Read Online The Ladder in the Sky by John Brunner - Free Book Online
Authors: John Brunner
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caught the contagious fear of Kazan; second, that Kazan himself—aside from confirming Hego’s story in the captain’s presence, which could be discounted—had never said anything one way or the other.
This was alarming.
Kazan, indeed, appeared not to be in the least involved in what went on around—and often because of—him. It seemed to make no difference that for the duration of the voyage he was the key person aboard the ship. When he was not required for some duty or other, or to collect his thrice-daily rations in the workers’ canteen, he lay on his bunk, staring at the underside of the bunk above. It occurred to Clary at last that he might as well have been really dead. He was dead in his mind.
She’d seen cases like that in the Dyasthala. They were everywhere. But at first she could not associate the pale, calm, rather handsome Kazan with the slack-lipped and filthy idiots who could be found in the old days playing with the gutter mud of the thieves’ quarters, sometimes seizing a bright coin tossed to them with a little chuckle of pleasure at such a gaudy plaything—and usually losing it again to a child of normal intelligence who know how to trade it for some worthless but glittering scrap of colored glass.
Long experience in handling random-gathered groups of migrant workers had developed a system in the fleet of ships serving the Vashti mines. Though Ogric had spoken dismally of any voyage as being too long with a problem like Kazan aboard, in fact the tension was kept under control by fairly simple means. Keep the minds of the workers occupied, was the prime rule.
Hence during every arbitrary day there was a training class in the canteen, to teach some administrative job, or to put a shine on the reading ability of those who possessed it. There were also many entertainments—by the standard of the crew’s home world, very crude, but to the children of the Dyasthala and in fact to most of the other workers new and interesting. As a result, Kazan was often left by himself in the cabin, staring at nothing.
That gave Clary her chance.
She slid back the door-panel almost silently and stepped through as though afraid of being heard, then closed it with equal care. No one was present except Kazan, who lay as usual flat on his back, his vacant eyes on the bunk over him. There were folding seats clipped to the walls. Clary took one of these gently from its place and opened it as she walked to the side of Kazan’s bunk.
Then she slammed it down on the floor with a crash that made the metal of the cabin ring angrily, and sat on it. Even that barely disturbed the mirror surface of Kazan’s calm.
“All right,” she said when he had rolled his head incuriously to look at her. “Out with it, Kazan. Who are you?”
As simply as that, it began.
For that question was the key to the nightmare haunting him—a darkness populated with hungry monsters, in which his mouth, open to scream, filled with sour water and the taste of the beasts around, in which his ears were deafened first by a rasping hoot rising towards a whistle, then by a rush of water. A struggle against cruel steel shackles holding his wrists, so that he could not even strike out against the huge threatening creatures that shared the darkness with him.
That was the beginning. What followed was that the darkness took a shape—a vague, formless, ill-defined shape with ember eyes. He seemed to be outside it and inside it at the same time, for he could look at it and still be engulfed by it.
The remorseless argument that went with the macabre images fell too readily into words. Kazan had gone to his death. Kazan manacled and helpless who had forgotten the trick of making steps of air had plunged into the lake and been swallowed up.
But Kazan had also been sold to a devil by human devils who had not asked his leave, and the devil had taken him out of the clutch of death to serve for a year and a day. Kazan accordingly was dead. Let the devil
This was alarming.
Kazan, indeed, appeared not to be in the least involved in what went on around—and often because of—him. It seemed to make no difference that for the duration of the voyage he was the key person aboard the ship. When he was not required for some duty or other, or to collect his thrice-daily rations in the workers’ canteen, he lay on his bunk, staring at the underside of the bunk above. It occurred to Clary at last that he might as well have been really dead. He was dead in his mind.
She’d seen cases like that in the Dyasthala. They were everywhere. But at first she could not associate the pale, calm, rather handsome Kazan with the slack-lipped and filthy idiots who could be found in the old days playing with the gutter mud of the thieves’ quarters, sometimes seizing a bright coin tossed to them with a little chuckle of pleasure at such a gaudy plaything—and usually losing it again to a child of normal intelligence who know how to trade it for some worthless but glittering scrap of colored glass.
Long experience in handling random-gathered groups of migrant workers had developed a system in the fleet of ships serving the Vashti mines. Though Ogric had spoken dismally of any voyage as being too long with a problem like Kazan aboard, in fact the tension was kept under control by fairly simple means. Keep the minds of the workers occupied, was the prime rule.
Hence during every arbitrary day there was a training class in the canteen, to teach some administrative job, or to put a shine on the reading ability of those who possessed it. There were also many entertainments—by the standard of the crew’s home world, very crude, but to the children of the Dyasthala and in fact to most of the other workers new and interesting. As a result, Kazan was often left by himself in the cabin, staring at nothing.
That gave Clary her chance.
She slid back the door-panel almost silently and stepped through as though afraid of being heard, then closed it with equal care. No one was present except Kazan, who lay as usual flat on his back, his vacant eyes on the bunk over him. There were folding seats clipped to the walls. Clary took one of these gently from its place and opened it as she walked to the side of Kazan’s bunk.
Then she slammed it down on the floor with a crash that made the metal of the cabin ring angrily, and sat on it. Even that barely disturbed the mirror surface of Kazan’s calm.
“All right,” she said when he had rolled his head incuriously to look at her. “Out with it, Kazan. Who are you?”
As simply as that, it began.
For that question was the key to the nightmare haunting him—a darkness populated with hungry monsters, in which his mouth, open to scream, filled with sour water and the taste of the beasts around, in which his ears were deafened first by a rasping hoot rising towards a whistle, then by a rush of water. A struggle against cruel steel shackles holding his wrists, so that he could not even strike out against the huge threatening creatures that shared the darkness with him.
That was the beginning. What followed was that the darkness took a shape—a vague, formless, ill-defined shape with ember eyes. He seemed to be outside it and inside it at the same time, for he could look at it and still be engulfed by it.
The remorseless argument that went with the macabre images fell too readily into words. Kazan had gone to his death. Kazan manacled and helpless who had forgotten the trick of making steps of air had plunged into the lake and been swallowed up.
But Kazan had also been sold to a devil by human devils who had not asked his leave, and the devil had taken him out of the clutch of death to serve for a year and a day. Kazan accordingly was dead. Let the devil
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