Non-Stop

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘What are we halting here for? We’ll be caught if we hang about here, and chopped into little pieces. Let’s get into the ponics if we’re going.’

  Marapper swung a surly slab of cheek towards the questioner. Then he turned it away again, not deigning to reply. Instead, he pushed open the door and called, ‘Come out, Roy, and meet your companions.’

  Wary, a good hunter avoiding a possible trap, Complain appeared with his dazer in his hand. Quietly, he surveyed the three who stood by Marapper; he knew them all well: Bob Fermour, elbows resting placidly on the two bulging pouches strapped to his belt, grinning non-commitally; Wantage, rotating his fencing stick endlessly in his hands; and Ern Roffery, the valuer, face challenging and unpleasant. For long seconds, Complain stared at them as they stood waiting.

  ‘I’m not leaving Quarters with that lot, Marapper,’ he said definitely. ‘If they are the best you can find, count me out. I thought this was going to be an expedition, not a Punch and Judy show.’

  The priest clucked impatiently like a dyspeptic hen, and started towards him, but Roffery brushed him away and confronted Complain with one hand on the butt of his dazer. His moustache vibrated within six inches of Complain’s chin.

  ‘So, my running meat specialist,’ he said. ‘That’s how you feel. Don’t recognize your superiors when you see them, eh? If you think . . .’

  ‘It is how I feel,’ Complain said. ‘And you can stop picking at that toy in your holster or I’ll fry your fingers off. The priest told me this was going to be an expedition, not a rakeout of the red light rooms.’

  ‘So it is an expedition,’ the priest roared, butting himself in between them and shaking his face from one to the other, spitting in his rage. ‘It is an expedition, and by hem you’ll all come into Deadways with me if I have to carry your corpses there one by one. You fools, barking here like dogs at each other’s stupid faces, you contemptible fools, do you reckon that either of you is worth a credit’s worth of the other’s attention, let alone mine? Get your stuff together and move, or I’ll call the Guards on to you.’

  This threat was so palpably foolish that Roffery burst into scoffing laughter.

  ‘I joined you to get away from sallow countenances like Complain’s, priest,’ he said. ‘Still, on your head be it! Lead on, you’re chief!’

  ‘If you feel like that about it, why waste time making a stupid scene?’ Wantage snapped.

  ‘Because I’m second in command here and I make what scenes I like,’ Roffery answered.

  ‘You aren’t second in command, Ern,’ Marapper said, explaining in kindly fashion. ‘There’s just me in command and you lot following, equal in the sight of the law.’

  At this Wantage laughed jeeringly and Fermour said, ‘So if the pack of you have stopped bitching, perhaps we can move out of here before someone discovers us and settles all our troubles for good.’

  ‘Not so fast,’ Complain said. ‘I still want to know what that valuer is doing here. Why doesn’t he go back to his valuing? He had a soft job; why did he leave it? It doesn’t make sense to me: I shouldn’t have left it, in his place.’

  ‘But you don’t happen to have the guts of a frog,’ Roffery growled, straining against the priest’s outflung arm. ‘We’ve all got our own reasons for coming on this mad jaunt, and my reason’s none of your business.’

  ‘What are you making such a fuss about anyway, Complain?’ Wantage shouted. ‘Why are you coming? I’m dead sure I don’t want your company!’

  The priest’s short sword was suddenly between them. They could see his knuckles white from his grip on the handle.

  ‘As I am a holy man,’ he growled, ‘I swear by every drop of rancid blood in Quarters I’ll Long Journey the next man that speaks.’

  They stood there stiff with hostility, not speaking.

  ‘Sweet, peace-making blade,’ Marapper whispered, and then, in ordinary tones, unhitching a pack from his shoulder, ‘Strap this harness on your back, Roy, and pull yourself together. Ern, leave your dazer alone – you’re like a girl with a dolly. Soften up, the lot of you, and start walking with me. Keep in a bunch. We’ve got to get through one of the barriers to get into Deadways, so take your lead from me. It won’t be easy.’

