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CHAPTER SIX
HARLEY BAKER, M.D., had a small general practice in Montana-Oregon which was legitimate and barely paid for the diesel oil he consumed each weekend participating in the rallies for vintage tractors which were the vogue in Sahara. His real income was earned in his Freak Factory in Trenton to which Baker jaunted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night. There, for enormous fees and no questions asked, Baker created monstrosities for the entertainment business and refashioned skin, muscle, and bone for the underworld.
Looking like a male midwife, Baker sat on the cool veranda of his Spokane mansion listening to Jiz McQueen finish the story of her escape.
«Once we hit the open country outside Gouffre Martel it was easy. We found a shooting lodge, broke in, and got some clothes. There were guns there too. . . lovely old steel things for killing with explosives. We took them and sold them to some locals. Then we bought rides to the nearest jaunte stage we had memorized.»
«Which?»
«Biarritz.»
«Traveled by night, eh?»
«Naturally.»
«Do anything about Foyle's face?»
«We tried makeup but that didn't work. The damned tattooing showed through. Then I bought a dark skin-surrogate and sprayed it on.»
«Did that do it?»
«No,» Jiz said angrily. «You have to keep your face quiet or else the surrogate cracks and peels. Foyle couldn't control himself. He never can. It was hell.»
«Where is he now?»
«Sam Quatt's got him in tow.»
«I thought Sam retired from the rackets.»
«He did,» Jisbella said grimly, «But he owes me a favor. He's minding Foyle. They're circulating on the jaunte to stay ahead of the cops.»
«Interesting,» Baker murmured. «Haven't seen a tattoo case in all my life. Thought it was a dead art. I'd like to add him to my collection. You know I collect curios, Jiz?»
«Everybody knows that zoo of yours in Trenton, Baker. It's ghastly.»
«I picked up a genuine fraternal cyst last month,» Baker began enthusiastically.
«I don't want to hear about it,» Jiz snapped. «And I don't want Foyle in your zoo. Can you get the muck off his face? Clean it up? He says they were stymied at General Hospital.»
«They haven't had my experience, dear. Hmm. I seem to remember reading something once . . . somewhere . . . Now where did I…? Wait a minute.» Baker stood up and disappeared with a faint pop. Jisbella paced the veranda furiously until he reappeared twenty minutes later with a tattered book in his hands and a triumphant expression on his face.
«Got it,» Baker said. «Saw it in the Caltech stacks three years ago. You may admire my memory.»
«To hell with your memory. What about his face?»
«It can be done.» Baker flipped the fragile pages and meditated. «Yes, it can be done. Indigotin disulphonic acid. I may have to synthesize the acid but. . .» Baker closed the text and nodded emphatically. «I can do it. Only it seems a pity to tamper with that face if it's as unique as you describe.»
«Will you get off your hobby,» Jisbella exclaimed in exasperation. «We're hot, understand? The first that ever broke out of Gouffre Martel. The cops won't rest until they've got us back. This is extra-special for them.»
«But…”
«How long d'you think we can stay out of Gouffro Martel with Foyle ru
«What are you so angry about?»
«I'm not angry. I'm explaining.»
«He'd be happy in the zoo,» Baker said persuasively. «And he'd be under cover there. I'd put him in the room next to the cyclops girl…”
«The zoo is out. That's definite.»
«All right, dear. But why are you worried about Foyle being recaptured? It won't have anything to do with you.»
«Why should you worry about me worrying? I'm asking you to do a job. I'm paying for the job.»
«It'll be expensive, dear, and I'm fond of you. I'm trying to save you money.»
«No you're not.»
«Then I'm curious.»
«Then let's say I'm grateful. He helped me; now I'm helping him.» Baker smiled cynically. «Then let's help him by giving him a brand new face.»
«I thought so. You want his face cleaned up because you're interested in his face.»
«Damn you, Baker, will you do the job or not?»
«It'll cost five thousand.»
«Break that down.»
«A thousand to synthesize the acid. Three thousand for the surgery. And one thousand for…”
«Your curiosity?»
«No, dear.» Baker smiled again. «A thousand for the anesthetist.»
«Why anesthesia?»
Baker reopened the ancient text. «It looks like a painful operation. You know how they tattoo? They take a needle, dip it in dye, and hammer it into the skin. To bleach that dye out I'll have to go over his face with a needle, pore by pore, and hammer in the indigotin disulphonic. It'll hurt.»
Jisbella's eyes flashed. «Can you do it without the dope?»
«I can, dear, but Foyle…”
«To hell with Foyle. I'm paying four thousand. No dope, Baker. Let Foyle suffer.»
«Jiz! You don't know what you're letting him in for.»
«I know. Let him suffer.» She laughed so furiously that she startled Baker. «Let his face make him suffer too.»
Baker's Freak Factory occupied a round brick three-story building that had once been the roundhouse in a suburban railway yard before jaunting ended the need for suburban railroads. The ancient ivy-covered roundhouse was alongside the Trenton rocket pits, and the rear windows looked out on the mouths of the pits thrusting their anti-gray beams upward, and Baker's patients could amuse themselves watching the spaceships riding silently up and down the beams, their portholes blazing, recognition signals blinking, their hulls rippling with St. Elmo's fire as the atmosphere carried off the electrostatic charges built up in outer space.
The basement floor of the factory contained Baker's zoo of anatomical curiosities, natural freaks and monsters bought, and/or abducted. Baker, like the rest of his world, was passionately devoted to these creatures and spent long hours with them, drinking in the spectacle of their distortions the way other men saturated themselves with the beauty of art. The middle floor of the roundhouse contained bedrooms for post-operative patients, laboratories, staff rooms, and kitchens. The top floor contained the operating theaters.
In one of the latter, a small room usually used for retinal experiments, Baker was at work on Foyle's face. Under a harsh battery of lamps, he bent over the operating table working meticulously with a small steel hammer and a platinum needle. Baker was following the pattern of the old tattooing on Foyle's face, searching out each minute scar in the skin, and driving the needle into it. Foyle's head was gripped in a clamp, but his body was unstrapped. His muscles writhed at each tap of the hammer, but he never moved his body. He gripped the sides of the operating table.
«Control,» he said through his teeth. «You wanted me to learn control, Jiz. I'm practicing.» He winced.
«Don't move,» Baker ordered.
«I'm playing it for laughs.»
«You're doing all right, son,» Sam Quatt said, looking sick. He glanced sidelong at Jisbella's furious face. «What do you say, Jiz?»
«He's learning.»
Baker continued dipping and hammering the needle.
«Listen, Sam,» Foyle mumbled, barely audible. «Jiz told me you own a private ship. Crime pays, huh?»
«Yeah. Crime pays. I got a little four-man job. Twin-jet. Kind they call a Saturn Weekender.»
«Why Saturn Weekender?»
«Because a weekend on Saturn would last ninety days. She can carry food and fuel for three months.»
«Just right for me,» Foyle muttered. He writhed and controlled himself. «Sam, I want to rent your ship.»
«What for?»
«Something hot.»
«Legitimate?»