Read Online Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss - Free Book Online Page B

impressed. ‘Couldn’t have improved on it myself!’
    ‘Masterly!’ Roffery exclaimed, respect in his voice. It was good to see a priest who so ably practised what he preached.
    ‘Pleasure,’ grunted Marapper, ‘but keep your voices low or the hounds will have us. Fermour, take this, will you?’
    The body was transferred to Bob Fermour’s shoulder; he, being five foot eight, and nearly a head taller than the others, could manage it most easily. Marapper wiped his blade daintily on Complain’s jacket, holstered it, and turned his attention to the mesh gate.
    From one of his voluminous pockets, he produced a pair of wire cutters, and with these snicked a connection on the gate. He tugged at the handle; it gave about an inch and then stuck. He heaved and growled, but it moved no further.
    ‘Let me,’ Complain said.
    He set his weight against the gate and tugged. It flew suddenly open with a piercing squeal, running on rusted bearings. A well was now revealed, a black, gaping hole, seemingly bottomless. They shrank back from it in some dismay.
    ‘That noise should attract most of the Guards in Quarters,’ Fermour said, inspecting with interest a notice, ‘ RING FOR LIFT ’, by the side of the shaft. ‘Now what, priest?’
    ‘Pitch the Guard down there, for a start,’ Marapper said. ‘Look lively!’
    The body was hurled into the blackness, and in a moment they had the satisfaction of hearing a heavy thud.
    ‘Sickening!’ exclaimed Wantage with relish.
    ‘Still warm,’ Marapper whispered. ‘No need for death rites – just as well if we are to continue to claim our life rights. Now then, don’t be afraid, children, this dark place is man-made;once, I believe, a sort of carriage ran up and down it. We’ve got to follow Twemmer’s example, although less speedily.’
    Cables hung in the middle of the opening. The priest leant forward and seized them, then lowered himself gingerly hand over fist down fifteen feet to the next level. The lift shaft yawning below him, he swung himself on to the narrow ledge, clung to the mesh with one hand and applied his cutters with the other. Tugging carefully, levering with his foot against an upright, he worked the gate open wide enough to squeeze through.
    One at a time, the others followed. Complain was the last to leave the upper level. He climbed down the cable, silently bidding Quarters an uncordial farewell, and emerged with the others. The five of them stood silently in rustling twilight, peering about them.
    They were on strange territory, but one stretch of ponic warren is much like another.
    Marapper shut the gate neatly behind them and then faced forward, squaring his shoulders and adjusting his cloak.
    ‘That’s quite enough action for one wake, for an old priest like me,’ he said, ‘unless any of you care to resume our dispute about leadership?’
    ‘That was never under dispute,’ Complain said, looking challengingly past Roffery’s ear.
    ‘Don’t try and provoke me,’ the latter warned. ‘I follow our father, but I’ll chop anyone who starts trouble.’
    ‘There’ll be enough trouble here to satisfy the most swinishly stupid appetite,’ Wantage prophesied, swinging the bad side of his face towards the walls of growth about them. ‘It would make most sense if we stopped yapping and saved our swords for someone else’s stomachs.’
    Reluctantly, they agreed with him.
    Marapper brushed at his short cloak, scowling thoughtfully; it was bloodied at the hem.
    ‘We shall sleep now,’ he said. ‘We will break into the firstconvenient room and use that for camp. This must be our routine every sleep: we cannot remain in the corridors – the position is too exposed. In a compartment we can post guards and sleep safe.’
    ‘Would we not be better advised to move further from Quarters before we sleep?’ Complain asked.
    ‘Whatever I advise
is
the best advice,’ Marapper said. ‘Do you think any one of those supine mothers’ sons back there is