The Black Corridor

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mrs Ryan began to dream.

She was walking across the field away from the house she had lived in when she was eight. If she turned round she could see her mother framed in the kitchen window, her head bent over the stove. Behind her she could hear shouts of her brothers playing hide-and-seek.

Mrs Ryan trod over the springy turf, dreamily floated over the bright grass. She could hear birds singing in the trees at the edges of the field.

Mrs Ryan was floating, floating over the fields, far from the house. How sunny it was. How the birds sang. She was walking again. She turned to look for the house but she was too far away.

She could not see it. The sky was darkening. She could only dimly see the trees on either side of the field. She seemed to hear a noise; a babble of talk. At once, ahead of her, she saw a dark crowd approaching, talking among themselves. As they came closer she could still not distinguish one person from another. She had the impression that there were men, women and children.

But the mass was still a dark blur of heads, bodies, limbs, formless and faceless. The crowd advanced, the cackle of voices growing louder.

She stood transfixed in the field.

She could not move.

And the voices grew clearer.

'Look. There she is. She's there. She's really there.'

She felt the mood of the crowd change.

She felt a terrible fear.

'She's there. That's her. That's her. She's there. She's there.'

She stood rooted to the spot, her legs too heavy to carry her.

'She's there. She's there. That's her. That's her.'

The dark crowd began to run towards her. It yelled and cried out.

She could hear high, vengeful screams from the women. The crowd was almost on her.

And Mrs Ryan woke with a start in her bedroom in the light of the shimmering walls. She looked at the clock.

It was 11.31 a.m.

Trembling she lay there on the white bedspread, righting her way out of the dream. She gazed blankly at the walls, blinking her eyes to rid herself of the image of the black, blank faces of that terrible crowd. She rose and walked heavily from the room.

She went into the kitchen and took a pill to clear her head.

Sighing, she removed the can of cleaner from the shelf, walked through the living room, out into the lobby and up to the front door.

She put her hand on the latch.

Mrs Ryan hesitated, stiffened her back and opened the front door. She crept outside, into the long corridor.

The corridor was bright and white. It stretched away from her on either side. Set in the walls were the doors, all painted in fresh, dark colours.

Slowly Mrs Ryan began to spray the cleaner on the surface of the door. Once the door was covered with the white film she began to rub it off, faster and faster.

Nearly done, she thought to herself, nearly done. Thank God, thank God. Soon finished. Thank God.

Very slowly the blue door of the apartment opposite began to open. A woman looked through the crack of the door. She and Mrs Ryan stared at each other in shock. The woman's hand went to her mouth. Mrs Ryan recovered herself first.

Leaving the door half covered in white cleaning fluid she ran back inside her apartment and slammed the door. Almost at the same moment the other woman shut her own door, Mrs Ryan stood in the middle of her kitchen, gasping for breath.

"That bitch,' she said aloud. 'That bitch. What does she want to persecute me for? Why does she always do that to me? Spying on me all the time. Bitch, bitch, bitch.'

She went to the shelf, took down a bottle of capsules and swallowed two. She went into the living room and fell down on the plastic couch. She switched on the TV.

There was a picture of a family eating a turkey dinner. The turkey and its trimmings were laid out brightly on a gay table.

The family—parents and three teenage children—were joking.

Mrs Ryan watched the programme with a faint smile curling round her mouth.

She was soon asleep.

It was 11.48 a.m.

The boys woke her up.

She told them what bad happened and they told Ryan.

Ryan was sympathetic.

'You need a holiday, old girl,' he said. 'We'll see what we can do.'

'I'd rather not,' she said. 'I prefer to stay at home. It's just—the interference from the neighbours. I'm proud of my home.'

'Of course you are. We'll see what we can do.'

It was 7.46 p.m.

Time passes so slowly,' she said.

'It depends how you look at it,' he replied.

*

She suffered a lot, thinks Ryan. Maybe I could have been more helpful.

He shrugs the thought off. A pointless exercise. There was nothing to be gained from self-recrimination. If one didn't like what one had done, the best thing was to decide not to do it again and leave it at that. That was the pragmatic attitude. The scientific attitude.

