Tiger! Tiger! (35 page)

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The burning man winced. ' Too bright,' he said. `Less light.'

Foyle took a step forward. `BLAA-GAA-DAA-MAWWFRAA-MISHINGLISTONVISTA!' the motion roared.

The burning man clapped his hands over his ears in agony. `Too loud,' he cried. `Don't move so loud.'

The writhing Sklotsky's motion was still screaming, beseeching: `DON'T HURT ME. DON'T HURT ME.'

The burning man laughed again. `Listen to her. She's screaming. Begging. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want to be hurt. Listen to her.'

`IT WAS OLIVIA PRESTEIGN GAVE THE ORDER. OLIVIA PRESTEIGN. NOT ME. DON'T HURT ME. OLIVIA PRESTEIGN.'

`She's telling who gave the order. Can't you hear? Listen with your eyes. She says Olivia.'

WHAT?
        
WHAT?
         
WHAT?

      
WHAT?
         
WHAT?
        
WHAT?

WHAT?
        
WHAT?
         
WHAT?

      
WHAT?
         
WHAT?
        
WHAT?

The checkerboard glitter of Foyle's question was too much for him.

`She says Olivia. Olivia Presteign. Olivia Presteign. Olivia Presteign!

He jaunted.

He fell back into the pit under Old St Pat's, and suddenly his confusion and despair told him he was dead. This was the finish of Gully Foyle. This was eternity, and hell was real. What he had seen was the past passing before his crumbling senses in the final moment of death. What he was enduring he must endure through all time. He was dead. He knew he was dead.

He refused to submit to eternity. He beat again into the unknown.

The burning man jaunted.

He was in a scintillating mist . . . a snowflake cluster of stars . . . a shower of liquid diamonds. There was the touch of butterfly wings on his skin . . . There was the taste of a strand of cool pearls in his mouth

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

His crossed kaleidoscopic senses could not tell him where he was, but he knew he wanted to remain in this Nowhere for ever.

`Hello, Gully.'

'Who's that?'

`This is Robin!

'Robin?'

'Robin Wednesbury that was.'

`That was?'

`Robin Yeovil that is.'

`I don't understand. Am I dead?'

`No, Gully.'

`Where am I?'

'A long, long way from Old St Pat's.'

`But where?'

`I can't take the time to explain, Gully. You've only got a few moments here.'

'Why?'

`Because you haven't learned to jaunte through space-time yet. You've got to go back and learn.'

`But I do know. I must know. Sheffield said I space-jaunted to Nomad... six hundred thousand miles.'

`That was an accident then, Gully, and you'll do it again . . . after you teach yourself . . . But you're not doing it now. You don't know how to hold on yet . . . how to turn any Now into reality. You'll tumble back into Old St Pat's in a moment.'

`Robin, I've just remembered. I have bad news for you.'

`I know, Gully.'

'Your mother and sisters are dead.'

'I've known for a long time, Gully.! 'How long?'

`For thirty years.'

`That's impossible.'

`No it isn't. This is a long, long way from Old St Pat's. I've been wanting to tell you how to save yourself from the fire, Gully. Will you listen?'

`I'm not dead?'

`No.'

`I'll listen.'

`Your senses are all confused. It'll pass soon, but I won't give the directions in left and right or up and down. I'll tell you what you can understand now.'

`Why are you helping me . . . after what I've done to you?'

`That's all forgiven and forgotten, Gully. Now listen to me. When you get back to Old St Pat's, turn around until you're facing the loudest shadows. Got that?'

`Yes.'

`Go towards the noise until you feel a deep prickling on your skin. Then stop.'

`Then stop.'

`Make a half turn into compression and a feeling of falling. Follow that.'

`Follow that.'

`You'll pass through a solid sheet of light and come to the taste of quinine. That's really a mass of wire. Push straight through the quinine until you see something that sounds like trip-hammers. You'll be safe.'

`How do you know all this, Robin?'

`I've been briefed by an expert, Gully.'

There was the sensation of laughter. ` You'll befalling back into the past any moment now. Peter and Saul are here. They say au revoir and good luck. And Jiz Dagenham too. Good luck, Gully dear ....

`The past? This is the future?'

`Yes, Gully.'

`Am I here? Is . . . Olivia?'

And then he was tumbling down, down, down the space-time lines back into the dreadful pit of Now.

