Death's My Destination
Foyle shoved off and went hurtling down control-deck corridor towards
the bridge. But at the companionway stairs he restrained himself. He
could not remain conscious for more than a few moments without refilling
his spacesuit. He gave the approaching spaceship one pleading look,
then shot down to the tool locker and pumped his suit full. He
mounted to the control bridge. Through the starboard observation port
he saw the spaceship, stern rockets still flaring, evidently making a
major alteration in course, for it was bearing down on him very slowly. On the panel marked FLARES, Foyle pressed the DISTRESS button. There
was a three-second pause during which he suffered. Then white radiance
blinded him as the distress signal went off in three triple bursts, nine
prayers for help. Foyle pressed the button twice again, and twice more
the flares flashed in space while the radioactives incorporated in their
combustion set up a static howl that must register on any waveband of
any receiver. The stranger's jets cut off. He had been seen. He would be saved. He was reborn. He exulted. Foyle darted back to his locker and replenished his spacesuit again.
He began to weep. He started to gather his possessions . . . a faceless
clock which he kept wound just to listen to the ticking, a lug wrench
with a hand-shaped handle which he would hold in lonely moments, an
egg-sliver upon whose wires he would pluck primitive tunes . . . He
dropped them in his excitement, hunted for them in the dark, then began
to laugh at himself. He filled his spacesuit with air once more and capered back to the bridge. He punched a flare button labeled: RESCUE.
From the hull of the Nomad shot a sunlet that burst and hung, flooding
miles of space with a harsh white light. 'Sweet, sister,' Foyle crooned. 'Baby angel, fly away home with me.' The
ship came abreast of Foyle, illuminated ports along its side glowing
with friendly light, its name and registry number clearly visible in
illuminated figures on the hull: Vorga-T: 1339. The ship was alongside
him in a moment, passing him in a second, disappearing in a third. The sister had spurned him; the angel had abandoned him. Foyle stopped dancing and crooning. He stared in dismay. He leaped to
the flare panel and slapped buttons. Distress signals, landing, takeoff
and quarantine flares burst from the hull of the Nomad in a madness of
white, red and green light, pulsing, pleading . . . and Vorga-T: 1339
passed silently and implacably, stern jets flaring again as it
accelerated on a sunward course. So, in five seconds, he was
born, he lived and he died. 'You pass me by,' he
said with slow mounting fury. 'You leave me rot like a dog. You leave
me die, Vorga . . . Vorga-T: 1339, No. I get out of here, me. I follow
you, Vorga. I find you, Vorga. I pay you back, me. I rot you. I kill
you, Vorga. I kill you deadly.' The acid of fury ran through
him, eating away the brute patience and sluggishness that had made a
cipher of Gully Foyle, precipitating a chain of reactions that would
make an infernal machine of Gully Foyle. He was dedicated. 'Vorga, I kill you deadly.' He did what the cipher could not do; he rescued himself.
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