He looks down at the sleeping face of his wife and he smiles tenderly, touching the top of the container.

Even her condition improved once they had decided on their goal. She was basically a sensible woman. Her condition was no different from that of millions of others in the cities all over the world.

If they had taken one of the abandoned houses in the country, perhaps she would have been happier. But probably not. The isolation of the places beyond the cities was pretty unbearable.

She had liked the country as a girl, of course. That was partly what the dream was about, he guessed. That dream of hers. It had recurred relatively frequently. Not unlike that recurring dream of his.

He starts to pace between the containers, checking them automatically.

What is Time, after all? Do we meet in our dreams?

Pointless, mystical speculation.

*

Everything seems to be in order. The containers are functioning correctly. Ryan yawns and stretches, fighting off the sinking feeling in his stomach, ignoring the impulse to wake at least some of the occupants of the containers. They must not be awakened until the ship nears the planet that is its destination.

This is his penance, his test, his reward.

*

He has one last look at his sleeping boys, then he leaves the compartment and makes his way back to the main control cabin, sends his report back to Earth. All is well aboard the spaceship Hope Dempsey.

He writes a short entry in bis red log-book: On the other side of those thin walls is infinite space. There is no life for billions of miles. No man has ever been more alone.

*

In his cabin he takes three pills, disposes of his clothes, lies down.

As he begins to fall asleep a numb, desperate feeling tells him that tonight could be another of those nights of fitful, nightmareridden sleep. His routine demands that he sleep regularly. His health will break if he does not. Ryan lies on his narrow couch willing himself not to rise. The pills take effect and Ryan sleeps.

*

He dreams that he is in his office. It is dark. He has drawn the blinds to shut out the city noise and the view of the shining office towers opposite. He sits at his desk doing nothing. His hands are curled on the desk before him. The fingernails are torn. He is afraid.

He sees his wife in their flat. She is sitting in the darkened livingroom doing nothing.

He sees the bedroom in which his two sons lie sleeping under heavy sedation. The youngest, five-year-old Alexander, groans in his sleep, thrusts an arm, thin as a Foreigner's, out of the covers.

The arm dangles lifelessly down from his bed. He moans again.

His brother Rupert, who is twelve, lies on his back, eyes half open in his coma, staring blindly at the ceiling.

Back in the living-room Ryan sees the hunched figure of his wife. Again he sees himself sitting at his office desk staring into the half dark.

The family is waiting.

It is waiting in fear.

It does not know what to expect.

It knows that it will come from the others.

There is a scratching noise behind him. Ryan, half-paralysed with terror, turns slowly round to see what it is. He faces the window now. The blind is shaking, as if it were being blown by the wind. There is something behind the blind, something from outside, trying to enter the office. Ryan breathes in, holds his breath hard in some animal instinct to make himself so immobile that he will not be noticed. The blind shakes and shakes. A bony hand comes through the fabric, leaving no gap or tear, merely sliding through as if the material were smoke, or air. Ryan gazes at the hand. It belongs to an old woman, thin fingered, with pronounced tendons. The nails are painted red. There are three large rings; two diamond ones on the middle finger, a large amethyst on the slender, slightly curved, little finger. The hand appears to part the blind and a face peers in.

It is the face of an old woman. The wrinkled eyelids are carefully painted blue. The mouth is blackened, the lined cheeks powdered.

The old woman looks Ryan straight in the eyes and smiles, revealing yellow teeth, the edges slightly serrated with age. Ryan stares at the old woman. She continues to give him a confidential, intimate smile.

Her hand appears again, through another part of the blind.

It holds a pair of round, dark glasses.

The hand moved towards her face. It places the glasses over her eyes. Then the hand disappears through the blind again, leaving no gap or rent in it.

The old, blackened mouth continues to smile below the obliterated eyes.

Then the old woman's face, in the centre of the blind, begins to droop. The smile disappears, the lips begin to curve in a snarl.

Ryan is terrified.

He cannot scream.

He wants to say the following words: I—DID—NOT —but he cannot.

He cannot say the...

