Starship by Brian W. Aldiss

Author:Brian W. Aldiss
Language: pt
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General
ISBN: 9780380002269
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 2010-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

III

"Contraction take your ego, Roy!" Marapper exploded. "Don't start mixing yourself up with the ideas of Forwards. It's that girl who's doing it, I know—you mark my words, she's playing her own game with you! Just remember: we came here with our own objectives, and they're still our objectives."

Complain shook his head. He and the priest were eating alone early the next wake. Officers crowded the dining-hall, but Vyann and Scoyt had not yet appeared. Now Marapper was making his old appeal, that they should try for power together.

"You're out of date, Marapper," he said shortly. "And you can leave Inspector Vyann out of it. These Forwards people have a cause beyond any petty seeking for power. Besides, what if you killed the lot of them? What good would it do? Would it help the ship?"

"To the hull with the ship. Look, Roy, trust your old priest who never let you down yet. These people are using us for their own ends; it's only common sense to do the same ourselves. And don't forget the Teaching tells you always to seek for yourself so that you may be freed from inner conflict."

"You're forgetting something," Complain said. "The Litany ends 'And the ship brought home'; it's one of the main tenets of the Teaching. You were always a shockingly bad priest, Marapper."

They were interrupted by the appearance of Vyann, looking fresh and attractive. She said she had already taken breakfast. With more irritation than he usually showed, Marapper excused himself. Something in Vyann's manner told Complain she was happy enough to let him go; it suited him well also.

"Has Fermour been questioned yet?" he asked.

"No. One of the Council of Five, Zac Deight, has seen him, but that's all. Roger—that is, Master Scoyt—will question him later, but at present he is involved with some other, unexpected business."

He did not ask what this business might be. Seeing her so close again overpowered him, so that he could hardly think of anything to say. Mainly, he longed to tell her that nothing less than a miracle could have arranged her dark hair as it was. Instead, and with an effort, he asked what he was required to do.

"You are going to relax," she said brightly. "I have come to show you around Forwards."

It proved an impressive tour. Many rooms, here as in Quarters, were barren and empty; Vyann explained that this must be because their contents had been left on Procyon's planet, New Earth. Others had been turned into farms far surpassing Quarters's in scale. There were varieties of animals Complain had never seen before. He saw fish for the first time, swimming in tanks—here Vyann told him that they yielded the white meat he had enjoyed. There were amazing varieties of crops, some grown under special lighting. Cultivated ponics grew also, and brightly flowering shrubs. In one long room fruit grew, trees against the walls, bushes and plants in raised trenches in the middle.

Many men and women worked on these agricultural decks, at humble tasks and complicated ones.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.