Tiger! Tiger! (26 page)

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

`You've been naming. 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 tear-stained 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 Cr 100. Remember all the favors I done you? Send Cr 200 or even Cr 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 no 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.

12

Captain Peter Y'ang-Yeovil was handling reports at Central Intelligence H.Q. in London at the rate of six per minute. Information was phoned in, wired in, cabled in, jaunted in. The bombardment picture unfolded rapidly.

ATTACK SATURATED N AND S AMERICA FROM 60° TO 120° WEST LONGITUDE . . . LABRADOR TO ALASKA IN N . . . RIO TO ECUADOR IN S . . . ESTIMATED TEN PER CENT (10 %) MISSILES PENETRATED INTERCEPTION SCREEN . . . ESTIMATED POPULATION LOSS: TEN TO TWELVE MILLIONS . . .

`Thank God for jaunting,' Y'ang-Yeovil said. `Or the losses would have been five times that. All the same, it's close to a knockout. One more punch like that and Terra's finished.'

He addressed this to the assistants jaunting in and out of his office, appearing and disappearing, dropping reports on his desk and chalking results and equations on the glass black board that covered one entire wall. Informality was the rule, and Y'ang-Yeovil was surprised and suspicious when an assistant knocked on his door and entered with elaborate formality.

`What larceny now?' he asked.

`Lady to see you, Yeo.'

`Is this the time for comedy?' Y'ang-Yeovil said in exasperated tones. He pointed to the Whitehead equations spelling disaster on the transparent blackboard. `Read that and weep on the way out.'

`Very special lady, Yeo. Your Venus from the Spanish Stairs.'

`Who? What Venus?'

`Your Congo Venus.'

'Oh! That one?' Y'ang-Yeovil blushed. `Send her in.'

`You'll interview her in private, of course?'

'Of course nothing. There's a war on. Keep those reports coming, but tip everybody to switch to Secret Speech if they have to talk to me.'

Robin Wednesbury entered the office, still wearing the torn white evening gown. She had jaunted immediately from New York to London without bothering to change. Her face was strained, but lovely. Y'ang-Yeovil gave her a split-second inspection and realized that his first appreciation of her had not been mistaken. Robin returned the inspection and her eyes dilated. `But you're the cook from the Spanish Stairs! Angelo Poggi!'

As an Intelligence Officer, Y'ang-Yeovil was prepared to deal with this crisis. `Not a cook, madam. I haven't had time to change back to my usual fascinating self. Please sit here, Miss . . . ?'

'Wednesbury. Robin Wednesbury-'

'Charmed. I'm Captain Y'ang-Yeovil. How nice of you to come and see me, Miss Wednesbury. You've saved me a long, hard search.'

`B-But I don't understand. What were you doing on the Spanish Stairs? Why were you hunting -?'

Y'ang-Yeovil saw that her lips weren't moving. 'Ah? You're a telepath, Miss Wednesbury? How is that possible?. I thought I knew every telepath in the system.'

`I'm not a full telepath. I'm a telesend. I can only send... not receive.'

'Which, of course, makes you worthless to the world. I see.'

Y'ang-Yeovil cocked a sympathetic eye at her. `What a dirty trick, Miss Wednesbury, to be saddled with all the disadvantages of telepathy, and be deprived of all the advantages. I do sympathize. Believe me.'

`Bless him. He's the first ever to realize that without being told.'

`Careful, Miss Wednesbury, I'm receiving you. Now, about the Spanish Stairs?'

He paused, listening intently to her agitated telesending: 'Why was he hunting? Me? Alien Bellig - Oh God! Will they hurt me? Cut and - Information. I-'

`My dear girl,' Y'ang-Yeovil said gently. He took her hands and held them sympathetically. `Listen to me a moment. You're alarmed over nothing. Apparently you're an Alien Belligerent. Yes?'

She nodded.

`That's unfortunate, but we won't worry about it now. About Intelligence cutting and slicing information out of people . . . that's all propaganda.'

`Propaganda?'

'We're not maladroits, Miss Wednesbury. We know how to extract information without being medieval. But we spread the legend to soften people up in advance, so to speak.'

'Is that true? He's lying. It's a trick.'

`It's true, Miss Wednesbury. I do finesse, but there's no need now. Not when you've evidently come of your own free will to offer information.'

`He's too adroit... too quick . . . He-'

`You sound as though you've been badly tricked recently, Miss Wednesbury... Badly burned.'

`I have. God, I have. By myself, mostly. I'm a fool. A hateful fool!'

'Never a fool, Miss Wednesbury, and never hateful. I don't know what's happened to shatter your opinion of yourself, but I hope to restore it. So . . . you've been deceived, have you? By yourself, mostly? We all do that. But you've been helped by someone. Who?'

`I'm betraying him.'

`Then don't tell me.'

`But I've got to find my mother and sisters . . . I can't trust him any more . . . I've got to do it myself.'

Robin took a deep breath. `I want to tell you about a man named Gulliver Foyle.'

Y'ang-Yeovil at once got down to business.

`Is it true he arrived by railroad?' Olivia Presteign asked. `In a locomotive and observation car? What wonderful audacity.'

`Yes, he's a remarkable young man,' Presteign answered. He stood, iron-grey and iron-hard, in the reception hall of his home, alone with his daughter. He was guarding honor and life while he waited for servants and staff to return from their panic-stricken jaunte to safety. He chatted imperturbably with Olivia, never once permitting her to realize their grave danger.

`Father, I'm exhausted.'

`It's been a trying night, my dear. But please don't retire'

`Why not?'

Presteign refrained from telling her that she would be safer with him. `I'm lonely, Olivia. We'll talk for a few minutes.'

'I did a daring thing, Father. I watched the attack from the garden.'

`My dear! Alone?'

`No. With Fourmyle.'

A heavy pounding began to shake the front door, which Presteign had closed.

`What's that?'

`Looters,' Presteign answered calmly. `Don't be alarmed, Olivia. They won't get in.'

He stepped to a table on which he had laid out an assortment of weapons as neatly as a game of patience. `There's no danger, my love.'

He tried to distract her. `You were telling me about Fourmyle. . .