Travels in Nihilon Read Online Free

before departure.
    â€˜Going far?’ the red-faced, harassed, hysterical, youngish barman demanded curtly, snatching his plate away, though there was still a piece of his final sandwich left on it.
    â€˜Nihilon City.’
    â€˜By Zap?’
    â€˜What’s Zap?’
    â€˜A Zap sports car. You’re a foreigner by the sound of it.’
    â€˜I am,’ he admitted, half sad and half proud.
    â€˜Do you like nihilism?’
    â€˜I don’t know, yet.’
    â€˜Don’t let any of these Geriatrics hear you say that. They love nihilism. Ready to die for it. They’re going to, what’s more. Tear you limb from limb if they hear you so cool on it. I wouldn’t blame them either.’ He held out his hand: ‘You’d better pay for your lunch, and be off. Forty-two klipps, and I want it now.’
    Adam took a travellers unit from his wallet, worth a hundred klipps at the present rate of exchange. ‘I’ll be glad to go.’
    â€˜I can’t accept that,’ the barman said. ‘You should have changed it at the frontier. Or you can wait till you get to the next town, which should be the day after tomorrow if you haven’t got a Zap. Do you want to buy a Zap?’
    â€˜I’d like to pay for my lunch and leave.’
    â€˜Go on,’ he wheedled, ‘buy a Zap. Be a Nihilist.’
    â€˜Who do I buy it from?’
    â€˜One of the old folk. The Gerries. They’re off to the frontier – front, I mean. Most of ’em have Zaps, and I suppose they wouldn’t be averse to letting one go to a foreigner like yourself. Won’t cost much. I get a commission, you see, on all secondhand Zaps sold at the Paradise Bar. I’ve got a wife and four kids, so I need every klipp I can get.’
    Adam pushed his travellers unit across the counter. ‘I’d like to pay and go now.’
    â€˜I’ve told you, I can’t take it,’ snapped the barman.
    â€˜I’ll leave without paying, then.’
    The bartender laughed, hysterically. ‘Try it! Go on, try it!’
    And old man, frail and thin, wearing a suit, a red cravat, and a white flower at his lapel, strolled from a nearby table, a rifle hanging at his shoulder by a sling.
    â€˜Are you in trouble, young man?’ He appeared to be the most civilized person Adam had met since crossing the frontier, and possibly for a long time before that, with pale-blue eyes, ironic and sensitive lips and fine hands that had perhaps written books or painted pictures. His brow seemed marked with sound ideas, and crowned a face that must have made women happy to be near him and listen to any word he said. He looked about eighty years of age, and the softening effect of so much wisdom and experience seemed even to lurk in the faint waves of his thick grey hair.
    â€˜No trouble,’ said Adam, taking him for a friendly spirit, though he was somewhat puzzled by the rifle. The old man relinquished it, the butt rattling as it hit the floor close to Adam’s feet, and leaned it against the counter. ‘I simply want to pay for my lunch with this travellers unit, and go.’
    The old man ceased to smile. ‘To want something is not good nihilism. What you want, you never get. To do – that is the way to nihilism. I can tell you’re a stranger to our country. When you do something, you get something, but not until.’
    â€˜I’m only a tourist.’
    â€˜No man is a tourist,’ he said, his features taking on a harshness that Adam hadn’t read into them at first. The bartender leaned on the counter, entranced at every word from the old man, a fascination expressed mostly by an inane grin. ‘Life is the same wherever you are. It is hard in Nihilon, so why shouldn’t tourists have to fight in order to exist, the same as we do? Much of my life I’ve worked as a poet in order to contribute to Nihilon’s unique civilization. I’m an old poet now,