The Black Corridor

CHAPTER ELEVEN

There is no sound here in space. No light. No life. Only the dim glow of distant stars as the tiny craft moves, so slowly, through the great neutral blackness.

And Ryan, as he goes methodically about his duties, thinks with a heavy heart of the familiarity and warmth of his early years—of the births of his children, of studying their first schoolbooks, talking to his friends in the evenings at their flat, of his wife, now resting like some comfortable Sleeping Beauty, unaware of him in the fluids of her casket.

Just a pellet travelling through space, thinks Ryan. Nearly all the living tissue contained in the pellet is unconscious in the waters of the caskets. Once they had moved and acted. They had been happy, until the threats had become obvious, until life had become unbearable for them...

Ryan rubs his eyes and writes out his routine report. He underlines it in red, reads it into the machine, sits down again before the log book.

He writes: Another day has passed.

I am frightened, sometimes, that I am becoming too much of a vegetable. I am an active man by nature. I will need to be active when we land. I wonder if I have become too passive. Still, this is idle speculation...

His speculations were never idle, he reflects. The moment the problem was clearly seen, he began to think along positive lines.

The problem was straightforward: society was breaking down and death and destruction were becoming increasingly widespread. He wished to survive and he wished for his friends and family to survive. There was nowhere in the world that could any longer be considered a safe refuge. Nuclear war was bound to arise soon.

There had been only one answer: the stars. And there had been only one project for reaching the stars. Unmanned research craft had brought back evidence that there was a planetary system circling Barnard's Star and that two of those planets were in many respects similar to Earth.

The research project had been United Nations sponsored— the first important multilateral project between the Great Powers...

It had been a last attempt to draw the nations of the world together, to make them consider themselves one race.

Ryan shakes his head.

It had been too late, of course.

Ryan writes: ... I keep fit as best I can. An odd thought Just popped into my head. It gives some idea of how closely one has to watch oneself. It occurred to me that a way of keeping fit would be to wake one of the other men so that we could have sparring matches, play football or something like that. I began to see the 'sense' of this and began to rationalise it so that it seemed advantageous to all concerned to wake, say, my brother John. Or even one of the women... There are several ways of keeping fit and alert—getting exercise. Ridiculous, undisciplined ideas! It is just as well I keep the log. It helps me keep perspective.

He grins. A great way of cheating on old John. He'd never know...

He shudders.

Naturally, he couldn't...

There was Josephine, too. It would betray the whole ideal of the mission if he betrayed them...

I think I'll go and take a cold shower! He writes jokingly. He signs the book, underlines his entry in red, closes the book, puts it neatly away, gets up, makes a last check of the instruments, asks the computer a couple of routine questions, is satisfied by the answers, leaves the control cabin.

True to his word, Mr Ryan has his cold shower. It does the trick.

He feels much better. Humming to himself he enters his own cabin, selects the tape of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony and sits down to listen to the strange and beautiful melodies of the Ondes Martenot.

By the Sixth Movement (Jardin du sommeil d'amour) he is asleep...

*

The gallery is vast and made of solid platinum.

He paces it.

It is the bridge of a massive ship. But the ship does not sail across the ocean. It sails through foliage. Dark, tangled foliage.

Foliage that the Douanier himself might have painted. Menacing foliage.

Perhaps it is a jungle river. A river like the Amazon or one of those mysterious, unmapped rivers of New Guinea that, as a boy, he had wished to explore.

Ship... foliage... river...

He is alone on the ship, but for the sound of the engines, strangely melodic, and the cries of the unseen birds in the jungle.

He leans over the rail of the bridge, looking for the waters of the river. But there are no waters. Beneath the ship is only vegetation, crushed and bent by the passage of the great vessel.

The ship rolls.

He falls and from somewhere comes a sound that is oddly sympathetic. Something is pitying him.

He rejects the pity.

He falls to the ground and the ship passes on.

He is alone in the jungle and he hears the sounds of lumbering monsters in the murk. He searches with his eyes for the monsters, but he cannot see them, cannot trace the origin of their noise.

A woman appears. She is dark, lush, exotic. She parts her red lips and takes him by the hand into the shadowy darkness of the tropical foliage. Birds continue to cry and to squawk. He begins to kiss her wet, hot mouth. He feels her hand on his penis. He runs his hand into her crutch and her pants are wet with her juices. He tries to make love to her, but for some reason she is wary, expecting discovery. She will not remove her clothing. They make love as best they can. Then she gets up and leads him through the dark jungle corridors into a clearing.

They are in a bar. Girls—club hostesses or prostitutes, he cannot tell—fill the place. There are a few men. Probably ponces or gigolos. He feels at ease here. He relaxes. He puts his arm around the dark woman and puts his other arm around a young blonde with a lined, decaying face. Someone he knew.

All the faces, in fact, are familiar. He tries to remember them.

He concentrates on remembering them. Dimly he begins to remember them...

