Orbitsville

nineteen

“This is North Ten, the most advanced of our forward distribution centres,” Elizabeth Lindstrom said, with a warm note of pride in her voice. “You can see at once the amount of effort and organization that has been put into it.”

Charles Devereaux walked across to the parapet of the roof of the administration building and looked out across the plain. Four hundred kilometres to the south lay Beachhead City, and the arrow-straight highway to it was alive with the small wheeled transports of settlers. Here and there on the road, before it faded into the shimmering distance, could be seen the larger shapes of bulk carriers bringing supplies. The highway ended at North Ten, from which point a series of dirt tracks fanned out into the encircling sweep of prairie. For the first few kilometres the tracks made their way through an industrial area where reaping machines gathered the grass which was used as a source of cellulose to produce plastics for building purposes. Immediately beyond the acetate factories the homesteads began, with widely spaced buildings sparkling whitely in the sun.

“I’m impressed with everything Starflight has done here, My Lady,” Devereaux said, choosing his words with professional care. “Please understand that when I put questions to you I do so solely in my capacity as a representative of the Two Worlds Government.”

Do you think I would waste time answering them otherwise? Elizabeth suppressed the thought and bent her mind to the unfamiliar task of self-control. “I do understand,” she assured the dapper grey man, smiling. “It’s your duty to make sure that all that can possibly be done to open up Lindstromland is in fact being done.”

“That’s precisely it, My Lady. You see, the people on Earth and Terranova have heard about the fantastic size of Lindstromland and they can’t understand why it is that, if there is unlimited living space available, the Government doesn’t simply set up a programme of shipbuilding on a global scale and bring them here.” “A perfectly understandable point of view, but…” Elizabeth spread her hands to the horizons, fingers flashing with jewel-fire, “…this land I have given to humanity makes its own rules and we have no option but to abide by them. Lindstromland is unthinkably large, but by providing only one entrance — and placing restrictions on interior travel and communications — its builders have effectively made it small. My own belief is that they decided to enforce a selection procedure, or its equivalent. As long as Lindstromland can accept immigrants only in regulated quantities the quality of the stock which arrives will be higher.”

“Do you think the concept of stock and breeding would have been familiar to them?”

“Perhaps not.” Elizabeth realized she had used an unfortunate trigger-word, one to which the upstart of a civil servant reacted unfavourably. It struck her that things had already gone too far when she, President of Starflight, was being forced to placate an obscure official in the weakest government in human history. The circumstances surrounding the discovery of Lindstromland, she was beginning to appreciate, had been ill omens.

Devereaux apparently was not satisfied. “It would be a tragedy if Earth were to export attitudes such as nationalism and…”

“What I’m saying,” Elizabeth cut in, “is that it would be an even bigger tragedy if we were to empty every slum and gutter on Earth into this green land.”

“Why?” Devereaux met her eyes squarely and she made the discovery that his greyness had a steely quality. “Because the transportation task would be too great to be handled by a private concern?”

Elizabeth felt her mouth go dry as she fought to restrain herself. Nobody had ever been allowed to speak to her in this manner before, with the possible exception of Captain Garamond — and he had paid. It was infuriating how these small men, nonentities, tended to lapse into insolence the moment they felt secure.

“Of course not,” she said, marvelling at the calmness of her voice. “There are many sound reasons for regulating population flow. Look at the squalid difficulties there were when the first settlers here encountered those creatures they call Clowns.”

“Yes, but those difficulties could have been avoided. In fact, we think they may have been engineered.”

For one heady moment Elizabeth considered burning Devereaux in two where he stood, even if it led to a major incident, even if it meant turning Lindstromland into a fortress. Then it came to her that Devereaux — in abandoning all the rules of normal diplomacy — was laying his cards on the table. She regarded him closely for a moment, trying to decide if he was offering himself for sale. The approach, in greatly modified form, was a familiar one among government employees — show yourself to be dangerous and therefore valuable in proportion. She smiled and moved closer to Devereaux, deliberately stepping inside his proximity rejection zone, a psychological manoeuvre she had learned at an early age. His face stiffened momentarily, as she had known it would, and she was about to touch him when Secretary Robard appeared on the edge of the stair-well. He was carrying a headset and feeding wire out of a reel as he walked.

