The Stars My Destination Read online

  The distant sun blazed through; the air was hot and moist. Foyle gazed around dimly. A devil face peered at him. Cheeks, chin, nose and eyelids were hideously tattooed like an ancient Maori mask. Across the brow was tattooed JOSEPH. The '0' 1n JOSEPH had a tiny arrow thrust up from the right shoulder, turning it into the symbol of Mars, used by scientists to designate male sex.

  'We are The Scientific People,' Joseph said. 'I am Joseph; these are my brethren.' He gestured. Foyle gazed at the grinning crowd surrounding his litter. All faces were tattooed into devil masks; all brows had names blazoned across them.

  'How long did you drift?' Joseph asked.

  'Vorga,' Foyle mumbled.

  'You are the first to arrive alive in fifty years. You are a puissant man. Very. Arrival of the fittest is the doctrine of Holy Darwin. Most scientific.'

  'Quant Suff!' the crowd bellowed.

  Joseph seized Foyle's elbow in the manner of a physician taking a pulse. His devil mouth counted solemnly up to ninety-eight.

  'Your pulse. Ninety-eight-point-six,' Joseph said, producing a thermometer and shaking it reverently. 'Most scientific.' 'Quant Suff!' came the chorus.

  Joseph proffered an Erlenmeyer flask. It was labeled: Lung Cat, c.c., hematoxylin and eosin. 'Vitamin?' Joseph inquired.

  When Foyle did not respond, Joseph removed a large pill from the flask, placed it in the bowl of a pipe and lit it. He puffed once and then gestured. Three girls appeared before Foyle. Their faces were hideously tattooed. Across each brow was a name: JOAN and MOIRA and FOLLY. The 'O' of each name had a tiny cross at the base.

  'Choose,' Joseph said. 'The Scientific People practice Natural Selection. Be scientific in your choice. Be genetic.'

  As Foyle fainted again, his arm slid off the litter and glanced against Moira.

  'Quant Suff!'

  He was in a circular hall with a doomed roof. The hall was filled with rusting antique apparatus: a centrifuge, an operating-table, a wrecked fluoroscope, autoclaves, cases of corroded surgical instruments.

  They strapped Foyle down on the operating-table while he raved and rambled. They fed him. They shaved and bathed him. Two men began turning the ancient centrifuge by hand. It emitted a rhythmic clanking like the pounding of a war drum. The assembled began tramping and chanting.

  They turned on the ancient autoclave. It boiled and geysered filling the hall with howling steam. They turned on the old fluoroscope. It was short-circuited and spat sizzling bolts of lightning across the steaming hall.

  A ten-foot figure loomed up to the table. It was Joseph on stilts. He wore a surgical cap, a surgical mask, and a surgeon's gown that hung from his shoulders to the floor. The gown was heavily embroidered with red and black thread illustrating anatomical sections of the body. Joseph was a lurid tapestry out of a surgical text.

  'I pronounce you Nomad!' Joseph intoned.

  The uproar became deafening. Joseph tilted a rusty can over Foyle's body. There was the reek of ether. Foyle lost his tatters of consciousness and darkness enveloped him. Out of the darkness Vorga-T: 1339 surged again and again, accelerating on a sunward course that burst through Foyle's blood and brains until he could not stop screaming silently for vengeance.

  He was dimly aware of washings and feedings and trampings and chantings. At last he awoke to a lucid interval. There was silence. He was in bed. The girl, Moira, was in bed with him.

  'Who you?' Foyle croaked.

  'Your wife, Nomad.'

  'What?'

  'Your wife. You chose me, Nomad. We are gametes.'

  'What?'

  'Scientifically mated,' Moira said proudly. She pulled up the sleeve of her nightgown and showed him her arm. It was disfigured by four, ugly slashes. 'I have been inoculated with something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.' Foyle struggled out of bed.

  'Where we now?'

  'In our home.'

  'What home?'

  'Yours. You are one of us, Nomad. You must marry every month and beget many children. That will be scientific. But I am the first.' Foyle ignored her and explored. He was in the main cabin of a small rocket launch of the early 2300s . . . once a private yacht. The main cabin had been converted into a bedroom.

