Non-Stop

I

Forwards was a region like none Roy Complain had seen before. The grandeur of Sternstairs, the cosy squalor of Quarters, the hideous wilderness of Deadways, even the spectacle of that macabre sea where the Giants had captured him — none of them prepared him for the differentness of Forwards. Although his hands, like Fermour’s and Marapper’s, were tied behind his back, his hunter’s eye was keenly active as their small party was marched into the camp.

One radical distinction between Forwards and the villages lost in the festering continent of Deadways soon became obvious. Whereas the Greene tribe and others like it were always slowly on the move, Forwards was firmly established, its boundaries fixed and unchanging. It looked the result of organization rather than accident. Complain’s conception of it had always been vague; in his mind it had featured as a place of dread, the more dreadful for being vague. Now he saw it was immensely larger than a village. It was almost a region in its own right.

Its very barriers differed from Quarters’ make-shift affairs. The skirmishing party, as they pushed unceremoniously through the ponics, came first of all to a heavy curtain which, loaded with small bells, rang as they drew it aside. Beyond the curtain was a section of corridor, dirty and scarred but devoid of ponics, terminating in a barricade formed of desks and bunks, behind which Forwards guards stood ready with bows and arrows.

After an amount of hailing and calling, the skirmishing party — which numbered four men and two women — was allowed up to and past this last barricade. Beyond it was another curtain, this time of fine net, through which the hitherto ubiquitous midges, one of the scourges of Deadways, could not get. And beyond that lay Forwards proper.

For Complain, the incredible feature was the disappearance of ponic plants. Inside Quarters, of course, the thickets had been hacked or trampled down, but with indifferent enthusiasm and in the knowledge that the clearance was only temporary; often enough the old root system was allowed to remain covering the deck. And always there had been tokens of them about, from the sour-sweet miltex smell pervading the air to the dried staves used by men and the chitinous seeds played with by children.

Here the ponics had been swept away as if they had never been. The detritus and soil that attended them had been completely removed; even the scoured pattern the roots made on the hard deck had been erased. The lighting, no longer filtered through a welter of greedy foliage, shone out boldly. Everywhere wore such a strange aspect — so hard, bare and, above all, so geometrical — that some while was to elapse before Complain realized fully that these doors, corridors and decks were not an independent kingdom but, in fact, only an extension of their dingier counterparts elsewhere; the external appearance was so novel that it blinded him to its real conformity with the lay-out of Quarters.

The three prisoners were prodded into a small cell. All their equipment was removed and their hands freed. The door was slammed on them.

‘O Consciousness!’ Marapper groaned. ‘Here’s a pretty state for a poor, innocent old priest to be in. Froyd rot their souls for a pack of dirty miltex-suckers!’

‘At least they let you do the death rites for Wantage,’ said Fermour, trying to pick the filth out of his hair.

They looked at him curiously.

‘What else would you expect?’ Marapper asked. ‘The brutes are at least human. But that doesn’t mean to say that they won’t be wearing our intestines round their necks before they eat again.’

‘If only they hadn’t taken my dazer…’ Complain said. Not only their dazers, but their packs and all their possessions had been taken. He prowled helplessly round the little room. Like many apartments in Quarters, it was all but featureless. By the door, two broken dials were set into a wall, a bunk was fixed into another wall, a grille in the ceiling provided a slight current of air. Nothing offered itself as a weapon.

The trio had to possess themselves in uneasy patience until the guards came back. For some while, the silence was broken only by an uneasy whine deep in the priest’s intestines. Then all three began to fidget.

Marapper tried to remove some clotted filth from his cloak. Working half-heartedly, he looked up with eagerness when the door was opened and two men appeared in the open doorway; pushing roughly past Fermour, the priest strode over to them.

‘Take me to your Lieutenant and expansion to your egos,’ he said. ‘It is important I see him as soon as possible. I am not a man to be kept waiting.’

‘You will all come with us,’ one of the pair said firmly. ‘We have our orders.’

Wisely, Marapper saw fit to obey at once, although he kept up a flow of indignant protest as they were ushered into the corridor. They were led deeper into Forwards, passing several curious bystanders on their way. Complain noticed these people stared at them angrily; one middle-aged woman called, ‘You curs, you killed my Frank! Now they’ll kill you.’

His senses nicely stimulated by a scent of danger, Complain took in every detail of their route. Here, as throughout Deadways, what Marapper had called the Main Corridor was blocked at each deck, and they followed a circuitous detour round the curving corridors and through the inter-deck doors. In effect, it meant that to go further forward they took, not the straight course a bullet takes to leave a rifle, but the tight spiral traced by the rifling in the barrel.

‘By this method they traversed two decks. Complain saw with mild surprise the notice ‘Deck 22’ stencilled against the inter-deck door; it was a link with all the seemingly unending deck numbers which had punctuated their trek; and it implied, unless Deadways began again on the other side of Forwards, that Forwards itself covered twenty-four decks.

This was too much for Complain to believe. He had to remind himself forcibly how much he was incapable of crediting which had actually been proved to be. But — what lay beyond Deck 1? He could picture only a wilderness of super-ponics, growing out into what Myra, his mother, had called the great stretch of other darkness, where strange lanterns burned. Even the priest’s theory of the Ship, backed as it was by printed evidence, had little power to thrust out that image he had known since childhood. With a certain pleasure, he balanced the two theories against each other; never before in his life had he felt anything but discomfort at the contemplation of intangibles. He was rapidly sloughing the dry husk that limited Greene tribe thinking.

Complain’s interior monologue was interrupted by their guards, who now pushed him with Fermour and the priest into a large compartment, entering themselves and shutting the door. Two other guards were already in the room.

A couple of unusual features distinguished the room from any other Complain had been in. One was a plant bearing bright flowers which stood in a tub, as if for some purpose — though what purpose, the hunter could not guess. The other unusual feature was a girl; she stood regarding them from behind a desk, dressed in a neat grey uniform and with her hands restfully down at her sides. Her hair fell straight and neat about her neck. The hair was black, and her eyes were grey; her face was thin, pale and intense, the exact curve of her cheek down to her mouth holding, Complain felt compulsively, a message he longed to understand. Although she was young and her brow magnificent, the impression she gave was not so much of beauty as of gentleness — until one’s gaze dropped to her jaw. There lay delicate but unmistakeable warning that it might be uncomfortable to know this girl too well.

She surveyed each of the prisoners in turn.

Complain experienced a strange frisson as her eyes engaged his; and something tense in Fermour’s attitude revealed that he, too, felt an attraction to her. That her direct gaze defied a strict Quarters’ taboo only made it the more disturbing.

‘So you’re Gregg’s ruffians,’ she said finally. Now she had seen them, she was obviously inclined to look at them no more; she tilted her neat head up and studied a patch of wall. ‘It is good that we have caught some of you at last. You have caused us much unnecessary irritation. Now you will be handed over to the torturers; we have to extract information from you. Or do you wish to surrender it voluntarily here and now?’

Her voice had been cold and detached, using the tone the proud employ to the criminal. Torture, it was implied, was the natural disinfectant for their sort.

Fermour spoke.

‘We beg you, as you are a kind woman, to spare us from torture!’

‘It is neither my business nor my intention to be kind,’ she replied. ‘As for my sex — that, I think, lies outside the scope of your concerns. My name is Inspector Vyann; I investigate all captives brought into Forwards, and those who are coy about talking go on the presses. You ruffians in particular deserve nothing better. We need to know how to get to the leader of your band himself.’

Marapper spread his hands wide.

‘You may take it from me we know nothing of this leader,’ he said, ‘nor of the ruffians who serve him. We three are completely independent; our tribe lies many decks away. As I am a humble priest, I would not lie to you.’

‘Humble, are you?’ she asked, thrusting the little chin out. ‘What were you doing so near Forwards? Do you not know our perimeters are dangerous?’

‘We did not realize we were so near Forwards,’ said the priest. ‘The ponics were thick. We have come a long way.’

‘Where exactly have you come from?’

This was the first question of a series that Inspector Vyann thrust at them. Marapper answered them greasily and unhappily; he was not permitted to deviate. Whether she spoke or listened, the girl in grey looked slightly away from them. They might have been three performing dogs hustled before her, so detachedly did she ignore them as people; the two silent figures and the third, Marapper, standing slightly ahead of his companions, gesticulating, protesting, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, were for her mere random elements in a problem awaiting solution.

The direction of her interrogation soon made it obvious that she began by believing them to be members of a marauding gang, and ended by doubting it. The gang, it became apparent, had been carrying out raids on Forwards from a nearby base at a time when other — as yet unspecified — problems pressed.

Vyann’s natural disappointment at finding the trio less exciting than hoped for chilled her manner still further. The thicker grew the ice, the more voluble grew Marapper. His violent imagination, easily stimulated, pictured for him the ease with which this impervious young woman might snap her fingers and launch him on his Long Journey. At last he stepped forward, placing one hand gently on her desk.

‘What you have failed to realize, madam,’ he said impressively, ‘is this: that we are no ordinary captives. When your skirmishers waylaid us, we were on our way to Forwards with important news.’

‘Is that so?’ Her raised eyebrows were a triumph. ‘You were telling me a moment ago you were only a humble priest from an obscure village. These contradictions bore us.’

‘Knowledge!’ Marapper said. ‘Why question where it comes from? I warn you seriously, I am valuable.’

Vyann permitted herself a small, frosty smile.

‘So your lives should be spared because you hold some vital information between you. Is that it, priest?’

‘I said I had the knowledge,’ Marapper pointed out craftily, puffing up his cheeks. ‘If you also deign to spare the breath of my poor, ignorant friends here, I should, of course, be everlastingly delighted.’

‘So?’ For the first time, she sat down behind the desk, a hint of humour lurking round her mouth, softening it. She pointed to Complain.

‘You,’ she said. ‘If you have no knowledge to pour into our ears, what can you offer?’

‘I am a hunter,’ Complain said. ‘My friend Fermour here is a farmer. If we have no knowledge, we can serve you with our strength.’

Vyann folded her quiet hands on the desk, not really bothering to look at him. ‘Your priest has the right idea, I think: intelligence could bribe us, muscle could not. There is plenty of muscle in Forwards already.’

She turned her eyes to Fermour, saying, ‘And you, big fellow, you’ve hardly had a word to say for yourself. What gift do you offer?’

Fermour looked steadily at her before dropping his gaze.

‘My silence only covered my disturbed thoughts, madam,’ he said gently. ‘In our small tribe we had no ladies who rivalled you in any way.’

‘That sort of thing is not acceptable as a bribe, either,’ Vyann said levelly. ‘Well, Priest, I hope your information is interesting. Suppose you tell me what it is?’

It was a small moment of triumph for Marapper. He stuck his hands beneath his tattered cloak and shook his head firmly.

‘I will keep it for someone in authority,’ he said. ‘I regret, madam, I cannot trust you with it.’

She seemed not to be offended. It was a measure, possibly, of her self-assurance that her hands never moved on the desk top.

‘I will have my superior brought here at once,’ she said. One of the guards was sent out; he was away only a short while, returning with a brisk middle-aged man.

The newcomer was instantly impressive. Deep lines ran down his face like water runners down a slope, and this eroded appearance was increased by the inroads of grey into his still yellow hair. His eyes were wide-awake, his mouth autocratic. He relaxed his aggressive expression to smile at Vyann, and conferred quietly with her in one corner, thrusting occasional glances at Marapper as he listened to what she was saying.

‘How about making a dash for it?’ Fermour whispered to Complain, in a choked voice.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Complain whispered back. ‘We’d never get out of this room, never mind past the barrier guards.’

Fermour muttered something inaudible, looking almost as if he might attempt a break on his own. But at that moment the man conferring with Vyann stepped forward and spoke.

‘We have certain tests we wish to carry out on the three of you,’ he said mildly. ‘You will shortly be called back here, Priest. Meanwhile — guards, remove these prisoners to Cell Three, will you?’

The guards were prompt to obey. Despite protests from Fermour, he and Complain and Marapper were hustled out of the room and into another only a few yards down the corridor, where the door was shut on them. Marapper looked embarrassed, realizing that his recent attempt to extricate himself at their expense might have cost him a little goodwill; he began straightway to try to retain his position by cheering them up.

‘Well, well, my children,’ he said, extending his arms to them, ‘the Long Journey has always begun, as the scripture puts it. These people of Forwards are more civilized than we, and will certainly have a horrible fate awaiting us. Let me intone some last rite for you.’

Complain turned away and sat down in a far corner of the room. Fermour did likewise. The priest followed them, squatting on his massive haunches and resting his arms on his knees.

‘Keep away from me, Priest!’ Complain said. ‘Leave me in peace!’

‘Have you no guts, no reverence?’ the priest asked him. His voice became as thick as cool treacle. ‘Do you think the Teaching allows you peace in your last hours? You must be stirred into Consciousness for the final time. Why should you slump here, despairing? What is your wretched, sordid life to care a curse over? Where in your mind is anything so precious that it should not be carelessly extinguished? You are sick, Roy Complain, you need my ministrations.’

‘Just take it I’m not in your parish any more, will you?’ Complain said wearily. ‘I can look after myself.’

The priest made a face and turned to Fermour.

‘You, my friend, what have you to say?’ he asked.

Fermour smiled. He was in control of himself again.

‘I’d just like an hour alone with that luscious Inspector Vyann — then I’d travel happy,’ he said. ‘Can you arrange that for me, Marapper?’

Before Marapper had time to choose a suitably moral answer, the door opened and an ugly face peered in; a hand followed it, beckoning to the priest. Marapper rose, smoothing his clothes self-consciously.

