Her meaning eluded him for a moment, then he gave a surprised laugh. “Christ, no! Nothing, but nothing, would induce me to risk my valuable little ass on a trip to nowhere—especially with that bunch of heliumheads.”
“I hadn’t realised,” Zindee said. “I thought you and—”
“Danea? The Bitch in Black? That never came to anything—not that it was anything to start off with.”
“You sound bitter, Jim.”
“Why should I be bitter? She got me out of Orangefield, and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m a new man now, Zindee, my girl.”
“I see.”
Zindee began to bring him up to date on events and local characters in Orangefield, but in the main her words were passing him by. The distraction was the nearness of her lithe young body, the erotic effect of which was enhanced by memories of the special relationship which had long existed between them. Making love to Zindee would be quite unlike the casual coupling with strangers, the sexual diet to which he had never become fully accustomed. It would be warm, profoundly exciting and—above all—fulfilling. It was precisely what he needed at this turning point in his life, and it was a fabulous piece of good fortune that she had materialised out of the past at the perfect moment. Truly, the Gaseous Vertebrate was in a good mood.
“So that’s what a starship looks like,” Zindee breathed. “It’s beautiful!”
“It’s not bad,” Nicklin agreed, running his gaze over the lustrous hull of the Tara, which was coming into view from behind a docks office building. “You should have seen the mess it was in a couple of years ago.”
“And there’s the portal itself! I can’t wait to have my first look at the stars.”
“They’re nothing to get worked up about,” he said. “Would you like to have a look around inside the ship?”
“Can I?” Zindee hugged his arm excitedly.
“You bet!” Again feeling the pressure of her breasts, he wondered if she knew what she was doing, then decided she knew exactly the effect the intimate contact would have. Everything about her told him she was sexually active, and now it was up to him to get things moving. He was twice her age, which might create a problem with the straight-laced Cham and Nora, but there were ways around such difficulties—especially for an old and trusted friend of the family. The idea that he might be able to lie down with the golden child-woman later that same day caused a slow blood-pounding throughout his body.
But don’t rush your fences, he told himself. It all has to happen naturally. Slowly, naturally and inevitably…
“Can we go in right now?” Zindee said.
“Any time you…” Nicklin paused as he noticed a car with STD markings waiting near the foot of the main ramp. Scott Hepworth was standing beside it, talking to three men who looked like Metagov officials. The agitated movements of Hepworth’s arms made it apparent that he was involved in some kind of argument. He turned abruptly and strode up the ramp, followed by the officials, and the four men disappeared into the dark rectangle of the main hatch.
“We’d better wait here for a few minutes,” Nicklin said. “It’s going to be a bit crowded inside for a while.”
“Even in such a big ship?”
“Now that the fitting-out is finished there’s only one gangplank to get around on. Besides, there’s likely to be a lot of vile language floating about—not the sort of thing for an innocent maiden’s ears.”
Zindee stepped back from Nicklin and tilted her sun-hat, giving him a breathtaking smile. “Who says I’m innocent? Or even a maiden?”
Tonight, he vowed, resisting the urge to kiss her again. It has to be tonight.
“Zindee,” he said, “I doubt if even a sophisticate like you is ready for Scott Hepworth.”
“Why not?”
“He drinks too much, he eats too much, he’s a slob, he tells lies, he wastes all his money, he has a filthy mind—in short, he has all the qualities I expect of a friend.”
Zindee laughed. “What else do you like about him?”
Encouraged by her response, and knowing he had sufficient Hepworth anecdotes to pass a full hour if necessary, Nicklin described how and why the physicist had been thrown out of the Garamond Institute. “Any idiot can see the world in a grain of sand,” he concluded, “but only Scott Hepworth could see another universe in a lump of metal.”
Unexpectedly, Zindee looked thoughtful. “Is he supposed to be your scientific adviser?”
“We don’t go in for formal titles, but… yes. Sort of. He’s mainly concerned with the engines.”
A scornful expression appeared on Zindee’s face, making her look like the child Nicklin remembered. “I hope he knows more about engines than he does about physics.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jim, even I know that the cobalt 60 experiment wouldn’t show that Orbitsville had become part of an anti-matter time-reversed universe. Have you never heard of the CPT rule?”
Nicklin blinked. “Should I have?”
“Perhaps not,” Zindee said, “but it states that where everything is reversed there’s no way to detect the change. It also states that your friend made a balls of setting up his equipment.”
“But he swears he had it right,” Nicklin said. “According to Scott he came up with definite proof of the Big Jump.”
“That’s ox droppings, Jim.”
He smiled on hearing one of Zindee’s pet phrases and was reminded of her precocious ability to get things right. “Do you think all this stuff about a big jump is nonsense?”
“I don’t know if it’s nonsense or not. All I’m saying is that no amount of fiddling around with cobalt 60 or any other isotope will produce any evidence, one way or the other.”
Nicklin considered the notion that the restoration work on the Tara’s drive units had been governed by a man who was capable of making basic errors. Or, what was worse, the type of man who refused to acknowledge a mistake once it had been made. It was probably just as well for all concerned that the Metagov inspectorate was proving so stubborn over issuing any spaceworthiness documents for the ship.
“It’s all academic, anyway—the Tara isn’t going anywhere, in spite of all the news stories,” he said, shrugging. “Do you want to walk to the front end and have a better look at the pinnace?”
“Yes, please.” As they went closer to the black lake of the portal the morning breeze whipped Zindee’s flimsy clothing against her body, making her look like a tawny creature from a sexist advertisement. Nicklin became aware that all the men within visual range were staring at her. You can’t have any, folks, he gloated. It’s all mine!
“It must be wonderful to fly in something like that,” she said, holding her sun-hat in place as she gazed up at the sleek aerodynamic form of the pinnace. Suspended in its flying attitude beneath the Tara’s nose section, the little ship was quite close to the rim of the portal and the’imagination could see it straining to glide forward and swoop down into its natural environment.
“The pinnace is worth a fortune by itself these days,” Nicklin said. “If Corey ever gets enough sense to sell up and forget about his loony mission he’ll be a rich man.”
“You don’t think much of him?”
“He’s a bollock-brain.” Nicklin amplified his statement by telling how Montane took his wife’s body everywhere he went and had been overheard conversing with the corpse.
Zindee looked incredulous. “Have you been sniffing something, Jim?”