hear.”

“Will and Idea,” Presteign whispered.

As always, when he returned from a stormy civil court session in Leningrad, Regis Sheffield was pleased and complacent, rather like a cocky prizefighter who’s won a tough fight. He stopped off at Blekmann’s in Berlin for a drink and some war talk, had a second and more war talk in a legal hangout on the Quai D’Orsay, and a third session in the Skin & Bones opposite Temple Bar. By the time he arrived in his New York office he was pleasantly illuminated.

As he strode through the clattering corridors and outer rooms, he was greeted by his secretary with a handful of memobeads.

“Knocked Djargo-Dantchenko for a loop,” Sheffield reported triumphantly. “Judgment and full damages. Old DD’s sore as a boil. This makes the score eleven to five, my favor.” He took the beads, juggled them, and then began tossing them into unlikely receptacles all over the office, including the open mouth of a gaping clerk.

“Really, Mr. Sheffield! Have you been drinking?” “No more work today. The war news is too damned gloomy. Have to do something to stay cheerful. What say we brawl in the streets?”

“Mr. Sheffield!”

“Anything waiting for me that can’t wait another day?”

“There’s a gentleman in your office.”

“He made you let him get that far?” Sheffield looked impressed. “Who is he? God, or somebody?”

“He won’t give his name. He gave me this.”

The secretary handed Sheffield a sealed envelope. On it was scrawled: “URGENT.” Sheffield tore it open, his blunt features crinkling with curiosity. Then his eyes widened. Inside the envelope were two r 50,000 notes. Sheffield turned without a word and burst into his private office. Foyle arose from his chair.

“These are genuine,” Sheffield blurted.

“To the best of my knowledge.”

“Exactly twenty of these notes were minted last year. All are on deposit in Terran treasuries. How did you get hold of these two?”

“Mr. Sheffield?”

“Who else? How did you get hold of these notes?”

“Bribery.”

“Why?”

“I thought at the time that it might be convenient to have them available.”

“For what? More bribery?”

“If legal fees are bribery.”

“I set my own fees,” Sheffield said. He tossed the notes back to Foyle. “You can produce them again
if
I decide to take your case and
if
I decide I’ve been worth that to you. What’s your problem?”

“Criminal.”

“Don’t be too specific yet. And . . . ?”

“I want to give myself up.”

“To the police?”

“Yes.”

“For what crime?”

“Crimes.”

“Name two.”

“Robbery and rape.”

“Name two more.”

“Blackmail and murder.”

“Any other items?”

“Treason and genocide.”

“Does that exhaust your catalogue?”

“I think so. We may be able to unveil a few more when we get specific.”

“Been busy, haven’t you? Either you’re the Prince of Villains or insane.”

“I’ve been both, Mr. Sheffield.”

“Why do you want to give yourself up?”

“I’ve come to my senses,” Foyle answered bitterly.

“I don’t mean that. A criminal never surrenders while he’s ahead. You’re obviously ahead. What’s the reason?”

“The most damnable thing that ever happened to a man. I picked up a rare disease called conscience.”

Sheffield snorted. “That can often turn fatal.”

“It is fatal. I’ve realized that I’ve been behaving like an animal.”

“And now you want to purge yourself?”

“No, it isn’t that simple,” Foyle said grimly. “That’s why I’ve come to you . . . for major surgery. The man who upsets the morphology of society is a cancer. The man who gives his own decisions priority over society is a criminal. But there are chain reactions. Purging yourself with punishment isn’t enough. Every thing’s got to be set right. I wish to God everything could be cured just by sending me back to Gouffre Martel or shooting me . . .”

“Back?” Sheffield cut in keenly.

“Shall I be specific?”

“Not yet. Go on. You sound as though you’ve got ethical growing pains.”

“That’s it exactly.” Foyle paced in agitation, crumpling the banknotes with nervous fingers. “This is one hell of a mess, Sheffield. There’s a girl that’s got to pay for a vicious, rotten crime. The fact that I love her— No, never mind that. She has a cancer that’s got to be cut out . . . like me. Which means I’ll have to add informing to my catalogue. The fact that I’m giving myself up too doesn’t make any difference.”

“What
is
all this mish-mash?”

Foyle turned on Sheffield. “One of the New Year’s bombs has just walked into your office, and it’s saying: ‘Put it all right. Put me together again and send me home. Put together the city I flattened and the people I shattered.’ That’s what I want to hire you for. I don’t know how most criminals feel, but—”

“Sensible, matter-of-fact, like good businessmen who’ve had bad luck,” Sheffield answered promptly. “That’s the usual attitude of the professional criminal. It’s obvious you’re an amateur, if you’re a criminal at all. My dear sir, do be sensible. You come here, extravagantly accusing yourself of robbery, rape, murder, genocide, treason, and God knows what else. D’you expect me to take you seriously?”

Bunny, Sheffield’s assistant, jaunted into the private office. “Chief!” he shouted in excitement. “Something brand new’s turned up. A lech-jaunte! Two society kids bribed a C-class tart to— Ooop. Sorry. Didn’t realize you had—” Bunny broke off and stared. “Fourmyle!” he exclaimed.

“What? Who?” Sheffield demanded.

“Don’t you know him, Chief?” Bunny stammered. “That’s Fourmyle of Ceres. Gully Foyle.”

