Engineman

by Eric Brown

  Mirren was aware of the aliens, regarding him intently. He was suddenly very hot. He could not keep a note of disbelief from his voice when he said, “You want the closure of the interfaces?”

  Another Lho, seated in the circle to his left, spoke in a fast, twittering tongue. Rhan replied. He looked around his people as if asking their consent. Several made definite gestures.

  “Before we attempt to return you to Earth,” Rhan said, “we will first take you to the mountain temple. There you will commune with the Effectuators, and learn the truth. You will take this truth to your people.”

  “The truth?” Mirren asked.

  Rhan gestured. “I do not know the human terms to express the concept,” he said. “But you will experience it for yourself in two days, when you commune.”

  Rhan conferred with his people again. Mirren tried to take in what the alien had told him. The heat in the chamber was making him dizzy.

  Rhan returned his attention to Mirren. “We wish you to inform your leaders that, in return for the closure of the interfaces, we will endow your Enginemen the ability to push starships at speeds never before imagined. A voyage of five thousand light years will take just minutes. This will compensate humankind for the loss of the interfaces. But we will grant your Enginemen and Enginewomen this ability only if your people agree to close the interfaces.”

  Mirren stared at the alien. His first impulse was to laugh. “How can you possibly grant...” he began. “It’s impossible!”

  Rhan said, “We began this process one standard year ago, as a way of persuading you to continue with starflight. Unfortunately, it was less than successful. Our Effectuators contacted certain of your Alpha

  Enginemen while they were pushing, and... and attempted to absorb them into the Oneness.”

  As Rhan spoke, Mirren thought of those Enginemen who had suffered the fatal condition known as Black’s Syndrome—the time-lapsed men, as they were called—and then dismissed such thoughts as superstitious nonsense. There was, so far as he was concerned, no such thing as the Oneness into which anyone could be absorbed.

  “Our Effectuators drew forth these Enginemen in the only way they knew—by one sense at a time, with the aim of leaving the subjects with no conception of the present or self and thus eminently able to appreciate the illusion of this ‘reality’ and conjoin in the ultimate reality of the continuum. As it happened, the mechanisms of the flux-tanks detected our Effectuators’ interference and withdrew the subjects before full absorption was completed, leaving these Enginemen with certain sensory anomalies.”

  Mirren contrasted the earnest, matter-of-factness of Rhan’s delivery with the content of his speech; this simple alien was using terminology and discussing concepts he should, by rights, have known nothing about. The effect, together with the silent regard of the gathered Lho, made Mirren light-headed with the notion that the impossible might not be so impossible after all.

  Mirren shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Please, Mir-ren, believe what I tell you. The Enginemen we contacted were named Black, Thorn, Rodriguez...”

  Mirren found himself saying, “You killed these men... You’re responsible for their deaths.”

  “Mir-ren,” Rhan said, holding forth a hand. “To begin with, there is no such thing as death. What you call death is merely the end of a certain, physical state of existence. Our experiments with the Alphas were worthy attempts, which did not work. These Enginemen are now part of the One. We have modified the technique of absorption, and we are confident that we can perform it successfully on any willing Enginemen in the future. These subjects will be drawn into the Oneness of the continuum, while still existing in the physical, world and thus able to mind-push your starships at, as I have said, undreamed of speeds.”

  Another alien spoke to Rhan. There was a brief exchange involving every Lho in the gathering. Finally Rhan turned to Mirren. “If you wish, you could be the first Engineman on which a successful absorption is performed.”

  Mirren stared. How could he begin to inform the alien that he was a sceptic, an unbeliever who considered other Enginemen’s talk of Nirvana or Oneness as nothing more than superstition?

  He gathered his thoughts and said truthfully, “I ended my period as an Engineman with this flight. The Canterbury Line is no more.” He realised, as he said this, that his old self would be appalled at the prevarication.

  Rhan spoke with another Lho.

  At length he said, “You have a brother, Robert, who is an Engineman.”

  Mirren was shaken. “ How can you possibly know... ?”

  “Our Effectuators monitor the flights of every Alpha Engineman. I am informed that your brother is one such. If our Effectuators brought about his absorption, then the chances of success will be high. He will be the first, a new breed of Engineman.”

  “No!” he said, the rational part of him gaining ascendancy and realising the horror of what they were suggesting. “I can’t allow it-”

  Rhan gestured. “Perhaps, when you have experienced the communion, Mir-ren, you will be agreeable.”

  In the silence that followed, one of the aliens rose and slipped from the hide. The others broke into a murmured conversation. It appeared, despite what he might have had to say, that the audience was over. As he watched the insectoid aliens converse in their thin, high tones, Mirren felt at once angered and bewildered—and at the same time curious about the experience of communion which awaited him.

