Travels in Nihilon

  He threw the sizzling grenade with all his force. It spun through the air, every eater and even the waiters looking at it with muted, terrified, half-thrilled eyes. It landed in an immense bowl of fruit salad. It didn’t explode.

  The applause was prolonged and rapturous. There was shouting, laughing, banging of cutlery, clapping, stamping of feet, whistling, and shouts of ‘Encore! Encore!’, but Adam and Firebrand were already riding towards Shelp, on the bicycle.

  Chapter 23

  On the outskirts of Shelp the road widened into a dual carriageway. On one side refugees were streaming away from the town towards Nihilon City. On the other they were pouring back again. The great blow against nihilism in Shelp by the Law and Order Insurrectionists appeared to have been successful, for the town seemed to be either in flames or in ruins. A Cronacian battleship was standing offshore.

  Tentacles of smoke were boiling into the sky as Mella hauled her landboat through groups of refugees. There was a great amount of luggage on board, with Edgar perched comfortably in a lounge-chair looted from the hotel only minutes before the arrival of law and order.

  The afternoon sun was still hot, and Mella stopped pulling to run back and mop the sweat off Edgar’s brow. ‘Don’t,’ he cried, when other people stared at them. ‘It’s your own face you should wipe, not mine.’

  She glared at him: ‘I consider myself your equal, so I have a perfect right to look after you.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, afraid that she might abandon him if he argued too strongly. But she kissed him passionately on the mouth, then fastened the straps of the landboat over her shoulders, and plodded earthily on.

  Edgar chewed sulkily on a cigar, swearing softly as the wheels bumped over a pothole. There were neither buses nor trains to Nihilon City, and the only way to get there was to let Mella pull him on her amphibious contraption, though at the rate she was going it would take several uncomfortable days. He considered himself lucky that she loved him, though he was constantly harrowed by her public outbursts of affection. Even the fact that they had passed a night of love together did not seem to justify such an exhibition.

  He pulled his hat lower to keep the sun from his eyes, then dozed, and woke up after a while to find that most of the so-called refugees were turning from the road and going towards the sparsely pastured land to the south of it. The far-off mountains that rose up darkly certainly offered to Edgar a more salubrious aspect than the highway. Mella leaned against the cart to rest. ‘Where are they going?’ he asked.

  At the sound of his voice she gave him a large piece of bread and a bottle of beer. ‘To the racecourse. Eat, my love, or you’ll grow too weak for the journey.’

  ‘What racecourse?’ He sipped the beer, but pushed the crude-looking bread aside. ‘What sort of races?’

  ‘Zaps,’ she said. ‘One-door sports cars. It’s very exciting, if you get high enough above it.’

  ‘Let’s look then,’ he said, being fond of motor-racing. ‘You can make up for the time we lose by pulling me through the night.’ Mella smiled because he had given her a way of pleasing him, then got back into harness and hauled her unwieldy cargo towards the racing grounds.

  It was a sign of the troubled times that prices of admission, as well as all bets, had to be made in goods and not money. As people went through the turnstiles they threw down watches, rings, cufflinks, small radios and gold spectacles for the best seats. They took off jackets, shoes, dresses, and even shirts for places at the back, from which they nevertheless hoped for some sort of view. As the mounds of valuable goods grew outside the perimeter, huge lorries drew up to take them away. Edgar relinquished a precious prismatic compass as his admission fee, and found that it entitled him to a ticket in the best stands, from which, with binoculars, he could overlook the whole course. Mella stayed behind to guard the boat.

  The layout was a highway-circuit of ten kilometres, with topographical characteristics prominently visible from the high seats. At the start line were twenty-four cars, twelve to go one way, and twelve to set off at their backs in the opposite direction. Each twelve therefore had a clear road for approximately half way round, so that in the normal thinning out caused by the varying accelerations, it seemed as if they were only setting off for a peaceful drive.

