The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s. Brian Aldiss

Brandyholm muttered reflectively. ‘Cheerful … slow … saying little.’ Then he bowed his head, shaken to think he had lived with the man and cautiously liked him.

      ‘Crooner is now being followed by our men,’ Scott continued. ‘He will lead them to the secret haunts of the aliens. And then – we will hunt them out and slay them all. My mouth waters at the thought of that killing. You will help us, Brandyholm?’

      Silence. Viann’s eyes upon him.

      ‘No,’ Brandyholm said. ‘You killed my priest, who was no alien. To the devil with you all.’

      He did not look up, hunched tensely, waiting to be struck. The blow never came. Instead, footsteps came over to him, and a heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

      ‘Mourning for me is not only forbidden but premature, Tom,’ a familiar voice said. ‘Get up, you worm, and spit the world in the face.’

      He looked up, and it was Carappa. He exclaimed the priest’s name, clutching his arm in his incredulity.

      ‘Yes, I, Tom, and confoundedly cold. This witch doctor, Scott here, painted me with rat’s blood and laid me out with some beastly drug to stage a death bed scene for you and – the other.’

      ‘A slight overdose of chloral hydrate,’ said Scott.

      ‘How are you feeling, priest?’ Viann inquired, with scientific curiosity rather than womanly sympathy in her voice.

      ‘Desolate, madam. And what would that beastly antidote be that your men shot into me?’

      ‘Strychnine, I believe it’s called.’

      ‘Very unpleasant. They also condescended to give me a hot coffee; I never tasted anything so good in Quarters.’ He caught Brandyholm’s eye still upon him and said, ‘I’m no ghost, you see Tom. Ghosts don’t drink coffee.’

      ‘I still can’t believe you’re alive!’ Brandyholm gasped.

      ‘Then you are persisting in a particularly irritating brand of foolishness,’ Viann said, moving towards the door. ‘Try to realise that you are no longer a yokel in a jungle outpost; pull yourself together if you wish to live in Forwards. We need wits here. Come on below, everyone. We will eat, and then await a report from Crooner’s trackers. After that, we shall be busy.’

       V

      The meal was excellent, not only in the standard of the food, but in the blessed absence of the swarms of flies which attended every mouthful back in Quarters. It was slightly marred for Brandyholm and Carappa by the presence of the Council of Five, the rulers of Forwards, who came to hear what Master Scott and Viann had discovered. These five worthies paid no attention whatsoever to the two strangers.

      ‘It is just a custom,’ Scott explained airily to Carappa, when the priest commented on this insult after the Five had again withdrawn.

      ‘They should have acknowledged me at least,’ snorted Carappa. ‘Look here, Master Scott, my interest in this whole business is purely theological, but what I want to know is – what do I get out of it?’

      Viann answered the question, smiling sourly.

      ‘So far, you have retained your life, priest: a doubtful benefit, possibly. What other advantages you – and we – everyone – will extract from the situation remains to be seen. But it seems that the electric wiring manual you tried to hide from us – it has been recovered from your erstwhile cell – will be useful. We have what we lacked before: a plan of the ship.’

      ‘You are a man of vigour and brain, priest,’ Scott added. ‘To keep those virtues at our service it is necessary to retain your tongue in your head; please try and keep it to the immediate problem as much as possible.’

      Brandyholm, tired of sitting quietly, said, ‘Why are there no plans of the ship, no controls? How did the ship leave without them?’

      He received a withering glare from the priest. ‘An accident happened,’ the latter said tersely.

      ‘It seems likely the ship left Procyon without the present ponic tangle,’ said Viann. ‘We believe all parts of the ship were clear and could communicate with each other.’

      Carappa struck his fist on the table, rattling the empty dishes. ‘Some terrible wrong of our forefathers!’ he exclaimed.

      There was a brief knock at the door and a messenger entered, giving the customary greeting, which Master Scott returned. He said he was a runner who had gone with the warriors deputed to follow Bob Crooner. Crooner had dived into the ponic tangle but had gone only a few yards before stopping in a side corridor. There he had pulled the ponic stalks aside with his bare hands, torn out their roots and scooped away the nine inches or so of decayed vegetable matter which covered the floor. After a little searching, he located what he was looking for, and opened up a circular hatch. He rapidly climbed down into this and disappeared, closing the hatch after him.

      ‘Well?’ Scott demanded of the runner. ‘And then?’

      ‘I was then despatched with this report, sir,’ said the runner. ‘The warriors stayed guard over the place. In a day, it would be covered by new ponic sprouts.’

      ‘The aliens cannot live under the floor between levels,’ Scott said, frowning. ‘We had better go there straightaway and investigate. What say you, Viann?’

      ‘Ready,’ she said, throwing her head up as if scenting battle, and patting her dazer. ‘You two had better come with us,’ she added to the priest and Brandyholm. The latter looked dubiously at Carappa, who nodded eagerly.

      ‘Take your report to the Council of Five, tell them we have gone ahead and ask them to hold men in readiness,’ Scott snapped to the messenger.

      He left the room at the double, the others following. They ran along a short passage, clattered down a companionway and branched thence into the corridor along which Crooner had escaped. The trail of broken ponics was easy to follow, and in five minutes they stood beside three armed men, gazing down at the round bolt hole.

      ‘Whoever enters there first risks getting shot,’ Viann remarked speculatively.

      ‘Alas that the hole is too small for me to enter at all,’ Carappa said hastily.

      ‘Open it up, you, and go and see what’s down there,’ Master Scott motioned to one of the men.

      ‘Er – yes, sir. Can’t we put the lights out along here?’ the man said, rubbing his hands nervously together.

      ‘We shall see if that will be necessary. Hurry!’

      Reluctantly, the man dropped onto hands and knees, pulled up the hatch, and instantly fell onto his face. Nothing happened. He picked himself up sheepishly and dangled one leg into the aperture. It remained attached to his body, and encouraged by an expletive from Scott he lowered himself down. From above, his unkempt head could be seen to bob down and disappear. Then it reappeared, he tilted his face up and called, ‘He’s not here. This is a sort of corridor, about two feet high. Now can I come up?’

      At Scott’s signal, the fellow’s companions hauled him roughly out. Unhooking a flat torch from his belt, Scott looked briefly at his companions.

      ‘Coming?’ he asked, with a crooked smile, and climbed down into the bolt-hole.

      This spot was actually a kind of crossroads for two of the inspection walks which were concealed beneath every floor of the ship. Sandwiched here, between deck and deck, were the vessel’s vital parts, the countless miles of wire and cable and pipe and air channel which made life possible. Sealed away, these shallow, essential areas had escaped the spreading menace of the ponics; and so a sort of survival had been possible.

      Scrutinising the four low walks stretching away from him, Scott instantly determined the way Crooner had taken: only one walk had its thin layer