“I used to fix egg-beaters,” Nicklin replied. “Spaceships are a bit out of my line.”
“Take a look at the drawing!”
Nicklin shrugged and did as ordered. The photocopy paper was old and creased, but the original drawing had been even older—a fact which was obvious from the numerous wrinkles and smudges which had been reproduced along with the linework and text. It had been issued by the Nissan-Vickers company of Birkenhead, England, and showed the three principal elevations of a spaceship. The ship had the classical Starflight configuration—three equal cylinders joined together in parallel, with one projecting forward by almost half its length—but it was distinguishable from a standard vessel because of the pinnace. Needle-nosed and streamlined, shaped by a different set of operational requirements, the pinnace was slung in its flying attitude beneath the centra! main cylinder.
The title box of the layout established it as the general arrangement of the Explorer-class vessel Liscard, but it had been used as the basis for a later and entirely different kind of drawing. Superimposed on the flawless computer graphics of the original were hand-drawn outlines, obviously the work of a landscaping contractor, depicting the rounded earthwork which now covered the starship. Clustered about each of the elevations were thumbnail sketches giving details of path and wall construction, and there were notes about the plants to be sown in various areas.
“Apparently Fugaccia wasn’t much of a one for keeping records,” Montane said. “This was the only drawing available, and I was lucky to get it.”
“You should have it framed.”
Montane indicated a pencil mark he had made on the side view of the hill, directly above the nose of the ship. “I’d say this is where we are—what do you say?”
“You might be right, but until we get some fairly acc—” Nicklin paused and looked again at the drawing. “Corey, this thing doesn’t even tell you which way is north!”
“So?”
“So we might be standing above the arse end of the ship.”
“Oh!” Montane looked abashed for a moment, then his face brightened. “All the more reason to shift dirt, my boy-get yourself a spade and start digging.”
With the arrival of machine tools imminent it was pointless to squander muscle power, Nicklin knew, but arguing with Montane in his present state of mind would have been even more futile. Besides, the formerly slight bulge above his belt had become quite noticeable during three months of inactivity, and a spell of hard work would do him no harm at all. He looked about him, wondering if he could find a legitimate task which would be less of a bore than digging, then seized a pick and began to demolish a low stone wall.
The invasive vegetation had been unable to find many good footholds here, and he was able to work without too much hindrance from vines. There was a kind of black satisfaction in obliterating another man’s patient craftsmanship, in being an instrument of disorder, and he found it easy to lose himself in the repetitive physical effort. And as he worked he was very much aware of being in a borderland.
Four kilometres to the east was the town of Altamura, its buildings visible as a sparse scatter of confetti in the green immensity that was Orbitsville. It had been founded more than a hundred years earlier by a batch of settlers from southern Italy—a hard-working people who had fully expected their new home to become a prosperous regional centre as the tide of immigration rolled on past it. But actuality and the dream had not coincided; the successive waves of settlers had never materialised. In fact, the well-delineated edge of civilisation had receded slightly, leaving Altamura in a no man’s land between the known and the unknown.
There had been no particular reason for men and women to turn back from the area. It had simply happened that way. The tracts of land to the west of Altamura—which Nicklin could survey each time he raised his head—were every bit as rich and inviting as any other part of the Big O, but the mathematics of chaos had dictated that the outward surge of humanity would falter and lose impetus just there.
“There are too many places to go, and not enough folks to go to them,” the Fugaccias’ local agent had said philosophically, giving his summation in a strong Italian accent. “That’s why the town has been slowly dying ever since it was born—a pure demographic fluke.”
A talkative man, one who obviously relished storytelling, he had gone on to paint a hectically coloured picture of life in that part of the frontier.
“Mind you, that doesn’t mean there’s nobody west of the Irsina river. Some pretty weird characters have headed out that way from time to time. Some of them were pure misfits—sort of hermits by trade, if you know what I mean—but quite a few had the police on their tails when they went.
“They’re still out there. Maybe some have banded together, maybe some are raising their own broods in their own way. Sometimes you see smoke in the distance… sometimes you find a cow or a sheep with its hind legs missing… sometimes you find a man or a woman, or even a child—unfortunates that have had very bad things done to them…
“That’s why people around here carry weapons when they go far out of town—and I advise you to do the same.”
Recalling the agent’s words, Nicklin found it difficult to reconcile them with the prehistoric peacefulness of high summer which lay over the surrounding land. Intellect told him that Orbitsville had to have a darker aspect, that where all men were free to live as they pleased some would choose paths whose very existence was denied by anyone who wanted to go on treasuring his night’s sleep.
On the positive side, however, was the fact that he had lived for more than thirty years without once encountering the really bad stuff, the moral equivalent of anti-matter. Oh yes, people were shit—that much he had proved—but in general they stopped short of stuff like torture, murder and cannibalism. There was no reason to suppose that the sprinkling of heliumheads, eccentrics and downright crazies who undoubtedly formed part of the population of the Altamura area were any worse than their equivalents in Orangefield county.
Having attuned himself once more to the bright sanity of the morning, Nicklin worked steadily until he had dismantled about ten metres of wall, then he began levering up the paving slabs of the adjoining path. The work was arduous but satisfying in its own way, and he was surprised to note that two hours had passed when Montane called a break for refreshments.
Nicklin would have walked back down to the house to eat, but Kingsley opened a coolbag and produced bulbs of iced tea, sandwiches and a selection of fruit. Glad to have been spared the journey, Nicklin seated himself on a pile of rubble and joined in the simple meal. The cold tea, which had never been one of his favourite drinks, tasted better than he would have believed possible.
“I think I could take to this life of simple toil,” he said, after slaking his thirst.
“I’m pleased to hear it.” Montane, now in the role of jovial foreman, nudged Kingsley with his elbow. “You stayed in bed so long we were beginning to think you had died.”
Kingsley guffawed, spilling particles of bread from the corners of his mouth.
“I was monitoring the news for you, Corey. I know how you like to be kept informed of all the…” Nicklin paused as he suddenly remembered an item which had come in that morning on the audio line from Altamura, one he knew would be of genuine interest to the preacher. “There’s been a new development about the green lines.”
Montane eyed him intently. “Yes?”
“It’s connected with the fields. You know, the vertical force fields above the lines?”