  Edgar was open-eyed at the impending gladiatorial combat of ferocious motorcars, foreseeing a mighty conflict when the two lines met. The rules were that those cars escaping the first shock of combat must go on to another round, and so on, until only one car remained to get back under its own horsepower to the winning-post. Much of the crowd was of a belligerent disposition, and cheered them to greater speed, while the remainder held breath and stayed silent.

  The first casualty came among the twelve cars that had started in a westerly direction. After the initial rush along the straight and narrow, the foremost vehicle spun over the side when it went too fast around Hairpin Bend. For the other group, which set off more or less easterly, and whose narrowing road soon gave way to a gruelling ascent of Death Hill, catastrophe struck even before they encountered the others. At the very crest of Death Hill was Switchback Corner, and here the first three vehicles failed to switchback with sufficient skill, and turned several somersaults before coming to a halt off-course.

  The reason why these vehicles were one-door Zap sports cars now became apparent, because the one and only door was on the underside of the car, so that when the said vehicle landed upside down, as it invariably did after crashing, the driver within had only to open the door by pressing a button with his foot. He could then lever himself out before the vehicle burst into flames, and leap on to the grass, running away from it with glazed eyes and a wide smile at the realization that the more he ran the nearer he was to safety.

  Consequently, when the teams met, the eastbound group had two cars less on its strength than the westbound division. However, at this stage, neither side attached much importance to this disparity of numbers because the policy of each was not so much to ram their opponents out of the battle as to let them stay on the course in the hope that the course itself would do this for them. So when they met, to the cheers of several thousand spectators, which the drivers heard on the radios inside their cars, relayed to them by courtesy of Radio Shelp, they merely formed a column of line, kept strictly to their own side of the road, and passed each other in good order. In Shelp itself all fighting had temporarily stopped so that both government and insurrectionary/Cronacian forces could listen to the progress of the competition.

  The westbound cars, for a while numerically superior to the eastbound, lost four cars in a series of collisions while descending Death Hill, almost catapulting down it on coming out of Switchback Corner – as if they hadn’t expected it, though they had all raced on the course before, so the commentator said. The eastbound team was the visiting Cronacian side, and when the next time round it came close to the westbound Nihilon Zap United, three of its members formed up after the main Nihilon body had passed, and charged a straggler. But the straggler evaded them so cleverly that all three Cronacian cars hit the wall, shot back from it, and met in mutual collision just off the track. This was clearly a disaster for the visiting team, for they now had only six cars left against seven.

  Edgar’s arms ached from holding the binoculars. The game was so thrilling that he could not bear to put them down. His hat had been knocked to the ground by people pressing from behind, and the heat of the afternoon sun drew torrents of sweat from him. But his eyes were meshed to the two groups of vehicles, one red and the other blue, now approaching each other for the fourth time.

  The Cronacians suddenly developed more powerful acceleration than the Nihilon cars, and taking the line in flank, managed to crash through and create a pile-up that deprived the Nihilon ranks of three of their number. To get their revenge, three Nihilon cars stayed behind and turned round in the middle of the track so as to follow in the rear of the Cronacians who, suddenly on Death Hill, realized too late that they had enemy cars
in front as well as at their rear. This foul trick caused them to fight, surrounded as they were, with great fury, but the disadvantage was so great, the surprise so complete, that only a single car escaped the battle, while the four Nihilonians came out unscathed.

  The chase began, to get the last Cronacian driver. But he was brave and skilful, the ace-Zapsmasher of Cronacia. Along the bonnet of his car were painted twenty-seven miniature red Zaps to indicate the number of such cars he had so far destroyed. Clearly, his demise would be a great victory, and the crowd screamed and hooted for his blood, but the four Nihilonian drivers were unable to corner him. The Cronacian had a fair amount of space on his side, and he used it to manoeuvre out of any tight spot the Nihilonians might try to force him into. His death appeared to be certain however, though during half an hour of frantic evasions he must have been plotting a fine ruse to escape his fate.

  When the Nihilonians at last managed to drive his battered and steaming car into a corner at the eastern foot of Death Hill, a Pug 107 jet-fighter of the Cronacian airforce, after a radio-plea by the driver in his car, suddenly roared low over the spectator stands, tipping its wings into a sharp descent over the actual course.

