by Bob Shaw
"But I'll say this much for him," she went on, fingers at work on the computer panel. "He was absolutely right about those planets disappearing – the world cloud has started to thin out."
"There you are!" Nicklin was about to comment on the power of Hepworth's imagination when an unwanted new thought crept into his mind. "If Scott was right the cloud will disappear altogether."
"That's possible. It may even be probable."
"Can you say how long that would take?"
"Not really," Fleischer said, very much the cool professional. "I don't know how representative my sample is, and I have a feeling the computer is a little confused by points moving in behind other points, thus apparently reducing the real number. I'll have to refine things a bit more for it."
"Let's put it this way," Nicklin said, wondering if the pilot had chosen to tantalise him, "will it take longer than eight days?"
"The computer is saying thirty to forty days, so we ought to be all right." Fleischer's face was unreadable beneath its crown of luxuriant hair. "Though I have no idea what the margin of error is – and I am, of course, assuming that the planets are disappearing at a constant rate."
Thank you ever so bloody much for that last bit, Nicklin thought, fixing his gaze on the main screen. The gauzy sphere of the world cloud now had a new fascination for him, quite apart from its breathtaking beauty. He raised the drinks container to his lips and, no longer in the mood to conserve its comforts, jetted warm brandy into his throat until the bulb was empty.
A fresh element of uncertainty had been introduced to a situation which already had too many life-threatening variables. He stared at the world cloud, trying to force his perceptions into a radical new mode which would enable him to detect the Good Fairy at work – dispatching planet after planet after planet into the unknown.
All thought of sleep had deserted him, but in a short time his eyes and mind tired of the impossible task he had set for himself. It was warm and quiet in the control room, and it was possible to forget that he was inside a pneumatic bomb, hurtling through the interstellar void under doubtful control. His seat was unexpectedly comfortable, the brandy was exercising its benign influence, and he could have been in another time and place. This could have been Orangefield – drowsing in ageless security – preserved in the amber of distant summer afternoons…
He was awakened by a startled cry from Megan Fleischer.
He jerked upright, fully expecting to see that the gauze of the world cloud had dissolved into patches and threads, but the image on the main screen was exactly as before. To his left Voorsanger was struggling out of sleep, and Fleischer was knuckling her eyes while staring intently at pulsing lozenges on the console.
"There's somebody in the pinnace!" She clapped a hand to her forehead, no longer the imperturbable commander. "It's going! It's going!"
Nicklin twisted his way out of his seat and made a low-gravity swoop towards the ladder. He went down it at speed, but before he reached 2 Deck he saw that the floor plate had been slid into place, barring access to the deck below. He dropped to his knees, gripping the ladder with one hand and tugging at the plate with the other. There were no locks on the plate, but it moved only a centimetre or two and then stuck. He knew at once that it had been tied in place from underneath.
"Nibs!" he shouted. "Are you down there, Nibs? What the hell do you think you're doing?"
As if in answer to his questions a multiple tremor ran through both ladder and deck.
"The pinnace has gone." Fleischer's face had appeared above him in the control-room hatchway. "There was nothing I could do about it."
Nicklin pounded on the floor plate. "Nibs, if you don't move this plate out of the way I'll come down there and kill you." He thought for a moment about the contradictory nature of the threat and decided on a change of tack. "Mr Voorsanger wants to go down there. This is serious, Nibs."
A moment later he heard some fumbling from below. He was able to push the plate aside and saw Affleck standing at the open door to Montane's suite. The fire plate on 3 Deck had also been drawn over and lashed in place, sealing the level off from the lower regions of the ship. The rectangular shape of Milly Montane's coffin was projecting a short distance through the doorway, and the lid was missing.
Oh Christ, no! Nicklin thought as he lowered himself on to 3 Deck, with Fleischer and Voorsanger following from above. Nicklin halted and looked down into the coffin. It was empty, just as he had known it would be. The white satin lining was nested in the shape of a human being, and the depression was ringed with stains, like a contour map, the colours ranging from pale yellow to black. A sweet, sickly and faintly spicy smell – the pot-pourri of corruption – hung in the air.
"What's going on here?" Megan Fleischer demanded, pushing against Nicklin from behind.
He moved aside and gave her an unobstructed view of the coffin. She looked at it, turned back – face quite impassive – and pushed her way between Nicklin and Voorsanger to reach the ladder. She clung to it and began a harsh dry retching, measured and painful, regular as breathing.
She didn't know about the extra passenger, Nicklin realised. Welcome on board the good ship Lollipop, captain.
"None of you got no idea how it was with Corey and me," Affleck said defiantly, his nose purple against the unnatural pallor of the rest of his face. "I had to do what he told me to do. I owe my life to Corey."
"Not any more," Nicklin replied. The torrent of events in the past minute had numbed his mind – and the nearness of the obscenely yawning coffin was not helping matters – but it was dawning on him that none of the mishaps so far encountered by the New Eden pilgrims was in a class with the latest grim development.
Without the pinnace to ferry them to a safe landfall, the hundred-plus men, women and children on board the Tara were condemned to remain in space for the rest of their lives.
