American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58 (27 page)

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. The Household Equerry stepped forward with a scroll. Presteign disdained memo-beads and all mechanical business devices.

“Report on Clan Presteign enterprises,” the Equerry began. “Common Stock: High—201 ½, Low—201 ¼. 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 years of cautious testing and careful indoctrination, he had been elected to join the Prestos.

After six months of surgery and psycho-conditioning, he was identical with the other 496 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 who instantly inspired affection and trust. Around the world purchasers entered an identical Presteign store and were greeted by an 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 investiture 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. 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, may 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—a masking and concealment necessary to prevent unauthorized persons from discovering and memorizing 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) for a man to know exactly where he was and where he was going, or there was little hope of arriving anywhere alive. It was as impossible to jaunte from an undetermined starting point as it was to arrive at an unknown destination. Like shooting a pistol, one 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 toward 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 others 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 11 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?) comprising the shipyard, looked like a white table covered with black pennies neatly arranged in concentric circles. But on closer approach, the pennies enlarged into the hundredfoot 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 drydock 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 Roche Limit and could thrust with their own jets. Landing spacecraft cut drive jets and rode the same beams downward 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 quarterway or halfway 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 center of the yards, undergoing flaking and replating, as the heat-lightning flicker of torches around “Vorga” indicated.

At the concrete building marked: ENTRY, the Presteign entourage stopped before a sign that read:

YOU ARE ENDANGERING YOUR LIFE IF YOU ENTER THESE PREMISES UNLAWFULLY.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Visitor badges were distributed to the party, and even Presteign of Presteign received a badge. He dutifully pinned it on for he well knew what the result of entry without such a protective badge would be. The entourage continued, winding its way through pits until it arrived at 0-3, where the pit mouth was decorated with bunting in the Presteign colors and a small grandstand had been erected.

Presteign was welcomed and, in turn, greeted his various officials. The Presteign band struck up the clan song, bright and brassy, but one of the instruments appeared to have gone insane. It struck a brazen note that blared louder and louder until it engulfed the entire band and the surprised exclamations. Only then did Presteign realize that it was not an instrument sounding, but the shipyard alarm.

An intruder was in the yard, someone not wearing an identification or visitor’s badge. The radar field of the protection system was tripped and the alarm sounded. Through the raucous bellow of the alarm, Presteign could hear a multitude of “pops” as the yard guards jaunted from the grandstand and took positions around the square mile of concrete field. His own JaunteWatch closed in around him, looking wary and alert.

A voice began blaring on the P.A., co-ordinating defense. “UNKNOWN IN YARD. UNKNOWN IN YARD AT E FOR EDWARD NINE. E FOR EDWARD NINE MOVING WEST ON FOOT.”

“Someone must have broken in,” Black Rod shouted. “I’m aware of that,” Presteign answered calmly.

“He must be a stranger if he’s not jaunting in here.” “I’m aware of that also.”

“UNKNOWN APPROACHING D FOR DAVID FIVE. D FOR DAVID FIVE. STILL ON FOOT. D FOR DAVID FIVE ALERT.”

“What in God’s name is he up to?” Black Rod exclaimed. 

“You are aware of my rule, sir,” Presteign said coldly. “No associate of the Presteign clan may take the name of the Divinity in vain. You forget yourself.”

“UNKNOWN NOW APPROACHING C FOR CHARLEY FIVE. NOW APPROACHING C FOR CHARLEY FIVE.” 

Black Rod touched Presteign’s arm. “He’s coming this way,

Presteign. Will you take cover, please?”

“I will not.”

“Presteign, there have been assassination attempts before.

Three of them. If—”

“How do I get to the top of this stand?”

“Presteign!”

Help me up.' Aided by Black Rod, still protesting hysterically, Presteign climbed to the top of the grandstand to watch the power of the Presteign clan in action against danger. Below he could see workmen in white jumpers swarming out of the pits to watch the excitement. Guards were appearing as they jaunted from distant sectors towards the focal point of the action.

'UNKNOWN MOVING SOUTH TOWARDS B FOR BARER THREE. B FOR BARER THREE.'

Presteign watched the B-3 pit. A figure appeared, dashing swiftly towards the pit, veering, dodging, bulling forward. It was a giant man in hospital blues with a wild thatch of black hair and a distorted face that appeared, in the distance, to be painted in livid colors. His clothes were streaming smoke as the protective induction field of the defense system heated him to burning, and the bright glimmer of flames appeared at his neck, elbows and knees.

