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here to live with the single men and boys. No rewards for my hunting, or comfort for my distress! The laws of this tribe are too harsh, priest – the Teaching itself is cruel cant – the whole stifling world nothing but a seed of suffering. Why should it be so? Why should there not be a chance of happiness? Ah, I will run amok as my brother did before me; I’ll tear through that fool crowd outside and cut the memory of my discontent into every one of them!’
    ‘Spare me more,’ the priest cut in. ‘I have a large parish to get round; your confessions I will hear, but your rages must be kept to entertain yourself.’ He rose to his feet, stretching, and adjusted the greasy cloak round his shoulders.
    ‘But what do we get out of life here?’ Complain asked, fighting down an impulse to clamp his hands round that fat neck. ‘Why are we here? What is the
object
of the world? You’re a priest – tell me straightforwardly.’
    Marapper sighed windily, and raised his palms in a gesture of rejection. ‘My children, your ignorance staggers me: what determination it has! “The world”, you say, meaning this petty, uncomfortable tribe. The world is more than that. We – everything: ponics, Deadways, the Forwards people, thewhole shoot – are in a sort of container called a Ship, moving from one bit of the world to another. I’ve told you this time and time again, but you won’t grasp it.’
    ‘That theory again!’ Complain said sullenly. ‘What if the world
is
called Ship, or Ship the world, it makes no difference to us.’
    For some reason, the ship theory, well known although generally disregarded in Quarters, upset and frightened him. He tightened his mouth and said, ‘I wish to sleep now, father. Sleep at least brings comfort. You bring only riddles. Sometimes I see you in my sleep, you know; you are always telling me something I ought to understand, but somehow I never hear a word.’
    ‘And not only in your dreams,’ said the priest pleasantly, turning away. ‘I had something important to ask you, but it must wait. I shall return tomorrow, and hope to find you less at the mercy of your adrenalin,’ he added, and with that was gone.
    For a long while Complain stared at the closed door, not hearing the sounds of revelry outside. Then, wearily, he climbed up on to the empty bed.
    Sleep did not come. His mind ran over the endless quarrels he and Gwenny had suffered in this room – the search for a more cruel and crushing remark, the futility of their armistices. It had gone on for so long and now it was finished: Gwenny was sleeping with someone else from now on. Complain felt regret and pleasure mixed.
    Suddenly, tracing over the events which led to Gwenny’s abduction, he recalled the ghostly figure that had faded into the ponics at their approach. He sat up in bed, uneasy at something more than the uncanny expertise with which the figure had vanished. Outside his door, all was now quiet. The race of his thoughts must have gone on for longer than he had imagined; the dance was done, the dancers overcome by sleep. Only he with his consciousness pierced the tomb-like veil that hung over the corridors of Quarters. If he opened hisdoor now, he might hear the distant, never-ending rustle of ponic growth.
    But nervousness made the thought of opening his door dreadful to him. Complain recalled in a rush the legends of strange beings which were frequently told in Quarters.
    There were, firstly, the mysterious peoples of Forwards. Forwards was a distant area; the men there had alien ways and weapons, and powers unknown. They were slowly advancing through the tangle and would eventually wipe out all the small tribes: or so the legends ran. But however formidable they might be, it was acknowledged they were at least human.
    The mutants were sub-human. They lived as hermits, or in small bands amid the tangles, driven there from the tribes. They had too many teeth, or too many arms, or too few brains. They could