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

As the Presteign entourage entered the Vancouver yards they could see which of the pits were in use. From some the noses and hulls of spaceships extruded, raised a quarterway or halfway above ground by the anti-gray screen as workmen in the pits below brought their aft sections to particular operational levels. Three Presteign V-class transports, «Vega,» «Vestal,» and «Vorga,» stood partially raised near the center of the yards, undergoing flaking and replating, as the heat-lightning flicker of torches around «Vorga» indicated.

At the concrete building marked: ENTRY, the Presteign entourage stopped before a sign that read:

YOU ARE ENDANGERING YOUR LIFE IF YOU ENTER THESE PREMISES UNLAWFULLY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Visitor badges were distributed to the party, and even Presteign of Presteign received a badge. He dutifully pinned it on for he well knew what the result of entry without such a protective badge would be. The entourage continued, winding its way through pits until it arrived at 0-3, where the pit mouth was decorated with bunting in the Presteign colors and a small grandstand had been erected.

Presteign was welcomed and, in turn, greeted his various officials. The Presteign band struck up the clan song, bright and brassy, but one of the instruments appeared to have gone insane. It struck a brazen note that blared louder and louder until it engulfed the entire band and the surprised exclamations. Only then did Presteign realize that it was not an instrument sounding, but the shipyard alarm.

An intruder was in the yard, someone not wearing an identification or visitor's badge. The radar field of the protection system was tripped and the alarm sounded. Through the raucous bellow of the alarm, Presteign could hear a multitude of «pops» as the yard guards jaunted from the grandstand and took positions around the square mile of concrete field. His own JaunteWatch closed in around him, looking wary and alert.

A voice began blaring on the P.A., coordinating defense. «UNKNOWN IN YARD. UNKNOWN IN YARD AT E FOR EDWARD NINE. E FOR EDWARD NINE MOVING WEST ON FOOT.»

«Someone must have broken in,» Black Rod shouted~

«I'm aware of that,» Presteign answered calmly.

«He must be a stranger if he's not jaunting in here.»

«I'm aware of that also.»

«UNKNOWN APPROACHING D FOR DAVID FIVE. D FOR DAVID FIVE. STILL ON FOOT. D FOR DAVID FIVE ALERT.»

«What in God's name is he up to?» Black Rod exclaimed.

«You are aware of my rule, sir,» Presteign said coldly. «No associate of the Presteign clan may take the name of the Divinity in vain. You forget yourself.»

«UNKNOWN NOW APPROACHING C FOR CHARLEY FIVE. NOW APPROACHING C FOR CHARLEY FIVE.»

Black Rod touched Presteign's arm. «He's coming this way, Presteign. Will you take cover, please?»

«I will not.»

«Presteign, there have been assassination attempts before. Three of them. If…”

«How do I get to the top of this stand?»

«Presteign!»

«Help me up.»

Aided by Black Rod, still protesting hysterically, Presteign climbed to the top of the grandstand to watch the power of the Presteign clan in action against danger. Below he could see workmen in white jumpers swarming out of the pits to watch the excitement. Guards were appearing as they jaunted from distant sectors toward the focal point of the action.

«UNKNOWN MOVING SOUTH TOWARD B FOR BAKER THREE.

B FOR BAKER THREE.»

Presteign watched the B-3 pit. A figure appeared, dashing swiftly toward the pit, veering, dodging, bulling forward. It was a giant man in hospital blues with a wild thatch of black hair and a distorted face that appeared, in the distance, to be painted in livid colors. His clothes were flickering like heat lightning as the protective induction field of the defense system seared him.

«B FOR BAKER THREE ALERT. B FOR BAKER THREE CLOSE IN.»

There were shouts and a distant rattle of shots, the pneumatic whine of scope guns. Half a dozen workmen in white leaped for the intruder. He scattered them like ninepins and drove on and on toward B-3 where the nose of «Vorga» showed. He was a lightning bolt driving through workmen and guards, pivoting, bludgeoning, boring forward implacably.

Suddenly he stopped, reached inside his flaming jacket and withdrew a black cannister. With the convulsive gesture of an animal writhing in death throes, he bit the end of the cannister and hurled it, straight and true on a high arc toward «Vorga.» The next instant he was struck down.

«EXPLOSIVE. TAKE COVER. EXPLOSIVE. TAKE COVER. COVER.»

«Presteign!» Black Rod squawked.

Presteign shook him off and watched the cannister curve up and then down toward the nose of «Vorga,» spinning and glinting in the cold sunlight. At the edge of the pit it was caught by the anti-gray beam and flicked upward as by a giant invisible thumbnail. Up and up and up it whirled, one hundred, five hundred, a thousand feet. Then there was a blinding flash, and an instant later a titanic clap of thunder that smote ears and jarred teeth and bone.

Presteign picked himself up and descended the grandstand to the launching podium. He placed his finger on the launching button of the Presteign «Princess?'

«Bring me that man, if he's still alive,» he said to Black Rod. He pressed the button. «I christen thee . . . the Presteign 'Power,'» he called in triumph.

THE STAR CHAMBER in Castle Presteign was an oval room with ivory panels picked out with gold, high mirrors, and stained glass windows. It contained a gold organ with robot organist by Tiffany, a gold-tooled library with android librarian on library ladder, a Louis Quinze desk with android secretary before a manual memo-bead recorder, an American bar with robot bartender. Presteign would have preferred human servants, but androids and robots kept secrets.

«Be seated, Captain Yeovil,» he said courteously. «This is Mr. Regis Sheffield, representing me in this matter. That young man is Mr. Sheffield's assistant.»

«Bunny's my portable law library,» Sheffield grunted.

Presteign touched a control. The still life in the star chamber came alive. The organist played, the librarian sorted books, the secretary typed, the bartender shook drinks. It was spectacular; and the impact, carefully calculated by industrial psychometrists, established control for Presteign and put visitors at a disadvantage.

«You spoke of a man named Foyle, Captain Yeovil?» Presteign prompted. Captain Peter Y'ang-Yeovil of Central Intelligence was a lineal descendant of the learned Mencius and belonged to the Intelligence Tong of the Inner Planets Armed Forces. For two hundred years the IPAF had entrusted its intelligence work to the Chinese who, with a five thousand-year history of cultivated subtlety behind them, had achieved wonders. Captain Y'angYcovil was a member of the dreaded Society of Paper Men, an adept of the Tientsin Image Makers, a Master of Superstition, and fluent in the Secret Speech. He did not look Chinese.

Y'ang-Yeovil hesitated, fully aware of the psychological pressures operating against him. He examined Presteign's ascetic, basilisk face; Sheffield's blunt, aggressive expression; and the eager young man named Bunny whose rabbit features had an unmistakable Oriental cast. It was necessary for Yeovil to re-establish control or effect a compromise.

He opened with a flanking movement. «Are we related anywhere within fifteen degrees of consanguinity?» he asked Bunny in the Mandarin dialect. «I am of the house of the learned Meng-Tse whom the barbarians call Mencius.»

«Then we are hereditary enemies,» Bunny answered in faltering Mandarin. «For the formidable ancestor of my line was deposed as governor of Shantung in 342 B.C. by the earth pig Meng-Tse.»