Tiger! Tiger! (15 page)

`Disturbs your legal mind, eh? That was part of the cast of our F.F.C.C. operation. Fun, fantasy, confusion and catastrophe.'

Dagenham turned to Presteign and smiled his deaths-head smile. `I'll return your fee if you like, Presteign.'

`You're not quitting?'

`No, I'm enjoying myself. I'll work for nothing. I've never tangled with a man of Foyle's caliber before. He's unique.'

'How?'

Sheffield demanded.

`I arranged for him to escape from Gouffre Martel. He escaped, all right, but not my way. I tried to keep him out of police hands with confusion and catastrophe. He ducked the police, but not my way . . . his own way. I tried to keep him out of Central Intelligence's hands with fun and fantasy. He stayed clear. . , again his own way. I tried to detour him into a ship so he could make his try for Nomad. He wouldn't detour, but he got his ship. He's on his way out now.'

`You're following.'

`Naturally.' Dagenham hesitated. `But what was he doing in Baker's factory?'

'Plastic surgery?' Sheffield suggested. 'A new face?'

`Not possible. Baker's good, but he can't do a plastic that quick. It was a minor surgery. Foyle was on his feet with his head bandaged.'

'The tattoo,' Presteign said.

Dagenham nodded and the smile left his lips. `That's what's worrying me. You realize, Presteign, that if Baker removed the tattooing we'll never recognize Foyle?'

`My dear Dagenham, his face won't be changed.'

'We've never seen his face . . . only the mask.'

`I haven't met the man at all,' Sheffield said. `What's the mask like?'

`Like a tiger. I was with Foyle for two long sessions. I ought to know his face by heart, but I don't. All I know is the tattooing.'

`Ridiculous,' Sheffield said bluntly.

`No. Foyle has to be seen to be believed. However, it doesn't matter. He'll lead us out to Nomad. He'll lead us to your bullion and PyrE, Presteign. I'm almost sorry it's all over. As I said, I've been enjoying myself, He really is unique.'

7

The Saturn Weekender was built like a pleasure yacht; it was ample for four, spacious for two, but not spacious enough for Foyle and Jiz McQueen. Foyle slept in the main cabin; Jiz kept to herself in the stateroom.

On the seventh day out, Jisbella spoke to Foyle for the second time: `Let's get those bandages off, Ghoul.'

Foyle left the galley where he was sullenly heating coffee, and kicked back to the bathroom. He floated in after Jisbella and wedged himself into the alcove before the washbasin mirror. Jisbella braced herself on the basin, opened an ether capsule and began soaking and stripping the bandage off with hard, hating hands. The strips of gauze peeled slowly. Foyle was in agony of suspense.

`D'you think Baker did the job?' he asked. No answer.

`Could he have missed anywhere?'

The stripping continued.

`It stopped hurting two days ago.'

No answer.

`For God's sake, Jiz! Is it still war between us?'

Jisbella's hands stopped. She looked at Foyle's bandaged face with hatred. `What do you think?'

`I asked you.'

`The answer is yes.'

Why?'

`You'll never understand: `Make me understand.'

`Shut up.'

`If it's war, why'd you come with me?'

`To get what's coming to Sam and me.'

`Money?'

`Shut up.'

`You didn't have to. You could have trusted me.'

'Trusted you? You?' Jisbella laughed without mirth and recommenced the peeling. Foyle struck her hands away.

`I'll do it myself.'

She lashed him across his bandaged face. `You'll do what I tell you. Be still, Ghoul!'

She continued unwinding the bandage. A strip came away revealing Foyle's eyes. They stared at Jisbella, dark and brooding. The eyelids were clean; the bridge of the nose was clean. A strip came away from Foyle's chin. It was blue-black. Foyle, watching intently in the mirror, gasped.

`He missed the chin!' he exclaimed. `Baker didn't-'

`Shut up,' Jiz answered shortly. `That's beard.'

The innermost strips came away quickly, revealing cheeks, mouth and brow. The brow was clean. The cheeks under the eyes were clean. The rest was covered with a blue-black seven day beard.

`Shave,' Jiz commanded.

Foyle ran water, soaked his face, rubbed in shave ointment and washed the beard off. Then he leaned close to the mirror and inspected himself, unaware that Jisbella's head was close to his as she too stared into the mirror. Not a mark of tattooing remained. Both sighed.

`It's clean,' Foyle said. `Clean. He did the job.'

Suddenly he leaned farther forward and inspected himself more closely. His face looked new to him, as new as it looked to Jisbella. `I'm changed. I don't remember looking like this. Did he do surgery on me too?'

`No,' Jisbella said. `What's inside you changed it. That's the ghoul you're seeing, along with the liar and the cheat.'

`For God's sake! Lay off. Let me alone!'

'Ghoul,' Jisbella repeated, staring at Foyle's face with glowing eyes. `Liar. Cheat.'

