Read Online Tiger! Tiger! by Alfred Bester - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alfred Bester
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half-finished canvases. She took him into a vast hall filled with desks, file cabinets, stock tickers, clerks, secretaries, office personnel. They entered a lofty laboratory cluttered with glass and chrome. Burners flickered and hissed; bright colored liquids bubbled and churned; there was a pleasant odor of interesting chemicals and odd experiments.
`What's all this?' Foyle asked.
The girl seated Foyle in a plush armchair alongside a giant desk littered with interesting papers scribbled with fascinating symbols. On some Foyle saw the name: Geoffrey Fourmyle, scrawled in an imposing authoritative signature.
`There's some crazy kind of mistake, is all,' Foyle began.
The girl silenced him. `Here's Dr Regan. He'll explain.' An impressive gentleman with a crisp, comforting manner, came to Foyle, touched his pulse, inspected his eyes, and nodded in satisfaction.
`Good,' he said `Excellent. You are close to complete recovery, Mr. Fourmyle. Now you will listen to me for a moment, eh?' Foyle nodded.
`You remember nothing of the past. You have only a false memory. You were overworked. You are an important man and there were too many demands on you. You started to drink heavily a month ago - No, no, denial is useless. You drank. You lost yourself.'
`I -'
'You became convinced you were not the famous Jeff Fourmyle. An infantile attempt to escape responsibility. You imagined you were a common spaceman named Foyle. Gulliver Foyle, yes? With an odd number. .
`Gully Foyle. AS: I27/I27: 006. But that's me. That's -'
`It is not you. This is you.' Dr Regan waved at the interesting offices they could see through the transparent glass wall.
`You can only recapture the true memory if you discharge the old. All this glorious reality is yours, if we can help you discard the dream of the spaceman.' Dr Regan leaned forward, his polished spectacles glittering hypnotically. `Reconstruct this false memory of yours in detail, and I will tear it down. Where do you imagine you left the spaceship Nomad? How did you escape? Where do you imagine the Nomad is now?' Foyle wavered before the romantic glamour of the scene, which seemed to be just within his grasp.
`It seems to me I left Nomad out in -' He stopped short.
A devil-face peered at him from the highlights reflected in Dr Regan's spectacles . . . a hideous tiger mask with Nomad blazoned across the distorted brow. Foyle stood up.
`Liars!' he growled. `It's real, me. This here is phony. What happened to me is real. I'm real, me.'
Saul Dagenham walked into the laboratory. `All right,' he called. ` Strike. It's a wash-out.' The bustling scene in laboratory, office and studio ended. The actors quietly disappeared without another glance at Foyle.
Dagenham gave Foyle his deadly smile. `Tough, aren't you? You're really unique. My name is Saul Dagenham. We've got five minutes for a talk. Come into the garden.' The Sedative Garden atop the Therapy Building was a triumph of therapeutic planning. Every perspective, every color, every contour had been designed to placate hostility, soothe resistance, melt anger, evaporate hysteria, shore up melancholia and depression.
`Sit down,' Dagenham said, pointing to a bench alongside a pool in which crystal water tinkled. `I'll have to walk around a bit. Can't come too close to you. I'm "hot". D'you know what that means?'
Foyle shook his head sullenly.
Dagenham cupped both hands around the flaming blossom of an orchid and held them there for a moment. `Watch that flower,' he said. `You'll see.' He paced up a path and turned suddenly. `You're right, of course. Everything that happened to you is real . . . Only what did happen?'
`Go to hell,' Foyle growled.
`You know, Foyle, I admire you.'
`Go to hell.'
`In your own primitive way you've got ingenuity and guts. You're Cro-Magnon, Foyle. I've been checking on you. That bomb you threw in the Presteign shipyards was
`What's all this?' Foyle asked.
The girl seated Foyle in a plush armchair alongside a giant desk littered with interesting papers scribbled with fascinating symbols. On some Foyle saw the name: Geoffrey Fourmyle, scrawled in an imposing authoritative signature.
`There's some crazy kind of mistake, is all,' Foyle began.
The girl silenced him. `Here's Dr Regan. He'll explain.' An impressive gentleman with a crisp, comforting manner, came to Foyle, touched his pulse, inspected his eyes, and nodded in satisfaction.
`Good,' he said `Excellent. You are close to complete recovery, Mr. Fourmyle. Now you will listen to me for a moment, eh?' Foyle nodded.
`You remember nothing of the past. You have only a false memory. You were overworked. You are an important man and there were too many demands on you. You started to drink heavily a month ago - No, no, denial is useless. You drank. You lost yourself.'
`I -'
'You became convinced you were not the famous Jeff Fourmyle. An infantile attempt to escape responsibility. You imagined you were a common spaceman named Foyle. Gulliver Foyle, yes? With an odd number. .
`Gully Foyle. AS: I27/I27: 006. But that's me. That's -'
`It is not you. This is you.' Dr Regan waved at the interesting offices they could see through the transparent glass wall.
`You can only recapture the true memory if you discharge the old. All this glorious reality is yours, if we can help you discard the dream of the spaceman.' Dr Regan leaned forward, his polished spectacles glittering hypnotically. `Reconstruct this false memory of yours in detail, and I will tear it down. Where do you imagine you left the spaceship Nomad? How did you escape? Where do you imagine the Nomad is now?' Foyle wavered before the romantic glamour of the scene, which seemed to be just within his grasp.
`It seems to me I left Nomad out in -' He stopped short.
A devil-face peered at him from the highlights reflected in Dr Regan's spectacles . . . a hideous tiger mask with Nomad blazoned across the distorted brow. Foyle stood up.
`Liars!' he growled. `It's real, me. This here is phony. What happened to me is real. I'm real, me.'
Saul Dagenham walked into the laboratory. `All right,' he called. ` Strike. It's a wash-out.' The bustling scene in laboratory, office and studio ended. The actors quietly disappeared without another glance at Foyle.
Dagenham gave Foyle his deadly smile. `Tough, aren't you? You're really unique. My name is Saul Dagenham. We've got five minutes for a talk. Come into the garden.' The Sedative Garden atop the Therapy Building was a triumph of therapeutic planning. Every perspective, every color, every contour had been designed to placate hostility, soothe resistance, melt anger, evaporate hysteria, shore up melancholia and depression.
`Sit down,' Dagenham said, pointing to a bench alongside a pool in which crystal water tinkled. `I'll have to walk around a bit. Can't come too close to you. I'm "hot". D'you know what that means?'
Foyle shook his head sullenly.
Dagenham cupped both hands around the flaming blossom of an orchid and held them there for a moment. `Watch that flower,' he said. `You'll see.' He paced up a path and turned suddenly. `You're right, of course. Everything that happened to you is real . . . Only what did happen?'
`Go to hell,' Foyle growled.
`You know, Foyle, I admire you.'
`Go to hell.'
`In your own primitive way you've got ingenuity and guts. You're Cro-Magnon, Foyle. I've been checking on you. That bomb you threw in the Presteign shipyards was
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