Orbitsville Trilogy

by Bob Shaw

  It was difficult for Nicklin to accept that more than two years had passed since the ship, moribund and begrimed, had been hauled into place at the rim of the portal. He had laboured unceasingly during that time, refusing even the shortest vacations, surrendering much that made up normal existence to his private obsession. In many respects he had been like a general waging a bitter campaign against enemies who continually changed their positions and tactics.

  Major structural elements – such as diaphragm decks and bulkheads – had been only part of his remit. There had been the thousands of minor components, ranging from stair treads and handrails to storage racks; and the multitudinous systems relating to everything from ventilation to waste disposal. A starship was a machine for keeping hundreds of human beings alive in a hostile environment, and the complexities of that machine were almost endless.

  At every stage of procuration the work had been hampered by the unseen forces of Renard's consortium. At the blackest times Nicklin had felt a paranoid certainty that Renard was personally and vindictively blocking his progress, but on the whole he had accepted that the Tara was an incidental casualty of the consortium's activities. The real opponent was the immutable law of supply and demand, with some backing from an ancient foe which had been known to engineers since the dawn of technology, and which they had dubbed Murphy's Law.

  Nicklin had often been obliged to accept parts intended for a slightly different mark of vessel, and which should have been very easily adapted. But in many cases, as though malign and leering gremlins were responsible, the chance shaping of a flange or the placing of a single stud had been all that was required to trigger vast series of time-consuming modifications. The mission's little army of workers had at times been required to operate a three-shift system, and under Nicklin's close supervision had developed an impressive range of manual skills.

  Scott Hepworth had faced parallel difficulties with the Tara's drive machinery, on occasion having to employ specialists from outside, but in the end – after more than two years of dedicated effort – the work had been completed.

  The bird is ready to fly, Nicklin thought as he walked in the prism of shade cast by his sun-hat. The only trouble is that nobody is going to open the cage.

  Reaching the main ramp leading up to the ship's passenger cylinder, he paused as he saw Lan Huertas descending to ground level. Huertas, the mission's solitary black man, had been the first person to speak to Nicklin on the fateful day of his induction in Orangefield. He was also the one, making no bones about his personal dislike, who now spoke to him least.

  "Good morning, my old buddy, my old chum!" Nicklin spoke cheerfully, following his policy of irritating Huertas with a show of effusive friendliness. "How are you this morning?"

  "Okay," Huertas muttered, attempting to slide past.

  "I'm really glad to hear that," Nicklin said. "Tell me, my old cobber, is Corey in the ship?"

  "Hotel."

  "I'm indebted to you." Nicklin gave Huertas a comradely punch on the shoulder and turned away in the direction of the Firstfooter Hotel. The Firstfooter, having depended almost entirely on spaceport traffic, had been in serious financial trouble since the Big Jump, and its management had been happy to give special concessions on the small amount of business Montane brought its way. It accommodated a few families of his pilgrims, mostly from outlying parts of the PI region, who had come to Beachhead without waiting to be given a departure date.

  Nicklin had seen them wandering around Garamond Park in a group, the children delighting in the unprecedented holiday, the parents instinctively banding together to fend off their sense of belonging nowhere. He saw them as pathetic figures who had renounced their stake in one world and would remain in a limbo of irrelevance until they reached another. He felt no concern for the adults, on the grounds that anybody who was so crazy as to give everything away because of a religious fad deserved little sympathy. You never should beggar yourself unless it's for a really important and sensible reason – such as a snake-hipped woman telling you you're a good lay. But it was taking the joke a bit far, even for the Great Prankster himself, when the lives of small children were so profoundly distorted.

  Nicklin sometimes wondered if Montane was totally immune to experiencing doubt on that issue. Hurling them off into the void towards some putative speck of dirt brought quite a new meaning to the phrase "suffer the little children". Their best hope for the future lay in the fact that the Tara had so little chance of ever setting out for New Eden – the Certification Wars, as Nicklin thought of them, were seeing to that.

