A short distance up the ladder he began to wonder if the going was easier than it should have been. When he had gone to bed, at the beginning of the arbitrary “night” period, the ship’s acceleration had been about .5G. Now it was, perhaps, slightly less, although it was difficult for a novice in such matters to say for sure whether his weight was a half or a third or a quarter of normal. Was this an indication that a genuine fault existed in the intake field generators? Or was it simply that the ship had entered a region in which the harvest of interstellar particles was poor?
The aroma of coffee drifting down from the canteen—or refectory, as Montane styled it—distracted him from the questions. He felt a pang of guilt-tinged pleasure as he recalled that the atrocious cook, Carlos Kempson, had been one of those left behind in Beachhead. One of the new pilgrims, a professional chef, had volunteered to run the canteen, thus making the prospect of a long voyage somewhat brighter.
The levels that Nicklin passed were quiet for the most part, the passengers having been requested to remain in their quarters until 09.00 hours, ship time. A few children were at play in the landing areas common to each deck’s four suites, but they were unnaturally subdued. Resilient as the very young always were, they had not had time to adjust to the austere environment of plasboard partitions and arctic lighting.
On 10 Deck, three levels below the canteen, he heard a familiar voice and looked around to see Zindee White standing at the open door of a suite. She was talking to a teenage girl, presumably from adjacent quarters. Nicklin raised his hand in greeting, but before he could say anything Zindee had retreated out of his sight. The teenager gave him a quizzical look as he ascended through the deck above.
On reaching the canteen he saw half a dozen mission personnel—Danea Farthing and Gerl Kingsley among them—seated at one of the narrow tables. Kingsley produced one of his grotesque smiles on seeing Nicklin, but the others studiously ignored his arrival. The reception was of a kind to which he had become accustomed, and from which he usually derived perverse satisfaction. Normally he would have elbowed his way into the group and proceeded to dominate the conversation, but on this occasion the force of silent rejection was overwhelming.
He obtained a bulb of coffee from the dispenser and sat down alone. Something is happening, he thought as he sipped the hot liquid, and it started yesterday morning when Zindee ran away from me.
Like a drunk trying to reconstruct the events of the previous night’s binge, he played the meeting with Zindee on the screen of memory, step by step and in considered slow motion. There was a stranger there… a stranger who looked and spoke like Jim Nicklin… a stranger who was Jim Nicklin as far as the rest of the world was concerned…
Isolated, mesmerised, appalled, Nicklin watched the intruder—the usurper of his body—go about his business, which was the pretence of being alive while in reality the essential spark of humanity had been quenched. Observing the encounter was a difficult and painful thing to do, because he had to accept that he and the stranger were as one, and that there could be no apportionment of responsibility or shame.
I was a dead man! I was a walking corpse… and Zindee came out of times that were lost… reminding me of the good that was lost… and how did I repay her?
Nicklin felt the hot pulsing of blood in his face as he watched the simulacrum act on his behalf and heard it speak the lines he had devised for it. The coffee bulb grew cold in his hand. An indeterminate time later he became aware that Danea—her eyes dark and thoughtful—was watching him from the other table. He averted his gaze, smiled the selfi-deprecating smile of one who wants people to believe he has just remembered an appointment, and left the canteen.
On the cramped landing he hesitated for a moment, with no particular objective in mind, then went up towards the control room. When he reached 3 Deck, easily distinguishable because of the pinnace tunnel, the red telltales on the locks told him that the doors to Montane’s and Voorsanger’s suites were bolted shut. Both men were probably still asleep—one in the company of his dead wife; the other deprived of the company of his living wife. Neat touch, O Gaseous Vertebrate!
On 2 Deck, which housed the pilot’s private quarters, he found Nibs Affleck dutifully guarding the topmost section of the ladder. Affleck gave him a barely perceptible nod as he climbed past. Emerging in the control room he saw that two of the five seats were occupied by Hepworth and Fleischer. The main screen was again being fed by an aft-facing camera, but the view was no longer one of unrelieved darkness.
The ship had been under continuous acceleration for more than fifteen hours, allowing the camera to take in a large area of Orbitsville’s shell—and the captured image had been transformed. Luminous green lines filled the entire screen in a pattern of complex curvatures which resembled interlocking flowers. The effect was that of a vast array of brilliantly glowing neon tubes laid out to the design of an artist working on a macroscopic scale. In the auxiliary screens the shining filigree spread away in every direction until, condensed by perspective, the lines merged to form horizons of cold green radiance.
“Quite a sight, eh Jim?” Hepworth turned in his seat to look up at Nicklin. He looked exhausted, as though he had not been to bed, but his face showed none of the animosity which had been there the night before.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Nicklin said, grateful that the benign streak in the other man’s nature had never allowed him to nurse a grudge. It was of some comfort to know that not quite everybody had been alienated by his maiaise of the past three years.
“Yes, the old lady’s putting on quite a show for us.” Hepworth took a silver flask from his side pocket and offered it to Nicklin. “Drink?”
Nicklin glanced at Megan Fleischer and saw that she was in a deep sleep, although still sitting upright. “No, thanks.”
“This is an unrepeatable offer, Jim—I haven’t even got a bottle tucked away in my room. When this is finished we’re on a strict diet of cocoa and carrot juice and similarly disgusting brews.” A look of intense revulsion appeared on Hepworth’s well-padded face. “Christ! I might even have to drink some of Corey’s God-awful fucking tea!”
Nicklin chuckled and reached for the proffered flask. A drink of neat, warm gin was the last thing he wanted at that moment, but it represented friendship and that was something for which he had developed a craving. In the boozers’ ethic the sharing of the last available drink was a symbol as potent as a wedding ring.
Here’s to solidarity, he thought as he swallowed the flat and tepid spirit. For years there were just the two of us. Two disbelievers, two disciples of the Gaseous Vertebrate—the Lord of Chance—surrounded by an army of bible-thumpers. But we got the ship ready. Between us we got the ship ready…
“Have a seat,” Hepworth said. “Her ladyship is in no condition to object.”
“Okay.” Nicklin handed the flask back as he sat down, his gaze returning to the fantastic glaring traceries of the main screen. “What do you think happened back there?”
Hepworth took a swig of gin. “Who knows? And, if you ask me, it isn’t finished yet. I have this feeling in my water, Jim. It’s totally unscientific, I know, but I have this feeling in my water that the show has only just started.”
“I know what you mean.” Nicklin was unable to take his eyes away from the screen. “Those lines must be really bright for us to see them at this range. I mean… how far are we away from Orbitsville?”
“Just over two miks. We passed the two-million mark a little while ago.”