«One year ago,» he smiled, «I could not jaunte at all. Then I discovered the secret, the Salutiferous Abstersive which . . .»
Foyle touched his tongue to the switchboard wired into the nerve endings of his teeth. He accelerated. He arose without haste, stepped to the slow. motion figure «Bloo-hwoo-fwaa-mawwing» behind the desk, took out a heavy sap, and scientifically smote Orel across the brow, concussing the frontal lobes and stunning the jaunte center. He picked the quack up and strapped him into the electric chair. All this took approximately five seconds. To Robin Wednesbury it was a blur of motion.
Foyle decelerated. The quack opened his eyes, stirred, discovered where he was, and started in anger and perplexity.
«You're Sergei Orel, pharmacist's mate off the 'Vorga',» Foyle said quietly. «You were aboard the 'Vorga' on September 16, 2436.»
The anger and perplexity turned to terror.
«On September sixteen you passed a wreck. Out near the asteroid belt. It was the wreck of the 'Nomad.' She signaled for help and 'Vorga' passed her by. You left her to drift and die. Why?»
Orel rolled his eyes but did not answer.
«Who gave the order to pass me by? Who was willing to let me rot and die?»
Orel began to gibber.
«Who was aboard 'Vorga'? Who shipped with you? Who was in command? I'm going to get an answer. Don't think I'm not,» Foyle said with calm ferocity. «I'll buy it or tear it out of you. Why was I left to die? Who told you to let me die?»
Orel screamed. «I can't talk abou…Wait I'll tell…” He sagged.
Foyle examined the body.
«Dead,» he muttered. «Just when he was ready to talk. Just like Forrest.»
«Murdered.»
«No. I never touched him. It was suicide.» Foyle cackled without humor. «You're insane.»
«No, amused. I didn't kill them; I forced them to kill themselves.»
«What nonsense is this?»
«They've been given Sympathetic Blocks. You know about SBs, girl? Intelligence uses them for espionage agents. Take a certain body of information you don't want told. Link it with the sympathetic nervous system that controls automatic respiration and heart beat. As soon as the subject tries to reveal that information, the block comes down, the heart and lungs stop, the man dies, your secret's kept. An agent doesn't have to worry about killing himself to avoid torture; it's been done for him.»
«It was done to these men?»
«Obviously.»
«But why?»
«How do I know? Refugee running isn't the answer. 'Vorga' must have been operating worse rackets than that to take this precaution. But we've got a problem. Our last lead is Poggi in Rome. Angelo Poggi, chef's assistant off the 'Vorga.' How are we going to get information out of him without…” He broke off.
His image stood before him, silent, ominous, face burning blood-red, clothes flaming.
Foyle was paralyzed. He took a breath and spoke in a shaking voice. «Who are you? What do you…”
The image disappeared.
Foyle tamed to Robin, moistening his lips. «Did you see it?» Her expression answered him. «Was it real?»
She pointed to Sergei Orel's desk, alongside which the image had stood. Papers on the desk had caught fire and were burning briskly. Foyle backed away, still frightened and bewildered. He passed a hand across his face. It came away wet.
Robin rushed to the desk and tried to beat out the flames. She picked up wads of paper and letters and slammed helplessly. Foyle did not move.
«I can't stop it,» she gasped at last. «We've got to get out of here.»
Foyle nodded, then pulled himself together with power and resolution. «Rome,» he croaked. «We jaunte to Rome. There's got to be some explanation for this. I'll find it, by God! And in the meantime I'm not quitting. Rome. Go, girl. Jaunte!»
Since the Middle Ages the Spanish Stairs have been the center of corruption in Rome. Rising from the Piazza di Spagna to the gardens of the Villa Borghese in a broad, long sweep, the Spanish Stairs are, have been, and always will be swarming with vice. Pimps lounge on the stairs, whores, perverts, lesbians, catamites. Insolent and arrogant, they display themselves and jeer at the respectables who sometimes pass.
The Spanish Stairs were destroyed in the fission wars of the late twentieth century. They were rebuilt and destroyed again in the war of the World Restoration in the twenty-first century. Once more they were rebuilt and this time covered over with blast-proof crystal, turning the stairs into a stepped Galleria. The dome of the Galleria cut off the view from the death chamber in Keats's house. No longer would visitors peep through the narrow window and see the last sight that met the dying poet's eyes. Now they saw the smoky dome of the Spanish Stairs, and through it the distorted figures of corruption below.
The Galleria of the Stairs was illuminated at night, and this New Year's Eve was chaotic. For a thousand years Rome has welcomed the New Year with a bombardment. . . firecrackers, rockets, torpedoes, gunshots, bottles, shoes, old pots and pans. For months Romans save junk to be hurled out of top-floor windows when midnight strikes. The roar of fireworks inside the Stairs, and the clatter of debris clashing on the Galleria roof, were deafening as Foyle and Robin Wednesbury climbed down from the carnival in the Borghese Palace.
They were still in costume: Foyle in the livid crimson-and-black tights and doublet of Cesare Borgia, Robin wearing the silver-encrusted gown of Lucrezia Borgia. They wore grotesque velvet masks. The contrast between their Renaissance costumes and the modern clothes around them brought forth jeers and catcalls. Even the Lobos who frequented the Spanish Stairs, the unfortunate habitual criminals who had had a quarter of their brains burned out by prefrontal lobotomy, were aroused from their dreary apathy to stare. The mob seethed around the couple as they descended the Galleria.
«Poggi,» Foyle called quietly. «Angelo Poggi?»
A bawd bellowed anatomical adjurations at him.
«Poggi? Angelo Poggi?» Foyle was impassive. «I'm told he can be found on the Stairs at night. Angelo Poggi?»
A whore maligned his mother.
«Angelo Poggi? Ten credits to anyone who brings me to him.»
Foyle was ringed with extended hands, some filthy, some scented, all greedy. He shook his head. «Show me, first..»
Roman rage crackled around him.
«Poggi? Angelo Poggi?»
After six weeks of loitering on the Spanish Stairs, Captain Peter Y''ang Yeovil at last heard the words he had hoped to heart Six weeks of tedious assumption of the identity of one Angelo Poggi, chef's assistant off the 'Vorga,' long dead, was finally paying off. It had been a gamble, first risked when Intelligence had brought the news to Captain Y'ang-Yeovil that someone was making cautious inquiries about the crew of the Presteign «Vorga,» and paying heavily for information.
«It's a long shot,» Y'ang-Yeovil had said, «But Gully Foyle, AS-i 28/127:
oo6, did make that lunatic attempt to blow up 'Vorga.' And twenty pounds of PyrE is worth a long shot.»
Now he waddled up the stairs toward the man in the Renaissance costume and mask. He had put on forty pounds weight with glandular shots. He had darkened his complexion with diet manipulation. His features, never of an, Oriental cast but cut more along the hawklike lines of the ancient American Indian, easily fell into an unreliable pattern with a little muscular control!
The Intelligence man waddled up the Spanish Stairs, a gross cook with a~, larcenous countenance. He extended a package of soiled envelopes toward Foyle.
«Filthy pictures, signore? Cellar Christians, kneeling, praying, singing psalms, kissing cross? Very naughty. Very smutty, signore. Entertain your friends . . . Excite the ladies.»