“I’m coming to that,” Nicklin replied, his pulse increasing in speed and power. “There’s just one more thing.”
“And that is… ?
“Danea Farthing,” Nicklin said casually. “I want Danea Farthing.”
Montane’s smile vanished and he abruptly set his cup down, slopping tea into the saucer. “Get out of here, Jim—and never come back. Go on! Get out right now!”
Nicklin settled himself more comfortably on the bench. “A spaceship, Corey. A guaranteed way of getting out of Orbitsville before the trap closes. An open ticket to New Eden. God has entrusted you with the task of leading His children to safety, and He has given you licence to employ any means within your power. You explained all that stuff to me not so long ago, sitting right here on this bench, the day you were telling me how I had been well and truly shafted. Surely you can’t have forgotten so soon?”
“You are the filthiest…” Montane closed his eyes, his face the colour of tallow. “Danea Farthing is a human being.”
“I should hope so,” Nicklin said with a grin. “There’s nothing kinky about me.”
“Spare me your diseased humour. I repeat, Danea is a human being.”
“She was for sale then,” Nicklin said in a voice from which all traces of humour had fled. “So she ought to be for sale now. Have a quiet word with her, there’s a good chap.”
Still with his eyes shut, Montane clenched his hands and sat without speaking for ten or more seconds, then—unexpectedly—he relaxed and raised his eyelids. His gaze was mild and unperturbed once more.
“I was praying,” he explained. “I was communing with the Lord.”
“Did He commune back at you?”
“He reminded me that I have only your word for it about this ship. It may no longer exist, for all I know, or it may never have existed. He counselled me to stay my anger.”
Nicklin nodded thoughtfully. “Verily, He hath counselled you well. Hey, that sort of lingo must be catching!”
“So how about it, Jim?” Montane replied, no longer allowing himself to be baited.
“How about my fee?”
“I think I have ceased to believe that you can deliver a ship, but I confess to being curious about whatever kind of story you have dreamed up.” Montane was now speaking in his customary rectorial manner, apparently satisfied that he had gained the advantage in what had become a verbal duel. “Therefore, I have few misgivings in agreeing to your terms.”
“Wise man,” Nicklin said.
“I’m expecting this to be good, Jim.” Montane’s expression was calm as he retrieved his cup and removed some drips from the bottom of it with his fingers. “So go ahead and astonish me—where is this spaceship that can be obtained for next to nothing?”
Nettled by Montane’s change of attitude, Nicklin ignored an inner voice which warned him that he might be rushing ahead too fast. “It’s buried near a small town within a few thousand kilometres of Beachhead.”
“Buried!” Montane guffawed in disbelief. “Are you trying to tell me that somebody hauled an interstellar ship thousands of kilometres into the hinterland… and then buried it?”
“Well, he didn’t dig a hole in the ground and drop it in there. He covered it with tonnes of earth and rocks.”
“Why?”
“It was intended to be a memorial,” Nicklin said, wondering how he had got into a defensive posture. “Something like a mausoleum. As I remember it, there was a rich man with a young wife who wanted to be a space flier. He bought her a ship of her very own and she promptly got herself killed in it in some kind of freak accident. So he paid to have the ship transported to his home estate and he made it into a tomb for her. He decided that it didn’t look right, however, and I can’t say I blame him—a space-going ship would look a bit odd sitting in anybody’s back yard. Luckily, his hobby was gardening, so he had the ship landscaped—I suppose that’s the best way to put it—and, as far as I know, he pottered around it quite happily for the rest of his natural.
“A touching little story, don’t you think?”
“Obviously you think it’s very funny.”
Montane’s gaze flickered towards his wife’s coffin as he spoke, and Nicklin experienced a pang of happiness as the significance of the involuntary glance dawned on him. He had been slightly worried about how Montane might react to the bizarre tale of a millionaire’s folly, but he had completely overlooked the parallel in the two men’s lives. Blind chance, otherwise known as the Gaseous Vertebrate, had rendered Montane soft, receptive and vulnerable. Bless you, Corey, he thought, I had forgotten that anybody who lugs his old lady around in a tin box would be inclined to sympathise with the notion of a metal Taj Mahal.
“I don’t think it’s the slightest bit funny,” he said in overly solemn tones. “It’s just that I tend to hide my emotions under a veneer of flippancy.” He was rewarded by a momentary flash of loathing in Montane’s eyes, a signal that the preacher’s defences had again been penetrated.
“What is this man’s name?” Montane said.
“I can’t remember.”
“Where is the spaceship?”
“I can’t quite remember that, either,” Nicklin replied. “All I can say right now is that it’s near a town in the Pi region.”
Montane sniffed. “You can’t remember much, can you? How did you get this story into your head in the first place?”
“When I was a kid I had a great-uncle, name of Reynard Nicklin, who travelled a lot because he was a surveyor or a cartographer or something like that. He sent me a holocard of the tomb once, and promised to take me there some day. Very pretty and colourful it was—an ornamental garden completely covering this little hill—but I guess I would have forgotten all about it if it hadn’t been for the weird background note. That must have made quite an impression on me, because I’ve had spooky subterranean rumblings about it all day. And tonight at the meeting… suddenly… there it was!”
“Just a minute,” Montane said, frowning, “you got the holocard when you were a child? This story about creating a mausoleum… How long ago did it all happen?”
Nicklin shrugged. “Fifty, sixty years ago… perhaps even a hundred… Who knows?”
“You’ve been wasting my time!” Montane exhaled forcibly, showing exasperation, and his voice hardened. “I sat here and endured your blasphemies and obscenities, and your sheer—”
“Take it easy,” Nicklin cut in. “What’s the matter?”
“Rust! That’s what’s the matter—there’ll be nothing left of your damned ship by this time.”
Nicklin smiled his happy hayseed smile, keeping his mouth in its cheerful U-shape until Montane took heed of his expression and gave him a questioning look.
“They were still constructing spaceships out of the old electronsated alloys in those days,” Nicklin said soothingly. “That was before the Earth-Orbitsville trade petered out and the shipyards had to cut back on costs. No, Corey, there won’t be much rust or any other kind of corrosion for you to worry your head about. At least, not in the pressure hull, the internal structure and the major components. There might be some problems with all the minor bits and pieces, but even there…
“I mean, ifyou decided to use a spaceship as a ready-made casket you’d make certain the whole thing was properly sealed up, wouldn’t you? You’d hardly want your nearest and dearest to get mildew. And you definitely wouldn’t want bugs crawling up her.”
Montane set his cup back in the saucer again, this time with exaggerated care, and when he spoke each word was the splintering of a human bone. “I never thought I’d hear myself say this to any man, but if you speak like that about my wife—ever again—I’ll kill you, Jim. I swear I’ll kill you.”