Tiger! Tiger!

Read Tiger! Tiger! for Free Online

Book: Read Tiger! Tiger! for Free Online
Authors: Alfred Bester
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Short Stories
time. I'll meet you in your apartment'
     
    'My apartment?' Robin was genuinely frightened.
     
    `In Green Bay, Wisconsin.'
     
    `This absurd. I've got nothing to discuss with this -'
     
    `You got plenty, Miss Robin. You got a family to discuss.' Foyle gunned at the terror she radiated.
     
    `Meet you in your apartment,' he repeated.
     
    `You can't possibly know where it is,' she faltered.
     
    `Just told you, didn't I?'
     
    'Y-You couldn't possibly jaunte that far. You -' `No?' The mask grinned. `You just told me I was mal that word. You told the truth, you. We got half an hour. Meet you there.'
     
    Robin Wednesbury's apartment was in a massive building set alone on the shore of Green Bay. The apartment house looked as though a magician had removed it from a city residential area and abandoned it amidst the Wisconsin pines. Buildings like this were a commonplace in the jaunting world. With self-contained heat and light plants, and jaunting to solve the transportation problem, single and multiple dwellings were built in desert, forest and wilderness.
     
    The apartment itself was a four-room flat, heavily insulated to protect neighbors from Robin's telesending. It was crammed with books, music, paintings and prints . . . all evidence of the cultured and lonely life of this unfortunate wrong-way telepath.
     
    Robin jaunted into the living-room of the apartment a few seconds after Foyle, who was waiting for her with ferocious impatience.
     
    `So now you know for sure,' he began without preamble. He seized-her arm in a painful grip. `But you ain't gonna tell nobody in the hospital about me, Miss Robin. Nobody.'
     
    `Let go of me!' Robin lashed him across his face. `Beast! Savage! Don't you dare touch me!' Foyle released her and stepped back. The impact of her revulsion made him turn away angrily to conceal his face.
     
    `So you've been malingering. You knew how to jaunte. You've been jaunting all the while you've been pretending to learn in the primer class . . . taking big jumps around the country; around the world, for all I know.'
     
    `Yeah. I go from Times Square to Columbus Circle by way of... most anywhere, Miss Robin.' `And that's why you're always missing. But why? Why? What are you up to?'
     
    An expression of possessed cunning appeared on the hideous face. `I'm holed up in General Hospital, me. It's my base of operations, see? I'm settling something, Miss Robin. I got a debt to pay off, me. I had to find out where a certain ship is. Now I got to pay her back. Not I rot you. Vorga. I kill you, Vorga. I kill you deadly!' He stopped shouting and glared at her in wild triumph. Robin backed away in alarm.
     
    `For God's sake, what are you talking about?'
     
    `Vorga. Vorga-T: 1339. Ever hear of her, Miss Robin? I found out where she is from Bo'ness and Uig's ship registry. Bo'ness and Uig are out in SanFran. I went there, me, the time when you was learning us the cross-town jaunte stages. Went out to SanFran, me. Found Vorga, me. She's in the Vancouver shipyards. She's owned by Presteign of Presteign. Heard of him, Miss Robin? Presteign's biggest man on Terra, is all. But he won't stop me. I'll kill Vorga deadly. And you won't stop me neither, Miss Robin.'
     
    Foyle thrust his face close to hers. `Because I cover myself, Miss Robin. I cover every weak spot down the line. I got something on everybody who could stop me before I kill Vorga . . . including you, Miss Robin.'
     
    `No.'
     
    'Yeah. I found out where you live. They know up at the hospital. I come here and looked around. I read your diary, Miss Robin. You got a family on Callisto, mother and two sisters.'
     
    'For God's sake!'
     
    'So that makes you an alien-belligerent. When the war started you and all the rest was given one month to get out of the Inner Planets and go home. Any which didn't became spies by law. You're on the hook, girl.' Foyle opened his hand. `I got you right here, girl.' He clenched his hand.
     
    `My mother and sisters have been

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