Tiger! Tiger! (28 page)

'You happened to it, you son of a bitch!' Foyle cried. He leaped up, his tiger-face burning, and flung the ampoule like a knife. It pierced Kempsey's neck and hung quivering. Kempsey toppled.

Foyle accelerated, blurred to the body, picked it up in midfall and carried it aft to the starboard stateroom. There were two main staterooms in the yawl, and Foyle had prepared both of them in advance. The starboard room had been stripped and turned into a surgery. Foyle strapped the body on the operating-table, opened a case of surgical instruments, and began the delicate operation he had learned by hypno-training that morning . . . an operation made possible only by his five-to-one acceleration.

He cut through skin and fascia, sawed through the rib cage, exposed the heart, dissected it out and connected veins and arteries to the intricate blood pump alongside the table. He started the pump. Twenty seconds objective time, had elapsed. He placed an oxygen mask over Kempsey's face and switched on the alternating suction and ructation of the oxygen pump.

Foyle decelerated, checked Kempsey's temperature, shot an anti-shock series into his veins and waited. Blood gurgled through the pump and Kempsey's body. After five minutes, Foyle removed the oxygen mask. The respiration reflex continued. Kempsey was without a heart, yet alive. Foyle sat down alongside the operating table and waited. The stigmata still showed on his face.

Kempsey remained unconscious.

Foyle waited.

Kempsey awoke, screaming.

Foyle leaped up, tightened the straps and leaned over the heartless man.

`Hallo, Kempsey,' he said.

Kempsey screamed.

`Look at yourself, Kempsey. You're dead.'

Kempsey fainted. Foyle brought him to with the oxygen mask.

`Let me die, for God's sake!'

`What's the matter? Does it hurt? I died for six months, and I didn't whine.'

`Let me die.'

`In time. In time, if you behave. You were aboard Vorga on September 16th, 2336?'

`For Christ's sake, let me die.'

`You were aboard Vorga?'

`Yes.'

'You passed a wreck out in space. Wreck of the Nomad. She signaled for help and you passed her by. Yes?'

`Yes.'

'Why?'

`Christ! Oh Christ help me!'

'Why?'

`Oh Jesus!'

`I was aboard Nomad, Kempsey. Why did you leave me to rot?'

`Sweet Jesus help me! Christ, deliver me!'

`I'll deliver you, Kempsey, if you answer questions. Why did you leave me to rot?'

`Couldn't pick you up.'

`Why not?'

`Reffs aboard.'

`Oh! I guessed right, then. You were running refugees in from Callisto?'

`Yes.'

`How many?'

`Six hundred.'

`That's a lot, but you could have made room for one more. Why didn't you pick me up?'

`We were scuttling the reffs.'

`What!'

Foyle cried: `Overboard . . . all of them . . . six hundred . . . Stripped 'em . . . took their clothes, money, jewels, baggage . . . Put 'em through the airlock in batches. Christ! The clothes all over the ship . . . The shrieking and the - Jesus! If I could only forget! The naked women . . . blue . . . busting wide open . . . spinning behind us . . . The clothes all over the ship . . . Six hundred . . . Scuttled!'

`You son of a bitch! It was a racket? You took their money and never intended bringing them to earth?'

`It was a racket.'

`And that's why you didn't pick me up?'

`Would have had to scuttle you anyway.'

`Who gave the order?'

`Captain.'

'Name?'

`Joyce. Lindsey Joyce.'

`Address?'

`Sklotsky Colony, Mars.'

`What!'

Foyle was thunderstruck. `He's a Sklotsky? You mean after hunting him for a year, can't touch him . . . hurt him . . . make him feel what I felt?'

He turned away from the tortured man on the table, equally tortured himself by frustration. `A Sklotsky! The one thing I never figured on . . . After preparing that port stateroom for him . . . What am I going to do? What, in God's name am I going to do?' he roared in fury, the stigmata showing livid on his face.

He was recalled by a desperate moan from Kempsey. He returned to the table and bent over the dissected body. `Let's get it straight for the last time. This Sklotsky, Lindsey Joyce, gave the order to scuttle the reffs?'

`Yes.'

`And to let me rot?'

'Yes. Yes. For God's sake, that's enough. Let me die.'

'Live, you pig-man . . . filthy heartless bastard! Live without a heart. Live and suffer. I'll keep you alive for ever, you -' A lurid flash of light caught Foyle's eye. He looked up. His burning image was peering through the large square porthole of the stateroom. As he leaped to the porthole, the burning man disappeared.

Foyle left the stateroom and darted forward to main controls where the observation bubble gave him two hundred and seventy degrees of vision. The Burning Man was nowhere in sight.

`It's not real,' he muttered. `It couldn't be real. It's a sign; a good-luck sign . . . a Guardian Angel. It saved me on the Spanish Stairs. It's telling me to go ahead and find Lindsey Joyce.'

He strapped himself into the pilot chair, ignited the yawl's jets and slammed into full acceleration.

'Lindsey Joyce, Sklotsky Colony, Mars,' he thought as he was thrust back deep into the pneumatic chair. `A Sklotsky . . . Without senses, without pleasure, without pain. The ultimate in Stoic escape. How am I going to punish him? Torture him? Put him in the port stateroom and make him feel what I felt aboard Nomad? Damnation! It's as though he's dead. He is dead. And I've got to figure how to beat a dead body and make it feel pain. To come so close to the end and have the door slammed in your face . . . The damnable frustration of revenge. Revenge is for dreams . . . never for reality.'

