Brian Aldiss: Non-Stop

‘Expansion to your ego, sir,’ Complain offered humbly.

‘At your expense,’ came the stock response. And then, growled, ‘How did you manage to lose your woman, Hunter Roy Complain?’

Haltingly, he explained how she had been seized at the top of Sternstairs. ‘It may have been the work of Forwards,’ he suggested.

‘Don’t raise that bogey here,’ Zilliac, one of Greene’s attendants, barked. ‘We’ve heard those tales of super-races before, and don’t believe them. The Greene tribe is master of everything this side of Deadways.’

As Complain gave his story, the Lieutenant grew gradually more angry. His limbs began to shake; his eyes filled with tears; his mouth distorted till his chin was glistening with saliva; his nostrils filled with mucus. The desk commenced to rock in unison with his fury. As he rocked, he growled, and under the shaggy white hair his skin turned a pale maroon. Through his fear Complain had to admit it was a brilliant, daunting performance.

Its climax came when the Lieutenant, vibrating like a top with the wrath pouring from him, fell suddenly to the ground and lay still. At once Zilliac and his fellow, Patcht, stood over the body, dazers at the ready, faces twitching with reciprocal anger.

Slowly, very slowly and tremblingly, the Lieutenant climbed back on to his chair, exhausted by the necessary ritual. ‘He’ll kill himself one day, doing that,’ Complain told himself. The thought warmed him a little.

‘Now to decide your punishments under the law,’ the old man said, in a husk of a voice. He glanced round the room in a helpless fashion.

‘Gwenny was not a good woman for the tribe, despite her brilliant father,’ Complain said, moistening his lips. ‘She couldn’t produce any children, sir. We did have one, a girl, who died before weaning. She could not have any more, sir — Marapper the priest said so.’

‘Marapper’s a fool!’ Zilliac exclaimed.

‘Your Gwenny was a well-figured girl,’ Patcht said. ‘Nicely set up. Quite a beddable girl.’

‘You know what the laws say, young man,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘My grandfather formed them when he formed the tribe. They are next to the Teaching in importance in our… in our lives. What is all that row outside? Yes, he was a great man, my grandfather. I remember on the day he died he sent for me…’

Fear glands were still working copiously in Complain, but in a sudden moment of detachment he saw the four of them, each pursuing an elusive thread in his own being, conscious of the others only as interpretations or manifestations of his own fears. They were isolated, and every man’s hand was against his neighbour.

‘What shall the sentence be?’ Zilliac growled, cutting into the Lieutenant’s reminiscences.

‘Oh, ah, let me see. You are already punished by losing your woman, Complain. There is no other available woman for you at present. What is all that noise outside?’

‘He must be punished or it may be thought you are losing your grip,’ Patcht suggested craftily.

‘Oh, quite, quite; I was going to punish him. Your suggestion was unnecessary, Patcht. Hunter — er, huh, Complain, for the next six sleep-wakes you will suffer six strokes, to be administered by the Guard captain before each sleep, starting now. Good. You can go. And, Zilliac, for hem sake go and see what all that row is outside.’

So Complain found himself outside again. A wall of noise and colour met him. Everyone seemed to be here, dancing senselessly in an orgy of enjoyment. Normally he would have flung himself in too, being as eager as anyone to throw off the oppressive routines of life; but in his present mood he merely slunk round the outside of the crowd, avoiding their eyes.

Nevertheless, he delayed the return to his compartment. (He would be turned out of there now: single men did not have their own rooms.) He loitered sheepishly on the fringes of the merriment, his stomach heavy with expectation of the coming punishment, while the bright dance whirled by. Several groups, divided from the main one in biparous fashion, jigged rapturously to the sound of stringed instruments. The noise was incessant, and in the frenetic movements of the dancers — heads jerking, fingers twitching — an onlooker might have found cause for alarm. But there were few non-participants. The tall, saturnine doctor, Lindsey, was one; Fermour was another, too slow for this whirl; Wantage was another, pressing his maimed face away from the throng; the Public Stroker was another. The latter had his appointments to keep, and at the proper time appeared before Complain with a guard escort. Roughly, the clothes were stripped from his back and the first instalment of his punishment was administered.

A crowd of eyes usually watched these events. For once there was something better happening: Complain suffered almost privately. Tomorrow he might expect more attention.

Pulling his shirt down over his wounds, he went sickly back to his compartment. He entered, and found Marapper the priest awaiting him.

Henry Marapper the priest was a bulky man. He squatted patiently on his haunches, his big belly dangling. The posture was not an unconventional one for him, but his time of calling was. Stiffly, Complain stood before the crouching figure, awaiting greeting or explanation; neither came and he was forced to say something first. Pride stifled everything but a grunt. At this Marapper raised a grubby paw.

‘Expansion to your ego, son.’

‘At your expense, father.’

‘And turmoil in my id,’ capped the priest piously, making the customary genuflection of rage without troubling to rise.

‘I have been stroked, father,’ Complain said heavily, taking a mug of yellowish water from a pitcher; he drank some and used some to smooth down his hair.

‘So I heard, Roy, so I heard. I trust your mind is eased by the degradation?’

‘At considerable cost to my spine, yes.’

He began to haul his shirt over his shoulders, taking his time, flinching a little. The pain, as the fibres of the garment tugged out of the wounds, was almost pleasant. It would be worse next sleep-wake. Finally he flung the bloody garment on to the floor and spat at it. Irritation moved in him to see how indifferently the priest had watched his struggle.

‘Not dancing, Marapper?’ he asked tartly.

‘My duties are with the mind, not the senses,’ the other said piously. ‘Besides, I know better ways to oblivion.’

‘Such as being snatched away into the tangles, I suppose?’

‘It pleases me to hear you taking your own part so sharply, my friend; that is how the Teaching would have it. I feared to find you in the doldrums: but happily it seems my comfort is not needed.’

Complain looked down at the face of the priest, avoiding the bland eyes. It was not a handsome face. Indeed, at this moment it hardly seemed a face at all, but a totem roughly moulded in lard, a monument perhaps to the virtues by which man survived: cunning, greed, self-seeking. Unable to help himself, Complain warmed to the man; here was someone he knew and could consequently deal with.

‘May my neuroses not offend, father,’ he said. ‘You know I have lost my woman, and my life feels considerably down at heel. Whatever I have laid claim to — and that’s little enough — has gone from me, or what remains will be forcibly taken. The guards will come, the guards who have already whipped and will whip me again tomorrow, and turn me out of here to live with the single men and boys. No rewards for my hunting, or comfort for my distress! The laws of this tribe are too harsh, priest — the Teaching itself is cruel cant — the whole stifling world nothing but a seed of suffering. Why should it be so? Why should there not be a chance of happiness? Ah, I will run amok as my brother did before me; I’ll tear through that fool crowd outside and cut the memory of my discontent into every one of them!’