The Black Corridor Read online

  'Darling, I find it all just as distasteful as you do,' Ryan told her.

  'Honestly. We'll just have to sort it out step by step. Show people that we like to keep ourselves to ourselves. Be calm.'

  Mrs Ryan continued to cry.

  'Please don't cry, darling.' Mr Ryan ran his hands through his hair. 'I'll straighten things out. You won't see anyone you don't know.'

  She turned on the bed. 'I'm sorry... One thing after another.

  My nerves...'

  'I know.'

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and began to stroke her hair.

  'Come on. We'll watch a musical on the TV. Then we'll...'

  And as Mrs Ryan's sobs abated there came the familiar sound of the Chinese jazz. It was muted now, but it was still loud enough to lacerate the Ryans' sensitive ears.

  Mrs Ryan moaned and covered her head as the tinkling, the jangling, the thudding of the music beat against her.

  Ryan, helpless, stood and stared down at his weeping wife.

  Then he turned and began to bang and bang and bang and bang on the wall until all the colours disappeared.

  But the music kept on playing.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mr Ryan has done his exercises, bathed, dressed and breakfasted.

  He has left his cabin and has paced down the main passageway to the central control cabin. He has checked the coordinates, the consumption indicators, the regeneration indicators and run computations through the machine.

  He seats himself at the tidy steel desk below the big screen that has no picture. Around him the dials and the indicators move unobtrusively.

  Mr Ryan takes out the heavy red-covered log-book from its steel drawer. He unclips his pen.

  Using the old-fashioned log appeals to his imagination, his sense of pioneerdom. It is the one touch of the historic, the link with the great captains and explorers of the past. The log-book is Ryan's poem.

  He enters the date: December 25th, A.D .2005. He underlines it He begins to write the first of his eight-hourly reports: Day number one thousand, four hundred and sixty four. 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.

  Under this statement Ryan signs his name and rules a neat line.

  He then stands up and reads the entry into the machine.

  Ryan's report is on its way to Earth.

  He likes to vary this routine. Therefore when he makes his next report he will do it orally first and write it second.

  Ryan stands up, checks the controls, glances around and is satisfied that all is in order. Since embarkation on the Hope Dempsey three years ago he has lost weight and, in spite of his treatments under the lamps, colour. Ryan exercises and eats well and relatively speaking he is in the best possible condition for a man living at two-thirds Earth gravity. On Earth it would be doubtful if he could run a hundred yards, walk along the corridor of a train, move a table from one side of a room to another. His muscles are maintained, but they have forgotten much. And Ryan's mind, basically still the same, has also forgotten much in the narrow confines of the perfectly running ship.

  But Ryan has his will. His will makes him keep to the perfect routine which will take the ship and its occupants to the star. That will which has held Ryan, the ship and its instruments and passengers together for three years, and will hold them together, functioning correctly, for the next three.

  Ryan trusts his will.

  Thus, in the private and unofficial section of the red log-book, the section which is never read over to Earth, Ryan writes: Today is Alex's tenth birthday—another birthday he will miss.

  This is very saddening. However it is the kind of sacrifice we must make for ourselves and for others in our attempt to make a better life.

  I find myself increasingly lonely for the company of my dear wife and children and my other old friends and good companions. Broadcasts from Earth no longer reach us and soon I shall be reduced, for stimulation, to those old shipmates of mine, my videotapes, my audiotapes and my books. But all this must be if we are to achieve our end —to gain anything worthwhile demands endurance and discipline. In three minutes it will be time to perform the duty I find most painful emotionally—and yet most essential. Every day I am seized by the same mixture of reluctance, because I know the distress it will cause me. And yet there is an eagerness to fulfil my task. I shall go now and do what I have to, Ryan closes the red log-book and places it back in the steel drawer so that the near edges of the book rest evenly against the bottom of the drawer. He replaces his pen in his pocket and stands up. He glances once more at the controls and with a firm step leaves the room.