An hour later he released himself from the acceleration and his fury, unbuckled himself room the chair, and remembered Kempsey. He went aft to the surgery. The extreme acceleration of the take-off had choked the blood pump enough to kill Kempsey. Suddenly Foyle was overcome with a novel passion ate revulsion for himself. He fought it helplessly.

`What's a matter, you?' he whispered. `Think of the six hundred, scuttled . . . Think of yourself... Are you turning into a white-livened Cellar-Christian turning the other cheek and whining forgiveness? Olivia, what are you doing to me? Give me strength, not cowardice . . ..'

Nevertheless he averted his eyes as he scuttled the body.

ALL PERSONS KNOWN TO BE IN THE EMPLOY OF FOURMYLE OF CERES OR ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN ANY CAPACITY TO BE HELD FOR QUESTIONING. Y-Y; CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE.

ALL EMPLOYEES OF THIS COMPANY TO MAINTAIN STRICT WATCH FOR ONE, FOURMYLE OF CERES, AND REPORT AT ONCE TO LOCAL MR. PRESTO PRESTEIGN.

ALL COURIERS WILL ABANDON PRESENT ASSIGNMENTS AND REPORT FOR REASSIGNMENT TO FOYLE CASE. DAGENHAM.

A BANK HOLIDAY WILL BE DECLARED IMMEDIATELY IN THE NAME OF THE WAR CRISIS TO CUT FOURMYLE OFF FROM ALL FUNDS. Y-Y: CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE.

ANYONE MAKING INQUIRIES RE S.S. `VORGA' TO BE TAKEN TO CASTLE PRESTEIGN FOR EXAMINATION. PRESTEIGN.

ALL PORTS AND FIELDS IN INNER PLANETS TO BE ALERTED FOR ARRIVAL OF FOURMYLE. QUARANTINE AND CUSTOMS TO CHECK ALL LANDINGS. Y-Y. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE.

OLD ST PATRICK'S TO BE SEARCHED AND WATCHED. DAGENHAM.

THE FILES OF BO'NESS AND UIG TO BE CHECKED, FOR NAMES OF OFFICERS AND MEN OF `VORGA' TO ANTICIPATE, IF POSSIBLE, FOYLE'S NEXT MOVE. PRESTEIGN.

WAR CRIMES COMMISSION TO MAKE UP LIST OF PUBLIC ENEMIES GIVING FOYLE NUMBER ONE SPOT. Y-Y: CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE.

CR 4000,000 REWARD OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO APPREHENSION OF FOURMYLE OF CERES, ALIAS GULLIVER FOYLE, ALIAS GULLY FOYLE, NOW AT LARGE IN THE INNER PLANETS. PRIORITY! URGENT DANGEROUS

After two centuries of colonization, the air-struggle on Mars was still so critical that the V-L Law, the Vegetative-Lynch Law, was still in effect. It was a killing offence to endanger or destroy any plant vital to the transformation of Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere into an oxygen atmosphere. Even blades of grass were sacred. There was no need to erect KEEP OFF THE GRASS warnings. The man who wandered off a path on to a lawn would be instantly shot. The woman who picked a flower would be killed without mercy. Two centuries of sudden death had inspired a reverence for green growing things that almost amounted to a religion.

Foyle remembered this as he raced up the centre of the causeway leading to Mars St Michele. He had jaunted direct from the Syrtis airport to the St Michele stage at the foot of the causeway which stretched for a quarter of a mile through green fields to Mars St Michele. The rest of the distance had to be traversed on foot.

Like the original Mont St Michele on the French coast, Mars St Michele was a majestic Gothic cathedral of spires and buttresses looming on a hill and yearning towards the sky.

Ocean tides surrounded Mont St Michele on earth. Green tides of grass surrounded Mars St Michele. Both were fortresses. Mont St Michele had been a fortress of faith before organized religion was abolished. Mars St Michele was a fortress of telepathy. Within it lived Mars' sole full telepath, Sigurd Magsman.

`Now these are the defenses protecting Sigurd Magsman,' Foyle chanted, half-way between hysteria and litany. `Firstly, the Solar System; secondly, Martial Law; thirdly Dagenham-Presteign and Co.; fourthly, the fortress itself; fifthly, the uniformed guards, attendants, servants and admirers of the bearded sage we all know so well, Sigurd Magsman, selling his awesome powers for awesome prices . . . .'

Foyle laughed immoderately; `But there's a sixthly that I know; Sigurd Magsman's Achilles' Heel . . . For I've paid Cr 1 million to Sigurd the 3rd . . . or was he the 4th?'

He passed through the outer labyrinth of Mars St Michele with his forged credentials and was tempted to bluff or proceed direction by Commando Action to an audience with Solomon himself, but time was pressing and his enemies were closing in and he could not afford to satisfy his curiosity. Instead, he accelerated, blurred, and found a humble cottage set in a walled garden within the Mars St Michele home farm. It had drab windows and a thatched roof and might have been mistaken for a stable. Foyle slipped inside.

The cottage was a nursery. Three pleasant nannies sat motionless in rocking chairs, knitting poised in their frozen hands. The blur that was Foyle came up behind them and quietly stung them with ampoules. Then he decelerated. He looked at the ancient, ancient child; the wizened, shriveled boy who was seated on the floor playing with electronic trains.

`Hello, Sigurd,' Foyle said.

The child began to cry.

`Cry-baby! What are you afraid of? I'm not going to hurt you.'

'You're a bad man with a bad face.'

`I'm your friend, Sigurd.'

`No, you're not. You want me to do b-bad things.'