  Nothing could have been more dramatic, more unexpected. Edgar saw crimson ropes of rocket-flame spurting from each wing, and a bubble of fire exploding at the line of Nihilon Zaps. The solitary Cronacian car crawled out of smoke and ruin, and went singed but unharmed up Death Hill, putting itself in the clear while the Pug did another quick circuit and finished off its Nihilon enemies. Only one car got clear of the track, and drove at speed under the spectator stands. The pilot, with great magnanimity, did not bomb him there, but circled until he made a dash towards the Shelp road, where he blew him into a culvert.

  The Pug flew low over the course, tipping its wings in a victory salute, before disappearing back towards Cronacia. The crowd descended with a great roar towards the course, intending to kill the Cronacian drivers who, however, thwarted this vengeful desire by piling into three salvageable cars and driving off towards the mountains. Those spectators who hadn’t joined in this move were cheering and clapping at the end of the festivities, and beginning to leave the grounds, highly satisfied at the day’s upheavals.

  Edgar found Mella asleep on the boat-trolley, and woke her so that she could start towing him towards Nihilon City. The chill of evening was already biting through his thin suit, as the final yellow film of sunlight edged the rimline of the mountains. He called to Mella for his overcoat, and she fastened it around him with her own scarf. ‘Won’t you be chilly?’

  ‘I keep warm by pulling,’ she said. ‘We’ll go on for an hour, then stop by the roadside. I shall make a fire to cook your supper.’

  ‘You’re wonderful,’ he said, settling back comfortably, dozing to the regular rock of the cart, body warm and face healthily cold at the onset of Nihilon night.

  One-door Zaps were eating through his dreams and bones. Then he was driving one towards the stars, till it hit the sun, and turned over when he pressed the doorknob with his foot. He dropped through the single door, into the free-fall of space. A planet grabbed his arm, and swung him against the studs of the Milky Way.

  Mella was screaming, and a jolt that went with it finally woke him up. A thin man of medium height, wearing overalls and a rather expensive, finely-cut jacket, aimed a revolver as he lay on the ground: ‘You’re under arrest.’

  A sickle moon curved above the man’s cap and the mountain crestline. Edgar felt as if his back had been broken in the fall, but he was able to stand up and comfort Mella, who was sobbing against the boat-trolley.

  ‘We insurrectionists are taking your property. You will be paid in full next week when we have formed a government. The name of the currency has yet to be decided, and so has the price of your property.’

  They were opening his boxes in the lamplight, and laying his survey instruments gently on the ground. The man in charge examined them, after making sure that his prisoners were well guarded. Mella turned to Edgar and took him in her arms, her tears wetting his face. ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ she said. ‘It was an ambush, and I could do nothing. But don’t worry, we’ll get through.’

  The ringleader was studying Edgar’s maps with interest, spreading each one out for discussion with his friends, as if to base future plans on them. During the prolonged talk, they were avidly eating the provisions that Mella had bought with such effort in Shelp. The chief of the group said to Edgar: ‘We are extremely grateful for your contribution of surveying and cartographic equipment. Now we can begin to form our general staff on a scientific basis. We have waited for you for many months, but you came exactly on time. Our overseas headquarters put the right material into your luggage, so when you return, please tell them how thankful we all are. The guidebook you want to write will be so complete that no description of our newly liberated country will ever be bettered. I hope that your four colleagues who also came to Nihilon are carrying out their missions with the same degree of success. Within a year, Nihilon will be a different country. We’ll even change its name. Order will be positive, law will be rigorous, chaos will be eliminated, nihilism will be banned. Nihilon City will be called Truth. The port of Shelp (our second largest conurbation) will be renamed Fact. We will be objective, just, able, honest. And you will always be an honoured guest because, with your four colleagues, you are contributing to the insurrection. In the main square of Truth we shall erect a group of statues to the Eternal Pentacle, those travellers who helped the nation to regain its dignity.’

