Non-Stop - Brian W. Aldiss [13]
They might be gathering outside the door now, as menacingly as that silent figure had faded into the ponics.
This was the simple mythology of the Greene tribe, and it did not vary radically from the hierarchy of hobgoblins sustained by the other tribes moving slowly through that region known as Deadways. Part of it, yet entirely a separate species, were the Giants. The Forwarders, the mutants and the Outsiders were all known to exist; occasionally a mutant would be dragged in living from the tangles and made to dance before the people until, tiring of him, they despatched him on the Long Journey; and many warriors would swear they had fought solitary duels with Forwarders and Outsiders; but there was in these three orders of beings an elusive quality. During wakes, in company, it was easy to discount them.
The Giants could not be discounted. They were real. Once everything had belonged to them, the world had been theirs, some even claimed that men were descended from them. Their trophies lay everywhere and their greatness was plain. If ever they returned, there would be no resisting.
Dimly, behind all these phantasmal figures, lived another: less a figure than a symbol. His name was God and he was nothing to be scared of: but nobody ever spoke his name any more, and it was a curious thing to wonder how it was still handed on from generation to generation. It had some undefined connection with the phrase ‘for hem sake’, which sounded emphatic without meaning anything precise. God had finished as a mild swear word.
What Complain had glimpsed that wake in the ponics was altogether more alarming than that.
In the midst of his anxiety, Complain recalled something else: the sound of crying he and Gwenny had heard. The two separate facts slipped smoothly together. The man – the approaching tribe. The man had not been an Outsider, or anything so mysterious. He had merely been a flesh and blood hunter from the other tribe. As simple, as obvious as that . . .
Complain lay back, relaxing. His stupidity had been gently nuzzled out of the way by a little deduction. Although slightly appalled to think how the obvious had eluded him, he was nevertheless proud to consider this new lucidity. He never ratiocinated enough. Everything he did was too automatic, governed by the local laws or the universal Teaching, or his own private moods; this should not be from now on. From now on, he would be more like – well, Marapper, for instance, valuing things – but immaterial things, as Roffrey valued the material ones.
Experimentally, he cast round for other facts to match up. Perhaps if you could collect enough facts, even the ship theory might be turned into sense.
He should have reported the approaching tribe to Lieutenant Greene. That was an error. If the tribes met, there would be hard fighting; the Greenes must be prepared. Well, that report must go in later.
Almost surreptitiously, he dropped asleep.
No aroma of cooking greeted Complain when he woke. He sat up stiffly, groaned, scratched his head and climbed out of bed. For a time he thought that nothing but wretchedness filled him; then he felt, underneath the wretchedness, a resilience stirring. He was going to act, was going to be driven to act: how, would resolve itself later. The big something was promising itself to him again.
Hauling on his slacks, he paddled over to the door and pulled it open. Outside, a strange silence beckoned. Complain followed it into the Clearing.
The revels were now over. The actors, not bothering to return to their apartments, lay where irresistible sleep had found them, among the bright ruins of their gaiety. On the hard deck they lay sleeping stupidly, or woke without troubling to move. Only children called as usual, prodding somnolent mothers into action. Quarters looked like a broad battlefield; but the slain had not bled, and suffering was not yet finished for them.
Complain walked quietly among the sleepers. In the Mess, patronized by single men, he might be able to get food. He stepped by a pair of lovers