‘I’ll put in a word for you, children,’ he said, and stalked with dignity into the passage behind the guard. A minute later, he was facing the inspector and her superior again. The latter, perched on a corner of the desk, began to speak at once.

‘Expansions to you. You are Henry Marapper, a priest, I believe? My name is Scoyt, Master Scoyt, and I am in charge of alien investigation. Anybody brought into Forwards comes before me and Inspector Vyann. If you are what you claim, you will not be harmed — but some strange things emerge from Deadways, and must be guarded against. I understand you came here especially to bring us some information?’

‘I have come a long way, through many decks,’ Marapper said, ‘and do not appreciate my reception now I am here.’

‘Master Scoyt inclined his head.

‘What is this information you have?’ he asked.

‘I can divulge it only to the Captain.’

‘Captain? What Captain? The captain of the guard? There is no other captain.’

This put Marapper in an awkward position, since he did not wish to use the word ‘ship’ before the moment was ripe.

‘Who is your superior?’ he asked.

‘Inspector Vyann and I answer only to the Council of Five,’ Scoyt said, with anger in his tone. ‘It is impossible for you to see the Council until we have assessed the importance of your information. Come, Priest — other matters are on hand! Patience is an old-fashioned virtue I don’t possess. What is this intelligence you set so much store by?’

Marapper hesitated. The moment was definitely not ripe. Scoyt had risen almost as if to go, Vyann looked restless. All the same, he could hedge no more.

‘This world,’ he began impressively, ‘all Forwards and Deadways to the far regions of Sternstairs is one body, the Ship. And the Ship is man-made, and moves in a medium called space. Of this I have proof.’ He paused to take in their expressions. Scoyt’s was one of ambiguity. Marapper continued, explaining the ramifications of his theory with eloquence. He finished by saying, ‘If you will trust me, trust me and give me power, I will set this Ship — for such you may be assured it is — at its destination, and we will all be free of it and its oppression for ever.’

He faltered to a stop. Their faces were full of harsh amusement. They looked at each other and laughed briefly, almost without humour. Marapper rubbed his jowls uneasily.

‘You have no faith in me because I come from a small tribe,’ he muttered.

‘No, Priest,’ the girl said. She came and stood before him. ‘You see — in Forwards we have known of the ship and its journey through space for a long while.’

Marapper’s jaw dropped.

‘Then — the Captain of the ship — you have found him?’ he managed to say.

‘The Captain does not exist. He must have made the Long Journey generations ago.’

‘Then — the Control Cabin — you have found that?’

‘It does not exist either,’ the girl said. ‘We have a legend of it, no more.’

‘Oh?’ said Marapper, suddenly wary and excited. ‘In our tribe even the legend of it had faded — presumably because we were further from its supposed position than you. But it must exist! You have looked for it?’

Again Scoyt and Vyann looked at each other; Scoyt nodded in answer to an unspoken question.

‘Since you appear to have stumbled on part of the secret,’ Vyann told Marapper, ‘we may as well tell you the whole of it. Understand this is not general knowledge even among the people of Forwards — we of the élite keep it to ourselves in case it causes madness and unrest. As the proverb has it, the truth never set anyone free. The Ship is a ship, as you rightly say. There is no Captain. The ship is plunging on unguided through space, non-stop. We can only presume it is lost. We presume it will travel for ever, till all aboard have made the Long Journey. It cannot be stopped — for though we have searched all Forwards for the Control Room, it does not exist!’

She was silent, looking at Marapper with sympathy as he digested this unpalatable information; it was almost too ghastly to accept.

‘… some terrible wrong of our forefathers,’ he murmured, drawing his right index finger superstitiously across his throat. Then he pulled himself together. ‘But at least the Control Room exists,’ he said. ‘Look, I have proof!’

From under his dirty tunic, he drew the looker containing circuit diagrams and waved it at them.

‘You were searched at the barriers,’ Scoyt said. ‘How did you manage to retain that?’

‘Shall we say — thanks to a luxuriant growth of underarm hair?’ the priest asked, winking at Vyann. He had them impressed again, and was at once back on form. Now he spread the small looker on the Inspector’s desk and pointed dramatically to the diagram he had previously shown Complain; the little bubble of the Control Room was clearly indicated at the front of the ship. As the other two stared, he explained how he came by the looker.

‘This object was made by the Giants,’ he said. ‘They undoubtedly owned the ship.’

‘We know that much,’ Scoyt said. ‘But this book is valuable. Now we have a definite location to check for the Control Room. Come on, Vyann, my dear, let’s go and look at once.’

She pulled open a deep drawer in her desk, picked out a dazer and belt and strapped them round her slender waist. It was the first dazer Marapper had seen here: they were evidently in short supply. He recalled that the Greene tribe was so well armed only because old Bergass’s father had stumbled on a supply of them in Deadways, many decks from Forwards.

They were about to leave when the door opened and a tall man entered. He was dressed in a good robe and his hair was worn long and neat. As if respect were due to him, Scoyt and Vyann drew themselves up deferentially.

‘Word has come to me that you have prisoners, Master Scoyt,’ the newcomer said slowly. ‘Have we caught some of Gregg’s men at last?’

‘I fear not, Councillor Deight,’ Scoyt said. ‘They are only three wanderers from Deadways. This is one of them.’

The councillor looked hard at Marapper, who looked away.

‘The other two?’ the councillor prompted.

‘They are in Cell Three, Councillor,’ Scoyt said. ‘We shall question them later. Inspector Vyann and I are testing this prisoner now.’

For a moment, the councillor seemed to hesitate. Then he nodded and quietly withdrew. The priest, impressed, stared after him — and it was rarely the priest was impressed.

‘That’, Scoyt said for Marapper’s benefit, ‘was Councillor Zac Deight, one of our Council of Five. Watch your manners in front of any of them, and particularly in front of Deight.’

Vyann pocketed the priest’s circuit looker. They left the room in time to see the old councillor disappear round the curve of the corridor. Then began a long march towards the extremity of Forwards, where the diagram indicated the controls to be; it would have taken them several sleep-wakes to make the distance had it been uncharted and overgrown with ponics and their attendant obstacles.

Marapper, engrossed though he was with future plans — for the discovery of the ship’s controls would undoubtedly put him in a strong position — kept an interested eye on his surroundings. He soon realized that Forwards was far from being the wonderful place that Deadways’ rumour painted, or that he had supposed at first sight. They passed many people, of whom a good proportion were children. Everyone wore less than in Quarters; the few clothes they had looked washed and neat, and the general standard of cleanliness was good, but bodies were lean, running to bone. Food was obviously short. Marapper surmised shrewdly that being less in contact with the tangles, Forwards could count on fewer hunters than Quarters, and those perhaps of inferior quality. He found also, as they progressed, that though all Forwards, from the barriers at Deck 24 to the dead end at Deck 1, was under Forwards’ sway, only Decks 22 to 11 were occupied, and they but partially.

As they passed beyond Deck 11, the priest saw part of the explanation for this. For three entire decks, the lighting circuits had failed. Master Scoyt switched on a light at his belt, and the three proceeded in semi-darkness. If darkness had been oppressive in Deadways, it was doubly so here, where footsteps rang hollow and nothing stirred. When they circled into Deck 7, and light shone falteringly again, the prospect was no more cheerful. The echo still followed them and devastation lay on all sides.

‘Look at that!’ Scoyt exclaimed, pointing to where a section of wall had been cut entirely away and curled back against the bulkheads. ‘There were once weapons on the ship which could do that! I wish we had something that would cut through a wall. We should soon find our way into space then.’

‘If only windows had been built somewhere, the original purpose of the ship might not have been forgotten,’ Vyann said.

‘According to the plan,’ Marapper remarked, ‘there are large enough windows in the Control Room.’

They fell silent. The surroundings were dreary enough to annihilate all conversation. Most doors stood open; the rooms they revealed became increasingly full of machines, silent, broken, smothered under the dust of generations.

‘Many strange things of which we have no knowledge happen in this ship,’ Scoyt said gloomily. ‘Ghosts are among us, working against us.’

‘Ghosts?’ Marapper asked. ‘You believe in them, Master Scoyt?’

‘What Roger means,’ Vyann said, ‘is that we are confronted with two problems here. There is the problem of the Ship, where it is going, how it is to be stopped; that is the background problem, always with us. The other problem grows; it did not face our great-grandfathers: there is a strange race on this ship that was not here before.’

The priest stared at her. She was glancing carefully into each doorway as they went by; Scoyt was being as cautious. He felt the hair on his neck bristle uncomfortably.

‘You mean — the Outsiders?’ he asked.

She nodded.’ A supernatural race masquerading as men…’ she said. ‘You know, better than we, that three-quarters of the ship is jungle. In the hot muck of the tangles, somewhere, somehow, a new race has been born, masquerading as men. They are not men; they are enemies; they come in from their secret places to spy on us and kill us.’

‘We have to be always on the look-out,’ Scoyt said.

From then on, Marapper also looked in every doorway.

Now the layout changed. The three concentric corridors on each deck became two, their curvature sharpened. Deck 2 consisted of one corridor only with one ring of rooms around it, and in the middle the great hatch at the beginning of Main Corridor, sealed forever. Scoyt tapped it lightly.

‘If this corridor, the only straight one in the ship, were opened up,’ he said, ‘we could walk to Sternstairs at the other end of the ship in less than a wake!’

A closed spiral staircase was now the sole way forward. Heart beating heavily, Marapper led them up it; the Control Room should be at the top if his diagram spoke truth.

At the top, a dim light showed them a small circular room, completely unfurnished, floor bare, walls also bare. Nothing else. Marapper flung himself at the walls, searching for a door. Nothing. He burst into furious tears.

‘They lied!’ he shouted. ‘They lied! We’re all victims of a monstrous… a monstrous…’

But he could think of no word big enough.

II

Roy Complain yawned boredly and changed his position on the cell floor for the twentieth time. Bob Fermour sat with his back to the wall, rotating a heavy ring endlessly round a finger of his right hand. They had nothing to say to each other; there was nothing to say, nothing to think. It was a relief when the pug-ugly on guard outside thrust his head round the door and summoned Complain with a few well-chosen words of abuse.

‘See you on the Journey,’ Fermour said cheeringly as the other got up to go.

Complain waved to him and followed the guard, his heart beginning to beat more rapidly. He was led, not to the room where Inspector Vyann had interviewed them, but back along the way he had first been brought, into an office on Deck 24, near the barricades. The ugly guard stayed outside and slammed the door on him.

Complain was alone with Master Scoyt. The alien investigator, under the increasing pressure of the trouble piling up about them, looked more eroded than ever. As if his cheeks ached, he supported them with long fingers; they were not reassuring fingers; they could be cruel with artistry, although at present, resting against that haggard countenance, they seemed more the hands of a self-torturer.

‘Expansion to you,’ he said heavily.

‘Expansion,’ Complain replied. He knew he was to be tested, but most of his concern went on the fact that the girl Vyann was absent.

‘I have some questions to ask you,’ Scoyt said. ‘It is advisable to answer them properly, for various reasons. First, where were you born?’

‘In Quarters.’

‘That is what you call your village? Have you any brothers and sisters?’

‘In Quarters we obeyed the Teaching,’ said Complain defiantly. ‘We do not recognize brothers and sisters after we are waist high to our mothers.’

‘To the hull with the T—’ Scoyt stopped himself abruptly, smoothing his brow as one who keeps himself in control only by effort. Without looking up, he said tiredly, ‘How many brothers and sisters would you have to recognize now if you did recognize them?’

‘Only three sisters.’

‘No brothers?’

‘There was one. He ran amok long ago.’

‘What proof have you you were born in Quarters?’

‘Proof!’ Complain echoed. ‘If you want proof, go and catch my mother. She still lives. She’d love to tell you all about it.’

Scoyt stood up.

‘Understand this,’ he said. ‘I haven’t time to coddle civil answers out of you. Everyone on shipboard is in a damn beastly situation. It’s a ship, you see, and it’s headed nobody-knows-where, and it’s old and creaking, and it’s thick with phantoms and mysteries and riddles and pain — and some poor bastard has got to sort it all out soon before it’s too late, if it’s not already too late!’ He paused. He was giving himself away: in his mind, he was the poor bastard, shouldering the burden alone. More calmly, he continued. ‘What you’ve got to get into your head is that we’re all expendable, and if you can’t make yourself out to be any use, you’re for the Long Journey.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Complain said. ‘I might be more co-operative if I knew which side I was on.’

‘You’re on your own side. Didn’t the Teaching teach you that much? “The proper study of mankind is self”; you’ll be serving yourself best by answering my questions.’

Earlier, Complain might have submitted; now, more conscious of himself, he asked one more question: ‘Didn’t Henry Marapper answer all you wanted to know?’

‘The priest misled us,’ Scoyt said. ‘He has made the Journey. It’s the usual penalty for trying my patience too far.’

When his first stunned reaction to this news was over, Complain began to wonder about its truth; he did not doubt the ruthlessness of Scoyt — the man who kills for a cause kills almost unthinkingly — but he could hardly bring himself to believe he would see the garrulous priest no more. His mind preoccupied, he answered Scoyt’s questions. These mainly concerned their epic trek through Deadways; directly Complain began to explain about his capture by the Giants, the investigator, non-committal bill now, pounced.

‘The Giants do not exist!’ he said. ‘They were extinct long ago. We inherited the ship from them.’

Although openly sceptical, he then pressed as hard for details as Marapper once had, and it was obvious he slowly began to accept Complain’s narrative for truth. His face clouded in thought, he tapped his long fingers on the desk.

