Brian Aldiss: Non-Stop

‘Spare me more,’ the priest cut in. ‘I have a large parish to get round; your confessions I will hear, but your rages must be kept to entertain yourself.’ He rose to his feet, stretching, and adjusted the greasy cloak round his shoulders.

‘But what do we get out of life here?’ Complain asked, fighting down an impulse to clamp his hands round that fat neck. ‘Why are we here? What is the object of the world? You’re a priest — tell me straightforwardly.’

Marapper sighed windily, and raised his palms in a gesture of rejection. ‘My children, your ignorance staggers me: what determination it has! “The world”, you say, meaning this petty, uncomfortable tribe. The world is more than that. We — everything: ponics, Deadways, the Forwards people, the whole shoot — are in a sort of container called a Ship, moving from one bit of the world to another. I’ve told you this time and time again, but you won’t grasp it.’

‘That theory again!’ Complain said sullenly. ‘What if the world is called Ship, or Ship the world, it makes no difference to us.’

For some reason, the ship theory, well known although generally disregarded in Quarters, upset and frightened him. He tightened his mouth and said, ‘I wish to sleep now, father. Sleep at least brings comfort. You bring only riddles. Sometimes I see you in my sleep, you know; you are always telling me something I ought to understand, but somehow I never hear a word.’

‘And not only in your dreams,’ said the priest pleasantly, turning away. ‘I had something important to ask you, but it must wait. I shall return tomorrow, and hope to find you less at the mercy of your adrenalin,’ he added, and with that was gone.

For a long while Complain stared at the closed door, not hearing the sounds of revelry outside. Then, wearily, he climbed up on to the empty bed.

Sleep did not come. His mind ran over the endless quarrels he and Gwenny had suffered in this room — the search for a more cruel and crushing remark, the futility of their armistices. It had gone on for so long and now it was finished: Gwenny was sleeping with someone else from now on. Complain felt regret and pleasure mixed.

Suddenly, tracing over the events which led to Gwenny’s abduction, he recalled the ghostly figure that had faded into the ponics at their approach. He sat up in bed, uneasy at something more than the uncanny expertise with which the figure had vanished. Outside his door, all was now quiet. The race of his thoughts must have gone on for longer than he had imagined; the dance was done, the dancers overcome by sleep. Only he with his consciousness pierced the tomb-like veil that hung over the corridors of Quarters. If he opened his door now, he might hear the distant, never-ending rustle of ponic growth.

But nervousness made the thought of opening his door dreadful to him. Complain recalled in a rush the legends of strange beings which were frequently told in Quarters.

There were, firstly, the mysterious peoples of Forwards. Forwards was a distant area; the men there had alien ways and weapons, and powers unknown. They were slowly advancing through the tangle and would eventually wipe out all the small tribes: or so the legends ran. But however formidable they might be, it was acknowledged they were at least human.

The mutants were sub-human. They lived as hermits, or in small bands amid the tangles, driven there from the tribes. They had too many teeth, or too many arms, or too few brains. They could sometimes only hobble or creep or scuttle, owing to a deformity in the joints. They were shy; and because of this a number of weird attributes had been wished on them.

And then there were the Outsiders. The Outsiders were inhuman. Dreams of old men like Eff were troubled perpetually by the Outsiders. They had been created supernaturally out of the hot muck of the tangles. Where nobody penetrated, they had stirred into being. They had no hearts nor lungs, but externally resembled other men, so that they could live undetected among mortals, gathering power, and syphoning off the powers of men, like vampires drawing blood. Periodically among the tribes witch-hunts were held; but the suspects, when carved up for examination, always had hearts and lungs. The Outsiders invariably escaped detection — but everyone knew they were there: the very fact that witch-hunts took place proved it.

They might be gathering outside the door now, as menacingly as that silent figure had faded into the ponics.

This was the simple mythology of the Greene tribe, and it did not vary radically from the hierarchy of hobgoblins sustained by the other tribes moving slowly through that region known as Deadways. Part of it, yet entirely a separate species, were the Giants. The Forwarders, the mutants and the Outsiders were all known to exist; occasionally a mutant would be dragged in living from the tangles and made to dance before the people until, tiring of him, they despatched him on the Long Journey; and many warriors would swear they had fought solitary duels with Forwarders and Outsiders; but there was in these three orders of beings an elusive quality. During wakes, in company, it was easy to discount them.

The Giants could not be discounted. They were real. Once everything had belonged to them, the world had been theirs, some even claimed that men were descended from them. Their trophies lay everywhere and their greatness was plain. If ever they returned, there would be no resisting.

Dimly, behind all these phantasmal figures, lived another: less a figure than a symbol. His name was God and he was nothing to be scared of: but nobody ever spoke his name any more, and it was a curious thing to wonder how it was still handed on from generation to generation. It had some undefined connection with the phrase ‘for hem sake’, which sounded emphatic without meaning anything precise. God had finished as a mild swear word.

What Complain had glimpsed that wake in the ponics was altogether more alarming than that .

In the midst of his anxiety, Complain recalled something else: the sound of crying he and Gwenny had heard. The two separate facts slipped smoothly together. The man — the approaching tribe. The man had not been an Outsider, or anything so mysterious. He had merely been a flesh and blood hunter from the other tribe. As simple, as obvious as that…

Complain lay back, relaxing. His stupidity had been gently nuzzled out of the way by a little deduction. Although slightly appalled to think how the obvious had eluded him, he was nevertheless proud to consider this new lucidity. He never ratiocinated enough. Everything he did was too automatic, governed by the local laws or the universal Teaching, or his own private moods; this should not be from now on. From now on, he would be more like — well, Marapper, for instance, valuing things — but immaterial things, as Roffrey valued the material ones.

Experimentally, he cast round for other facts to match up. Perhaps if you could collect enough facts, even the ship theory might be turned into sense.

He should have reported the approaching tribe to Lieutenant Greene. That was an error. If the tribes met, there would be hard fighting; the Greenes must be prepared. Well, that report must go in later.

Almost surreptitiously, he dropped asleep.

No aroma of cooking greeted Complain when he woke. He sat up stiffly, groaned, scratched his head and climbed out of bed. For a time he thought that nothing but wretchedness filled him; then he felt, underneath the wretchedness, a resilience stirring. He was going to act, was going to be driven to act: how, would resolve itself later. The big something was promising itself to him again.

Hauling on his slacks, he paddled over to the door and pulled it open. Outside, a strange silence beckoned. Complain followed it into the Clearing.