The Stars My Destination

  '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 passionate 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.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  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.'

  'I'm your friend. Look, I know all about those big hairy men who pretend to be you, but I won't tell. Read me and see.'

  'You're going to hurt him and y'you want me to tell him.'

  'Who?'

  'The captain-man. The Skl- Skot-' The child fumbled with the word, wailing louder. 'Go away. You're bad. Badness in your head and burning mens and -'

  'Come here, Sigurd.'

  'No. NANNIE!
NAN-N-I-E!'

  'Shut up you little bastard!'

  Foyle grabbed the seventy-year-old child and shook it. 'This is going to be a brand-new experience for you, Sigurd. The first time you've ever been walloped into anything. Understand?'

  The ancient child read him and howled.

  'Shut up! We're going on a trip to the Sklotsky Colony. If you behave yourself and do what you're told, I'll bring you back safe and give you a lolly or whatever the hell they bribe you with. If you don't behave, I'll beat the living daylights out of you.'

  'No, you won't . . . You won't. I'm Sigurd Magsman. I'm Sigurd the telepath. You wouldn't dare.'

  'Sonny, I'm Gully Foyle, Solar Enemy Number One. I'm just a step away from the finish of a year-long hunt . . . I'm risking my neck because I need you to settle accounts with a son of a bitch who - Sonny, I'm Gully Foyle. There isn't anything I wouldn't dare.'

  The telepath began broadcasting terror with such an uproar that alarms sounded all over Mars St Michele. Foyle took a firm grip on the ancient child, accelerated, and carried him out of the fortress. Then he jaunted.

  URGENT. MOST SECRET. SIGURD MAGSMAN KIDNAPPED BY MAN TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS GULLIVER FOYLE, ALIAS FOURMYLE OF CERES, SOLAR ENEMY NUMBER ONE. DESTINATION TENTATIVELY FIXED. ALERT COMMANDO BRIGADE. INFORM CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE. URGENT! URGENT! URGENT!

  The ancient Sklotsky sect of White Russia, believing that sex was the root of all evil, practiced an atrocious self-castration to extirpate the root. The modern Sklotskys, believing that sensation was the root of all evil, practiced an even more barbaric custom. Having entered the Sklotsky Colony and paid a fortune for the privilege, the initiates submitted joyously to an operation that severed the sensory nervous system, and lived out their days without sight, sound, speech, smell, taste or touch.

  When they first entered the monastery, the initiates were shown elegant ivory cells in which it was intimated they would spend the remainder of their lives in rapt contemplation, lovingly tended. In actuality, the senseless creatures were packed in catacombs where they sat on rough stone slabs and were fed and exercised once a day. For twenty-three out of twenty-four hours they sat alone in the dark, untended, unguarded, unloved.

  'The living dead,' Foyle muttered. He decelerated, put Sigurd Magsman down, and switched on the retinal light in his eyes, trying to pierce the womb-gloom. It was midnight above ground. It was permanent midnight down in these catacombs. Sigurd Magsman was broadcasting terror and anguish with such a telepathic bray that Foyle was forced to shake the child again.

  'Shut up!' he whispered. 'You can't wake these dead. Now find me Lindsey Joyce.'

  'They're sick . . . all sick.. . like worm in their heads . . . worm and sickness and -'

  'Christ, don't I know it. Come on, let's get it over with. There's worse to come.'

  They went down the twisting labyrinth of the catacombs. The stone slabs shelved the walls from floor to ceiling. The Sklotskys, white as slugs, mute as corpses, motionless as Buddhas, filled the caverns with the odor of living death. The telepathic child wept and shrieked. Foyle never relaxed his relentless grip on him; he never relaxed the hunt.

  'Johnson, Wright, Keely, Graff, Nastro, Underwood . . . God, there's thousands here.'

  Foyle read off the bronze identification plates attached to the slabs. 'Reach out, Sigurd. Find Lindsey Joyce for me. We can't go over them name by name. Regal, Cone, Brady, Vincent - What in the?'

  Foyle started back. One of the bone-white figures had cuffed his brow. It was swaying and writhing, its face twitching. All the white slugs on their shelves were squirming and writhing. Sigurd Magsman's constant telepathic broadcast of anguish and terror was reaching them and torturing them.

  'Shut up!' Foyle snapped. 'Stop it. Find Lindsey Joyce and we'll get out of here. Reach out and find him.'

  'Down there.' Sigurd wept. 'Straight down there. Seven, eight, nine shelves down. I want to go home. I'm sick. I -'

  Foyle went pell-mell down the catacombs with Sigurd, reading off identification plates until at last he came to 'LINDSEY JOYCE. BOUGAINVILLE, VENUS.'

  This was his enemy, the instigator of his death and the deaths of the six hundred from Callisto. This was the enemy whom he had planned and hunted for months. This was enemy for whom he had prepared the agony of the port stateroom aboard his yawl. This was Vorga. It was a woman.

  'Foyle was thunderstruck. In these days of the double standard, with women kept in purdah, there were many reported cases of women masquerading as men to enter the worlds to them, but he had never yet heard of a woman in the merchant marine . . . masquerading her way on top officer rank.'

