Through the next door that opened to them, they found an ideal place to pitch camp. This was a machine shop of some kind, a large chamber filled with benches and lathes and other gadgets in which they had no interest. A tap supplied them with an unsteady flow of water which, once turned on, they could not turn off; it trickled steadily down the sink, to the vast reclamation processes functioning somewhere below the deck on which they stood. Wearily, they washed and drank and ate some of their provisions. As they were finishing, the dark came on, the natural dark which arrived one sleep-wake in four.
No prayers were requested, and the priest volunteered none. He was tired and, too, he was occupied with a thought which dogged the others. They had travelled only three decks: a long spell of walking lay between them and Control. For the first time, Marapper was realizing that, whatever assistance his chart gave them, it did not show the true magnitude of the ship.
The precious watch was handed to Complain, who would wake Fermour when the large hand had made its full circuit. Enviously, the hunter watched the others sprawl under benches and drift to sleep. He remained doggedly standing for some while, but eventually fatigue forced him to sit. His mind ranged actively over a hundred questions and then it, too, grew weary. He sat propped with his back to a bench, staring at the closed door; through a circle of frosted glass inset in the door, a dim pilot light glowed in the corridor outside. This circle apparently grew larger and larger before him, swimming, rotating, and Complain closed his eyes to it.
He woke again with a start, full of apprehension. The door now stood wide open. In the corridor, the ponics, most of their light source gone, were dying rapidly. Their tops had buckled, and they huddled against each other like a file of broken-backed old men kneeling beneath a blanket. Ern Roffery was not in the room.
Pulling out his dazer, Complain got up and went to listen at the doorway. It seemed highly unlikely that anything could have abducted Roffery: there would have been a scuffle which would have aroused the others. Therefore he had gone voluntarily. But why? Had he heard something in the corridor?
Certainly there was a distant sound, as throaty as the noise of running water. The longer Complain listened, the louder it seemed. With a glance back at his three sleeping companions, Complain slipped out to trace the sound. This alarming course seemed to him slightly preferable to having to wake the priest and explain that he had dozed.
Once in the corridor, he cautiously flashed a torch and picked up Roffery’s footprints in the sludge, pointing towards the unexplored end of this level. Walking was easier now that the tangle was sagging into the centre, away from the walls. Complain moved slowly, not showing a light and keeping his dazer ready for action.
At a corridor junction he paused, pressing on again with the liquid sound to guide him. The ponics petered out and were replaced by deck, washed bare of soil by a stream of water. Complain allowed it to flow against his boots, walking carefully so as not to splash. This was new in his experience. A light burned ahead. As he neared it, he saw it was shining in a vast chamber beyond two plate-glass doors. When he got to the doors, he stopped; on them was painted a notice, ‘Swimming Pool’, which he pronounced to himself without understanding. Peering through the doors, he saw a shallow flight of steps going up, with pillars at the top of them; behind one pillar stood the shadowy figure of a man.
Complain ducked instantly away. When the man did not move, Complain concluded he had not been seen and looked again, to observe that the figure was staring away from him. It looked like Roffery. Cautiously, Complain opened one of the glass doors; a wave washed against his legs. Water was pouring down the steps, converting them into a waterfall.
‘Roffery!’ Complain called, keeping his dazer on the figure. The three syllables he uttered were seized and blown to an enormous booming, which moaned several times round the cavern of darkness before dying. They washed away with them everything but a hollow stillness, which now sounded loud in its own right.
‘Who’s there?’ challenged the figure, in a whisper.
Through his fright, Complain managed to whisper his name back. The man beckoned him. Complain stood motionless where he was and then, at another summons, slowly climbed the steps. As he came level with the other he saw with certainty that it was the valuer.
Roffery grabbed his arm.
‘You were sleeping, you fool!’ he hissed in Complain’s ear.
Complain nodded mutely, afraid to rouse the echoes again.
Roffery dismissed that subject. Without speaking, he pointed ahead. Complain looked where he was bid, puzzled by the expression on the other’s face.
Neither of them had ever been in such a large space. Lit only by one tube which burned to their left, it seemed to stretch for ever into the darkness. The floor was a sheet of water on which ripples slid slowly outwards. Under the light, the water shone like metal. Breaking this smooth expanse at the far end, was an erection of tubes which suspended planks over the water at various heights, and to either side were rows of huts, barely distinguishable for shadow.
‘It’s beautiful!’ Roffery breathed. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
Complain stared at him in astonishment. The word ‘beautiful’ had an erotic meaning, and was applied only to particularly desirable women. Yet he saw that there was a sight here which needed a special choice of vocabulary. His eyes switched back to the water: it was entirely outside their experience. Previously, water had meant only a dribble from a tap, a spurt from a hose, or the puddle at the bottom of a utensil. He wondered vaguely what this amount could be for. Sinister, uncanny, the view had another quality also, and it was this Roffery was trying to describe.
‘I know what it is,’ Roffery murmured. He was staring at the water as if hypnotized, the lines of his face so relaxed that his appearance was changed. ‘I’ve read about this in old books brought me for valuing, dreamy rubbish with no meaning till now.’ He paused, and then quoted, ‘“Then dead men rise up never, and even the longest river winds somewhere safe to sea.” This is the sea, Complain, and we’ve stumbled on the sea. I’ve often read about it. For me, it proves Marapper’s wrong about our being in a ship; we’re in an underground city.’
This meant little to Complain; he was not interested in labels of things. What struck him was to perceive something he had worried over till now: why Roffery had left his sinecure to come on the priest’s hazardous expedition. He saw now that the other had a reason akin to Complain’s own: a longing for what he had never known and could put no name to. Instead of feeling any bond with Roffery about this, Complain decided he must more than ever beware of the man, for if they had similar objectives, they were the more likely to clash.
‘Why did you come up here?’ he asked, still keeping his voice low to avoid the greedy echoes.
‘While you were snoring, I woke and heard voices in the corridor,’ Roffery said. ‘Through the frosted glass I saw two men pass — only they were too big for men. They were Giants!’
‘Giants! The Giants are dead, Roffery.’
‘These were Giants, I tell you, fully seven feet high. I saw their heads go by the window.’ In his eyes, Complain read the uneasy fascinated memory of them.
‘And you followed them?’ Complain asked.
‘Yes. I followed them into here.’
At this Complain scanned the shadows anew.
‘Are you trying to frighten me?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t ask you to come after me. Why be afraid of the Giants? Dazers’ll despatch a man however long he measures.’
‘We’d better be getting back, Roffery. There’s no point in standing here; besides, I’m meant to be on watch.’