by Eric Brown
“Dan, go get the navigator. Let’s find out where the hell we are.”
“What do you think happened, boss?” Fekete asked. Mirren always thought he detected a note of insubordination in Fekete’s use of the honorific.
“We crashed,” he replied.
“What an appropriate way of ending our time as E-men,” Fekete went on. “I for one will certainly never forget it.”
“Fekete,” Mirren warned. “Just shut it, okay? This tour of duty isn’t over yet, and until it is you’re still under my command—got that?” He stared at the Nigerian until Fekete turned away.
Then, the vision became distant, began to fade-
He was back in the hallway of his apartment. The beer bottle completed its flight towards the wastechute and rattled through the swing lid.
He moved to his room and sat on the edge of the bed, fumbled three sleeping pills into the palm of his hand, and washed them down with a tumblerful of stale water.
He remained sitting for a long while, going over the events of the day. He considered the promise of the flux, and tried to persuade himself that four years was a long time, really.
* * * *
Chapter Fifteen
Twenty-four hours ago Bobby had turned his armchair to face the window, then sat and stared straight ahead—seeing not the night-time scene of Paris, but the Network Francais nine o’clock documentary about Mars which he had ‘watched’ on the vid-screen the day before. Now, as nine o’clock approached, he turned his chair and settled himself before the window, and seconds later his time-lapsed vision swung to show him yesterday evening’s twilight descend on the city. His physical circumstances and visual vector were synchronised. He stared out across the roof-tops, south towards the bright blue light of the interface at Orly, the scene interrupted momentarily by his fraction-of-a-second blinks of a day ago. He reached out and touched the window sill, felt the ripple-effect of the ill-applied paint beneath his fingertips. It was a strange sensation still, after all these years, to be able to see something, actually touch it, feel its detail with his fingers while his vision corroborated that detail, but be unable to see his hand, his fingers: it was as if his physical reality had been edited out of existence, as if he were already halfway towards absorption into the nada-continuum.
He sat back in his seat and stared at the delayed scene his senses were relaying to him, the opposite buildings and the skyline beneath the indigo night. He thought about Ralph, and their conversation that morning. He experienced a pang of intense sadness for his brother. More than anything he wanted to find some way to convince Ralph of the truth, of the fact of continued existence after this one. He recalled a period about five years ago when Ralph had seem particularly down; Bobby had made enquiries through his contacts in the Church—the communications laborious and complex because of his condition—and tried to hire flux-time from a pusher for his brother. His contacts had come up with nothing, and Bobby had consoled himself with the fact that Ralph had pushed bigships for ten years, experienced the rapture of the flux, without succumbing to belief, so who was to say that the experience of the flux now would be any different?
Bobby considered trying again. Even if it didn’t bring about the desired belief in his brother, it might make his day to day life worth living, help take his mind off the fact of his illness.
Yesterday at this time, Bobby had closed his eyes, anticipating that his future self would have had quite enough of the scene beyond the window. He had been right. He felt relief at the advent of darkness. In one hour he would go to bed and sleep, as he did every evening at ten-thirty. In the meantime he emptied his mind, abandoned his thoughts, memories, anxieties—allowed his concern for Ralph to slip from his consciousness with the reminder that, in essence, nothing of this realm mattered, that it was just a passing show, that emotions were no more than the excess baggage of the ego. Having done this, he concentrated even harder on washing from his mind the actual thought that nothing mattered. Eventually he bordered on a trance-state, and gradually he attained the peace of mind he had achieved during his last shift in the flux-tank. He felt the joyous unburdened essence of the continuum around him, though without quite the intensity or the rapture he would have had experienced when fluxing. What he felt now was a second best, but a state nevertheless for which he was profoundly grateful.
On the edge of his consciousness he could hear—no, feel, think, somehow sense, the calling... the desire of the intelligence, which he had intuited in his last flux, for him to conjoin with the sublime, the infinite continuum.
For an eternal moment, Bobby hovered between this reality and the next.
Quite suddenly he was pitched from his trance. One second he had awareness of the nada-continuum, and the next that contact was broken. At first he was disoriented; this had never happened before. Normally he found it difficult to maintain the level of concentration needed to remain in the trance-state, and usually returned to himself slowly to find that an hour or more had elapsed in what seemed like seconds.
This time the transition was abrupt and wrenching.
Something touched his shoulder, and he realised that an earlier touch was what had interrupted his meditation. He felt something on his arm—the touch of a hand, firm but not rough.
Yesterday at this time he had still had his eyes shut. He was still in darkness, for which he was grateful. More hands held him, and he imagined the sensory confusion he would have suffered if his delayed vision had relayed to him an empty room.
The hands were trying to ease him from his chair.
No! he shouted, unable to hear himself. What do you want?