  Warned of the difficulties of getting operational clearance, Montane had carried out an astute move in making all his disciples into shareholders in a registered company. Legally they were now part-owners of the Tara, which meant that it had become a private rather than a public transport and therefore was subject to less rigorous controls. Such niceties seemed to be cutting little ice with the Space Transport Department inspectors, however.

  Nicklin had seen Metagov officials arrive and depart in droves, most with the fixed prim expressions of bureaucrats who regarded the resurrected ship as a threat to their entire mode of existence. Their philosophy, as he had explained it to an uncomprehending Montane and Voorsanger, was that a bolt hole which had been drilled in situ by one worker was not as good as a bolt hole drilled by another worker in a properly licensed factory.

  There were two ways out of the impasse, he had added. One was to resort to extensive bribery, at the highest and lowest levels; the other was to burn through the STD locks on the Tara's slideway and drop the ship through the aperture in the dead of night. Montane had treated both suggestions as bad jokes, and apparently was waiting for a divine intervention to enable him to set sail with his band of pilgrim fathers and pilgrim mothers-to-be.

  This is definitely the right time to go, Nicklin thought as he walked away from the ship. I've done all that I set out to do – with the notable exception of Danea – and I'm ready for what the Gaseous Vertebrate has to offer next.

  He came out of the port authority land through a deserted cargo entrance and crossed Lindstrom Boulevard. The crystal pyramid of the Firstfooter was on his right, its sloping aspects mirroring the pale blue archways of the Orbitsville sky. He had just turned in the direction of the hotel when he saw a tall young woman walking towards him. She was wearing a lime sun-hat and matching shorts-and-halter outfit which complemented her blonde hair and tanned skin. The overall effect was of confident, graceful good looks, but what drew Nicklin's attention was that she was smiling directly at him. There was also something about her which struck a mnemonic chord in his mind, and for a moment he wondered if she could be one of the many young prostitutes he had dallied with in the past two years.

  "Jim!" she called out. "I was just coming to find you!"

  He stared at her perfect, small-chinned face as she drew close and it was the look of recognition in her eyes which completed his own memories. "Zindee! Zindee White!"

  She came to him with open arms and clung to him as they kissed. Even in the midst of his pleasurable surprise, he was aware of the pressure of her compact breasts and that she was kissing him full on the mouth, expertly and generously. This is good, he thought, as good as I've ever known it to be…

  "Let me look at you," he said as they ended the embrace. "Why, the last time I saw you, you were a little girl!"

  He had often heard adults use exactly the same words when confronted by a young person who had been transformed in a few years, but he was quite unable to improve on the formula. Biological magic had been at work on Zindee, and he could only stand in awe of the outcome. She was still the child he had known, but that component of her was overwhelmed by the sheer physical presence of a beautiful woman.

  "I can't believe this," he said. "What age are you now?"

  "Seventeen."

  He shook his head. "I can't believe this! Zindee White!"

  "You never wrote to me" she said reproachfully.


  "I know, and I'm sorry. I didn't forget about you, but things have been happening."

  "I heard about them. In any case, I couldn't have forgotten about you." She gave him an oddly shy smile and fingered a small bronze disk which was on a chain at her throat. He had taken it to be a medallion, but on closer inspection saw that it was an ancient coin.

  "What are you doing in this part of the world?" he said.

  "Family visit to the big smoke." She took her hand away from the coin for an instant looking saddened, and it occurred to him that either of her parents might have come to Beachhead to attend one of the large medical institutes.

  "How are Cham and Nora these days?" he said.

  "They're fine. We checked in at the Firstfooter about an hour ago, and the information centre flashed me where to find you." She looked beyond him towards the port area. "I was hoping to get there before you left."

  "In other words, you only want me for my spaceship."

  Zindee half-closed her eyes. "I wouldn't say that – but I've never even seen one before."

  "Come on!"

