Orbitsville

“What’s the matter, Vance?” Aileen emerged from a bedroom, dressed as always in taut colourful silks. Her plump, brown-ski

“I’ll explain later.” He put his arms around her and held her for a second. “Where’s Chris?”

“Here I am, Daddy!” The boy came ru

“Come on, son — we’re going to the field.” Garamond held Chris above his head and shook him, imitating a start-of-vacation gesture, then handed the child to his wife. It had been the second time within the hour that he had picked up a light, childish body. “The car’s waiting for us. You take Chris down to it and I’ll follow in a second.”

“You still haven’t told me what this is all about.”

“Later, later!” Garamond decided that if he were stopped before the shuttle got off the ground there might still be a faint chance for Aileen and the boy if she could truthfully swear she had no idea what had been going on. He pushed her out into the corridor, then strode back into the apartment’s general storage area which was hidden by a free-floating screen of varicoloured luminosity. It took him only a few seconds to open the box containing his old target pistol and to fill an ammunition clip.The long-barrelled, saw-handled pistol snagged the material of his uniform as he thrust it out of sight in his jacket. Acutely conscious of the weighty bulge under his left arm, he ran back through the living space. On an impulse he snatched an ornament — a solid gold snail with ruby eyes — from a shelf, and went out into the corridor. Aileen was holding the elevator door open with one hand and trying to control Chris with the other.

“Let’s go,” Garamond said cheerfully, above the deafening ratchets and escapement of the clock behind his eyes. He closed the elevator door and pressed the ‘DOWN’ button. At ground level Chris darted ahead through the long entrance hall and scrambled into the waiting vehicle. There were few people about, and none that Garamond could identify as neighbours, but he dared not risk ru

She shook her dark head impatiently. “Now will you tell me what’s happening?”

“You’re coming to see me off, that’s all.” Garamond glanced at Chris, who was kneeling at the rear window, apparently absorbed in the receding view. “Chris should enjoy it.”

“But you said it was important.”

“It was important for me to spend a little extra time with you and Chris.”

Aileen looked baffled. “What did you bring from the apartment?”

“Nothing.” Garamond moved his left shoulder slightly to conceal the bulge made by the pistol.

“But I can see it.” She leaned forward, caught his hand and opened his fingers, revealing the gold snail. It was a gift he had bought Aileen on their honeymoon and he realized belatedly that the reason he had snatched it was that the little ornament was the symbolical cornerstone of their home. Aileen’s eyes widened briefly and she turned her head away, making an abrupt withdrawal. Garamond closed his eyes, wondering what his wife’s intuition had told her, wondering how many minutes he had left

At that moment, a minor official on the domestic staff of Starflight House was moving uncertainly through the contrived Italian Renaissance atmosphere of the carved hill. His name was Carlos Pe

Pe

He hesitated, sca

Pe

They needed another thirty minutes, Garamond decided. If the discovery of Harald’s body did not take place within that time he and his family would be clear of the atmosphere on one of the S.E.A. shuttles, before the alarm could be broadcast. They would not be out of immediate danger but the ship lying in polar orbit, the Bissendorf, was his own private territory, a small enclave in which the laws of the Elizabethan universe did not hold full sway. Up there she could still destroy him, and eventually would, but it would be more difficult than on Earth where at a word she could mobilize ten thousand men against him.

“I need to go to the toilet,” Chris a

“You can wait till we reach the field.” Aileen pulled him down on to her knee and enclosed him with smooth brown arms.

A sense of unreality stole over Garamond as he watched his wife and son. Both were wearing lightweight indoor clothing and, of course, had no other belongings with them. It was incredible, unthinkable that — dressed as they were and so unprepared — they should be snatched from their natural ambience of sunlight and warm breezes, sheltering walls and quiet gardens, and that they should be projected into the deadliness of the space between the stars. The air in the car seemed to thin down abruptly, forcing Garamond to take deep breaths. He gazed at the diorama of buildings and foliage beyond the car windows, trying to think about his movements for the next vital half-hour, but his mind refused to work constructively. His thoughts lapsed into a fugue, a recycling of images and shocked sensory fragments. He watched for the hundredth time as the fatal millimetres of daylight opened between Harald’s silhouette and the uncomprehending metal of the statue. And the boy’s body had been so light. Almost as light as Chris. How could a package contain all the bone and blood and muscle and organs necessary to support life, and yet be so light? So insubstantial that a fall of three or four metres…

“Look, Dad!” Chris moved within the organic basketwork of his mother’s arms. “There’s the field. Can we go on to your shuttle?”