The Stars My Destination Page 4

  '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.

  'I want to hire Dagenham'.

  'Ready, Presteign.'

  'Not you. I want Saul Dagenham himself.'

  'Mr. Dagenham no longer gives personal service for less than Cr 100,000.'

  'The amount will be five times that.'

  'Fee or percentage.'

  'Both. Quarter of a million fee, and a quarter of a million guaranteed against ten per cent of the total amount at risk.'

  'Agreed. The matter?'

  'PyrE.'

  'Spell it, please.'

  'The name means nothing to you?'

  'No.'

  'Good. It will to Dagenham. PyrE. Capital P-Y-R-Capital E. Tell Dagenham we've located the PyrE. He's engaged to get it . . . at all costs . . . through a man named Foyle. Gulliver Foyle.' The courier produced a tiny silver pearl, a memo-bead, repeated Presteign's instructions into it, and left without another word.

  Presteign turned to his telephone operator. ' Get me Regis Sheffield,' he directed.

  Ten minutes after the call went through to Regis Sheffield's law office, a young law clerk appeared on Presteign's private jaunte stage, was vetted and admitted through the maze. He was a bright young man with a scrubbed face and the expression of a delighted rabbit.

  'Excuse the delay, Presteign,' he said. 'We got your call in Chicago and I'm still only a D class five-hundred-miler. Took me a while getting here.'

  ' Is your chief trying a case in Chicago?'

  'Chicago, New York and Washington. He's been on the jaunte from court to court all morning. We fill in for him when he's in another court.'

  'I want to retain him.'

  'Honored, Presteign, but Mr. Sheffield's pretty busy.'

  'Not too busy for PyrE.'

  'Sorry, sir; I don't quite -'

  'No, you don't, but Sheffield will. Just tell him: PyrE and the amount of his fee.'

&
nbsp; 'Which is?' 'Quarter of a million retainer and a quarter of a million guaranteed against ten per cent of the total amount at risk.'

  'And what performance is required of Mr. Sheffield?'

  'To prepare every known legal device for kidnapping a man and holding him against the army, the navy and the police.'

  'Right. And the man?'

  'Gulliver Foyle.' The law clerk muttered quick notes into a memo-bead, thrust the bead into his ear, listened, nodded and departed. Presteign left the study and ascended the plush stairs to his daughter's suite to pay his morning respects.

  In the homes of the wealthy, the rooms of the female members were blind, without windows or doors, open only to the jaunting of intimate members of the family. Thus was morality maintained and chastity defended. But since Olivia Presteign was herself blind to normal sight, she could not jaunte. Consequently her suite was entered through doors closely guarded by ancient retainers in the Presteign clan livery.

  Olivia Presteign was a glorious albino. Her hair was white silk, her skin was white satin, her nails, her lips and her eyes were coral. She was beautiful and blind in a wonderful way, for she could see in the infra red only, from Moo Angstroms to one millimeter wavelengths. She saw heat waves, magnetic fields, radio valves, radar, sonar and electro-magnetic fields.

  She was holding her Grand Levee in the drawing-room of the suite. She sat in a brocaded wing chair, sipping tea guarded by her duenna, holding court, chatting with a dozen men and women standing about the room. She looked like an exquisite statue of marble and coral, her blind eyes flashing as she saw and yet did not see.

  She saw the drawing-room as a pulsating flow of heat emanations ranging from hot highlights to cool shadows. She saw the dazzling magnetic patterns of clocks, phones, lights and locks. She saw and recognized people by the characteristic heat patterns radiated by their faces and bodies. She saw, around each head, an aura of the faint electro-magnetic brain pattern, and sparkling through the heat radiation of each body, the ever-changing tone of muscle and nerve.

  Presteign did not care for the artists, musicians and fops Olivia kept about her, but he was pleased to see a scattering of society notables this morning. There was a Sears-Robuck, a Gillet, young Sidney Kodak who would one day be Kodak of Kodak, a Houbigant, Buick of Buick, and R. H. Macy XVI, head of the powerful Saks-Gimbel clan.

