Travels in Nihilon (34 page)

She put her gracious blessing to his plan, and a sumptuous breakfast was spread under the trees. Benjamin ate quickly, giving orders between mouthfuls concerning the Charge of the Zap Brigade which was to carry everything before it, standing now and again to look through binoculars and see figures scurrying up and down the mass of scaffolding lapped around the lower part of the rocket. He had one hour from the start of his attack to reach the computer room and prevent blast-off at midday. Special squads of engineers were to lay explosives around the launching-pad and blow it – and themselves, most likely – to pieces while it was still on the ground.

He mentioned, as a sort of half joke to Mella, that one could be ingenious in military affairs when one had nothing else to think about, and she gave him such a smile that the loss of Jaquiline faded from his mind. ‘I admire you,' she said, ‘and I shall wear that admiration in my heart for quite some time.'

With a flicker of intoxicating fantasy – at such a time – Benjamin wondered whether he ought not to cultivate her high opinion of him, though as if he didn't care for it at all, so that he might one day be sitting on the throne of Nihilon with Queen Mella at his side. After a while, of course, Mella would disappear, and he would reign alone, a sad and ruthless monarch despoiling the kingdom at his leisure. And who could rule more absolutely than a king over a country that had recently given itself up to twenty-five years of nihilism?

Edgar ruefully saw that his glorious bravery, which had almost smashed his right arm to pieces in the attack on Orcam Bridge, had faded from Mella's eyes as she gazed adoringly (though by no means adored, he was glad to see) on Benjamin. She had turned her soft and womanly personality away from himself; whom she could treat as an infant, to Benjamin whom she could look on as a father. Benjamin left him little time to brood, however, and sent him through the trees with a message to Brigadier Kalamata, the officer commanding the two hundred Zaps.

From each car-roof of the Zap Brigade fluttered a blue and green pennant. The two regiments were set out in perfect alignment, their blood-red vehicles glistening in the sun as if still wet from being washed. In order to strike more fear in the defenders' hearts, every headlight was turned full on, four hundred white and incandescent orbs proclaiming that the forces of purity were out for the kill at last. Benjamin, Mella, and Richard stood together on a high platform erected under cover of the trees, giving perfect views of the plain in front.

A patrol was sent forward to test the defences, and Benjamin saw the soldiers go right up to the wall, then through it by some half-concealed but well-camouflaged entrances. There had been no firing, and not one member of the patrol came back, and though he was worried about this he didn't doubt that the Zap Brigade would triumph.

Observers from the highest branches reported more activity around the launching-pad and up the scaffolding of the rocket itself. Two people in space-suits were being forced into the vehicle, suggesting to Benjamin that the Nihilists had succeeded in getting new candidates for their universal wedding, which caused him to speculate on who the victims might be, for victims they would be when his dynamite squads got to work in an hour's time and they were trapped in their nuptial coffin.

He watched the minute-hand of his dashboard clock creeping towards attack-hour. Two hundred engines idled softly, a chorus of pistons in perfect tune pushing out thin clouds of obnoxious smoke, each car holding enough fuel to reach the walls, and get back again if need be. Who but the dashing, scheming, valiant, skilful Benjamin Smith could have used them in this way? And yet what more apt employment was there for these terror-motors of such impacted power, machines that up to now had been a menace to civilization, such as it was, and that were now harnessed into saving it? He laughed aloud at his own subtlety, and lit a cigar. He hoisted his revolver and, as the second-hand ticked to its final spot, pressed the trigger.

Chapter 35

President Nil, watching the array of power soon to be sent against him, realized that his reign was coming to an end. He stood behind an air-vent on one of the compound roofs, watching his men running in alarm along lanes and gangways on all sides below, preparing, so they had assured him, to fight to the death. But, win or lose, the end had come as far as he was concerned. Being a born Nihilist, a firm believer through and through, he had arranged for his own disappearance, and therefore his defeat. In other words, since it was inevitable, he had decided to accept it stoically and with good grace.

