Non-Stop - Brian W. Aldiss [61]
‘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