  Presteign paid his respects to his daughter and left the house. He set off for his clan headquarters at 99 Wall Street, in a coach and four driven by a coachman assisted by a groom, both wearing the Presteign trademark of red, black and blue. That black 'P' on a field of scarlet and cobalt was one of the most ancient and distinguished trademarks in the social register, rivaling the '57' of the Heinz clan and the 'RR' of the Rolls-Royce dynasty in antiquity.

  The head of the Presteign clan was a familiar sight to New York Jaunters. Iron grey, handsome, powerful, impeccably dressed and mannered in the old-fashioned style, Presteign of Presteign was the epitome of the socially elect, for he was so exalted in station that he employed coachmen, grooms, hostlers, stableboys and horses to perform a function for him which ordinary mortals performed by jaunting.

  As men climbed the social ladder these days, they displayed their position by their refusal to jaunte. The newly adopted into a great commercial clan rode an expensive bicycle. A rising clansman drove a small sports car. The captain of a sept was transported in a chauffeur-driven antique from the old days, a vintage Bentley or Cadillac or a towering Lagonda. An heir-presumptive in direct line of succession to the clan chieftainship staffed a yacht or a plane. Presteign of Presteign, head of the clan of Presteign, owned carriages, cars, yachts, planes and trains. His position in society was so lofty that he had not jaunted in forty years. He scorned the bustling new-rich like the Dagenhams and Sheffields who still jaunted and were unashamed.

  Presteign entered the crenellated keep at, 99 Wall Street, that was Castle Presteign. It was staffed and guarded by his famous Jaunte-Watch, all in clan livery. Presteign walked with the stately gait of a chieftain as they piped him into his office. Indeed, he was grander than a chieftain as an importunate government official awaiting audience discovered to his dismay. The unfortunate man leaped forward from the waiting crowd of petitioners as Presteign passed.

  'Mr. Presteign,' he began. 'I'm from the Internal Revenue Department, I must see you this morn-' Presteign cut him short with an icy stare.

  'There are thousands of Presteigns,' he pronounced. 'All are addressed as Mister. But I am Presteign of Presteign, head of house and sept, first of the family, chieftain of the clan. I am addressed as Presteign' Not "Mister" Presteign. Presteign.'

  He turned and entered his office where his staff greeted him with a muted chorus: 'Good morning, Presteign.' Presteign nodded, smiled his basilisk smile and seated himself behind the enthroned desk while the Jaunte-Watch skirled their pipes and ruffled their drums. Presteign signaled for the audience to begin. Presteign disdained memo-beads and all mechanical business devices.

  'Report on Clan Presteign enterprises,' the Equerry began. 'Common Stick: High-201 1/2, Low-201 1/4. Average quotations New York, Paris, Ceylon, Tokyo -'

  Presteign waved his hand irritably. The Equerry retired to be replaced by Black Rod.

  'Another Mr. Presto to be invested, Presteign.' Presteign restrained his impatience and went through the tedious ceremony of swearing in the 497th Mr. Presto in the hierarchy of Presteign Prestos who managed the shops in the Presteign retail division. Until recently the man had had a face and body of his own. Now, after ten years of cautious testing and careful introductions, he had elected to join the Prestos.

  After six months of surgery and psycho-conditioning, he was identical to the other Mr. Prestos and to the idealized portrait of Mr. Presto which hung behind Presteign's dais . . . a kindly, honest man resembling Abraham Lincoln, a man yon must love and trust. No matter where you bought around the world, you entered the identical Presteign store and were fathered by the identical manager, Mr. Presto. He was rivaled, but not surpassed, by the Kodak clan's Mr. Kwik and Montgomery Ward's Uncle Monty.

