Non-Stop (21 page)

‘You think so?’ Gregg stood up. ‘Then come and have a look here. Hawl, you stay and keep an eye on the lady – what we’re going to see is no sight for her.’

He led Complain along a desolate muddle of corridor, saying as they went how sorry he was to have to leave this hideout. The ancient explosion and a chance arrangement of closed inter-deck doors had given his band a fortress only approachable through the gashed roof by which Complain and Vyann had entered. Still talking – and now beyond his habitual surliness were tokens that he felt some pleasure at the sight of his brother – Gregg burst into a cupboard-like room.

‘Here’s an old pal for you,’ he said, with a sweeping gesture of introduction.

The announcement left Complain unprepared for what he saw. On a rough and dirty couch lay Ern Roffery, the valuer. He was barely recognizable. Three fingers were missing, and half the flesh of his face; one eye was gone. Most of the superb moustache had been chewed away. It needed nobody to tell Complain that this was the work of the rats – he could see their teeth-marks on a protruding cheek bone. The valuer did not move.

‘Shouldn’t be surprised if he’s made the Journey,’ Gregg said carelessly. ‘Poor cur’s been in continual pain. Half his chest is eaten away.’

He shook Roffery’s shoulder roughly, raised his head and let it drop back on to the pillow.

‘Still warm – probably unconscious,’ he said. ‘But this’ll show you what we’re up against. We picked this hero up last wake, several decks away. He said the rats had finished him. It was from him I heard about you – he recognized me, poor cur. Not a bad fellow.’

‘One of the best,’ Complain said. His throat was so tight he could scarcely speak; his imagination was at work – involuntarily – picturing this horrible thing happening. He could not drag his eyes from Roffery’s ravaged face. In a daze he stood there while his brother kept talking. The rats had picked Roffery up in the swimming pool; while he was still helpless from the effects of the Giants’ gassing, they had loaded him on to a sort of stretcher and dragged him to their warrens. And there he had been questioned, under torture.

The warren was between broken decks, where no man could reach. It was packed stiff with rats, and with an extraordinary variety of bric-à-brac they had scavenged and built into dens and caves. Roffery saw their captive animals, existing under appalling conditions. Many of these helpless beasts were deformed, like human mutations, and some of them had the ability to probe with their minds into other minds. These mutated creatures were set by the rats to question Roffery.

Complain shuddered. He recalled his disgust when the rabbit had bubbled its insane interrogations into his mind. Roffery’s experience, long protracted, had been infinitely worse. Whatever they learnt from him – and they must have acquired much knowledge of the ways of men – Roffery learnt something from them: the rats knew the ship as no man ever had, at least since the catastrophe; the tangles were no obstacle to them, for they travelled by the low roads between decks, which was why men saw them rarely, travelled by the ten thousand pipes and sewers and tubes that were the great ship’s arteries.

‘Now you see why I’m not happy here,’ Gregg said. ‘I don’t want my flesh chewed off my skull. These rats are the end as
far as I’m concerned. Let’s get back to your woman. You picked lucky with her, brother. My woman was no beauty – the cartilage in her legs was all bone, so she could not bend her knees. But . . . it didn’t worry her in bed.’

Vyann seemed content when they returned to her; she was drinking a hot liquid. Only Hawl looked guilty and saw fit to explain that the bloody bandages had made her ill, so he had gone to fetch her a drink.

‘There’s a drop left for you, Captain,’ the small-head added. ‘Drain it off like a good fellow.’

As Gregg drank, Complain made to go. He was still feeling shaken at the sight of Roffery.

‘We’ll put your proposition to the Council,’ he said. ‘They should accept it when they hear about the rats. I’ll come back and report to you what they say. Now we must get back: the next sleep-wake is a dark, and there is much to be done before that.’

Gregg looked hard at his brother. Beneath the morose indifference of his expression, uneasiness stirred; undoubtedly he was anxious to get his band to Forwards as soon as possible. Perhaps he realized for the first time that his younger brother was a force to reckon with.

