Страница 13 из 53
«Hey . . .» Foyle grunted.
The valet turned. «Good morning, Mr. Fourmyle,» he murmured.
«What?»
«It's a lovely morning, sir. I've laid out the brown twill and the cordovan pumps, sir.»
«What's a matter, you?»
«I've…” The valet gazed at Foyle curiously. «Is anything wrong, Mr. Fourmyle?»
«What you call me, man?»
«By your name, sir.»
«My name is . . . Fourmyle?» Foyle struggled up in the bed. «No, it's not. It's Foyle. Gully Foyle, that's my name, me.»
The valet bit his lip. «One moment, sir . . .» He stepped outside and called. Then he murmured. A lovely girl in white came ru
«Darling, darling, darling,» she whispered. «You aren't going to start all that again, are you? The doctor swore you were over it.»
«Start what again?»
«All that Gulliver Foyle nonsense about your being a common sailor and…”
«I am Gully Foyle. That's my name, Gully Foyle.»
«Sweetheart, you're not. That's just a delusion you've had for weeks. You've been overworking and drinking too much.»
«Been Gully Foyle all my life, me.»
«Yes, I know darling. That's the way it's seemed to you. But you're not. You're Geoffrey Fourmyle. The Geoffrey Fourmyle. You're…Oh, what's the sense telling you? Get dressed, my love. You've got to come downstairs. Your office has been frantic.»
Foyle permitted the valet to dress him and went downstairs in a daze. The lovely girl, who evidently adored him, conducted him through a giant studio littered with drawing tables, easels, and half-finished canvases. She took him into a vast hall filled with desks, filing cabinets, stock tickers, clerks, secretaries, office perso
«What's all this?» Foyle asked.
The girl seated Foyle in a plush armchair alongside a giant desk littered with interesting papers scribbled with fascinating symbols. On some Foyle saw the name: Geoffrey Fourmyle, scrawled in an imposing, authoritative signature.
«There's some crazy kind of mistake, is all,» Foyle began.
The girl silenced him. «Here's Doctor Regan. He'll explain.»
An impressive gentleman with a crisp, comforting ma
«Good,» he said. «Excellent. You are close to complete recovery, Mr. Fourmyle. Now you will listen to me for a moment, eh?»
Foyle nodded.
«You remember nothing of the past. You have only a false memory. You were overworked. You are an important man and there were too many demands on you. You started to drink heavily a month ago…No, no, denial is useless. You drank. You lost yourself.»
''I…”
«You became convinced you were not the famous Jeff Fourmyle. An infantile attempt to escape responsibility. You imagined you were a common spaceman named Foyle. Gulliver Foyle, yes? With an odd number. .
«Gully Foyle. AS:1z8/i 27 :006. But that's me. That's…”
«It is not you. This is you.» Dr. Regan waved at the interesting offices they could see through the transparent glass wall.
«You can only recapture the true memory if you discharge the old. All this glorious reality is yours, if we can help you discard the dream of the spaceman.» Dr. Regan leaned forward, his polished spectacles glittering hypnotically. «Reconstruct this false memory of yours in detail, and I will tear it down. Where do you imagine you left the spaceship 'Nomad'? How did you escape? Where do you imagine the 'Nomad' is now?»
Foyle wavered before the romantic glamour of the scene which seemed to be just within his grasp.
«It seems to me I left 'Nomad' out in…” He stopped short.
A devil-face peered at him from the highlights reflected in Dr. Regan's spectacles . . . a hideous tiger mask with NOMAD blazoned across the distorted brow. Foyle stood up.
«Liars!» he growled. «It's real, me. This here is phoney. What happened to me is real. I'm real, me.»
Saul Dagenham walked into the laboratory. «All right,» he called. «Strike. It's a washout.»
The bustling scene in laboratory, office, and studio ended. The actors quietly disappeared without another glance at Foyle. Dagenham gave Foyle his deadly smile. «Tough, aren't you? You're really unique. My name is Saul Dagenham. We've got five minutes for a talk. Come into the garden.»
The Sedative Garden atop the Therapy Building was a triumph of therapeutic pla
«Sit down,» Dagenham said, pointing to a bench alongside a pool in which crystal waters tinkled. «Don't try to jaunte-you're drugged. I'll have to walk around a bit. Can't come too close to you. I'm 'hot.' D'you know what that means?»
Foyle shook his head sullenly. Dagenham cupped both hands around the flaming blossom of an orchid and held them there for a moment. «Watch that flower,» he said. «You'll see.»
He paced up a path and turned suddenly. «You're right, of course. Everything that happened to you is real…Only what did happen?»
«Go to hell,» Foyle growled.
«You know, Foyle, I admire you.»
«Go to hell.»
«In your own primitive way you've got ingenuity and guts. You're cr0Magnon, Foyle. I've been checking on you. That bomb you threw in the Presteign shipyards was lovely, and you nearly wrecked General Hospital getting the money and material together.» Dagenham counted fingers. «You looted lockers, stole from the blind ward, stole drugs from the pharmacy, stole apparatus from the lab stockrooms.»
«Go to hell, you.»
«But what have you got against Presteign? Why'd you try to blow up his shipyard? They tell me you broke in and went tearing through the pits like a wild man. What were you trying to do, Foyle?»
«Go to hell.»
Dagenham smiled. «If we're going to chat,» he said. «You'll have to hold up your end. Your conversation's getting monotonous. What happened to 'Nomad'?»
«I don't know about 'Nomad,' nothing.»
«The ship was last reported over seven months ago. Are you the sole survivor? And what have you been doing all this time? Having your face decorated?»
«I don't know about 'Nomad,' nothing.»
«No, no, Foyle, that won't do. You show up with 'Nomad' tattooed across your face. Fresh tattooed. Intelligence checks and finds you were aboard 'Nomad' when she sailed. Foyle, Gulliver: AS :i z8/i 27 :oo6, Mechanic's Mate, 3rd Class. As if all this isn't enough to throw Intelligence into a tizzy, you come back in a private launch that's been missing fifty years. Man, you're cooking in the reactor. Intelligence wants the answers to all these questions. And you ought to know how Central Intelligence butchers its answers out of people.»
Foyle started. Dagenham nodded as he saw his point sink home. «Which is why I think you'll listen to reason. We want information, Foyle. I tried to trick it out of you; admitted. I failed because you're too tough; admitted. Now I'm offering an honest deal. We'll protect you if you'll cooperate. If you don't, you'll spend five years in an Intelligence lab having information chopped out of you.»
It was not the prospect of the butchery that frightened Foyle, but the~ thought of the loss of freedom. A man had to be free to avenge himself, to raise money and find «Vorga» again, to rip and tear and gut «VORGA.»
«What kind of deal?» he asked.
«Tell us what happened to 'Nomad' and where you left her.»
«Why, man?»
«Why? Because of the salvage, man.»
«There ain't nothing to salvage.. She's a wreck, is all.».