  When the ceremony was completed, Presteign arose abruptly to indicate that the public audience was ended. The office was cleared of all but the high officials. Presteign paced, obviously repressing his seething impatience. He never swore, but his restraint was more terrifying than profanity.

  'Foyle,' he said in a suffocated voice. 'A common sailor. Dirt. Dregs. Gutter scum. And I am Presteign of Presteign. But that man stands between me and -'

  'If you please, Presteign,' Black Rod interrupted timidly. 'It's eleven o'clock Eastern time; eight o'clock Pacific time.'

  'What?

  'If you please, Presteign, I remind you that there is a launching ceremony at nine, Pacific time. You are to preside at the Vancouver shipyards.'

  'Launching? 'Our new freighter, the Presteign Princess. It will take some time to establish three-dimensional broadcast contact with the shipyard so we had better -'

  'I will attend in person.'

  'In person!' Black Rod faltered.

  'But we cannot possibly fly to Vancouver in an hour, Presteign. We -'

  'I will jaunte,' Presteign of Presteign snapped. Such was his agitation.

  His appalled staff made hasty preparations. Messengers jaunted ahead to warn the Presteign offices across the country, and the private jaunte stages were cleared. Presteign was ushered to the stage within his New York office. It was a circular platform in a black-hung room without windows. This masking and concealment was necessary to prevent unauthorized persons from discovering and memorizing its co-ordinates. For the same reason, all homes and offices had one-way windows and confusion labyrinths behind their doors.

  To jaunte it was necessary (among other things) to know exactly where you were, and where you were going, or you had no hope of arriving alive anywhere. It was as impossible to jaunte from an undetermined starting point as it was to arrive at an unknown destination. Like shooting a pistol, yo
u had to know where to aim and which end of the gun to hold. But a glance through a window or door might be enough to enable a man to memorize the L-E-S co-ordinates of a place.

  Presteign stepped on the stage, visualized the co-ordinates of his destination in the Philadelphia office, seeing the picture clearly and the position accurately. He relaxed and energized one concentrated thrust of will and belief towards the target. He jaunted. There was a dizzy moment in which his eyes blurred. The New York stage faded out of focus; the Philadelphia stage blurred into focus. There was a sensation of falling down, and then up. He arrived. Black Rod and other of his staff arrived a respectful moment later.

  So, in jauntes of one and two hundred miles each, Presteign crossed the continent, and arrived outside the Vancouver shipping yards at exactly nine o'clock in the morning, Pacific time. He had left New York at eleven a.m. He had gained two hours of daylight. This, too, was a commonplace in a jaunting world.

  The square mile of unfenced concrete (what fence could bar a Jaunter) looked like a white table covered with black pennies neatly arranged in concentric circles. But on closer approach, the pennies enlarged into the hundred-foot mouths of black pits dug deep into the bowels of the earth. Each circular mouth was rimmed with concrete buildings, offices, check-rooms, canteens, changing-rooms.

  These were the take-off and landing pits, the dry dock and construction pits of the shipyards. Spaceships, like sailing vessels, were never designed to support their own weight unaided against the drag of gravity. Normal terran gravity would crack the spine of a spaceship like an eggshell. The ships were built in deep pits, standing vertically in a network of catwalks and construction grids, braced and supported by anti-gravity screens. They took off from similar pits, riding the anti-grav beams upward like motes mounting the vertical shaft of a searchlight until at last they reached the Riche Limit and could thrust with their own jets. Landing spacecraft cut drive jets and rode the same beams downwards into the pits.

  As the Presteign entourage entered the Vancouver yards they could see which of the pits were in use. From some the noses and hulls of spaceships extruded, raised a quarter-way or half-way above ground by the anti-grav screens as workmen in the pits below brought their aft sections to particular operational levels. Three Presteign V-class transports, Vega, Vestal and Vorga stood partially raised near the centre of the yards, undergoing flaking and replating, as the heat-lighting flicker of torches around Vorga indicated.