Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss

rouse the echoes again.
    Roffery dismissed that subject. Without speaking, he pointed ahead. Complain looked where he was bid, puzzled by the expression on the other’s face.
    Neither of them had ever been in such a large space. Lit only by one tube which burned to their left, it seemed to stretch for ever into the darkness. The floor was a sheet of water on which ripples slid slowly outwards. Under the light, the water shone like metal. Breaking this smooth expanse atthe far end, was an erection of tubes which suspended planks over the water at various heights, and to either side were rows of huts, barely distinguishable for shadow.
    ‘It’s beautiful!’ Roffery breathed. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
    Complain stared at him in astonishment. The word ‘beautiful’ had an erotic meaning, and was applied only to particularly desirable women. Yet he saw that there was a sight here which needed a special choice of vocabulary. His eyes switched back to the water: it was entirely outside their experience. Previously, water had meant only a dribble from a tap, a spurt from a hose, or the puddle at the bottom of a utensil. He wondered vaguely what this amount could be for. Sinister, uncanny, the view had another quality also, and it was this Roffery was trying to describe.
    ‘I know what it is,’ Roffery murmured. He was staring at the water as if hypnotized, the lines of his face so relaxed that his appearance was changed. ‘I’ve read about this in old books brought me for valuing, dreamy rubbish with no meaning till now.’ He paused, and then quoted, ‘“Then dead men rise up never, and even the longest river winds somewhere safe to sea.” This is the sea, Complain, and we’ve stumbled on the sea. I’ve often read about it. For me, it proves Marapper’s wrong about our being in a ship; we’re in an underground city.’
    This meant little to Complain; he was not interested in labels of things. What struck him was to perceive something he had worried over till now: why Roffery had left his sinecure to come on the priest’s hazardous expedition. He saw now that the other had a reason akin to Complain’s own: a longing for what he had never known and could put no name to. Instead of feeling any bond with Roffery about this, Complain decided he must more than ever beware of the man, for if they had similar objectives, they were the more likely to clash.
    ‘Why did you come up here?’ he asked, still keeping his voice low to avoid the greedy echoes.
    ‘While you were snoring, I woke and heard voices in thecorridor,’ Roffery said. ‘Through the frosted glass I saw two men pass – only they were too big for men. They were Giants!’
    ‘Giants! The Giants are dead, Roffery.’
    ‘These were Giants, I tell you, fully seven feet high. I saw their heads go by the window.’ In his eyes, Complain read the uneasy fascinated memory of them.
    ‘And you followed them?’ Complain asked.
    ‘Yes. I followed them into here.’
    At this Complain scanned the shadows anew.
    ‘Are you trying to frighten me?’ he asked.
    ‘I didn’t ask you to come after me. Why be afraid of the Giants? Dazers’ll despatch a man however long he measures.’
    ‘We’d better be getting back, Roffery. There’s no point in standing here; besides, I’m meant to be on watch.’
    ‘You might have thought of that before,’ Roffery said. ‘We’ll bring Marapper here later to see what he makes of the sea. Before we go, I’m just going to look at something over there. That was where the Giants disappeared to.’
    He indicated a point hear at hand, beside the huts, where a square of curb was raised some four inches above the water-line. The solitary light which overhung it looked almost as if it had been temporarily erected by the Giants to cast a glow there.
    ‘There’s a trapdoor inside that curb,’ Roffery whispered. ‘The Giants went down there and closed it after them. Come on, we’ll go and look.’
    This seemed to Complain