Travels in Nihilon Read Online Free PDF

later, an impressive, gold-lettered, fully signed, and exquisitely stamped visa, reeking of perfume, was sent to her free of charge. This she now took from her handbag, and passed, together with her passport, through the small window of the control post, while the stationmaster waited nearby with her luggage. A loudspeaker, halfway down the wall by which she stood, and level with her knees, demanded:
    â€˜Why are you coming into Nihilon?’
    â€˜To write a guidebook.’
    â€˜Do you have any money?’
    â€˜Two thousand travellers units.’
    â€˜How long do you expect to stay?’
    â€˜A month.’
    â€˜What about your accommodation?’
    â€˜I shall be staying at hotels.’
    â€˜Do you have any letters from your prospective employer?’
    â€˜I’m not going to work in Nihilon,’ she said, lighting a cigarette. ‘I’m only visiting the country.’
    â€˜Oh,’ the loudspeaker sneered. ‘Don’t you like our country? Does nihilism frighten you?’
    â€˜Not at all,’ she answered. ‘Perhaps I would even like to live here, but I can’t tell yet.’
    â€˜Well, you can’t anyway,’ the man’s voice said superciliously. ‘You’d never get permission. Only Nihilon citizens can live in this country. Unless you have a bank account in Nihilon.’
    â€˜I don’t,’ she snapped, tired of this interrogation.
    â€˜Then how much money do you have with you?’
    â€˜I’ve told you. Two thousand travellers units.’
    â€˜You’re lying!’ he cried. ‘Show them to me.’ She took the notes from her wallet, and a hand snatched them away. The stationmaster’s eyes grew large at the sight of such money. She could hear a rustle beyond the window as it was avidly counted. ‘We don’t have to let you in,’ the voice said smugly, pushing her money back with two notes short, which she was unaware of because she didn’t think to check it.
    His words alarmed her, for she had work to do on the guidebook. ‘I have a proper visa. And please hurry or I shall miss my train to Nihilon City.’
    The stationmaster shuffled his feet. ‘I have to go now, miss.’ But she knew that as long as the stationmaster stayed with her the train wouldn’t be able to leave.
    â€˜Your visa is no concern of ours,’ said the passport official. ‘None whatsoever.’
    â€˜Your consulate abroad gave it to me.’
    He gave a small dry laugh: ‘I’m afraid you were the victim of a hoax. However, if you do want to get into Nihilon I can sell you another visa here.’
    â€˜How much?’
    â€˜Three hundred klipps might help.’
    She stamped her foot: ‘That’s robbery.’
    â€˜Robbery does not exist in Nihiloh,’ a louder voice said from the speaker. ‘We are all well paid, happy, prosperous, patriotic, sober, and hardworking British – I mean Nihilonian – officials, while you are a foreign whore who has come to disturb the equanimity of our perfect lives. Four hundred klipps, or get back to those Cronacian bastards and see how they rob you.’
    She pushed two hundred across the counter, and her correctly stamped passport was returned to her, though with some grumbling. ‘Come on,’ she said to the station-master ‘or I’ll have to bribe them some more.’
    Just as they were entering the customs hall a strangled croak came from the passport booth behind, and a scarcely human voice was shouting and whining about her money being forged, which it was, though Jaquiline had no idea they were referring to her, being preoccupied at taking her place in a short queue at the customs desks.
    It looked like a fairly busy market, with travellers and uniformed officials handling goods they had shaken on to the tables, and shouting prices at each other. Now and again someone would hand over money, scoop his things into a