"If you ask me," he said to Affleck, still speaking like an automaton, "you and Corey can call it quits."
CHAPTER 20
Montane knew that he had to act quickly in the first few seconds after separation.
The passenger cylinder of the Tara was visible above him, its coppery curvatures glowing in the weak light of the Orbitsville sun. The mother ship was in retardation, which meant – thanks to the arithmetic of relative velocities – that it was trying to overtake the pinnace. There was a real danger of the little ship colliding with the front end of the giant's engine cylinders and then tumbling back along the sides to be engulfed in the invisible but lethal exhaust flare.
It was many years since Montane had done any kind of flying, but he had retained the instincts of a pilot. He slammed the throttle to the FULL POWER position and at the same time pushed the single control column forward.
The nose of the passenger cylinder immediately slid backwards and out of sight, while at the same time the view ahead of him underwent a dizzy change. The sun swam upwards and passed out of his field of view, and the vast cloud of pseudo-planets which surrounded it partook of the same motion. For a giddy moment the jewelled curtain streamed vertically, then it too was gone, and the blackness of space filled the cockpit's forward transparency.
Montane brought the control column back to the neutral position to prevent the pinnace continuing on a circular path which would have taken it through the Tara's exhaust. The star fields ahead of him obediently settled into place, steady and serene, and he knew that he was once again flying away from the deadly web which the Devil had spun around the sun.
God in his infinite mercy had laid the universe and all its riches out before him – and each one of the brilliant points ahead of his speeding craft held infinite promise for the future.
Montane began to laugh, and as he laughed the nightmare years were erased from his memory. He was a young man – what could have made him think otherwise? – and the optimism and potency of youth suffused every part of his body.
And the Lord had appointed him to the most glorious and fulfilling task ima
ginable.
"It won't always be easy for us," he said to his young bride. "We may have to face great hardships when we reach the New Eden, but we will overcome them as long as we preserve our faith in Him and our love for each other."
"I know that, my darling," Milly replied, smiling at him from the cockpit's left-hand seat.
The pearl silk bridal gown emphasised her slimness and utter femininity, but he knew she also had an inner strength which would enable her to overcome any adversity the years might bring. The gladness he felt at simply being near her was almost unbearable.
"I don't think I've ever seen you looking so lovely," he said, briefly touching her wrist.
She made no reply, but her smile grew wider.
CHAPTER 21
The idea that he had just been sentenced to death was strangely easy for Nicklin to accept.
He felt neither fear nor anger – just a kind of sad resignation, which might have been the result of emotional overload. A more likely explanation, he decided as he stood with the others on the landing of 3 Deck, was that he had known in his heart for some time that this moment was inevitable. It had been rolling towards him, down a narrow alleyway of time, ever since that sunny afternoon in Altamura when he had first met Scott Hepworth. It had been accelerating all along, gaining momentum from each unexpected new event – within the ship or in the cosmos beyond – and now its force was irresistible.
I'm turning into a fatalist, he thought. And just in time, too!
"Might as well get this thing out of the way," he said, putting his foot against the end of Milly Montane's coffin. He thrust hard, propelling the coffin into the suite, then he closed the door. "Might as well keep the place tidy."
"Corey must have gone mad," Voorsanger whispered.
"Nobody is going to argue with you on that one. I'd say that Corey parted company with us a long time ago."
"But where does he think he's going?"
"He's going where the rest of us are going, but he'll get there sooner," Nicklin said. "There's no food or water on the pinnace – and not much oxygen."
"Would somebody kindly … explain to me what's been going on here?" Fleischer was gulping as she spoke, fighting to control her stomach, and her forehead was dewed with sweat.
"Corey's wife died a long time ago, but he wouldn't allow her to be buried on Orbitsville." Nicklin, who had had years to get used to the bizarre story, was unable to imagine how it must sound to Fleischer, hearing it for the first time in such extreme circumstances. "I … ah … don't think he could stand the idea of taking her back to…"
"You're insane," the pilot whispered, her eyes wide with incredulity. "You're all insane!"
Don't look at me, lady, Nicklin thought, then it came to him that he had little grounds for indignation. "Maybe you're right," he said. "That would account for a lot."
"If only I'd known what I was letting myself in for," Fleischer said, dabbing her brow.
"Perhaps Corey will come back." Voorsanger's gaze travelled around the other faces, and his eyes seemed to plead with them. "The children…"
I wish you hadn't said that, Nicklin thought, his awareness suddenly expanding beyond his own concerns and prospects. There were many children among the pilgrims who had believed that Corey Montane was going to save their mortal bodies and immortal souls. The adults had made a serious blunder and would have to pay the forfeit, but the little ones – the innocents who had been given no say in the matter – were going to exit from their short lives in suffering and bewilderment.
There ought to be a law, Nicklin thought. Somebody should have made a law against this kind of thing. A long time ago.
The pain within him intensified as he faced the fact that Zindee White was also on board. She and her parents had placed their faith in another false prophet, and as a consequence…
His recriminations were interrupted by the faint sound of a male voice filtering through the hatchway above.
