Travels in Nihilon (36 page)

As they slid apart, Jaquiline put out her arms, and there were tears under her eyes as the last great close-up moved across the screen, before she was sucked back into the space-ship. Adam's face also showed grief, almost panic as his arms reached forward to go on holding what had so recently been completely his. And then he was returned into the metal container, which went on to another circuit of the earth before scoring its way through the atmosphere, and floating by parachute on to the central plain of Nihilon, which would hold out its arms to receive them in safety and triumph.

Chapter 38

Benjamin's Thundercloud Estate car, dented and scarred, windowless and without tyres, had been confiscated for the Museum of the Insurrection, to be repaired and set there in a conspicuous place. He was sad to part with such an old and powerful friend but, in the euphoria of victory and the good feeling of celebration, he relinquished it with a generous heart, and admitted to himself that Nihilon deserved it as a memento of his honourable strivings. The Benjamin Smith Brigade would never be forgotten.

Mella was crowned Queen of Nihilon. It was found better, after all, not to change the name either of the country or the capital city. Since the concept of honesty was foremost on the new government's lips, there seemed no sense in confusing the minds or memories of ordinary citizens.

So Nihilon it remained, with Edgar as the consort of Queen Mella. Having nothing to go home for, and no wish to return at the moment, he entrusted his brief and meagre guidebook-notes to Richard, who promised to see that they arrived in fair copy at the office. Yet their last sight of Edgar, before leaving Nihilon City, in the garden of the temporary villa-palace on the outskirts, was of a lost man, who did not know what he wanted. Part of him desired the all-smothering attention that Mella poured out again now that her father had died, but under all this he sensed a craving for adventure straining to break free and do what it could with him. Adam reflected sadly as they said goodbye that Edgar was the sort of person who, having finally claimed to have made up his mind, seemed more lost to the world than ever.

Everyone had their share of triumphs, and promises of reward. Promises were the proofs of honesty in that, never being kept, those who made them were shown to be of good faith and even better heart. If a promise was made, you were being honest; if it was kept, you were being devious – almost menacing in the intensity of your good intentions. Thus society in Nihilon was being cast on a new base, and those who were heard to disagree that this was so were spirited away in the middle of the day, as an example to others.

Victory celebrations were put off for ten years. This was another mark of honesty, for by then, so it was said, the population would have some achievements to celebrate. The heroes could either wait for them, or go home to their own country and come back at the appropriate time. If they decided to wait, some suitably honest employment would be found for them in the health-giving, body-building stone-quarries beyond Tungsten, or doing construction work about to commence on the ruined dam at Fludd, or digging a new canal between Orcam and Coba. If they decided to go, however, and return in ten years for the festivities, the government would generously pay half their fare.

While the city was being cleaned and partly rebuilt, and the rest of the country was settling down to an orderly and efficient life, the heroes of the insurrection idled around the cafés of Ekeret Square. If they stayed awhile it was not to collect any glory or reward, but simply to finish gathering information for the guidebook that they had been drawn there to write in the first place.

They hung on long enough to find out that Jaquiline had not conceived during her trip into space. Fortunately there had been no need for her to do so, since it was plain that Nihilon had no need to reassert itself by this mystic birth, that nihilism was already eternal in Nihilon itself, in the base and core of its people and institutions, which simply showed how human they were, and therefore how fundamentally good. She and Adam recovered from their experience, and were none the worse for it, and indeed hardly remembered it more than a dream is remembered, except that they were man and wife, a fact that could not be denied, considering the number of people who had witnessed the consummation of their marriage. They would not have believed that such a unique experience had taken place at all had they not seen themselves on the full-length documentary film of their flight into space, which was now shown as proving the final triumph not for nihilism, but for the insurrectionary forces and the new government.

After a few weeks each of them (except Edgar) received a letter from the Ministry of Tourism to say that within twenty-four hours they must vacate their rooms, because the hotel in which they were staying was to be turned into offices for the newly formed Ministry of Cancer. This strange name was said by the manager to be a code-title for a project of infinite importance, something to do with propagating the principles of law and order embodied in the New Nihilon – New Nihilon being the only concession made to renaming the country – not only within the nation itself but even as far as Cronacia and beyond.

