A wall of foam met him at the open air, and he swam down through a tunnel of darkness that seemed to last almost too long for him to support, moment after moment, mounting into minutes and hours, before strong arms grabbed his shoulders and stood him on his feet, giving a violent push in his back and telling him to run.
He wept as he lunged into safety, still expecting a blinding flash behind to send out vicious tentacles of flame and extinguish him. But as he ran, following dim figures towards the perimeter track, he knew that he was out of danger. A soldier with rifle and bayonet indicated the lights of the terminal building, and then he caught up with the professor, who was staggering along under the weight of his briefcase.
Richard was despondent, then began to laugh at the great sign stretching across the glass-fronted terminus which said:
NIHILISM WORKS!
The professor squeezed his arm to make him stop: ‘What’s so amusing? You consider it a mockery? Well, that sign will come down in a few days, if you deliver the letter I gave you. Another will be put in its place saying: HUMANITY WEEPS, so that people will feel more reassured when they land here from abroad.’
‘That’ll be just another lie,’ Richard cried, ‘and you know it.’
The professor shook his head sadly. ‘You’ve caught our nihilism already. I’ve noticed before that it blights foreigners even more than us. I’m just glad to be alive, at the moment.’ They stopped walking, still some way from the building. ‘Listen,’ he said in a low voice, ‘there are two powerful pistols in my briefcase. We’ll each have one, and when they ask if we have anything to declare at the customs we can say yes, this, and kill as many as possible.’
‘Haven’t you had enough thrills for one day?’
The professor caught at his elbow. ‘All right, but let me give you one of these guns anyway. You may need it when the insurrection breaks out.’
Richard had never possessed a gun before, and was taken with the idea of having one now. ‘The customs would find it.’
‘I’ll give it to you after we’ve been through. What hotel are you staying at?’
‘The Stigma hotel, in Ekeret Place.’
‘Good. Let’s go then, my friend. The plane seems not to have blown itself up, so they’ll get our luggage out soon.’
When they sat down, coffee and sandwiches were served. The waitress also brought them each a small commemorative aluminium plaque on which was engraved:
SURVIVOR OF THE DASTARDLY CRONACIAN ATTACK
ON AN UNARMED CIVILIAN AIRLINER OVER THE FREE
SKIES OF NIHILON. CONGRATULATIONS, PASSENGER,
ON YOUR ESCAPE.
This was followed by the signature of the President of the Nihilistic Capitalist Free-Enterprise Socialist Democratic Dictatorship of the Peoples’ Republic of Nihilon, with the date underneath, written hastily in pencil.
‘They certainly know how to do things in this country,’ said Richard, as another waitress put a bottle of Nihilitz on the table.
‘That will be their undoing,’ said the professor, ominously. ‘They are so much in touch with what the people think that they can no longer rely on them to react properly. In other words, the people have been nihilified, so that they are completely unknown factors. They value nothing, they hope for nothing — and yet, do you know, they are profoundly human, far more so than if they possessed all the values of Cronacian civilization. They are so human, in other words, that the time is ripe for some order and honesty to be reintroduced into their hearts and souls. Come, the green light is flashing. We must look to our luggage.’
While every suitcase of Richard’s was spread along the counter under the watchful eyes of three customs men, the professor was waved through by a curt nod from the officer in charge, and no item of his luggage checked. But Richard’s watch, typewriter, record-player, tape-recorder, radio, binoculars, prismatic compass, pedometer, camera, and theodolite were put to one side, as if he would have to pay an enormous amount of duty on them, in spite of the scorchmarks and bullet holes that they had suffered during the journey. Yet one lynx-eyed customs officer, who was particularly diligent, ignored them, and opened instead the small box in which was a pack of love letters that Richard never travelled without, as well as a pair of cufflinks from his girlfriend with the message: ‘I love you, darling’, engraved on them.
The officer’s eyes glittered, his hands shook: ‘We can’t let these go through.’
‘Are you joking?’ Richard demanded.
‘We never joke in Nihilon. Sentimental keepsakes, marks of love — can’t let them in. Love and nihilism don’t go together. Love is a threat to nihilism. It can be used by the opposition as a social force. Honesty, stability, all those terrible things stem from love. If you allow love, you get idealism, co-operation, affection. That would never do. Nihilism would rot under it. A few of our own people lapse from time to time and fall in love, but we don’t worry about them because they’re only a minority of psychic perverts. A foreigner, however, can’t be allowed to come in with those ideas, because he often has a great deal of influence. Nihilists are all too ready to believe what foreigners say to them. So I’m afraid I shall confiscate these — for the time being — and give you a receipt so that you may collect them when you leave.’
Richard decided he could do without them for a few weeks, and so smilingly agreed to the proposal, while two other customs officers glumly repacked his cases.
A huge black taxi stood by the terminal doors. ‘Hotel Stigma,’ Richard told the driver, pushing his cases in.
‘Where’s that?’ the driver asked.
Richard offered him a cigarette: ‘Nihilon City.’
‘People with a sense of humour should be sent back to Cronacia,’ said the driver, making no attempt to start his engine, but accepting the cigarette. ‘I’ve been working for forty-eight hours non-stop. Where to, then?’
‘Hotel Stigma,’ said Richard, reading the address carefully. ‘43 Ekeret Place, Nihilon One.’
‘I still don’t know where it is.’
‘You mean you can’t find your way around Nihilon City?’
‘Listen, I’m a taxi driver, not a bloody topographer.’ He leaned out of his window, and signalled a man standing by the glass doors: ‘You need a guide!’
He came in beside Richard, accidentally putting his foot on the tape-recorder. ‘He’d like to get to Ekeret Square,’ the driver said to him.
‘Hotel Stigma,’ added Richard. ‘Do you know it?’
‘I was born there,’ said the guide. ‘Room 62 — just before the last outbreak. My mother was travelling from Amrel to Shelp, hoping to get a ship out of it. She had to change trains at Nihilon City, which meant spending the night there, which meant giving birth to me. She never got out because of me, so you can imagine how I feel. She’s spent her last twenty-five years working as a cook in the hotel kitchen. So if you ask me if I know the Hotel Stigma in Ekeret Square — of course I know it. It’s the main square in the middle of Nihilon City, in any case. Go straight ahead, and turn left before the river,’ he said to the driver, who started the engine and set off.
There were no lights on the road, so the borders of it were indistinct. The driver switched his duo-coloured headbeams full on, not thinking to dip them when traffic came from the opposite direction. In fact his tactics at such times alarmed Richard, who had so recently escaped death in the airliner, for the huge car swerved over the road, and he couldn’t tell whether his driver was trying to hit the approaching car — which was certainly coming straight towards them — or to avoid being hit. With a cymbal-like clash of the front wings the other car spun off the road in a whirl of green and purple light, but Richard’s driver went on his way without wondering whether anyone had been hurt or not.