Elizabeth frowned at him. “What is this, Robard?”

“Priority One, My Lady. Your flagship is picking up a radio message which you must hear.”

“Wait there.” She moved away from Devereaux. The brusqueness of her man’s voice, so out of keeping with his normal manner, told her something important had happened. She silently cursed the obtuse physics of Lindstromland which had denied her easy radio contact with the outside universe. A voice was already speaking when she put on the headset. It was unemotional, with an inhuman steadiness, and the recognition of it drained the strength from her legs. Elizabeth Lindstrom sank to her knees, and listened.

“…using the resources of the Bissendorf’s workshops we built a number of aircraft with which it was planned to fly back to Beachhead City. The ships proved inadequate for the distance involved, but they got eight of us to the point from which I am making this broadcast, the point where we have discovered a second entrance to the sphere.

“The entrance was not discovered during the equatorial survey because it is sealed with a metal diaphragm. The metal employed has nothing in common with the material of the Orbitsville shell. I believe it is the product of a civilization no further advanced than our own. This belief is strengthened by the fact that we had no difficulty in cutting a hole in it to let us extend a radio antenna.”

There was a crackling pause, then the voice emerged strongly in its relentless measured tones. “The fact that we were able to find a second entrance so quickly, with such limited resources, can only mean that there must be many others. Many hundreds. Many thousands. It is logical to assume that all the others have been similarly blocked, and it is equally logical to assume that it was not done by the builders of the sphere.

“This raises questions about the identity and motivation of those who sealed the entrances. The evidence suggests that the work was carried out by a race of beings who found Orbitsville long before we did. We may never know what these beings looked like, but we can tell that they shared some of the faults of our own race. They, or some of them, decided to monopolize Orbitsville, to control it, to exploit it; and the method they chose was to limit access to the interior of the sphere.

“The evidence also shows that they succeeded — and that, eventually, they failed.

“Perhaps they were destroyed in the battle we know to have taken place at the Beachhead City entrance. Perhaps in the end they lost out to Orbitsville itself. By being absorbed and changed, just as we are going to be absorbed and changed. The lesson for us now is that the entire Starflight organization — with its vested interest in curbing humanity’s natural expansion — must be set aside. All of Orbitsville is open to us. It is available as I speak…”

Elizabeth removed the headset, cutting herself off from the dreadful didactic voice. She put her hands on the smooth surface of the roof and sank down until she was lying prone, her open mouth pressed against the foot-printed plastic.

Vance Garamond, she thought, her mind sinking through successive levels of cryogenic coldness. I have to love you… because you are the only one ever to have given me real pain, ever to hurt me, and hurt me. She moved her hips from side to side, grinding against the roof with her pubis. Now that all else is ending… it is my turn… to make love… to you…

“My Lady, are you ill?” The voice reached her across bleak infinities. Elizabeth raised her head and, with effort, identified the grey anxious face of Charles Devereaux. She got to her feet.

“How dare you!” she said coldly. “What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing. I…”

“Why did you let this… object enter my quarters?” Elizabeth turned and stared accusingly at Robard who had quietly retrieved the headset and was reeling in the attached wire. “Get him out of here!” “I’m going — I’ve seen enough.” Devereaux hurried towards the stairwell. Elizabeth watched him go, twisting a ruby ring on her finger as she did so. It turned easily on bearings of perspiration.

Robard bowed nervously. “If you will excuse me…”

“Not yet,” Elizabeth snapped. “Get me Doctor Killops on that thing.”

“Yes, My Lady,” Robard murmured into the instrument, listened for a moment, and then handed it to her. He began to withdraw but she pointed at a spot nearby, silently ordering him to stay.

