'That's a threat, is it?' Ryan said thickly.
'A friendly tip, Mr Ryan.'
'We've turned over as fast as we can,' Ryan explained. 'We were a bloody toy factory, you know. Overnight we had to change to manufacturing weapon parts and communications equipment.
Naturally we haven't had a completely smooth ride. On the other hand, we've done our best...'
'Your production is not up to scratch, Mr Ryan. I wonder if your heart is in the war effort? Some people do not seem to realise that the old society has been swept away, that the Patriots are bent on ordering an entirely new kind of nation now that the remnants of the alien groups have been pushed back beyond the Thames.
Though attacked from all sides, though sustaining three hydrogen bomb drops from France, the Patriots have managed to hold this land of ours together. They can only do it with the full co-operation of people like yourself, Mr Ryan.'
'We aren't getting the raw materials,' Ryan said. 'Half the things we need don't arrive. It's a bloody shambles!'
'That sounds like a criticism of the government, Mr Ryan.'
'You know I'm a registered Patriot supporter.'
'Not all registered supporters have remained loyal, Mr Ryan.'
'Well, I am loyal!' Ryan half believed himself as he shouted at the Man from the Ministry. He and the group bad decided early on that the Patriots would soon hold the power and had taken the precaution of joining the party. 'It's just that we can't work more than ten bloody miracles a day!'
'You've got a week, I'm afraid, Mr Ryan.' The official got up, closing his briefcase. 'And then it will be a Temporary Requisition Order until our borders are secure again.'
'You'll take over?'
'You will continue to manage the factory, if you prove efficient.
You will enjoy the status of any other civil servant.'
Ryan nodded. 'What about compensation?'
'Mr Ryan,' said the official grimly, wearily, 'there is a discredited cabinet that fled to Birmingham to escape retribution.
Among other things that was discovered about that particular cabinet was that it was corrupt. Industrialists were lining their pockets with the connivance of government officials. That sort of thing is all over now. All over. Naturally, you will receive a receipt guaranteeing the return of your business when the situation has been normalised. We hope, however, that it won't have to happen.
Keep trying, Mr Ryan. Keep trying. Good luck to you.'
Ryan watched the official leave. He would have to warn the group that things were moving a little faster than anticipated.
He wondered how things were in the rest of the world. Very few reports came through these days. The United States were now Disunited and at war. United Europe had fragmented into thousands of tiny principalities, rather as England had. As for Russia and the Far East the only information he had had for months was that a horde thousands of times greater than the Golden Horde was sweeping in all directions. Possibly none of the information was true. He hoped that the town of Surgut on the Siberian Plain was still untouched. Everything depended on that.
Ryan got up and left the office.
It was time to go home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When he awakes he feels relieved, alert and refreshed. He eats his breakfast as soon as he has exercised and walks to the control room where he runs through all the routine checks and adjustments until lunch-time.
After lunch he goes to the little gym behind the main control cabin and vaults and climbs and swings until it is time to inspect Hibernation.
He unlocks the door of Hibernation and makes a routine and unemotional check. A minor alteration is required in the rate of fluid flow on Number Seven container. He makes the alteration.
Again the routine checks, the reiteration during the normal conference period.
He then does two hours study of the agricultural programmes.
He learns a great deal. It is a much more interesting subject that he would have guessed.
Then it is time to report to the computer and read the log through to Earth, if anyone is left on Earth to hear it.
He makes the last of his reports for this period: 'Day number one thousand four hundred and sixty-six. Spaceship Hope Dempsey en route for Munich 15040. Speed steady at point nine of c. All systems functioning according to original expectations. No other variations. All occupants are comfortable and in good health.'
Ryan goes to the desk and takes out his red log-book. He frowns. Scrawled across a page are the words: I MUST KEEP BETTER CONTROL OF THINGS It hardly looks like his writing. Yet it must be.
And when did he write it? He has not had time to make any entries in the log until now. It could have been at any time today.
Or last night. He frowns. When...?
He cannot remember.
He takes a deep breath and he rules two heavy red lines under the entry, writes the date below it and begins: All continues well. I maintain my routine and am hopeful for the future. Today I feel less bedevilled by loneliness and have more confidence in my ability to carry out my mission. Our ship carries us steadily onwards. I am confident that all is well, I am confident—— He stops writing and scratches his head, staring at the phrase above the entry.
I MUST KEEP CONTROL OF THINGS
I am confident that my period of nightmares and near-hysteria is over. I have regained control of myself and therefore—— He considers tearing out this page and beginning it afresh. But that would not be in accord with the regulations he is following.
He sucks his lower lip... am doubtless much more cheerful. The above phrase is something of a puzzle to me, for at this point I cannot remember writing it.
Perhaps I was under even greater stress than I imagined and wrote it last night after finishing the ordinary entry. Well, it was good advice —the advice of this stranger who could only have been myself!
It gives me a slightly eery feeling, however, I must admit. I expect I will remember when I wrote it. I hope so. In the meantime there is no point in my racking my brains. The information will come when my unconscious is ready to let me have it!