Not for ten years had he experienced the touch of another human being other than that of his brother. Now he felt the touch of hands on his shoulders and arms. The sudden intimacy of the unexpected assault filled him with an overwhelming fear.
No!
He struggled; still in darkness, he twisted and writhed. Strong arms clamped his arms and legs, and he felt a disconcerting buoyancy as he was hoisted from his chair and carried through the air.
Bobby screamed in silence.
His yesterday-self had chosen that moment to open his eyes, rise from his chair and walk towards the door. Bobby felt sick with the resulting disorientation. In real-time he was being borne from the room, kicking and struggling, by perhaps four or five men—judging from the restraining holds on his arms and legs—while his vision relayed to him his sedate walk through the hall to the bathroom as he had prepared for bed last night.
He could feel himself being carried along in a hurry, his abductors turning from his room, then moving from the hall into the elevator: with a flailing right hand he struck the plastic interior of the lift cage. The forward motion stopped, but the hold on him was still as strong. He gave up his struggle and felt a belly-lurching sensation as the lift dropped. Visually, he was watching his toothbrush rise to his mouth, and a second later he tasted the sour tang of the mint toothpaste. He had closed his eyes yesterday while doing this, and now he experienced a blessed period of darkness accompanied by the sound of his electric toothbrush and running water.
The lift hit bottom and he was carried out. He could feel the bounce of footsteps, the rush of warm air against his skin as he was taken into the street. He hoped that a passer-by might see what was happening, raise the alarm—or better still that a passing cop patrol might apprehend his abductors. But he knew the chances were slim. Few citizens would be out after dark, and cops rarely patrolled this district.
He was lowered to the ground, stood on his feet. Powerful hands ensured he could not move, then forced him forward. A hand on his head, pushed him down and someone lifted first his right leg and then his left. He sat down, feeling the cushioned interior of a vehicle. Evidently he was on the back seat, as he could feel the solid bulk of people on either side of him. He was strapped in. Hands still held his arms.
He was shaking with terror. He tried to concentrate, to rid his mind of the knowledge of wha
t was happening. He told himself that it did not matter, that, even if they intended to kill him, then all he would have to withstand would be the pain—a small price to pay for admittance into the continuum.
He felt an intense yearning for his brother, the desire to hold Ralph and tell him that he was okay, that, whatever happened to him, he should not worry.
The vehicle rose, lurched and tipped its passengers to the right, then sped off through the night. They were taking him somewhere in a flier.
“What are you doing with me?” he asked. He was aware that his words would sound slurred, that even Ralph had difficulty sometimes in making out what he said.
He felt a breath on his cheek—as someone shouted at him? Didn’t they even know about his condition?
“Who are you?” he asked.
At that moment, his vision returned. He was leaving the bathroom, crossing the hall, returning to his room. He tried to recall what he had done last night, if he had gone straight to bed, in which case he would soon have the consolation of darkness again.
He watched as his hands undressed himself, carefully folded his silversuit and laid it on the chair next to his bed. He reached out, found the bed-side lamp, and switched it off. Darkness descended, the only illumination the moonlight falling through the window. His vision swung as he climbed into bed, laid back and stared at the ceiling. Yesterday at this time he had been watching and listening to a news bulletin from the night before.
Then he closed his eyes, and now he was encapsulated in total darkness.
“Where are you taking me?”
Someone took his right hand. He felt a finger trace patterns on his palm. So used was he to
Ralph’s sign-language that it was some time before he understood the form of this communication. He had been expecting something more complex, not the rudimentary sketching of letters on his palm.
He missed the first part of the message. Then, N-O-T-W-O-R-R-Y.
A pause.
W-E-A-R-E-F-R-I-E-N-D-S.
Another pause.
N-O-H-A-R-M-Y-O-U.
His hand was released.
He was aware of the increased beat of his heart. Could he trust these people? Wouldn’t even killers reassure him thus, to prevent his struggling?
The flier banked. He tipped in his seat, came up against the solid shoulder of someone to his left. He felt a hand on his upper-arm, almost gentle. He told himself not to worry.
He realised, then, that he was worrying—but not for himself. He wanted to reassure Ralph that everything was okay.
The flier landed smoothly. The vibration that had shaken the vehicle now ceased. Bobby felt movement beside him, hands on him again. He was assisted from the flier. He passed into the warm night air. Hands on his arms and shoulders guided him at walking pace along what seemed, by their uneven surface, to be cobble-stones. They paused. His leg was lifted, then the other—onto a step? Again, and again. He got the message, and lifted his feet himself up a long, seemingly never ending, flight of steps.
They entered a building—he could tell by the sudden absence of breeze, the cool quality of the air. He was walked straight forward, and then right, and left, forward again. The hands guiding him were gentle, solicitous.
“Where is Ralph?” he asked. “Please tell me where I am? I want to see him!”
No reply.
