Non-Stop - Brian W. Aldiss [62]
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