Tiger! Tiger! (5 page)

`That depends, Sgt. Logan. When I'm concentrating, just the one I'm thinking at; when I'm at loose ends, anybody and everybody ... poor souls. Excuse me.' Robin turned and called: `Don't hesitate before jaunting, Chief Harris. That starts doubting, and doubting ends jaunting. Just step up and bang off.'

'I worry sometimes, ma'am,' a chief petty officer with a tightly bandaged head answered. He was obviously stalling at the edge of the jaunte stage.

`Worry? About what?'

`Maybe there's gonna be somebody standing where I arrive. Then there'll be a hell of a real bang. M'am. Excuse me.'

`Now I've explained that a hundred times. Experts have gauged every jaunte stage in the world to accommodate peak traffic. That's why private jaunte stages are small, and the Times Square stage is two hundred yards wide. It's all been worked out mathematically and there isn't one chance in ten million of a simultaneous arrival. That's less than your chance of being killed in a motor accident! The bandaged C.P.O. nodded dubiously and stepped up on the raised stage. It was of white concrete, round, and decorated on its face with vivid black and white patterns as an aid to memory. In the centre was an illuminated plaque which gave its name and jaunte coordinates of latitude, longitude and elevation.

At the moment when the bandaged man was gathering courage for his primer jaunte, the stage began to flicker with a sudden flurry of arrivals and departures. Figures appeared momentarily as they jaunted in, hesitated while they checked their surroundings and set new co-ordinates, and then disappeared as they jaunted off. At each disappearance there was a faint `Pop' as displaced sir rushed into the space formerly occupied by a body.

`Wait, class,' Robin called. `There's a rush on. Everybody off the stage, please.' Laborers in heavy work clothes, still spattered with snow, were on their way south to their homes after a shift in the north woods. Fifty white-clad dairy clerks were headed west towards St Louis. They followed the morning from the Eastern Time Zone to the Pacific Zone. And from eastern Greenland where it was already noon, a horde of white-collar office workers was pouring into New York for their lunch hour.

The rush was over in a few moments. `All right, class,' Robin called. `We'll continue. Oh dear, where is Mr. Foyle? He always seems to be missing.'

'With a face like he's got, him, you can't blame him for hiding it, ma'am. Up in the cerebral ward we call him Boogey.'

`He does look dreadful, doesn't he, Sgt. Logan? Can't they get those marks off?'

'They're trying, Miss Robin, but they don't know how yet. It's called "tattooing" and it's sort of forgotten, is all.'

`Then how did Mr. Foyle acquire his face?' `Nobody knows, Miss Robin. He's up in cerebral because he's lost his mind, him. Can't remember nothing. Me personal, if I had a face like that I wouldn't want to remember nothing too.'

'It's a pity. He looks frightful. Sgt. Logan, d'you suppose I've let a thought about Mr. Foyle slip and hurt his feelings?' The little man with the platinum skull considered. `No, ma'am. You wouldn't hurt nobody's feelings, you. And Foyle ain't got none to hurt, him. He's just a big, dumb ox, is all."

'I have to be so careful, Sgt. Logan. You see, no one likes to know what another person really thinks about him. We imagine that we do, but we don't. This telesending of mine makes me loathed. And lonesome. Please don't listen to me. I'm having trouble controlling my thinking. Ah! There you are Mr. Foyle. Where in the world have you been wandering?'

Foyle had jaunted in on the stage and stepped off quietly, his hideous face averted. `Been practicing, me,' he mumbled.

Robin repressed the shudder of revulsion in her and went to him sympathetically. She took his arm. `You really should be with us more. We're all friends and having a lovely time. Join in.' Foyle refused to meet her glance. As he pulled his arm away from her sullenly, Robin suddenly realized that his sleeve was soaking wet. His entire hospital uniform was drenched.

`Wet? He's been in the rain somewhere. But I've seen the morning weather reports. No rain east of St Louis. Then he must have jaunted farther than that. But he's not supposed to be able. He's supposed to have lost all memory and ability to jaunte. He's malingering.'

Foyle leapt at her. `Shut up, you!' The savagery of his face was terrifying.

`Then you are malingering.'

`How much do you know?'

`That you're a fool. Stop making a scene.'

`Did they hear you?'

`I don't know. Let go of me.' Robin turned away from Foyle. `All right, class. We're finished for the day. All back to school for the hospital bus. You jaunte first, Sgt. Logan. Remember: L-E-S. Location. Elevation. Situation. . .

`What do you want?' Foyle growled. `A shakedown, you?'

'Be quiet. Stop making a scene. Now don't hesitate, Chief Harris. Step up and jaunte off.'

`I want to tally to you.'

`Certainly not. Wait your turn, Mr. Peters. Don't be in such a hurry.'

`You going to report me in the hospital?'

`Naturally.' `I want to talk to you.'

`No.'

`They gone now, all. We got time. I'll meet you in your apartment'

'My apartment?' Robin was genuinely frightened.

`In Green Bay, Wisconsin.'

`This absurd. I've got nothing to discuss with this -'

`You got plenty, Miss Robin. You got a family to discuss.' Foyle gunned at the terror she radiated.

`Meet you in your apartment,' he repeated.

`You can't possibly know where it is,' she faltered.

`Just told you, didn't I?'

'Y-You couldn't possibly jaunte that far. You -' `No?' The mask grinned. `You just told me I was mal that word. You told the truth, you. We got half an hour. Meet you there.'