Elizabeth raised the communicator to her lips. “Tell me, Doctor Killops, has Mrs Garamond had her sedative today yet? No? Then don’t give it to her. Captain Garamond is returning, alive, and we want his wife to be fully conscious and alert for the reunion.” She threw the instrument down and Robard stooped to pick it up.

“Never mind that,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Get my car ready to leave in five minutes. I have urgent business in Beachhead City.”

The shock of hearing by radio that his wife and son were still alive had stormed through Garamond’s system like a nuclear fireball. In its wake had come relief, joy, gratitude, bafflement, renewal of optimism — and finally, as a consequence of emotional overload, an intense physical reaction. There was a period of several hours during which he experienced cold sweats, irregular heartbeat and dizziness; and the symptoms were at their height when the little transit boat from fleet headquarters arrived underfoot.

As had happened once before, he felt disoriented and afraid on seeing a spacesuited figure clamber upwards through a black hole in the ground. The figure was followed by others who were carrying empty spacesuits, and — even when the faceplates had been removed and the two parties were mingling — they still looked strange to him. At some time in the preceding months he had come to accept the thin-shouldered shabbiness of his own crew as the norm, and now the members of the rescue party seemed too sleek and shiny, too alien.

“Captain Garamond?” A youthful Starflight officer approached him and saluted, beardless face glowing with pleasure and health. “I’m Lieutenant Kenny of the Westmorland. This is a great honour for me, sir.”

“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.

“Captain Garamond,” Mason shouted above tie background noise, “I can’t tell you how much…”

Garamond shook his head. “We’ll talk later. Have you a car?”

“It’s outside.”

“I’ve got to get out of here right now.”

Mason hesitated. “There’s official Starflight transportation laid on.”

“Remember the first day we met, Colbert? You needed wheels in a hurry and I…”

“Come on.” Mason lowered his head and went through the crowd like an ice-breaking ship with Garamond, hampered by the bulk of the suit, struggling in his wake. In a matter of seconds they had reached a white vehicle which had ‘TWO WORLDS NEWS AGENCY’ blazoned on its side in orange letters. The two men got in, watched by the retinue which had followed them from the hall, and Mason got the vehicle moving.

“Where to?” he said.

“The Octagon — as fast as this thing will go.”

“Okay, but I’m not welcome out there. The guards won’t let this car in.”

“I’m not welcome either, but we’re going in just the same.” Garamond began working on the zips of the spacesuit. That was a good line to hand the Press, he thought as the yammerings of panic began to build up. That was an authentic general-purpose man of action speaking. Why do I do these things? Why don’t I let him know I’m scared shitless? It might make things easier…

Mason hunched over the wheel as he sped them through the industrial environs of the city. “This is the part you flattened, but they rebuilt it just as ugly as ever.”

“They would.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Garamond hesitated. “Sorry, Colbert — not yet.”

“I just wondered.”

“Either way, you’re going to get another big story.”

“Hell, I know that much already. I just wondered… as a friend.”

“I appreciate the friendship, but I can’t talk till I’m sure.”

“It’s all right,” Mason said. “We’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

For the rest of the short drive Garamond concentrated on removing the spacesuit. In the confines of the car it was an exhausting, frustrating task which he welcomed because it enabled his mind to hold back the tides of fear. By the time he had finally worked himself free the octagonal building which housed the Starflight Centre was looming on a hilltop straight ahead, and he could see the perimeter fence with its strolling guards. As the car gained height, and greater stretches of the surrounding grasslands came into view, Garamond saw that there was also a northern approach road to the Octagon. Another vehicle, still several kilometres away, was speeding down it, trailing a plume of saffron dust. It was too far away for him to distinguish the black-and-silver Starflight livery, but on the instant a steel band seemed to damp around his chest, denying him air. He stared wordlessly at the massive gate of the west entrance which was beginning to fill the car’s windshield. The car slowed down as guards emerged from their kiosk.

“Go straight through it,” Garamond urged. “Don’t slow down.”

“It’s no use,” Mason said. “It would take a tank to batter down that gate — we’d both be killed. We’ll just have to talk our way in.”

