and watched the canister curve up and then down towards the nose of Vorga, spinning and glinting in the cold sunlight. At the edge of the pit it was caught by the anti-grav beam and flicked upwards as by a giant invisible thumbnail. Up and up it whirled, fifty, seventy, a hundred 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.
4
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 and 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 I.P.A.F. 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'ang-Yeovil was a member of the dreaded Society of Paper Men, an adept of the Tientsin Image Makers, A Master of Superstition, and fluent in 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 Shan-tong in 342 B.C. by the earth-pig Meng-Tse.'
`With all courtesy I shave your ill-formed eyebrows,' Y'ang-Yeovil said.
`Most respectfully I singe your snaggle teeth,' Bunny laughed.
`Come, sirs,' Presteign protested.
`We are reaffirming a three-thousand-year blood feud,' Y'ang-Yeovil explained to Presteign who looked sufficiently unsettled by the conversation and the laughter which he did not understand. He tried a direct thrust. `When will you be finished with Foyle?' he asked.
`What Foyle?' Sheffield cut in.
'What Foyle have you got?'
'There are thirteen of that name associated with the clan Presteign.'
`An interesting number. Did you know I was a Master of Superstition? Some day I must show you the Mirror-And Listen Mystery. I refer to the Foyle involved in a reported attempt on Mr. Presteign's life this morning.'
`Presteign,'
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.
4
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 and 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 I.P.A.F. 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'ang-Yeovil was a member of the dreaded Society of Paper Men, an adept of the Tientsin Image Makers, A Master of Superstition, and fluent in 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 Shan-tong in 342 B.C. by the earth-pig Meng-Tse.'
`With all courtesy I shave your ill-formed eyebrows,' Y'ang-Yeovil said.
`Most respectfully I singe your snaggle teeth,' Bunny laughed.
`Come, sirs,' Presteign protested.
`We are reaffirming a three-thousand-year blood feud,' Y'ang-Yeovil explained to Presteign who looked sufficiently unsettled by the conversation and the laughter which he did not understand. He tried a direct thrust. `When will you be finished with Foyle?' he asked.
`What Foyle?' Sheffield cut in.
'What Foyle have you got?'
'There are thirteen of that name associated with the clan Presteign.'
`An interesting number. Did you know I was a Master of Superstition? Some day I must show you the Mirror-And Listen Mystery. I refer to the Foyle involved in a reported attempt on Mr. Presteign's life this morning.'
`Presteign,'
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