The Stars My Destination: The Original Illustrated Novel by Alfred Bester

Author:Alfred Bester [Bester, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-18T16:00:00+00:00

AN HOUR later, six followers from the Four Mile Circus waylaid the Record Clerk. They were of the female persuasion and richly endowed with vice. Two hours later, the Record Clerk, dazed by flesh and the devil, delivered up his information. The apartment building had been opened to Jack-jaunting by a gas explosion two weeks earlier. All tenants had been forced to move. Robin Wednesbury was in protective confinement in Mercy Hospital near the Iron Mountain Proving Grounds.

“Protective confinement?” Foyle wondered. “What for? What’s she done?”

It took thirty minutes to organize a Christmas Party in the Four Mile Circus. It was made up of musicians, singers, actors and rabble who knew the Iron Mountain coordinates. Led by their chief buffoon, they jaunted up with music, fireworks, firewater, and gifts. They paraded through the town spreading largess and laughter. They blundered into the radar field of the Proving Ground protection system and were driven out with laughter.

Forumyle of Ceres, dressed as Santa Claus, scattering banknotes from a huge sack over his shoulder and leaping in agony as the induction field of the protection system burned his bottom, made an entrancing spectacle.

They burst into Mercy Hospital, following Santa Claus, who roared and cavorted with the detached calm of a solemn elephant. He kissed the nurses, made drunk the attendants, pestered the patients with gifts, littered the corridors with money, and abruptly disappeared when the happy rioting reached such heights that the police had to be called.

Much later, it was discovered that a patient had disappeared, too, despite the fact that she had been under sedation and was incapable of jaunting. As a matter of fact, she had departed from the hospital inside Santa’s sack, brought along for that purpose.

Foyle jaunted with her over his shoulder to the hospital grounds. There, in a quiet grove of pines under a frosty sky, he helped her out of the sack. She wore severe white hospital pajamas and was beautiful. He removed his own costume, watching the girl intently, waiting to see if she would recognize and remember him.

She was alarmed and confused; her telesending was like heat-lightning: “Who is he? What’s happened? The music. The uproar. Why kidnaped in a sack? Drunks slurring on trombones. ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.’ Adeste Fidelis. What’s he want from me? Who is he?”

“I’m Fourmyle of Ceres,” Foyle said.

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