  'This?' he exclaimed furiously. 'This is Lindsey Joyce? Lindsey Joyce off the Vorga? Ask her.'

  'I don't know what Vorga is.'

  "Ask her!'

  'But I don't - She was. . . She like gave orders.'

  'Captain?'

  'I don't like what's inside her. It's all sick and dark. It hurts. I want to go home.'

  'Ask her. Was she captain of the Vorga?'

  ' Yes. Please, please, please don't make me go inside her any more. It's twisty and hurts. I don't like her.'

  'Tell her I'm the man she wouldn't pick up on September 16th, 2336. Tell her it's taken a long time but I've finally come to settle the account. Tell her I'm going to pay her back.'

  'I d-don't understand. Don't understand.'

  'Tell her I'm going to kill her, slow and hard. Tell her I've got a stateroom aboard my yawl, fitted up just like my locker Plyboard Nomad where I rotted for six months . . . where she ordered Vorga to leave me to die. Tell her she's going to rot 'die just like me. Tell her!'

  Foyle shook the wizened child furiously 'Make her feel it. Don't let her get away by turning Jerky. Tell her I kill her deadly. Read me and tell her!'

  'She . . . Sh-She didn't give that order.'

  'What!'

  'I can't understand her.'

  'She didn't give the order to scuttle me?'

  Then he realized that the cloister was brilliantly lit with artificial light. There was the tramp of shod feet and the low growl of commands. Half way up the steps, Foyle stopped and mustered himself.

  'Sigurd,' he whispered. 'Who's above us? Find out' ' Sogers,' the child answered.

  'Soldiers? What soldiers?'

  'Commando sogers.' Sigurd's crumpled face brightened. They come for me. To take me home to Nannie. HERE I AM! HERE I AM'

  The telepathic clamor brought a shout from overhead. Foyle accelerated and blurred up the rest of the steps to the cloister. It was a square of Romanesque arches surrounding a green lawn. In the centre of the lawn was a giant Cedar of Lebanon. The flagged walks swarmed with Commando search parties and Foyle came face to face with his match; for an instant after they saw his blur whip up from the catacombs they accelerated too, and all were on even terms.

  But Foyle had the boy. Shooting was impossible. Cradling Sigurd in his arms, he wove through the cloister like a broken-field runner hurtling towards a goal. No one dared block him, for at plus-five acceleration a head-on collision between two bodies would be instantly fatal to both. Objectively, this break-neck skirmish looked like a five-second zigzag of lightning.

  Foyle broke out of the cloister, went through the main hall of the monastery, passed through the labyrinth, and reached the public jaunte stage outside the main gate. There he stopped, decelerated and jaunted to the monastery airfield, half a mile distant. The field, too, was ablaze with lights and swarming with Commandos. Every anti-grav pit was occupied by a Brigade ship. His own yawl was under guard.

  A fifth of a second after Foyle arrived at the field, the pursuers from the monastery jaunted in. He looked around desperately. He was surrounded by half a regiment of Commandos, all under acceleration, all geared for lethal-action, all his equal or better. The odds were impossible.

  And then the Outer Satellites altered the odds. Exactly one week after the saturation raid on Terra, they struck at Mars.

  Again the mis
siles came down on the midnight to dawn quadrant. Again the heavens twinkled with interceptions and detonations, and the horizon exploded great puffs of light while the ground shook. But this time there was a ghastly variation, for a brilliant nova burst overhead, flooding the nightside of the planet with garish light. A swarm of fissionheads had struck Mars' tiny satellite, Phobos, instantly vaporizing it into a sunlet.

  The Recognition-Lag of the Commandos to this appalling attack gave Foyle his opportunity. He accelerated again and burst through them to his yawl. He stopped before the main hatch and saw the stunned guard-party hesitate between a continuance of the old action and a response to the new. Foyle hurled the frozen body of Sigurd Magsman up into the air like a Scotsman tossing the caber. As the guard party rushed to catch the boy, Foyle dived through them into his yawl, slammed the hatch and dogged it.

  'Still under acceleration, never pausing to see if anyone was inside the yawl, he shot forward to controls, tripped the release lever, and as the yawl started to float up the anti-grav beam threw on full 10 G propulsion. He was not strapped into the pilot chair. The effect of the 10 G drive on his accelerated and unprotected body was monstrous.

  A creeping force took hold of him and spilled him out of the chair. He inched back towards the rear wall of the control chamber like a sleep-walker. The wall appeared, to his accelerated senses, to approach him. He thrust out both arms, palms flat against the wall to brace himself. The sluggish power thrusting him back split his arms apart and forced him against the wall, gently at first, then harder and harder until face, jaw, chest and body were crushed against the metal.

  The mounting pressure became agonizing. He tried to trip the switchboard in his mouth with his tongue, but the propulsion crushing him against the wall made it impossible for him to move his distorted mouth. A burst of explosions, so far down the sound spectrum that they sounded like sodden rockslides, told him that the Commando Brigade was bombarding him with shots from below. As the yawl tore up into the blueblack of outer space, he began to scream in a bat-screech before he mercifully lost consciousness.