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They hung on long enough to find out that Jaquiline had not conceived during her trip into space. Fortunately there had been no need for her to do so, since it was plain that Nihilon had no need to reassert itself by this mystic birth, that nihilism was already eternal in Nihilon itself, in the base and core of its people and institutions, which simply showed how human they were, and therefore how fundamentally good. She and Adam recovered from their experience, and were none the worse for it, and indeed hardly remembered it more than a dream is remembered, except that they were man and wife, a fact that could not be denied, considering the number of people who had witnessed the consummation of their marriage. They would not have believed that such a unique experience had taken place at all had they not seen themselves on the full-length documentary film of their flight into space, which was now shown as proving the final triumph not for nihilism, but for the insurrectionary forces and the new government.

After a few weeks each of them (except Edgar) received a letter from the Ministry of Tourism to say that within twenty-four hours they must vacate their rooms, because the hotel in which they were staying was to be turned into offices for the newly formed Ministry of Cancer. This strange name was said by the manager to be a code-title for a project of infinite importance, something to do with propagating the principles of law and order embodied in the New Nihilon — New Nihilon being the only concession made to renaming the country — not only within the nation itself but even as far as Cronacia and beyond.

Our travellers were too physically exhausted, after all that had happened, to fathom the importance of these remarks, but opened their letters from the Ministry of Tourism to find a single third-class rail-ticket to Shelp for each of them, and steamer tickets on a Nihilonian ship to the nearest port of Cronacia.

As far as she was concerned, Jaquiline said, when they sat in a café to discuss the situation, there was nothing to talk about, because she’d be glad to get out of the place. The others agreed, and Benjamin called for Nihilitz to celebrate their departure. The waiter set down a bottle, and when they lifted glasses for the toast they discovered that the liquid was plain water.

‘Waiter!’ Benjamin roared.

After the victory, the army officers of Nihilon had come back from their hiding-places, and one of them was his old friendly enemy from Amrel, who had deserted the insurrectionary cause at Agbat, but had now been given command of the Benjamin Smith Brigade, a post of honour in the new country. Benjamin had accepted this also with good heart, but it took a little more concealing than the confiscation of his car, and though he couldn’t in any case do much about such rogues and villains getting back into office, at least he wasn’t prepared to be tricked out of a bottle of Nihilitz by a common, insolent waiter.

‘Yes, sir?’ the waiter said, reappearing promptly enough, as if he had been waiting close by for the expected call.

‘I wanted Nihilitz.’

‘This is Nihilitz, sir. New Nihilitz.’

‘Then get me the old Nihilitz.’

‘There’s only this water, sir,’ the waiter explained. ‘Intoxicating liquors were banned in Nihilon from midnight. They’re bad for the liver, sir. They corrode the heart and block the lungs.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Jaquiline.

The waiter smiled and, recognizing her as ‘The Lady from Space’, asked for her autograph. This had happened countless times already, so she wrote her name on the back of a grubby old bill. ‘Now please bring us something to drink.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I can’t do it. A man came in this morning and caused a commotion when I wouldn’t get him some old Nihilitz, so the police came and took him to Aspron.’

‘Aspron?’ said Benjamin.

‘Yes, sir. It’s not only back in fashion, but they say it’s much enlarged. Just a moment, though, and I’ll see what I can do.’ He went through the far door near the bar. The bullet-proofing over the terrace had been removed, and ordinary thin glass put in its place. The waiter returned with a plain bottle: ‘It’s Nihilitz,’ he whispered. ‘But it will cost you ten thousand klipps. We have our own distillery in the cellars, and have been busy cooking it up for the last few days. We got advanced notice from a very highly-placed friend that Nihilitz was going to be banned. So we’re going to be rich, my friends, rich beyond the dreams of avarice!’

So they protested that the price was too high, that under nihilism they would have paid a mere few hundred, at the most. The waiter recognized Adam, and asked for his autograph also, and he signed the paper with infinite weariness and disgust. ‘For God’s sake let’s scrape up the ten thousand,’ he said, ‘so that we can get drunk.’

‘That’s very sensible,’ said the waiter. ‘I’m sure I’d be able to sell it for twenty thousand tonight. Maybe thirty thousand. Or even forty. Fifty tomorrow! But as a special favour to you, I’ll let it go for ten.’

Benjamin threw two large notes, as big as tea-towels, on to the floor, and the waiter picked them up and put them under his arm as he went away chuckling to himself. Nevertheless, it was vintage Nihilitz, and other people in the café eyed them enviously, one customer becoming so disgruntled over his large glass of water that he loped across and asked if they’d kindly share their good fortune with him. He was a middle-aged man with a thin face but fairly well-padded body. Benjamin laughed, and told him that, frankly, they could quite easily finish the bottle without his help. The man got angry: ‘I’ve worked hard all my life, and now I can’t even buy a glass of Nihilitz. I’m just about ready to lay down in despair and die.’

‘We paid ten thousand klipps for it,’ Adam said.

‘That’s right,’ the man shouted, springing up with a rabid anger, hoping to get support from the few other water-drinkers. ‘I suppose you’re a pack of mercenaries who put this rotten honesty-régime in place of our good old nihilism. And now you’ve got all the money. But me, look at me, I work hard, but I’m just not lucky, because I’m a Nihilonian. I was born in this country, but I’m expected to stand by while idle foreigners like you come and drink our best Nihilitz.’

Benjamin stood up: ‘First of all, stop whining. Secondly, you aren’t working now. Thirdly, it’s not Nihilon any more, it’s New Nihilon. So leave us alone, or I’ll throw you into the street.’

The man went out disgruntled, slamming the door.

‘I’m glad we’re leaving this country tomorrow,’ said Richard. ‘I feel there’s danger in it for people like us.’

‘How can you say that,’ Jaquiline laughed, the Nihilitz bringing back her sense of humour, ‘after all we’ve been through?’

The man who had coveted their Nihilitz stopped by a pile of masonry that was to be used for the plinth of Queen Mella’s coronation statue in the middle of the square. The first bullet from his revolver shattered the plate-glass of the terracing, and the second fragmented the Nihilitz bottle which, fortunately, was already empty.

Chapter 39

They left the country with what they stood up in, apart from a briefcase or handbag. The rest of their luggage had been ‘officially removed’ from their rooms — officially, because there were no thieves now in Nihilon. Thieving, like nihilism, had been abolished. The state saw to that, because it had acquired total rights to both. In its benevolent honesty the government carried on a policy of ‘removals’, not only to protect the people from the temptation of mass pilfering, which in Nihilon had always either been a habit or a temporary necessity, but also to make sure there was nothing left to pilfer. This system was known as ‘income tax’.