"The radio!" Megan Fleischer, who had been clinging to the ladder, took proper hold of it and rapidly climbed out of Nicklin's sight.
"That's Corey," Voorsanger said, his voice quavering with vindication and relief. "I knew he wouldn't desert us. I'm going to speak to him." He went to the ladder and drew himself up it close on the pilot's heels.
Nicklin edged past Affleck, who seemed dazed and quite unaware of the new development, and followed Voorsanger to the control room. By the time he stepped off the ladder Fleischer was in the central chair and busy with the communications panel. The voice on the radio grew louder and clearer.
"I repeat, this is spaceport control at Silver Plains, P202," it said. "We are picking up your autoscan transmission on the general band. Is there anybody there? Please respond immediately if you are receiving this signal. I repeat, this is the spaceport control centre at Silver Plains, P202."
"This is W-602874 answering your call, Silver Plains," Fleischer said, her voice harshened by the long bout of retching. "Are you receiving me?"
There was a delay of several seconds before the voice on the radio was heard again. "This is spaceport control at Silver Plains. We are picking up your autoscan transmission on the … " It went on to repeat the earlier message, almost word for word.
"They didn't hear you," Voorsanger said nervously.
"Give them time," Fleischer glanced at the communications panel. "They're calling at a range of roughly thirty-five million kilometres. Our radio signal is taking a couple of minutes to get there. And we'll have to wait as long again for a reply."
"At least there's somebody there to hear us," Nicklin said, still trying to grasp the full significance of what had happened. "This means that Scott was right. His Benign Hypothesis is working out better than he'll ever know."
"It may also be more benign that he'll ever know." The pilot smiled at Nicklin for the first time in their acquaintanceship. "If all the old spaceport facilities are still in existence – and that call suggests that they are – we ought to be able to get another pinnace. Perhaps several."
"That does sound … benign." Nicklin returned Fleischer's smile, tentatively, almost afraid to accept the priceless gift she was offering. "Did you say several?"
"There were four different types that I know of in the Hilversum Space Technology Centre at Portal 16."
"Operational?"
"I flew two of them last year," Fleischer said. "When I was adding the Explorer class to my general licence."
"So…"
"So, the new plan is to locate Hilversum among that lot." Fleischer, in a gesture oddly reminiscent of Hepworth, waved an arm at the image of the world cloud on the main screen. "It should be easy enough to do, as soon as they pick themselves up off the floor and get back on the air the way the people at Silver Plains have done.
"We then go into orbit around the Hilversum world; they shuttle us down to the ground; and what happens after that is up to the Lord."
"We can only beg for His guidance and protection," Voorsanger came in, his voice newly charged with religious fervour. "Now that Corey is no longer with us I think it falls on me to organise general prayers for our deliverance."
Nicklin opened his mouth to comment on Orbitsville's sudden change of status – from Devil's snare to safe harbour – then decided it would be the cheapest kind of sarcasm. The very word had once meant tearing at flesh, and he had gorged himself to the full in the past three years. Besides, he had run as fast as anybody when the portents had come and the end of the world had seemed at hand.
"I think you should wait for some hard information before you say anything down below," Fleischer said, after a pause.
"Of course, but are we going to have a four-minute delay every time we speak to someone back there?"
"No. When we finally reach standstill and are starting on the way back the delay will have gone up to about seven minutes."
"Isn't there something else you can do?" Voorsanger made a show of looking at his wristwatch. "How did we talk to Earth in the old days?"
Fleischer shook her head. "This ship has no tachyonic equipment."
"What?" Voorsanger turned to Nicklin with a look of reproach on his compressed features.
"You were the financial expert who decided it was too expensive," Nicklin said, amazed at how quickly Voorsanger, once he had persuaded himself that death was no longer imminent, had reverted to the role of tetchy business expert for whom a wasted second was a wasted fortune. "Besides, the Tara wasn't supposed to need anything like tachyonics – the plan was to get out of Orbitsville and keep on going."
"The plan was also to have a ship that was capable of–"
Voorsanger broke off as the radio speakers gave a preliminary click.
"This is Silver Plains," the same male voice said. "We are receiving you, W-602874. Can you confirm that you are the Explorer-class vessel Tara? We have you listed as land-docked at Pi for overhaul and modifications. Over."
"Tara confirmed," Fleischer said at once. "We got out of Pi just before … things started to happen. One of our drive units has failed and we are currently retarding in preparation for return to any available port. We have also lost our auxiliary craft. Repeat, we have lost our auxiliary craft. Can you arrange for the retrieval of approximately one hundred passengers from parking orbit? Over."
"That's the big question," Nicklin said as Fleischer relaxed back into her chair. "Is Silver Plains likely to have anything which could help?"
"We can only hope and pray. We don't even know what happened when the portals closed up, do we? If it was a simple iris-type process you would expect that any ships which were in exterior docking cradles would have been shut out of Orbitsville. Then when Orbitsville dissolved and – how do you put it? – all the geometries were reversed, all those ships would have wound up inside their respective new planets. Is that how it seems to you?"
"I hadn't even thought about that part of it," Nicklin replied. "I wonder if everybody got out of them."