Non-Stop (13 page)

By now, Roy Complain had begun to believe in the Ship theory. The reorientation had been insensible but thorough. To this, the intelligent rats had greatly contributed. When Complain had told his companions of his capture by the Giants, he had omitted the rat incident; something fantastic about it, he knew instinctively, would have defied his powers of description and awoken Marapper’s and Wantage’s derision; but he now found his thoughts turning frequently to those fearsome creatures. He saw a parallel between the lives of the rats and the human lives emphasized in their man-like
conduct of ill-treating a fellow creature, the rabbit. The rats survived where they could, giving no thought to the nature of their surroundings; Complain could only say the same of himself until now.

Marapper had listened to the tale of the Giants intently, commenting little. Once he said, ‘Then do they know where the Captain is?’

He was particularly pressing for full details of what the Giants had said to each other. He repeated the names ‘Curtis’ and ‘Randall’ several times, as if muttering a spell.

‘Who was this little dog they went to speak to?’ he asked.

‘I think it was a name,’ Complain said. ‘Not a real little dog.’

‘A name of
what
?’

‘I don’t know. I tell you I was half-conscious.’ Indeed the more he thought, the less clear he was as to what exactly had been said. Even at the time, the episode had been sufficiently outside his normal experience to render it half incredible to him.

‘Was it another Giant’s name, do you think, or a thing’s name?’ the priest pressed, tugging at the lobe of his ear, as if to extract the facts that way.

‘I don’t
Know
, Marapper. I can’t remember. They just said they were going to talk to “little dog” – I think.’

At Marapper’s insistence, the party of four inspected the hall marked ‘Swimming Pool’, where the sea had been. It had completely dried up now. There was no sign of Roffery, which was baffling, considering that one of the Giants had said that the valuer would recover from the gas pellet as Complain had done. They searched and called, but Roffery did not appear.

‘His moustache will be hanging over a mutant’s bunk by now,’ Wantage said. ‘Let’s get a move on!’

They could find no hatch which might have led to the Giants’ room. The steel lid covering the inspection pit where Complain and Roffery had first seen the two Giants was as secure as if it had never opened. The priest shot Complain a
sceptical glance, and there the matter was left. Taking Wantage’s advice, they moved on.

The whole incident lowered Complain’s stock considerably. Wantage, quick to seize advantage, became undisputed second-in-command. He followed Marapper, and Fermour and Complain followed him. At least it made for peace in the ranks, and outward accord.

If, during the periods of intent silence when they pushed along the everlasting rings of deck, Complain changed into someone more thoughtful and self-sufficient, the priest’s nature also changed. His volubility had gone, and the vitality from which it sprang. At last he realized the true magnitude of the task he had set himself, and was forced to put his whole will to enduring.

‘Been trouble here – old trouble,’ he said at one place in their trek, leaning against the wall and looking ahead into the middle level of Deck 29. The others paused with him. The tangles stretched for only a few yards in front of them, then began the darkness in which they could not grow. The cause of the light failure was obvious: ancient weapons, such as Quarters did not possess, had blasted holes in the roof and walls of the corridor. A heavy cabinet of some kind protruded through the roof, and the nearby doors had been buckled out of their sockets. For yards round, everywhere was curiously pock-marked and pitted from the force of the explosion.

‘At least we’ll be free of the cursed tangle for a space,’ Wantage remarked, drawing his torch. ‘Come on, Marapper.’

The priest continued to lean where he was, pulling at his nose between first finger and thumb.

‘We must be getting close to Forwards’ territory,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid our torches may give us away.’

‘You walk in the dark if you feel like it,’ Wantage retorted. He moved forward, Fermour did the same. Without a word, pushing past Marapper, Complain followed suit. Grumbling, the priest tagged on; nobody suffered indignity with more dignity than he.

