Brian Aldiss - The Complete Short Stories - The 1950s

‘Let’s cope with one problem at a time,’ Scott said testily. ‘Do we or do we not go out after Crooner?’

‘Of course we go out, Master Scott,’ she answered. ‘Who could think of staying with that to lure them?’

Carappa was rummaging in the escape equipment. This emergency lock had been designed to cope with people much like themselves: veritable novices who had never seen a space suit before. Consequently full instructions were given for the precautions to be taken before the outer door was opened. Carappa read everything carefully out.

‘Let me put on a suit and go out first,’ he said shakily. ‘If it’s alright, you can follow. This is the moment foretold in the Teaching: “That this unnatural life may be delivered down to journey’s end. And sanity propagated. And the ship brought home.” It is fitting a priest should go first.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Brandyholm said suddenly. ‘I’ll be by your side, priest. Nobody shall stop me!’

‘Nobody intends to,’ Scott said coolly. ‘I was about to suggest myself that our two most expendable members should lead the way.’

‘May your ego die on you,’ offered Carappa insultingly. ‘Here Tom, help me into this suit. It is heavy for a poor old man.’

Getting the suits properly adjusted was a slow and irritating business. Long before it was over, Brandyholm cursed the false bravado which had made him thrust himself forward. At last, however, they were ready. With a final repetition of his instructions to reconnoitre and then hurry back, Master Scott ushered Viann through the manhole in the deck, retreating after her. The self-sealing double lid closed down over his head. Carappa instantly stomped over to the air valve and activated it according to instructions.

Then he clapped Brandyholm on the back, and his voice over the suit-to-suit R/T crackled with triumph. ‘Well, Tom, boy, we’ve won through. This fellow Scott is a fool! – He’s played right into my hands. Once this outer lock door is open, none of them can reach us – they’ll be killed. Space is lethal! The non-stop voyage is over for us at least.’

‘What about the aliens?’ Brandyholm asked.

‘Faint heart hath never won foul fiend,’ the priest quoted. He waved a dazer before Brandyholm’s eyes. ‘I took the opportunity of removing this from our lady friend’s holster. I can deal with Crooner well enough. Trust me, boy!’

An amber light winked over the outer door; the air was exhausted. Without another word, Carappa depressed the exit switch. A red light flicked on and burnt steadily, and all space lay open before them. With a mounting sense of awe, they moved to the brink of the aperture. They looked out.

The great cylinder of the ship stretched to either side of them, lustreless and solid. Before them, the planet rode mysteriously, its dark side cutting a black semi-circle from the brocade of stars.

From where they stood, the sun was hidden by the flanks of the ship.

Stretching out a gloved hand, Carappa pointed. To their left, the smooth expanse of metal was broken by an ungainly accretion; even to their inexperienced eyes, it was obviously no integral part of the ship. Square and cumbrous, it was attached by metal braces and bore an air of improvisation. A circular port set in its near side emitted light.

‘The aliens must be there,’ Carappa said. A hawser stretching from the lock towards this strange construction reinforced his opinion.

Grasping the hawser, Carappa pulled himself out over the edge of the lock and climbed onto the outside of the ship. He waited patiently until Brandyholm had hauled himself up too. For a moment they stood silent, side by side. The lock door slid to behind them. Then, holding tightly to the hawser, they moved along towards the square outbuilding.

‘Stop!’ Brandyholm gasped. He stood, slumped in his suit, while the universe wheeled about him. He wondered crazily what it would sound like to Carappa if he were sick in his suit. Then the moment of dizziness passed, and they moved on again.

They stood at last among the stanchions of the outbuilding, which towered some fourteen feet over their heads. The simplicity of the structure was now apparent: it consisted simply of a room from which an air lock protruded like a porch. Peering cautiously through the small window, Brandyholm saw that the room was mainly occupied with a variety of equipment, although it obviously served too as an at least temporary living quarter, for in a hammock stretched across one corner lay Crooner. He was alone.

Obeying Brandyholm’s gesture, Carappa also looked in.

‘How do we get in without disturbing him? It’s hopeless,’ Brandyholm said.

‘The human predicament apart,’ said the priest decisively, ‘Nothing is hopeless. Obviously, we must use guile. It is against my principles, but we must use guile. We must get in under pretence of friendship; once we’re in, he’s ours. Leave it to me.’

With that, he hammered on the thick glass before him. Crooner looked up, and climbed slowly out of his hammock; he still wore his heavy space suit, although he had removed his helmet. Carappa made frantic and unmistakeable signs towards the airlock. Crooner nodded.

‘Gullible fool!’ the priest exclaimed with relish.

They were in the air lock when Crooner’s voice, from a speaker overhead, said, ‘What on earth are you two doing outside the ship?’

‘We managed to escape just after you did.’

‘How did you find your way here?’

‘We’ll give you the details when we get inside,’ Carappa retorted, holding the stolen dazer ready and winking at Brandyholm.

Air sighed in about them, double doors began slowly to open, Carappa moved forward, and a steel bar descended sharply onto the barrel of the dazer, sending it flying from Carappa’s grasp. Then Crooner appeared from behind the lock doors, the bar in one hand, and in the other a sharp and dangerous looking weapon they did not recognise; it pointed without waver at the priest’s heart.

‘Come out,’ Crooner said grimly, his face as lined and motionless as a tree trunk. ‘There’s no room for a scuffle in here. If I so much as suspect you of being about to rush me, I shall shoot you dead with this revolver.’

‘Bob, Bob,’ Carappa said, trying to force a note of reproach into his voice, ‘Why turn on your old friends like this? We mean you no harm. As a priest I’m bound to say – ’

‘Say nothing, Carappa. From your point of view it is unfortunate that these ship’s suit radios were so devised that unwary novices could not shut themselves off from contact with each other – they’re always at Transmit. In other words, I’ve heard every word you both said since you put the suits on. You always talked too much, Carappa, it’s a sort of poetic justice.’

‘Justice!’ Carappa growled, ‘I loathe its very name. Shoot me if you must, but don’t babble of justice!’

These words came indistinctly to Brandyholm. Uncertainty, danger and fear were having a cumulative effect on him. A kind of palsy took him, and without warning he collapsed. Crooner let him fall.

When Brandyholm’s brain cleared and he opened his eyes again, he was lying prone on the floor. Crooner stood over him. He could see enough of Carappa to observe that the big priest now had his hands lashed firmly behind his back. The two were talking, and did not notice Brandyholm’s recovery.

‘I don’t understand,’ the priest was saying – words rarely heard on his lips – ‘You are not an alien or you are? Which?’

‘The term “alien” is subjective,’ Crooner said patiently. ‘As I say, I am from Earth, just as your ancestors were, generations ago. Earth is only a couple of thousand miles away – you saw it outside, a gleaming crescent.’