Orbitsville

“Thank you.” The action of returning the salute felt awkward to Garamond.

Kenny’s gaze strayed to the sloping, stiff-winged outlines of the two aircraft and his jaw sagged. “I’m told you managed to fly a couple of million kilometres in those makeshifts. That must have been fantastic.”

Garamond suppressed an illogical resentment. “You might call it that. The Westmorland? Isn’t that Hugo Schilling’s command?”

“Captain Schilling insisted on coming with us. He’s waiting for you aboard the transit boat now. I’ll have to photograph those airplanes, sir — they’re just too…”

“Not now, Lieutenant. My Chief Science Officer is very ill and he must be hospitalized at once. The rest of us aren’t in great shape, either.” Garamond tried to keep his voice firm even though a numbness had enveloped his body, creating a sensation that his head was floating in the air like a balloon.

Kenny, with a flexibility of response which further dismayed Garamond, was instantly solicitous. He began shouting orders and within a few minutes the eight members of the Bissendorf’s crew had been suited up for transfer to the waiting boat. Garamond’s mind was brimming with thoughts of Aileen and Chris as he negotiated the short spacewalk, with its swaying vistas of star rivers and its constrained breathing of rubber-smelling air. As soon as he had passed through the airlock he made his way to the forward compartment, which seemed impossibly roomy after his months in the aircraft’s narrow fuselage. Another spacesuited figure rose to greet him.

“It’s good to see you, Vance,” Hugo Schilling said. He was a blue-eyed, silver-haired man who had been in the Exploration Arm for twenty years and treated his job of wandering unknown space as if he was the pilot of a local ferry.

“Thanks, Hugo. It’s good to…” Garamond shook his head to show he had run out of words.

Schilling inspected him severely. “You don’t look well, Vance. Rough trip?”

“Rough trip.”

“Enough said, skipper. We’re keeping the suits on, but strap yourself in and relax — we’ll have you home in no time. Try to get some sleep.”

Garamond nodded gratefully. “Have you seen my wife and boy?”

“No. Unlike you, I’m just a working flickerwing man and I don’t get invited out to the Octagon.”

“The Octagon! What are they doing out there?”

“They’ve been staying with the President ever since you… ah… disappeared. They’re celebrities too, you know — even if there is some reflection of glory involved.”

“But…” A new centre of coldness began to form within Garamond’s body. “Tell me, Hugo, did the President send you out here to pick us up?”

“No. It was an automatic reaction on the part of Fleet Command. The President is out at North Ten — that’s one of the forward supply depots we’ve built.”

“Will she have heard my first message yet?”

“Probably,” Schilling pointed a gloved finger at Garamond. “Starting to sweat over some of those things you said about Starflight? Don’t worry about it — we all know you’ve been under a strain. You can say you got a bit carried away with the sense of occasion.”

Garamond took a deep breath. “Are there any airplanes or other rapid transport systems in use around Beachhead City?”

“Not yet. All the production has been concentrated on ground cars and housing.”

“How long will it take the President to get back to the Octagon?”

“It’s hard to say — the cars they produce aren’t built for speed. Eight hours, maybe.”

“How long till we get back?” “Well, I’m allowing five hours in view of Mister O’Hagan’s condition.”

“Speed it up, Hugo,” Garamond said. “I have to be back before the President, and she’s had a few hours’ start.”

Schilling glanced at the information panel on which changing colour configurations showed that the ship was sealed and almost ready for flight. “That would mean fairly high G-forces. For a sick man…”

“He won’t mind — go ask him.”

“I don’t see…”

“Supposing I said it was a matter of life or death?”

“I wouldn’t believe you, but…” Schilling winked reassuringly, opened an audio channel to the flight deck and instructed the pilot to make the return journey in the shortest possible time consistent with O’Hagan’s health. Garamond thanked him and tried to relax into the G-chair, wishing he had been able to take the other man into his confidence. Schilling was kindly and uncomplicated, with a high regard for authority. It would have been difficult, possibly disastrous, for Garamond to try telling him he believed Elizabeth Lindstrom was a psychopath who would enjoy murdering an innocent woman and child. Schilling might counter by asking why Elizabeth had not done it as soon as she had had the chance, and Garamond would not have been able to answer. It would not have been enough to say that he felt it in his bones. He closed his eyes as the acceleration forces clamped down, but his growing conviction of danger made it impossible for him to rest. Thirty minutes into the flight he got an idea.

“Do you think there’ll be a reception when we get back? A public one?”

“Bound to be,” Schilling said. “You keep hogging the news. Even while you were away a reporter called Mason, I think, ran a campaign to persuade somebody to go looking for your ship. The betting was fifty-to-one you were dead, though, so he didn’t have much success.”

Garamond had forgotten about the reporter from Earth. “You said my wife and boy are well known, too. I want them to meet me at the Beachhead City transit tube. Can you arrange that?”

“I don’t see why not — there’s a direct communications link to the Octagon from the President’s flagship.” Schilling spoke into the command microphone of his spacesuit, waited, spoke again, and then settled into a lengthy conversation. Only occasional whispers of sound came through his open faceplate, but Garamond could hear the exchange becoming heated. When it had finished Schilling sat perfectly still for a moment before turning to speak.

“Sorry, Vance.”

“What happened?”

“Apparently the President has sent instructions from North Ten that your family are to wait in the Octagon until you get there. She’s on her way there now, and they can’t contact her, so nobody would authorize transportation into the City for your wife. I don’t understand it.”

“I think I do,” Garamond replied quietly, his eyes fixed on the forward view plate and its image of a universe which was divided in two by the cosmic hugeness of Orbitsville, one half in light, the other in total darkness.

* * *

The effort of moving under multiple gravities was almost too much for Garamond, but he was standing in the cramped airlock — sealed up and breathing suit air — before the transit boat reached the docking clamps. He cracked the outer seal on the instant the green disembarkation light came on, went through the boat’s outer door and found himself in a lighted L-shaped tube. It was equipped with handrails and at the rounded corner, where the sphere’s gravitation came into effect, there was the beginning of a non-skid walkway.

Garamond pulled himself along the weightless section with his hands, forced his way through the invisible syrup of the lenticular field, achieved an upright position and strode into the arrival hall. He was immediately walled in by faces and bodies and, as soon as he had opened his helmet, battered by the sound of shouting and cheering. People surged around him, reaching for his hands, slapping his back, pulling hoses and connectors from his suit for souvenirs.

At the rear of the crowd were men with scene recorders and, as he scanned their faces, an uncontrollable impulse caused Garamond to raise his arm like a Twentieth Century astronaut returning from an orbital mission. He cursed the autonomous limb, appalled at its behaviour, and concentrated on finding the right face in the bewildering seething mass, aware of how much he had always depended on Cliff Napier in similar circumstances. There was a high proportion of men in the uniforms of top-ranking Starflight officials, any of whom could have arranged transport to the Octagon, but he had no way of knowing which were members of Elizabeth’s inner cadre and therefore hostile. After a blurred moment he saw a heavy-shouldered young man with prematurely greying hair working his way towards him and recognized Colbert Mason. He caught the outstretched hand between both of his gloves.