Brian Aldiss - Non-Stop

At Pagwam’s orders, two men tried to lever open the trapdoor, but the crack was so fine they could do no more than poke their fingernails down it.

‘It won’t come up, sir,’ one of the men said.

‘Thank hem for that!’ Marapper exclaimed, visualizing a stream of Giants emerging upon them.

By this time, somebody had fetched Scoyt. The Master’s face was harder set than ever; his long fingers restlessly caressed the runners of his cheeks as he listened to Pagwam and Marapper. Though he looked tired, when he spoke he revealed that his brain was the widest awake of those present.

‘You see what this means,’ he said. ‘These traps are set in the floor about a hundred paces apart throughout the ship; we’ve never recognized them as such because we could never open them, but the Giants can open them easily enough. We no longer need doubt, whatever we once thought to the contrary, that the Giants still exist. For reasons of their own, they have laid low for a long while: now they’re coming back — and for what other purpose than to take over the ship again?’

‘But this trap –’ Marapper said.

‘This trap,’ Scoyt interrupted, ‘is the key to the whole matter. Do you remember when your friend Complain was captured by Giants he said he was spirited into a hole and travelled in a low, confined space that sounded like no part of the ship we knew? Obviously, it was a space between decks, and he was taken down a trap just like this one. All traps must inter-communicate — and if the Giants can open one, they can open the lot!’

An uneasy babble of comment rose from the crowd in the corridor. Their eyes were bright, their torches dim; they seemed to press more closely together, as if for comfort. Marapper cleared his throat, inserting the tip of his little finger helplessly into his ear, as if that were the only thing in the world he could get clear.

‘This means — jezers nose, this means our world is entirely surrounded by a sort of thin world where the Giants can get and we can’t,’ he said. ‘Is that so?’

Scoyt nodded curtly.

‘Not a nice thought, Priest, eh?’ he said.

When Pagwam touched his arm, Scoyt turned impatiently to find that three of the Council of Five, Billyoe, Dupont and Ruskin, had arrived behind him. They looked both unhappy and annoyed.

‘Please say no more, Master Scoyt,’ Billyoe said. ‘We’ve heard most of this, and it hardly sounds the sort of thing which should be discussed in public. You’d better bring this — er, this priest along with you to the council room; we’ll talk there.’

Scoyt hardly hesitated.

‘On the contrary, Councillor Billyoe,’ he said distinctly. ‘This matter affects every man jack on board. Everyone must know about it as quickly as possible. I’m afraid we are being swept to a time of crisis.’

Although he was contradicting the Council, Scoyt’s face bore such a heavy look of pain that Billyoe wisely avoided making an issue of the matter. Instead, he asked, ‘Why do you say a crisis?’

Scoyt spread his hands.

‘Look at it this way,’ he said. ‘A Giant suddenly appears on Deck 14 and ties up the first girl he finds in such a way that she escapes in no time. Why? So that an alarm could be given. Later he appears again down on the Drive Floors — at little risk to himself, let me add, because he can duck down one of these traps whenever he feels like it! Now: from time to time, we’ve had reports of sightings of Giants, but obviously in those cases the meeting was completely accidental; in this case, it looks as if it was not. For the first time, a Giant wanted himself to be seen; you can’t explain the pointless tying up of the girl otherwise.’

‘But why should he want to be seen and hunted?’ Councillor Ruskin asked plaintively.

‘ I can see why, Councillor,’ said Marapper. ‘The Giant wanted to create a diversion while these other Giants rescued Fermour from his cell.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Scoyt, without pleasure. ‘This all happened just as we began to question Fermour; we had scarcely started to soften him up. It was a ruse to get everyone out of the way while the Giants helped Fermour to escape. Now that the Giants know we know they are about, they’ll be forced to do something — unless we do something first! Priest Marapper, get down on your hands and knees and and show me exactly what you think it was that Fermour did to make the trap-door open.’

Puffing, Marapper got down as directed. The light of every torch present centred on him. He scuffled to one corner of the trap, looking up dubiously.

‘I think Fermour was about here,’ he said. ‘And then he leant forward like this… and put his fist down on the deck like this — with his knuckles along the floor like this. And then — no, by hem, I know what he did! Scoyt, look!’

Marapper moved his clenched hand. A faint click sounded. The trap-door rose, and the way of the Giants lay open.

Laur Vyann and Roy Complain came slowly back to the inhabited part of Forwards. The shock of finding the controls ruined had been almost too much for both of them. Once again, but now more insistently than ever before, the desire to die had come over Complain; a realization of the total bleakness of his life swept through him like poison. The brief respite in Forwards, the happiness Vyann afforded him, were absolutely nothing beside the overriding frustration he had endured since birth.

As he sank down into this destroying sadness, one thing rescued him: the old Teaching of Quarters, which a little while ago he had told himself proudly he had eschewed.

Back to him echoed the voice of the priest: ‘We are the sons of cowards, our days are passed in fear… The Long Journey has always begun: let us rage while we can, and by so discharging our morbid impulses we may be freed from inner conflict…’ Instinctively, Complain made the formal gesture of rage. He let the anger steam up from the recesses of his misery and warm him in the withering darkness. Vyann had begun to weep on his shoulder; that she should suffer too added fuel to his fury.

He foamed it all up inside him with increasing excitement, distorting his face, calling up all the injuries he and everyone else had ever undergone, churning them, creaming them up together like batter in a bowl. Muddy, bloody, anger, keeping his heart a-beat.

After that, feeling much saner, he was able to comfort Vyann and lead her back to the regions of her own people.

As they approached the inhabited part, a curious clanging grew louder in their ears. It was an odd noise without rhythm, an ominous noise, at the sound of which they increased their pace, glancing at each other anxiously.

Almost the first person they met, a man of the farmer class, came up quickly to them.

‘Inspector Vyann,’ he said, ‘Master Scoyt is looking for you; he’s been shouting about everywhere!’

‘It sounds as if he’s pulling the ship apart for us,’ Vyann said wryly. ‘We’re on our way, thank you.’

They quickened their step, and so came upon Scoyt at Deck 20, from which Fermour had been rescued. Co-Captain Pagwam, with a squad of men, was pacing along the corridor, bending every so often and opening a series of traps in the deck. The heavy covers, flung aside, accounted for the strange clanging Vyann and Complain had heard. As each hole was revealed, a man was left to guard it while other men hurried on to the next trap.

Directing operations, Scoyt looking round saw Vyann. For once, no welcoming smile softened his mouth.

‘Come in here,’ he said, opening the door nearest to him. Somebody’s apartment, it happened to be empty just then. Scoyt shut the door when they were all three inside and confronted them angrily.