Robin Wednesbury's apartment was in a massive building set alone on the shore of Green Bay. The apartment house looked as though a magician had removed it from a city residential area and abandoned it amidst the Wisconsin pines. Buildings like this were a commonplace in the jaunting world. With self-contained heat and light plants, and jaunting to solve the transportation problem, single and multiple dwellings were built in desert, forest and wilderness.

The apartment itself was a four-room flat, heavily insulated to protect neighbors from Robin's telesending. It was crammed with books, music, paintings and prints . . . all evidence of the cultured and lonely life of this unfortunate wrong-way telepath.

Robin jaunted into the living-room of the apartment a few seconds after Foyle, who was waiting for her with ferocious impatience.

`So now you know for sure,' he began without preamble. He seized-her arm in a painful grip. `But you ain't gonna tell nobody in the hospital about me, Miss Robin. Nobody.'

`Let go of me!' Robin lashed him across his face. `Beast! Savage! Don't you dare touch me!' Foyle released her and stepped back. The impact of her revulsion made him turn away angrily to conceal his face.

`So you've been malingering. You knew how to jaunte. You've been jaunting all the while you've been pretending to learn in the primer class . . . taking big jumps around the country; around the world, for all I know.'

`Yeah. I go from Times Square to Columbus Circle by way of... most anywhere, Miss Robin.' `And that's why you're always missing. But why? Why? What are you up to?'

An expression of possessed cunning appeared on the hideous face. `I'm holed up in General Hospital, me. It's my base of operations, see? I'm settling something, Miss Robin. I got a debt to pay off, me. I had to find out where a certain ship is. Now I got to pay her back. Not I rot you. Vorga. I kill you, Vorga. I kill you deadly!' He stopped shouting and glared at her in wild triumph. Robin backed away in alarm.

`For God's sake, what are you talking about?'

`Vorga. Vorga-T: 1339. Ever hear of her, Miss Robin? I found out where she is from Bo'ness and Uig's ship registry. Bo'ness and Uig are out in SanFran. I went there, me, the time when you was learning us the cross-town jaunte stages. Went out to SanFran, me. Found Vorga, me. She's in the Vancouver shipyards. She's owned by Presteign of Presteign. Heard of him, Miss Robin? Presteign's biggest man on Terra, is all. But he won't stop me. I'll kill Vorga deadly. And you won't stop me neither, Miss Robin.'

Foyle thrust his face close to hers. `Because I cover myself, Miss Robin. I cover every weak spot down the line. I got something on everybody who could stop me before I kill Vorga . . . including you, Miss Robin.'

`No.'

'Yeah. I found out where you live. They know up at the hospital. I come here and looked around. I read your diary, Miss Robin. You got a family on Callisto, mother and two sisters.'

'For God's sake!'

'So that makes you an alien-belligerent. When the war started you and all the rest was given one month to get out of the Inner Planets and go home. Any which didn't became spies by law. You're on the hook, girl.' Foyle opened his hand. `I got you right here, girl.' He clenched his hand.

`My mother and sisters have been trying to leave Callisto for a year and a half: We belong here. We -'

`Got you right here,' Foyle repeated. `You know what they do to spies? They cut information out of them. They cut you apart, Miss Robin. They take you apart, piece by piece -'

Robin screamed. Foyle nodded happily and took her shaking shoulders in his hands. `I got you, is all, girl. You can't even run from me because all I got to do is tip Intelligence and where are you? There ain't nothing nobody can do to stop me; not the hospital or even Mr. Holy Mighty Presteign of Presteign.'

`Get out, you filthy, hideous . . . thing. Get out!'

`You don't like my face, Miss Robin? There ain't nothing you can do about that either.' Suddenly he picked her up and carried her to a deep couch. He threw her down on the couch.

`Nothing,' he repeated.

Devoted to the principle of conspicuous waste, on which all society is based, Presteign of Presteign had fitted his Victorian mansion in Central Park with elevators, housephones, dumbwaiters and all the other labor-saving devices which jaunting had made obsolete. The servants in that giant gingerbread castle walked dutifully from room to room, opening and closing doors, and climbing stairs.

Presteign of Presteign arose, dressed with the aid of his valet and barber, descended to the morning-room with the aid of an elevator and breakfasted, assisted by a butler, footman and waitresses. He left the morning-room and entered his study. In an age when communication systems were virtually extinct; when it was far easier to jaunte directly to a man's office for a discussion than to telephone or telegraph; Presteign still maintained an antique telephone switchboard with operator in his study.

`Get me Dagenham,' he said.

The operator struggled and at last put a call through to Dagenham Couriers, Inc. This was a hundred million credit organization of bonded Jaunters guaranteed to perform any public or confidential service for any principal. The fee was Cr 1 per mile. Dagenham guaranteed to get a courier around the world in eighty minutes.

Eighty seconds after Presteign's call was put through, a Dagenham courier appeared on the private jaunte stage outside Presteign's home, was identified and admitted through the jaunte-proof labyrinth behind the entrance. Like every member of the Dagenham staff, he was an M class Jaunter, capable of teleporting a thousand miles a jump indefinitely, and familiar with thousands of jaunte coordinates. He was a senior specialist in chicanery and cajolery, trained to the incisive efficiency and boldness that characterized Dagenham Couriers and reflected the ruthlessness of its founder.

`Presteign?' he said, wasting no time on protocol.