  He walks up the metallic central corridor of the ship. At the end there is a door. The door is secured by heavy spin screws. Ryan presses a button at the side of the door and the screws automatically retract. The door swings open and Ryan stands for a moment on the threshold.

  The room is a small one, instantly bright as the heavy door opens.

  There are no screens to act as portholes and the walls gleam with a platinum sheen.

  The room is empty except for the thirteen long containers.

  One of the containers is empty. Plastic sheets are drawn twothirds of the way up over the twelve full containers. Through the semi-transparent material covering the remainder of the tops can be seen a thick, dark green fluid. Through the fluid can be seen the faces and shoulders of the passengers.

  The passengers are in hibernation and will remain so until the ship lands (unless an emergency arises which will be important enough for Ryan to awaken them). In their gallons of green fluid they sleep.

  At their heads is a panel revealing the active working of their bodies. On the plastic cover is a small identification panel, giving their names, their dates of birth and the date of their engulfment into suspended animation. On the indicator panel is a line marked DREAMS. On each panel the line is steady.

  Ryan looks tenderly down into the faces of his family and friends.

  JOSEPHINE RYAN .9.9.1960 .7.3.2004. His wife. Blonde and plump-faced, her naked shoulders still pink and smooth.

  *

  RUPERT RYAN .13.7.1990.6.3.2004. The dark face of his son, so like his, the bony shoulders just beginning to broaden into manhood.

  *

  ALEXANDER RYAN .25.12.1996.6.3.2004. The fairer face of his younger son. Eyes, amazingly, still open. So blue. Thin shoulders of an active small boy.

  *

  Ryan, looking on the faces of his closest relatives, feels close to tears at their loss. But he controls himself and paces past the other containers.

  *

  SYDNEY RYAN .2.2.1937.25.12.2003. His uncle. An old man.

  False teeth, very white, revealed through open mouth. Eyes closed. Thin, wrinkled shoulders.

  *

  JOHN RYAN .15.8.1963 .26.12.2003. Ryan's brother. Ryan thinks that now he is thinner, less muscular, he must look more like John than he has ever done, even when they were children.

  John has the same short face, thick brows. His exposed shoulders are narrow, knotted.

  *

  ISABEL RYAN .22.6.1962 .13.2.2004. His brother John's first wife, her crowded teeth exposed in a snarl in her narrow jaw.

  Pale face, pale hair, pale, thin shoulders. Ryan feels a spasm of relief that Isabel is lying in her container instead of around him, erect and needlelike, talking to him in her high voice. Ryan does not notice the passing thought, does not need to correct himself.

  *

  JANET RYAN .10.11.1982 .7.5.2004. So lovely. His brother John's second wife. Soft cheeks, soft shoulders, long wavy black hair suspended in the green fluid, a gentle smile through pink, generous lips, as if she were dreaming pleasant dreams.

  • *

  FRED MASTERSON .4.5.1950 .25.12.2003. Narrow face.

  Thin, narrow shoulders. Furrowed brow.

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  TRACY MASTERSON .29.10.1973 .9J0.2003. Masterson's wife. A pretty woman, looking as stupid in her container as she did out of it.

  *

  JAMES HENRY .4.3.1957.29.10.2003. Shock of red hair floating, sea-green eyes open in the green fluid. Looking like some drowned merman.

  *

  Ryan moves past him and stops at the eleventh container.

  *

  IDA HENRY .3.3.1980.1.2.2004. Poor girl. Matted hair, pale brown. Sunken young cheeks, drooping mouth.

  *

  There are two arrested lives in that container, Ryan thought.

  Ida, Henry's wife, and her coming child. What would be the result of that long gestation of mother and child, both in foetal fluid.

  *

  FELICITY HENRY .3.3.1980 .1.2.2004. Henry's other wife and Ida's twin sister. Her hair is smoother and shinier, her cheeks less sunken than her sister's. Not pregnant.