Having shown for a quarter of a century that nihilism worked, he was prepared to depart in such a way as to prove that nihilism would never die. There was no other way to do it, but he sweated under his top hat, and in a fit of irritation took it off and stamped on it so that he would never be able to put it on again. Not that one, at least. He was going elsewhere because he'd run out of ideas for the moment, not because he was tired of nihilism. His motoring psyche could tick over forever on the fuel of its self-induced nihilism.

His constant extolling of total freedom, of
compulsory
freedom, of nihilism in fact, had only been a more thorough way of enslaving the population. He saw that now. It had been far more efficient than any form of socialism. Nihilism is the ultimate state of raw and naked slavery, he mused. Nihilistic private enterprise works because it enslaves most of the population for the benefit of a small portion of it. Thus it was unfair. To be fair, all must be enslaved, and only socialism can do that. But at least all people would be equal under it, and thus being equal, could easily claim that they were not enslaved, and that socialism was therefore the highest form of existence as far as society was concerned.

But he was fatally tired, and wanted to rest, needed to get away from Nihilon with the fortune he had hoarded for just such a purpose. Already from Nihilon City airport four planeloads of gold and banknotes had been sent to Cronacia. He knew by radio code that two had arrived safely. One had been flown to some far-off country by the treacherous pilot. Another was mistakenly shot down by Cronacian Pug 107s. This was the least valuable cargo because it contained banknotes and not gold, and as the plane went down in flames, breaking into pieces a few hundred metres over the country, immense numbers of thousand-klipp notes fell like so much flaming confetti over the poverty-stricken villages, totally consumed to ash as soon as the grasping peasant fingers touched them.

All he had to do now was save his own skin in order to enjoy the fortune that was waiting for him, the fruits of his untiring devotion to nihilism – he might say. He looked across the plain at the lined-up sports cars and massed insurrectionary troops ready to charge over that death-space which he had set for them. Maybe a few would reach the wall, but not many. The trap was waiting, and it would give him the greatest pleasure to watch the attack of the idealists, and see how far their ideals got them under the rain of his high-precision smithereen artillery. But he could not wait to see the battle, just as he had been unable to witness so many of the set spectacular pieces of destruction he had brought about. It was enough to construct and organize them. He'd never even wanted to see films and photographs of the great dam disaster at Fludd, or read accounts of it.

During his rule he had turned the country into a fairground, and as a last gesture of private-enterprise nihilism he was going to hand it over to the forces of law and order, honesty and progress. He recalled that one of his first measures, after tugging the ropes of government into his hands, had been to decree that everyone should henceforth write with his or her left hand – a fundamental order designed to bring them into line with his régime from the heart outwards rather than from the wallet inwards. For the last few years the observance of this rule had been faltering, especially as young people had grown to man or womanhood and proved the unfortunate conjunction of being able to rebel against both the parents and the state at the same time, something he had not anticipated, and certainly as basic as his original law.

He laughed, and wiped the sweat off his brow. What greater contribution to nihilism and benign chaos could there be than to allow order and honesty to return? Rebellion had been splintering the fabric of his beautiful Nihiland for several years, and instead of trying to prevent it taking hold, as a more misguided ruler might have done, he had surreptitiously helped it to its last rotten fruition – an over-ripe tomato about to hit him in the back of the neck, if he didn't get out quickly.

Yet he couldn't bring himself to hurry, lingered a few minutes over the subtlety and success of his scheme to have five foreigners come to Nihilon and write a guidebook about the country. They had been the final poisonous agents who would, under the umbrella of idealism, wreck his nihilist paradise, and help to change his onerous existence. It gave him great satisfaction to play with people who thought they were making history.

One of the many proverbs of Nihilon said: The end is always quicker than the beginning. And so it was, seen now to be the truest of truths as the preparations across no-man's-land went on with tigerish speed, the insurrectionist forces mercilessly goaded in their psyches by his great rocket which they wouldn't be able to stop no matter how quickly they ran, or how desperately they fought.