  He lurched to the ports and looked out. The launch was sealed into the mass of the asteroid, connected by passages m the main body. He went aft. Two smaller cabins were filled with growing plants for oxygen. The engine-room had been inverted into a kitchen. There was Hi-Thrust in the fuel tanks, but it fed the burners of a small stove atop the rocket chambers. Foyle went forward. The control cabin was now a parlor, but the controls were still operative.

  He thought.

  He went aft to the kitchen and dismantled the stove. He reconnected the fuel tanks to the original jet combustion chambers. Moira followed him curiously.

  'What are you doing, Nomad?'

  'Got to get out of here, girl,' Foyle mumbled. 'Got business with a ship called Vorga. You dig me, girl? Going to ram out in this boat, is all.' Moira backed away in alarm. Foyle saw the look in her eyes and leaped for her. He was so crippled that she avoided him easily. She opened her mouth and let out a piercing scream. At that moment a mighty clangor filled the launch; it was Joseph and his devil-faced brethren outside, banging on the metal hull, going through the ritual of a scientific charivari for the newlyweds.

  Moira screamed and dodged while Foyle pursued her patiently. He trapped her in a corner, ripped her nightgown off and bound and gagged her with it. Moira made enough noise to split the asteroid open, but the scientific charivari was louder.

  Foyle finished his rough patching of the engine-room; he was almost an expert by now. He picked up the writhing girl and took her to the main hatch.

  'Leaving,' he shouted in Moira's ear. 'Take-off. Blast right out of asteroid. Hell of a smash, girl. Maybe all die, you.

  Everything busted wide open. Guesses for grabs what happens. No more air. No more asteroid. Go tell'm. Warn'm. Go girl' He opened the hatch, shoved Moira out, slammed the hatch and dogged it. The charivari stopped abruptly.

  At the controls Foyle pressed ignition. The automatic takeoff siren began a howl that had not sounded in decades. The jet chambers ignited with dull concussions. Foyle waited for the temperature to reach firing heat. While he waited he suffered. The launch was cemented into the asteroid. It was surrounded by stone and iron. Its rear jets were flush on the hull of another ship packed into the mass. He didn't know what would happen when his jets began their thrust, but he was driven to gamble by Vorga.

  He fired the jets. There was a hollow explosion as Hi-Thrust flamed out of the stern of the ship. The launch shuddered, yawned, heated. A squeal of metal began. Then the launch grated forward. Metal, stone and glass split asunder and the ship burst out of the asteroid into space.

  The L.P. navy picked him up ninety thousand miles outside Mars's orbit. After seven months of shooting war, the patrols were alert but reckless. When the launch failed to answer and give recognition countersigns, it should have been shattered with a blast and questions could have been asked of the wreckage later. But the launch was small and the cruiser crew was hot for prize money. They closed and grappled.

  They found Foyle inside, crawling like a headless worm through a junk-heap of spaceship and home furnishings. He was bleeding again, ripe with stinking gangrene, and one side of his head was pulpy. They brought him into the sick-bay aboard the cruiser and carefully curtained his tank. Foyle was no sight even for the tough stomachs of lower deck navy men.

  They patched his carcass in the amniotic tank while they completed their tour of duty. On the jet back to Terra, Foyle recovered consciousness and bubbled words beginning with V. He knew he was saved. He knew that only time stood between him and vengeance. The sick-bay orderly heard him exulting in his tank and parted the curtains. Foyle's filmed eyes looked up. The orderly could not restrain his curiosity.

  'You hear me, man?' he whispered.

  Foyle grunted. The orderly bent lowe
r.

  'What happened? Who in hell done that to you?'

  'What?' Foyle croaked.

  'Don't you know?'

  'What? What's a matter, you?'

  'Wait a minute, is all.' The orderly disappeared as he jaunted to a supply cabin, and reappeared alongside the tank five seconds later. Foyle struggled up out of the fluid. His eyes glazed.