‘Here’s a present for you to take with you,’ he said clumsily, picking up something from the bed and thrusting it at Complain. ‘It’s a sort of dazer I took off a Giant we speared two wakes back. It kills by heat. It’s awkward to handle, and you’ll burn yourself if you aren’t careful, but it was a useful enough weapon against the rats.’

The ‘sort of dazer’ was a stubby metal object, as cumbrous as Gregg had said; he pressed the button, and a fan of almost invisible heat spread from the front. Even standing away from it, Complain could feel its heat, but its range was obviously short. Nevertheless, Complain accepted it gratefully, and he parted from his brother on an unexpectedly cordial note. It felt funny, he thought, to be pleased by a personal relationship like that.

Vyann and Complain made their way back to Forwards unescorted, the latter with more anxiety than when they had set out, keeping his senses alert for rats. They arrived safely, only to find Forwards in an uproar.

A Giant had entered Forwards. He had not come through any of the barriers, which of course were guarded continually, but had suddenly appeared before a homeward-bound labouring girl on Deck 14. Before she could cry out, the unfortunate girl had been seized, gagged and bound; she was in no way molested, and as soon as the Giant had finished tying her up, he disappeared. Without much delay, the girl managed to bite off the gag and call for help.

Police and guards had started a search for the invader at once. Their alarm at this confirmation of the existence of Giants, if confirmation still was needed in Forwards, was increased by the apparent pointlessness of his action; obviously some sinister move was afoot. General consensus of opinion was that the Giants were returning from their long sleep to take back the ship. In the pursuit that followed, Master Scoyt and most of his staff joined, and were at present scouring all levels near the scene of the incident.

This Vyann and Complain learned from an excited sentry at the barriers. As they made for their own apartments, distant whistles could be heard; the corridors were almost empty – evidently most people had joined in the chase. A diversion was always as welcome in Forwards as it had been in Quarters.

Vyann breathed a sigh of relief.

‘This gives us a lull,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to face the Council before I had talked to you. I don’t know how you feel, but I’m sure of one thing: we can’t have your brother’s mob here – they’d be unmanageable.’

Complain had known instinctively how she felt. Inclined to
agree, he nevertheless said, ‘Do you feel happy about leaving them to the rats?’

‘Gregg’s deliberately over-estimating the abilities of the rats, as a lever to get himself in here. If he’s really so anxious about them he can move further into Deadways. He certainly can’t come here: our organization would collapse.’

Vyann had the stubborn look about her mouth again. She was so self-possessed that a wave of rebellion ran through Complain. Catching the defiance in his eyes, Vyann smiled slightly and said, ‘Come into my room and talk, Roy.’

It was an apartment much like Complain’s, rather bare, rather military, except for a bright rug on the floor. Vyann shut the door behind them and said, ‘I shall have to recommend to Roger and the Council that we keep Gregg out at all costs. You may have noticed that half his men had some sort of deformity; I suppose he has to pick what recruits he can from the freaks of Deadways, but we can’t possibly allow that sort here.’

‘He has more knowledge of that area of the ship than anyone here,’ Complain said, stung by the contempt in her voice. ‘For any forays into the ponics he’d be invaluable.’

She waved a hand gently, bringing it to rest on his arm.

‘Let us not quarrel. The Council can decide the matter. Anyhow I have something to show you –’

‘Before we change the subject,’ Complain interrupted, ‘Gregg made a remark that worried me. He thought you came with me to keep an eye on me, was that true?’

She looked at Complain searchingly and said, her seriousness dissolving, ‘Supposing I like keeping an eye on you?’

He had reached one of those points there could be no retreat from; already his blood hammered with a mysterious foreknowledge of what he was bound to do. He dropped the cumbrous weapon Gregg had given him on to the bed. Any rebuff was worth this delirious event of putting his hands behind her back and pulling her – her, the dark, unattainable Vyann! – towards him, and kissing her on the lips. There was
no rebuff; when she opened her eyes again they were full of an excitement as wild as his.

‘“Home is the hunter, home from the hull . . .”,’ Vyann whispered, quoting from a poem she had learnt in childhood. ‘You’ll stay in Forwards, now, won’t you, Roy?’