‘The Outsiders we have known for enemies,’ he said, ‘but the Giants we always regarded as our old allies, whose kingdom we took over with their approval. If they do shill live somewhere in Deadways, why do they not show themselves — unless for a sinister reason? We already have quite enough trouble piled up against us.’

As Complain pointed out, the Giants had not killed him when they might conveniently have done so; nor had they killed Ern Roffery, although what had become of the valuer remained a mystery. In all, their role in affairs was ambiguous.

‘I’m inclined to believe your tale, Complain,’ Scoyt said finally, ‘because from time to time we receive rumours — people swear they’ve seen Giants. Rumours! Rumours! We get our hands on nothing tangible. But at least the Giants seem to be no threat to Forwards — and best of all, they don’t seem to be in alliance with the Outsiders. If we can tackle them separately, that’ll be something.’

He lapsed into silence, then asked, ‘How far is it to this sea where the Giants caught you?’

‘Many decks away — perhaps forty.’

Master Scoyt threw up his hands in disgust.

‘Too far!’ he said. ‘I thought we might go there… but Forwards men do not love the ponics.’

The door burst open. A panting guard stood on the threshhold and spoke without ceremony.

‘An attack at the barriers, Master Scoyt!’ he cried. ‘Come at once — you’re needed.’

Scoyt was up immediately, his face grim. Half-way to the door, he paused, turning back to Complain.

‘Stay there,’ he commanded. ‘I’ll be back when I can.’

The door slammed. Complain was alone. As if unable to believe it, he looked slowly round. In the far wall, behind Scoyt’s seat, was another door. Cautiously, he went over and tried it. It opened. Beyond was another room, a small antechamber, with another door on the far side of it. The antechamber boasted only a battered panel containing broken instruments on one wall, and on the floor, four packs. Complain recognized them at once as his, Marapper’s, Bob Fermour’s and Wantage’s. All their meagre belongings seemed to be still there, although it was evident the kit had been searched. Complain gave it only a brief glance, then crossed the room and opened the other door.

It led on to a side corridor. From one direction came the sound of voices; in the opposite direction, not many paces away, were — ponics. The way to them looked unguarded. His heart beating rapidly, Complain shut the door again, leaning against it to decide. Should he try to escape or not?

Marapper was killed; there was no evidence he also would not be as coolly disposed of. It might well be wise to leave — but for where? Quarters was too far away for a solitary man to reach. But nearer tribes would welcome a hunter. Complain recalled that Vyann had mistaken his group for members of some tribe that was raiding Forwards; in his preoccupation with their capture, Complain had scarcely taken note of what she said, but it might well be the same gang that was besieging the barricades now. They should appreciate a hunter with a slight knowledge of Forwards.

He swung his pack up on to his shoulder, opened the door, looked left and right, and dashed for the tangle.

All the other doors in the side corridor were shut, bar one Instinctively, Complain glanced in as he passed — and stopped dead. He stood on the threshold, transfixed.

Lying on a couch just inside the room, relaxed as if it were merely sleeping, lay a body. It sprawled untidily, its legs crossed, its shabby cloak rolled up to serve as pillow; its face wore the melancholy expression of an over-fed bulldog.

‘Henry Marapper!’ Complain exclaimed, eyes fixed on that familiar profile. The hair and temple were matted with blood. He leaned forward and gently touched the priest’s arm. It was stone cold.

Instantly, the old mental atmosphere of Quarters clicked into place round Complain. The Teaching was almost as instinctive as a reflex. He snapped without thought into the first gesture of prostration, going through the ritual of fear. Fear must not be allowed to penetrate to the subconscious, says the Teaching; it must be acted out of the system at once, in a complex ritual of expressions of terror. Between bow, bemoan, obeisance, Complain forgot all zest for escape.

‘I’m afraid we must interrupt this efficient demonstration,’ a chilly female voice said behind him. Startled, Complain straightened and looked round. Dazer levelled, two guards at her side, there stood Vyann. Her lips were beautiful, but her smile was not inviting.

So ended Complain’s test.

It was Fermour’s turn to be ushered into the room on Deck 24. Master Scoyt sat there as he had done with Complain, but his manner was openly more abrupt now. He began, as he had with Complain, by asking where Fermour was born.

‘Somewhere in the tangles,’ Fermour said, in his usual unhurried way. ‘I never knew where exactly.’

‘Why weren’t you born in a tribe?’

‘My parents were fugitives from their tribe. It was one of the little Midway tribes — smaller than Quarters.’

‘When did you join the Greene tribe?’

‘After my parents died,’ Fermour said. ‘They had the trailing rot. By then I was full grown.’

Scoyt’s mouth, naturally heavy, had now elongated itself into a slit. A rubber cosh had appeared, and was lightly balanced between Scoyt’s hands. He began to pace up and down in front of Fermour, watching him closely.

‘Have you any proof of all this stuff you tell me?’ he asked.

Fermour was pale, tensed, incessantly twisting the heavy ring on his finger.

‘What sort of proof?’ he asked, dry-mouthed.

‘Any sort. Anything about your origins we can check on. We aren’t just a rag-taggle village in Deadways, Fermour. When you drift in from the tangles, we have to know who or what you are… Well?’

‘Marapper the priest will vouch for me.’

‘Marapper’s dead. Besides, I’m interested in someone who knew you as a child: anyone.’ He swung round so that they were face to face. ‘In short, Fermour, we want something you seem unable to give — proof that you’re human!’

‘I’m more human than you, you little –’ As he spoke, Fermour jumped, his fist swinging.

Nimbly, Scoyt skipped back and brought the cosh hard across Fermour’s wrist. Numbness shooting up his arm, Fermour subsided deflatedly, face sour with malice.

‘Your reflexes are too slow,’ Scoyt said severely. ‘You should easily have taken me by surprise then.’

‘I was always called slow in Quarters,’ Fermour muttered, clutching his sleeve.

‘How long have you been with the Greene tribe?’ Scoyt demanded, coming closer to Fermour again and waggling the cosh as if keen to try out another blow.

‘Oh, I lose track of time. Twice a hundred dozen sleepwakes.’

‘We do not use your primitive method of calculating time in Forwards, Fermour. We call four sleep-wakes one day. That would make your stay with the tribe… six hundred days. A long time in a man’s life.’

He stood looking at Fermour as if waiting for something. The door was pushed roughly open and a guard appeared on the threshold, panting.

‘There’s an attack at the barriers, Master Scoyt,’ he cried. ‘Please come at once — you’re needed.’

On his way to the door, Scoyt paused and turned back towards Fermour, grim-faced.

‘Stay there!’ he ordered. ‘I’ll be back as soon as possible.’

In the next room, Complain turned slowly to Vyann. Her dazer had gone back in its holster at her waist.

‘So that tale about the attack at the barriers is just a trick to get Master Scoyt out of the room, is it?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ she said steadily. ‘See what Fermour does now.’

For a long moment, Complain stood looking into her eyes, caught by them. He was close to her, alone in what she had called the observation room, next to the room in which Fermour now was and Complain had been earlier. Then, pulling himself away in case his heart might be read in his face, Complain turned and fixed his gaze through the peephole again.

He was in time to see Fermour grab a small stool from the side of the room, drag it into the middle, stand on it, and reach up towards the grille that here, as in most apartments, was a feature of the ceiling. His fingers curled helplessly a few inches below the grille. After a few fruitless attempts to jump and stand on tip-toe, Fermour looked round the room in desperation and noticed the other door beyond which lay his pack. Kicking the stool away, he hurried through it, so vanishing from Complain’s sight.

‘He has gone, just as I went,’ Complain said, turning to brave the grey eyes again.

‘My men will pick him up before he gets to the ponics,’ Vyann said carelessly. ‘I have little doubt your friend Fermour is an Outsider, but we shall be certain in a few minutes.’

‘Bob Fermour! He couldn’t be!’

‘We’ll argue about that later,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, Roy Complain, you are a free man — as far as any of us are free. Since you have knowledge and experience, I hope you will help us attack some of our troubles.’

She was so much more beautiful and frightening than Gwenny had ever been. His voice betraying his nervous excitement, Complain said, ‘I will help you in any way I can.’

‘Master Scoyt will be grateful,’ she said, moving away with a sudden sharpness in her voice. It brought him back to realities, and he asked with an equal sharpness what the Outsiders did that made them so feared; for though they had been dreaded by the Greene tribe, it was only because they were strange, and not like men.

‘Isn’t that enough?’ she said. And then she told him of the powers of Outsiders. A few had been caught by Master Scoyt’s various testing methods — and all but one had escaped. They had been thrown into cells bound hand and foot, and sometimes unconscious as well — there to vanish completely; if guards had been in the cells with them, they had been found unconscious without a mark on their bodies.

‘And the Outsider who did not escape?’ Complain asked.

‘He died under torture on the presses. We got nothing from him, except that he came from the ponics.’

She led him from the room. He humped his pack on to his back, walking tiredly by her side, occasionally glancing at her profile, sharp and bright as torchlight. No longer did she appear as friendly as she had a moment ago; her moods seemed capricious, and he hardened himself against her, trying to recall the old Quarters’ attitude to women — but Quarters seemed a thousand sleep-wakes out of date.

On Deck 21, Vyann paused.

‘There is an apartment for you here,’ she said. ‘My apartment is three doors further along, and Roger Scoyt’s is opposite mine. He or I will collect you for a meal shortly.’

Opening the door, Complain looked in.

‘I’ve never seen a room like this before,’ he said impressed.

‘You’ve had all the disadvantages, haven’t you?’ she said ironically, and left him. Complain watched that retreating figure, took off his grimy shoes and went into the room.

It held little luxury, beyond a basin with a tap which actually yielded a slight flow of water and a bed made of coarse fabric rather than leaves. What chiefly impressed him was a picture on the wall, a bright swirl of colour, non-representational, but with a meaning of its own. There was also a mirror, in which Complain found another picture; this one was of a rough creature smirched with dirt, its hair festooned with dried miltex, its clothes torn.

He set to work to change all that, grimly wondering what Vyann must have thought of such a barbarous figure. He scrubbed himself, put on clean clothes from his pack, and collapsed exhausted on the bed — exhausted, but unable to sleep; for at once his brain started racing.

Gwenny had gone, Roffery had gone, Wantage, Marapper, now Fermour, had gone; Complain was on his own. The prospect of a new start offered itself — and the prospect was thrilling. Only the thought of Marapper’s face, gleaming with unction and bonhomie, brought regret.

His mind was still churning when Master Scoyt looked round the door.

‘Come and eat,’ he said simply.

Complain went with him, watching carefully to gauge the other’s attitude towards him, but the investigator seemed too preoccupied to register any attitude at all. Then, looking up and catching Complain’s eye on him, he said, ‘Well, your friend Fermour is proved an Outsider. When he was making for the ponics, he saw the body of your priest and kept straight on. Our sentries had an ambush for him and caught him easily.’

Shaking his head impatiently at Complain’s puzzled look, Scoyt explained, ‘He is not an ordinary human, bred in an ordinary part of the ship, otherwise he would have stopped automatically and made the genuflections of fear before the body of a friend; that ceremony is drummed into every human child from birth. It was your doing that which finally convinced us you were human.’

He sank back into silence until they reached the dining-hall, scarcely greeting the several men and women who spoke to him on the way. In the hall, a few officers were seated, eating. At a table on her own sat Vyann. Seeing her, Scoyt instantly brightened, went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Laur, my dear,’ he said. ‘How refreshing to find you waiting for us. I must get some ale — we have to celebrate the capture of another Outsider — and this one won’t get away.’

Smiling at him, she said, ‘I hope you’re also going to eat, Roger.’

‘You know my foolish stomach,’ he said, beckoning an orderly and beginning to tell her at once the details of Fermour’s capture. Not very happily, Complain took a seat by them; he could not help feeling jealous of Scoyt’s easy way with Vyann, although the investigator was twice her age. Ale was set before them, and food, a strange white meat that tasted excellent; it was wonderful too, to eat without being surrounded with midges, which in Deadways formed an unwanted sauce to many a mouthful; but Complain picked at his plate with little more enthusiasm than Scoyt showed.

‘You look dejected,’ Vyann remarked, interrupting Scoyt, ‘when you should be feeling cheerful. It is better here, isn’t it, than locked up in a cell with Fermour?’

‘Fermour was a friend,’ Complain said, using the first excuse for his unhappiness that entered his head.

‘He was also an Outsider,’ Scoyt said heavily. ‘He exhibited all their characteristics. He was slow, rather on the weighty side, saying little… I’m beginning to be able to detect them as soon as I look at them.’

‘You’re brilliant, Roger,’ Vyann said, laughing. ‘How about eating your fish?’ And she put a hand over his affectionately.

Perhaps it was that which sparked Complain off. He flung his fork down.

‘Rot your brilliance!’ he said. ‘What about Marapper? — he was no alien and you killed him. Do you think I can forget that? Why should you expect any help from me after killing him?’

Waiting tensely for trouble to start, Complain could see other people turning from their meal to look at him. Scoyt opened his mouth and then shut it again, staring beyond Complain as a heavy hand fell on the latter’s shoulder.

‘Mourning for me is not only foolish but premature,’ a familar voice said. ‘Still taking on the world single-handed, eh, Roy?’

Complain turned, amazed, and there stood the priest, beaming, scowling, rubbing his hands. He clutched Marapper’s arm incredulously.

‘Yes, I, Roy, and no other: the great subconscious rejected me — and left me confoundedly cold. I hope your scheme worked, Master Scoyt?’

‘Excellently, Priest,’ Scoyt said. ‘Eat some of this beastly indigestible food and explain yourself to your friend, so that he will look at us less angrily.’