  They crossed the boulevard to the port authority gatehouse, where at Nicklin's request a uniformed guard issued Zindee with a visitor's pass in the form of a circular silver badge. As they walked arm-in-arm towards the ship, their sun-hats rubbing edges, Zindee explained that she was planning to take a general sciences course at the Denise Serra Memorial in East Beachhead, perhaps as a prelude to majoring in entomology. Her parents had come with her to combine a preliminary look at the college with a vacation.

  "That's great news," Nicklin said. "If you're going to be living in Beachhead for two or three years we'll be able to see each other regularly."

  Zindee's step faltered. "But … Aren't you going away?"

  Her meaning eluded him for a moment, then he gave a surprised laugh. "Christ, no! Nothing, but nothing, would induce me to risk my valuable little ass on a trip to nowhere – especially with that bunch of heliumheads."

  "I hadn't realised," Zindee said. "I thought you and–"

  "Danea? The Bitch in Black? That never came to anything – not that it was anything to start off with."

  "You sound bitter, Jim."

  "Why should I be bitter? She got me out of Orangefield, and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm a new man now, Zindee, my girl."

  "I see."

  Zindee began to bring him up to date on events and local characters in Orangefield, but in the main her words were passing him by. The distraction was the nearness of her lithe young body, the erotic effect of which was enhanced by memories of the special relationship which had long existed between them. Making love to Zindee would be quite unlike the casual coupling with strangers, the sexual diet to which he had never become fully accustomed. It would be warm, profoundly exciting and – above all – fulfilling. It was precisely what he needed at this turning point in his life, and it was a fabulous piece of good fortune that she had materialised out of the past at the perfect moment. Truly, the Gaseous Vertebrate was in a good mood.

  "So that's what a starship looks like," Zindee breathed. "It's beautiful!"

  "It's not bad," Nicklin agreed, running his gaze over the lustrous hull of the Tara, which was coming into view from behind a docks office building. "You should have seen the mess it was in a couple of years ago."

  "And there's the portal itself! I can't wait to have my first look at the stars."

  "They're nothing to get worked up about," he said. "Would you like to have a look around inside the ship?"

  "Can I?" Zindee hugged his arm excitedly.

  "You bet!" Again feeling the pressure of her breasts, he wondered if she knew what she was doing, then decided she knew exactly the effect the intimate contact would have. Everything about her told him she was sexually active, and now it was up to him to get things moving. He was twice her age, which might create a problem with the straight-laced Cham and Nora, but there were ways around such difficulties – especially for an old and trusted friend of the family. The idea that he might be able to lie down with the golden child-woman later that same day caused a slow blood-pounding throughout his body.

  But don't rush your fences, he told himself. It all has to happen naturally. Slowly, naturally and inevitably…

  "Can we go in right now?" Zindee said.

  "Any time you…" Nicklin paused as he noticed a car with STD markings waiting near the foot of the main ramp. Scott Hepworth was standing beside it, talking to three men who looked like Metagov officials. The agitated movements of Hepworth's arms made it apparent that he was involved in some kind of argument. He turned abruptly and strode up the ramp, followed by the officials, and the four men disappeared into the dark rectangle of the main hatch.

  "We'd better wait here for a few minutes," Nicklin said. "It's going to be a bit crowded inside for a while."

  "Even in such a big ship?"

  "Now that the fitting-out is finished there's only one gangplank to get around on. Besides, there's likely to be a lot of vile language floating about – not the sort of thing for an innocent maiden's ears."

  Zindee stepped back from Nicklin and tilted her sun-hat, giving him a breathtaking smile. "Who says I'm innocent? Or even a maiden?"

  Tonight, he vowed, resisting the urge to kiss her again. It has to be tonight.

  "Zindee," he said, "I doubt if even a sophisticate like you is ready for Scott Hepworth."

  "Why not?"

  "He drinks too much, he eats too much, he's a slob, he tells lies, he wastes all his money, he has a filthy mind – in short, he has all the qualities I expect of a friend."

  Zindee laughed. "What else do you like about him?"

