Brian Aldiss - Non-Stop

‘No. Only Laur — Inspector Vyann knows; she’s asleep at present.’

‘It should have been handed to the Council for us to make the best use of we could,’ Zac Deight said gently. ‘You ought to have realized that. Will you come to my room and tell me all about it?’

‘Well, there’s not much to tell, sir…’ Complain began.

‘You can surely see how dangerous this weapon could be in the wrong hands…’ There was something commanding in the old councillor’s tone. When he turned and made down the corridor, Complain followed that Gothic back — not happily, but without protest.

They took a lift down to the lower level, then walked five decks forward to the councillor’s apartment. It was absolutely deserted here, silent and dark. Bringing out an ordinary magnetic key, Zac Deight unlocked a door and stood aside for Complain to enter. Directly the latter had done so, the door slammed behind him. It was a trap!

Whirling round, Complain charged the door with all the fury of a wild animal — uselessly. He was too late, and Deight had the heat gun with which he might have burnt his way to freedom. Savagely, Complain flashed on his torch and surveyed the room. It was a bedroom cabin which had been disused for some while, to judge by the dust everywhere; like most such rooms throughout the length of the ship, it was spartan, anonymous.

Complain picked up a chair and battered it to bits against the locked door, after which he felt better able to think. An image swam up to him of the time when he had first stood close to Vyann, watching through a spyhole when Scoyt left Fermour alone in the interrogation room; Fermour had jumped on to a stool and tried to reach the ceiling grille. Obviously, he had expected to find an escape route that way. Now supposing…

He swung the bed into the centre of the room, tossed a locker on top of it and climbed rapidly up to examine the grille. It was similar to every other grille in every other room of the ship; three feet square, latticed with thin bars widely enough spaced to allow a finger to be poked between them. The exploring torch revealed these spaces to be silted up with dust sticky as rheumy eyes; such breeze as drained through in the room was faint indeed.

Complain heaved tentatively at the grille. It did not budge.

It had to budge. Fermour did not stand on that stool and stretch upwards just because he needed some physical jerks. Here too, if the grilles opened, would be an explanation of the way some of Scoyt’s previously captured Outsiders had escaped from guarded cells. Complain stuck his fingers through the grille and felt along its inner edge, hope and fear scampering coldly through his veins.

His index finger soon met with a simple, tongued catch. Complain pressed it over. Similar catches lay on the upper surface of the other three sides of the grille. One by one, he flicked them over. The grille lifted easily up; Complain angled it sideways, brought it down and put it quietly on the bed. His heart beat rapidly.

Catching hold of the aperture, he drew himself up into it.

There was hardly space to stir. He had expected to find himself in the inspection ways; instead he was in the ventilation system. He guessed immediately that this pipe ran through the strange inter-deck world of the inspection ways. Clicking his torch off, he strained his eyes down the low duct, ignoring the breeze that sighed continuously into his face.

One light only lit the tunnel, filtering up from the next grating along. Struck with the idea that he must look much like a cork in a bottle, Complain dragged himself forward and peered through the grille.

He was staring down into Zac Deight’s room. Zac Deight was there alone, talking into an instrument. A tall cupboard, standing now in the middle of the room, showed how the niche in the wall which housed the instrument was normally concealed. So fascinated was Complain with his novel viewpoint that for a moment he failed to hear what Zac Deight was speaking about. Then it registered with a rush.

‘… fellow Complain causing a lot of trouble,’ the Councillor said into the phone. ‘You remember when your man Andrews lost his welder a few weeks back? Somehow it has now got into Complain’s hands. I found out because I happened to come across a gaping hole in the wall of one of the compartments on Deck 22, Inspector Laur Vyann’s room… Yes, Curtis, can you hear me? This line is worse than ever…’

For a moment, Deight was silent, as the man at the other end of the line spoke. Curtis! Complain exclaimed to himself — that was the name of the Giant in charge of the mob who captured him. Looking down on the councillor, Complain suddenly noticed the give-away ring with the octagonal stone on Zac Deight’s finger, and began to wonder what ghastly web of intrigue he had blundered into.

Deight was speaking again. ‘I had the chance of slipping into Vyann’s room,’ he said, ‘while your diversion down on the Drive Floors was in full swing. And there I found something else the dizzies have got hold of: a file we never knew existed, written by the first man to captain the ship on the way back from Procyon V. It contains far more than the dizzies should know; it’ll set them questioning all sorts of things. By a stroke of luck, I have managed to get both file and welder into my possession… Thanks. Even more luckily, nobody but Complain and this girl Vyann yet know anything about — or realize the significance of — either file or laser. Now then, I know all about Little Dog’s ideas on the sanctity of dizzy lives, but they’re not up here coping with this problem, and it’s getting more difficult hour by hour — if they want their precious secret kept, there is one easy way to do it. I’ve got Complain locked in next door to me now… Of course not, no force; he just walked into the trap like an angel. Vyann is asleep in her room. What I’m asking you is this, Curtis: I want your sanction to kill Complain and Vyann… Yes, I don’t like it either, but it’s the only way we can possibly retain the status quo , and I’m prepared to do it now before it’s too late…’

Zac Deight was silent, listening, an expression of impatience creeping over his long face.

‘There isn’t time to radio Little Dog,’ he said, evidently interrupting the speaker. ‘They’d procrastinate too long. You’re in charge up here, Curtis, and all I need is your permission… That’s better… Yes, I do consider it imperative. You don’t think I enjoy the task? I shall gas them both through the air vents of their rooms, as we’ve done before in similar awkward cases. At least we know it’s painless.’

He rang off. He pushed the cupboard back into place. He stood for a while hesitating, gnawing his knuckles, his face seamed with distaste. He opened the cupboard and removed a long cylinder. He looked speculatively up at the ceiling grille. He took the blast of Complain’s dazer right in his face.

The colour fled from Zac Deight’s brow. His head flopped on to his chest and he collapsed, sprawling, on the floor.

For a minute, Complain lay where he was, his mind attempting to adjust to events. He was brought back to the immediacy of the present by a horrible sensation. An alien thought had somehow drifted among his thoughts; it was as if somebody’s thickly furred tongue licked his brain. Flipping on his torch, he found a tremendous moth hovering before his eyes. Its wing span was about five inches; the tapetum lucidum in its eyes reflected the light like two cerise pin points.

Sickened, he struck at it but missed. The moth fluttered rapidly away down the air duct. Complain recalled another moth in Deadways which had left a similar delicately dirty fingerprint on his mind. Now he thought, ‘This power the rabbits have — the moths must have it in lesser degree. And the rats seem to be able to understand them… Perhaps these moths are a sort of airborne scouts for the rat-hordes!’