Non-Stop - Brian W. Aldiss [74]
‘At the beginning of the technological age – a fitting token, to my mind – stands the memory of Auschwitz-Berkenau; what can we do but hope that this more protracted agony stands at its end: its end for ever, on Earth, and on the new world of Procyon V.’
There the file ended.
During the reading of it, Vyann had been forced to pause several times and master her voice. Her usual rather military bearing had deserted her, leaving her just a girl on a bed, close to tears. And when she had finished reading, she forced herself to turn back and re-read a sentence on the first page which had escaped Complain’s notice. Captain Gregory Complain had printed: ‘We head for Earth in the knowledge that the men who will see those skies will not be born until six generations have died.’ Vyann read it aloud in a shaky voice before finally breaking into a storm of tears.
‘Don’t you see!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Roy – the Journey was only meant to take seven generations! And we are the twenty-third generation! The twenty-third! We must be far past Earth – nothing can ever save us now.’
Hopelessly, wordlessly, Complain tried to console her, but human love had no power to soften the inhumanity of the trap they were in. At last, when Vyann’s sobbing had partly subsided, Complain began to talk. He could hear his voice creaking with numbness, forced out in an attempt to distract her – to distract both of them – from the basic plight.
‘This file explains so much, Laur,’ he said. ‘We must try and be grateful for knowing. Above all, it explains the catastrophe; it’s not a frightening legend any more, it’s something we might be able to deal with. Perhaps we shall never know if Captain Gregory survived, but his son must have done, to carry on the name. Perhaps June Besti survived – somehow she reminds me of you . . . At least it’s obvious enough people survived – little groups, forming tribes . . . And by then the hydroponics had almost filled the ship.’
‘Who would have thought,’ she whispered, ‘that the ponics weren’t really meant to be there. They’re . . . they’re part of the natural order of things! It seems so –’
‘Laur! Laur!’ he exclaimed, suddenly interrupting. He sat up and seized the strange weapon his brother had given him. ‘This weapon! The diary said all weapons except dazers had been destroyed. So this thing must be something other than a weapon!’
‘Perhaps they missed one,’ she said wearily.
‘Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It’s a heat device. It must have a special use. It must be able to do something we don’t know about. Let me try it –’
‘Roy! Be careful!’ Vyann cried. ‘You’ll have a fire!’
‘I’ll try it on something that doesn’t burn. We’re on to something, Laur, I swear it!’
He picked the gun up carefully, training the nozzle towards the wall; it had an indicator and a button on the smooth top surface. He pressed the button, as Gregg had done earlier. A narrow fan of intense heat, almost invisible, splayed out and touched the wall. On the matt metal of the wall, a bright line appeared. It loosened, widened. Two cherry-red lips grew, parting in a smile. Hastily, Complain pressed the button again. The laser died, the lips lost their colour, turned maroon, hardened into a gaping black mouth; through it, they