Otherwise—all O. K. The gloom and doom period is over—at least for the time being. I am in a thoroughly constructive and balanced state of mind.
He signs off with a flourish and, humming, puts the book in the desk, closes the drawer, gets up, takes a last look around the control room and goes out into the passage.
Before returning to his cabin, he goes to the library and gets a couple of educational tapes.
In his cabin, he studies the programmes for a while and then goes to sleep.
He dreams again.
He is on the new planet. A pleasant landscape. A valley. With some sort of digging instrument he is working the soil. He is alone and at peace. There is no sign of the spaceship or of the other occupants. This does not worry him. He is alone and at peace.
*
Next morning he continues with his routine work. He eats, he makes his formal log entries, he manages to get an extra hour of study. He is beginning to understand the principles of agriculture.
He returns to the control room to make the last of his reports— the standard one—which, according to his routine, he first enters in his log-book and then reads out to the computer. He then sits down and picks up his stylus to begin his private entry. He enters the date.
Another pleasant and uneventful day spent largely in the pursuit of knowledge! I am beginning to feel like some old scholar. I can understand the attraction, suddenly, in the pursuit of information for its own sake. In a way, of course, it is an escape—I can see that even the most sophisticated sort of academic activity is at least in part a rejection of the realities of ordinary living. My studies, naturally, are perfectly practical, in that I will need a great deal of knowledge about every possible kind of agriculture when we The computer is flashing a signal. It wants his attention.
Frowning, Ryan gets up and goes over to the main console.
&
nbsp; He reads the computer's message.
*******CONDITION OF OCCUPANTS OF CONTAINERS NOT*****REPORTED*******************************
Ryan gasps. It is true. For the first time he has not checked the Hibernation compartment. He realises now that he was so caught up in his studies he must have forgotten. He replies to the computer: ******REPORT FOLLOWS SHORTLY*****************
Reproving himself for this stupid lapse, relieved that the computer is programmed to check every function he performs and to remind him of any oversights, he marches along the corridor to the Hibernation room.
He touches the stud to open the door.
But the door remains closed.
He presses the stud harder.
Still the door does not open.
Ryan feels a moment's panic. Could there be someone else aboard the ship? A stowaway of some kind who...?
He rejects the notion as stupid. And then he returns to the main control cabin and gives the computer a question.
******HIBERNATION COMPARTMENT DOOR WILL NOT OPEN*****PLEASE ADVISE*********************
There is a pause before the computer replies: ******EMERGENCY LOCK EFFECTIVE"
"YOU MUST*********DEACTIVATE AT MAIN CONSOLE*****
Ryan licks his lips and goes to the main console. He scans the door plan and sees that the computer is correct. He touches a stud on the console and cuts off the emergency lock. Was the mistake his or the computer's. Perhaps the emergency lock was activated at the same time as he made the mysterious log entry.
He returns to the Hibernation room and opens the door.
He enters the compartment.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The containers gleam a pure, soft white.
He walks to the first and inspects it. It contains his wife.
*
JOSEPHINE RYAN 9.9.1960 .7.3.2004.
*
His blonde, pink-faced wife, blue eyes peacefully closed, lies in her green fluid. She looks so natural that Ryan half expects her to open her eyes and smile at him. Josephine, heart of the ship, so glad to be setting out on her great adventure, so glad to be free from the torture of living in the city with its unbearable atmosphere of hostility.
Ryan smiles as he remembers the eager step with which she came aboard on the day of the take-off, how she had lost, almost overnight, the sadness and the fear which had afflicted her—indeed, which had been afflicting them all. He sighs. How pleasant to be together again.
*
RUPERT RYAN .13.7.1990 .6.3.2004.
*
ALEXANDER RYAN .25.12.1996 .6.3.2004.
*
Ryan walks fairly quickly past the containers where his two sons' immature faces gaze in startlement at the bright ceiling.
*
SYDNEY RYAN .2.2.1937 .25.12.2003.
*
Ryan stares for a while at the wrinkled old face, lips slightly drawn back over the false teeth, the thin muscley old shoulders showing above the plastic sheet drawn over the main length of the containers.
*
JOHN RYAN .15.8.1963 .26.12.2003.
*
ISABEL RYAN .22.6.1962 .13.2.2004.
*
Isabel. Still weary looking, even though at peace...
*
JANET RYAN .10.11.1982 .7.5.2004.
*
Ah, Janet, thinks Ryan with a surge of affection.
He loved Josephine. But, by God, he loved Janet passionately.
He frowned. The problem had not been over when they went into Hibernation. It would take a great deal of self-discipline on his part to make sure that it did not start all over again.
*
FRED MASTERSON .4.5.1950 .25.12.2003.
*
TRACY MASTERSON .29.10.1973 .9.10.2003.
*
JAMES HENRY .4.3.1957 .29.10.2003.
*
IDA HENRY .3.3.1980.1.2.2004.
*
FELICITY HENRY .3.3.1980.1.2.2004.
*
Everything is as it should be. Everybody is sleeping peacefully.
