A young woman hastily passed over a bowl of broth, winking mischievously at Complain as she did so. Bergass was too feeble to help himself, and Complain spooned the fatty stuff into his mouth. The guide’s eyes, Complain observed, were seeking his, as if with a secret to impart; it was said that the dying always tried to look into someone else’s eyes, but habit made Complain reluctant to meet that bright gaze. Turning away, he was suddenly conscious of the filth everywhere. There was enough dirt on the deck for ponics to seed in; even the dead ponic poles were caked in greasy condensation.
‘Why is not the Lieutenant here? Where is Lindsey the doctor? Should not Marapper the priest be attending you?’ he burst out angrily. ‘You should have better attendance here.’
‘Steady with that spoon, laddie. Just a minute while I make water… ah, my damned belly. Tight. Very tight… The doctor — I had my women send the doctor away. Old Greene, he won’t come, he’s afraid of the rot. Besides, he’s getting as old as I am; Zilliac’ll knock him off one of these fine sleep-wakes and take control himself… Now there’s a man –’
Seeing Bergass was wandering again, Complain said desperately, ‘Can I get you the priest?’
‘The priest? Who, Henry Marapper? Come nearer, and I’ll tell you something, just between us two. A secret. Never told anyone else. Easy… Henry Marapper’s a son of mine. Yes! I don’t believe in his bag of lies any more than I believe –’
He interrupted himself with a fit of croaking which for a moment Complain took for gasps of pain; then he realized it was laughter, punctuated by the words, ‘My son!’ There was no point in staying. With a curt word to one of the women, he got up, suddenly disgusted, leaving Bergass shaking so violently that his stomach growths clapped together. The other women stood about disinterestedly, hands on hips or making the perpetual fanning gesture against the flies. Snatches of their talk beat unheeded against Complain’s ears as he left.
‘… and where’s he get all those clothes from, I’d like to know. He’s only a common farm hand. I tell you he’s an informer…’
‘You’re too free with your kisses, young Wenda. Believe me, when you get to my age –’
‘… nicest dish of brains I’ve
‘… that Ma Cullindram has just had a litter of seven. All still-born but one poor little tyke. It was quins last time, if you remember. I told her straight, I said “You want to be firm with your man –”’
‘… gambling away his earnings –’
‘… lying…’
‘… never laughed so much…’
Back in the dark corridor, he leant for a time against a wall, sighing with relief. He had done nothing, had not even broken the news of Gwenny’s death that he had come to tell Bergass, yet something had happened inside him. It was as if a great weight were rolling forward in his brain; it brought pain, but it enabled him to see more clearly. From it, he instinctively knew, some sort of climax would crystallize.
It had been overpoweringly hot in Bergass’s room; Complain was dripping sweat. From the corridor, now he listened, he could still hear the rumble of women’s voices. Suddenly a vision of Quarters as it really was came into his mind. It was a great cavern, filled exhaustingly with the twitter of many voices. Nowhere any real action, only the voices, dying voices.
IV
The wake wore slowly on and, as the sleep period drew nearer, Complain’s stomach, in anticipation of the next dose of his punishment, grew more uneasy. One sleep-wake in four, in Quarters and in all the known territories round about, was dark. Not an absolute dark, for here and there in the corridors square pilot lights burned like moons; in the apartments it was entirely dark and moonless. This was an accepted law of nature. There were old people to say that their parents recalled how in their youth the darks had not lasted so long; but old people notoriously remember wrongly, spinning out strange tales from the stuff of their vanished childhoods.
In the darks, the ponics crumpled up like sacking. Their slender rods cracked, and all but the lustiest shoots turned black. This was their brief winter. When the light returned, fresh shoots and seedlings climbed energetically up, sweeping away the sacking in a new wave of green. And they in turn would be nipped in four more sleep-wakes. Only the toughest or most favoured survived this cycle.
Throughout this wake, most of the few hundred Quarterers remained inert, the greater part supine. Their barbaric outbreaks of festivity were always succeeded by this mass quiescence. They were expended but, more than that, they were unable to plunge once more into the rigours of routine. Inertia overcame the whole tribe. Despondence lay over them like sheets, and outside the barricades the ponic tangle made inroads on the clearings. Only hunger would get them to their feet again.
‘You could murder the lot without a hand being raised against you,’ Wantage said, something like inspiration showing on the right side of his face.
‘Why don’t you then?’ Complain said jeeringly. ‘It’s in the Litany, you know: an evil desire suppressed multiplies itself and devours the mind it feeds in. Go to, Slotface!’
Instantly, he was seized by the wrist and a sharp blade whisked horizontally to within an inch of his throat. Glaring into his face was a terrible visage, one half creased in fury, the other creased permanently into a meaningless smile; a large grey eye stared detachedly beyond them, absorbed in its own private vision.
‘Don’t dare call me that again, you filthy meat,’ Wantage snarled. Then he twitched his face away, dropping his knife hand, turning his back, anger fading to mortification as he recalled his deformity.
‘I’m sorry.’ Complain regretted the remark as he uttered it, but the other did not turn round again.
Slowly, Complain also moved on, nerves jangled by the encounter. He had run into Wantage on his return from the tangles, where he had been investigating the approaching tribe. If they made contact with the Greene tribe, which was by no means certain, it would not be for some while; the first trouble would be clashes between rival hunters. That might mean death; certainly it would mean release from monotony. Meanwhile, he would keep the knowledge to himself. Let someone with a fondness for authority break the news to the Lieutenant.
On his way to the Guards’ quarters for punishment he encountered nobody but Wantage. Inertia still ruled; even the Public Stroker refused to be drawn forth to perform.
‘There’ll be other sleep-wakes,’ he said. ‘What are you in such a hurry for? Clear off and let me lie. Go and find a new woman.’
So Complain went back to his compartment, stomach slowly unknotting. Somewhere in a narrow side corridor, someone played a stringed instrument; he caught the words, sung in a tenor voice:
An old song, poorly remembered; he shut it off sharply with his closing door. Once again Marapper waited for him, greasy face cupped in his hands, rings glittering on his fat fingers.
Complain was suddenly undermined by the sensation that he knew what the priest was going to say; he seemed to have lived this scene over before. He tried to break through the web-like illusion, but could not.
‘Expansion, son,’ said the priest, languidly making the rage sign. ‘You look bitter; are you?’
‘Very bitter, father. Only killing could ease it.’ Through his words, try as he would to say something unexpected, Complain’s sense of re-enacting a scene persisted.
‘There are more things than killing. Things you do not dream of.’
‘Don’t give me that crap, father. You’ll be telling me next that life is a mystery and rambling on like my