‘You were dead!’ Complain said.

‘Only a short Journey,’ Marapper said, seating himself and stretching out for the ale jug. ‘This witch doctor, Master Scoyt here, thought up an uncomfortable way of testing you and Fermour. He painted my head with rat’s blood and laid me out with some beastly drug to stage a death scene for your benefit.’

Just a slight overdose of chloral hydrate,’ said Scoyt, with a secretive smile.

‘But I touched you — you were cold,’ Complain protested.

‘I still am,’ Marapper said. ‘It’s the effects of the drug. And what would be that beastly antidote your men shot into me?’

‘Strychnine, I believe it’s called,’ Scoyt said.

‘Very unpleasant. I’m a hero, no less, Roy: always a saint, and now a hero as well. The schemers also condescended to give me a hot coffee when I came round; I never tasted anything so good in Quarters… But this ale is better.’

His eyes met Complain’s still dazed ones over the rim of the mug. He winked, and belched with charming deliberation.

‘I’m no ghost, Roy,’ he said. ‘Ghosts don’t drink.’

Before they had finished the meal, Master Scoyt was looking fretful. With a muttered apology, he left them.

‘He works too hard,’ Vyann said, her eyes following him out of the hall. ‘We must all work hard. Before we sleep, you must be put in the picture and told our plans, for we shall be busy next wake.’

‘Ah,’ Marapper said eagerly, clearing his bowl, ‘that is what I want to hear. You understand my interest in this whole matter is purely theological, but what I’d like to know is, what do I get out of it?’

‘First we are going to exorcise the Outsiders,’ she smiled. ‘Suitably questioned, Fermour should yield up their secret hiding place. We go there and kill them, and then we are free to concentrate on unravelling the riddles of the ship.’

This she said quickly, as if anxious to avoid questioning on that point, and went on at once to usher them out of the dining-room and along several corridors. Marapper, now fully himself again, took the chance to tell Complain of their abortive search for the Control Room.

‘So much has changed,’ Vyann complained. They were passing through a steel companionway whose double doors, now open, allowed egress from deck to deck. She indicated them lightly, saying: ‘These doors, for instance — in some places they are open, in some closed. And all the ones along Main Corridor are closed — which is fortunate, otherwise every marauder aboard ship would make straight for Forwards. But we cannot open or shut the doors at will, as the Giants must have been able to do when they owned the ship. As they stand now, so they have stood for generations; but somewhere must be a lever which controls them all. We are so helpless. We control nothing.’

Her face was tense, the pugnacity of her jaw more noticeable. With a flash of intuition which surprised him, Complain thought, ‘She’s getting an occupational disease like Scoyt’s, because she’s identifying her job with him.’ Then he doubted his own perceptions and, with a terrifying mental picture of the great ship with them all in it hurtling forever on its journey, had to admit the facts were enough to worry anyone. But it was still with the idea of checking her reactions that he asked Vyann, ‘Are you and Master Scoyt the only ones working on this problem?’

‘For hem’s sake, no!’ she said. ‘We’re only subordinates. A group calling itself the Survival Team has recently been constituted, and it and all other Forwards officers apart from guard officers are also devoting attention to the problem. In addition, two of the Council of Five are in charge of it; one of them you met, Priest — Councillor Zac Deight, the tall, longhaired man. The other of them I’m taking you to see now — Councillor Tregonnin. He is the librarian. He must explain the world to you.’

So it was that Roy Complain and the priest came to their first astronomy lesson. Tregonnin, as he talked to them, hopped about the room from object to object; he was almost ludicrously small and nervous. Although he was neat in a womanish way, the room he ruled over was heaped with lookers and miscellaneous bric-à-brac in disorderly fashion. Confusion had here been brought to a fine art. Tregonnin explained first that until very recently in Forwards — as was the rule still in Quarters — anything like a looker or a video had been destroyed, either from superstition or from a desire to preserve the power of the rulers by maintaining the ignorance of the ruled.

‘That, no doubt, was how the idea of the ship became lost to begin with,’ Tregonnin said, strutting in front of them. ‘And that is why what you see assembled round you represents almost all the records intact in the area of Forwards. The rest has perished. What remains allows us only a fragment of the truth.’

As the councillor began his narrative, Complain forgot the odd gestures with which he accompanied it. He forgot everything but the wonder of the tale as it had been pieced together, the mighty history patched up in this little room.

Through the space in which their world moved, other worlds also moved — two other sorts of worlds, one called sun, from which sprang heat and light, one called planet. The planets depended on the suns for heat and light. At one planet attached to a sun called Sol lived people; this planet was called Earth and the people lived all over the outside of it, because the inside was solid and had no light.

‘The folk did not fall off it, even when they lived on the bottom of it,’ Tregonnin explained. ‘For they had discovered a force called gravity. It is gravity which enables us to walk all the way round a circular deck without falling off.’

Many other secrets the men discovered. They found a way to leave their planet and visit the other planets attached to their sun. This must have been a difficult secret, for it took them a long while. The other planets were different from theirs, and had either too little light and heat or too much. Because of this, there were no men living on them. This distressed the men of Earth.

Eventually they decided they would visit the planets of other suns, to see what they could find there, as their Earth was becoming exceptionally crowded. Here the scanty records in Tregonnin’s possession became confusing, because while some said that space was very empty, others said it contained thousands of suns — stars, they were sometimes called.

For some lost reason, men found it hard to decide which sun to go to, but eventually, with the aid of instruments in which they were cunning, they picked on a bright sun called Procyon to which planets were attached, and which was only a distance called eleven light years away. To cross this distance was a considerable undertaking even for the ingenious men, since space had neither heat nor air, and the journey would be very long: so long that several generations of men would live and die before it was completed.

Accordingly, men built this ship in which they now were, built it of inexhaustible metal in eighty-four decks, filled it with everything needful, stocked it with their knowledge, powered it with charged particles called ions.

Tregonnin crossed rapidly to a corner.

‘See!’ he exclaimed. ‘Here is a model of the planet our ancestors left long ago — Earth!’

He held up a globe above his head. Chipped by careless handlers, obnubilated by the steep passage of time, it still retained on its surface the imprint of seas and continents.

Moved, he hardly knew why, Complain turned to look at Marapper. Tears were pouring down the old priest’s cheeks.

‘What… what a beautiful story,’ Marapper sobbed. ‘You are a wise man, Councillor, and I believe it all, every word of it. What power those men had, what power! I am only a poor old provincial priest, jeezers nose, I know nothing, but…’

‘Stop dramatizing yourself, man,’ Tregonnin said with unexpected severity. ‘Take your mind off your ego and concentrate on what I am telling you. Facts are the thing — facts, and not emotions!’

‘You’re used to the magnificence of the tale, I’m not,’ Marapper sobbed, unabashed. ‘To think of all that power…’

Tregonnin put the globe carefully down and said in a petulant tone to Vyann, ‘Inspector, if this objectionable fellow doesn’t stop sniffing, you will have to take him away. I cannot stand sniffing. You know I cannot.’

‘When do we get to this Procyon’s planets?’ asked Complain quickly. He could not bear the thought of leaving here till everything had been told him.

‘A sound question, young man,’ Tregonnin said, looking at him for what was practically the first time. ‘And I’ll try to give you a sound answer. It seems that the flight to Procyon’s planets had two main objectives. The ship was made so big because not only would the confinement of a small ship be unendurable on such a long journey, but it had to carry a number of people called colonists. These colonists were to land on the new planet and live there, increasing and multiplying; the ship transported a lot of machines for them — we have found inventories of some of the things — tractors, concrete mixers, pile drivers — those are some of the names I recall.

‘The second objective was to collect information on the new planet and samples from it, and bring it all back for the men of Earth to study.’

In his jerky fashion, Councillor Tregonnin moved to a cupboard and fumbled about inside it. He brought out a metal rack containing a dozen round tins small enough to fit in a man’s hand. He opened one. Crisp broken flakes like transparent nail parings fell out.

‘Microfilm!’ Tregonnin said, sweeping the flakes under a table with his foot. ‘It was brought in to me from a far corner of Forwards. Damp has ruined it, but even if it were intact it would be of no use to us: it needs a machine to make it readable.’

‘Then I don’t see –’ Complain began puzzledly, but the councillor held up a hand.

‘I’ll read you the labels on the tins,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll understand. Only the labels survive. This one says, “FILM: Survey New Earth, Aerial, Stratospheric, Orbital. Mid-Summer, N. Hemisphere.” This one says, “FILM: Flora and Fauna Continent A, New Earth”. And so on.’

He put the cans down, paused impressively and added, ‘So there, young man, is the answer to your question; on the evidence of these tins, it is obvious the ship reached Procyon’s planets successfully. We are now travelling back to Earth.’

In the untidy room deep silence fell, as each struggled alone to the very limits of his imagination. At last Vyann rose, shaking herself out of a spell, and said they should be going.

‘Wait!’ Complain said. ‘You’ve told us so much, yet you’ve told us so little. If we are travelling back to Earth, when do we get there? How can we know?’

‘My dear fellow,’ Tregonnin began, then sighed and changed his mind about what he was going to say. ‘My dear fellow, don’t you see, so much has been destroyed… The answers aren’t always clear. Sometimes even the questions have been lost, if you follow my meaning. Let me answer you like this: we know the distance from New Earth, as the colonists called it, to Earth; it is eleven light years, as I have said. But we have not been able to find out how fast the ship is travelling.’

‘But one thing at least we do know,’ Vyann interposed. ‘Tell Roy Complain about the Forwards Roll, Councillor.’

‘Yes, I was just about to,’ Tregonnin said, with a touch of asperity. ‘Until we of the Council of Five took over command of Forwards, it was ruled by a succession of men calling themselves Governors. Under them, Forwards grew from a pitiful tribe to the powerful state it now is. Those Governors took care to hand down to each other a Roll or Testament, and this Roll or Testament the last Governor handed over to my keeping before he died. It is little more than a list of Governors’ names. But under the first Governor’s name it says –’ he shut his eyes and waved a delicate hand to help him recite — ‘“I am the fourth homeward-bound Captain of this ship, but since the title is only an irony now, I prefer to call myself Governor, if even that is not too grand a name”.’

The councillor opened his eyes and said, ‘So you see, although the names of the first three men are lost, we have in the Roll a record of how many generations have lived aboard this ship since it started back for Earth. The number is twenty-three.’

Marapper had not spoken for a long while. Now he asked, ‘Then that is a long time. When do we reach Earth?’

‘That is the question your friend asked,’ Tregonnin said. ‘I can only answer that I know for how many generations we have been travelling. But no man knows now when or how we stop. In the days before the first Governor, came the catastrophe — whatever that was — and since then the ship goes on and on non-stop through space, without captain, without control. One might almost say: without hope.’

For most of that sleep, tired though he was, Complain could not rest. His mind seethed and churned with fearful images, and fretted itself with conjecture. Over and over, he ran through what the councillor had said, trying to digest it.

It was all disquieting enough. Yet, in the midst of it, one tiny, irrelevant detail of their visit to the library kept recurring to him like toothache. At the time, it had seemed so unimportant that Complain, who was the only one who noticed it, had said nothing; now, its significance grew till it eclipsed even the thought of stars.

While Tregonnin was delivering his lecture, Complain had chanced to glance up at the library ceiling. Through the grille there, alert as if listening and understanding, peered a tiny rat’s face.

III

‘Contraction take your ego, Roy!’ Marapper exploded. ‘Don’t start mixing yourself up with the ideas of Forwards. It’s that girl who’s doing it, I know — you mark my words, she’s playing her own game with you! You’re so busy dreaming about the spicy secrets of her skirts, you can’t see the wood for the ponics. Just remember: we came here with our own objectives, and they’re still our objectives.’

Complain shook his head. He and the priest were eating alone early the next wake. Officers crowded the dining-hall, but Vyann and Scoyt had not yet appeared. Now Marapper was making his old appeal, that they should try for power together.

‘You’re out of date, Marapper,’ he said shortly. ‘And you can leave Inspector Vyann out of it. These Forwards people have a cause beyond any petty seeking for power. Besides, what if you killed the lot of them? What good would it do? Would it help the ship?’

‘To the hull with the ship. Look, Roy, trust your old priest who never let you down yet. These people are using us for their own ends; it’s only common sense to do the same ourselves. And don’t forget the Teaching tells you always to seek for yourself so that you may be freed from inner conflict.’

‘You’re forgetting something,’ Complain said. ‘The Litany ends “And the ship brought home”; it’s one of the main tenets of the Teaching. You were always a shockingly bad priest, Marapper.’

They were interrupted by the appearance of Vyann, looking fresh and attractive. She said she had already taken breakfast. With more irritation than he usually showed, Marapper excused himself. Something in Vyann’s manner told Complain she was happy enough to let him go; it suited him well also.

‘Has Fermour been questioned yet?’ he asked.

‘No. One of the Council of Five, Zac Deight, has seen him, but that’s all. Roger — that is, Master Scoyt — will question him later, but at present he is involved with some other, unexpected business.’

He did not ask what this business might be. Seeing her so close again overpowered him, so that he could hardly think of anything to say. Mainly, he longed to tell her that nothing less than a miracle could have arranged her dark hair as it was. Instead, and with an effort, he asked what he was required to do.

‘You are going to relax,’ she said brightly. ‘I have come to show you round Forwards.’