16

His senses uncrossed in the ivory and gold star chamber of Castle Presteign. Sight became sight and he saw the high mirrors and stained-glass windows; the gold tooled library with android librarian on library ladder. Sound became sound and he heard the android secretary tapping the manual bead recorder at the Louis Quinze desk. Taste became taste as he sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him.

He knew he was at bay, faced with the decision of his life. He ignored his enemies and examined the perpetual beam carved in the robot face of the bartender, the classic Irish grin.

`Thank you,' Foyle said.

`My pleasure, sir,' the robot replied and awaited its next cue.

`Nice day,' Foyle remarked.

`Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot beamed.

`Awful day,' Foyle said.

`Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot responded.

`Day,' Foyle said.

`Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot said.

Foyle turned to the others. `That's me,' he said, motioning to the robot. `That's all of us. We prattle about free will, but we're nothing but response . . . mechanical reaction in prescribed grooves. So . . . here I am, here I am, waiting to respond. Press the buttons and I'll jump.'

He aped the canned voice of the robot. `My pleasure to serve, sir.'

Suddenly his tone lashed them. `What do you want?'

They stirred with uneasy purpose. Foyle was burned, beaten, chastened . . . and yet he was taking control of all of them.

`We'll stipulate the threats,' Foyle said. `I'm to be hung, drawn and quartered, tortured in hell if I don't .. . What? What do you want?'

'I want my property,' Presteign said, smiling coldly.

`Eighteen and some odd pounds of PyrE. Yes. What do you offer?'

`I make no offer, sir, I demand what is mine.'

Y'ang-Yeovil and Dagenham began to speak. Foyle silenced them. `One button at a time, gentlemen. Presteign is trying to make me jump at present.'

He turned to Presteign. `Press harder, blood and money, or find another button. Who are you to make demands at this moment?'

Presteign tightened his lips. `The law . . .' he began.

`What? Threats?' Foyle laughed. `Am I to be frightened into anything? Don't be an imbecile. Speak to me the way you did New Year's Eve, Presteign ... without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy.'

Presteign bowed, took a breath and ceased to smile. `I offer you power,' he said. `Adoption as my heir, partnership in Presteign Enterprises, the cheiftainship of clan and sept. Together we can own the world'

`With PyrE?'

`Yes.'

`Your proposal is noted and declined. Will you offer your daughter?'

'Olivia?'

Presteign choked and clenched his fists.

`Yes, Olivia. Where is she?'

`You scum!' Presteign cried. `Filth . . . Common thief... You dare to. . .

`Will you offer your daughter for the PyrE?'

`Yes,' Presteign answered, barely audible.

Foyle turned to Dagenham. `Press your button, death'shead,' he said `If the discussion's to be conducted on this level . . .'

Dagenham snapped `It is. Without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy. What do you offer?'

`Glory.'

'Ah?'

`We can't offer money or power. We can offer honor. Gully Foyle, the man who saved the Inner Planets from annihilation. We can offer security. We'll wipe out your criminal record, give you an honored name, guarantee a niche in the hall of fame.'

`No,' Jisbella McQueen cut in sharply. `Don't accept. If you want to be a savior, destroy the secret. Don't give PyrE to anyone.'

`What is PyrE?'

`Quiet!'

Dagenham snapped.

`It's a thereto-nuclear explosive that's detonated by thought alone... by psychokinesis,' Jisbella said.

`What thought?'

`The desire of anyone to detonate it, directed at it That brings it to critical mass if it's not insulated by Inert Lead Isomer.'

`I told you to be quiet,' Dagenham growled.

`If we're all to have a chance at him, I want mine.'

`This is bigger than idealism.'

`Nothing's bigger than idealism.'

`Foyle's secret is,' Y'ang-Yeovil murmured. `I know how relatively unimportant PyrE is just now.'

He smiled at Foyle. `Sheffield's law assistant overheard part of your little discussion in Old St Pat's. We know about the Space-Jaunting.'

There was a sudden hush.

`Space-jaunting,' Dagenham exclaimed. `Impossible. You don't mean it.'

`I do mean it. Foyle demonstrated that Space-Jaunting is not impossible. He jaunted six hundred thousand miles from an O.S. raider to the wreck of the Nomad. As I said, this is far bigger than PyrE. I should like to discuss that matter first'

`Everyone's been telling what they want,' Robin Wednesbury said slowly. `What do you want, Gully Foyle?'

`Thank you,' Foyle answered. `I want to be punished.'