Our travellers were too physically exhausted, after all that had happened, to fathom the importance of these remarks, but opened their letters from the Ministry of Tourism to find a single third-class rail-ticket to Shelp for each of them, and steamer tickets on a Nihilonian ship to the nearest port of Cronacia.

As far as she was concerned, Jaquiline said, when they sat in a café to discuss the situation, there was nothing to talk about, because she'd be glad to get out of the place. The others agreed, and Benjamin called for Nihilitz to celebrate their departure. The waiter set down a bottle, and when they lifted glasses for the toast they discovered that the liquid was plain water.

‘Waiter!' Benjamin roared.

After the victory, the army officers of Nihilon had come back from their hiding-places, and one of them was his old friendly enemy from Amrel, who had deserted the insurrectionary cause at Agbat, but had now been given command of the Benjamin Smith Brigade, a post of honour in the new country. Benjamin had accepted this also with good heart, but it took a little more concealing than the confiscation of his car, and though he couldn't in any case do much about such rogues and villains getting back into office, at least he wasn't prepared to be tricked out of a bottle of Nihilitz by a common, insolent waiter.

‘Yes, sir?' the waiter said, reappearing promptly enough, as if he had been waiting close by for the expected call.

‘I wanted Nihilitz.'

‘This is Nihilitz, sir. New Nihilitz.'

‘Then get me the old Nihilitz.'

‘There's only this water, sir,' the waiter explained. ‘Intoxicating liquors were banned in Nihilon from midnight. They're bad for the liver, sir. They corrode the heart and block the lungs.'

‘That's ridiculous,' said Jaquiline.

The waiter smiled and, recognizing her as ‘The Lady from Space', asked for her autograph. This had happened countless times already, so she wrote her name on the back of a grubby old bill. ‘Now please bring us something to drink.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said, ‘I can't do it. A man came in this morning and caused a commotion when I wouldn't get him some old Nihilitz, so the police came and took him to Aspron.'

‘Aspron?' said Benjamin.

‘Yes, sir. It's not only back in fashion, but they say it's much enlarged. Just a moment, though, and I'll see what I can do.' He went through the far door near the bar. The bullet-proofing over the terrace had been removed, and ordinary thin glass put in its place. The waiter returned with a plain bottle: ‘It's Nihilitz,' he whispered. ‘But it will cost you ten thousand klipps. We have our own distillery in the cellars, and have been busy cooking it up for the last few days. We got advanced notice from a very highly-placed friend that Nihilitz was going to be banned. So we're going to be rich, my friends, rich beyond the dreams of avarice!'

So they protested that the price was too high, that under nihilism they would have paid a mere few hundred, at the most. The waiter recognized Adam, and asked for his autograph also, and he signed the paper with infinite weariness and disgust. ‘For God's sake let's scrape up the ten thousand,' he said, ‘so that we can get drunk.'

‘That's very sensible,' said the waiter. ‘I'm sure I'd be able to sell it for twenty thousand tonight. Maybe thirty thousand. Or even forty. Fifty tomorrow! But as a special favour to you, I'll let it go for ten.'

Benjamin threw two large notes, as big as tea-towels, on to the floor, and the waiter picked them up and put them under his arm as he went away chuckling to himself. Nevertheless, it was vintage Nihilitz, and other people in the café eyed them enviously, one customer becoming so disgruntled over his large glass of water that he loped across and asked if they'd kindly share their good fortune with him. He was a middle-aged man with a thin face but fairly well-padded body. Benjamin laughed, and told him that, frankly, they could quite easily finish the bottle without his help. The man got angry: ‘I've worked hard all my life, and now I can't even buy a glass of Nihilitz. I'm just about ready to lay down in despair and die.'

‘We paid ten thousand klipps for it,' Adam said.

