Tiger! Tiger! Read Online Free PDF

mass. He didn't know what would happen when his jets began their thrust, but he was driven to gamble by Vorga.
     
    He fired the jets. There was a hollow explosion as Hi-Thrust flamed out of the stern of the ship. The launch shuddered, yawned, heated. A squeal of metal began. Then the launch grated forward. Metal, stone and glass split asunder and the ship burst out of the asteroid into space.
     
    The L.P. navy picked him up ninety thousand miles outside Mars's orbit. After seven months of shooting war, the patrols were alert but reckless. When the launch failed to answer and give recognition countersigns, it should have been shattered with a blast and questions could have been asked of the wreckage later. But the launch was small and the cruiser crew was hot for prize money. They closed and grappled.
     
    They found Foyle inside, crawling like a headless worm through a junk-heap of spaceship and home furnishings. He was bleeding again, ripe with stinking gangrene, and one side of his head was pulpy. They brought him into the sick-bay aboard the cruiser and carefully curtained his tank. Foyle was no sight even for the tough stomachs of lower deck navy men.
     
    They patched his carcass in the amniotic tank while they completed their tour of duty. On the jet back to Terra, Foyle recovered consciousness and bubbled words beginning with V. He knew he was saved. He knew that only time stood between him and vengeance. The sick-bay orderly heard him exulting in his tank and parted the curtains. Foyle's filmed eyes looked up. The orderly could not restrain his curiosity.
     
    `You hear me, man?' he whispered.
     
    Foyle grunted. The orderly bent lower.
     
    `What happened? Who in hell done that to you?'
     
    `What?' Foyle croaked.
     
    `Don't you know?'
     
    `What? What's a matter, you?'
     
    'Wait a minute, is all.' The orderly disappeared as he jaunted to a supply cabin, and reappeared alongside the tank five seconds later. Foyle struggled up out of the fluid. His eyes glazed.
     
    `It's coming back, man. Some of it. Jaunte, I couldn't jaunte on the Nomad, me.'
     
    `What?'
     
    'I was off my head.'
     
    `Man, you didn't have no head left, you.'
     
    `I couldn't jaunte. I forgot how, is all. I forgot everything, me. Still don't remember much. I -' He recoiled in terror as the orderly thrust the picture of a hideous tattooed face before him. It was a Maori mask. Cheeks, chin, nose and eyelids were decorated with stripes and swirls. Across the brow was blazoned Nomad. Foyle stared, then cried out in agony. The picture was a mirror. The face was his own.
     
    Insert p 32-3
     
    Exactly `But you don't hear us?' `Never. I'm a one-way telepath.'
     
    `We all hear you, or just I, is all?'
     
    `That depends, Sgt. Logan. When I'm concentrating, just the one I'm thinking at; when I'm at loose ends, anybody and everybody ... poor souls. Excuse me.' Robin turned and called: `Don't hesitate before jaunting, Chief Harris. That starts doubting, and doubting ends jaunting. Just step up and bang off.'
     
    'I worry sometimes, ma'am,' a chief petty officer with a tightly bandaged head answered. He was obviously stalling at the edge of the jaunte stage.
     
    `Worry? About what?'
     
    `Maybe there's gonna be somebody standing where I arrive. Then there'll be a hell of a real bang. M'am. Excuse me.'
     
    `Now I've explained that a hundred times. Experts have gauged every jaunte stage in the world to accommodate peak traffic. That's why private jaunte stages are small, and the Times Square stage is two hundred yards wide. It's all been worked out mathematically and there isn't one chance in ten million of a simultaneous arrival. That's less than your chance of being killed in a motor accident! The bandaged C.P.O. nodded dubiously and stepped up on the raised stage. It was of white concrete, round, and decorated on its face with vivid black and white patterns as an aid to memory. In the centre was an illuminated plaque which gave its name and jaunte