More than a year ago, Regis Sheffield had been hypnotically fulminated and triggered for this moment. His body had been prepared to respond without thought, and the response was lightning. Sheffield struck Foyle in half a second; temple, throat and groin. It had been decided not to depend on weapons since none might be available.

Foyle fell. Sheffield turned on Bunny and battered him back across the office. Then he spat into his palm. It had been decided not to depend on drugs since drugs might not be available. Sheffield’s salivary glands had been prepared to respond with an anaphylaxis secretion to the stimulus. He ripped open Foyle’s sleeve, dug a nail deep into the hollow of Foyle’s elbow and slashed. He pressed his spittle into the ragged cut and pinched the skin together.

A strange cry was torn from Foyle’s lips; the tattooing showed livid on his face. Before the stunned law assistant could make a move, Sheffield swung Foyle up to his shoulder and jaunted.

He arrived in the middle of the Four Mile Circus in Old St. Pat’s. It was a daring but calculated move. This was the last place he would be expected to go, and the first place where he might expect to locate the PyrE. He was prepared to deal with anyone he might meet in the cathedral, but the interior of the circus was empty.

The vacant tents ballooning up in the nave looked tattered; they had already been looted. Sheffield plunged into the first he saw. It was Fourmyle’s traveling library, filled with hundreds of books and thousands of glittering novel-beads. The Jack-jaunters were not interested in literature. Sheffield threw Foyle down on the floor. Only then did he take a gun from his pocket.

Foyle’s eyelids fluttered; his eyes opened.

“You’re drugged,” Sheffield said rapidly. “Don’t try to jaunte. And don’t move. I’m warning you, I’m prepared for anything.”

Dazedly, Foyle tried to rise. Sheffield instantly fired and seared his shoulder. Foyle was slammed back against the stone flooring. He was numbed and bewildered. There was a roaring in his ears and a poison coursing through his blood.

“I’m warning you,” Sheffield repeated. “I’m prepared for anything.”

“What do you want?” Foyle whispered.

“Two things. Twenty pounds of PyrE, and you. You most of all.”

“You lunatic! You damned maniac! I came into your office to give it up . . . hand it over . . .”

“To the O.S.?”

“To the . . . what?”

“The Outer Satellites? Shall I spell it for you?”

“No . . .” Foyle muttered. “I might have known. The patriot, Sheffield, an O.S. agent. I should have known. I’m a fool.”

“You’re the most valuable fool in the world, Foyle. We want you even more than the PyrE. That’s an unknown to us, but we know what you are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My God! You don’t know, do you? You still don’t know. You haven’t an inkling.”

“Of what?”

“Listen to me,” Sheffield said in a pounding voice. “I’m taking you back two years to ‘Nomad.’ Understand? Back to the death of the ‘Nomad.’ One of our raiders finished her off and they found you aboard the wreck. The last man alive.”

“So an O.S. ship did blast ‘Nomad’?”

“Yes. You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember anything about that. I never could.”

“I’m telling you why. The raider got a clever idea. They’d turn you into a decoy . . . a sitting duck, understand? You were half dead, but they took you aboard and patched you up. They put you into a spacesuit and cast you adrift with your microwave on. You were broadcasting distress signals and mumbling for help on every wave band. The idea was, they’d lurk nearby and pick off the IP ships that came to rescue you.”

Foyle began to laugh. “I’m getting up,” he said recklessly. “Shoot again, you son of a bitch, but I’m getting up.” He struggled to his feet, clutching his shoulder. “So ‘Vorga’ shouldn’t have picked me up anyway,” Foyle laughed. “I was a decoy. Nobody should have come near me. I was a shill, a lure, death bait . . . Isn’t that the final irony? ‘Nomad’ didn’t have any right to be rescued in the first place. I didn’t have any right to revenge.”

“You still don’t understand,” Sheffield pounded. “They were nowhere near ‘Nomad’ when they set you adrift. They were six hundred thousand miles from ‘Nomad.’ ”

“Six hundred thous—?”

“ ‘Nomad’ was too far out of the shipping lanes. They wanted you to drift where ships would pass. They took you six hundred thousand miles sunward and set you adrift. They put you through the air lock and backed off, watching you drift. Your suit lights were blinking and you were moaning for help on the micro-wave. Then you disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“You were gone. No more lights, no more broadcast. They came back to check. You were gone without a trace. And the next thing we learned . . . you got back aboard ‘Nomad.’ ”

“Impossible.”

“Man, you space-jaunted!” Sheffield said savagely. “You were patched and delirious, but you space-jaunted. You spacejaunted six hundred thousand miles through the void back to the wreck of the ‘Nomad.’ You did something that’s never been done before. God knows how. You don’t even know yourself, but we’re going to find out. I’m taking you out to the Satellites with me and we’ll get that secret out of you if we have to tear it out.”

He took Foyle’s throat in his powerful hand and hefted the gun in the other. “But first I want the PyrE. You’ll produce it, Foyle. Don’t think you won’t.” He lashed Foyle across the forehead with the gun. “I’ll do anything to get it. Don’t think I won’t.” He smashed Foyle again, coldly, efficiently. “If you’re looking for a purge, man, you’ve found it!”

Bunny leaped off the public jaunte stage at Five-Points and streaked into the main entrance of Central Intelligence’s New York Office like a frightened rabbit. He shot past the outermost guard cordon, through the protective labyrinth, and into the inner offices. He acquired a train of excited pursuers and found himself face to face with the more seasoned guards who had calmly jaunted to positions ahead of him and were waiting.