The Stars My Destination ( Tiger! Tiger! )   ::   Bester Alfred

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.

«PyrE!» Foyle bellowed. His devil face glowed blood red. He was an appalling sight. «PyrE. It's danger! It's death! It's yours. Make them tell you what it is. Nome!» he called to his pursuit as it arrived, and jaunted.

It was lunch hour in Nome, and the lumberjacks jaunting down from the sawmills for their beefsteak and beer were startled by the tiger-faced man who hurled a one pound slug of iodine colored alloy in their midst and shouted in the gutter tongue: «PyrE! You hear me, man? You listen a me, you. PyrE is filthy death for us. Alla us! Grab no guesses, you. Make 'em tell you about PyrE, is all!»

To Dagenham, Y'ang-Yeovil and others jaunting in after him, as always, seconds too late, he shouted: «Tokyo. Imperial stage!» He disappeared a split second before their shots reached him.

It was nine o'clock of a crisp, winey morning in Tokyo, and the morning rush hour crowd milling around the Imperial stage alongside the carp ponds was paralyzed by a tiger-faced Samurai who appeared and hurled a slug of curious metal and unforgettable warnings and admonitions at them.

Foyle continued to Bangkok where it was pouring rain, and Delhi where a monsoon raged, always pursued in his mad-dog course. In Baghdad it was three in the morning and the night-club crowd and pub crawlers who stayed a perpetual half hour ahead of closing time around the world, cheered him alcoholically. In Paris and again in London it was midnight and the mobs on the Champs Elysées and in Piccadilly Circus were galvanized by Foyle's appearance and passionate exhortation.

Having led his pursuers three-quarters of the way around the world in fifty minutes, Foyle permitted them to overtake him in London. He permitted them to knock him down, take the ILl safe from his arms, count the remaining slugs of PyrE, and slam the safe shut.

«There's enough left for a war. Plenty left for destruction. . . annihilation. . . if you dare.» He was laughing and sobbing in hysterical triumph. «Millions for defense, but not one cent for survival.»

«D'you realize what you've done, you damned killer?» Dagenham shouted.

«I know what I've done.»

«Nine pounds of PyrE scattered around the world! One thought and we'll…How can we get it back without telling them the truth? For God's sake, Yeo, keep that crowd back. Don't let them hear this.»

«Impossible.»

«Then let's jaunte.»

«No,» Foyle roared. «Let them hear this. Let them hear everything.»

«You're insane, man. You've handed a loaded gun to children.»

«Stop treating them like children and they'll stop behaving like children. Who the hell are you to play monitor?»

«What are you talking about?»

«Stop treating them like children. Explain the loaded gun to them. Bring it all out into the open.» Foyle laughed savagely. «I've ended the last starchamber conference in the world. I've blown the last secret wide open. No more secrets from now on. . . . No more telling the children what's best for them to know. Let 'em all grow up. It's about time.»

«Christ, he is insane.»

«Am I? I've handed life and death back to the people who do the living and dying. The common man's been whipped and led long enough by driven men like us. . . . Compulsive men . . . Tiger men who can't help lashing the world before them. We're all tigers, the three of us, but who the hell are we to make decisions for the world just because we're compulsive? Let the world make its own choice between life and death. Why should we be saddled with the responsibility?»

«We're not saddled,» Y'ang-Yeovil said quietly. «WTe're driven. We're forced to seize the responsibility that the average man shirks.»

«Then let him stop shirking it. Let him stop tossing his duty and guilt onto the shoulders of the first freak who comes along grabbing at it. Are we to be scapegoats for the world forever?»

«Damn you!» Dagenham raged. «Don't you realize that you can't trust people? They don't know enough for their own good.»

«Then let them learn or die. We're all in this together. Let's live together or die together.»

«D'you want to die in their ignorance? You've got to figure out how we can get those slugs back without blowing everything wide open.»

«No.