“Talk?” Garamond looked north and saw that the other vehicle seemed to be approaching with the speed of an aircraft. “There’s no time for talking.”

He leaped from the car as soon as it had slid to a halt and ran to the kiosk at the side of the gate. A sunvisored guard emerged, carrying a rifle, and stared warily at Garamond’s stained travesty of a Starflight uniform.

“State your business,” he said, at the same time making a signal to the other two guards who were seated inside.

“I’m Captain Garamond of the Stellar Exploration Arm. Open the gate immediately.”

“I don’t know if I can do that, Captain.”

“You’ve heard of me, haven’t you? You know who I am?” “I know who you are, Captain, but that doesn’t mean I should let you in. Have you an authorization?”

“Authorization?” Garamond considered putting on a display of righteous indignation, but decided it would not work coming from a man who looked like a hobo. He smiled and pointed at the dust-devil which was now within a kilometre of the northern gate. “There’s my authorization. President Lindstrom is in that car, coming here specially to meet me.”

“How do I know that’s true?”

“You’ll know when she finds out you wouldn’t let me through. I think I’ll go back to my car and watch what happens.” Garamond turned away.

“Just a minute.” The guard gave Garamond a perplexed look. “You can come in, but that other guy stays where he is.”

Garamond shrugged and walked straight at the gate. It rolled out of his way just in time, then he was inside the perimeter and heading for the Octagon’s west entrance door, not more than a hundred paces away. A second before it was lost to view behind the flank of the building, he glimpsed the other car arriving at the north gate. It was black and silver, and he was able to see a pale feminine figure in the shaded interior. The certainty of being too late made his heart lapse into an unsteady, lumping rhythm. He was breaking into a run, regardless of what the watchful patrolmen might think, when his attention was caught by a flicker of movement as a window opened in the transparent wall of the uppermost floor. Again he picked out a womanly figure, but this time it was that of his wife. And she was looking down at him.

He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. “Aileen! Can you hear me?”

“Vance!” Her voice was faint and tremulous, almost lost in the updraft at the sheer wall.

“Pick up Christopher and bring him down to this door as fast as you can.” He indicated the nearby entrance. “Did you get that?”

“Yes — I’m coming down.”

Aileen vanished from the window. Garamond went to the door, held it open and saw a short deserted corridor with four openings on each side. He debated trying to find stairs or elevator shaft, then decided that if he tried to meet Aileen part way he might miss her. Elizabeth was bound to be in the building by this time and on her way up to the private suite. Aileen and Christopher should be on their way down — but supposing there was only one central stairwell and they met Elizabeth head on? Garamond entered a chill dimension of time in which entire galaxies were created and destroyed between each thunderous beat of his heart. He tried to think constructively, but all that was left to him was the ability to be afraid, to feel pain and terror and…

One of the corridor doors burst open. He caught a flash of brown skin and multi-coloured silks, then Aileen was in his arms. We’ve made it, Garamond exulted. We’re all going to live.

“Is it really you?” Aileen’s face was cool and tear-wet against his own. “Is it really you, Vance?”

“Of course, darling. There’s no time to talk now. We’ve got to get…” Garamond’s voice was stilled as he made the discovery. “Where’s Christopher?”

Aileen looked at him blankly. “He’s upstairs in his bed. He was asleep…”

“But I told you to bring him!” “Did you? I can’t think…” Aileen’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone up there to get Chris. I told you to…” Voices sounded behind him and Garamond’s hunting eyes saw that two guards had followed him almost to the entrance. They had stopped and were looking upwards at the building. Holding Aileen by the wrist, Garamond ran to them and turned. High up within the transparent wall, where Aileen had been a minute earlier, Elizabeth Lindstrom was standing, pearly abdomen pressed against the clear plastic. She stared downwards, screened by reflected clouds, and raised one arm in languorous triumph.

