Orbitsville Trilogy

by Bob Shaw

  "No!" Danea looked over his shoulder, in the direction of the workshop. "That horrible person – the one who was hanging around the meeting last night – is watching us. I'd never be able to relax if I knew he was near us … listening … Does he work for you?"

  "In a manner of speaking." Nicklin glanced back at the window in which the open-mouthed figure of Maxy was posed like a statue. "Only the Gaseous Vertebrate knows why I keep him on. I could send him home."

  Danea shook her head. "That would be too obvious."

  "Do you want to wait till tonight?" Nicklin said, his joy beginning to cloud with anxiety. He knew with absolute certainty, because it was in the nature of such things, that if he let this opportunity slip away it would never return. Tonight was an aeon away in the future, and by the time it came Danea would have recovered her sanity, or started menstruating, or been called away to tend a sick aunt. Or he would have tripped over something and broken both his legs, or – worst of all – the Mr Hyde potion would have worn off and he would be in such a state of yellow-bellied funk that he would be unable to set foot outside the house.

  "Let's go for a walk," Danea said, nodding in the direction of the low crest behind his premises. "What's on the other side of that hill?"

  Thank you, thank you, O Gaseous Vertebrate, Nicklin chanted in his mind. "There's nothing over there," he said, keeping his voice calm. "No people, anyway. Just little hills and lots more little hills. It's just right for walking."

  Danea gave him a conspiratorial smile. "Do you want to go in and fetch your hat?"

  "No, the sun never bothers me much," he lied, unwilling to risk leaving her side for even a few seconds.

  Conscious of still being gaped at by Maxy, he linked arms with Danea and walked with her towards the grassy crest. There was silence between them as they moved up the slope. Nicklin wondered if he should try to maintain a flow of sophisticated and tension-easing conversation, but perhaps there was no real need for words. In a lower corner of his vision he could see the buoyant cones of Danea's bosom – you were right, Zindee, good headlamps – and the easy, languorous, alternating movement of her slim thighs. And each time he reminded himself it was all really happening, and not part of a dream, his feet seemed to lose all contact with the ground. I'm walking on air, just as the cliché says. I want this to go on for ever. Love took its time in finding me, but when it finally got here it did the job in the classic across-a-crowded-room style, and I want this to go on for ever and ever…

  As soon as they were over the ridge and out of sight of Nicklin's place and the few other buildings dotted along Cork Road, Danea turned to him and they kissed. The smell and the taste and the feel of her swamped his senses.

  "Not here," she whispered gently. "It's too near to your place – that person might follow us."

  Belatedly aware of having tried to sink with Danea to the ground, he said, "You're quite right – I wouldn't put it past him. There's a better spot over here."

  He guided her around an egg-shaped hummock to its north side, from where endless green billows stretched to the up-curved horizon. Fringing the hill were clusters of bandannas which were just coming into full flower. The trailing red-and-orange blossoms which gave the shrub its name made a colourful outpost on the edge of the ocean of grass. One of the largest clumps had grown in a U-shape which was a good size to screen a recumbent couple and even provided some degree of protection against the sun. Nicklin had noticed the leafy boudoir on previous walks, and in his imagination – inspired by constant loneliness – had peopled it with lovers, never supposing that he would be one of them.

  "How's this?" he said.

  For an answer, Danea began to undress, her solemn brown eyes never leaving his. Nicklin stripped off in unison with her, throwing his clothes into the nook to form a makeshift blanket. As soon as both were naked they kissed once more – breast to breast, belly to belly, thigh to thigh.

  Then they lay down together…

  It might have been an hour – he had no means of judging the time – before Nicklin slowly spiralled back down into the mundane world. He was lying over Danea, but taking most of his weight on his elbows and knees, and was looking into her eyes. They were so close to his own that he was unable to focus on them. They registered as lambent brown-and-white blurs, lacking in detail, but in a little while he became aware that she was crying. He promptly rolled to the ground on his left side, disturbed by a lover's fears, and touched the cool transparent ribbons on her cheek.