‘Do you need to ask?’ he exclaimed, putting his hand up to touch the hair that had always so compelled him. They stood together for a long while, just looking at each other, just living, until at last Vyann said, ‘This will not do. Come and see what I’ve got to show you – something thrilling! With any luck it will tell us a great deal we need to know about the ship.’

Vyann was back to business; it took Complain somewhat longer to recover. She sat down on the bed. As Complain sat beside her, she unbuttoned her tunic and pulled out a narrow black object, handing it to him. It was warm from her body heat. Dropping it, he put his hand on her blouse, tracing the arable contours of her breasts.

‘Laur, darling –’ This was the first time he had spoken her first name aloud, ‘– must we look at this wretched thing just now?’

Vyann put the item playfully but firmly back into his hands.

‘Yes, we must,’ she said. ‘It was logged by an ancestor of yours. I stole it from Gregg’s locker when I had sent that dreadful monster Hawl out to get me a drink. It’s the diary of Gregory Complain, sometime Captain of this ship.’

When the file was clicked open, words faded into being.

The instinct which prompted Vyann to steal the diary was a sure one; although the entries were comparatively few, the vistas they opened up came like a revelation. Because Vyann read more quickly than he, Complain soon gave up, lying with his head in her lap as she read aloud. Neither of them could have been more fascinated, even if they had known of the lucky flukes to which, over the years, the little file owed its continued existence.

At first the account was difficult to follow, by virtue of its reference to things of which Vyann and Complain had no
knowledge; but they soon grew to understand the alartning predicament in which the comper of the diary and his contemporaries found themselves. That ancient crisis seemed suddenly very near, although it had happened so long ago; for Captain Gregory – as Vyann soon discovered – had been the first captain on the ship’s journey home from Procyon.

An illuminating entry occurred several lines after the diary began:

‘28.xi.2221. More trouble from Agricultural Bay (the long-dead Captain Gregory had put). Glasser, I/C Floriculture was up to see me after morning watch. He reports that the chlorosis afflicting many species of plants is no better, despite constant iron treatments. Advance spectrum output has been increased two degrees. Lt. Stover – I understand the ratings call him “Noah” – was up shortly afterwards. He is I/C Animal Insemination, and is no happier about his lower animals than Glasser is about his higher plants. Apparently the mice are breeding at a significantly faster rate, but bearing undeveloped foetuses; guinea pigs show similar tendencies. This is hardly a major worry. Most of these creatures went offboard at New Earth (Procyon V’s fancy name) as planned; the few we have are concessions to Noah’s sentimentality – though his argument that they may be useful for laboratory experiments has something to commend it.

‘30.xi.2221. Last night was our usual monthly ball. My dear wife, Yvonne, who always organizes these things, had gone to great pains over it; she looked lovely – but of course the years tell on us both – it’s hard to realize Frank is eighteen! Unfortunately the dance was a complete failure. This was our first dance since leaving Orbit X, and the absence of the colonists made itself felt. So few people seem left aboard. We are now ten days out from Procyon V. The monotonous years stretch like dead weight before us.

‘Went amidships this morning to see Floriculture. Glasser
and Montgomery, the hydroponics specialist, look more cheerful. Though many of the crops appear in worse fettle than before, those essential plants, the five cultures which provide us with our air, are picking up again; the iron dosages evidently did the trick. Less cheer from “Noah” Stover – they have a lot of sick animals on their hands.

‘2.xii.2221. We are now on full acceleration. The long journey home may be said to have begun in earnest: as if any one felt excited about that. Morale is low . . . Yvonne and Frank are being splendid, partly, I suppose, to try and forget that Joy – so recently our baby girl! – is now several a.u.’s behind. A nefarious “No More Procreation” club has been formed in crew’s quarters, I am told by Internal Relations; the basic human drives can cope with that one, I think. More difficult to deal with is poor Bassitt . . . He was an Aviarist Second Class, but now that all birds except a handful of sparrows have been released on the New World, time hangs heavy for him. He has evolved a dismal religion of his own, mugged it up out of old psychology textbooks, which he insists on preaching up and down Main Corridor. Amazing thing is, people seem inclined to listen. Sign of the times, I suppose.