I __

He gets up from his bed. He is sweating. Naked, he leaves the cabin and walks down the bright corridor, enters the main control cabin and stares at the dancing, shifting indicators, at the ever busy computer.

He listens to the faint hum of the engine which is propelling the little pellet of steel through the void.

The computer has left him a message. He walks over to the machine and reads it.

It says: *******THERE IS A LOSS OF COMMUNICATION*******

******** *987654321000000000000'"

"/* ***********

****A LOSS**'"

"PLEASE ENSURE THAT IN FUTURE***INFORMATION IS GIVEN IN THE CORRECT FORM"

"REPEAT THE**CORRECT FORM"

WHAT IS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE******SITUATION REPEAT WHAT IS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE**

SITUATION REPEAT WHAT IS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE*******SITUATION "

"'"

"***************

Uncomprehendingly Ryan stares at the message.

What has gone wrong?

He has carried out his duties impeccably.

His days have been dedicated to order, the routine of the ship.

What has he done wrong?

Or—worse—what mistake can be occurring inside the computer?

He rips off the printout and reads it, seeking a clue. It has all the fluency and random lack of sense of a message from a ouija board.

And as he reads the computer spills out more: ******! CANNOT READ YOUR LAST MESSAGE UNLESS **********INFORMATION IS GIVEN IN THE CORRECT FORM"

"I CANNOT**ASSIST"

"PLEASE REPEAT YOUR LAST MESSAGE IN THE****CORRECT FORM****

Wearily Ryan organises the machine to rerun his last message.

It reads: *******TRIUMPHANT IN THE BLOODY SKY AND THE HUMAN FORM*IS NO MORE******************

I must control this sort of thing, thinks Ryan.

He wanders to the desk and takes out his red log-book. He writes: I must keep better control of things.

He struggles back to the computer and realises he has left his red log-book on the desk. He weaves back to the desk and carefully, but with great difficulty, puts the book in its drawer. Slowly, he closes the door. He returns to the computer. He erases the messages as best he can by condemning them to the computer's deepest memory cells. He walks wearily from the control room.

I must control this sort of thing,

I must forget these nightmares.

I must maintain order.

It could wreck the computer and then I would be finished.

Everything depends on me.

Triumphant in the bloody sky and the human form...

Ryan weeps.

He paces the corridor, back to his prison, takes three more pills and sleeps.

He dreams of the factory. A huge hall, somewhat darker in Ryan's dream than it was in reality. It is filled with large silent machines. Only the throbbing of the tiled floor indicates the activity of the machines.

At the end of each machine is a large drum into which spill the parts used in the making of Ryan Toys.

There are the smooth heads, legs, arms and torsos of dolls; the woolly heads, legs and torsos of lambs, tigers and rabbits; the metal legs, heads and torsos of mechanical puppets. There are the tiny powerpacs for the bellies of Ryan Toys; there are the metal parts for Ryan Toys dredgers, oilpumps, spacecraft; there are the great, shining grinning heads of Rytoy Realboys and Rytoy Realgirls; the great probosces of Rytoy Realphants.

The vast machines turn out their parts steadily and inexorably.

As each drum fills it glides away and is replaced by another which is, in turn, steadily filled.

Ryan is a witness to this scene. He knows that he will be involved if they find out.

He sees a white-coated mechanic walk along the files of machines and disappear through a door at the end of the hall.

Did the mechanic notice him?

The drums roll away and are replaced by empty ones.

Suddenly Ryan sees the parts rise, as if in weightlessness. They join together, assembling in mid-air. As each toy is completed, or as completed as it can be with the parts available, it sinks to the floor of the hall and begins to operate.

A row of golden haired Realboys, lifesize but armless, revolve slowly, singing Frere Jacques in their high voices.

A cluster of woolly lambs gambol mechanically, raising and dipping their heads.

On the floor the large trunks of the Realphants plunge and rise.

The spacecraft hover a foot above the floor, emitting humming noises.

Ryrobots strut and clank about, running into the machines and toppling over. Two great heaps of musical building blocks chime out the letters printed on their sides— I AM A I AM M I AM U The piles fall and tumble as Ryan kicks them.

