Was it possible? Was it possible?
Standing there—in the complex patterns of light and darkness created by the enigmatic green-glowing strip, the ribbed Orbitsville sky, and the splashes of brilliance from vehicle headlamps—Nicklin felt totally alone, isolated from the group of strangers he had planned to espouse.
He turned away, walked slowly to his camper and climbed into the driving cabin. Sitting hunched over the wheel, he told himself he was thinking like a hypersensitive adolescent. It was all too easy for an introspective dreamer such as he to build fantasies based on nothing more than a misinterpreted word. All he needed was a little time alone with Danea. One smile from her, one sympathetic glance from those heavy-lidded eyes was all it would take to put everything in his universe to rights. But why had he seen so little of her since joining the mission? Why had she become so damned elusive?
A short time later the caravan was on the move again, and as Nicklin’s vehicle crossed the lime-green strip he felt its magnetic pulse motor falter for just an instant. The power loss was so slight and so fleeting that only one attuned to such things by many years of experience would have noticed it.
Nicklin flicked his gaze over the dashboard instruments, frowning, then allowed his thoughts to drift back to problems which seemed infinitely more serious.
Chapter 8
Corey Montane was shivering with the cold by the time he got back to his own vehicle. When going out into the night he had put a raincape on over his pyjamas, expecting to be away from his bed for only a few minutes while the details of some mechanical problem were explained to him. He had not anticipated being shown new proof that the Devil was actively going about his evil work. The subsequent prayers for salvation had taken a considerable time, and during them the chill of the clear night air had seeped a long way into Montane’s body. He felt as if his internal organs had grown cold and had slowed down in their various activities.
“Good night,” he said to Gerl Kingsley, the hulking ex-farmer who was driving dead dog for him. “I’ll see you when four o’clock comes round.”
“Corey, why not let me handle the next shift as well?” Kingsley said, opening the camper’s mid-section door for Montane. “You look real done out.”
“Nice of you to say so!”
“I didn’t mean to—” Kingsley slapped himself lightly on the forehead for lacking diplomacy. “What I meant to say was you’re bound to be tired, and I’m as chirpy as a barrel of budgies. I could easy go on till eight or even tomorrow noon.”
Montane smiled. “We all take our due turn.”
“Yeah, but I won’t sleep anyway. I got more energy than I know what to do with.”
Looking up at the hugely indomitable man, Montane could easily accept the statement. It was one of his precepts that he did his share of all tasks, including the most menial, and it brought an ample reward in the form of devotion—such as Kingsley was showing at that moment—but he was tired and he had much to think about.
“Perhaps I could stand in for you sometime,” he conceded reluctantly and in seconds Kingsley had bundled him, with a kind of respectful roughness, into the camper’s warm interior. He locked the door, slipped out of his cape and steadied himself against the silver coffin as the vehicle began to move.
“I’m sorry about all this, Milly,” he said, addressing his wife. “Satan never sleeps—so he’s bound to disturb us during the night every now and then.”
He tilted his head, waiting to see if Milly would reply, but there was no response from within the coffin and he went to his bed. Switching off the light, he made himself comfortable beneath the covers and turned his thoughts to the phenomenon of the glowing green line. His instinctive awareness of the Devil and all his moves told him the line was an evil manifestation, but it was hard to guess its exact purpose. It had to be an indication that the Orbitsville trap was closing, but what could be the function of a weak, spongy force field which produced green luminosity where earth and air met?
Montane craved to know how far the line extended around the shell. Were there others? Were they straight or curved, and did they form patterns? He could get some of the answers when the caravan reached the next town, now that new antennae were being run out into space to permit the re-establishment of radio and television communication between the portals. But having to wait a day was an annoyance, especially as the Evil One had chosen to increase the tempo of events.
Not for the first time, Montane found himself wishing he could understand why the transmission of signals on radio frequencies had always been impossible within the vast hollow sphere that was Orbitsville. The early explorers had noticed the effect within minutes of their arrival, but two centuries of subsequent research had failed to explain why the lower part of the electromagnetic spectrum was completely blanked out. Montane knew in his heart that it was more of the Evil One’s scheming—perhaps intended to prevent Orbitsville’s diverse inhabitants from forming a global society—but why? How, precisely, did the Devil benefit?
The question had troubled Montane for years, and it was the lack of any plausible answer which had discouraged him from bringing the subject into his preaching. It was not the only hidden card in the Devil’s hand, and no doubt it would be played when the time was exactly right.
Besides, there were more immediate problems to be dealt with—including that of Jim Nicklin. Montane shifted uneasily in the bed, goaded by his conscience. Nicklin was a decent young man—intelligent yet naive, complicated yet unworldly—and what was being done to him was an undoubted sin. Danea Farthing had hooked and landed him like a skilled angler bringing in a salmon, but the sin was not really hers. She was only Montane’s agent, and he in turn was acting on behalf of God. These were dire times, and no individual sacrifice was too great if it helped bring about the salvation of the human race.
Montane’s problem was that, after all the philosophical arguments had been advanced and all the profound words spoken, an innocent man had—pursuing the angling metaphor—to be gutted like a fish.
And he, Corey Montane, was the one who would ultimately have to face up to those puzzled blue eyes. What would he say to Nicklin? What justification could he give? The Lord has made me a fisher of men? I was only obeying orders?
Montane twisted again beneath the covers, searching for the elusive position of comfort which might enable him to slip away into impartial sleep. He could only hope that the essential softness he had identified in Nicklin would lead to the forthcoming ordeal being a brief one. Nicklin was not the type of man to become violent, even on realising that he had just been fleeced of everything he owned. In all probability he would, after a short confrontation, wander off back to Orangefield as a sadder and wiser man, and endeavour to pick up the threads of his old life. Montane punched his pillow, trying to beat it into submission.
“Why are you torturing yourself over this thing?” Milly’s voice, reaching him from the interior of the coffin, was compassionate, brimming with sympathy. “You know very well that you had no choice in the matter.”
Montane gazed in the direction of the oblong casket, the dull sheen of which was discernible even in the near-darkness. “Yes, but will Jim Nicklin see it like that?”
“Darling, you did what you had to do.”
“It’s just that I feel so guilty,” Montane replied, taking a deep, quavering breath. “And what makes it far worse is knowing in advance that young Nicklin will be so easy to deal with and get rid of. I’d feel better if I had to face some hard case who’d raise hell and start throwing things around.”