Garamond rounded on the nearest guard and, with a single convulsive movement, snatched the rifle from his shoulder and sent him sprawling. He thumbed the safety catch off, selected maximum power and raised the weapon, just in time to see Elizabeth step backwards away from the wall, into shelter. Garamond’s eyes triangulated on his wife’s ashen face.

“Is Christopher’s room on this side of the building?”

“Yes. I…”

“Where is it? Show me the exact place?”

Aileen pointed at a wall section two to the left of where Elizabeth had been standing. The fallen guard got to his feet and came forward with outstretched hands, while his companion stood by uncertainly. Garamond pointed at the power setting on the rifle, showing it to be at the lethal maximum. The guard backed off shaking his head. Garamond raised the weapon again, aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger. The needle-fine laser ray pierced the transparent plastic and, as he swung the rifle, took out an irregular smoking area which tumbled flashing to the ground. A second later, as Garamond had prayed it would, a small pyjama-clad figure appeared at the opening. Christopher Garamond rubbed his eyes, peering sleepily into space. Garamond dropped the rifle and ran forward, waving his arms.

“Jump, Christopher, jump!” The sound of his hoarse, frightened voice almost obliterated the thought: He won’t do it; nobody would do it. “Come on, son — I’ll catch you.”

Christopher drew back his shoulders. A pale shape appeared behind him, grasping. Christopher jumped cleanly through the opening, into sunlit air.

As had happened once before, on a quiet terrace on Earth, Garamond saw the childish figure falling and turning, falling and turning, faster and faster. As had happened once before, he found himself running in a slow-motion nightmare, wading, struggling through molasses-thick tides of air. He sobbed his despair as he lunged forward.

Something solid and incredibly weighty hit him on the upper chest, tried to smash his arms from their sockets. He went down into dusty grass rolling with the priceless burden locked against his body. From a corner of his eye he saw a flash of laser fire stab downwards and expire harmlessly. Garamond stood up, treasuring the feel of the boy’s arms locked around his neck.

“All right, son?” he whispered. “All right?”

Christopher nodded and pressed his face into Garamond’s shoulder, clinging like a baby. Garamond estimated he was beyond the effective range of Elizabeth’s ring weapons and ran towards the gate without looking back at the Lindstrom Centre. Aileen, who had been standing with her hands over her mouth, ran with him until they had reached the perimeter. The guards, frozen within their kiosk, watched them with uncomprehending eyes. Colbert Mason was standing beside his car holding up a scene recorder. He glanced at a dial on the side of the machine. “That took two minutes all but fifteen seconds,” he said admiringly, then kissed the recorder ecstatically. “And it was all good stuff.”

“The best is yet to come,” Garamond assured him, as they crowded into the car.

Garamond, made sensitive to the nature of the benevolent trap, never again went far into the interior of Orbitsville.

Not even when Elizabeth Lindstrom had been deposed and removed from all contact with society; not even when the Starflight enterprise had made way for communal transport schemes as natural and all-embracing as the yearly migration of birds to warmer climes; not even when geodesic networks of commerce were stretched across the outer surface of Orbitsville.

He chose to live with his family on the edges of space, from which viewpoint he could best observe, and also forget, that time was drawing to a close for the rest of humanity.

Time is a measurement of change, evolution is a product of competition — concepts which were without meaning or relevance in the context of the Big O, Absolved of the need to fight or flee, to feel hunger or fear, to build or destroy, to hope or to dream, humanity had to cease being human - even though metamorphosis could not take place within a single season.

During Garamond’s lifetime there was a last flare-up of that special kind of organized activity which, had Man not been drawn like a wasp into the honeypot, might have enabled his descendants to straddle the universe. There was a magical period when, centred on a thousand star-pools, a thousand new nations were born. All of them felt free to develop and flower in their own separate ways, but all were destined to become as one under the influence of Orbitsville’s changeless savannahs.

In time even the flickerwing ships ceased to ply the trade lanes between the entrance portals, because there can be no reward for the traveller when departure point cannot be distinguished from destination.

The quietness of the last long Sunday fell over an entire region of space.

Orbitsville had achieved its purpose.