Radio communications had never been possible on the old Orbitsville, but Fleischer had been able to call up the Beachhead spaceport without any difficulty—and it was apparent that what she had said had caused a sensation, even on a world whose inhabitants should have been sated with wonders. It was just as Hepworth had predicted, Nicklin thought. Astronomical marvels were all very well for those who were interested in that kind of thing, but a hundred people magically returning from the dead was genuine, honest-to-God news.
He forgot about the overall picture as he picked out the green-clad figure of Zindee standing alone close to an orange-splashed bandanna shrub. Before Nicklin could move to prevent him, Cham veered away from his side—no doubt being tactful—leaving him to approach Zindee on his own. As he drew near she eyed him with a strangely intent speculation which, inexplicably, reminded him of his last meeting with Danea.
“Hello, Zindee,” he said awkwardly. “I hear you’re going home.”
“Yes.” Her eyes hunted over his face. “Back to Orangefield, for a while.”
“That’s good,” he said, unable to meet her gaze. “Ah… I have to go now, Zindee. Ropp needs me on the ship.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why does Mr Voorsanger need you on the ship?”
“Well, you see…” He strove to find a good, plausible reason for leaving. “The ship was never intended to sit on soft ground like this. When it’s in the horizontal attitude it’s supposed to sit on six special cradles below the major hard points. The way things are now the soft ground is pushing on the skin and distorting the sub-frames, and that could cause pressure leaks and all kinds of-”
He broke off, nonplussed, as Zindee gave a delighted laugh.
“That’s a load of male ox,” she accused. “You’re a liar, Jim Nicklin! That was one of your stories! You made it all up out of your head!”
“Well…” He looked into her eyes, judged his worth by what he saw there, and felt something which he could only describe as a return of joy. “Perhaps you’re right.”
Zindee stopped laughing. “What happened to you, Jim?”
“I…” He spread his hands, helplessly. “I lost my way, Zindee. That’s about all I can say.”
“It’s enough.” She came close, put her arms around his neck and kissed him. The pressure of her slim body against his was pleasantly asexual, and in her hair he detected the childhood smell of clean perspiration. He hugged her for a long moment, then stepped back, searched in a pocket and brought out the old coin which had once hung around her neck.
“Will you have this back?” he said.
“I was going to ask you for it.” As she was accepting the coin the propellers on one of the nearby Curlews began to turn. “It looks like they’ll be taking off soon, Jim—you’d better move quickly.”
“Move?”
“Yes, move! Danea’s plane will be going in a couple of minutes. Are you just going to stand there and let her fly off to Beachhead on her own?”
He followed the direction of her gaze and saw Danea in the knot of people waiting by the nearest aircraft. Beside her in the group was the uniformed figure of Per Bosshardt.
“She may not be on her own,” Nicklin said, wondering if he had caught Danea looking in his direction.
“Go over there and find out.” Zindee’s small chin had the determined set he remembered so well from her earliest days. “Jim Nicklin, if you don’t do something I’ll never speak to you again. Get yourself over there!”
“All right, all right.” He walked slowly across the intervening grass, blood pounding in his ears, and stopped when he was about ten paces away from the group, unable to think of what he might say. Danea eyed him from under her flat black sombrero, but did not move. Standing close to her, Bosshardt gave him an easy, slightly interrogative smile.
“Danea,” Nicklin said desperately, “I need to talk.”
He waited, not moving, knowing that everything was in the balance. If Danea invited him to go closer, so that he would have to talk within earshot of the others, there would be no real point in his doing it. In the shade of the sombrero her face was utterly beautiful, and as unreadable as ever. Several seconds dragged by, then she left the line and came towards him.
“What do you want to talk about?” she said, heavy-lidded eyes cool and only slightly inquisitive.
His mind went blank. “What are you going to do in Beachhead?” “For a while—nothing. I need a holiday.”
“We all need a holiday,” he said, trying to smile. “We’ve been through a lot.”
“Yes.”
“Well… Perhaps I’ll see you in Beachhead some ume.”
“Perhaps.” Danea glanced back towards the watchful group by the aircraft. “The plane is ready to go.”
“Yes.” Nicklin took a deep unsteady breath as he realised that no other moment in his life would have the same karma potential as this one. “Don’t go on the plane, Danea. Not today.”
Her eyes widened. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t give a damn about the money. I’m saying I’m sorry for all the things I said in the past and for the way I treated you. I’m saying I don’t want you to leave. I’m saying I love you, Danea.”
“That isn’t enough, Jim.” Her voice was low, tremulous.
“What else is there?”
“That morning in Orangefield… when I went out to your place…”
“Yes?”
“Do you believe… do you really believe that I loved you that day? If you have any doubts, Jim… if you have even the slightest lingering trace of a doubt… we’ll never be any good for each other.”
“I believe,” he replied fervently, blinking to clear his visiton. “I swear—”
“Don’t swear,” she murmured, placing one finger vertically against his lips. “You’ve said it—and that’s all I had to hear.”
She moved into his arms, and as they embraced he became aware that they were being watched by dozens of people on all sides.
“We’re making a spectacle of ourselves,” he whispered. “How about going for a walk?”
Later, as they lay together—surrounded by a blaze of bandanna shrubs—they talked about their plans for all the years that lay ahead.
“Even though Corey is dead, the work he started looks like going on and on,” Danea said dreamily. “I like the idea of founding a new kind of city here—with the Tara as a kind of centre piece—and there’ll be so much to do.”
“It would make a good memorial.” Nicklin cast his mind back over the previous three years. “I used to disagree with just about everything Corey said, but—and this is the weird bit—I see now that he was absolutely right. It was all in the choice of words. He used the vocabulary of religion, and I would have preferred the vocabulary of science, but he knew that Orbitsville was a trap…a dead end…”
“You’ve changed, Jim.” Danea raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him. “On the ship… when it happened… did you see God? Just like the rest of us?”