Brian Aldiss - Non-Stop

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.