With a flicker of intoxicating fantasy — at such a time — Benjamin wondered whether he ought not to cultivate her high opinion of him, though as if he didn’t care for it at all, so that he might one day be sitting on the throne of Nihilon with Queen Mella at his side. After a while, of course, Mella would disappear, and he would reign alone, a sad and ruthless monarch despoiling the kingdom at his leisure. And who could rule more absolutely than a king over a country that had recently given itself up to twenty-five years of nihilism?
Edgar ruefully saw that his glorious bravery, which had almost smashed his right arm to pieces in the attack on Orcam Bridge, had faded from Mella’s eyes as she gazed adoringly (though by no means adored, he was glad to see) on Benjamin. She had turned her soft and womanly personality away from himself; whom she could treat as an infant, to Benjamin whom she could look on as a father. Benjamin left him little time to brood, however, and sent him through the trees with a message to Brigadier Kalamata, the officer commanding the two hundred Zaps.
From each car-roof of the Zap Brigade fluttered a blue and green pennant. The two regiments were set out in perfect alignment, their blood-red vehicles glistening in the sun as if still wet from being washed. In order to strike more fear in the defenders’ hearts, every headlight was turned full on, four hundred white and incandescent orbs proclaiming that the forces of purity were out for the kill at last. Benjamin, Mella, and Richard stood together on a high platform erected under cover of the trees, giving perfect views of the plain in front.
A patrol was sent forward to test the defences, and Benjamin saw the soldiers go right up to the wall, then through it by some half-concealed but well-camouflaged entrances. There had been no firing, and not one member of the patrol came back, and though he was worried about this he didn’t doubt that the Zap Brigade would triumph.
Observers from the highest branches reported more activity around the launching-pad and up the scaffolding of the rocket itself. Two people in space-suits were being forced into the vehicle, suggesting to Benjamin that the Nihilists had succeeded in getting new candidates for their universal wedding, which caused him to speculate on who the victims might be, for victims they would be when his dynamite squads got to work in an hour’s time and they were trapped in their nuptial coffin.
He watched the minute-hand of his dashboard clock creeping towards attack-hour. Two hundred engines idled softly, a chorus of pistons in perfect tune pushing out thin clouds of obnoxious smoke, each car holding enough fuel to reach the walls, and get back again if need be. Who but the dashing, scheming, valiant, skilful Benjamin Smith could have used them in this way? And yet what more apt employment was there for these terror-motors of such impacted power, machines that up to now had been a menace to civilization, such as it was, and that were now harnessed into saving it? He laughed aloud at his own subtlety, and lit a cigar. He hoisted his revolver and, as the second-hand ticked to its final spot, pressed the trigger.
Chapter 35
President Nil, watching the array of power soon to be sent against him, realized that his reign was coming to an end. He stood behind an air-vent on one of the compound roofs, watching his men running in alarm along lanes and gangways on all sides below, preparing, so they had assured him, to fight to the death. But, win or lose, the end had come as far as he was concerned. Being a born Nihilist, a firm believer through and through, he had arranged for his own disappearance, and therefore his defeat. In other words, since it was inevitable, he had decided to accept it stoically and with good grace.
Having shown for a quarter of a century that nihilism worked, he was prepared to depart in such a way as to prove that nihilism would never die. There was no other way to do it, but he sweated under his top hat, and in a fit of irritation took it off and stamped on it so that he would never be able to put it on again. Not that one, at least. He was going elsewhere because he’d run out of ideas for the moment, not because he was tired of nihilism. His motoring psyche could tick over forever on the fuel of its self-induced nihilism.
His constant extolling of total freedom, of compulsory freedom, of nihilism in fact, had only been a more thorough way of enslaving the population. He saw that now. It had been far more efficient than any form of socialism. Nihilism is the ultimate state of raw and naked slavery, he mused. Nihilistic private enterprise works because it enslaves most of the population for the benefit of a small portion of it. Thus it was unfair. To be fair, all must be enslaved, and only socialism can do that. But at least all people would be equal under it, and thus being equal, could easily claim that they were not enslaved, and that socialism was therefore the highest form of existence as far as society was concerned.
But he was fatally tired, and wanted to rest, needed to get away from Nihilon with the fortune he had hoarded for just such a purpose. Already from Nihilon City airport four planeloads of gold and banknotes had been sent to Cronacia. He knew by radio code that two had arrived safely. One had been flown to some far-off country by the treacherous pilot. Another was mistakenly shot down by Cronacian Pug 107s. This was the least valuable cargo because it contained banknotes and not gold, and as the plane went down in flames, breaking into pieces a few hundred metres over the country, immense numbers of thousand-klipp notes fell like so much flaming confetti over the poverty-stricken villages, totally consumed to ash as soon as the grasping peasant fingers touched them.
All he had to do now was save his own skin in order to enjoy the fortune that was waiting for him, the fruits of his untiring devotion to nihilism — he might say. He looked across the plain at the lined-up sports cars and massed insurrectionary troops ready to charge over that death-space which he had set for them. Maybe a few would reach the wall, but not many. The trap was waiting, and it would give him the greatest pleasure to watch the attack of the idealists, and see how far their ideals got them under the rain of his high-precision smithereen artillery. But he could not wait to see the battle, just as he had been unable to witness so many of the set spectacular pieces of destruction he had brought about. It was enough to construct and organize them. He’d never even wanted to see films and photographs of the great dam disaster at Fludd, or read accounts of it.
During his rule he had turned the country into a fairground, and as a last gesture of private-enterprise nihilism he was going to hand it over to the forces of law and order, honesty and progress. He recalled that one of his first measures, after tugging the ropes of government into his hands, had been to decree that everyone should henceforth write with his or her left hand — a fundamental order designed to bring them into line with his régime from the heart outwards rather than from the wallet inwards. For the last few years the observance of this rule had been faltering, especially as young people had grown to man or womanhood and proved the unfortunate conjunction of being able to rebel against both the parents and the state at the same time, something he had not anticipated, and certainly as basic as his original law.
He laughed, and wiped the sweat off his brow. What greater contribution to nihilism and benign chaos could there be than to allow order and honesty to return? Rebellion had been splintering the fabric of his beautiful Nihiland for several years, and instead of trying to prevent it taking hold, as a more misguided ruler might have done, he had surreptitiously helped it to its last rotten fruition — an over-ripe tomato about to hit him in the back of the neck, if he didn’t get out quickly.