‘That's right,' the man shouted, springing up with a rabid anger, hoping to get support from the few other water-drinkers. ‘I suppose you're a pack of mercenaries who put this rotten honesty-régime in place of our good old nihilism. And now you've got all the money. But me, look at me, I work hard, but I'm just not lucky, because I'm a Nihilonian. I was born in this country, but I'm expected to stand by while idle foreigners like you come and drink our best Nihilitz.'

Benjamin stood up: ‘First of all, stop whining. Secondly, you aren't working now. Thirdly, it's not Nihilon any more, it's New Nihilon. So leave us alone, or I'll throw you into the street.'

The man went out disgruntled, slamming the door.

‘I'm glad we're leaving this country tomorrow,' said Richard. ‘I feel there's danger in it for people like us.'

‘How can you say that,' Jaquiline laughed, the Nihilitz bringing back her sense of humour, ‘after all we've been through?'

The man who had coveted their Nihilitz stopped by a pile of masonry that was to be used for the plinth of Queen Mella's coronation statue in the middle of the square. The first bullet from his revolver shattered the plate-glass of the terracing, and the second fragmented the Nihilitz bottle which, fortunately, was already empty.

Chapter 39

They left the country with what they stood up in, apart from a briefcase or handbag. The rest of their luggage had been ‘officially removed' from their rooms – officially, because there were no thieves now in Nihilon. Thieving, like nihilism, had been abolished. The state saw to that, because it had acquired total rights to both. In its benevolent honesty the government carried on a policy of ‘removals', not only to protect the people from the temptation of mass pilfering, which in Nihilon had always either been a habit or a temporary necessity, but also to make sure there was nothing left to pilfer. This system was known as ‘income tax'.

During his last afternoon nap in the hotel, Adam had opened his eyes and surprised a masked man trying to remove his guidebook-notes from the bedside table. On being pinned firmly to the wall the man had taken a government confiscation voucher from his pocket with his free hand, and squealingly maintained his own personal innocence. Benjamin, hearing the clatter, came in from next door and joined Adam in kicking him down the stairs.

They decided to leave that evening, while they were still safe, and also to make sure of getting on the ship at Shelp. If it left without them, in advance of the scheduled time, who could say when there'd be another? Benjamin knew from the old days that tourist offices regularly gave out false information in the hope that travellers would stay longer in the country, and so spend more of their invaluable foreign currency. So he wisely suggested that they take the evening train.

The hotel manager must have telephoned the Ministry of Departure, for a band was playing at the station to see them off. It was pleasant to be reminded that they were, after all, still considered to be the principal heroines of the New Nihilon. Factories, schools, and blocks of flats had been named after them. Even Edgar, their absent friend who was still deliciously sequestered with Queen Mella, had a power-station and the space-base as namesakes, while the country's leading military academy (of which there were now several instead of a mere one) had been labelled Benjamin Smith.

They walked on to the station platform, and shook hands with the mayor of the city, who had turned up in his army uniform to see them off. Richard had seen that fat, sweating, elderly, intellectual face before, that amiability in the midst of chaos and fear, when the crippled airliner had been flying towards Nihilon City airport. They had met later during the fluid days of the insurrection, for he was none other than the professor. ‘Goodbye, dear friends,' he said sadly. ‘Nihilon salutes you forever, wherever you go. We shall miss you.'

Jaquiline was also touched to sadness by such tender ceremony, and in the knowledge that Nihilon at last knew how to behave towards its guests when they were leaving.

They had to fight for seats in the third-class carriage, during which bitter struggle the band embarked on a solemn march of farewell. Adam, thrust to the window while Benjamin and Richard carried on the primitive elbowing for space, saw a commotion by the entrance gate.

The sombre and idiotic music wavered as the train moved. A bent-backed old man, armed with a walking-stick, sent several members of the band spinning, then burst through their ranks and ran along the platform. He had a long white beard and a pale puckish face, and though he stooped, he nevertheless ran speedily, swirling his stick to clear a way towards their carriage.