Brian Aldiss - The Complete Short Stories - The 1950s

‘Now don’t get me wrong, Bob. Why are we not free – why is not everyone on shipboard free – to return to Earth?’

Crooner paused. ‘Do you really want an answer?’ he asked.

‘What is the answer?’

‘It’s the answer to everything, as far as you are concerned,’ Crooner said sadly. ‘You are valuable to Earth for only one reason: you are an insane society. For that we study you, and by that study learn to control ourselves. Fortunately, you are too isolated up here to be a menace; but if you were an Earthbound tribe, you would have to be exterminated to the last babe among you. You are all dangerously mad.’

He let the words sink in, and then said, ‘When the ponics overwhelmed the ship, a few men saw the terrible dangers of a return to primitivism. Madness, fighting, even cannibalism were rampant; the controls were wrecked. That’s when the Teaching was formulated. Unfortunately it was based, not on any long-tried religious creed, but on some half-truth of a psychological theory which happened to be current at that time. It became diverted and perverted in the hands of so-called priests like yourself, until the ship was full of maniacs whose avowed object in life was to humiliate their associates. You’re death-obsessed. That’s why you aren’t fit to walk on Earth! You’re tainted, mephitic, contagious! Earth’s too lovely for you! You’re only fit to live in a coffin like this ship! Nothing’s too foul – Ahhh!’

Reeling away from Carappa’s blow, he brought his good hand up to his mouth, covering it as if to hide the pain. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes, groaning.

‘Quickly, Tom,’ Carappa said. ‘There’s no time to lose. If that’s how things stand, we’ve no hope but to warn the others in the ship – Master Scott and the Council of Five. This fellow comes back with us.’

‘No!’ Crooner cried. ‘Shoot me, do anything, but don’t take me back in there!’

Carappa paused, his eyes widening. Slowly over his face a crafty smile dawned. He had struck accidentally on Crooner’s weak spot.

‘A bargain then, Crooner,’ he said gently. ‘You come back to face the Council of Five with us now – or else you guarantee to get us two to earth, as patients, or subjects for further study, or whatever excuse you wish. Well? Choose quickly.’

‘Let’s get him back to the ship,’ Brandyholm urged.

Crooner looked from one to another of them like a man peering at wild animals. The blood from his mouth had been brushed over his jaw, giving him a dirty, beaten look. He licked his lips with a dry tongue.

‘I daresay I could get you down,’ he said.

‘That’s more like it!’ Carappa said. ‘Now we’ll forget all differences between us, Crooner – but remember I shall have this gun trained on you.’

‘If you don’t mind,’ Brandyholm said, ‘I’d rather return to the ship, Carappa. I think Earth’s going to be too big for me.’

‘Oh no you don’t,’ Carappa said. ‘We’ve been together in this all along, Tom; I won’t let you desert me now. You’re coming too.’

‘I couldn’t face it,’ Brandyholm pleaded. ‘Please let me go. I’m a different kind from you – I belong to the ship.’

As he watched, Carappa’s face hardened dangerously. The priest’s fist doubled and came slowly up. His lips gradually thrust out, as if in relish at the weakness in Brandyholm’s features. Then he shrugged, and said in a flat voice, ‘Get out, then.’ He turned his broad back in contempt.

That there should be no trust between men was an integral part of the Teaching. It seemed a miracle to Brandyholm to be standing again in the peppered night of space: he had momentarily expected a bullet in the back from the priest’s gun.

He squared his shoulders inside the space suit and began to walk slowly back to the escape lock in the giant hull. His feeble bluff had succeeded; liars like Carappa can easily be taken in by lies. Without a doubt Crooner would trick the priest sooner or later, whereas he, Tom Brandyholm, had escaped by returning; he had the power that lay in knowledge. His was the victory.

He came to the lock. Remembering Carappa could hear over the suit-to-suit, he said, ‘Good-bye, priest. I’m just going back into the rat run. Only it’s going to be a different rat run from now on. The Council of Five is going to be a Council of Six. Or if I don’t like their manners, it may just be a Council of One. You thought I was weak, but I’m not. I’m going to show ’em all.’

He clung to a hand-grip to steady himself. Ambition seemed suddenly to consume his very bones.

‘And remember Master Scott, Carappa?’ he continued. ‘He’ll be the first to go to the wall. And that girl Viann – ’ as he spoke her name, she seemed at that instant to be the reason for his return ‘– Viann might well be all that Gwenny never could be.’

The priest flung back an obscene answer which Brandyholm scarcely heeded. He activated the lock. Slowly the panel slid back. The ship! It always had been his world and always would: its confinement, its jungles, its foetid corridors, its taboos and terrors; but now he would be more than a mere hunter – he would be a ruler. Eagerly, he stepped inside.

A dozen figures awaited him. He drew up in amazement. Although they all wore suits and helmets, he recognised Viann at once. And another face that he knew was Master Scott’s. Master Scott, as did many of the others, held a weapon levelled at Brandyholm’s heart.

‘Yes, we’ve been listening carefully over the suit radios,’ Master Scott said. ‘You came back inopportunely, didn’t you?’

‘Uh – uh,’ Brandyholm began, but no words came. His last bolt had been shot. Now the journey was over. The pressures in his brain burst out against their artificial dam, flooding and breaking their neural paths. He tried to summon rage to his aid, to help and strengthen him, but it would not come. He reeled blindly in the semi-dark.

‘We were waiting quietly here to rush the relief rocket when it arrives,’ Scott said levelly. ‘And then in you come, with your big ideas. Well, I think there’s still time to finish you.’

He turned to look at Viann, who had rested a hand on his suit. She shook her head.

‘Leave him,’ she said. ‘He’s harmless now.’

Indeed, Brandyholm had slumped to his knees, almost in an attitude of prayer. The great stars beyond him were suddenly blotted out by the dark, arriving shape of the relief rocket.

Mmm I.

First statement: I am I. I am everything. Everything, everywhere.

The universe is constructed of me, I am the whole of it. Am I? What is that throbbing that is not of me? That must be me too; after a while I shall understand it. All now is dim. Dim mmmm.

Even I am dim. In all this great strangeness and darkness of me, in all this universe of me, I am shadow. A memory of me. Could I be a memory of … not – me? Paradox: if I am everything, could there be a not-me?

Why am I having thoughts? Why am I not, as I was before, just mmmm?

Wake up! It’s urgent!

No! Deny it! I am the universe. If you can speak to me you must be me, so I command you to be still. There must be only the soothing mmmm.

… you are not the universe! Listen!

Louder?

Can you hear at last?

Non-comprehension. I must be everything. Can there be a part of me, like the throbbing, which is … separate?

Am I getting through? Answer!

Who … are you?

Do not be frightened.

Are you another … universe?

I am not a universe. You are not a universe. You are in danger and I must help you.

Mmmm. Must be mmmm …