  He locked the door of his compartment, glanced thoughtfully at the key and then slipped it into a pocket. Without another sign to the others, he started to walk down the corridor. They hesitated only momentarily, and then fell obediently in beside him. Marapper’s iron stare remained firmly fixed ahead, relegating them all to another, inferior universe.

  At the next corridor junction, he turned left and, at the next but one, left again. This led them into a short cul-de-sac with a mesh gate filling all the far end; a Guard stood before it, for this was one of the side barriers.

  The Guard was relaxed but alert. He sat on a box, resting his chin on his hand, but directly the five came in view around the corner he jumped up and levelled a dazer at them.

  ‘I should be happy to shoot,’ he cried, giving the standard challenge. Eyes hard, legs braced, he made it sound more than a cliché.

  ‘And I to die,’ responded Marapper amiably. ‘Tuck your weapon away, Twemmers; we are no Outsiders. You sound a little nervy, methinks.’

  ‘Stop or I fire!’ the Guard, Twemmers, called. ‘What do you want? Halt, all five of you!’

  Marapper never paused in his stride, and the others came slowly on with him. For Complain, there was a certain fascination about it that he could not explain.

  ‘You are getting too short-sighted for that job, my friend,’ the priest called. ‘I’ll see Zilliac and get you taken off it. It is I, Marapper your priest, the agent of your doubtful sanity, with some well-wishers. No blood for you tonight, man.’

  ‘I’d shoot anybody,’ Twemmers threatened ferociously, waving his weapon, but backing towards the mesh gate behind him.

  ‘Well, save it for a better target – although you’ll never have a bigger,’ said the priest. ‘I have something important here for you.’

  During this interchange, Marapper’s advance had not faltered. They were now almost on the Guard. The wretched man hesitated uncertainly; other Guards were within hail, but a false alarm could mean lashes for him, and he was anxious to preserve his present state of misery intact. Those few seconds’ indecision were fatal. The priest was up to him.

  Drawing the short sword swiftly from under his cloak, Marapper with a grunt dug it deep into the Guard’s stomach, twisted it, and caught the body neatly over his shoulder as it doubled forward. He hoisted it until Twemmer’s limp hands knocked against the small of his back, and then grunted again, with satisfaction.

  ‘That was neatly done, father,’ Wantage said, impressed. ‘Couldn’t have improved on it myself!’

  ‘Masterly!’ Roffery exclaimed, respect in his voice. It was good to see a priest who so ably practised what he preached.

  ‘Pleasure,’ grunted Marapper, ‘but keep your voices low or the hounds will have us. Fermour, take this, will you?’

  The body was transferred to Bob Fermour’s shoulder; he, being five foot eight, and nearly a head taller than the others, could manage it most easily. Marapper wiped his blade daintily on Complain’s jacket, holstered it, and turned his attention to the mesh gate.

  From one of his voluminous pockets, he produced a pair of wire cutters, and with these snicked a connection on the gate. He tugged at the handle; it gave about an inch and then stuck. He heaved and growled, but it moved no further.

  ‘Let me,’ Complain said.

  He set his weight against the gate and tugged. It flew suddenly open with a piercing squeal, running on rusted bearings. A well was now revealed, a black, gaping hole, seemingly bottomless. They shrank back from it in some dismay.

  ‘That noise should attract most of the Guards in Quarters,’ Fermour said, inspecting with interest a notice, ‘RING FOR LIFT’, by the side of the shaft. ‘Now what, priest?’

  ‘Pitch the Guard down there, for a start,’
Marapper said. ‘Look lively!’

  The body was hurled into the blackness, and in a moment they had the satisfaction of hearing a heavy thud.

  ‘Sickening!’ exclaimed Wantage with relish.

  ‘Still warm,’ Marapper whispered. ‘No need for death rites – just as well if we are to continue to claim our life rights. Now then, don’t be afraid, children, this dark place is man-made; once, I believe, a sort of carriage ran up and down it. We’ve got to follow Twemmer’s example, although less speedily.’

  Cables hung in the middle of the opening. The priest leant forward and seized them, then lowered himself gingerly hand over fist down fifteen feet to the next level. The lift shaft yawning below him, he swung himself on to the narrow ledge, clung to the mesh with one hand and applied his cutters with the other. Tugging carefully, levering with his foot against an upright, he worked the gate open wide enough to squeeze through.