'B FOR BARER THREE ALERT. B FOB BARER THREE CLOSE IN.' There were shouts and a distant rattle of shots; the pneumatic whine of scope guns. Half a dozen workmen in white leaped for the intruder. He scattered them like nine-pins and drove on and on towards B-3 where the nose of Vorga showed. His clothes burst into flame and he was a firebrand driving through workmen and guards, pivoting, bludgeoning, boring forward implacably.

Suddenly he stopped, reached inside his flaming jacket and withdrew a black canister. With the convulsive gesture of an animal writhing in death-throes, he bit the end of the canister and hurled it, straight and true on a high arc towards "Vorga". The next instant he was struck down.

'EXPLOSIVE. TAKE COVER. EXPLOSIVE. TAKE COVER. COVER.'

'Presteign!' Black Rod squawked.

Presteign shook him off and watched the canister curve up and then down towards the nose of "Vorga", spinning and glinting in the cold sunlight. At the edge of the pit it was caught by the anti-grav beam and flicked upwards as by a giant invisible thumbnail. Up and up it whirled, fifty, seventy, a hundred feet. Then there was a blinding flash, and an instant later a titanic clap of thunder that smote ears and jarred teeth and bone.

Presteign picked himself up and descended the grandstand to the launching podium. He placed his finger on the launching button of the Presteign "Princess".

'Bring me that man, if he's still alive,' he said to Black Rod. He pressed the button. 'I christen thee . . . the Presteign Power,' he called in triumph.

The star chamber in Castle Presteign was an oval room with ivory panels picked out with gold, high mirrors, and stained glass windows. It contained a gold organ with robot organist by Tiffany, a gold-tooled library with android librarian on library ladder, a Louis Quinze desk with android secretary before a manual memo-bead recorder, an American bar with robot bartender. Presteign would have preferred human servants, but androids and robots kept secrets.

“Be seated, Captain Yeovil,” he said courteously. “This is Mr. Regis Sheffield, representing me in this matter. That young man is Mr. Sheffield’s assistant.”

“Bunny’s my portable law library,” Sheffield grunted.

Presteign touched a control. The still life in the star chamber came alive. The organist played, the librarian sorted books, the secretary typed, the bartender shook drinks. It was spectacular; and the impact, carefully calculated by industrial psychometrists, established control for Presteign and put visitors at a disadvantage.

“You spoke of a man named Foyle, Captain Yeovil?” Presteign prompted.

Captain Peter Y’ang-Yeovil of Central Intelligence was a lineal descendant of the learned Mencius and belonged to the Intelligence Tong of the Inner Planets Armed Forces. For two hundred years the IPAF had entrusted its intelligence work to the Chinese who, with a five thousand–year history of cultivated subtlety behind them, had achieved wonders. Captain Y’angYeovil was a member of the dreaded Society of Paper Men, an adept of the Tientsin Image Makers, a Master of Superstition, and fluent in the Secret Speech. He did not look Chinese.

Y’ang-Yeovil hesitated, fully aware of the psychological pressures operating against him. He examined Presteign’s ascetic, basilisk face; Sheffield’s blunt, aggressive expression; and the eager young man named Bunny whose rabbit features had an unmistakable Oriental cast. It was necessary for Yeovil to reestablish control or effect a compromise.

He opened with a flanking movement. “Are we related anywhere within fifteen degrees of consanguinity?” he asked Bunny in the Mandarin dialect. “I am of the house of the learned Meng-Tse whom the barbarians call Mencius.”

“Then we are hereditary enemies,” Bunny answered in faltering Mandarin. “For the formidable ancestor of my line was deposed as governor of Shan-tung in 342 B.C. by the earth pig Meng-Tse.”

“With all courtesy I shave your ill-formed eyebrows,” Y’angYeovil said.

“Most respectfully I singe your snaggle teeth.” Bunny laughed.

“Come, sirs,” Presteign protested.

“We are reaffirming a three thousand–year blood feud,” Y’angYeovil explained to Presteign, who looked sufficiently unsettled by the conversation and the laughter which he did not understand. He tried a direct thrust. “When will you be finished with Foyle?” he asked.

“What Foyle?” Sheffield cut in.

“What Foyle have you got?”

“There are thirteen of that name associated with the clan Presteign.”

“An interesting number. Did you know I was a Master of Superstition? Some day I must show you the Mirror-And-Listen Mystery. I refer to the Foyle involved in a reported attempt on Mr. Presteign’s life this morning.”

“Presteign,” Presteign corrected. “I am not ‘Mister.’ I am Presteign of Presteign.”