Non-Stop - Brian W. Aldiss [80]
He ushered them back into the clanging corridor. At once he was surrounded by underlings wanting orders; he became gradually separated from Complain and Vyann. They heard him delegating a junior officer to bear the news to Gregg, then he turned away and his voice was lost.
‘Union with Gregg . . .’ Vyann said, and shivered. ‘Now what do we do? It looks as if Roger intends to give me no more work.’
‘You’re going to bed,’ Complain said. ‘You look exhausted.’
‘You don’t think I could sleep with all this noise going on, do you?’ she asked, smiling rather tiredly.
‘I think you could try.’
He was surprised with what submissiveness she let him lead her away, although she stiffened suddenly as they met Marapper loitering in a side corridor.
‘You are the hero of the hour, priest, I understand,’ she said.
Marapper’s face was ponderous with gloom; he wore injury round him like a cloak.
‘Inspector,’ he said with a bitter dignity. ‘You are taunting me. For half my wretched lifetime I go about with a priceless secret on my finger without realizing it. And then when I do realize it – behold, in a moment of quite uncharacteristic panic, I give it away to your friend Scoyt for nothing!’
II
We’ve got to get out of the ship somehow,’ Vyann murmured. Her eyes were shut as she spoke, her dark head down on the pillow. Softly, Complain crept from the dark room; she would be asleep before he closed the door, despite the chaos of sound two decks away. He stood outside Vyann’s door, half afraid to go away, wondering if this was a good time to bother the Council or Scoyt with news of the ruined controls. Indecisively, he fingered the heat gun tucked in his belt, as gradually his thoughts wandered back to more personal considerations.
Complain could not help asking himself what part he was playing in the world about him; because he was undecided what he wanted from life, he seemed to drift on a tide of events. The people nearest to him appeared to have clear-cut objectives. Marapper cared for nothing but power; Scoyt seemed content to grapple with the endless problems of the ship; and Complain’s beloved Laur wanted only to be free of the restraints of life aboard. And he? He desired her, but there was something else, the something he had promised himself as a kid without finding it, the something he could never put into words, the something too big to visualize . . .
‘Who’s that?’ he asked, roused suddenly by a close footstep.
A square pilot light near at hand revealed a tall man robed in white, a distinctive figure whose voice, when he spoke, was powerful and slow.
‘I am Councillor Zac Deight,’ he said. ‘Don’t be startled. You are Roy Complain, the hunter from Deadways, are you not?’
Complain took in his melancholy face and white hair, and liked the man instinctively. Instinct is not always the ally of intelligence.
‘I am, sir,’ he answered.
‘Your priest, Henry Marapper, spoke highly of you.’
‘Did he, by hem?’ Marapper often did good by stealth, but it was invariably to himself.
‘He did,’ Zac Deight said. Then his tone changed. ‘I believe you might know something about that hole I see in the corridor wall.’
He pointed at the gap Complain and Vyann had made earlier in the wall of her room.
‘Yes I do. It was made with this weapon here,’ Complain said, showing the weapon to the old Councillor and wondering what was coming next.
‘Have you told anyone else you have this?’ Zac Deight asked, turning the heat gun over with interest.
‘No. Only Laur – Inspector Vyann knows; she’s asleep at present.’
‘It should have been handed to the Council for us to make the best use of we could,’ Zac Deight said gently. ‘You ought to have realized that. Will you come to my room and tell me all about it?’
‘Well, there’s not much to tell, sir . . .’ Complain began.
‘You can surely see how dangerous this weapon could be in the wrong hands . . .’ There was something commanding in the old councillor’s tone. When