It proved an impressive tour. Many rooms, here as in Quarters, were barren and empty; Vyann explained that this must be because their contents had been left on Procyon’s planet, New Earth. Others had been turned into farms far surpassing Quarters’ in scale. Many varieties of animal Complain had never seen before. He saw fish for the first time, swimming in tanks — here Vyann told him that they yielded the white meat he had enjoyed. These farm rooms, he was told, were controlled by quantputer. Not understanding the reference, he held his tongue. There were amazing varieties of crops, some grown under special lighting. Cultivated ponics grew also, and brightly flowering shrubs. In one long room fruit grew, trees against the walls, bushes and plants in raised trenches in the middle; Complain inspected his first grapefruit here. The temperature was high in this room, the gardeners working naked to the waist. Sweat stood out on Complain’s face, and he noticed Vyann’s blouse sticking to her breasts; for him they were the sweetest fruits aboard the ship.

Many men and women worked on these agricultural decks, at humble tasks and complicated ones. Essentially a peaceful community, Forwards regarded agriculture as its chief occupation. Yet, despite all the trouble lavished on them, Vyann said, harvests mysteriously failed, animals died without apparent cause. Starvation remained a constant threat.

They moved to other decks. Sometimes the way was dark, the walls scarred with tokens of unguessable and forgotten weapons: souvenirs of the catastrophe. They came, feeling lonely now, to the Drive Floors, which Vyann said were strictly forbidden to all but a few officers. Here nobody lived; all was left to the silence and the dust.

‘Sometimes I imagine this as it must once have been,’ Vyann whispered, sweeping her torch to left and right. ‘It must have been so busy. The quantputers had not been broken… This was the part of the ship where the actual force that made the ship go was produced. Many men must have worked here.’

The doors which stood open along their way were doors with heavy wheels set in them, quite unlike the ordinary metal ship’s doors. They passed through a last archway and were in a colossal chamber several floors high. The cone of the torch’s beam picked out massed banks of strange shapes studded by monitors, their eyes dull and dead to either side, and in between, cumbrous structures on wheels, with grapnels and scoops and metal hands.

‘Once it was alive: now it’s all dead!’ Vyann whispered. There was no echo here; the brutal undulations of metal sucked up every sound. ‘This is what the Control Room would control if we could find it.’

They retreated, and Vyann led the way into another chamber much like the first, but smaller, though it too was enormous by ordinary standards. Here, though the dust was as thick, a deep and constant note filled the air.

‘You see — the force is not dead!’ the girl said. ‘It still lives behind these plastic walls. Come and look here!’

She led into an adjoining room, almost filled with the gigantic bulk of a machine. The machine, completely panelled over, was shaped like three immense wheels set hub to hub, with a pipe many feet in diameter emerging from either side and curving up into bulkheads. At Vyann’s behest, Complain set his hand on the pipe. It vibrated. In the side of one of the great wheels was an inspection panel; Vyann unlatched and opened it, and at once the organ note increased, like a proslambanomenos implementing a sustained chord.

The girl shone her torch into the aperture.

Complain stared fascinated. Within the darkness, flickering and illusory, something spun and reflected the light, droning deeply as it did so. At the heart of it, a small pipe drip, drip, dripped liquid continually on to a whirling hub.

‘Is this space?’ he asked Vyann breathlessly.

‘No,’ she said, as she closed the panel again. ‘This is one of three tremendous fans. The little pipe in the middle lubricates it. Those fans never stop; they circulate air to the whole ship.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because Roger brought me down here and explained it to me.’

Immediately, Complain’s present surroundings meant nothing to him. Before he could think of stopping the words, he said, ‘What is Roger Scoyt to you, Vyann?’

‘I love him very much,’ she said tensely. ‘I am an orphan — my mother and father both made the Journey when I was very young. They caught the trailing rot. Roger Scoyt and his wife, who was barren, adopted me; and since she was killed in a raid on Forwards many watches ago, he has trained me and looked after me constantly.’

In the upsurge of relief that buoyed Complain, he seized Vyann’s hand. At once, she clicked off her torch and pulled away from him, laughing mockingly in the dark.

‘I didn’t bring you down here to flirt, sir,’ she said. ‘You must prove yourself before trying that sort of thing with me.’

He tried to grab her, but in the darkness banged his head, whereupon she at once switched on the torch. At his lack of success he was angry and sulky, turning away from her, rubbing his sore skull.

‘Why did you bring me down here?’ he asked. ‘Why be friendly to me at all?’

‘You take the Teaching too seriously — it’s what I might expect from someone out of a provincial tribe!’ she said pettishly. Then, relenting a little, she said, ‘But come, don’t look so cross. You need not think because someone shows friendliness they mean you harm. That old-fashioned idea is more worthy of your friend Priest Marapper.’

Complain was not so easily teased out of his mood, especially as mention of Marapper’s name recalled the priest’s warning. He lapsed into a gloomy silence which Vyann was too haughty to break, and they made their way back rather dejectedly. Once or twice, Complain looked half-imploringly at her profile, willing her to speak. Finally she did — without looking at him.

‘There was something I had to ask you,’ she said in a reluctant voice. ‘The lair of the Outsiders must be found; a tribe of raiders has to be destroyed. Because our people are mainly agriculturalists, we have no hunters. Even our trained guards will not venture far into the tangles — certainly they could not cover the vast areas you did on your way here. Roy — we need you to lead us against our enemies. We hoped to show you enough to convince you they were your enemies too.’

Now she was regarding Complain. She smiled kindly, plaintively.

‘When you look at me like that, I could get out and walk to Earth!’ he exclaimed.

‘We shall not ask that of you,’ she said, still smiling, and for once the reserve completely left her. ‘Now we must go and see how Roger’s business is coming along. I’m sure he has been taking the work of the entire ship on his shoulders. I told you about the Outsiders; he can explain about Gregg’s band of raiders.’

Pressing on keenly, she missed the expression of surprise on Complain’s face.

Master Scoyt had been more than busy: he had been successful. For once, feeling he was achieving something, his brow was clear; he greeted Complain like an old friend.

The interrogation of Fermour, who was still under surveillance in a nearby cell, had been postponed because of a rumpus in Deadways. Forwards scouts, hearing a commotion among the tangles, had ventured as far as Deck 29 (which, it transpired, was the deck on which Complain and Marapper had been caught). This deck, only two beyond the frontiers of Forwards, was badly damaged, and the scouts never dared to go beyond it. They had returned empty-handed, reporting a fight of some sort, punctuated by the shrill screams of men and women, taking place on Deck 30.

There the whole matter might have ended. But shortly after this episode, one of Gregg’s ruffians had approached the barriers, calling for truce and begging to see someone in authority.

‘I’ve got him in the next cell,’ Scoyt told Vyann and Complain. ‘He’s a queer creature called Hawl, but beyond referring to his boss as “the Captain”, he seems sane enough.’

‘What does he want?’ Vyann asked. ‘Is he a deserter?’

‘Better even than that, Laur,’ Scoyt said. ‘This fight our scouts reported in Deadways was between Gregg’s and another gang. Hawl won’t say why, but the episode has seriously put the shakes up them. So much so, that Gregg is suing for peace with us through this fellow Hawl, and wants to bring his tribe to live in Forwards for protection.’

‘It’s a ruse!’ Vyann exclaimed. ‘A trick to get in here!’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Scoyt said. ‘Hawl is obviously quite sincere. The only snag is that Gregg, knowing the sort of reputation he has with us, wants a Forwards official to go to him as a token of good faith to arrange terms. Whoever is chosen goes back with Hawl.’

‘Sounds fishy to me,’ Vyann said.

‘Well, you’d better come and see him. But prepare yourself for a shock. He is not a very lovely specimen of humanity.’

Two Forwards officers were with Hawl, supposedly guarding him. They had plainly been beating the hull out of him with knotted ropes. Scoyt dismissed them sharply, but for some while could get no sense out of Hawl, who lay face down, groaning, until the offer of another thrashing made him sit up. He was a startling creature, as near a mutant as made no difference. Madarosis had left him completely hairless, so that neither beard nor eyebrows sprouted from his flesh; he was also toothless; and an unfortunate congenital deformity had given his face a crazed top-heaviness, for while he was so undershot that his upper gum hung in air, his forehead was so distended by exostosis that it all but hid his eyes. Yet Hawl’s chief peculiarity was that these minor oddities were set above a normal-sized body on a skull no bigger than a man’s two fists clenched one atop the other.

As far as could be judged, he was of middle age. Taking in Vyann’s and Complain’s awed gaze, he muttered a fragment of scripture.

‘May my neuroses not offend…’

‘Now, Shameface,’ Master Scoyt said genially. ‘What guarantee does your good master offer our representative — if we send him one — of getting back here in safety?’

‘If I get back safely to the Captain,’ Hawl mumbled, ‘your man shall get back safely to you. This we swear.’

‘How far is it to this brigand you call the Captain?’

‘That your man will know when he comes with me,’ Hawl replied.

‘Very true. Or we could drag it out of you here.’

‘You couldn’t!’ There was something in the strange creature’s tone which compelled respect. Scoyt evidently felt it, for he told the man to get up and dust himself down and take a drink of water. While he did so, Scoyt asked, ‘How many men in Gregg’s gang?’

Hawl put the drinking utensil down and stood defiantly with hands on hips.

‘That your man will be told when he comes with me to arrange terms,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve said all I’m going to say, and you’ll have to make up your minds whether you agree or not. But remember this — if we come here, we shall be no trouble. And we shall fight for you rather than against. This also we swear.’

Scoyt and Vyann looked at each other.

‘It’s worth trying if we can get a foolhardy volunteer,’ he said.

‘It’ll have to go to the Council,’ she said.

Complain had not spoken yet, awaiting his opportunity. Now he addressed Hawl.

‘This man you call Captain,’ he said. ‘Has he another name than Gregg?’

‘You can ask him that when you’re arranging terms,’ Hawl repeated.

‘Look at me carefully, fellow. Do I resemble your Captain in any way? Answer.’

‘The Captain has a beard,’ Hawl said evasively.

‘He should give it you to cover your head with!’ Complain snapped. ‘What do you say to this then? — I had a brother who ran amok into Deadways long ago. His name was Gregg — Gregg Complain. Is that your Captain, man?’

‘Gord’s guts!’ Hawl said. ‘To think the Captain has a brother lounging in this bed of pansies!’

Complain turned excitedly to Master Scoyt, whose heavy face creased with surprise. ‘I volunteer to go with this man to Gregg,’ he said.

The suggestion suited Master Scoyt well. He immediately turned his vast energy to getting Complain on his way as soon as possible. The full force of his persuasiveness, genial but relentless, was applied to the elders of the Council of Five, who convened at once under his direction; Tregonnin was urged reluctantly from the library, Zac Deight disentangled from a theological argument with Marapper, and Billyoe, Dupont and Ruskin, the other three of the Council, lured from their various interests. After a private discussion, they had Complain brought before them, instructed him on the terms to lay down before Gregg, and dismissed him with their expansions. He would have to hurry to be back before the next dark sleep-wake descended upon them.

Though the disadvantages of having Gregg’s band in Forwards were obvious, the Council was keen to welcome them in; it would mean an end to most of the skirmishing on Forwards’ perimeter and the acquiring of an experienced ally to fight against the Outsiders.

An orderly returned Complain’s dazer and torch to him. He was in his room strapping them on when Vyann entered, closing the door behind her. On her face was a comically defiant expression.

‘I’m coming with you,’ she said, without preamble.

Complain crossed to her, protesting. She was not used to the ponics, danger might lurk there, Gregg might well play them false, she was a woman — She cut him short.

‘It’s no good arguing,’ she said. ‘This is Council’s orders.’

‘You got round them! You arranged it!’ he said. He could see he guessed rightly, and was suddenly deliriously glad. Seizing her wrist, he asked, ‘What made you wish to come?’

The answer was not as flattering as he might have wished. Vyann had always wanted to hunt in the ponics, she said; this was the next best thing. And suddenly Complain was reminded — without pleasure — of Gwenny and her passion for the hunt.

‘You’ll have to behave yourself,’ he said severely, wishing her reason for joining him could have been more personal.

Marapper appeared before they left, seeking a word alone with Complain. He had found a mission in life: the people of Forwards needed to be reconverted to the Teaching; since the more lenient rule of the Council began, the Teaching had lost its grip. Zac Deight in particular was against it — hence Marapper’s argument with him.

‘I don’t like that man,’ the priest grumbled. ‘There’s something horribly sincere about him.’

‘Don’t stir up trouble here, please,’ Complain begged, ‘just when these people have got round to accepting us. For hem sake relax, Marapper. Stop being yourself!’

Marapper shook his head so sadly his cheeks wobbled.

‘You also are falling among the unbelievers, Roy,’ he said. ‘I must stir up trouble: turmoil in the id — it must out! There lies our salvation, and of course if the people rally round me at the same time, so much the better. Ah, my friend, we have come so far together, only to find a girl to corrupt you.’

‘If you mean Vyann, Priest,’ Complain said, ‘have a care to leave her out of this. I’ve warned you before, she’s nothing to do with you.’

His voice was challenging, but Marapper was as bland as butter in return.

‘Don’t think I object to her, Roy. Though as a priest I cannot condone, as a man, believe me, I envy.’

He looked forlorn as Complain and Vyann made for the barriers, where Hawl awaited them. His old boisterousness had been muted by Forwards, where everyone was a stranger to him; undoubtedly, for Marapper, to be a big fish in a small pool was better than being a small fish in a big pool. Where Complain had found himself, the priest was beginning to lose himself.

Hawl, his incredibly tiny head cocked, looked only too glad to get back into the ponics; the reception Forwards had given him had not been notably cordial. Once the little party of three were seen through the barricades, he loped ahead professionally, Vyann behind him, Complain bringing up the rear. No longer a mere freak, Hawl moved with an ability the hunter in Complain could only admire; the fellow hardly seemed to stir a leaf. Complain wondered what could have alarmed a man of his stamp so much that he was willing to forsake his natural element for the unfamiliar disciplines of Forwards.