  Encouraged by her response, and knowing he had sufficient Hepworth anecdotes to pass a full hour if necessary, Nicklin described how and why the physicist had been thrown out of the Garamond Institute. "Any idiot can see the world in a grain of sand," he concluded, "but only Scott Hepworth could see another universe in a lump of metal."

  Unexpectedly, Zindee looked thoughtful. "Is he supposed to be your scientific adviser?"

  "We don't go in for formal titles, but … yes. Sort of. He's mainly concerned with the engines."

  A scornful expression appeared on Zindee's face, making her look like the child Nicklin remembered. "I hope he knows more about engines than he does about physics."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Jim, even I know that the cobalt 60 experiment wouldn't show that Orbitsville had become part of an anti-matter time-reversed universe. Have you never heard of the CPT rule?"

  Nicklin blinked. "Should I have?"

  "Perhaps not," Zindee said, "but it states that where everything is reversed there's no way to detect the change. It also states that your friend made a balls of setting up his equipment."

  "But he swears he had it right," Nicklin said. "According to Scott he came up with definite proof of the Big Jump."

  "That's ox droppings, Jim."

  He smiled on hearing one of Zindee's pet phrases and was reminded of her precocious ability to get things right. "Do you think all this stuff about a big jump is nonsense?"

  "I don't know if it's nonsense or not. All I'm saying is that no amount of fiddling around with cobalt 60 or any other isotope will produce any evidence, one way or the other."

  Nicklin considered the notion that the restoration work on the Tara's drive units had been governed by a man who was capable of making basic errors. Or, what was worse, the type of man who refused to acknowledge a mistake once it had been made. It was probably just as well for all concerned that the Metagov inspectorate was proving so stubborn over issuing any spaceworthiness documents for the ship.

  "It's all academic, anyway – the Tara isn't going anywhere, in spite of all the news stories," he said, shrugging. "Do you want to walk to the front end and have a better look at the pinnace?"

  "Yes, please." As they went closer to the black lake of the portal the morning breeze whipped Zindee's flimsy clothing ag
ainst her body, making her look like a tawny creature from a sexist advertisement. Nicklin became aware that all the men within visual range were staring at her. You can't have any, folks, he gloated. It's all mine!

  "It must be wonderful to fly in something like that," she said, holding her sunhat in place as she gazed up at the sleek aerodynamic form of the pinnace. Suspended in its flying attitude beneath the Tara's nose section, the little ship was quite close to the rim of the portal and the imagination could see it straining to glide forward and swoop down into its natural environment.

  "The pinnace is worth a fortune by itself these days," Nicklin said. "If Corey ever gets enough sense to sell up and forget about his loony mission he'll be a rich man."

  "You don't think much of him?"

  "He's a bollock-brain." Nicklin amplified his statement by telling how Montane took his wife's body everywhere he went and had been overheard conversing with the corpse.

  Zindee looked incredulous. "Have you been sniffing something, Jim?"

  "It's the truth! The late Mrs Montane is locked up inside there at this very minute," Nicklin said, pointing at Montane's camper which was parked close to the ship. "Corey sleeps in there at night instead of bunking down in the hotel with the rest of us. And he uses the coffin as a tea table."

  Zindee narrowed her eyes at him. "This is one of your stories – light?"

  "Wrong! I quit trying to jolly people along years ago. I give them the facts dead straight, and if they don't like what they hear that's their problem, not mine."

  "How's your popularity rating?"

  "Everybody around here adores me," Nicklin said. "Specially this character." He nodded towards the lumbering figure of Gerl Kingsley, who was approaching from the direction of the First-looter, probably on one of the obscure errands he was always running for Montane. "Mind you, I did save his life."

  Kingsley slowed down as he came near and gave Nicklin the terrible lopsided grin which was a legacy from the day a bullet had passed through his head. His eyes were firmly fixed on Zindee the whole time he was passing.

  "I think he likes you as well," Nicklin commented. "And I can't say I blame him." He tried to slip his arm around Zindee's waist, but she moved out of his reach.