Only Ryan is awake.
He blinks.
Only Ryan is awake because it is better for one man to suffer acute loneliness and isolation than for several to live in tension.
One strong man.
Ryan raises his eyebrows.
And leaves Hibernation.
*
Ryan reports to the computer: JOSEPHINE RYAN. CONDITION STEADY.
RUPERT RYAN CONDITION STEADY.
ALEXANDER RYAN. CONDITION STEADY.
SIDNEY RYAN. CONDITION STEADY.
JOHN RYAN. CONDITION STEADY.
ISABEL RYAN. CONDITION STEADY.
JANET RYAN.
CONDITION STEADY.
FRED MASTERSON. CONDITION STEADY.
TRACY MASTERSON. CONDITION
STEADY.
JAMES
HENRY
CONDITION STEADY.
IDA HENRY. CONDITION STEADY.
FELICITY HENRY. CONDITION
STEADY.
The computer says: ******EARLIER YOU REPORTED YOURSELF LONELY*
***"
"DOES THIS CONDITION STILL OBTAIN******
Ryan replies: ******CONDITION EASIER SINCE THEN**************
He moves to his desk and picks up his diary.
He writes: land.
A short while ago the computer reported an oversight of mine. I'd forgotten to report on the condition of the personnel. The first time I've done anything like that! And the last, I hope. Then I discovered that the emergency locks in Hibernation had been sealed and I had to come back and unseal them. I must have done that, too, when I made the above entry. I feel relaxed and at ease now. The previous mistakes and, I suppose, mild blackouts must have been the result of the strain which I now seem to have overcome.
Ryan winds up the entry, closes the log, puts it away, leaves the control room.
He goes to his cabin and sets aside the educational tapes. Too much concentration, he thinks. Mustn't overdo it. It's incredible how one has to watch the balance. A very delicate equilibrium involved here. Very delicate.
He starts to watch an old Patriot propaganda play about the discovery of a cell of the Free Yorkshire underground and its eventual elimination.
He turns it off.
He hears something. He turns his head from the viewer.
It is a year since he heard a footstep not his own.
But now he can hear footsteps.
He sits there, feeling sweat prickle under his hair, listening to what seems to be the sound of echoing steps in the passage outside.
There is some stranger aboard!
He listens as the steps approach the door of the compartment.
Then they pass.
He forces himself out of his chair and gets to the door. He touches the stud to open the door. It opens slowly.
Outside the passageway stretches on both sides, the length of the ship's crew quarters. The only sound is the faint hum of the ship's system.
Ryan gets a glass of water and drinks it.
He switches the viewer back on, half smiling. Typical auditory hallucination of a lonely man, he thinks. The programme ends.
Ryan decides to get some exercise.
He leaves his cabin and makes for the gym.
As he walks along the corridor he feels footsteps moving behind him. He ignores the feeling with a shrug.
Then comes a moment's panic. He gives way to the impulse to turn sharply.
There is, of course, no one there.
Ryan reaches the gym. He has the impression that he is being watched as he runs through his exercises.
He lies down on a couch for fifteen minutes before beginning the second half of the exercise routine.
He remembers family holidays on the Isle of Skye. That was in the very early years, of course, before Skye was taken over as an experimental area for research into algae food substitutes. He remembers the pleasant evenings he and Josephine used to have
with Tracy and Fred Masterson. He remembers the evening walks through the roof gardens with his wife. He remembers Christmases, he remembers sunsets. He remembers the smell of the rain on the fields of the place where he was born. He remembers the smell of his toy factories—the hot metal, the paint, the freshly cut timber.
He remembers his mother. She had been one of the victims of the short-lived Hospitals Euthanasia Act. The Act had been repealed by the Nimmoites during their short period of power. The only sensible thing they did, thinks Ryan.
He sleeps.
Once again he is on the planet, in the valley. But this time he is panic-stricken that the ship and the others have left him. He begins to run. He runs into the jungle. He sees a dark woman. He is in his own toy factory among the dancing toys.
He takes pleasure at the sight of these things he has made. They all function together so joyfully. He sees the musical building blocks. They still spell out a word.
AMU...
With dawning fear he hears, above the bangs and clangs of the mechanical toys, the drone of the dirge-like music which in other dreams accompanies the dancers in the darkened ballroom.
The music rises, almost drowning out the sounds made by the moving toys. Ryan feels himself standing rooted with fear in the middle of his gyrating models. The music grows louder. The toys spin to and fro, round and round. They begin to climb on top of each other, lamb on dredger, girl doll on piles of bricks, making a huge pyramid close to him. The pyramid grows and grows until it is at the level of his eyes. The music grows louder and louder.
In his terror Ryan anticipates a point in the music when the pyramid of still moving toys collapses on him.
He struggles to free himself from the toils of little mechanical bodies.
As he struggles he awakes. He lies there and hears himself groan: 'I thought they were over. I've got to do something about it.'
He gets off the couch and abandons the idea of exercise.
He stares around at the exercising machines. 'I can remain master of myself,' Ryan says.
The Black Corridor Page 9