Having only two decks to cover, they were not long in the ponics. This, in Vyann’s view at least, was all to the good; the tangles, she found, were not romantic; merely drab, irritating and full of tiny black midges. She stopped gratefully when Hawl did, and peered ahead through the thinning stalks.

‘I recognize this stretch!’ Complain exclaimed. ‘It’s near where Marapper and I were captured.’

A black and ruinous length of corridor lay ahead, the walls pock-marked and scarred, the roof ripped wide with the force of some bygone explosion. It was here the explorers from Quarters had run into the eerie weightlessness. Hawl shone a light ahead and let out a fluttering whistle. Almost at once, a rope floated out of the hole in the roof.

‘If you go and grab hold of that, they’ll pull you up,’ Hawl said. ‘Just walk slowly to it and catch hold. It’s simple enough.’

It could, despite this reassurance, have been simpler. Vyann gave a gasp of alarm as the lightness seized her, but Complain, more prepared, took her waist and steadied her. Without too much loss of dignity, they got to the rope and were at once hauled up. They were hauled through the roof, and through the roof of the level above that — the damage had been extensive. Hawl, scorning the aid of ropes, dived up head first and landed nonchalantly before they did.

Four ragged men greeted them, crouched over a desultory game of Travel-Up. Vyann and Complain stood in a shattered room, still almost weightless. A miscellany of furniture was ranged round the hole from which they emerged, obviously acting as a shelter for anyone needing to guard the hole in the event of an attack. Complain expected to be relieved of his dazer, but instead Hawl, having exchanged a few words with his tattered friends, led them out to another corridor. Here their weight immediately returned.

The corridor was filled with wounded men and women lying on piles of dead ponics, most of them with face or legs bandaged; they were presumably the victims of the recent battle. Hawl hurried past them clucking sympathetically and pushed into another apartment filled with stores and men, most of them patched, bandaged or torn. Among them was Gregg Complain.

It was unmistakably Gregg. The old look of dissatisfaction, manifesting itself round the eyes and the thin lips, was not altered by his heavy beard, or by an angry scar on his temple. He stood up as Complain and Vyann approached.

‘This is the Captain,’ Hawl announced. ‘I brought your brother and his fine lady to parley with you, Captain.’

Gregg moved over to them, eyes searching them as if his life depended on it. He had lost the old Quarters’ habit of not looking anyone in the eye. As he scanned them, his expression never changed. They might have been blocks of wood; he might have been a block of wood; the blood relationship meant nothing to him.

‘You’ve come officially from Forwards?’ he finally asked his younger brother.

‘Yes,’ Complain said.

‘You didn’t take long to get yourself into their favours, did you?’

‘What do you know of that?’ Complain challenged. The surly independence of his brother had, from all appearances, grown stronger since his violent withdrawal from Quarters long ago.

‘I know a lot of what goes on in Deadways,’ Gregg said. ‘I’m captain of Deadways, if nowhere else. I knew you were heading for Forwards. How I knew, never mind — let’s get down to business. What did you bring a woman with you for? To wipe your nose?’

‘As you said, let’s get down to business,’ Complain said sharply.

‘I suppose she’s come to keep an eye on you to see you behave yourself,’ Gregg muttered. ‘That seems a likely Forwards arrangement. You’d better follow me; there’s too much moaning going on in here… Hawl, you come too. Davies, you’re in charge here now — keep ’em quiet if you can.’

Following Gregg’s burly back, Complain and Vyann were led into a room of indescribable chaos. All over its scanty furnishings, bloody rags and clothes had been tossed; red-soaked bandages lay over the floor like so many broken jam rolls. A remnant of manners still lurked in Gregg, for seeing the look of distaste on Vyann’s face, he apologized for the muddle.

‘My woman was killed in the fight last night,’ he said. ‘She was torn to bits — ugh, you never heard such screams! I couldn’t get to her. I just couldn’t get to her. She’d have cleaned this muck up by now. Perhaps you’d like to do it for me?’

‘We will discuss your proposals and then leave as soon as possible,’ Vyann said tightly.

‘What was it about this fight that has scared you so, Gregg?’ Complain asked.

‘“Captain” to you,’ his brother said. ‘Nobody calls me Gregg to my face. And understand, I’m not scared: nothing’s ever scared me yet. I’m only thinking of my tribe. If we stay here we’ll be killed, sure as shame. We’ve got to move, and Forwards is as safe a place as any to move to. So –’ he sat wearily on the bed and waved to his brother to do the same — ‘It’s not safe here any more. Men we can fight, but not rats.’

‘Rats?’ Vyann echoed.

‘Rats, yes, my beauty,’ Gregg said, baring his fangs for emphasis. ‘Great big dirty rats, that can think and plan and organize like men. Do you know what I’m talking about, Roy?’

Complain was pale.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve had them running over me. They signal to each other, and dress in rags, and capture other animals.’

‘Oh, you know them, do you? Surprising… You know more than I credited you with. They’re the menace, the rat packs, the biggest menace on the ship. They’ve learnt to co-operate and attack in formation — that’s what they did last sleep when they fought us — that’s why we’re getting out. We wouldn’t be able to beat them off again if they came in strength.’

‘This is extraordinary!’ Vyann exclaimed. ‘We’ve had no such attacks in Forwards.’

‘Maybe not. Forwards is not the world,’ Gregg said grimly. He told them his theory, that the rat packs kept to Deadways because there they found the solitary humans whom they could attack and destroy without interference. Their latest raid was partly evidence of increasing organization, partly an accident because they had not at the outset realized the strength of Gregg’s band. Deciding he had said enough, Gregg changed the subject abruptly.

His plans for coming into Forwards were simple, he said. He would retain his group, numbering about fifty, as an autonomous unit which would not mix with the people of Forwards; they would spend their wakes as they spent them now, skirmishing through Deadways, returning only for sleeps. They would be responsible for the guarding of Forwards from Outsiders, Giants, rats and other raiders.

‘And in return?’ Complain asked.

‘In return, I must keep the right to punish my own folk,’ Gregg said. ‘And everyone must address me as Captain.’

‘Surely rather a childish stipulation?’

‘You think so? You never knew what was good for you. I’ve got here in my possession an old diary which proves that I — and you, of course — are descended from a Captain of this ship. His name was Captain Complain — Captain Gregory Complain. He owned the whole ship. Imagine that if you can…’

Gregg’s face was suddenly lit with wonder, then the curtain of surliness fell again. Behind it was a glimpse of a human trying to come to terms with the world. Then he was once more a scruffy brute, sitting on bandages. When Vyann asked him how old the diary was, he shrugged his shoulders, said he did not know, said he had never scanned more than the title page of the thing — and that, Complain guessed shrewdly, would have taken him some while.

‘The diary’s in the locker behind you,’ Gregg said. ‘I’ll show it you some time — if we come to terms. Have you decided about that?’

‘You really offer us little to make the bargain attractive, Brother,’ Complain replied. ‘This rat menace, for instance — for your own motives you are over-estimating it.’

‘You think so?’ Gregg stood up. ‘Then come and have a look here. Hawl, you stay and keep an eye on the lady — what we’re going to see is no sight for her.’

He led Complain along a desolate muddle of corridor, saying as they went how sorry he was to have to leave this hideout. The ancient explosion and a chance arrangement of closed inter-deck doors had given his band a fortress only approachable through the gashed roof by which Complain and Vyann had entered. Still talking — and now beyond his habitual surliness were tokens that he felt some pleasure at the sight of his brother — Gregg burst into a cupboard-like room.

‘Here’s an old pal for you,’ he said, with a sweeping gesture of introduction.

The announcement left Complain unprepared for what he saw. On a rough and dirty couch lay Ern Roffery, the valuer. He was barely recognizable. Three fingers were missing, and half the flesh of his face; one eye was gone. Most of the superb moustache had been chewed away. It needed nobody to tell Complain that this was the work of the rats — he could see their teeth-marks on a protruding cheek bone. The valuer did not move.

‘Shouldn’t be surprised if he’s made the Journey,’ Gregg said carelessly. ‘Poor cur’s been in continual pain. Half his chest is eaten away.’

He shook Roffery’s shoulder roughly, raised his head and let it drop back on to the pillow.

‘Still warm — probably unconscious,’ he said. ‘But this’ll show you what we’re up against. We picked this hero up last wake, several decks away. He said the rats had finished him. It was from him I heard about you — he recognized me, poor cur. Not a bad fellow.’

‘One of the best,’ Complain said. His throat was so tight he could scarcely speak; his imagination was at work — involuntarily — picturing this horrible thing happening. He could not drag his eyes from Roffery’s ravaged face. In a daze he stood there while his brother kept talking. The rats had picked Roffery up in the swimming pool; while he was still helpless from the effects of the Giants’ gassing, they had loaded him on to a sort of stretcher and dragged him to their warrens. And there he had been questioned, under torture.

The warren was between broken decks, where no man could reach. It was packed stiff with rats, and with an extraordinary variety of bric-à-brac they had scavenged and built into dens and caves. Roffery saw their captive animals, existing under appalling conditions. Many of these helpless beasts were deformed, like human mutations, and some of them had the ability to probe with their minds into other minds. These mutated creatures were set by the rats to question Roffery.

Complain shuddered. He recalled his disgust when the rabbit had bubbled its insane interrogations into his mind. Roffery’s experience, long protracted, had been infinitely worse. Whatever they learnt from him — and they must have acquired much knowledge of the ways of men — Roffery learnt something from them: the rats knew the ship as no man ever had, at least since the catastrophe; the tangles were no obstacle to them, for they travelled by the low roads between decks, which was why men saw them rarely, travelled by the ten thousand pipes and sewers and tubes that were the great ship’s arteries.

‘Now you see why I’m not happy here,’ Gregg said. ‘I don’t want my flesh chewed off my skull. These rats are the end as far as I’m concerned. Let’s get back to your woman. You picked lucky with her, brother. My woman was no beauty — the cartilage in her legs was all bone, so she could not bend her knees. But… it didn’t worry her in bed.’

Vyann seemed content when they returned to her; she was drinking a hot liquid. Only Hawl looked guilty and saw fit to explain that the bloody bandages had made her ill, so he had gone to fetch her a drink.

‘There’s a drop left for you, Captain,’ the small-head added. ‘Drain it off like a good fellow.’

As Gregg drank, Complain made to go. He was still feeling shaken at the sight of Roffery.

‘We’ll put your proposition to the Council,’ he said. ‘They should accept it when they hear about the rats. I’ll come back and report to you what they say. Now we must get back: the next sleep-wake is a dark, and there is much to be done before that.’

Gregg looked hard at his brother. Beneath the morose indifference of his expression, uneasiness stirred; undoubtedly he was anxious to get his band to Forwards as soon as possible. Perhaps he realized for the first time that his younger brother was a force to reckon with.

‘Here’s a present for you to take with you,’ he said clumsily, picking up something from the bed and thrusting it at Complain. ‘It’s a sort of dazer I took off a Giant we speared two wakes back. It kills by heat. It’s awkward to handle, and you’ll burn yourself if you aren’t careful, but it was a useful enough weapon against the rats.’

The ‘sort of dazer’ was a stubby metal object, as cumbrous as Gregg had said; he pressed the button, and a fan of almost invisible heat spread from the front. Even standing away from it, Complain could feel its heat, but its range was obviously short. Nevertheless, Complain accepted it gratefully, and he parted from his brother on an unexpectedly cordial note. It felt funny, he thought, to be pleased by a personal relationship like that.

Vyann and Complain made their way back to Forwards unescorted, the latter with more anxiety than when they had set out, keeping his senses alert for rats. They arrived safely, only to find Forwards in an uproar.

IV

A Giant had entered Forwards. He had not come through any of the barriers, which of course were guarded continually, but had suddenly appeared before a homeward-bound labouring girl on Deck 14. Before she could cry out, the unfortunate girl had been seized, gagged and bound; she was in no way molested, and as soon as the Giant had finished tying her up, he disappeared. Without much delay, the girl managed to bite off the gag and call for help.

Police and guards had started a search for the invader at once. Their alarm at this confirmation of the existence of Giants, if confirmation still was needed in Forwards, was increased by the apparent pointlessness of his action; obviously some sinister move was afoot. General consensus of opinion was that the Giants were returning from their long sleep to take back the ship. In the pursuit that followed, Master Scoyt and most of his staff joined, and were at present scouring all levels near the scene of the incident.

This Vyann and Complain learned from an excited sentry at the barriers. As they made for their own apartments, distant whistles could be heard; the corridors were almost empty — evidently most people had joined in the chase. A diversion was always as welcome in Forwards as it had been in Quarters.

Vyann breathed a sigh of relief.

‘This gives us a lull,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to face the Council before I had talked to you. I don’t know how you feel, but I’m sure of one thing: we can’t have your brother’s mob here — they’d be unmanageable.’

Complain had known instinctively how she felt. Inclined to agree, he nevertheless said, ‘Do you feel happy about leaving them to the rats?’

‘Gregg’s deliberately over-estimating the abilities of the rats, as a lever to get himself in here. If he’s really so anxious about them he can move further into Deadways. He certainly can’t come here: our organization would collapse.’

Vyann had the stubborn look about her mouth again. She was so self-possessed that a wave of rebellion ran through Complain. Catching the defiance in his eyes, Vyann smiled slightly and said, ‘Come into my room and talk, Roy.’