  "What's wrong, Danea?" he whispered. "You're not sorry, are you?"

  She pressed her teeth down on her lower lip to stop its trembling. "I am sorry, but not about us. Not about this."

  "What then?"

  "Corey … The mission will be leaving Orangefield the day after tomorrow. I have to go with it, and that means…" She gave a sob and pressed her face into his shoulder. "I don't want to leave you, Jim. I don't want this to end."

  "Does it have to?" Nicklin's consciousness, which had been totally absorbed with the present, suddenly reached out to the future and encountered – only hours ahead – a barrier of black jet, a dark wall where happiness ended and the old despairing solitude and futility began. "Do you have to leave? Couldn't you stay here with me?"

  Danea shook her head and he felt her tears smearing on his skin. "I'm committed to the mission," she said in a muffled voice. "It's what I believe in, Jim. I can't forget all the vows I … Besides, I don't think I could stand living in a place like Orangefield."

  "I've got news for you, Danea." Bolts of white lightning cleaved the landscape of Nicklin's mind. "I can't stand living in Orangefield either."

  He felt her body go rigid. She raised her head and gave him several light kisses, dabbing his face with her tears.

  "That's very sweet of you," she murmured. "I feel so very honoured that you would even consider leaving your home and everything you know and going out on the road with me. Is that what you meant, or am I…?"

  "That's what I meant, and you know it."

  She gave him a tremulous smile and gently nuzzled her pubis against his hip. "You're a lovely man, Jim, but there are things you don't know about."

  "What sort of things?"

  "Corey doesn't permit people to come along for the ride. We'd be swamped with fellow-travellers – in both senses – if he allowed that. Everyone who joins us has to be totally committed, and that means…" She tried to lower her head again, but he placed his hand on her brow, forcing her to continue looking at him.

  "Go on," he said.

  "It means selling everything you own … your home, your business, your insurance … everything … and donating all the proceeds to the mission."

  "Is that all you're worried about?" Nicklin laughed with genuine relief. "Consider it done, little girl! Consider it done!"

  All the heaviness disappeared from Danea's eyes. "Do you mean it, Jim? Do you really mean it? We could have a little camper all to ourselves – and you don't even have to marry me if you don't want to."

  "I want to."

  "We've got all the time in the world to talk about that," she said, raising herself to a sitting position, looking radiantly excited. She remained that way for a few seconds, then her expression became pensive.

  Nicklin was more confident now, and no alarm bells rang for him. "What is it this time?"

  "I've just thought of something." Her eyes were speculative and oddly watchful as they searched his face. "I don't know what the others, especially Corey, will think of me if I go back as bold as brass and tell them I'm moving in with a man I met only last night. That probably sounds silly to you, Jim. You're probably used to a procession of women going in and out of your bed – and you don't have to care one hoot what people say about it – but things are a bit different for me at the mission. It's all a bit straight-laced. It's all very old-fashioned, but I really value the respect of the people I work with there…"

  Danea paused, looking self-conscious. "What a big speech! And I don't
even know if what I said makes any kind of sense to you."

  "I understand." Nicklin felt some disappointment, but he was already possessive towards Danea and the disappointment was more than offset by his learning that Montane's followers were not proponents of communal or even casual sex. "You're saying we can't start living together right off. I can handle that."

  "Thank you, Jim, thank you!" She hugged him, pressing in hard with her breasts. "We'll only have to wait a little while after Corey accepts you. And we won't be apart all the time, my lovely horny darling – every now and then we'll be able to take ourselves for a little walk."

  The inflection Danea put on the last word, the assignment to it of a special secret meaning, made Nicklin's throat close up painfully with sheer happiness. In future, when they were in the company of others, he or she would only have to suggest going for a "walk", and nobody else present would know what was meant, but he and Danea would know, and it would be more of the kind of ecstatic love-making they had just experienced. The world was a wonderful place in which to live – and how could he ever have thought that Danea was not beautiful?

