Выбрать главу

Mella sat with her father, holding his two hands, and staring fervently at him. He did not know who she was, and called her by her mother’s name. This brought copious tears, and her great and unexpected joy at having found him alive gave way to despair now that his mind would never be clear as to her identity. He told them however that he had tampered with the rocket, so that when it circled in space the advertised carnal hook-up would not occur. But what he did not know was that while he had descended one side of the rocket, after his clumsy adjustments to its programming, a member of the base staff had gone up the other side and put everything right again. So Took could not understand why the spectacle was being enacted on the television screen.

Before Benjamin and his party entered the Grand Computer Hall, the cleaner-in-chief had taken away the old president’s sweeping brush and peeled off his white overall, put a tie around his neck and a watch on his wrist, a pen in his pocket and a pair of black leather shoes on his feet so that no one would think he had been ill-treated. This rude change into something that he had not been for so long and never expected to be again may have broken his frail sense of identity, and been the reason why he did not recognize his old civil-war lieutenant either, a fact which sorrowed Benjamin after his long search and twenty-five years of enquiries. But the mystery of President Took’s disappearance had now been solved, so there seemed little else for him to do in Nihilon, except perhaps find Jaquiline.

The man emerging from the rocket was seen to be Adam the poet, whose blank, half-drugged features locked in a space-suit world were trying to smile, as if he knew they were viewing him, and felt embarrassed at being naked from the waist down. Mella covered her eyes. Benjamin forced himself to look, but hated it, though he was unwilling to close the show because shooting at the screens and computers would interfere with the delicately-timed space-scheme and put the occupant of the rocket in serious danger. Being a member of the guidebook committee, Adam was still entitled to certain courtesies from the land of Nihilon.

The door of the rocket stayed open, and two more legs appeared, comely and well-shaped, white and long as they slid free, fleshy at the thighs. All eyes looked on at the emerging female body, her top half well ensconced in a transparent space-suit that showed her small taut breasts, and floating with arms and legs apart like a starfish, and all delicately attached — like the male specimen — to the mothership nearby. As they drifted to each other, the National Anthem of Nihilon began to computerize itself in the universe around them.

Benjamin stood up, a wild and raving man they’d never seen before. He unlatched two guns, spinning around as they followed the free-shifting figures (which now appeared on an even bigger screen, specially switched on) of Adam and Jaquiline set to engage in the primal rite. The music grew solemn as they approached. Jaquiline’s face came into enormous close-up, illuminated and beautiful, as if experiencing some cosmic dream which fed into her the secret of creation and of the world, and as if the limits of the universe were being made known to her.

A band of hair came over her mouth as Adam went forward, her eyes and legs opening at the same time. A switch of some earthbound computer enabled him to find his place well and, with legs closed, lock the perfect lock, and begin his rhythm, maintaining it in that place while all eyes were on them, and with the appropriate slow movement of the Nihilon Anthem playing through it.

Richard took Benjamin’s guns away and pulled him back to his seat, while all kept their eyes on the fascinating scene of their two colleagues and compatriots copulating in space. Adam’s face was shown with Jaquiline’s through the moments of orgasm, the camera moving from their faces to the wedding-ring on Jaquiline’s finger, and then to the joined and jewelled movement of their four legs, at which a roaring cheer of triumph ripped from the several hundred detached and scientific scientists in the great hall — who had not only got this project off the ground, as it were, but had coaxed it to the stars. Edgar put hands to his ears, and closed his eyes at this manifestation, as if the two sweethearts in space might hear such vulgarity and thus be wakened from their sublime dream.

As they slid apart, Jaquiline put out her arms, and there were tears under her eyes as the last great close-up moved across the screen, before she was sucked back into the space-ship. Adam’s face also showed grief, almost panic as his arms reached forward to go on holding what had so recently been completely his. And then he was returned into the metal container, which went on to another circuit of the earth before scoring its way through the atmosphere, and floating by parachute on to the central plain of Nihilon, which would hold out its arms to receive them in safety and triumph.

Chapter 38

Benjamin’s Thundercloud Estate car, dented and scarred, windowless and without tyres, had been confiscated for the Museum of the Insurrection, to be repaired and set there in a conspicuous place. He was sad to part with such an old and powerful friend but, in the euphoria of victory and the good feeling of celebration, he relinquished it with a generous heart, and admitted to himself that Nihilon deserved it as a memento of his honourable strivings. The Benjamin Smith Brigade would never be forgotten.

Mella was crowned Queen of Nihilon. It was found better, after all, not to change the name either of the country or the capital city. Since the concept of honesty was foremost on the new government’s lips, there seemed no sense in confusing the minds or memories of ordinary citizens.

So Nihilon it remained, with Edgar as the consort of Queen Mella. Having nothing to go home for, and no wish to return at the moment, he entrusted his brief and meagre guidebook-notes to Richard, who promised to see that they arrived in fair copy at the office. Yet their last sight of Edgar, before leaving Nihilon City, in the garden of the temporary villa-palace on the outskirts, was of a lost man, who did not know what he wanted. Part of him desired the all-smothering attention that Mella poured out again now that her father had died, but under all this he sensed a craving for adventure straining to break free and do what it could with him. Adam reflected sadly as they said goodbye that Edgar was the sort of person who, having finally claimed to have made up his mind, seemed more lost to the world than ever.

Everyone had their share of triumphs, and promises of reward. Promises were the proofs of honesty in that, never being kept, those who made them were shown to be of good faith and even better heart. If a promise was made, you were being honest; if it was kept, you were being devious — almost menacing in the intensity of your good intentions. Thus society in Nihilon was being cast on a new base, and those who were heard to disagree that this was so were spirited away in the middle of the day, as an example to others.

Victory celebrations were put off for ten years. This was another mark of honesty, for by then, so it was said, the population would have some achievements to celebrate. The heroes could either wait for them, or go home to their own country and come back at the appropriate time. If they decided to wait, some suitably honest employment would be found for them in the health-giving, body-building stone-quarries beyond Tungsten, or doing construction work about to commence on the ruined dam at Fludd, or digging a new canal between Orcam and Coba. If they decided to go, however, and return in ten years for the festivities, the government would generously pay half their fare.

While the city was being cleaned and partly rebuilt, and the rest of the country was settling down to an orderly and efficient life, the heroes of the insurrection idled around the cafés of Ekeret Square. If they stayed awhile it was not to collect any glory or reward, but simply to finish gathering information for the guidebook that they had been drawn there to write in the first place.