  One at a time, the others followed. Complain was the last to leave the upper level. He climbed down the cable, silently bidding Quarters an uncordial farewell, and emerged with the others. The five of them stood silently in rustling twilight, peering about them.

  They were on strange territory, but one stretch of ponic warren is much like another.

  Marapper shut the gate neatly behind them and then faced forward, squaring his shoulders and adjusting his cloak.

  ‘That’s quite enough action for one wake, for an old priest like me,’ he said, ‘unless any of you care to resume our dispute about leadership?’

  ‘That was never under dispute,’ Complain said, looking challengingly past Roffery’s ear.

  ‘Don’t try and provoke me,’ the latter warned. ‘I follow our father, but I’ll chop anyone who starts trouble.’

  ‘There’ll be enough trouble here to satisfy the most swinishly stupid appetite,’ Wantage prophesied, swinging the bad side of his face towards the walls of growth about them. ‘It would make most sense if we stopped yapping and saved our swords for someone else’s stomachs.’

  Reluctantly, they agreed with him.

  Marapper brushed at his short cloak, scowling thoughtfully; it was bloodied at the hem.

  ‘We shall sleep now,’ he said. ‘We will break into the first convenient room and use that for camp. This must be our routine every sleep: we cannot remain in the corridors – the position is too exposed. In a compartment we can post guards and sleep safe.’

  ‘Would we not be better advised to move further from Quarters before we sleep?’ Complain asked.

  ‘Whatever I advise is the best advice,’ Marapper said. ‘Do you think any one of those supine mothers’ sons back there is going to risk his scabby neck by entering an unknown stretch of ponics, with all its possibilities for ambush? Just to save my breath answering these inane suggestions, you’d better all get one thing perfectly clear – you are doing what I tell you to do. That’s what being united means, and if we aren’t united we aren’t anything. Hold firm to that idea and we’ll survive. Clear enough? Roy? Ern? Wantage? Fermour?’

  The priest looked into their set faces as if he were holding an identification parade. They hooded their eyes from his gaze, like a quartet of drowsy vultures.

  ‘We’ve agreed to all that once already,’ Fermour said impatiently. ‘What more do you want us to do, kiss your boots?’

  Although all were in some measure in agreement with him, the other three growled angrily at Fermour, he being a somewhat safer target for growls than the priest.

  ‘You can kiss my boots only when you’ve earned that privilege,’ Marapper said. ‘But there is something else I want you to do. I want you to obey me implicitly, but I also require you to swear you will not turn on one another. I’m not asking you to trust each other, or anything stupid like that. I’m not asking for any breaches of the canons of the Teaching – if we’re to make the Long Journey, we’re making it Orthodox. But we cannot afford constant quarrelling and fighting; your easy times in Quarters are over.

  ‘Some of the dangers we may meet, we know about – mutants, outsiders, other tribes, and finally the terrible people of Forwards themselves. But have no doubt that there will also be dangers of which we know nothing. When you feel spite for one of your fellows, nurse that bright spark for the unknown: it will be needed.’

  He looked searchingly at them again.

  ‘Swear to it,’ he commanded.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Wantage grumbled. ‘Of course I agree, but it obviously means sacrificing – well, our own characters. If we do that, it’s up to you to do the same sort of thing, Marapper, and give up all these speeches. Just tell us what you want us to do and we’ll do it without holding an oration over it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Fermour quickly, before fresh argument could break out. ‘For hem sake let’s swear and then get some kip.’

  They agreed to forego the privilege of private quarrels, and pressed slowly into the ponic fringes, the priest leading, fishing out an enormous bundle of magnetic keys. Some yards on, they came to the first door. They halted, and the priest began to try his keys one by one on to the shallow impression of the lock.

  Complain, meanwhile, pushed on a little further and called back to them after a minute.

  ‘There’s a door here which has been broken into,’ he said. ‘Another tribe has evidently passed this way at some time. It would save us trouble if we went in here.’

