Non-Stop - Brian W. Aldiss [10]
‘Expansion to your ego, sir,’ Complain offered humbly.
‘At your expense,’ came the stock response. And then, growled, ‘How did you manage to lose your woman, Hunter Roy Complain?’
Haltingly, he explained how she had been seized at the top of Sternstairs. ‘It may have been the work of Forwards,’ he suggested.
‘Don’t raise that bogey here,’ Zilliac, one of Greene’s attendants, barked. ‘We’ve heard those tales of super-races before, and don’t believe them. The Greene tribe is master of everything this side of Deadways.’
As Complain gave his story, the Lieutenant grew gradually more angry. His limbs began to shake; his eyes filled with tears; his mouth distorted till his chin was glistening with saliva; his nostrils filled with mucus. The desk commenced to rock in unison with his fury. As he rocked, he growled, and under the shaggy white hair his skin turned a pale maroon. Through his fear Complain had to admit it was a brilliant, daunting performance.
Its climax came when the Lieutenant, vibrating like a top with the wrath pouring from him, fell suddenly to the ground and lay still. At once Zilliac and his fellow, Patcht, stood over the body, dazers at the ready, faces twitching with reciprocal anger.
Slowly, very slowly and tremblingly, the Lieutenant climbed back on to his chair, exhausted by the necessary ritual. ‘He’ll kill himself one day, doing that,’ Complain told himself. The thought warmed him a little.
‘Now to decide your punishments under the law,’ the old man said, in a husk of a voice. He glanced round the room in a helpless fashion.
‘Gwenny was not a good woman for the tribe, despite her brilliant father,’ Complain said, moistening his lips. ‘She couldn’t produce any children, sir. We did have one, a girl, who died before weaning. She could not have any more, sir – Marapper the priest said so.’
‘Marapper’s a fool!’ Zilliac exclaimed.
‘Your Gwenny was a well-figured girl,’ Patcht said. ‘Nicely set up. Quite a beddable girl.’
‘You know what the laws say, young man,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘My grandfather formed them when he formed the tribe. They are next to the Teaching in importance in our . . . in our lives. What is all that row outside? Yes, he was a great man, my grandfather. I remember on the day he died he sent for me . . .’
Fear glands were still working copiously in Complain, but in a sudden moment of detachment he saw the four of them, each pursuing an elusive thread in his own being, conscious of the others only as interpretations or manifestations of his own fears. They were isolated, and every man’s hand was against his neighbour.
‘What shall the sentence be?’ Zilliac growled, cutting into the Lieutenant’s reminiscences.
‘Oh, ah, let me see. You are already punished by losing your woman, Complain. There is no other available woman for you at present. What is all that noise outside?’
‘He must be punished or it may be thought you are losing your grip,’ Patcht suggested craftily.
‘Oh, quite, quite; I was going to punish him. Your suggestion was unnecessary, Patcht. Hunter – er, huh, Complain, for the next six sleep-wakes you will suffer six strokes, to be administered by the Guard captain before each sleep, starting now. Good. You can go. And, Zilliac, for hem sake go and see what all that row is outside.’
So Complain found himself outside again. A wall of noise and colour met him. Everyone seemed to be here, dancing senselessly in an orgy of enjoyment. Normally he would have flung himself in too, being as eager as anyone to throw off the oppressive routines of life; but in his present mood he merely slunk round the outside of the crowd, avoiding their eyes.
Nevertheless, he delayed the return to his compartment. (He would be turned out of there now: single men did not have their own rooms.) He loitered sheepishly on the fringes of the merriment, his stomach heavy with expectation of the coming punishment, while the bright dance whirled by. Several groups,