  'It's coming back, man. Some of it. Jaunte, I couldn't jaunte on the Nomad, me.'

  'What?'

  'I was off my head.'

  'Man, you didn't have no head left, you.'

  'I couldn't jaunte. I forgot how, is all. I forgot everything, me. Still don't remember much. I -' He recoiled in terror as the orderly thrust the picture of a hideous tattooed face before him. It was a Maori mask. Cheeks, chin, nose and eyelids were decorated with stripes and swirls. Across the brow was blazoned Nomad. Foyle stared, then cried out in agony. The picture was a mirror. The face was his own.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “BRAVO, MR. HARRIS! Well done! L-E-S, gentlemen. Never forget. Location. Elevation. Situation. That’s the only way to remember your jaunte co-ordinates. Etre entre le marteau et l’enclume. French. Don’t jaunte yet, Mr. Peters. Wait your turn. Be patient, you’ll all be C class by and by. Has anyone seen Mr. Foyle? He’s missing. Oh, look at that heavenly brown thrasher. Listen to him. Oh dear, I’m thinking all over the place… or have I been speaking, gentlemen?”

  “Half and half, m’am.”

  “It does seem unfair. One-way telepathy is a nuisance. I do apologize for shrapneling you with my thoughts.”

  “We like it, m’am. You think pretty.”

  “How sweet of you, Mr. Gorgas. All right, class; all back to school and we start again. Has Mr. Foyle jaunted already? I never can keep track of him.”

  Robin Wednesbury was conducting her re-education class in jaunting on its tour through New York City, and it was as exciting a business for the cerebral cases as it was for the children in her primer class. She treated the adults like children and they rather enjoyed it. For the past month they had been memorizing jaunte stages at street intersections, chanting: “L-E-S, m’am. Location. Elevation. Situation.”

  She was a tall, lovely Negro girl, brilliant and cultivated, but handicapped by the fact that she was a telesend, a one-way telepath. She could broadcast her thoughts to the world, but could receive nothing. This was a disadvantage that barred her from more glamorous careers, yet suited her for teaching. Despite her volatile temperament, Robin Wednesbury was a thorough and methodical jaunte instructor.

  The men were brought down from General War Hospital to the jaunte school, which occupied an entire building in the Hudson Bridge at 42nd Street. They started from the school and marched in a sedate crocodile to the vast Times Square jaunte stage, which they earnestly memorized. Then they all jaunted to the school and back to Times Square. The crocodile re-formed and they marched up to Columbus Circle and memorized its coordinates. Then all jaunted back to school via Times Square and returned by the same route to Columbus Circle. Once more the crocodile formed and off they went to Grand Army Plaza to repeat the memorizing and the jaunting.

  Robin was re-educating the patients (all head injuries who had lost the power to jaunte) to the express stops, so to speak, of the public jaunte stages. Later they would memorize the local stops at street intersections. As their horizons expanded (and their powers returned) they would memorize jaunte stages in widening circles, limited as much by income as ability; for one thing was certain: you had to actually see a place to memorize it, which meant you first had to pay for the transportation to get you there. Even 3-D photographs would not do the trick. The Grand Tour had taken on a new significance for the rich.

  “Location. Elevation. Situation,” Robin Wednesbury lectured, and the class jaunted by express stages from Washington Heights to the Hudson Bridge and back again in primer jumps of a quarter mile each; following their lovely Negro teacher earnestly.

  The little technical sergeant with the platinum skull suddenly spoke in the gutter tongue: “But there ain’t no elevation, m’am. We’re on the ground, us.,‘

  “Isn’t, Sgt. Logan. ‘Isn’t any’ would be better. I beg your pardon. Teaching becomes a habit and I’m having trouble controlling my thinking today. The war news is so bad. We’ll get to Elevation when we start memorizing the stages on top of skyscrapers, Sgt. Logan.”

  The man with the rebuilt skull digested that, then asked: “We hear you when you think, is a matter you?”

  Exactly

  'But you don't hear us?'

  'Never. I'm a one-way telepath.'

  'We all hear you, or just I, is all?'

  '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 contro
lling 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.