  *

  Ryan reaches the last container and looks into it. The white bottom of the container shines up at him. Surrounded by his sleeping companions he has the urge to get into the container and try it out.

  Suspecting his impulse, he squares his shoulders and walks firmly from the room. The door hisses shut behind nun. He touches the stud that replaces the screws. He walks back down the silent corridor and re-enters the control cabin. He makes rapid notes on a small pad of paper he takes from his breast pocket. He moves to the computer and runs his calculations through.

  If necessary the computer could be switched to fully automatic, but this is not considered good for the psychology of crew members.

  Ryan nods with satisfaction when the replies come. He returns to the desk and puts the charts back in the drawer.

  As he does this another spurt of paper comes from the computer. Ryan examines it.

  It reads: REPORT ON PERSONNEL IN CONTAINERS NOT SUPPLIED.

  Ryan purses his lips and punches in the reports: 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 *******

  ************************************************

  *******YOUR OWN CONDITION suggests the computer.

  Ryan pauses and then reports: I AM LONELY The computer tells him instantly: *******FILL YOUR TIME ACCORDING TO THE SUGGESTED PROGRAMME. IF THE CONDITION CONTINUES INJECT ICC PRODITOL PER DIEM * DO NOT TAKE MORE * DISCONTINUE THE DOSAGE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AND AT ALL COSTS AFTER 14 DAYS****

  Ryan straightens his shoulders, signs off and walks away from the computer.

  He walks down the corridor to his own accommodation. He inflates a red easy chair, sits down and presses a stud on the wall.

  The TV screen in front of him begins to roll off a list of its offerings.

  Films, plays, music, dancing and discussion and educational programmes. In his weakness Ryan does not choose the agricultural information he is committed to studying. He selects an old Polish film.

  Soon the screen is full of people walking, talking, eating, getting on streetcars, watching scenery, kissing and arguing.

  Ryan feels tears on his cheeks but he has an hour of relaxation due to him and he will take it, in whatever form it comes.

  As Ryan watches, bearing his expected melancholy with stoicism, his mind wanders. He hears, echoing in his head, the report on his undead companions in their cavernous containers: JOSEPHINE RYAN. CONDITION STEADY. RUPERT RYAN. CONDITION STEADY. ALEXANDER RYAN...

  SIDNEY RYAN... JOHN RYAN... ISABEL RYAN...

  JANET RYAN... FRED MASTERSON... JAMES HENRY ... IDA HENRY... FELICITY HENRY...

  The parade of the faces he once knew passes in front of him. He imagines them as they were, before they were immersed in their half-life in the sea-green fluid.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  James Henry's pale hands, stubby and freckled, shook as he bent forward in his chair and stared into Fred Masterson's face.

  'Do something, Fred, do something—that's what I'm saying.'

  Masterson gazed back, thin eyebrows raised cynically, long forehead creased by parallels of wrinkles. 'Such as?' he asked after a pause.

  Henry's hands clenched as he said: 'Society is polluted physically and morally. Polluted by radioactivity we're continually told is within an acceptable level—though we see signs every day that this just isn't so. I cannot allow Ida or Felicity to bear children with the world as it is today. And worse, in a way, than the actual environment is the infinite corruption of man himself. Each day we grow more rotten, like sacks of pus, until the few of us who try to cling to the old standards, try to stay decent, are more and more threatened by the others. Threatened by their corruption, threatened by their violence. We're living in a mad world, Masterson, and you're advising patience...'

  Beside him on the Ryans' couch were his two wives, tired, identically pale, identically thin, as if the split cell which produced them had only contained the materials for one healthy woman and had been forced to make two. As Henry spoke they both gazed at him from their pale blue eyes and followed every word as if he were speaking their thoughts.

  Masterson did not reply to James Henry's tirade. He merely stared about him as if he were thoroughly tired of the discussion.

  The furniture of the Ryans' living room had been pushed back against the walls to seat the group which met there every week.