He took her shoulders and shoved her out into the companionway.

She went sailing down into the main lounge, caught a guide-bar and spun herself around. `Ghoul!' she cried. `Liar! Cheat! Ghoul! Lecher! Beast!'

Foyle pursued her, seized her again and shook her violently. Her red hair burst out of the clip that gathered it at the nape of her neck and floated out like a mermaid's tresses. The burning expression on her face transformed Foyle's anger into passion. He enveloped her and buried his new face in her breast.

`Lecher,' Jiz murmured. `Animal. . . .'

`Oh, Jiz. . . .'

'The light,' Jisbella whispered. Foyle reached out blindly towards the wall-switches and pressed buttons, and the Saturn Weekender drove on towards the asteroids with darkened portholes.

They floated together in the cabin, drowsing, murmuring, touching tenderly for hours.

`Poor Gully,' Jisbella whispered. `Poor darling Gully . . .'

`Not poor,' he said. `Rich . . . soon.'

`Yes, rich and empty. You've got nothing inside you, Gully dear . . . Nothing but hatred and revenge.'

'It's enough?'

'Enough for now. But later?'

`Later? That depends.'

`It depends on your inside, Gully; what you get hold of.'

`No. My future depends on what I get rid of.'

`Gully . . . why did you hold out on me in Gouffre Martel? Why didn't you tell me you knew there was a fortune aboard Nomad?'

`I couldn't'

`Did you trust me?'

`It wasn't that. I couldn't help myself. That's what's inside me . . . what I have to get rid of.'

`Control again, eh Gully? You're driven.'

`Yes, I'm driven. I can't learn control, Jiz. I want to, but can't.'

`Do you try?'

`I do. God knows, I do. But then something happens, and -'

`And then you pounce. "Remorseless, lecherous, treacherous, kindless villain. .'

`What's that?'

`Something a man named Shakespeare wrote. It describes you, Gully . . . when you're out of control.'

`If I could carry you in my pocket, Jiz . . . to warn me . . . stick a pin in me. . .

`Nobody can do it for you, Gully.. You, have to learn yourself.'

He digested that for a long moment. Then he spoke hesitantly: `Jiz . . . about the money. . .?'

`To hell with the money.'

`Can I hold you to that?'

`Oh, Gully.'

`Not that I . . . that I'm trying to hold out on you. If it wasn't for Vorga I'd give you all you wanted. All! I'll give you every cent left over when I'm finished. But I'm scared, Jiz. Vorga is a big nut to crack . . . what with Presteign and Dagenham and that lawyer, Sheffield. I've got to hold on to every cent, Jiz. I'm afraid if I let you take one credit, that could make the difference between Vorga and I'

`Me.'

`Me.' He waited. `Well?'

`You're all possessed,' she said wearily. `Not just a part of you, but all of you.'

`No.'

`Yes, Gully. All of you. It's just your skin making love to me. The rest is feeding on Vorga.'

At that moment the radar alarm in the forward control cabin burst upon them, unwelcome and warning.

`Destination zero,' Foyle muttered, no longer relaxed, once more possessed. He shot forward into the control-cabin.

Foyle overran the asteroid with the sudden fury of a Vandal raid. He came blasting out of space, braked with a spume of flame from the forward jets, and kicked the Weekender into a tight spin around the junk-heap. They whirled around, passing the blackened ports, the bit hatch from which Joseph and his brethren emerged to collect the drifting debris of space, the new crater Foyle had torn out of the side of the asteroid in his first plunge back to Terra. They whipped past the giant patchwork windows of the asteroid greenhouse and saw hundreds of faces peering out at them, tiny white dots mottled with tattooing.

`So I didn't murder them,' Foyle grunted. `They've pulled back into the asteroid... Probably living deep inside while they get the rest repaired.'

`Will you help them, Gully?'

'Why?'

`You did the damage.'

`To hell with them. I've got my own problems. But it's a relief. They won't be bothering us.'

He circled the asteroid once more and brought the Weekender down in the mouth of the new crater.

`We'll work from here,' he said. `Get into a suit, Jiz. Let's go! Let's go!'

He drove her, mad with impatience; he drove himself. They corked up in their spacesuits, left the Weekender, and went sprawling through the debris in the crater into the bleak bowels of the asteroid. It was like squirming through the crawling tunnels of giant wormholes. Foyle switched on his micro-wave suit-set and spoke to Jiz.

`Be easy to get lost in her. Stay with me. Stay close.'

`Where are we going, Gully?'

`After Nomad. I remember they were cementing her into the asteroid when I left. Don't remember where. Have to find her.'

The passages were airless, and their progress was soundless, but the vibrations carried through metal and rock. They paused once for breath alongside the pitted hull of an ancient warship. As they leaned against it they felt the vibrations of signals from within; a rhythmic knocking.