  The alien returned and whispered to Rhan.

  “We will now proceed,” he said to Mirren. “The temple is two days from here, in the high mountains.”

  Mirren climbed to his feet, his limbs aching. Rhan lay long fingers on his arm and guided him out into the still, quiet twilight of the jungle.

  Rhan sent his fellow Lho on ahead, and they flitted swiftly through the trees—quick, lithe figures, their gold and bronze bodies shimmering in the occasional shaft of sunlight slanting through the cover. Rhan, Mirren and a second alien followed at a jog, and once again Mirren experienced the surge of adrenalin familiar from the earlier chase. He thought of Dan and the rest of his team, and the treatment they might have received at the hands of the militia. He was sickened by the thought that the best they could hope for was imprisonment.

  There was only one way to take revenge on the Danzig Organisation. He had to escape the planet and get word of the atrocities back to the civilised worlds. He was considering how the Lho intended to get him off Hennessy’s Reach when, from up ahead, an alien appeared and called out. Rhan gripped his arm. “We are being tracked,” he said, panic evident in his tone.

  Mirren heard the whine of turbos overhead. He looked up. Through the high tree-tops he caught a glimpse of a troop-carrier.

  Rhan whispered, “This way!”

  They darted from the track and through the dense undergrowth. In the distance Mirren heard a sound that filled him with dread. The repeated blast of rifle fire crashed through the humid evening air.

  As they ran, Rhan gave instructions to the second Lho, “We stand a better chance if we divide,” he said to Mirren. “For the time being, farewell.” And he was gone, slipping silently into the shadows.

  The second Lho took Mirren’s arm and continued with him through the jungle. They increased their pace. The rifle fire grew louder. Human shouts of triumph sounded close behind.

  Then, up ahead, he saw a tall militia-man stand squarely in their path. He raised his rifle, fired. Mirren dived, but the alien was not so quick. Mirren hit the ground and rolled, looked up to see the Lho fall beside him, his shoulder shattered.

  The militia-man strode towards them, rifle held at a negligent angle in one hand. He wore a bulbous helmet fitted with a com-system—which made him appear more alien than the Lho-Dharvo—and a mirrored visor concealing his expression.

  Then, quite casually, he stood over the twitching alien and pumped two bullets into his skull. He turned to Mirren, gestured with his rifle.

  Mir
ren climbed to his feet with his hands in the air. He stared at the silver visor, trying to look into the eyes of the man responsible for such barbarism, but all he saw was his own reflection. The militia-man prodded Mirren in the ribs, instructing him to turn and walk. He allowed himself to be marched through the jungle towards the waiting troop-carrier, choked with impotent rage at the death of the alien and the awful simplicity of his capture.

  In the dark confines of the carrier he was shackled hand and foot. He had hoped to find Dan and the others in the hold, but he was the only prisoner. As the turbos roared and the carrier lurched into the air, a militia-man roughly pulled his head back and clamped a pair of goggles to his face, which sucked at the skin around his eyes and rendered him blind. He was aware only of the reek of sweat, the sound of the carrier as it mach’d over the tree-tops, and his increasing fear. Time passed slowly—an hour, maybe more.

  He was prodded from a fitful sleep. The turbos were whining down and the carrier no longer lurched; they had landed. Hands grabbed him and bundled him from the hold. He was marched across what might have been the tarmac of an airbase: he could hear the distant roar of jets and the rhythmic blatt-blatt-blatt of rotor blades.

  The surface underfoot changed. The sound of aircraft died. He sensed an enclosed space—the interior of a building. He was hurried down what might have been a corridor, then shoved in the back. He stumbled forward. A door crashed shut behind him.

  He sat down on a hard bunk-bed.

  The problem with the blindfold and the total silence within the room was that it turned his thoughts inwards, made him dwell on the atrocities committed by the Danzig militia in the jungle. In turn, he could not help but consider his own fate.

  He had no idea how much time had elapsed when he heard the door open and more than one person, judging by the sound of their footsteps, enter the room.

  “Take this off!” he said, plucking at the goggles. “At least let me see you.”

  “Be quiet. Sit down.” The voice was stern, uncompromising.

  Mirren remained standing. Someone—he felt sure it was not the man who had spoken—backhanded him across the face. He tasted blood in his mouth, staggered in the direction of the bunk and collapsed onto it.

  “I am going to ask you a few questions, and I want immediate and truthful answers. If I don’t like the answers you give me, I will have you shot.” There was something so cold and emotionless in the threat that Mirren didn’t for a second doubt the man.

  A period of silence, then, “You were found with the Lho in the jungle. What did they want with you?”

  Mirren hesitated. Even if he told them the truth, he doubted if it would help the Organisation’s cause. But the thought of capitulating, bowing to the coercion of these thugs...

