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«Do tell,» Foyle murmured.
«Yessir, we've got everything. Everything. You don't have to jaunte around the world looking for fun. Aussie Ca
«Having absentee problems, I see.»
The mayor refused to falter in his sales pitch. «Look down at the streets. See those bikes? Motorcycles? Cars? We can afford more luxury transportation per capita than any other town on earth. Look at those homes. Mansions. Our people are rich and happy. We keep 'em rich and happy.»
«But do you keep them?»
«What d'you mean? Of course we…”
«You can tell us the truth. We're not job prospects. Do you keep them?»
«We can't keep 'em more than six months,» the mayor groaned. «It's a hell of a headache. We give 'em everything but we can't hold on to 'em. They get the wanderlust and jaunte. Absenteeism's cut our production by 12 per cent. We can't hold on to steady labor.»
«Nobody can.»
«There ought to be a law. Forrest, you said? Right here.»
He landed them before a Swiss chalet set in an acre of gardens and took off, mumbling to himself. Foyle and Robin stepped before the door of the house, waiting for the monitor to pick them up and a
«What the hell?» Foyle muttered. «On New Year's Eve? Friendly fella. Let's try the back.»
They walked around the chalet, pursued by the skull and crossbones flashing at intervals, and the ca
«Cellar Christians!» Foyle exclaimed. He and Robin peered through the window. Thirty worshippers of assorted faiths were celebrating the New Year with a combined and highly illegal service. The twenty-fourth century had not yet abolished God, but it had abolished organized religion.
«No wonder the house is man-trapped,» Foyle said. «Filthy practices like that. Look, they've got a priest and a rabbi, and that thing behind them is a crucifix.»
«Did you ever stop to think what swearing is?» Robin asked quietly. «You say 'Jesus' and 'Jesus Christ.' Do you know what that is?»
«Just swearing, that's all. Like 'ouch' or 'damn.»
«No, it's religion. You don't know it, but there are two thousand years of meaning behind words like that.»
«This is no time for dirty talk,» Foyle said impatiently. «Save it for later. Come on.»
The rear of the chalet was a solid wall of glass, the picture window of a dimly lit, empty living room.
«Down on your face,» Foyle ordered. «I'm going in.»
Robin lay prone on the marble patio. Foyle triggered his body, accelerated into a lightning blur, and smashed a hole in the glass wall. Far down on the sound spectrum he heard dull concussions. They were shots. Quick projectiles laced toward him. Foyle dropped to the floor and tuned his ears, sweeping from low bass to supersonic until at last he picked up the hum of the Man-Trap control mechanism. He turned his head gently, pin-pointed the location by binaural D/F, wove in through the stream of shots and demolished the mechanism. He decelerated.
«Come in, quick!»
Robin joined him in the living room, trembling. The Cellar Christians were pouring up into the house somewhere, emitting the sounds of martyrs.
«Wait here,» Foyle grunted. He accelerated, blurred through the house, located the Cellar Christians in poses of frozen flight, and sorted through them. He returned to Robin and decelerated.
«None of them is Forrest,» he reported. «Maybe he's upstairs. The back way, while they're going out the front. Come on!»
They raced up the back stairs. On the landing they paused to take bearings. «Have to work fast,» Foyle muttered. «Between the shots and the religion riot, the world and his wife'll be jaunting around asking questions…” He broke off. A low mewling sound came from a door at the head of the stairs. Foyle sniffed.
«Analogue!» he exclaimed. «Must be Forrest. How about that? Religion in the cellar and dope upstairs.»
«What are you talking about?»
«I'll explain later. In here. I only hope he isn't on a gorilla kick.»
Foyle went through the door like a diesel tractor. They were in a large, bare room. A heavy rope was suspended from the ceiling. A naked man was entwined with the rope midway in the air. He squirmed and slithered down the rope, emitting a mewling sound and a musky odor.
«Python,» Foyle said. «That's a break. Don't go near him. He'll mash your bones if he touches you.»
Voices below began to call: «Forrest! What's all the shooting? Happy New Year, Forrest! Where in hell's the celebration?»
«Here they come,» Foyle grunted «Have to jaunte him out of here. Meet you back at the beach. Go!»
He whipped a knife out of his pocket, cut the rope, swung the squirming man to his back and jaunted. Robin was on the empty Jervis beach a moment before him. Foyle arrived with the squirming man oozing over his neck and shoulders like a python, crushing him in a terrifying embrace. The red stigmata suddenly burst out on Foyle's face.
«Sinbad,» he said in a strangled voice. «Old Man of the Sea. Quick girl! Right pockets. Three over. Two down. Sting ampule. Let him have it anywh…” His voice was choked off.
Robin opened the pocket, found a packet of glass beads and took them out. Each bead had a bee-sting end. She thrust the sting of an ampule into the writhing man's neck. He collapsed. Foyle shook him off and arose from the sand.
«Christ!» he muttered, massaging his throat. He took a deep breath. «Blood and bowels. Control,» he said, resuming his air of detached calm. The scarlet tattooing faded from his face.
«What was all that horror?» Robin asked.
«Analogue. Psychiatric dope for psychotics. Illegal. A twitch has to release himself somehow, revert back to the primitive. He identifies with a particular kind of animal . . . gorilla, grizzly, brood bull, wolf . . . Takes the dope and turns into the animal he admires. Forrest was queer for snakes, seems as if.»
«How do you know all this?»
«Told you I've been studying . . . preparing for 'Vorga.' This is one of the things I learned. Show you something else I've learned, if you're not chicken-livered. How to bring a twitch out of Analogue.»
Foyle opened another pocket in his battle overalls and got to work on Forrest. Robin watched for a moment, then uttered a horrified cry, turned and walked to the edge of the water. She stood, staring blindly at the surf and the stars, until the mewling and the twisting ceased and Foyle called to her.
«You can come back now.»
Robin returned to find a shattered creature seated upright on the beach gazing at Foyle with dull, sober eyes.
«You're Forrest?»
«Who the hell are you?»
«You're Ben Forrest, leading spaceman. Formerly aboard the Presteign 'Vorga.'»
Forrest cried out in terror.
«You were aboard the 'Vorga' on September 16, 2436.»
The man sobbed and shook his head.
«On September sixteen you passed a wreck. Out near the asteroid belt. Wreck of the 'Nomad,' your sister ship. She signaled for help. 'Vorga' passed her by. Left her to drift and die. Why did 'Vorga' pass her by?»
Forrest began to scream hysterically.
«Who gave the order to pass her by?»
«Jesus, no! No! No!»
«The records are all gone from the Bo'ness amp; Uig files. Someone got to them before me. Who was that? Who was aboard 'Vorga'? Who shipped with you? I want officers and crew. Who was in command?»
«No,» Forrest screamed. «No!»
Foyle held a sheaf of bank notes before the hysterical man's face. «I'll pay for the information. Fifty thousand. Analogue for the rest of your life. Who gave the order to let me die, Forrest? Who?»