The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s. Brian Aldiss

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      Remembering her purpose, she choked back her anger and said, ‘Listen, my friend, the Fliers do not harm me, do they? The Fliers belong to M’chene, but even M’chene is not all-powerful. I have found how to beat him. It is simply a matter of choosing where you feed. Will you help me?’

      He looked at the floor, inarticulate. The pessimism so stubbornly rooted in him told him that ill would come of meddling with the traditional way of life; but in Osa’s hands he was stiff but malleable clay.

      ‘Wilms must help you now,’ he said grudgingly.

      ‘Wilms it not here and I must leave Circus “C” for a time,’ she said tolerantly. ‘I only want you to give him a message. It is this: he is not to eat anything in the next feed period. He is not even to go to the hatches. Will you tell him please?’

      ‘What has he to fear?’ Grant asked, interested despite himself.

      ‘Nothing at present. But of all the Hallwayers, Wilms is now the nearest both to belief and mutiny. I fear he is in danger from the Fliers.’

      ‘So he must not take feed?’

      ‘Exactly.’ She pressed his arm. ‘I will return in one and half watches and then he shall feed.’

      ‘Here?’ asked Grant.

      ‘There are other places to feed than Circus “C”,’ she said.

      He greeted the statement with disbelief. ‘There cannot be,’ he said positively, ‘Or we should know. Osa, you think strange things – ’

      ‘Stranger ones will come to us all,’ she said tersely, and with that left him, making off in the general direction of Beserkers’ land.

      Slowly and meditatively, Grant descended into the arena. Dancing had begun, the dances that frequently went before feed periods, but he did not participate. Instead he sat gloomily apart, thinking his own thoughts which were as sterile and directionless as the warren in which he unknowingly lived.

      The dance was slow and intricate, men only taking part, the few women looking on and clapping rhythmically. They performed the Hyrogen dance, grouping and parting, circulating and bowing. Far overhead the grey Fliers also pirouetted. Gradually the figures curved into a line, the two leading men spiralling into a chamber adjacent to the Circus. This was Hall, and it was here that feed was taken. Gradually everyone flowed in, to be ready when the hatches flew open.

      When Grant entered Hall, he saw that Wilms was already there, talking earnestly and excitedly to another man, Jineer. Jineer was a scraggy, bearded fellow who walked with a stick. He had broken his leg years ago, repairing a small crane which had got out of control. Jineer was a machine-man, like his father and his father before him; many of the Hallways mechanicals owed their functioning to Jineer’s maintenance.

      Finally he left Wilms, making over to his old mother, Queejint.

      ‘Now’s my chance to pass on Osa’s warning,’ Grant told himself. But he made no move towards Wilms; his earlier behaviour rose before him like a barrier and he feared a hostile reception. While he delayed, the feed gong sounded and the hatches flew up at the end of Hall.

      The kitchens were entirely automatic. Humans conveyed the crops to a chute, and from then had no more to do with the nutrition cycle until they were summoned to feed. Though they did not know it, it was this incorruptible process that had long ago saved their ancestors from starvation. To take the tray offered through the hatch on a slowly moving platform, it was necessary for each person to stoop and reach forward so far that their head came in contact with a depression above the hatch opening. This depression was known mysteriously as The Scanner, and a vague oral tradition held that it was important, although nobody could definitely say why.

      Wilms was early at the hatches. He took his tray in the usual manner and moved in a preoccupied fashion to a table. After two or three minutes, Jineer and Queejint also collected their trays, Grant following shortly after.

      Still worrying because he had not passed on Osa’s warning, he ate without pleasure. Finally he dropped his spoon. Whatever Wilms might say, there was duty to Osa. He went over to the older man, was almost up to him, when a low swishing noise sounded.

      It was the dreaded sound. Through the door from the Circus swept a solitary Flier, its light winking red. Cries echoed in Hall, several men dived in panic under tables. The little plane circled and sank, one metal wing tip narrowly missing Grant’s ear. Heart hammering, he flung up his arm – and then he saw that Wilms was the quarry.

      Pale of face, Wilms flung his heavy tray against the metal fuselage. The Flier was not deflected. It swooped. Doors no bigger than a man’s head opened in its belly and a tangle of wire fell about Wilms’ head and shoulders. He shouted and fought, and some of the others came to his aid. But the wires seemed each to have a will of their own, and in no time he was entangled hopelessly in a net of thin steel.

      At this last moment, Grant found the courage to act. He leapt onto the circling plane, one leg hanging desperately over the streamlined fuselage, and wrenched at the wings. As if he were not there, the Flier rose, bearing Wilms underneath it as lightly as if he were a cocoon. It gathered height, winging towards the Circus. Still Grant clung, clawing uselessly at the Flier, striking it frantically with a free hand. It soared only a couple of inches under the arch, hurling Grant against the lintel. He fell hard onto the floor and sprawled there. Wilms was borne smoothly away, up to the sky and through a vent that only the Fliers could reach.

      As Grant sat up dazedly, two or three helping him, Jineer passed him running. The lame man broke into the Circus and hurried to his home on the second level.

      ‘They’ll be here for me in a second!’ he cried wildly. He slammed his door.

      An uneasy crowd, Grant among them, gathered in the arena, most of them looking upward at the Fliers circling high up near the sky.

      Jineer was not mistaken. Among the dim green lights a red one began to wink. With the feared swishing noise, a Flier began to descend. It did not even approach the apprehensive crowd; instead, it flew unerringly to the second level and hovered before Jineer’s door. A tiny beam, its light scarcely visible from below, smouldered down the smooth steel. The door fell in. The Flier moved forward, contemptuously puissant.

      Several people shouted then, hope in their voices. Jineer had a trick up his sleeve. For a servo-cleaner, arms flailing, moved forward to confront the grey Flier. Here was a machine to meet a machine.

      Jineer’s cracked voice called, ‘Friends, the Fliers come for those who find the Truth. They took Wilms. Now they take me – ’

      His voice was drowned under a metallic clamour. Battle was joined. A dozen sweeping arms battered against those flimsy-looking wings, and for a moment the Flier trembled and sank to within two feet of the ground. The cleaner moved towards it, still flailing, beating its opponent down. Then the dull beam flicked out again: the metal arms faltered, the staccato din cut out and with a final clank all life died in the cleaner. Over and past its bulk swooped the Flier.

      A minute later it reappeared, the lame Jineer bundled neatly underneath it in a web of wire. The graceful, menacing shape lifted over the balcony, circled lightly towards the sky and disappeared.

      Through a stunned silence broke Queejint’s wailing for her son.

      ‘Fear not, mother,’ someone said. ‘He had his tool bag strapped СКАЧАТЬ