  The blinds were drawn and the lights were on.

  Seated on his own with his back to the window was Ryan's Uncle Sidney, a thin, obstinate old man with a tonsure of brown hair round his bald head. The rest of the group was seated around the other walls. The seat in front of the window, like the front row at public meetings, was always the last to be filled.

  Fred Masterson and his wife Tracy, who wore a well-cut black floor-length dress, the conservative fashion of the moment, and fully made up black lips, sat opposite the Henry family on their sofa.

  Next to Masterson sat John Ryan's first wife, Isabel. She was a dowdy, pinch-faced woman. On John's left sat his other wife, the beautiful Janet. Against the fourth wall were Ryan and his wife Josephine.

  The women wore blacks and browns, the men were quietly dressed in dark-coloured tunics and trousers. The room, bare in the centre, entirely without ornament, had a dull look.

  Ryan sat and in his head worked out some estimates for a new line of product in his head. As a silence fell between James Henry and Fred Masterson, he turned his mind away from his business problems and said: 'This is, after all, only a discussion group. We haven't the power or the means to alter things.'

  Henry opened his green eyes wider and said urgently: 'Can't you see, Ryan, that the days of discussion are practically over. We're living in chaos and all we're doing is talking about it.

  At the meeting next month——'

  'We haven't agreed to a meeting next month yet,' said Masterson.

  'Well, if we don't we'll be fools.' Henry crossed his legs in an agitated manner. 'At the meeting next month we must urge that pressure...'

  Tracy Masterson's face was taut with stress. 'I've got to go home now, Fred.

  Masterson looked at her helplessly. Try to hang on...'

  'No...' Tracy hunched her shoulders. 'No. It's people all around me. I know they're all friends... I know they don't mean to...'

  'A couple more minutes.'

  'No. It's like being shut up in a box.'

  She folded her hands in her lap and sat with her eyes downcast.

  She could say no more.

  Josephine Ryan rose and took her by the arm. 'I'll give you some pills and you can sleep in our bed. Come on, dear..' She drew the younger woman up by the arm and led her into the kitchen.

  Henry looked at Masterson. 'Well? You know why your wife is like this. It all dates from the time when she was caught up
in that UFO Demonstration in Powell Square. And that's an experience any one of us could have at any time—as things are now.'

  As he spoke there came the sound of chanting from nearby streets. A window broke in the distance and there were shouts. A noisy song began.

  From the bedroom Tracy Masterson started to scream.

  Fred Masterson got up, paused for a moment and then ran towards the sound.

  The rest of the group sat frozen, listening as the hubbub came closer. In the bedroom Tracy Masterson screamed and shouted: 'NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.'

  Josephine Ryan came back, leaning against the doorway. 'The pills will take effect soon. Don't worry about her. Who are the people in the street?'

  No one replied.

  Tracy screamed again.

  'Who are the people in the street?' Josephine moved further into the room.'Who?'

  The noisy voices subsided, giving way to the same low chanting, in a minor key, which had begun the procession.

  Now Ryan and his friends could hear some of the words.

  'Shut up the land.

  'Shut up the sky.

  'We must be alone.

  'Strangers, strangers all must die.

  'We must be alone.

  'Alone, alone, alone.

  'Shut out the fearful, darkening skies.

  'Let us be alone.

  'No strangers coming through the skies.

  'We must be alone.

  'No threats, no fears.

  'No strangers here.

  'No thieves who come by night.

  'Alone, alone, alone.'

  'It's them, then. The Patriots.' Mrs Ryan looked at the others.

  Again no one replied.

  The chanting was close under the windows now.

  The lights went out. The room was left in complete darkness.

  Tracy Masterson's screams had diminished to a whimper as the drug took hold.

  'Bloody awful verses, whatever else...' Uncle Sidney cleared his throat.

  The group sat surrounded by a chanting which seemed, in the utter darkness, to be coming from all over the room.