  While they were dressing he found a damp patch near the bottom edge of his shirt which made him wince as he crammed it under his belt. Danea laughed and told him he had only himself to blame for being so virile. After they were clothed again they remained in the lee of the bandanna for a minute while he tried to explain, with some guesswork here and there, how he would go about disposing of all his assets in a very short time. Danea looked embarrassed and asked him not to talk about such things until he was with Corey Montane. Nicklin loved her all the more because she so obviously wanted to keep their personal relationship uncontaminated by financial matters.

  As they were walking back to his place, his arm around her shoulder and hers around his waist, a new thought occurred to him "If we're going to be married," he said lightly, "I suppose it would be only proper if I got to know your second name."

  "You mean you took me into your love nest and you didn't even know my…!" She pushed him away from her with a scandalised laugh. "Farthing! My name is Farthing – I told you that last night."

  "You didn't! I swear to you by the Gaseous Vertebrate that you didn't." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "At least, I don't think you did."

  "You see! You're not even sure!" Danea came back to him and put her arms around his neck. "Tell me the truth, Jim – just how many women have you taken for a walk up here?"

  "You're the only one," Nicklin protested, but was unable to resist allowing the claim to sound unconvincing. He was more flattered than he cared to admit by her repeated suggestions that he was a sexual conquistador. And if she happened to be impressed by men of wide experience there was no point in his going all out to change her opinion of him. Life was suddenly opening up in a big way. Now that he had been with Danea he could admit that the women of Orangefield, with their dismissive and condescending manner, had always given him a sense of sexual inadequacy. But the fault had been with them all along! They were small-towners, hidebound and limited by their Hicksville upbringing, whereas he was a natural cosmopolitan who could only be appreciated by other cosmopolitans.

  As he walked in the sunlight with Danea's hip gently nudging his, he thought for a moment about the fact that he was on the point of selling up everything he owned, for no other reason than his desire to be with her. But he felt no doubts, no qualms, no apprehensions. He was going to rid himself of his shackles and become free to begin his real life.

  "Tell me something," Danea said. "What is this Gaseous Vertebrate you keep mentioning? What do you mean?"

  Nicklin was surprised. "I didn't realise that I … It's a name that somebody – one of the old German philosophers, I think – invented for God."

  "God? It sounds strange. Not very respectful."

  "It's meant to be the opposite of respectful. It's meant to express disbelief. The Bible claims that God made man in His own image. So, if we look like Him, He must look like us, and that means He has a backbone. But if He's a spirit – by definition a creature who has no weight – why does He need a backbone to support His weight?"

  "Please do me a favour," Danea said, a barely noticeable wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. "Don't refer to God in that way when you're with Corey – I'm sure it would hurt his feelings."

  Nicklin gave her a compliant nod, and – for no reason which could be isolated from the clamorous background of his thoughts – it came to him that there was something important, something very important, which he should have discussed with the woman he loved.

  CHAPTER 7

  An hour spent with the manager of the Orangefield branch of the Portal One Bank had left Nicklin emotionally exhausted. He was not sure why an interview with Dixon Figg should have that kind of an effect on him, but it always had, and he was glad to leave the hushed dove-grey offices of the bank and go for a restorative walk in Mumford Park.

  Except in large cities, the profession of realtor had all but ceased to exist in the two centuries that man had been on Orbitsville. It was ironic, Nicklin often thought, that it was a surfeit of the very commodity they traded in which had practically forced real estate dealers out of existence. With entire continents available for nothing, clients willing to pay more than peanuts per hectare had become elusive.

  The banks, ever ready to fill a commercial vacuum, had absorbed land management into their activities, and as a consequence Figg had a comprehensive knowledge of Nicklin's affairs. The thing which annoyed Nicklin was that Figg always treated him with barely hidden disapproval, even contempt, in spite of his sensible business practices, avoidance of debt, and an accumulation of some 40,000 orbs in his personal savings account. Figg was only reflecting the town's prejudices, Nicklin surmised, but surely it was incumbent upon the manager of a bank to be more civilised than the local stubblejaws.