Getting near the edge of shadow, Wantage flicked his torch on, probing it ahead. Then the strangeness began to take them. The first thing that Complain, whose eyes were trained to notice such things, observed which went against natural law was the lie of the ponics. As always, they tailed off and grew stunted towards the lightless passage, but here they were peculiarly whispy, their stalks looking flaccid, as if unable to support their weight, and they ventured further from the overhead glow than usual.

Then his footsteps failed to bite on ground.

Already, Wantage was floundering ahead of him. Fermour had gone into an odd high-stepping walk. Complain felt strangely helpless; the intricate gears of his body had been thrown out of kilter – it was as if he was trying to march through water, yet he had an unaccountable sensation of lightness. His head swam. Blood roared in his ears. He heard Marapper exclaim in astonishment, and then the priest blundered into his back. Next moment, Complain was sailing on a long trajectory past Fermour’s right shoulder. He doubled up as he went, striking the wall with his hip. The ground rose slowly to meet him and, spreading both arms, he landed on his chest and went sprawling. When he looked dizzily into the darkness, he saw Wantage, still gripping his torch, descending even more slowly.

On the other side of him, Marapper was floundering like a hippopotamus, his eyes bulging, his mouth speechlessly opening and shutting. Taking the priest’s arm, Fermour spun him expertly round and pushed him back into the safe area. Then Fermour bunched his stocky form and dived out into the dark for Wantage, who was blaspheming quietly near the floor; glissading off the wall, Fermour seized him, braked himself with an out-thrust heel, and floated softly back on the rebound. He steadied Wantage, who staggered like a drunken man.

Thrilled by this display, Complain saw at once that here was an ideal way of travel. Whatever had happened in the
corridor – he dimly supposed that the air had changed in some way, although it was still breatheable – they could proceed quickly along it in a series of leaps. Getting cautiously to his feet and snapping on his torch, he took a tentative jump forward.

His cry of surprise echoed loudly down the empty corridor. Only by putting up his hand did Complain save himself a knock on the head. The gesture sent him into a spin, so that he eventually landed on his back. He was dizzy: everything had been the wrong way up. Nevertheless, he was ten yards down the corridor. The others, fixed in a drum of light with a green backcloth, looked distant. Complain recalled the rambling memories of Ozbert Bergass; what had he said, in the truth Complain had mistaken for delirium? ‘The place where hands turn into feet and you fly through the air like an insect.’ Then the old guide had roved this far! Complain marvelled to think of the miles of festering tunnel that lay between them and Quarters.

He rose too hastily, sending himself spinning again. Unexpectedly, he vomited. It floated forward in the air, forming up into globelets, splashing round him as he made a clumsy retreat back to the others.

‘The ship’s gone crazy!’ Marapper was saying.

‘Why doesn’t it show this on your map?’ Wantage asked angrily. ‘I never did trust that thing.’

‘Obviously the weightlessness occurred
after
the map was made. Use your damned brains if you’ve got any,’ Fermour snapped. This unusual outburst was perhaps explained by the anxiety in his next remark. ‘I should think we’ve made enough racket to bring all Forwards on our trail; we’d better get back from here quickly.’

‘Back!’ Complain exclaimed. ‘We can’t go back! The way to the next deck lies up there. We’ll have to get through one of these broken doors and work our way through the rooms, keeping parallel to the corridor.’

‘How in the hull do we do that?’ Wantage asked. ‘Have you got something that bores through walls?’

‘We can only try, and hope there will be connecting doors,’ Complain said. ‘Bob Fermour’s right – it’s madness to stay here. Come on!’

‘Yes, but look here – ‘Marapper began.

‘Oh, take a Journey!’ Complain said angrily. He burst open the buckled nearest door and pushed his way in; Fermour followed close behind. With a glance at each other, Marapper and Wantage came too.

They were fortunate in that they had chosen a large room. The lights still functioned, and the place was stacked with growth; Complain chopped at it savagely, keeping near the wall next to the corridor. Again the lightness enveloped them as they advanced, but the effect was less serious here, and the ponics afforded them some stability.

