The Stars My Destination ( Tiger! Tiger! )   ::   Bester Alfred

A creeping force took hold of him and spilled him out of the chair. He inched back toward the rear wall of the control chamber like a sleepwalker. The wall appeared, to his accelerated senses, to approach him. He thrust out both arms, palms flat against the wall to brace himself. The sluggish power thrusting him back split his arms apart and forced him against the wall, gently at first, then harder and harder until face, jaw, chest, and body were crushed against the metal.

The mounting pressure became agonizing. He tried to trip the switchboard in his mouth with his tongue, but the propulsion crushing him against the wall made it impossible for him to move his distorted mouth. A burst of explosions, so far down the sound spectrum that they sounded like sodden rock slides, told him that the Commando Brigade was bombarding him with shots from below. As the yawl tore up into the blue-black of outer space, he began to scream in a bat screech before he mercifully lost consciousness.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FOYLE AWOKE IN DARKNESS. He was decelerated, but the exhaustion of his body told him he had been under acceleration while he had been unconscious. Either his power pack had run out or. . . He inched a hand to the small of his back. The pack was gone. It had been removed.

He explored with trembling fingers. He was in a bed. He listened to the murmur of ventilators and air-conditioners and the click and buzz of servomechanisms. He was aboard a ship. He was strapped to the bed. The ship was in free fall.

Foyle unfastened himself, pressed his elbows against the mattress and floated up. He drifted through the darkness searching for a light switch or a call button. His hands brushed against a water carafe with raised letteres on the glass. He read them with his fingertips. SS, he felt. V, 0, R, G, A. VORGA. He cried out.

The door of the stateroom opened. A figure drifted through the door, silhouetted against the light of a luxurious private lounge behind it.

«This time we picked you up,» a voice said.

«Olivia?»

«Yes.»

«Then it's true?»

«Yes, Gully.»

Foyle began to cry.

«You're still weak,» Olivia Presteign said gently. «Come and lie down.»

She urged him into the lounge and strapped him into a chaise longue. It was still warm from her body. «You've been like this for six days. We never thought you'd live. Everything was drained out of you before the surgeon found that battery on your back.»

«Where is it?» he croaked.

«You can have it whenever you want it. Don't fret, my dear.