*

AFTER THE FAIR THEY WERE ALL LEAD

Q: PLEASE DEFINE SPECIFIC SITUATION

ARDOUR THE MORE THEY SANG AHEAD

Q: PLEASE DEFINE SPECIFIC SITUATION

AH DO RE ME FA SO LA TI DI

Q: PLEASE DEFINE SPECIFIC SITUATION

ARIA ARIADNE ANIARA LEONARA CARMEN AMEN

A: AMEN

*

AMEN.

AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.

AMEN.

*

SUGGEST HOLD ON TIGHT

SUGGEST HOLD ON TIGHT

SUGGEST HOLD ON TIGHT

*

KEEP GOING

E O

E I

P N

G

G

O K

I E

N E

GOING KEEP

*

THE SPACESHIP HOPE DEMPSEY IS EN ROUTE

FOR MUNICH 15040 THE SPACESHIP

HOPE DEMPSEY IS EN ROUTE FOR MUNICH

15040 IS GOING

EN ROUTE FOR MUNICH 15040 THE SPACE-

SHIP NOWHERE

FOR MUNICH 15040 THE SPACESHIP

MUST

HOPE DEMPSEY IS EN ROUTE BE

SAFE

FOR MUNICH 15040 MUST

THE SPACESHIP

KEEP THEM

SPACESHIP

SAFE

SPACESHIP

SPACE SAFE

SHIP KEEP THEM

SAFE SAFE

SHIP THE SPACESHIP HOPE DEMPSEY IS EN

SAFE ROUTE FOR MUNICH 15040 AND

SHAPE TRAVELLING AT POINT NINE OF C

SHIP WE ARE ALL COMFORTABLE

SHAPE WE ARE ALL

SPACE SAFE

SHAPE SPACESHIP SAFE

SHIP SAFESHIPSAFE

SHAPE SAFESHIPSHAPE

SAFE

SAFE

SAFE

SAFE

SAFE

SHIP

SHIP

SHIP

SHIP

SHAPE

SAFE

SHIP

SHIP

SAFE

SAFE

SHIP

SHIP

SAFE

SAFE

SHIP

SHIP

SAFE

SAFE

SHIP

SHIP

SAFE

SAFE

SHIP

SWEET

SAFE

SHIP

SPACE

SAIL

SPACE

SNAIL

PACE

SAFE

PACE

SNAIL

PACE

SPACE

SHIP

SAFE

PLACE

SPACE

SAFE

SMELL

TASTE

HASTE

RACE

WASTE

SPACE

SAVE

SPACE

SAFE

PLACE

SAFE CASE SPACE PLACE HATE HEAT SWEET SAFE BRAIN SHIP TAME WHIP GOOD TRIP SPACE SHIP LET RIP SPACE TRIP HATE TASTE SPACE FACE HATE HASTE SPACE RACE HATE FACE SPACE PLACE HOT DRIP SPACE SHIP SHIP HATE HEATSPACEHEATSAFEFEATSWEET HATE SAFE HAZE NOT TRUE *********

NOT TRUE *********

******** NOT TRUE *

*

NOT TRUE

*

'IT'S NOT FUCKING true!'

Ryan screams.

He wakes up.

The tape machine is humming rhythmically.

He shudders.

He has an erection.

His mouth is dry.

He has a pain above his left temple.

His legs are trembling.

His hands are gripping the plastic of his chair, pinching it in handfuls like a housewife inspecting a chicken.

The muscles at the back of his neck ache horribly.

He shakes his head.

*

What wasn't true?

The symphony has come to an end.

He gets up and switches off the machine, frowning and massaging his neck. He yawns.

Then he remembers the dream. The jungle. The women.

He grins with relief, recognising the source of the exclamation— the denial with which he had woken himself up.

Just simple, old-fashioned guilt feelings, obviously.

He had considered waking Janet, cheating on his brother, had dreamed accordingly, had denied his feelings and had come awake with a start.

All that proved was that he had a conscience.

He stretches.

Scratching his head he leaves the cabin and goes to take another shower.

As he washes, he smiles again. It's just as well to let those secret thoughts out into the open. No good burying them where they can fester into something much worse, catch him off his guard and possibly wreck the entire mission, maybe make him wake up the others. That would be fatal.

A wave of depression hits him. It's bloody hard, he thinks.

Bloody.

He pulls himself together. His old reflexes are as good as ever.

Keeping fit isn't just a matter of exercising the body. One has to exercise the brain, too. Make constant checks to be sure it's working smoothly.

He must be getting unduly sensitive, however, for his conscience was never that much of a burden to him!

He laughs. He knows what he must do.

It's the old trouble. The problem of leisure. It was unhealthy not to put your mind to something other than its own workings.

He was developing the neuroses of the rich, the non-workers—or would start to, if he wasn't careful.

The dream is a warning.

Or rather his reaction to the dream is a warning. Tomorrow he will start studying the agricultural programmes, get interested in something other than himself.

Refreshed, his aches and pains vanishing, he returns to his cabin sorts out the agricultural programmes ready for the next day.

Then he goes to bed.