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The man smote the bank notes from Foyle's hand, leaped up and ran down the beach. Foyle tackled him at the edge of the surf. Forrest fell headlong, his face in the water. Foyle held him there.
«Who commanded 'Vorga,' Forrest? Who gave the order?»
«You're drowning him!» Robin cried.
«Let him suffer a little. Water's easier than vacuum. I suffered for six months. Who gave the order, Forrest?»
The man bubbled and choked. Foyle lifted his head out of the water. «What are you? Loyal? Crazy? Scared? Your kind would sell out for five thousand. I'm offering fifty. Fifty thousand for information, you son of a bitch, or you die slow and hard.» The tattooing appeared on Foyle's face. He forced Forrest's head back into the water and held the struggling man. Robin tried to pull him off.
«You're murdering him!»
Foyle turned his terrifying face on Robin. «Get your hands off me, bitch! Who was aboard with you, Forrest? Who gave the order? Why?»
Forrest twisted his head out of the water. «Twelve of us on 'Vorga,'» he screamed. «Christ save me! There was me and Kemp…”
He jerked spasmodically and sagged. Foyle pulled his body out of the surf.
«Go on. You and who? Kemp? Who else? Talk.»
There was no response. Foyle examined the body.
«Dead,» he growled.
«Oh my God! My God!»
«One lead shot to hell. Just when he was opening up. What a damned break.» He took a deep breath and drew calm about him like an iron cloak. The tattooing disappeared from his face. He adjusted his watch for 120 degrees east longitude. «Almost midnight in Shanghai. Let's go. Maybe we'll have better luck with Sergei Orel, pharmacist's mate off the 'Vorga.' Don't look so scared. This is only the begi
Robin gasped. He saw that she was staring over his shoulder with an expression of incredulity. Foyle turned. A flaming figure loomed on the beach, a huge man with burning clothes and a hideously tattooed face. It was himself.
«Christ!» Foyle exclaimed. He took a step toward his burning image, and abruptly it was gone.
He turned to Robin, ashen and trembling. «Did you see that?»
«Yes.»
«What was it?»
«You.»
«For God's sake! Me? How's that possible? How…”
«It was you.»
«But…” He faltered, the strength and furious possession drained out of him. «Was it illusion? Hallucination?»
«I don't know. I saw it too.»
«Christ Almighty! To see yourself. . . face to face. . . The clothes were on fire. Did you see that? What in God's name was it?»
«It was Gully Foyle,» Robin said, «burning in hell.»
«All right,» Foyle burst out angrily. «It was me in hell, but I'm still going through with it. If I burn in hell, Vorga'll burn with me.» He pounded his palms together, stinging himself back to strength and purpose. «I'm still going through with it, by God! Shanghai next. Jaunte!»
CHAPTER TEN
AT THE COSTUME BALL in Shanghai, Fourmyle of Ceres electrified society by appearing as Death in Dürer's «Death and the Maiden» with a dazzling blonde creature clad in transparent veils. A Victorian society which stifled its women in purdah, and which regarded the 1920 gowns of the Peenemunde clan as excessively daring, was shocked, despite the fact that Robin Wednesbury was chaperoning the pair. But when Fourmyle revealed that the female was a magnificent android, there was an instant reversal of opinion in his favor. Society was delighted with the deception. The naked body, shameful in humans, was merely a sexless curiosity in androids.
At midnight, Fourmyle auctioned off the android to the gentlemen of the ball.
«The money to go to charity, Fourmyle?»
«Certainly not. You know my slogan: Not one cent for entropy. Do I hear a hundred credits for this expensive and lovely creature? One hundred, gentlemen? She's all beauty and highly adaptable. Two? Thank you. Three and a half? Thank you. I'm bid-Five? Eight? Thank you. Any more bids for this remarkable product of the resident genius of the Four Mile Circus? She walks. She talks. She adapts. She has been conditioned to respond to the highest bidder. Nine? Do I hear any more bids? Are you all done? Are you all through? Sold, to Lord Yale for nine hundred credits.»
Tumultuous applause and appalled ciphering: «An android like that must have cost ninety thousand! How can he afford it?»
«Will you turn the money over to the android, Lord Yale? She will respond suitably. Until we meet again in Rome, ladies and gentlemen .
The Borghese Palace at midnight. Happy New Year.»
Fourmyle had already departed when Lord Yale discovered, to the delight of himself and the other bachelors, that a double deception had been perpetrated. The android was, in fact, a living, human creature, all beauty and highly adaptable. She responded magnificently to nine hundred credits. The trick was the smoking room story of the year. The stags waited eagerly to congratulate Fourmyle.
But Foyle and Robin Wednesbury were passing under a sign that read:
«DOUBLE YOUR JAUNTING OR DOUBLE YOUR MONEY BACK»
in seven languages, and entering the emporium of «DR. SERGEI OREL, CELESTIAL ENLARGER OF CRANIAL CAPABILITIES.»
The waiting room was decorated with lurid brain charts demonstrating how Dr. Orel poulticed, cupped, balsamed, and electrolyzed the brain into double its capacity or double your money back. He also doubled your memory with antifebrile purgatives, magnified your morals with tonic roborants, and adjusted all anguished psyches with Orel's Epulotic Vulnerary.
The waiting room was empty. Foyle opened a door at a venture. He and Robin had a glimpse of a long hospital ward. Foyle grunted in disgust.
«A Snow Joint. Might have known he'd be ru
This den catered to Disease Collectors, the most hopeless of neuroticaddicts. They lay in their hospital beds, suffering mildly from illegally induced para-measles, para-flu, para-malaria; devotedly attended by nurses in starched white uniforms, and avidly enjoying their illegal illness and the attention it brought.
«Look at them,» Foyle said contemptuously. «Disgusting. If there's anything filthier than a religion-junkey, it's a disease-bird.»
«Good evening,» a voice spoke behind them.
Foyle shut the door and turned. Dr. Sergei Orel bowed. The good doctor was crisp and sterile in the classic white cap, gown, and surgical mask of the medical clans, to which he belonged by fraudulent assertion only. He was short, swarthy, and olive-eyed, recognizably Russian by his name alone. More than a century of jaunting had so mingled the many populations of the world that racial types were disappearing.
«Didn't expect to find you open for business on New Year's Eve,» Foyle said.
«Our Russian New Year comes two weeks later,» Dr. Orel answered. «Step this way, please.» He pointed to a door and disappeared with a «pop.» The door revealed a long flight of stairs. As Foyle and Robin started up the stairs, Dr. Orel appeared above them. «This way, please. Oh . . .one moment.» He disappeared and appeared again behind them. «You forgot to close the door.» He shut the door and jaunted again. This time he reappeared high at the head of the stairs. «In here, please.»
«Showing off,» Foyle muttered. «Double your jaunting or double your money back. All the same, he's pretty fast. I'll have to be faster.»
They entered the consultation room. It was a glass-roofed penthouse. The walls were lined with gaudy but antiquated medical apparatus: a sedative-bath machine, an electric chair for administering shock treatment to schizophrenics, an EKG analyzer for tracing psychotic patterns, old optical and electronic microscopes.
The quack waited for them behind his desk. He jaunted to the door, closed it, jaunted back to his desk, bowed, indicated chairs, jaunted behind Robin's and held it for her, jaunted to the window and adjusted the shade, jaunted to the light switch and adjusted the lights, then reappeared behind his desk.