It was an apartment much like Complain’s, rather bare, rather military, except for a bright rug on the floor. Vyann shut the door behind them and said, ‘I shall have to recommend to Roger and the Council that we keep Gregg out at all costs. You may have noticed that half his men had some sort of deformity; I suppose he has to pick what recruits he can from the freaks of Deadways, but we can’t possibly allow that sort here.’

‘He has more knowledge of that area of the ship than anyone here,’ Complain said, stung by the contempt in her voice. ‘For any forays into the ponics he’d be invaluable.’

She waved a hand gently, bringing it to rest on his arm.

‘Let us not quarrel. The Council can decide the matter. Anyhow I have something to show you –’

‘Before we change the subject,’ Complain interrupted, ‘Gregg made a remark that worried me. He thought you came with me to keep an eye on me, was that true?’

She looked at Complain searchingly and said, her seriousness dissolving, ‘Supposing I like keeping an eye on you?’

He had reached one of those points there could be no retreat from; already his blood hammered with a mysterious foreknowledge of what he was bound to do. He dropped the cumbrous weapon Gregg had given him on to the bed. Any rebuff was worth this delirious event of putting his hands behind her back and pulling her — her, the dark, unattainable Vyann! — towards him, and kissing her on the lips. There was no rebuff; when she opened her eyes again they were full of an excitement as wild as his.

‘“Home is the hunter, home from the hull…”,’ Vyann whispered, quoting from a poem she had learnt in childhood. ‘You’ll stay in Forwards, now, won’t you, Roy?’

‘Do you need to ask?’ he exclaimed, putting his hand up to touch the hair that had always so compelled him. They stood together for a long while, just looking at each other, just living, until at last Vyann said, ‘This will not do. Come and see what I’ve got to show you — something thrilling! With any luck it will tell us a great deal we need to know about the ship.’

Vyann was back to business; it took Complain somewhat longer to recover. She sat down on the bed. As Complain sat beside her, she unbuttoned her tunic and pulled out a narrow black object, handing it to him. It was warm from her body heat. Dropping it, he put his hand on her blouse, tracing the arable contours of her breasts.

‘Laur, darling –’ This was the first time he had spoken her first name aloud, ‘– must we look at this wretched thing just now?’

Vyann put the item playfully but firmly back into his hands.

‘Yes, we must,’ she said. ‘It was logged by an ancestor of yours. I stole it from Gregg’s locker when I had sent that dreadful monster Hawl out to get me a drink. It’s the diary of Gregory Complain, sometime Captain of this ship.’

When the file was clicked open, words faded into being.

The instinct which prompted Vyann to steal the diary was a sure one; although the entries were comparatively few, the vistas they opened up came like a revelation. Because Vyann read more quickly than he, Complain soon gave up, lying with his head in her lap as she read aloud. Neither of them could have been more fascinated, even if they had known of the lucky flukes to which, over the years, the little file owed its continued existence.

At first the account was difficult to follow, by virtue of its reference to things of which Vyann and Complain had no knowledge; but they soon grew to understand the alartning predicament in which the comper of the diary and his contemporaries found themselves. That ancient crisis seemed suddenly very near, although it had happened so long ago; for Captain Gregory — as Vyann soon discovered — had been the first captain on the ship’s journey home from Procyon.

An illuminating entry occurred several lines after the diary began:

‘28.xi.2221. More trouble from Agricultural Bay (the long-dead Captain Gregory had put). Glasser, I/C Floriculture was up to see me after morning watch. He reports that the chlorosis afflicting many species of plants is no better, despite constant iron treatments. Advance spectrum output has been increased two degrees. Lt. Stover — I understand the ratings call him “Noah” — was up shortly afterwards. He is I/C Animal Insemination, and is no happier about his lower animals than Glasser is about his higher plants. Apparently the mice are breeding at a significantly faster rate, but bearing undeveloped foetuses; guinea pigs show similar tendencies. This is hardly a major worry. Most of these creatures went offboard at New Earth (Procyon V’s fancy name) as planned; the few we have are concessions to Noah’s sentimentality — though his argument that they may be useful for laboratory experiments has something to commend it.

‘30.xi.2221. Last night was our usual monthly ball. My dear wife, Yvonne, who always organizes these things, had gone to great pains over it; she looked lovely — but of course the years tell on us both — it’s hard to realize Frank is eighteen! Unfortunately the dance was a complete failure. This was our first dance since leaving Orbit X, and the absence of the colonists made itself felt. So few people seem left aboard. We are now ten days out from Procyon V. The monotonous years stretch like dead weight before us.

‘Went amidships this morning to see Floriculture. Glasser and Montgomery, the hydroponics specialist, look more cheerful. Though many of the crops appear in worse fettle than before, those essential plants, the five cultures which provide us with our air, are picking up again; the iron dosages evidently did the trick. Less cheer from “Noah” Stover — they have a lot of sick animals on their hands.

‘2.xii.2221. We are now on full acceleration. The long journey home may be said to have begun in earnest: as if any one felt excited about that. Morale is low… Yvonne and Frank are being splendid, partly, I suppose, to try and forget that Joy — so recently our baby girl! — is now several a.u.’s behind. A nefarious “No More Procreation” club has been formed in crew’s quarters, I am told by Internal Relations; the basic human drives can cope with that one, I think. More difficult to deal with is poor Bassitt… He was an Aviarist Second Class, but now that all birds except a handful of sparrows have been released on the New World, time hangs heavy for him. He has evolved a dismal religion of his own, mugged it up out of old psychology textbooks, which he insists on preaching up and down Main Corridor. Amazing thing is, people seem inclined to listen. Sign of the times, I suppose.

‘These are minor matters. I was about to deal with a more serious one — the animals — when I was called. More later.

‘5.xii.2221. No time for diary logging. A curse has fallen upon us! Hardly an animal aboard ship is now on its feet; many are dead. The rest lie stiffly with eyes glazed, occasional muscular spasms providing their only sign of life. The head of Fauniculture, Distaff — who went to university with me — is sick, but his underlings and Noah are doing good work. Drugs, however, seem ineffective on the suffering creatures. They have all been closed down now. If only they could talk! Agritechnics are co-operating full blast with the Laboratory Deck, trying to find what plague has descended on us. Curse of God, I say!… All this is grist for Bassitt’s mill, of course.

‘10.xii.2221. Among the stack of routine reports on my monitor every morning is the sick report. On the 8th there were nine sick, yesterday nineteen, today forty-one — and a request, which I hardly needed, from Senior M.O. Toynbee, to see me. I went straight down to Sick Bay to see him. He says the trouble is a virus which knocks out genetic material. Toynbee, as usual, was rather pompous and learned, but without definite knowledge; obviously, as he explains, whatever got into the animals has transferred to his patients. They were a pathetic lot, a high percentage of them children. Like the animals, they lie rigidly, occasionally undergoing muscular twitch; high temperatures, vocal cords apparently paralysed. Sick Bay out of bounds to visitors.

‘14.xii.2221. Every child and adolescent aboard now lies locked in pain in Sick Bay. Adults also affected. Total sick: 109. This is nearly a quarter of our company; fortunately — at least as far as manning the ship is concerned — the older people seem more immune. Distaff died yesterday, but he was sick anyway. No deaths from the strange paralysis reported. Anxious faces everywhere. I can hardly bear to look at them.

‘17.xii.2221. Oh Lord, if You did not from its launching turn Your face from this ship, look upon us all now. It is nine days since the first nine sicknesses were reported. Eight of the afflicted died today. We had thought, and Toynbee assured me, they were recovering. The stiffness lasted a week; for the last two days, the patients were relaxed, although still running temperatures. Three spoke up intelligently and said they felt better, the other six seemed delirious. The deaths occurred quietly, without struggle. Laboratory Deck has post-mortems on hand, Sheila Pesoli is the only survivor of this first batch, a girl of thirteen; her temperature is lower, she may live.

‘The nine day cycle will be up for ten more cases tomorrow. Infinite foreboding fills me.

‘One hundred and eighty-eight people are now prostrate, many lying in their respective rooms, the Sick Bay being full. Power staff are being drafted as orderlies. Bassitt in demand! A deputation of twenty officers, all very respectful, and headed by Glasser, came to see me after lunch; they requested that we turn back to New Earth before it is too late. Of course I had to dissuade them; poor Cruikshank of Ship’s Press was among them — his son was one of the eight who died this morning.

‘18.xii.2221. Could not sleep. Frank was taken early this morning, dear lad. He lies as rigid as a corpse, staring at — what? Yet he was only one of twenty fresh cases; the older people are getting it now. Have been forced to modify the ship’s routine: another few days and it must be abandoned altogether. Thank heaven most devices are automatic and self-servicing.

‘Of the ten patients whose nine day cycle finished today, seven have died. The other three remain on the threshold of consciousness. No change in young Sheila. All anyone talks about now is what is called the “Nine Day Ague”. Had Bassitt put in the cells on a charge of spreading depression.

‘I am tired after a prolonged inspection of Agriculture with, among others, Glasser, who was rather cold after the failure of his deputation yesterday. Ninety-five per cent of all livestock took the Ague, Noah tells me. About 45 per cent of those recovered — wish human figures looked as good! Unfortunately, the bigger animals came off worst; no horses survived and, more serious, no cows. Sheep fared badly, pigs and dogs comparatively well. The mice and rats are fully recovered, their reproductive capacities unimpaired.

‘Ordinary earth-grown plants have shown roughly similar percentages of survival. Back-breaking work has gone on here; the depleted staffs have coped nobly with the job of cleaning the acres of beds.

‘In the adjacent chambers, Montgomery showed me his hydroponics with pride. Completely recovered from chlorosis — if it was chlorosis — they are more vigorous than ever, and seem almost to have benefited from their version of the Nine Day Ague. Five types of oxygenator are grown: two “wet,” one “semi-wet” and two “dry” varieties. One of these dry varieties in particular, an edible variety modified centuries ago from ground elder, is growing luxuriantly and shows a tendency to flow out from its gravel beds over the deck. Temperatures in Floriculture are being kept high; Montgomery thinks it helps.

‘Phoned Laboratories. Research promise (as they have before) to produce a cure for our plague tomorrow; unfortunately most of the scientists there are down with the Ague, and a woman called Besti is trying to run things.

‘21.xii.2221. I have left the Control Room — perhaps for good. The shutters have been closed against the ghastly stars. Gloom lies thick over the ship. Over half our population has the Nine Day Ague; out of sixty-six who have completed the full cycle, forty-six have died. The percentage of deaths is dropping daily, but the survivors seem comatose. Sheila Pesoli, for instance, hardly stirs.

‘Managing any sort of organization becomes increasingly hard. Contact with further parts of the ship is virtually lost, vital cable complexes having been destroyed. Everywhere, groups of men and women huddle together, waiting. Licentiousness vies with apathy for upper hand. I have visions of us all dying, this dreadful tomb speeding on perhaps for millennia until it is captured by a sun’s gravity.

‘This pessimism is weakness: even Yvonne cannot cheer me.

‘Research has now identified the causal virus; somehow that seems of small importance. The knowledge comes too late. For what it is worth, here are their findings. Before leaving the new planet, we completely rewatered. All stocks of water aboard were evacuated into orbit, and fresh supplies ferried up. The automatic processes which claim moisture from the air and feed it back into the hull tanks have always been efficient; but naturally such water, used over and over, had become — to use a mild word — insipid.

‘The new water, ferried up from the streams of Procyon V, tasted good. It had, of course, been tested for microscopic life and filtered; but perhaps we were not as thorough as we should have been — scientific method has naturally stagnated over the generations. However, apportioning blame is irrelevent in our present extremity. In simple terms, viral proteins were suspended in the water in molecular solutions, and so slipped through our filters.

‘June Besti, in Research, a bright and conceited young thing whose hyper-agoraphobia rendered her unable to join her husband on Procyon V, explained the whole chain of events to me in words of one syllable. Proteins are complex condensation forms of amino acids; amino acids are the basics, and link together to form proteins in peptic chains. Though the known amino acids number only twenty-five, the combinations of proteins they can form is infinite; unfortunately a twenty-sixth amino acid turned up in the water from Procyon V. It served as a vector for the fatal virus.

‘In the tanks, the proteins soon hydrolyzed back into their constituents, as doubtless they would have done on the planet. Meanwhile, the ship’s quota of human beings, livestock and plants absorb many gallons of water per day; their systems build up the amino acids back into proteins, which are transferred to the body cells, where they are used as fuel and, in the combustive processes of metabolism, dissolved back into aminos again. That’s the usual way it happens.

‘The twenty-sixth amino acid disrupts this sequence. It combines into too complex a protein for any system — vegetable or animal — to handle. This is the point at which rigidity of the limbs sets in and the virus proliferates. As Payne explained, the denser peptic linkage may partially be due to the heavier gravity of New Earth; we know very little about the sustained effects of gravity on viral development or free-building molecules.

‘By now, the settlement on the new world must be in as sad a state as we. At least they have the privilege of dying in the open air.

‘22.xii.2221. I had no time to finish yesterday. Today there seems to be all the time in the world. Fourteen more deaths reported this morning by a tired Toynbee. The Nine Day Ague is undisputed master of the ship: my dear Yvonne is its latest victim. I have tucked her in bed but cannot look at her — too terrible. I have ceased to pray.

‘Let me finish what young Besti told me. She was guardedly optimistic about the ultimate survival of a percentage of our population. The bodies of Ague victims are inactive while their internal forces cope with viral depredations; they will eventually break them down if the constitution concerned is elastic enough: “another little virus won’t do us any harm”, Miss Besti pertly quotes. Proteins are present already in all living cells and, after a danger period, another protein, differing but slightly, may be tolerated. The new amino, christened bestine (this bright young creature smoothly informs me!), has been isolated; like leucine and lysine, which are already known, it has an effect on growth — what effect, only long-term research will establish, and I doubt that we have that much time.

