She twisted away from him. “Keep your hands to yourself, Mister Hepworth, or I’ll bar you from this deck.”
“Touchy, touch-eee!” Hepworth said jovially. He turned to look at Nicklin, enlisting support, his eyes rounded in a what-do-you-think-of-that? expression.
Nicklin gazed back at him unsympathetically, unable to think of anything but Zindee White’s scathing comments on Hepworth’s qualifications as a physicist. The little that Nicklin had seen of Megan Fleischer had persuaded him that she was a top-class professional pilot, a woman who knew exactly what she was talking about. It was quite possible that a fleeting irregularity in a scoop field was an insignificant event, just as Hepworth had said, but did he know as much about starship drives as he claimed? Montane, desperate for low-cost help, had taken him pretty much on trust…
“Something on your mind, Jim?” Hepworth’s joviality had evaporated, and there was now something watchful and unpleasant in his expression.
Nicklin recalled the way in which Hepworth would become caustic and angry, and even threaten violence, when challenged on any technical or scientific point. It had happened on many occasions in the past three years, but this would be a particularly inconvenient time for a fresh performance.
“I’ve got plenty on my mind,” he said, glancing at the view screens. “All this is a bit daunting.”
Hepworth shook his head impatiently, refusing to be put off. “You’re looking at me like I was something you’d just found in your soup—perhaps you think I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“You must be nearly as jumpy as I am, Scott,” Nicklin soothed. “You know I think you’re the greatest living expert on everything.”
“Don’t patronise me, you country—” Hepworth broke off, staring in surprise at the companionway.
A bearded young man in the blue uniform of a spaceport guard had appeared on the ladder. He stared for a moment at the group by the console, raised one hand in a kind of apologetic greeting, then slowly sank from view again.
“This place is getting like a train station,” Fleischer said irritably. “I can’t have people wandering in here any time they feel like it.”
“Quite right!” Montane, perhaps comforted by being given a minor administrative problem, appeared quite composed as he turned to Affleck. “I want you and Gerl to spell each other on the deck below this one. Nobody is to pass you—except those that are here now—unless I give you the word.”
“Right, Corey.” Affleck, looking gratified, immediately hurried to the ladder.
Montane directed a thin smile at Nicklin. “Jim, as you’ve decided to grace us with your company on this flight, I expect you to earn your rations. You can start right now by going through all the decks and finding out just how many outsiders have jumped on board. Make a list of their names and bring it to me and I’ll decide what rooms we can put them in.”
“Okay, Corey,” Nicklin said, slightly surprised at how glad he was to see the improvement in the other man’s state of mind.
“And tell them I’ll want to speak to them in my room, individually, as soon as I have the time.”
“Yessir, yessir!” Putting the uneasy confrontation with Hepworth to the back of his mind, Nicklin glanced once more at the main screen—wondering if Prospect One was even visible at that early stage of the flight—then made his way to the lower regions of the ship.
The hot shower felt even more luxurious than he had been anticipating.
He had slept for almost seven hours, disturbed only by occasional dreams of falling, and had risen from his bed feeling both hungry and filthy. The thought of breakfast was alluring, but he had decided it would be more enjoyable were he in a reasonably hygienic condition when he sat down to eat. He had descended through many levels to 24 Deck, where the laundry and shower rooms had been situated because of the ease of supplying hot water from the adjoining engine cylinders. He had washed his underpants and socks and had put them in one of the driers before going into a shower cubicle.
Now there was a blessed period in which he had nothing to do but let the needle sprays cleanse his body. Clothes were going to be quite a problem he realised as he relaxed in the tingling warmth, especially if the voyage were to last for months. Many of those on board the Tara had nothing other than what they had been wearing when the panic had gripped Beachhead City. The families who had managed to bring suitcases had thus become instant aristocrats, distinguished from their fellows by a wealth of fresh underwear.
Nicklin smiled as he tried to visualise how Montane would handle the situation. In an ideal Christian society the rich should share their goodies with the poor without even waiting to be asked, but the cynic in Nicklin suspected that things might not work out that way.
Luckily, Montane had been spared similar problems with the ultimate commodity, the one which really would have separated the haves from the have-nots. Imperishable food stores had been going on board for weeks, and any shortfall due to the hasty departure was more than compensated for by the Tara carrying only half the projected number of passengers.
Paid-up emigrants accounted for sixty-nine of the complement, and another twenty-six mission personnel had been able to join the ship in the dreadful last hour—the remainder being on home leave or simply out on casual errands. Nicklin’s census had revealed, in addition to the Whites, the presence of three spaceport guards, plus a group of seven men and women who had happened to be working in the dock area at the crucial time.
The total came to 108, which meant that the Tara could, if necessary, extend the New Eden quest for as long as two years. Nicklin refused to think what would happen at the end of that time if no suitable world had been found. In the past he had felt some concern about the ultimate fate of the pilgrims, especially the children, but had avoided becoming too pessimistic. No matter how distant the ship might be when the decision to abandon the mission was taken it would always be possible to return to the starting place. The strange mathematics of supraluctic flight meant that all destinations in the universe were roughly equidistant and equally accessible—but there would be no point in the travellers returning home when all doors were barred against them.
A new and disturbing thought occurred to Nicklin as he absorbed the abundant warmth of the shower. It would be a grim irony, one of the Gaseous Vertebrate’s finest pranks, if the disturbances in Orbitsville had been transient phenomena—incidental effects which had manifested themselves while the portals were preparing to close. If that were the case, daily life in places like Orangefield would already be returning to drowsy normality. The Orangefield Recorder would be preparing waggish editorials about the curious goings-on in the Big Smoke, couples would be strolling in Coach-and-Four Lane and there would be business as usual in the Victoria Hotel and Mr Chickley’s orange-lit ice-cream parlour. And in a few years’ time the very existence of portals would be a fading memory—and nobody would know about the ghost ship drifting in the void which began a short distance beneath their feet, beyond Orbitsville’s impenetrable shell.
The unwelcome vision had the effect of suddenly making Nicklin feel trapped and claustrophobic. He stepped out of the cubicle and began towelling himself dry. The only other person in the washroom was Lan Huertas, who—as usual—refrained from speaking to him. Nicklin dressed in silence, ran a depilator over his chin and left the room.