He drove slowly, at forty kilometres an hour, when from around a slight bend ahead a small red sports car came weaving towards him. It brought to mind his first encounter with such a maniac several days ago; when he had been civilized and inexperienced enough to get driven off the road and almost killed.
The car was at a distance still, and there would be time to act. He pulled into the side and stopped his Thundercloud. ‘Get out,’ he said to Jaquiline. They crouched behind the car, her heart thumping as she witnessed the mad career of the Zap, ready to throw herself clear should it decide to crash against the superior weight of their estate car.
Benjamin picked up a sub-machine-gun and took aim, standing by the right headlamp. A few moments would pass before the car drew level and he could open fire, meanwhile keeping the gun halfway to his shoulder.
The Zap slowed, and straightened course. A face at the windscreen looked at him, all teeth, fair hair, and homicidal sweat. The driver levelled a gun through the open window. Benjamin dropped, spattered by the glass of his own headlamp.
The Zap passed, but with the coolness and accuracy that can come with extreme rage, Benjamin stood up and fired the whole magazine at the petrol tank of the retreating car. Without looking, he rummaged for another clip, but saw smoke pouring out of the Zap as it zigzagged on its way. The dead silence of the earth was shaken by a grunt of wind, as the car went up in a column of smoke and flame. ‘That’s the second time those Zaps have tried to kill me,’ he smiled, courteously opening the door of the Thundercloud so that Jaquiline could get in.
She smoothed her hair. ‘A woman on the train told me that when men are discharged with good results from the Groves of Aspron they are awarded a crimson Zap car as a prize. It’s supposed to normalize their emotions by the time they get home.’
‘That’s one patient who won’t go back for more treatment,’ he said, with a nihilistic laugh. ‘I’ve been persecuted by those Zap cars ever since coming to this lawless land, and it’s one instrument of terror we’ll ban as soon as the new government gets together.’
At the highest point of the Aspron Way, which was now back to its usual rugged unpaved state, stood a wooden shack, on which was hung a large notice saying COFFEE. He stopped the car, and they went inside, having neither eaten nor drunk since setting out.
It was a cool dark room, with a rough counter at one end, and two or three rickety chairs and tables between it and the sackcloth door. On the counter sat a Nihilonian cat, with neither ears nor tail, and behind it stood a tall corpulent man wearing a waistcoat over his apron. His thinning hair was parted down the middle, and he emerged from the daze of his own stillness to ask what they wanted.
On being told, he lit a small spririt stove on the counter: ‘Are you part of the liberation army? If you are, you won’t be the first army that’s passed this way. May I invite you to sit down?’
They preferred to stand, for a change. ‘What army?’ Benjamin asked, refusing the bottle of Nihilitz.
‘We’ll wait for the coffee to boil,’ the café-keeper said. ‘It’ll take a few minutes. But I’m glad to see travellers, even if it is an army. I’m dying of boredom. My wife died of it last year. Absolute agony. I held her hand all through it. Never thought I had it in me. Had to send for soil from Agbat to bury her in, because the peasants near here wouldn’t sell me any. They even stole my load of it coming up from Agbat, so I had to leave her in the living rock after all.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jaquiline said, wiping her forehead with a handkerchief. ‘How long have you lived here?’
He pondered on the number of years: ‘Twenty-six. My whole life, in fact. I wanted a peaceful life, and here it is. Come outside, and I’ll have great pleasure in showing you what I got for my trouble.’ They followed him through the sackcloth, into searing metallic sunshine. ‘Grey mountains for as far as the eye can see — in every direction. Beautiful, inspiring, empty. The most gorgeous sight in the world. I must have yearned for it the moment I was conceived. When I was a boy, and then as a young man, I knew that one day I would achieve all this, though for many years there was absolutely no clue that I would ever get it. In fact for two decades I forgot about this deep yearning in my blood, and it was only when my ambition was half complete that I realized it was coming about, and remembered that I’d always wanted it. I was recovering from a state of catastrophic despair, and was on the point of dying of it, when I bought this shack for selling coffee to passing travellers. Then, slowly, I acquired all this land, to increase my peace of mind.’
They followed the coffee-distiller back into his bar, where he poured out two large cups. ‘You were saying,’ said Benjamin, ‘that another army passed this way.’
‘Was I? Well, it was twenty-five years ago. You can’t expect me to remember every detail. It was President Took’s rearguard, a few stragglers really, heading up into the Athelstans.’
‘Why would they come through here?’ Benjamin asked, touched with curiosity now that the shack-keeper was veering on to his pet obsession of Nihilon’s recent history. ‘The main road goes through Nilbud.’
‘It does,’ the man smiled, ‘but it was blocked by the Nihilists. So Took and his hundred got on a train as far as Agbat. They were heading for sanctuary in Cronacia, but the bridge beyond Agbat was strongly held by the Nihilists, and Amrel had already been abandoned. There was nobody poor Took could trust. Anyhow, he comes in here, still wearing his top-hat and chains of office, and asks for coffee. I gave him some. What else could I do? But when the time came to pay and he walked out without doing so I reached for my revolver and shot him in the back. If he can’t pay for his coffee, I thought, I’ll kill the swine, just as if he’s a peasant who can’t afford to. Equality’s my game, and I never lost by it yet.’
Sweat drops were falling into Benjamin’s cup. The cat leapt to the floor and sauntered outside under the sack. ‘You killed President Took?’
‘He only had ten soldiers by that time,’ said the man. ‘The rest died on the way up from Agbat. He was a fine man, President Took. He spoke calmly, and walked in here with great dignity.’
Benjamin’s hands shook. He put the cup down, and loosened his revolver, feeling in the grip of his worst moment since entering Nihilon. ‘So this is where he died? What was the date?’
‘I don’t remember,’ said the man. ‘The soldiers burned down my shack, that’s all I know. But I built another. In any case President Took didn’t die. I was so wild with rage that my shot-went wide. His hat fell off, and he asked why I’d done it. When I told him, he said he’d only forgotten to pay for his coffee because he was so preoccupied with defeat. He gave me a golden coin, and then left, but some of his men stayed and set fire to my hut. Then they shot at me and my wife, but we were already running down the valley.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘He went on towards Tungsten. Or maybe up behind the peaks somewhere. I don’t know. I heard from a peasant that he died in a cave after a dinner of boiled roots. But who can be sure?’
‘Is that all?’
‘What’s the difference? He dies in a cave, I die of boredom. Nihilism knows no frontiers. It loves everyone, and is no respecter of persons.’
‘So that’s how it happened,’ Benjamin said, walking with Jaquiline towards the sackcloth.
‘Stop!’ shouted the shackman.
They turned to see a heavy revolver pointed at them. ‘If I call my soldiers in,’ said Benjamin, ‘you won’t escape this time. I don’t like people who dodge their fate. They’re the worst people in the world, a scourge to everyone. Put that gun down.’