Free Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss Page A

sharply over the usual grille in the ceiling, blank walls and a floor piled with wreckage. Chairs, and desks, their drawers flung aside, their paraphernalia scattered, had been savagely attacked with a hatchet. Light-weight steel cabinets were dented, and lay face down in the dust. The five men stood suspiciously on the threshold, wondering dimly how long ago the havoc had been wrought, feeling perhaps a memory of that savagery still in the air, for savagery – unlike virtue – endures long after its originators have perished.
    ‘We can sleep here,’ Marapper said shortly. ‘Roy, have a look through that door over there.’
    The door at the far side of the room was half open. Skirting a broken desk, Complain pushed at the jamb; a small lavatory was revealed, the china bowl broken, piping torn away. A path of ancient rust ran down the wall, but the water had long ceased to flow. As Complain looked, a shaggy white rat sped from the wreckage past him with a drop-sided scamper; Fermour kicked at it and missed, and it vanished into the ponic tangle of the corridor.
    ‘This will do,’ Marapper repeated. ‘We will eat and then you will draw lots for guard duty.’
    They ate frugally from the supplies in their packs, wrangling over the meal as to whether or not a guard was necessary. Since Complain and Fermour held it was necessary and Roffery and Wantage held it was not, the sides were equally balanced, and the priest did not find himself bound to join the disagreement. He ate in silence, wiped his hands delicately ona rag, and then said, from a still full mouth, ‘Roffery, you will guard first, then Wantage, so that you two will have the earliest opportunity of proving yourselves right. Next sleep, Fermour and Complain will guard.’
    ‘You said we should draw lots,’ Wantage said angrily.
    ‘I changed my mind.’
    He said it so bluntly that Roffery instinctively abandoned that line of attack and remarked, ‘You, I suppose, father, never guard?’
    Marapper spread his hands and edged a look of childlike innocence on to his face. ‘My dear friends, your priest guards you all the time, awake or asleep.’
    Rapidly, he pulled a round object from under his cloak and continued, changing the subject, ‘With this instrument, which I had the forethought to relieve Zilliac of, we can scientifically regulate our spells of guard so that no man does more than another. You see that it has on this side a circle of numbers and three hands or pointers. It is called a watch, so called after a period of guard, which is – as you know – also a watch. The Giants made it for this purpose, which shows that they too had Outsiders and madmen to deal with.’
    Complain, Fermour and Wantage inspected the watch with interest; Roffery, who had handled such things in his job as valuer, sat back superciliously. The priest retrieved his possession and began to press a small stud on its side.
    ‘I do this to make it work,’ he explained grandly. ‘Of the three pointers, the little one goes very rapidly; that we can disregard. The two big ones go at different speeds, but we need only bother with the slower one. You see it is now touching the figure eight. Ern, you will stay awake until it touches the figure nine; then you will rouse Wantage. Wantage, when the pointer points to ten, you will rouse us all, and we will begin our journey. Clear?’
    ‘Where are we going?’ Wantage inquired sullenly.
    ‘We will go into all that when we have slept,’ Marapper said, in a tone of finality. ‘Sleep comes first. Wake me if youhear anybody moving outside – and don’t wake me for false alarms. I am apt to be irritable if my dreams are disturbed.’
    He rolled over into a corner, kicked a shattered office stool away and composed himself for sleep. Without much hesitation, the others did likewise, except Roffery, who watched them unlovingly.
    They were all lying on the floor when Wantage spoke hesitantly. ‘Father, Father Marapper,’ he called,