“But I have to report to you that today when I contacted the brokers concerned—Mather and Czubek—I was informed that my contract had been cancelled. It seems that I was a few days late with one of my interim payments, and that was all the excuse they needed. In normal circumstances a slight delay with an instalment would have been neither here nor there, but ever since the Big Jump circumstances have been very far from normal.
“It turns out that a huge consortium has been formed with the object of re-establishing interportal trade in the shortest possible time. The members of this consortium are buying up all available spacecraft—interstellar ships included—and, as far as I can determine, money is no object with them. We are in a sellers’ market, I was told today, and the laws of supply and demand have pushed the price of our ship up to more than three million monits.
“There you have it, my friends.” Montane’s voice, which up to that point had been well under his control, hoarsened into something like a sob. “I… I don’t know what to do next. The Devil is laughing at us tonight… and I simply don’t know what to do next.”
A man in the front row spoke up. “You can’t blame yourself, Corey—for three million they’d have found some way to break the contract.”
“Yes, but on top of everything else I’ve lost the deposit I put down.”
“How much was it?”
Montane gave a wan smile. “The deposit was a hundred big ones.”
Nicklin noticed the atypical use of slang, albeit ancient slang, and knew that Montane was trying to be casual, as a way of dealing with a desperate sense of guilt. There was a general gasp of dismay at the news of the loss, but Nicklin had turned his thoughts to the central issue—was Montane about to abandon his pathetic attempt to become a new Saviour?
Unexpectedly, he found little to savour in the idea. He expected to quit the mission some time in the nearish future and find a job with decent pay and prospects, but he still despised Montane and Danea, and craved a chance to revenge himself on them. What had just happened to Montane was clearly a major disaster, but it had not been personally and visibly inflicted by Nicklin. Therefore it did not count for much in the revenge stakes.
As for Danea—he had devised a special super-duper all-singing, all-dancing scheme of vengeance for her, one which would bring him complete satisfaction in every sense of the word. The plan was to amass a good sum of money—the how of it was not clear to him yet—but he wanted so much cash that neither she nor her bumbling Svengali would in all conscience (great word!) be able to refuse it on behalf of the Lord. She would be obliged to prostitute herself for him again, and when that happened he would make use of that splendid body as it had never been made use of before. If she was going to play the role of temple prostitute, priestess-whore, he was going to be the most ardent worshipper in the land. It was a consummation devoutly to be wished, and when the happy day came he was going to fuck her and humiliate her and fuck her again and make her sorry she had ever…
Hold on! he told himself in near-panic as fury geysered through him. You’ve got to play it cool. Icy cold, in fact. They won’t hate you properly unless you are seen to be chilly and emotionless, inhuman and implacable…
In the front row the electrician Petra Davies raised her hand to ask a question. “Corey, could we not appeal directly to the boss men in this consortium? When they hear that we are a religious organisation—”
“That’s right,” a man cut in. “Or maybe we could just rent the ship from them for a while. After all, we only want to make one trip in it—then they could have it back.”
Montane shook his head. “It’s a good idea, but I very much doubt that these people would be in sympathy with our objectives. In fact, I’m sure they wouldn’t. The head of the consortium is a man called Rick Renard…”
The remainder of the sentence was lost to Nicklin. He was already in a mental turmoil when the mention of Renard caused a veritable explosion in the depths of his subconscious, a psychic detonation which hurled a shrapnel of tumbling memory fragments up into the forefront of his mind. Renard… Reynard! He had had an uncle by the name of Reynard. Not an uncle—Reynard had been his mother’s uncle. A great-uncle. As a small child he had been deeply afraid of his great-uncle Reynard, because his mother had a habit of referring to him as a wily old fox, and little Jimmy Nicklin had been convinced that Reynard really had the ability to turn himself into a fox when nobody else was around. Jimmy knew in his heart that if he were ever left on his own with great-uncle Reynard the dreadful transformation would take place, and that Reynard the Fox would eat him all up. Luckily, great-uncle Reynard was a rare visitor to the Nicklin home, because his job as a land surveyor took him to distant places. And it was from one of those remote locations that he had sent little Jimmy a certain picture postcard…
“Corey, I’ve got some interesting news for you,” Nicklin called out, his heart pounding as he rose to his feet. “I know where there’s a spaceship—a spaceship you can have for next to nothing!”
Chapter 11
“All right, Jim—why all the secrecy?” Montane said. “I don’t like the idea of keeping all the others in the dark, not at this sad stage of our enterprise.”
The door of his camper was closed, the toffee-shaded lamp was creating a mellow glow, and the tea requisites were laid out on the ready-made table formed by Milly Montane’s coffin. The two men were sitting on the side bench, their knees almost touching, and Nicklin—his tiredness having completely vanished—was luxuriating in the atmosphere of seclusion and comparative comfort.
“We have to talk about my fee,” he said, “and I felt it would be better if we did that in private.”
“Fee? You expect a fee?”
Nicklin smiled. “Of course! Nothing in this life comes free, Corey—you should have learned that by this time.”
Montane studied his face. “Do you want your money back?”
“Possibly. I’m not sure yet. I might be prepared to go on treating it as an investment in Montane Enterprises Inc.”
“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Montane said, pouring out two cups of tea.
“I’m having the time of my life,” Nicklin assured him.
“I’m glad somebody’s having a good time. Very well, Jim—tell me what you want. Let’s hear it.”
Nicklin sipped from his cup before speaking, deliberately prolonging the moment. “Leaving the question of my money to one side for the present, I want a new job. No more driving in the middle of the night, no more clearing of thistles. I think the title of Executive Vice-President might suit me.”
“A grand title wouldn’t have any meaning around here,” Montane said with a thin smile.
“It would for me. And in keeping with my new status I would expect my stipend to be increased. In fact, I expect unlimited drawing facilities—although naturally I wouldn’t abuse the privilege. My needs are modest.”
“Go on,” Montane said, still with his bitter smile.
“And I want a camper all to myself.” Nicklin made a show of delicately inhaling the aromatic vapour from his tea. “When I say I want it all to myself, I’m referring to the living space. There would, of course, be drivers provided for my exclusive use. And when we get to our permanent headquarters I want really good hotel accommodation.”
“I’m beginning to enjoy myself too—just taking in your performance,” Montane said. “You still haven’t told me where this mythical spaceship is.”