  They moved up to him, pressing back the rattling canes. The door stood open only a finger’s breadth, and they eyed it with some apprehension. Every door presented a challenge, an entry to the unknown; all knew of tales of death leaping from behind these silent doors, and the fear had been ingrained in them since childhood.

  Drawing his dazer, Roffery lifted his foot and kicked out. The door swung open. Within, the briefest of scuttles was heard, and then dead silence. The room was evidently large, but dark, its sources of illumination having been broken – how long ago? Had there been light within, the ponics would have forced the door in their own remorseless way, satisfying their unending thirst for light, but they had even less use than man for the corners of darkness.

  ‘Only rats in there,’ Complain said, a little breathlessly. ‘Go on in, Roffery. What are you waiting for?’

  For answer, Roffery took a torch from his pack and shone it ahead. He moved forward, the others crowding after him.

  It was a big room as rooms went, eight paces by five; it was empty. The nervous eye of Roffery’s torch flicked sharply over the usual grille in the ceiling, blank walls and a floor piled with wreckage. Chairs, and desks, their drawers flung aside, their paraphernalia scattered, had been savagely attacked with a hatchet. Light-weight steel cabinets were dented, and lay face down in the dust. The five men stood suspiciously on the threshold, wondering dimly how long ago the havoc had been wrought, feeling perhaps a memory of that savagery still in the air, for savagery – unlike virtue – endures long after its originators have perished.

  ‘We can sleep here,’ Marapper said shortly. ‘Roy, have a look through that door over there.’

  The door at the far side of the room was half open. Skirting a broken desk, Complain pushed at the jamb; a small lavatory was revealed, the china bowl broken, piping torn away. A path of ancient rust ran down the wall, but the water had long ceased to flow. As Complain looked, a shaggy white rat sped from the wreckage past him with a drop-sided scamper; Fermour kicked at it and missed, and it vanished into the ponic tangle of the corridor.

  ‘This will do,’ Marapper repeated. ‘We will eat and then you will draw lots for guard duty.’

  They ate frugally from the supplies in their packs, wrangling over the meal as to whether or not a guard was necessary. Since Complain and Fermour held it was necessary and Roffery and Wantage held it was not, the sides were equally balanced, and the priest did not find himself bound to join the disagreement. He ate in silence, wiped his hands delicately on a rag, and then said, from a still full mouth, ‘Roffery, you will guard first, then
Wantage, so that you two will have the earliest opportunity of proving yourselves right. Next sleep, Fermour and Complain will guard.’

  ‘You said we should draw lots,’ Wantage said angrily.

  ‘I changed my mind.’

  He said it so bluntly that Roffery instinctively abandoned that line of attack and remarked, ‘You, I suppose, father, never guard?’

  Marapper spread his hands and edged a look of childlike innocence on to his face. ‘My dear friends, your priest guards you all the time, awake or asleep.’

  Rapidly, he pulled a round object from under his cloak and continued, changing the subject, ‘With this instrument, which I had the forethought to relieve Zilliac of, we can scientifically regulate our spells of guard so that no man does more than another. You see that it has on this side a circle of numbers and three hands or pointers. It is called a watch, so called after a period of guard, which is – as you know – also a watch. The Giants made it for this purpose, which shows that they too had Outsiders and madmen to deal with.’

  Complain, Fermour and Wantage inspected the watch with interest; Roffery, who had handled such things in his job as valuer, sat back superciliously. The priest retrieved his possession and began to press a small stud on its side.

  ‘I do this to make it work,’ he explained grandly. ‘Of the three pointers, the little one goes very rapidly; that we can disregard. The two big ones go at different speeds, but we need only bother with the slower one. You see it is now touching the figure eight. Ern, you will stay awake until it touches the figure nine; then you will rouse Wantage. Wantage, when the pointer points to ten, you will rouse us all, and we will begin our journey. Clear?’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Wantage inquired sullenly.

  ‘We will go into all that when we have slept,’ Marapper said, in a tone of finality. ‘Sleep comes first. Wake me if you hear anybody moving outside – and don’t wake me for false alarms. I am apt to be irritable if my dreams are disturbed.’