«No,» Jisbella McQueen cut in sharply. «Don't accept. If you want to be a savior, destroy the secret. Don't give PyrE to anyone.»
«What is PyrE?»
«Quiet!» Dagenham snapped.
«It's a thermonuclear explosive that's detonated by thought alone by psychokinesis,» Jisbella said.
«What thought?»
«The desire of anyone to detonate it, directed at it. That brings it to critical mass if it's not insulated by Inert Lead Isotope.»
«I told you to be quiet,» Dageuham growled.
«If we're all to have a chance at him, I want mine.»
«This is bigger than idealism.»
«Nothing's bigger than idealism.»
«Foyle's secret is,» Y'ang-Yeovil murmured. «I know how relatively unimportant PyrE is just now.» He smiled at Foyle. «Sheffield's law assistant overheard part of your little discussion in Old St. Pat's. We know about the space-jaunting.»
There was a sudden hush.
«Space-jaunting,» Dagenham exclaimed. «Impossible. You don't mean it.»
«I do mean it. Foyle's demonstrated that space-jaunting is not impossible. He jaunted six hundred thousand miles from an O.S. raider to the wreck of the 'Nomad.' As I said, this is far bigger than PyrE. I should like to discuss that matter first.»
«Everyone's been telling what they want,» Robin Wednesbury said slowly. «What do you want, Gully Foyle?»
«Thank you,» Foyle answered. «I want to be punished.»
«What?»
«I want to be purged,» he said in a suffocated voice. The stigmata began to appear on his bandaged face. «I want to pay for what I've done and settle the account. I want to get rid of this damnable cross I'm carrying . . . this ache that's cracking my spine. I want to go back to Gouffre Martel. I want a lobo, if I deserve it . . . and I know I do. I want…”
«You want escape,» Dagenham interrupted. «There's no escape.»
«I want release!»
«Out of the question,» Y'ang-Yeovil said. «There's too much of value locked up in your head to be lost by lobotomy.»
«We're beyond easy childish things like crime and punishment,» Dagenham added.
«No,» Robin objected. «There must always be sin and forgiveness. We're never beyond that.»
«Profit and loss, sin and forgiveness, idealism and realism,» Foyle smiled. «You're all so sure, so simple, so single-minded. I'm the only one in doubt. Let's see how sure you really are. You'll give up Olivia, Presteign? To me, yes? Will you give her up to the law? She's a killer.»
Presteign tried to rise, and then fell back in his chair.
«There must be forgiveness, Robin? Will you forgive Olivia Presteign? She murdered your mother and sisters.»
Robin turned ashen. Y'ang-Yeovil tried to protest.
«The Outer Satellites don't have PyrE, Yeovil. Sheffield revealed that. Would you use it on them anyway? Will you turn my name into common anathema . . .like Lynch and Boycott?»
Foyle turned to Jisbella. «Will your idealism take you back to Gouffre Mattel to serve out your sentence? And you, Dagenham, will you give her up? Let her go?»
He listened to the outcries and watched the confusion for a moment, bitter and constrained.
«Life is so simple,» he said. «This decision is so simple, isn't it? Am I to respect Presteign's property rights? The welfare of the planets? Jisbella's ideals? Dagenham's realism? Robin's conscience? Press the button and watch the robot jump. But I'm not a robot. I'm a freak of the universe . . . a thinking animal. . . and I'm trying to see my way clear through this morass. Am I to turn PyrE over to the world and let it destroy itself? Am I to teach the world how to space-jaunte and let us spread our freak show from galaxy to galaxy through all the universe? What's the answer?»
The bartender robot hurled its mixing glass across the room with a resounding crash. In the amazed silence that followed, Dagenham grunted: «Damn! My radiation's disrupted your dolls again, Presteign.»
«The answer is yes,» the robot said, quite distinctly.
«What?» Foyle asked, taken aback.
«The answer to your question is yes.»
«Thank you,» Foyle said.
«My pleasure, sir,» the robot responded. «A man is a member of society first, and an individual second. You must go along with society, whether it chooses destruction or not.»
«Completely haywire,» Dagenham said impatiently. «Switch it off, Presteign.»
«Wait,» Foyle commanded. He looked at the beaming grin engraved in the steel robot face. «But society can be so stupid. So confused. You've witnessed this conference.»
«Yes, sir, but you must teach, not dictate. You must teach society.»
«To space-jaunte? Why? Why reach out to the stars and galaxies? What for?»
«Because you're alive, sir. You might as well ask: Why is life? Don't ask about it. Live it.»
«Quite mad,» Dagenham muttered.
«But fascinating,» Y'ang-Yeovil murmured.
«There's got to be more to life than just living,» Foyle said to the robot. «Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.»
«Why can't we all move forward together?»
«Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.»
«Who leads?»
«The men who must. . . driven men, compelled men.»
«Freak men.»
«You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory.»
«Thank you very much.»
«My pleasure, sir.»
«You've saved the day.»
«Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,» the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed.
Foyle turned on the others. «That thing's right,» he said, «and you're wrong. Who are we, any of us, to make a decision for the world? Let the world make its own decisions. Who are we to keep secrets from the world? Let the world know and decide for itself. Come to Old St. Pat's.»
He jaunted; they followed. The square block was still cordoned and by now an enormous crowd had gathered. So many of the rash and curious were jaunting into the smoking ruins that the police had set up a protective induction field to keep them out. Even so, urchins, curio seekers and irresponsibles attempted to jaunte into the wreckage, only to be burned by the induction field and depart, squawking.
At a signal from Y'ang-Yeovil, the field was turned off. Foyle went through the hot rubble to the east wall of the cathedral which stood to a height of fifteen feet. He felt the smoking stones, pressed, and levered. There came a grinding grumble and a three-by-five-foot section jarred open and then stuck. Foyle gripped it and pulled. The section trembled; then the roasted hinges collapsed and the stone panel crumbled.
Two centuries before, when organized religion had been abolished and orthodox worshippers of all faiths had been driven underground, some devout souls had constructed this secret niche in Old St. Pat's and turned it into an altar. The gold of the crucifix still shone with the brilliance of eternal faith. At the foot of the cross rested a small black box of Inert Lead Isotope.
«Is this a sign?» Foyle panted. «Is this the answer I want?»
He snatched the heavy safe before any could seize it. He jaunted a hundred yards to the remnants of the cathedral steps facing Fifth Avenue. There he opened the safe in full view of the gaping crowds. A shout of consternation went up from the Intelligence crews who knew the truth of its contents.
«Foyle!» Dagenham cried.
«For Cod's sake, Foyle!» Y'ang-Yeovil shouted.
Foyle withdrew a slug of PyrE, the color of iodine crystals, the size of a cigarette. . . one pound of transplutonian isotopes in solid solution.
«PyrE!» he roared to the mob. «Take it! Keep it! It's your future. PyrE!» He hurled the slug into the crowd and roared over his shoulder: «SanFran. Russian Hill stage.»
He jaunted St. Louis-Denver to San Francisco, arriving at the Russian Hill stage where it was four in the afternoon and the streets were bustling with late-shopper jaunters.