‘If you don’t get out,’ said Edgar, ‘I’ll call the captain.’
The man laughed. ‘I am the captain. I was getting ready to go ashore. My brother will take the ship on its next stage. When I passed your cabin I wanted to see what you had inside it. We’ve been watching you because you seemed so openly secretive compared to a good dishonest Nihilonian. But now that I know you’re a spy, and that you won’t be browbeaten about it, I congratulate you on your profession. I’ll help you on deck with the rest of your luggage.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Edgar, inwardly happy at such a turn of luck.
They staggered up with the second trunk to find that the first one had gone. ‘Don’t worry,’ said the captain, ‘it’ll probably be waiting in the customs shed. There are no thieves in Nihilon. By simply taking everything we need, none of us become thieves. Dishonesty forever means fair shares for all. However, I must get off the ship now.’ He held out his hand. ‘I expect a good tip for helping you on to the deck with that very heavy trunk.’
This Nihilonian humour did not appeal to Edgar at such a critical time, yet the rapacious glint of the captain’s eyes told him that the demand was serious, the threat real.
‘Quickly,’ he said, ‘I have to meet my wife.’
‘How much do you want?’
‘As much as you can afford,’ he replied in a softer tone. ‘But don’t forget that I’m the captain of a large passenger ship. It took me years to reach such a responsible position. After the last voyage I helped a traveller with his luggage and he offered me five kricks! Can you imagine such a pittance! Fortunately he was rather elderly, so I told him he was a mean and insulting swine for offering so little.’
It had been Edgar’s intention also to give him five kricks but now, wanting to be relieved of the captain’s offensive presence, he took a ten krick note from his wallet.
‘You’d better make it twenty,’ the captain said. ‘I have to share it with my brother officers.’
‘Damn you!’ Edgar exclaimed. ‘You’ll get nothing.’
He pulled out a small whistle and put it between his teeth: ‘If I blow on this they’ll tumble from their bunks and throw you into the water. Your luggage won’t float very well.’
‘No,’ said Edgar.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ the captain growled. ‘You’re in Nihilon now. Or will be if you pay up, and are then lucky enough to get a boat. If not, you’re with us for three more weeks.’
Edgar handed him another ten krick note.
‘A service charge of ten per cent goes on that,’ the captain said, ‘making twenty-two, all told.’ Edgar paid this, also, and last saw the extortionate and piratical captain being rowed ashore by a buxom lady in a red blouse, with whom he soon began flirting and joking.
Chapter 7
As Adam went down the steps of the Paradise Bar an irascible Geriatric in short trousers put out a spindly leg and tried to send him head first. With his younger agility he dodged it, but cried indignantly: ‘What did you do that for?’
‘That’s the fate of all Cronacian spies, and so on,’ snapped the patriotic oldster, turning back to his beer.
‘We’ll give ’em hell,’ laughed his toothless companion.
A wavering bugle note sounded from the road, and the warriors began knocking out pipes, finishing dregs of beer or coffee. Certain men were designated as markers, bearing lightweight banners of the proud Nihilon blot, now standing ready so that others could form up on them. They were one company of two hundred all told, and soon arranged themselves in four stalwart platoons.
Adam watched the parade. They sprang to attention at the raucous command of a spruce middle-aged officer. A man in front of the leading platoon pushed a low trolley along the road, on which was a powerful portable radio tuned to Nihilon Channel Three, which played a nondescript composition called ‘The Land of Hopeless Gore’, so that with rifles at the slope and baskets in the other hand, the old men stepped out to as quick a march as their valetudinary legs would allow. Judging by the occasional heavily made-up face Adam suspected there was a sprinkling of young men in their ranks disguised as oldsters who would, no doubt, lead them in the attack and cure any hanging back when enemy machine guns started spitting.
Waiters and barmen who stood on the steps to see them go, and who were sobbing heavily, began jeering at Adam when he mounted his bicycle and rode towards Nihilon City. But the sun shone, and the sky was blue, and he felt full of momentary energy after his snack. A few miles later he passed a house, one of many on the outskirts of a large village.
A ten-year-old boy dressed in a long-trousered suit, wearing a bow tie, and with his hair slicked flat by grease, lounged under a sign saying WELCOME TO NIHILON, but as Adam rode by a stone caught him painfully on the shoulder. He stopped and shouted: ‘You vicious little bastard!’
The child burst into tears, and hearing the disturbance, a man in a customs officer’s cap ran from the house, calling:
‘Anything to declare?’
Adam got back on his seat and rode straight at him, speeding over the rivulet that ran across the road, so that he splashed the man’s overalls and sandals as he began to repeat: ‘Anything to declare?’
He went swiftly along the village street towards the main square, his lungs almost bursting in getting clear of this bogus customs man who seemed nothing more than another Nihilon peasant out on the make. If, however, he was genuine, then he could only congratulate himself on having passed through the second and final obstacle into Nihilon so painlessly.
Along one side of the large square was a line of six sky-blue tourist buses. The rest of the space was tightly occupied by a vast crowd of people. Though it was the hottest part of the day, they seemed by and large happy, as if everyone had just eaten an ample and satisfying meal. In the middle of the square, on a raised platform, a young man with long blond hair was about to make a speech. An older man, wearing a dark suit, dark spectacles, and carrying a black briefcase, mounted the platform and began talking to him, as if prompting him on what to say, for the young man listened respectfully.
Adam pushed towards the middle, but couldn’t get far among so many people. A young man with a child on his shoulder stood next to him, and Adam asked what was happening.
‘You won’t travel far on that bicycle,’ the man said. ‘Why don’t you get on one of those buses?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘They’re going to the front.’
‘He’s a foreigner,’ said the child from on high.
‘Shut up,’ his father snapped. He gave Adam a friendly smile. ‘They belong to War Tours, a very popular holiday organization here that does great business whenever there’s an outbreak at the frontier. Of course, they can be expensive, though they cater for all purses. War Tours are cheapest. You just camp on a hill or spur, and are given a bit of a map and binoculars so that you can see what goes on. That’s the seven-day tour, and costs a thousand kricks, inclusive. If you take a fourteen-day holiday they drive you close enough to be bombed and shelled, and that’s more exciting, but also more expensive. Better still, you can stand in a muddy trench with a rifle and bayonet to beat off an attack. That’s an even higher price. But a three-week five-star holiday is best, at ten thousand kricks. You get all the other things plus, at the end of it, the glory of a mass attack over the wire, with the optional extra of an artificial limb after your spell in a tent hospital. Mind you, there’s a long waiting-list for all categories, but I’m in the know with the organizers, and I happen to have a few application forms.’ He drew a bundle of papers from his back pocket and waved them under Adam’s nose. ‘So tell me which tour you want, then I’ll fill in one of these and get you on a bus tomorrow morning. You’ll have the time of your life, believe me.’