The Black Corridor

CHAPTER ONE

Space is infinite.

It is dark.

Space is neutral.

It is cold.

*

Stars occupy minute areas of space. They are clustered a few billion here. A few billion there. As if seeking consolation in numbers.

Space does not care.

*

Space does not threaten.

Space does not comfort.

It does not sleep; it does not wake; it does not dream; it does not hope; it does not fear; it does not love; it does not hate; it does not encourage any of these qualities.

Space cannot be measured. It cannot be angered. It cannot be placated. It cannot be summed up.

Space is there.

*

Space is not large and it is not small. It does not live and it does not die. It does not offer truth and neither does it lie.

Space is a remorseless, senseless, impersonal fact.

Space is the absence of time and of matter.

*

Through this silence moves a tiny pellet of metal. It moves so slowly as to seem not to move at all. It is a lonely little object. In its own terms it is a long way from its planet of origin.

In the solid blackness it gives off faint light. In that great lifedenying void it contains life.

A few wisps of gas hang on it; a certain amount of its own waste matter surrounds it: cans and packages and bits of paper, globules of fluid, things rejected by its system as beyond reconstitution.

They cling to its sides for want of anything better to cling to.

And inside the spacecraft is Ryan.

Ryan is dressed neatly in regulation coveralls which are light grey in colour and tend to match the vast expanse of controls, predominantly grey and green, which surround him. Ryan himself is pale and his hair is mainly grey. He might have been designed to tone in with the ship.

Ryan is a tall man with heavy grey-black eyebrows that meet near the bridge of his nose. He has grey eyes and full, firm lips that are at the moment pressed tightly together. He seems physically very fit. Ryan knows that he has to keep himself in shape.

*

Ryan paces the spaceship. He paces down the central passageway to the main control cabin and there he checks the coordinates, the consumption indicators, the regeneration indicators and he checks all his figures, at length, with those of the ship's computer.

He is quietly satisfied.

Everything is perfectly in order; exactly as it should be.

Ryan goes to the desk near the ship's big central screen.

Although activated, the screen shows no picture. It casts a greenish light on to the desk. Ryan sits down and reaches out towards the small console on the desk. He depresses a stud and, speaking in a clear, level voice, he makes his standard log entry: 'Day number one thousand, four hundred and sixty three.

Spaceship Hope Dempsey en route for Munich 15040. Speed holds steady at point nine of c. All systems functioning according to original expectations. No other variations. We are all comfortable.

'Signing off.

'Ryan, Acting Commander.'

The entry will be filed in the ship's records and will also be automatically broadcast back to Earth.

Now Ryan slides open a drawer and takes from it a large red book. It is his personal log-book. He unclips a stylus from a pocket in his coveralls, scratches his head and writes, slowly and carefully.

He puts down the date: December 24th, A.D .2005. He takes another stylus from his pocket and underlines this date in red. He looks up at the blank screen and seems to make a decision.

He writes: The silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

He underlines the phrase in red

He writes: I am lonely, I am controlling a desperate longing. Yet I know that it is not my function to feel lonely. I almost wish for an emergency so that I could wake at least one of them up.

Mr Ryan pulls himself together. He takes a deep breath and be gins a more formal entry, the third of his eight-hourly reports.

When he has finished, he gets up, puts the red log-book away, replaces his stylii neatly in his pocket, goes over to the main console and makes a few fine adjustments to the instruments.

He leaves the main control cabin, enters a short companion way, opens a door.

He is in his living quarters. It is a small compartment and very tidy. On one wall is a console with a screen that shows him the interior of the main control cabin. Set in the opposite wall is a double bunk.

He undresses, disposes of his coveralls, lies down and takes a sedative. He sleeps. His breathing is heavy and regular at first.

*

He goes into the ballroom. It is dusk. There are long windows looking out on to a darkening lawn. The floor gleams; the lights overhead are dim.

On the ballroom floor formally dressed couples slowly rotate in perfect time to the music. The music is low and rather sombre. All the couples wear round, very black spectacles. Their faces are pale, their features almost invisible in the dim light. The round black glasses give them a masklike appearance.

Around the floor other couples are sitting out. They stare forward through their dark glasses. As the couples move the music becomes quieter and quieter, slower and slower, and now the couples revolve more slowly too.

The music fades.

Now a low psalmlike moaning begins. It is in the room but it does not come from the dancers.

The mood in the room changes.

At last the dancers stand perfectly still, listening to the song. The seated men and women stand up. The chanting grows louder. The people in the room become angry. They are angry with a particular individual. Above the chanting, louder and faster, comes the beating of a rapid drum.

The dancers are angry, angry, angry...

Ryan awakes and remembers the past.