Free Tiger! Tiger! by Alfred Bester Page A

hell's got into you now? Why're you dummying up again?'
     
    'I don't know about Nomad, nothing.'
     
    `I'm offering a fair reward. A spaceman can go on a hell of a tear with twenty thousand credits . . . a one-year tear. What more do you want?'
     
    `I don't know about Nomad, nothing.'
     
    'It's us or Intelligence, Foyle.'
     
    'You ain't so anxious for them to get me, or you wouldn't be flipping through all this. But it ain't no use, anyway. I don't know about Nomad, nothing.'
     
    'You son of a -' Dagenham tried to repress his anger. He had revealed just a little too much to this cunning primitive creature. `You're right,' he said. `We're not anxious for Intelligence to get you. But we've made our own preparations.' His voice hardened. `You think you can dummy up and stand us off. You think you can leave us to whistle for Nomad. You've even got an idea that you can beat us to the salvage.'
     
    `No,' Foyle said.
     
    `Now listen to this. We've got a lawyer waiting in New York. He's got criminal prosecution for piracy pending against you; piracy in space, murder and looting. We're going to throw the book at you. Presteign will get a conviction in twenty-four hours. If you've got a criminal record of any kind, that means a lobotomy. They'll open up the top of your skull and burn out half your brain to stop you from ever jaunting again.' Dagenham stopped and looked hard at Foyle. When Foyle shook his head Dagenham continued. - `If you haven't got a record, they'll hand you ten years of what is laughingly known as medical treatment. We don't punish criminals in our enlightened age, we cure 'em; and the cure is worse than punishment. They'll stash you in a black hole in one of the cave hospitals. You'll be kept in permanent darkness and solitary confinement so you can't jaunte out. They'll go through the motions of giving you shots and therapy, but you'll be rotting in the dark. You'll stay there and rot until you decide to talk. We'll keep you there for ever. So make up your mind.'
     
    'Vorga, I kill you deadly.'
     
    `I don't know nothing about Nomad. Nothing!' Foyle said.
     
    `All right,' Dagenham spat. Suddenly he pointed to the orchid blossom he had enclosed with his hands. It was blighted and rotting. `That's what's going to happen to you.'
     
    5
     
    South of Saint-Girons near the Spanish-French border is the deepest abyss in France, the Gouffre Martel. Its caverns twist for miles under the Pyrenees. It is the most formidable cavern hospital on Terra. No patient has ever jaunted out of its pitch darkness. No patient has ever succeeded in getting his bearings and learning the jaunte co-ordinates of the black hospital depths.
     
    Short of prefrontal lobotomy, there are only three ways to stop a man from jaunting: a blow on the head producing concussion, sedation which prevents concentration, and concealment of jaunte co-ordinates. Of the three, the jaunting age considered concealment the most practical.
     
    The cells that line the winding passages of Gouffre Martel are cut out of living rock. They are never illuminated. The passages are never illuminated. Infra red lamps flood the darkness. It is black light visible only to guards and attendants wearing snooper goggles with specially treated lenses. For the patients there is only the black silence of Gouffre Martel broken by the distant rush of underground waters.
     
    For Foyle there was only the silence, the rushing and the hospital routine. At eight o'clock (or it may have been any hour in this timeless abyss) he was awakened by a bell. He arose and received his morning meal, slotted into the cell by pneumatic tube. It had to be eaten at once, for the china surrogate of cups and plates was timed to dissolve in fifteen minutes. At eight-thirty the cell door opened and Foyle and hundreds of others shuffled blindly through the twisting corridors to Sanitation.
     
    Here, still in darkness, they were processed like beef in a slaughter house; cleansed, shaved,