They came level with a rent in the wall. Wantage peered past the ragged metal into the corridor. In the distance, a circular light winked out.

‘Someone’s following us,’ he said. They looked uneasily into each other’s faces, and with one accord pressed onward again.

A metal counter on which ponics now sprouted in profusion blocked their way. They were forced to skirt it, going towards the centre of the room to do so. This – in the days of the Giants – had been some kind of mess hall; long tables flanked with tubular steel chairs had covered the length and breadth of it. Now, with slow, vegetable force, ponics had borne up the furniture, entangling themselves in it, hoisting it waist high, where it formed a barrier to progress. The further they went, the more they were impeded. It proved impossible to get back to the wall.

As if in a nightmare, they cut their way past chairs and tables, half-blinded by midges which rose like dust from the foliage and settled on their faces. The thicket grew worse. Whole clumps of ponic had collapsed under this self-imposed
strain and were rotting in slimy clumps, on top of which more plants grew. A blight had settled in, a blue blight sticky to the touch, which soon made the party’s knives difficult to handle.

Sweating and gasping, Complain glanced at Wantage, who laboured beside him. The good side of the man’s face was so swollen that his eye hardly showed. His nose ran, and he was muttering to himself. Catching Complain’s eyes upon him, he began to curse monotonously.

Complain said nothing. He was too hot and worried.

They moved through a stippled wall of disease. The going was slow, but finally they broke through to the end of the room. Which end? They had lost all sense of direction. Marapper promptly sat down with his back to the smooth wall, settling heavily among the ponic seeds. He swabbed his brow exhaustedly.

‘I’ve gone far enough,’ he gasped.

‘Well, you can’t go any further,’ Complain snapped.

‘Don’t forget I didn’t suggest all this, Roy.’

Complain drew a deep breath. The air was foul; he had the nasty illusion that his lungs were coated with midges.

‘We’ve only got to work our way along the wall till we come to a door. It’s easier going here,’ he said. Then, despite his determination, he sank down beside the priest.

Wantage began to sneeze.

Each onslaught bent him double. The ruined side of his face was as swollen as the good one; his present distress completely hid his deformity. On his seventh sneeze, all the lights went out.

Instantly, Complain was on his feet, flashing his torch into Wantage’s face.

‘Stop that sneezing!’ he growled. ‘We must keep quiet.’

‘Turn your torch off!’ Fermour snapped.

They stood in indecisive silence, their hearts choking them. Standing in that heat was like standing in a jelly.

‘It could be just a coincidence,’ Marapper said uneasily. ‘I can remember sections of lights failing before.’

‘It’s Forwards – they’re after us!’ Complain whispered.

‘All we’ve got to do is work our way quietly along the wall to the nearest door,’ Fermour said, repeating Complain’s earlier words almost verbatim.

‘Quietly?’ Complain sneered. ‘They’d hear us at once. Best to stand still. Keep your dazers ready – they’re probably trying to creep up on us.’

So they stood there, sweating. Night was a hot breath about them, sampled inside a whale’s belly.

‘Give us the Litany, Priest,’ Wantage begged. His voice was shaking.

‘Not now, for gods ache,’ Fermour groaned.

‘The Litany! Give us the Litany!’ Wantage repeated.

They heard the priest flop down on to his knees. Wantage followed suit, wheezing in the thick gloom.

‘Get down, you two bastards!’ he hissed.

Marapper began monotonously on the General Belief. With an overpowering sense of futility, Complain thought, ‘Here we finish up in this dead end, and the priest prays; I don’t know why I ever mistook him for a man of action.’ He nursed the dazer, cocking an ear into the night, half-heartedly joining in the responses. Their voices rose and fell; by the end of it they all felt slightly better.

‘. . . and by so discharging our morbid impulses we may be freed from inner conflict,’ the priest intoned.

‘And live in psychosomatic purity,’ they repeated.

‘So that this unnatural life may be delivered down to Journey’s End.’