  ‘If it means bringing order into this mad country, then I’m glad I’ve been able to help you,’ Edgar said, wondering how he could escape from such pompous bandits. To judge by their faces it seemed impossible that they would ever build good roads, or get trains to run on time. In any case, he saw now that he had been used as an unwitting dupe of the insurrection by the publishing company back home, and this put him into a self-deprecating frame of mind, and an ill-temper which came close to self-pity. But he was consoled by the fact that Mella’s tears had dried during the leader’s speech. She put her arms around Edgar, saying how proud she was that her sweetheart was also a hero who would help to save her country from ruin, and thereby restore the good name of her father, President Took, to the history books of Nihilon.

  Chapter 24

  The town of Amrel, perched on a steep hill beyond the river, slept in the midday sun. Brought closer by the lens of Benjamin’s binoculars, birds circled over red roofs and sandstoned walls, exactly as when he had abandoned it twenty-five years ago to the advancing forces of nihilism.

  Members of his insurrectionary column were spread under cover in the barley-fields on either side of the road, while the headquarters caravan of his Thundercloud Estate car was hidden behind some trees. He sweated as he lay on the hot stony soil, trying to formulate some plan by which to recapture the unsuspecting town.

  Only an immediate attack had any chance of succeeding. His column of six hundred men was well equipped with rifles and machine guns, but several thousand Nihilist fanatics were thought to be in Amrel. He decided therefore to drive his Thundercloud, with four other soldiers inside, over the bridge and up into the centre of the town. Posing as ordinary tourists, they would occupy the post-office, and turn it into a fortress. Five minutes later, with all attention focused there, a bridgehead would be secured from below, from which two companies would be launched into the town. A further force would by-pass Amrel to the north and establish blocking positions on the Nihilon City road so as to deal with any Nihilists attempting to retreat in that direction. This plan left him with no reserves should anything go wrong, but Benjamin thought this was a risk they had to take. In case of defeat, the survivors were to regroup in the eastern mountains.

  He drove towards the bridge on a calm fine day that was full of the soft heat of spring, ripening barley on either side waving in the ever-provident earth. There was a new hotel by the river bank, and people dining on the terrace
looked at Benjamin’s car with interest as it went by. Many were Nihilist officials wearing black bowler hats, with guns by their tables, and singing drunkenly.

  Beyond the first half of the long bridge, standing on low land between two arms of the river, was a garage repair workshop, with lorries and tractors parked outside that, after the battle, Benjamin would use to inaugurate a motorized column for reconnaisance and vanguard operations. The narrow bridge had low walls on either side, and he drove across slowly, admiring the packed mass of the old town on the hillside above – one of the tourist gems of Nihilon, he would say in his guidebook.

  It seemed as if his life were living itself all over again. Through the fully opened windows came the same smells of dust and food, river water and kerosene that had assailed him so long ago. In spite of the neat and bellicose plan about to be carried out, he felt as if he were in fact going into the town as a peaceful and enquiring tourist. Only the rifles and machine guns lying about the bottom of the car told him that this was not so. He felt calm enough, yet sweat was pouring from him, and his hands around the steering wheel slid a little too much for safety. Life is one mistake after another, and he wondered whether this would be his last, though he consoled himself with the fact all mistakes are different, which at least made them interesting.

  Beyond the bridge they passed the café, and a dismal-looking shop which had a notice chalked on its door saying: NO NIHILISTS SERVED HERE. This seemed hopeful for his cause, as he turned off the main road, went under an archway, and on up the steep cobblestoned street. A few housewives were about, and one or two old men, but the town was empty compared to when he had last been there.

  They emerged into the large space at the top of the hill, and parked outside the three-storey stone post-office which overlooked the town. Grass grew in parts of the deserted square where the cobblestones had been worn or kicked away, and in the middle was an abandoned fairground roundabout, its machinery rusty, its wood rotting, its canvas awning blown into strips by the continual breeze. A large public clock struck the hour ten minutes late.