The Realgirls link hands and dance around him, tossing their blonde curls. The Ryan Battlewagons run about the floor, shooting their miniature missiles.

Ryan looks fondly at the action, music and chatter of his toys.

The whole of the tiled floor is being gradually covered with toys in motion. All these things are Ryan's—made and sold by Ryan.

He looks at the building blocks and smiles. Some have fallen and spelled out: AMUSEMENT.

In the middle of this cheerful scene, Ryan ceases to dream and falls fast asleep.

*

In accordance with the regulations ensuring that no member of the government or the civil service could be identified save by his rank (thus ensuring the absence of blackmail, bribery, favour seeking and/or giving and so forth) the Man from the Ministry wore a black cloth over his face. It had neat holes for his eyes and his mouth.

Ryan, sitting behind his office desk, contemplated the Man from the Ministry somewhat nervously.

'Will you have a cup of tea?' he asked.

'I think not.'

Ryan could almost see the expression of suspicious distaste on the man's face. He had made a tactical blunder.

'Ah...' said Ryan.

'Mr Ryan...' began the official.

'Yes,' said Ryan, as if in confirmation. 'Yes, indeed.'

'Mr Ryan—you seem unaware that this country is in a state of war...'

'Ah. No.'

'Since Birmingham launched its completely unprovoked attack on London, Mr Ryan, and bombed the reservoirs of Shepperton and Staines, the official government of South England has had to requisition a great deal of private industry if it has been discovered that it has not been contributing to our war effort as efficiently as it might...'

'That's a threat, is it?' Ryan said thickly.

'A friendly tip, Mr Ryan.'

'We've turned over as fast as we can,' Ryan explained. 'We were a bloody toy factory, you know. Overnight we had to change to manufacturing weapon parts and communications equipment.

Naturally we haven't had a completely smooth ride. On the other hand, we've done our best...'

'Your production is not up to scratch, Mr Ryan. I wonder if your heart is in the war effort? Some people do not seem to realise that the old society has been swept away, that the Patriots are bent on ordering an entirely new kind of nation now that the remnants of the alien groups have been pushed back beyond the Thames.

Though attacked from all sides, though sustaining three hydrogen bomb drops from France, the Patriots have managed to hold this land of ours together. They can only do it with the full co-operation of people like yourself, Mr Ryan.'

'We aren't getting the raw materials,' Ryan said. 'Half the things we need don't arrive. It's a bloody shambles!'

'That sounds like a criticism of the government, Mr Ryan.'

'You know I'm a registered Patriot supporter.'

'Not all registered supporters have remained loyal, Mr Ryan.'

'Well, I am loyal!' Ryan half believed himself as he shouted at the Man from the Ministry. He and the group bad decided early on that the Patriots would soon hold the power and had taken the precaution of joining the party. 'It's just that we can't work more than ten bloody miracles a day!'

'You've got a week, I'm afraid, Mr Ryan.' The official got up, closing his briefcase. 'And then it will be a Temporary Requisition Order until our borders are secure again.'

'You'll take over?'

'You will continue to manage the factory, if you prove efficient.

You will enjoy the status of any other civil servant.'

Ryan nodded. 'What about compensation?'

'Mr Ryan,' said the official grimly, wearily, 'there is a discredited cabinet that fled to Birmingham to escape retribution.

Among other things that was discovered about that particular cabinet was that it was corrupt. Industrialists were lining their pockets with the connivance of government officials. That sort of thing is all over now. All over. Naturally, you will receive a receipt guaranteeing the return of your business when the situation has been normalised. We hope, however, that it won't have to happen.

Keep trying, Mr Ryan. Keep trying. Good luck to you.'

Ryan watched the official leave. He would have to warn the group that things were moving a little faster than anticipated.

He wondered how things were in the rest of the world. Very few reports came through these days. The United States were now Disunited and at war. United Europe had fragmented into thousands of tiny principalities, rather as England had. As for Russia and the Far East the only information he had had for months was that a horde thousands of times greater than the Golden Horde was sweeping in all directions. Possibly none of the information was true. He hoped that the town of Surgut on the Siberian Plain was still untouched. Everything depended on that.

Ryan got up and left the office.

It was time to go home.