They paused briefly, then set off again, this time up an incline. The texture of the surface beneath his feet underwent a change. He had been walking on what felt like stone or concrete, now he felt gridded metal underfoot. Its patterning was incredibly familiar.
Fernandez!
He could not believe it. He was escorted forward, then right. He stood on a metal disc with just one other person. They rose, his stomach lurching with the ascent. Then forward, and right, along a carpeted surface. Right again. He could sense by the atmosphere around him that he was in a small, enclosed space.
The hand released its grip on his upper arm.
Bobby stood in the darkness, heart beating wildly, hardly daring to believe where he was—where he thought he was. What could it mean?
He held out both arms, took a step forward. His fingers came up against a wall, its surface familiar. He turned to the left, his fingers tracing the shape of the enclosing walls. He found the oval indentation and knew it for a viewscreen.
To his left, if he were correct, would be a bunk, beside it a hammock sling. He moved to his left, sat down abruptly on the mattress.
Why? Why had they brought him here?
He could not believe it, but it was true.
He was in the cabin of a smallship.
* * * *
Chapter Sixteen
Mirren arrived early at the Blue Shift restaurant-cum-cabaret club. The place brought back memories. Years ago he’d come here to wind down at journey’s end. He had never really thought about why it was so popular with Enginemen and -women, but now he realised that the clientele, far from needing a complete change of ambience on their return home, had required familiar surroundings to ease them back into the routine of Earth. Then, as now, it was fitted out in a series of individual dining-booths simulating the lounges, rest-rooms and observation cells of bigships. The semicircle of open-ended units, like display modules in some vast habitat emporium, faced a circular dance-floor. Beyond was the raised platform where a band played slow music.
He ordered a second lager and sat back in the comfort of the U-shaped couch. That morning he’d fallen asleep with his head full of the fact that he was dying, and the first thing that had come to him on awakening this evening, swooping down to cloak his thoughts in darkness, was the spectre of his illness. It was ironic that, just as he had been promised the chance to flux again, he should be struck down with Heine’s. Still, it could have been worse: he could be dying without the promise of the flux to ease his passing. He recalled what Hunter had told him, that after the mission the smallship would be theirs. The thought of being able to flux for four or five years was a great comfort. He considered Bobby, and his inability to tell him about the mission. Maybe later, he thought, when we have the ‘ship; maybe I’ll be able to tell him then, grant him his desire to achieve the ultimate union he so believes in.
He glanced at his watch. Caroline was fifteen minutes late. He smiled to himself at the thought that she might have stood him up. He drank his lager and watched the choreographed movements of the dancers on the floor, turning to the music like tesserae in a kaleidoscope.
Five minutes later Caroline edged her way around the dance-floor. She saw him and pulled a face expressing her effort at side-stepping through the close-packed bodies. She was wearing a black bolero jacket, tight black leggings and boots. She’d had her hair cut even shorter since yesterday and bleached gold. Facially, she was very much as he remembered her from twenty years ago. He tried to recall what he’d felt for her back then. He must have loved her—whatever that meant—but all he experienced now at the sight of her was a vague familiarity, a few memories dulled by the years and the flux.
He decided to say nothing to her about his illness. He didn’t want her sympathy.
“Ralph. Sorry I’m late.” She slipped into the booth across from him. “Been here long?”
“About two lagers. Can I get you a drink?”
“The same. One at a time, though.”
She watched him seriously as he press-selected a lager from the table-top menu. Thirty seconds later a waiter deposited it before her. Caroline took a sip. Mirren felt himself withdraw, become an observer of the situation.
“I was surprised that you agreed to meet me, Ralph.”
Mirren shrugged. He could hardly tell her that he had been as surprised as her. He’d felt guilty about Bobby at the time, which probably explained it.
“You were so bloody distant yesterday-”
“What did you expect? You turn up after twenty years, breeze in...”
“You acted as if I was about to shoot you for walking out.”
&nbs
p; He grunted a laugh. “I wouldn’t have blamed you.” He told himself not to be so self-piteous.
She took another sip of lager, quirked her lips at its bitterness. “By the way, what did that off-worlder want yesterday?”
The question took him by surprise. “Oh... he was an old colleague from the Line. He looked me up for old time’s sake.”
“With two bodyguards?” She sounded sceptical.
“He’s a big name in banking now. He’s guarded all the time.”
Caroline looked at him. He recalled what she’d said yesterday about being able to detect lies. She obviously decided not to press the issue. “Hey, I’m famished. Shall we eat?”
They press-selected their orders from the panel in the table-top, and seconds later the food issued from a slot in the wall just as meals had aboard the ‘ships all those years ago. It even came in compartmentalised trays, producing in Mirren the comfortable feeling of nostalgia and anticipation. Unlike the food at the Gastrodome, this was cheap. To Mirren’s surprise it was also good.