‘When was that?’ Richard asked, alarmed by this sudden revelation of volatility in the Nihilonian populace.
‘Two years ago, sir. But it wasn’t really serious. Those who ran took their guns home with them, and it was said later that the Rain Revolution — we have a great sense of humour here, sir — was only a dress rehearsal for the real one that was to come, which is now. Things seem to be much better organized this time, I’m glad to say.’ He looked through the glass and rubbed his hands gleefully at flames jerking out of a building across the square.
‘I suppose you’ll be taking part,’ Richard said, with a little irony, ‘when you’ve finished work?’
‘No, general,’ the waiter smiled. ‘I’ll go home and watch it on television. I expect the programmes will run all night if the firing goes on. I’ll go out into the street with my flag though, when it’s all over, you may be sure of that. My wife’s at home stitching it together now.’ From the door that led to the main hall of the café, he turned and added: ‘She’s the creative one of the family, sir!’
People went in and out as if it were a normal day of the week. He watched them coming across the square, calmly picking their way over débris, and the occasional corpse that the well-trained men of the ambulance service had not yet been able to move.
After a fiery and comforting drink of Nihilitz, he delved into the briefcase. By weight it contained more than papers, and he took out a revolver and a box of ammunition, as well as a belt and holster, and a sort of collapsible tram-conductor’s hat with a red band between the peak and the crown, which he assumed was for his own general’s head.
The largest map, when he unfolded it, was an official publication for Nihilon Army Command, a coloured representation of the country on the one-million scale, but stated at the top left-hand corner to be a provisional edition which was only to be used with extreme caution, as all detail on it was totally unreliable. Thinking of his previous experience in Ekeret Square, when his precious town-plan had been torn to pieces, he hurriedly fastened on the revolver holster, and loaded the gun, in case some fanatical map-deprived horde should try the same trick again.
He examined the map which, for a place like Nihilon, was as pretty a piece of cartography as you could ever wish to see. The system of relief, by contours, brought the whole land into instant perspective. It was mountainous, except for the great central plain on which most of the large towns were situated. Nihilon was bordered on three sides by rugged coast, except for a wide isthmus which joined it to Cronacia, and which was crossed by a belt of high mountains. The country was nearly five hundred kilometres from west to east, and four hundred from north to south, giving it an area of approximately 200,000 square kilometres. With such a preponderance of precipitous mountain it was easy to see why, throughout its history, Nihilon had been plagued by terrible floods. In fact, it was difficult to see why the central plain wasn’t permanently inundated.
If the map was accurate, communications seemed to be in a very rudimentary state — especially the roads. One highway (on paper at any rate) appeared to run from the southern frontier to Shelp, and then up the Nihil Valley to Nihilon City. He was happy not to have been chosen for the land approach, like Benjamin in his Thundercloud, and Adam the poet on his bicycle. He wondered also how Edgar had fared after disembarking at Shelp, and Jaquiline Sulfer who was supposed to reach Nihilon City this afternoon by train.
To the north of the town were the Athelstan Alps, whose highest peak, of over four thousand metres, was Mount Nihilon. On a large plateau to the south of this range was a place called Tungsten, joined by the only other modern highway leading up to it from Nihilon City. On the margin of the map was a note to say that at Tungsten there was a rocket base, and that the first Nihilon spaceship was to be launched from it in two days.
After a further and necessary swig of Nihilitz, Richard saw from the typewritten sheets that he was in charge of a column that, the day after tomorrow (by which time all fighting in Nihilon City should be over), would form the left wing of a general advance on Tungsten. The centre was already on its way there from Shelp, and the right wing would move up from Agbat. His orders demanded that the launching of the rocket into space must be prevented at all costs — in the name of Honour and Decency. Nihilism must not be allowed this great triumph, for what the Nihilists had been striving for in over twenty years of work and research was none other than the first procreative hook-up in space. In the rocket would be an athletic young man and a nubile girl who were to leave the capsule at a time specified by computer (full television coverage was to be arranged for the whole country) and copulate in space. The technical details of this were on the secret list, but the Nihilists expected a birth from this brief encounter, a child which would, on its thirteenth birthday, be crowned king or queen of the First Universal Nihilist Kingdom. It was because the revolutionaries were determined to forestall such a monstrously indecent plan that Richard had been given a key part in the advance towards Tungsten. If his column did not get there before blast-off, the propaganda effect of this victory for Nihilism would never be lived down, even if the new forces did succeed in eventually taking hold of the country.
In any case he saw that such an expedition against Tungsten would be a favourable opportunity to explore the Athelstan Alps, and so fill in more pages of his guidebook, which was why he had come to the country in the first place. With this also in mind he decided to look at those parts of the city so far untouched by the insurrection. It was midday, and the firing had lost its intensity, so he walked, somewhat giddily due to all he had drunk, along the western side of the square and into one of the avenues leading to the river.
The way there was quiet, a few people busily going home to lunch. Shop-fronts were boarded up and the burning sun gave everything a dreamy unreal touch. He brought a magazine from a kiosk, served by a woman with a bottle of Nihilitz beside her who was doing some crazy sort of four-peg knitting.
He leaned against the parapet of the long, ornate bridge, and watched the swirling oily water of the River Nihil, polluted beyond measure after flowing through the industrial complex of Nilbud. A smell of old stone and vinegar came up from it. He wrote in his guidebook-notes that the bridge was of a particularly fine construction, adding as an afterthought, and no doubt under the influence of nihilism, that the engineer who built it had thrown his wife from the middle span after its completion.
The banks on either side were steep, so he decided to call the river a gorge at this point, thinking that even the dullest country had to appear interesting in a guidebook, if you expected people to buy it. Whether they went there or not was another matter, though it was certain that few of them ever would.
He was disturbed from his stupor by the sight of a man running from the eastern end of the bridge, as if anxious to get across it and help the insurrection in Nihilon — though there was little enough firing at the moment to attract anyone. The runner had apparently passed a policeman, who now woke up and shouted: ‘Come back. Stop!’
The man was wild-haired, big-eyed, his coat flying open. Another policeman at the western end of the bridge stood in the middle of the road with his revolver pointed, so that it seemed as if the fugitive’s fate was already sealed.
Richard looked on in amusement, as if the inhabitants of Nihilon only existed to provide him with continuous diversion. However, he stopped smiling when a bullet, meant for the fleeing man, shaved its way so close that it singed the hair by his temples. With the policemen closing in, the man, only a few metres away, jumped on to the parapet, then fell laughing into the river below. Sluggish circles eddied towards the concrete supports, and Richard tried to see under the surface of the water. ‘Let me see your documents,’ said one of the policemen, putting away his gun.