Non-Stop - Brian W. Aldiss [18]
On his way to the Guards’ quarters for punishment he encountered nobody but Wantage. Inertia still ruled; even the Public Stroker refused to be drawn forth to perform.
‘There’ll be other sleep-wakes,’ he said. ‘What are you in such a hurry for? Clear off and let me lie. Go and find a new woman.’
So Complain went back to his compartment, stomach slowly unknotting. Somewhere in a narrow side corridor, someone played a stringed instrument; he caught the words, sung in a tenor voice:
‘. . . this continuum
. . . far too long
. . . Gloria.’
An old song, poorly remembered; he shut it off sharply with his closing door. Once again Marapper waited for him, greasy face cupped in his hands, rings glittering on his fat fingers.
Complain was suddenly undermined by the sensation that he knew what the priest was going to say; he seemed to have lived this scene over before. He tried to break through the web-like illusion, but could not.
‘Expansion, son,’ said the priest, languidly making the rage sign. ‘You look bitter; are you?’
‘Very bitter, father. Only killing could ease it.’ Through his words, try as he would to say something unexpected, Complain’s sense of re-enacting a scene persisted.
‘There are more things than killing. Things you do not dream of.’
‘Don’t give me that crap, father. You’ll be telling me next that life is a mystery and rambling on like my mother. I feel I need to kill someone.’
‘You shall, you shall,’ the priest soothed. ‘And it is good you should feel so. Never grow resigned, my son; that way is death for us all. We are being punished here for some wrong our forefathers committed. We are all maimed! We are all blind – we thrust out in wrong directions . . .’
Complain had climbed wearily on to his bunk. The illusion of re-living the scene had gone, and directly it was gone, it was forgotten. Now he wanted only to sleep. Tomorrow he would be evicted from his single room and stroked; now he wanted only to sleep. But the priest had stopped talking. Complain glanced up and found Marapper leaning on his bunk, gazing at him. Their eyes met for a moment, before Complain pulled his hurriedly away.
One of the strongest taboos in their society was directed against one man’s looking another straightly in the eyes; honest, well-intentioned men gave each other only side glances. Complain stuck out his lower lip truculently.
‘What the hem do you want with me, Marapper?’ he exploded. He was tempted to tell the priest that he had just learned of his bastardy.
‘You didn’t get your six strokes, Roy, boy, did you?’
‘What’s that to you, priest?’
‘A priest knows no self-seeking. I ask for your good; besides, I have a personal interest in your answer.’
‘No, I wasn’t beaten. They’re all flat out, as you know – even the Public Stroker.’
The priest’s eyes were after his again. Complain heaved over uncomfortably and faced the wall; but the priest’s next question brought him round again.
‘Do you ever feel like running amok, Roy?’
Despite himself, Complain had a vision: he was running through Quarters with his dazer burning, everyone scattering, fearing him, respecting him, leaving him master of the situation. His heart beat uncomfortably. Several of the best and most savage men of the tribe – even Gregg, one of his own brothers – had run amok, bursting through the settlement, some escaping to live afterwards in unexplored areas of tangle, or joining other communities, afraid to return and face their punishment. He knew it was a manly, even an honourable thing to do; but it was not a priest’s business to incite it. A doctor might recommend it if a man were mortally sick; a priest should unite, not disrupt his tribe, by bringing the frustration in human minds up to the surface, where it might flow freely without curdling into neurosis.
For the first time, he realized Marapper was wrestling with