The tunnel under Tungsten was wide enough to take his Mangler de luxe motorcar, and it led for ten kilometres to an opening in the forest. Nil had prepared a secret chalet where he could rest for a fortnight, before getting out of the country through the seaport of Shelp. During the last twenty-five years no one had been allowed to know what he looked like. In all the newspapers, day after day for the whole reign, a speech or announcement by President Nil, or a news item concerning him, would be accompanied by a photograph of some unsuspecting citizen of Nihilon. Over the nine thousand days, every one of many newspapers and magazines of the country had used at least one photograph every day, which means that while nearly a million photographs of Nihilon citizens had been used, not one of them had been of the real President Nil.

In this one way his reign had been democratic, because a million people from all walks of life, and on his hilarious days even from the zoo, had, by their likeness at least, ruled the country.

No actual photographs of President Nil had ever been taken. He had never shown himself to the people, and only to his more immediate advisers while wearing a mask. His wife and mistress had already been sent out of the country, so not even they could be set to identify him. He had so successfully remained a cypher that many people doubted his existence, which was why he hoped to be unrecognizable when he walked to the ship in Shelp harbour dressed like any tourist, complete with camera around his neck, and a special transmitter in his pocket by which he would be able to spark off the bombs he would have placed along the quayside.

President Nil was born of a father from Damascony (of the tribe of Gelt) and a mother from Cronacia, fifty-five years ago. His upbringing was strict and traditional, and his training as a lawyer was one of the best. Each of the thousand books described a thousand laws, and the silence of each one was deafening to his heart, and these millions laws turned into maggots eating up his soul. But he held the rotting dust at bay, in order to satisfy his parents who had struggled for his education. He became adept at hair-splitting, a monster of rationality with a memory that was profound, and his judgments were famous – if too complicated to carry out. By the age of twenty-eight he was a rich and respected judge, but in order to stop himself from going mad he took to the mountains on the frontier of Damascony where, in a few months of intellectual explosion, he reversed and then shattered all his previous precepts and wrote a short but stunning manual of nihilism. How he made contact with the maniac-dissidents of the country which was to become Nihilon, and came to power after two years of political acitivity and civil war, is too long and complex to relate here, but his meticulous training in law, coupled to the fires of his own hitherto half buried temperament, ideally suited him for the task he knew he had to carry out.

He put on his mask, went down by the ladder and back into the building. Walking along to his private suite he considered it inopportune to dwell too long on his past. In any case he always thought it extremely tedious to delve into his humble origins and early struggles, and his quick rise to power in Nihilon. It didn't make him feel proud, or inspire him to nobler and higher things. When he wasn't engrossed in the present he was thinking about the future, and so the past had no flavour for him. The past was of no value to a Nihilist. The past was out of date, an anachronism, an anchor on the true heart's blood of pure chaos.

He changed his clothes, picked up a camera, revolver, and briefcase full of money, and left his Tungsten rooms forever, hoping, as he stepped into the elevator that would take him to the tunnel, that the technical staff would keep its promise and get the rocket up into the sky before the attack started.

As the dull sound of gunfire rumbled above he got into his Mangler and turned the headlights on, then set off slowly along the tunnel. He took off his mask, and mulled nostalgically on his past as he lightly gripped the wheel. These recollections were the only real sign that his days of power were over.

Chapter 36

The first regiment of a hundred sports cars moved slowly forward in a perfect line so as to present a terrifying spectacle to those Nihilists who would no doubt rush to defend the walls when they came close enough. Each Zap was separated from the next by ten metres, so that the advance was on a front of nearly a kilometre. At the same time a more conventional attack by three thousand men was launched against the northern wall, a mere diversion, however, to the great set-piece. He was annoyed by Mella anxiously gripping his hand as the cars departed, and by her continual sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with a small flowered handkerchief.