‘The short-term results are before us. The plants have mainly adapted to bestine and, once adapted, seem to thrive. The animals, varying with their species, have adapted, though only the pig colony actually seems exhuberant. All survivals, Besti says, may be regarded as mutations — what she calls “low-level mutations”. It seems the heat in Agriculture may have helped them; so I have ordered a ten degree temperature increase from Inboard Power for the whole ship. That is literally the only step we have been able to take to help…

‘It looks as if the more complex the organism, the more difficulty it has in rejecting to the new proteins and viruses. Bad luck on man: in particular, us.

‘24.xii.2221. Toynbee has the Ague. So has Montgomery. They are two of only five new victims this morning. The freak proteins seem to have done the worst of their work. Trying to analyse the reports Sick Bay still heroically send in, I find that the older the person, the better he holds out to begin with and the less chance he stands of surviving once the virus develops. I asked Besti about this when she came, quite voluntarily, to see me (she has made herself I/C Research, and I can only bless her efficiency); she thinks the figures are not significant — the young survive most things better than older people.

‘Little Sheila Pesoli has recovered! Hers was one of the first cases, sixteen long days ago. I went down and saw her; she seems perfectly all right, although quick and nervous in her actions. Temperature still high. Still, she is our first cure.

‘Feel absurdly optimistic about this. If only 100 men and women came through, they might multiply, and their descendants get the ship home. Is there not a lower limit to the number who can avoid extinction? No doubt the answer lurks somewhere in the library, perhaps among those dreary disks compiled by past occupants of this ship…

‘There was a mutiny today, a stupid affair, led by a Sergeant Tugsten of Ship’s Police and “Spud” Murphy, the surviving armourer. They ran amok with the few hand-atomic weapons not landed on P.V., killing six of their companions and causing severe damage amidships. Strangely enough, they weren’t after me! I had them disarmed and thrown into the brig — it will give Bassitt someone to preach at. And all weapons apart from the neurolethea, or “dazers” as they are popularly called, have been collected and destroyed, to prevent further menace to the ship; the “dazers”, acting only on living nervous systems, have no effect on inorganic material.

‘25.xii.2221. Another attempt at mutiny. I was down in Agriculture when it all blew up. As one of the essential ship’s services, the farm must be kept running at all costs. The oxygenators in Hydroponics have been left, as they can manage themselves; one of them, the dry variety mentioned before, has proliferated over the floor and seems almost as if it could sustain itself. While I was looking at it, “Noah” Stover came in with a “dazer”, a lot of worried young women with him. He fired a mild charge at me.

‘When I revived, they had carried me up into the Control Room, there threatening me with death if I did not turn the ship round and head back for New Earth! It took some time to make them understand that the manoeuvre of deflecting the ship through 180 degrees when it is travelling at its present speed of roughly 1328.5 times EV (Earth) would take about five years. Finally, by demonstrating stream factors, I made them understand; then they were so frustrated they were going to kill me anyhow.

‘Who saved me? Not my other officers, I regret to tell, but June Besti, single-handed — my little heroine from Research! So furiously did she rant at them, that they finally slunk off, Noah in the lead. I can hear them now, rampaging round the low-number decks. They’ve got at the liquor supplies.

‘26.xii.2221. We have now what may be termed six complete recoveries, including Sheila. They all have temperatures and act with nervous speed, but claim to feel fit; mercifully, they have no memory of any pain they underwent. Meanwhile, the Ague still claims its victims. Reports from Sick Bay have ceased to come in, but I estimate that under fifty people are still in action. Fifty! Their — my — time of immunity is fast running out. Ultimately, there can be no avoiding the protein pile-up, but since the freak linkages are random factors, some of us dodge a critical congestion in our tissues longer than others.

‘So at least says June Besti. She has been with me again; of course I am grateful fof her help. And I suppose I am lonely. I found myself kissing her passionately; she is physically attractive, and about fifteen years my junior. It was all foolishness on my part. She said — oh, the old argument needs no repeating — she was alone, frightened, we had so little time, why did we not make love together? I dismissed her, my sudden anger an indication of how she tempted me; now I’m sorry I was so abrupt — it was just that I kept thinking of Yvonne, stretched out in dumb suffering a few yards away in the next room.

‘Must arm myself and make some sort of inspection of the ship tomorrow.

‘27.xii.2221. Found two junior officers, John Hall and Margaret Prestellan, to accompany me round ship. Men very orderly. Noah running a nursing service to feed those who come out of the Nine Day Ague. What will the long term repercussions of this catastrophe be?

‘Someone has let Bassitt loose. He is raving mad — and yet compelling. I could almost believe his teaching myself. In this morgue, it is easier to put faith in psycho-analysis than God.

‘We went down to Agriculture. It’s a shambles, the livestock loose among the crops. And the hydroponics! The dry oxygenator mentioned here before has wildly mutated under the bestine influence. It has invaded the corridors near the Hydroponics section, its root system sweeping a supply of soil before it, almost as if the plant had developed an intelligence of its own. With somewhat absurd visions of the thing growing and choking the whole ship, I went up to the Control Room and clicked the button which causes the inter-deck doors to close all along Main Corridor. That should cramp the plant’s style.

‘Frank broke out of his stiffness today. He did not recognize me; I will see him again tomorrow.

‘June was taken with the Ague today. Bright and living June! Prestellan showed her to me — motionless in suffering even as she had predicted. Somehow, treacherously, the sight of her hurt me more than the sight of Yvonne had done. I wish — but what does it matter what I wish? MY TURN NEXT.

‘28.xii.2221. Prestellan reminded me that Christmas has come and gone; I had forgotten that mockery. That was what the drunken mutineers were celebrating, poor devils!

‘Frank recognized me today; I could tell by his eyes, although he could not speak. If he ever becomes Captain, it will be of a very different ship.

‘Twenty recoveries to date. An improvement — room for hope.

‘Adversity makes thinkers of us all. Only now, when the long journey means no more than a retreat into darkness, do I begin to question the sanity behind the whole conception of inter-stellar travel. How many hapless men and women must have questioned it on the way out to Procyon, imprisoned in these eternal walls! For the sake of that grandiose idea, their lives guttered uselessly, as many more must do before our descendants step on Earth again. Earth! I pray that there men’s hearts have changed, grown less like the hard metals they have loved and served so long. Nothing but the full flowering of a technological age, such as the Twenty-first Century knew, could have launched this miraculous ship; yet the miracle is sterile, cruel. Only a technological age could condemn unborn generations to exist in it, as if man were mere protoplasm, without emotion or aspiration.

‘At the beginning of the technological age — a fitting token, to my mind — stands the memory of Auschwitz-Berkenau; what can we do but hope that this more protracted agony stands at its end: its end for ever, on Earth, and on the new world of Procyon V.’

There the file ended.

During the reading of it, Vyann had been forced to pause several times and master her voice. Her usual rather military bearing had deserted her, leaving her just a girl on a bed, close to tears. And when she had finished reading, she forced herself to turn back and re-read a sentence on the first page which had escaped Complain’s notice. Captain Gregory Complain had printed: ‘We head for Earth in the knowledge that the men who will see those skies will not be born until six generations have died.’ Vyann read it aloud in a shaky voice before finally breaking into a storm of tears.

‘Don’t you see!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Roy — the Journey was only meant to take seven generations! And we are the twenty-third generation! The twenty-third! We must be far past Earth — nothing can ever save us now.’

Hopelessly, wordlessly, Complain tried to console her, but human love had no power to soften the inhumanity of the trap they were in. At last, when Vyann’s sobbing had partly subsided, Complain began to talk. He could hear his voice creaking with numbness, forced out in an attempt to distract her — to distract both of them — from the basic plight.

‘This file explains so much, Laur,’ he said. ‘We must try and be grateful for knowing. Above all, it explains the catastrophe; it’s not a frightening legend any more, it’s something we might be able to deal with. Perhaps we shall never know if Captain Gregory survived, but his son must have done, to carry on the name. Perhaps June Besti survived — somehow she reminds me of you… At least it’s obvious enough people survived — little groups, forming tribes… And by then the hydroponics had almost filled the ship.’

‘Who would have thought,’ she whispered, ‘that the ponics weren’t really meant to be there. They’re… they’re part of the natural order of things! It seems so –’

‘Laur! Laur!’ he exclaimed, suddenly interrupting. He sat up and seized the strange weapon his brother had given him. ‘This weapon! The diary said all weapons except dazers had been destroyed. So this thing must be something other than a weapon!’

‘Perhaps they missed one,’ she said wearily.

‘Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It’s a heat device. It must have a special use. It must be able to do something we don’t know about. Let me try it –’

‘Roy! Be careful!’ Vyann cried. ‘You’ll have a fire!’

‘I’ll try it on something that doesn’t burn. We’re on to something, Laur, I swear it!’

He picked the gun up carefully, training the nozzle towards the wall; it had an indicator and a button on the smooth top surface. He pressed the button, as Gregg had done earlier. A narrow fan of intense heat, almost invisible, splayed out and touched the wall. On the matt metal of the wall, a bright line appeared. It loosened, widened. Two cherry-red lips grew, parting in a smile. Hastily, Complain pressed the button again. The laser died, the lips lost their colour, turned maroon, hardened into a gaping black mouth; through it, they could see the corridor.

Vyann and Complain stared at each other, thunderstruck.

‘We must tell the Council,’ Complain said finally, in an awed voice.

‘Wait!’ she said. ‘Roy, darling, there’s somewhere I want us to try that weapon. Will you come with me before we say a word to anyone?’

They found, with some surprise, when they got into the corridors, that the hunt for the Giant was still on. It was fast approaching the time when the darkness that would cover the next sleep-wake fell; everyone not engaged in the hunt was preparing for sleep, behind closed doors. The ship seemed deserted, looking as it must have looked long ago, when half its occupants lay dying under the rule of the Nine Day Ague. Vyann and Complain hurried along unnoticed. When the dark came down, the girl flashed on the torch at her belt without comment.

Complain could only admire her refusal to admit defeat; he was not enough of a self-analyst to see it was a quality he had a fair measure of himself. The uneasy notion that they might meet rats or Giants or Outsiders, or a combination of all three, obsessed him, and he kept the heat gun ready in one hand and his dazer in the other. But their progress was uneventful, and they came safely to Deck 1 and the closed spiral staircase.

‘According to your friend Marapper’s plan,’ Vyann said, ‘the Control Room should be at the top of these stairs. On the plan, the Control Room is shown large: yet at the top there is only a small room with featureless circular walls. Supposing those walls have been put up to keep people out of the Control Room?’

‘You mean — by Captain Gregory?’

‘Not necessarily. Probably by someone later,’ she said. ‘Come and aim your gun at the walls…’

They climbed the enclosed stairs and faced the circle of metal walls, with a hushed sensation of confronting a mystery. Vyann’s grip on his arm was painfully tight.

‘Try there!’ she whispered, pointing at random.

She switched her torch off as he switched the gun on.

In the dark, beyond the levelled nozzle, a ruddy glow was born, woke to brightness, moved under Complain’s control until it formed a radiant square. Rapidly, the sides of square sagged; the metal within it peeled back like a piece of skin, leaving them room to climb through. An acrid smell in their nostrils, the two waited impatiently for the heat to subside. Beyond it, in a great chamber dimly revealed, they could see a narrow outline of something, something indefinable because beyond their experience.

When the square was cool enough to climb through, they made by common consent for that beckoning line.

The great shutters which, when closed, covered the magnificent 270 degree sweep of the observation blister, were exactly as Captain Gregory Complain had left them long since, even down to a carelessly abandoned spanner whose positioning on a sill prevented one panel of shutter from closing properly. It was the gap between this panel and its neighbour which drew Complain and the girl, as surely as ponics seek the light.

Through the narrow chink, which continued almost from ground level to far above their heads, they could glimpse a ribbon of space. How many pointless years had passed since the last inhabitant of the ship had looked out at that mighty void? Heads together, Complain and the girl stared through the impervious hyaline tungsten of the window, trying to take in what they saw. Little, of course, could be seen, just a tiny wedge of universe with its due proportion of stars — not enough to dizzy them, only enough to fill them with courage and hope.

‘What does it matter if the ship is past Earth?’ Vyann breathed. ‘We have found the controls! When we have learnt how to use them, we can steer the ship down to the first planets we come to — Tregonnin told us most suns have planets. Oh, we can do it! I know we can! After this, the rest will be easy!’

In the faint, faint light, she saw a far-off gleam in Complain’s eye, a look of dumb-struck speculation. She put her arms round him, suddenly anxious to protect him as she had always protected Scoyt; for the independence so unremittingly fostered in Quarters had momentarily left Complain.

‘For the first time,’ he said, ‘I’ve realized — fully realized, right down inside me — that we are on a ship.’ His legs were like water.

It was as if she interpreted the words as a personal challenge.

‘Your ancestor brought the ship from New Earth,’ she said. ‘You shall land it on a Newer Earth!’

And she flicked on her torch and swung its beam eagerly round the great array of controls, which up till now had remained in darkness. The phalanx on phalanx of dials which had once made this chamber the nerve centre of the ship, the array of toggles, the soldier-like parade of indicators, levers, knobs and screens, which together provided the outward signs of the power still throbbing through the ship, had coagulated into a lava-like mess. On all sides, the boards of instruments resembled, and were as much use as, damp sherbet. Nothing had been left unmolested; though the torch beam flitted here and there with increasing pace, it picked out not a switch intact. The controls were utterly destroyed.