  “Go to hell!”

  Silence. He trembled with fear.

  The blow came, all the more shocking for being unexpected. Pain shot through his jaw.

  “We’ll try again, Mr Mirren. What did the aliens want with you?”

  He heard the percussion of a safety-catch being switched, felt a cold circle of gun-metal against his temple.

  He hated himself for giving in, but the instinct for survival overcame his conscience. “They... they wanted to get me to Earth-” He stopped himself.

  “Why?”

  “To tell the free worlds of the slaughter you’re committing here.”

  Calmly, his interrogator asked, “And what did they tell you of this slaughter?”

  Mirren remained silent.

  “Did they tell you the reason for our offensive, Mr Mirren?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  He sensed his tormentors’ retreat. A muttered discussion took place at the other side of the cell. Someone returned. Mirren was expecting another blow—not the fine, wet spray that filled his nose with a stinging, antiseptic scent.

  He passed out.

  When he regained consciousness he felt lethargic, heavy-limbed, and filled with a curious sense of well-being. He also felt amenable. He knew, then, the nature of the spray.

  “Glad to have you back with us, Mr Mirren,” said the voice from the darkness. “Now, please, tell me who you met in the jungle and what they told you.”

  He felt as if he had been split into two separate identities. One understood what was happening, and wanted more than anything to resist the drug, to tell his other half not to capitulate—but was prevented from doing so by an overwhelming lethargy. He heard his amenable self talking, telling his interrogator about the crashlanding and the trek through the jungle, his witnessing of the massacre and his audience with the Lho.

  “What did they want with you, Mr Mirren?”

  “To get back to Earth, to tell the free planets what is happening here. And...”

  “And, Mr Mirren?”

  “They wanted to take me to their mountain hide, to commune with their Effectuators.”

  A silence. He could almost sense their anticipation. “Where precisely is their mountain hide?”

  This, Mirren felt, was what the Organisation really wanted. He comforted himself that the information he had supplied already would be of little use to them.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know-”

  The interrogator said, “Where, Mirren? Tell me!”

  “I said, I don’t know. They didn’t tell me-”

  He sensed their impatience, their anger.

  A silence followed, stretched, until it came to him that they must have left the room. Perhaps an hour later, they returned. He guessed he was in for another bout of interrogation. Instead, he felt something being fitted around his head, cold metal bands pressing against his skull, electrodes at his temples.

  He knew what was happening to him, and felt relief that they were sparing his life...

  He slipped into unconsciousness.

  He came to his senses in a hospital bed in a room filled with sunlight. He tried to sit up. An orderly was on hand to restrain him, gently.

  “Where am I?”

  “On Earth, Mr Mirren.”

  He fell back, tried to collect his thoughts. His most recent memories were of Paris, the party before his last push for the Canterbury Line.

  The orderly was explaining. “Your ‘ship crashlanded on an uncharted Rim world, Mr Mirren. You were uninjured, but the trauma of the accident induced comprehensive amnesia...” The orderly went on, but Mirren wasn’t listening.

  He closed his eyes and tried to remember.

  * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kelly brought the flier down on a spur of rock overlooking the massed tree-tops of the jungle that extended towards the great ball of the setting sun. Ella stretched, her tired muscles protesting at the effort. The Engineman jumped from the flier and strode across to a rock pool, where he knelt and splashed his face with water.

  Ella climbed out. The air was warm, still and silent. Inland, against the twilight, a range of mountains rose grey and imposing, their peaks jagged and faceted like knapped granite.

  Kelly made his way back to the flier.

  “You’re awake at last.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Around eight hours,” he said. “See the bastards got you with the old incapacitator.”

  She lifted her arm, peered at it. The skin was red raw and painful, as if boiled. “I’ll live.” She looked up at Kelly and smiled. “Thanks for saving my life.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.” He indicated the rock pool. “Water’s wonderful if you feel like a swim.”

  Ella sat on the hood of the flier and held her head in her hands. “I’ll pass. Don’t think I have the energy.”

  “Food, then? You must be ravenous.”

  “Yeah, food’d be great.”

  She felt as if the trauma of the past two days—her injuries, the torture she had withstood, not to mention the mental torment of not knowing whether she was going to live or die—had finally caught up with her. Every centimetre of her body ached, the pa
in intense in her jaw, shoulder, and thigh.

  Kelly was breaking out rations from the flier. He lifted a cooler on to the hood next to her. “In-flight meals for the Danzig Airways—liberated during a raid last week.”

  Ella opened a self-heating tray of meat and vegetables. They sat side by side on the flier, eating in silence for a while.

  She hadn’t introduced herself. “Ella Fernandez,” she said through a mouthful of potato. “Pleased to meet you.”