“We’ll get away from here for an hour or two and have a few drinks,” he said. “Then I’ll show you my prospectus.”
The incident had been a definite high point in his brand-new life, Nicklin decided, marred only by the odd way in which Danea had caved in so easily. Corey Montane had spoken to him about it afterwards, trying to make the point that the mission observed certain standards of propriety, but in spite of much frowning and piercing with the eyes he had appeared ineffectual. That was because his position was basically untenable—like that of someone who was trying to-run a genteel brothel and had no contingency plans for dealing with the unpleasant customers who were bound to show up now and again. What he should have done was to employ a couple of his largest disciples to work Nicklin over with iron bars and dump him in a convenient alley. But Montane, having branched out into a line of business for which he had no vocation, was caught in a trap of his own making.
Now that Nicklin was considering the matter, he could see that Montane had not even been much shakes in his former role as a simple roving evangelist. Lacking the personal flair for attracting large sums of money, he had compounded his problem by surrounding himself with a bunch of society’s drop-outs, most of whom were liabilities rather than assets. About the only thing they had in common was the belief that Orbitsville was the Devil’s lobster pot, and that Montane was going to get them out of it and lead them to a new Eden.
Nicklin smiled again as he toyed with the notion. It was his ingrained scepticism which had created a barrier between him and the other members of the mission in the first place. Quite a few of them, Christine being a good example, were only vaguely religious in their outlook, but their unshakable faith in Montane’s word tended to distance them from unbelievers. The barrier had rapidly solidified itself into a rampart after Nicklin had adopted his new persona—or had it adopted him?—but he had no complaints on that score. He had never been accepted by society in general; now the non-acceptance was under his own terms, and that was a much better arrangement.
Suddenly impatient to get on with the business of the day, he finished his beer and walked towards the door. “I’m leaving you now,” he called out to the couple behind the bar, giving them a genial wave. The venomous look it drew from the woman gladdened his heart as he went out to join the crowds in the street.
Although he was seeing Garamond Park in person for the first time, the place had an air of familiarity to Nicklin. The wandering groups of sightseers, the vivid botanical displays, the trees which partially screened the lustrous city buildings—television had turned all of these into visual cliches. Nevertheless, Nicklin felt a pang of excitement as he came in view of the portal itself.
It registered on the eye as a circular black lake, about a kilometre in diameter, which was surrounded by sloping lime-green lawns. Clustered on its nearer edge were low mounds of masonry which were all that remained of fortifications built by the enigmatic Primers, who had dominated Orbitsville many thousands of years before mankind’s arrival. At the far side of the aperture were the passenger buildings and warehouses of the space terminal. In the distance they still looked fully functional, even though the great starship docking cradles—which should have projected into the void beneath them—had been conjured out of existence.
The single new element in the scene was a group of mobile laboratories at the eastern side of the portal, close to the old Metagov observation post. They had been cordoned off from the public and the immediate area was a profusion of cables, crates, trolleys and gantries. Metal frameworks were clamped on the rim of the aperture, their lower halves extending down into the black, making it easy for spacesuited technicians to force their way in and out through the diaphragm field which retained Orbitsville’s air.
Something really has happened on the Outside, Nicklin thought, otherwise there wouldn’t be all this fuss.
The realisation was accompanied by the special feeling of wonderment which comes when a concept which has been held in intellectual probation is finally accepted. Now totally beguiled by the prospect of actually seeing the stars, the alien stars which were the subject of so much controversy, he walked towards the night-black portal. Picking his way among family groups who were having picnic snacks on the grass, he reached the place where the path skirting the portal broadened into a small semicircular plaza.
At its focus, standing on the very rim of space, was the famous Garamond statue. Although it was the most over-publicised object in the globe, he paused before the heroic bronze which depicted a man clad in a vacuum suit of a design which had been in service two centuries earlier. The spaceman, helmet in one hand, was shading his eyes from the sun’s vertical rays with his free hand while he scanned the horizon. On the statue’s granite base was a plaque inscribed with three words:
VANCE GARAMOND, EXPLORER
Nicklin flinched as a wash of coloured light flooded into his eyes. It was accompanied by the sound of a gentle sexless voice, and he realised that a multi-lingual information beam projected from the statue’s plinth had centred itself on his face. Scarcely without delay, a computer had—by interpreting his optical response to subliminal signals—deduced that English was his first language.
…of a large fleet of exploration ships owned and operated by Starflight Incorporated, the historic company which at that time had a monopoly of space travel, the voice murmured with the disturbing intimacy of precisely beamed sound. The Bissendorf was under the command of Captain…
Images of a triple-hulled starship, as seen from space, had begun to fill Nicklin’s vision, but he moved away from the statue and broke the beam contact. He had no need of a potted refresher course in Orbitsville’s early history, especially at this particular moment, when he had only to take a few paces to see the universe spread out at his feet. Aware of feeling like a child about to unwrap a long-awaited gift, he moved away from the plaza and the immobilised tourists with their rapt expressions and blindly gazing eyes. Others in brightly coloured holiday clothing were leaning on the low balustrade which rimmed the portal, strung out like birds on a line. He walked past them to reach an uncrowded section, then placed his elbows on the rail and looked down at the stars.
His initial impression was that something had gone wrong. The blackness below him seemed quite unrelieved at first, and it was only when his eyes began to adjust that he was able to discern a sprinkling of faint-glowing specks. Disappointed, feeling that he had somehow been cheated, he glanced at the other spectators. They were staring into the portal with every appearance of being fascinated. Some were pointing out items of special interest to companions or children. Perhaps it’s all in the way you focus your eyes, he thought. After all, some people can’t adjust to the old stereo viewers, and others can never see fine rain.
He looked down again, blinking, trying to perform unwonted tricks with his optical muscles, but no luminous splendours emerged from the blackness. The universe continued to register on his vision as nothing more than a meagre scattering of dim points of light. He raised his eyes a little and tried looking further afield, but towards the centre of the portal the timid stars were completely invisible, hidden by the mirages which shimmered on the surface of the diaphragm field.
He turned away from the rail and walked slowly along the perimeter path, feeling slightly depressed and lost for something to do. At intervals along the path there were observation booths with hoods which curved down into the portal. He guessed that inside one of them, shielded from the brilliance of the sun, it would be possible to get a much better view of the cosmic environment, but there were long lines of would-be spectators waiting at all the booths. In any case, all he could expect to see was brighter specks of light and more of them. It hardly seemed worth the trouble.