  On being told that Nicklin wanted to liquidate every one of his assets in preparation for leaving town in a couple of days, Dixon Figg's expression had gone from shock to outrage to deep suspicion in as many seconds. The display had cowed Nicklin so thoroughly that he had not dared to give the real reason for his drastic proposal. Instead he had launched into a series of lies about a cousin in Beachhead City who had presented him with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy into the family's ventilation engineering business. Under Figg's astute probing the structure of lies had become more complicated and increasingly shaky, until in the end – his intelligence roundly insulted – the banker had withdrawn into the hostile iciness with which he concluded the interview.

  Now, walking amidst the greenery of the park, Nicklin was reproaching himself for not having been tough and cold with Figg. Tough, cold and – if necessary – brutal. When the questioning started he should have silenced Figg with the verbal equivalent of a broadsword. Perhaps he would do just that in the morning when he went to collect his underwritten draft for 82,000 orbs, but it was much more likely that he would be as ineffectual as ever. It was only when he was with Danea that the bold and positive side of his personality seemed to emerge, enhanced by the power of her feelings for him.

  The realisation that he would soon be quitting oppressive Orangefield for ever, and going off into the unknown with her, gave his spirits a powerful boost, enabling him to drive the crabbed Mr Figg out of his thoughts. He strolled around the little park twice, breathing deeply and consciously relaxing, until it was almost time for his 11.00 a.m. appointment with Corey Montane. Leaving by the east gate, he walked the length of Telegraph Row, making good progress because there were few shoppers around at that drowsy time of day, the tail-end of the mid-morning lull. He emerged on Buckboard Lane, one of the boundaries of the common, which was comparatively free of vehicles and easy to get across.

  The mission's marquee glowed like a snowdrift beyond the screen of trees. As he approached it he saw that the site, with its rectangular group of cars, campers and trailers, was almost deserted. Several men and women were sitting on the step
s of the platform, talking earnestly among themselves, but he knew not to look for Danea among them. For reasons he had not fully understood, she had thought it best to remain out of sight until after his talk with Montane. The most convenient person to ask guidance from was a man who was leaning against a nearby tree, his head concealed beneath an enormous droop-rimmed straw sun-hat. His back was to Nicklin and he appeared to be eating a banapple.

  "Hi, there!" Nicklin said. "Can you tell me where I might find Corey Montane?"

  The man turned, smiling, and Nicklin saw that he was the black of whom Maxy had spoken. "No might about it! I can tell you where you will definitely find Corey."

  "That's even better," Nicklin replied, smiling in return, and doing his best not to stare at the deeply pigmented skin of the man's face and hands.

  "Over there. The silver job with no writing on the side."

  "Thank you." Nicklin nodded and went in the indicated direction. He was pleased because the black man had treated him with amiable courtesy, as few locals would have done, and it reinforced his feeling that he was throwing his lot in with soulmates – travellers, cosmopolitans, people who had seen a thing or two.

  As he neared the silver trailer, Corey Montane appeared in the open doorway and came on to the step to meet him. The first thing Nicklin noticed was that the impression of ordinariness he had projected from the stage was no longer present. It was his face that made the difference when Montane was seen at close range. The features were conventionally handsome and as clearly defined as those of a cartoon character. Nicklin, in spite of having no art training, felt he could have produced a recognisable lightning sketch of Montane. The regular features – ruler-straight nose and square chin, glossy dark hair coming to a widow's peak – would have taken just a few strokes of the charcoal. Only the eyes would have been difficult, impossible, even for a master portraitist. They were grey, deep-set and full of lively interest, but at the same time they seemed to be focused on some point very far beyond Nicklin. It was as if the mind behind them had weighed him up and found him to be of only transient interest. While Nicklin was there in the flesh that interest would be as complete and sympathetic as Montane could make it, but his true concern was with matters infinite and eternal.