Brian Aldiss - Non-Stop

‘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.’

He rolled over into a corner, kicked a shattered office stool away and composed himself for sleep. Without much hesitation, the others did likewise, except Roffery, who watched them unlovingly.

They were all lying on the floor when Wantage spoke hesitantly. ‘Father, Father Marapper,’ he called, with a note of pleading in his voice. ‘Will you not give us a prayer for the safety of our skins?’

‘I’m too tired to intercede for anyone’s skin,’ Marapper replied.

‘A short prayer, father.’

‘As you wish. Children, expansion to our egos, let us pray.’ He commenced to pray as he lay hunched on the dirty floor, his words coming indifferently at first, and then gaining power as he drew interest from his train of thought.