‘I’ll give you the instructions, thanks,’ said the priest, shortly. ‘Since you all seem to be so clever, we’ll be on our way without further ado. Get that pack on your back, Fermour, and get moving!’
They shuffled obediently to their feet. Outside the compartment, Deadways waited; it was not inviting.
‘We’ll have to get through Forwards area to reach control,’ Complain said.
‘Frightened?’ Wantage sneered.
‘Yes, Slotface, I am.’
Wantage turned away, resentful but too preoccupied to quarrel, even over the use of his nickname.
They moved through the tangles in silence. Progress was slow and exhausting. A solitary hunter on his own ground might creep among ponics without cutting them, by keeping close to the wall. Moving in file, they found this method less attractive, since branches were apt to whip back and catch the man behind. This could be avoided by spacing themselves out, but by common consent they were keeping as close together as possible, it being uncomfortable on the nerves to be exposed either at the front or the rear of the little party. There was, too, another objection to walking by the walls: here the chitinous ponic seeds lay thickest, where they had dropped after being shot against this barrier, and they crunched noisily as they were trodden on. To Complain’s experienced hunter’s eye, their plenitude was a sign that there were few wild animals in the area, the seeds being delicacies to dog and pig alike.
No diminution in the plague of flies was noticeable. They whined endlessly about the travellers’ ears. As Roffery in the lead swung his hatchet at the ponics, he wielded it frequently round his head, in a dangerous attempt to rid himself of this irritation.
When they came to the first subsidiary connection between decks, it was clearly enough marked. It stood in a short side corridor and consisted of two single metal doors a yard apart, each capable of closing off the corridor, although now blocked open with the ubiquitous green growth. Before one, the words ‘Deck 61’ were stencilled and, after the other, ‘Deck 60’. Marapper grunted in satisfaction at this, but was too hot to make further comment. Complain on his hunting had come across such connections before, and seen similar inscriptions, but they had meant nothing; now he tried to integrate the previous knowledge into the conception of a moving ship: but as yet the idea was too new to be acceptable.
On Deck 60 they met other men.
Fermour was now in the lead, hacking his way stoically ahead, when they came level with an open door. Open doors always signified danger, but since they had to pass the thresholds, they grouped together and passed en bloc. So far, these distractions had been uneventful. This time, they were confronted by an old woman.
She lay naked on the floor, a tethered sheep sleeping by her side. She was looking away from them, so that they had an excellent view of her left ear. This, by the humour of some strange disease, had swollen up like a sponge, standing out from her skull and pushing back a mat of rancid grey hair. The tissue of this abnormality was a startling pink, in contrast to the pallor of her face.
Slowly she swung her head round, fixing them with two owl eyes. Without changing her expression, she began to scream hollowly. Even as she did so, Complain noticed that her right ear was normal.
The sheep woke and ran away to the end of its rope, blaring and coughing in alarm.
Before the party of five could move away, the noise had summoned two men from a rear compartment. They came and stood defensively behind the screaming woman.
‘They’ll do us no harm!’ said Fermour with relief.
That was immediately obvious. Both men were old, one bent almost double with the promise of the Long Journey he would shortly take, the other painfully thin and lacking an arm, which had evidently been parted from him in some ancient knife fight.
‘We ought to kill them,’ Wantage said, one half of his face suddenly agleam. ‘Especially that monstrosity of a hag there.’
At these words, the woman stopped screaming and said rapidly, ‘Expansion to your separate egos, plague on your eyes, touch us and the curse that is on us will be on you.’
‘Expansion to your ear, madam,’ said Marapper sulkily. ‘Come on, heroes, we don’t need to linger here. Let’s move before somebody rougher comes to investigate her crazy screaming.’
They turned back into the tangles. The three in the room watched them go without stirring. They might have been the last remnants of a Deadways tribe; more likely, they were fugitives, eking out a slender existence in the wilds.
From then on, the travellers found signs of other mutants and hermits. The ponics were frequently trampled, progress being consequently easier; but the mental strain of keeping watch on all sides was greater, although they were never actually challenged.
The next subsidiary connection between decks that they came to was closed, and the steel door, fitting closely into its sockets, resisted their united attempt at opening it.
‘There must obviously be a way to open it,’ Roffery said angrily.
‘Tell the priest to look it up in his damned looker,’ Wantage replied. ‘For me, I’m sitting down here and having something to eat.’
Marapper was all for pressing on, but the others agreed with Wantage, and they made a meal in silence.
‘What happens if we come on a deck where all the doors are like that?’ Complain wanted to know.
‘That won’t happen,’ Marapper said firmly. ‘Otherwise we should never have heard of Forwards at all. There obviously is a route — probably more than one — left open to those parts. We just have to move to another level and try there.’
Finally they found their way into Deck 59 and then, with encouraging rapidity, into 58. By that time, it was growing late: a dark sleep-wake was almost upon them. Again they grew uneasy.
‘Have any of you noticed anything?’ Complain asked abruptly. He was now leading the procession again, and liberally splashed with sweat and miltex. ‘The ponics are changing type.’
It was true. The springy stems grew more fleshy and less resilient. The leafage seemed reduced, and there were more of the waxy green flowers in evidence. Under foot there was a change too. Generally, the grit was firm, intersected by a highly organized root system which drained every available drop of moisture. Now the walking was softer, the soil dark and moist.
The further they went, the more pronounced these tendencies became. Soon, they were splashing through mud. They passed a tomato plant, and another fruit-bearer they could not identify, and several other types of growth straggling among the evidently weakened ponics. This change, being unfamiliar, worried them. All the same, Marapper called a halt, since if they did not shortly find a place to rest they would be overtaken by darkness.
They pushed into a side room which someone had already broken into. It was piled high with rolls of heavy material, which seemed to be covered by an intricate pattern. The probing beam of Fermour’s torch dislodged a swarm of moths. With a thick, buttery sound, they rose from the fabric, leaving it patternless, but sagging with deep-chewed holes. About the room they whirled, or past the men into the corridor. It was like walking into a dust storm.
Complain dodged as a large moth bore towards his face. For the softest moment he had an odd sensation that he was to recall later: although the moth flew by his ear, he had an hallucinatory idea it had plunged straight on into his head; he seemed to feel it big in his very mind; then it was gone.
‘We shouldn’t get much sleep here,’ he said distastefully, and led on down the marshy corridor.