Engineman Part 13

"No, it stabilised itself around twenty-four hours." He looked up to see Dan watching him. "I should be grateful, really. Bobby was the only Engineman to survive the Syndrome."

"Last time we met you were learning touch-signing."

"I'm fluent now. At least we can communicate."

"Do you take him out?"

Mirren felt guilty now that years ago he'd failed to insist that Bobby accompany him on walks around the local park. In the early days, before Bobby became absorbed in his meditation, he'd been uncommunicative, reluctant to talk. He'd turned down all offers of help, refusing even to let Mirren guide him on simple walks. Occasionally of late Mirren had taken him in his flier on high-speed tours of the city, but Bobby spent so much of his time now meditating and studying that the physical had ceased to have much meaning.

"I take him out about once a month or so - not that he seems bothered one way or the other. I think I do it to salve my conscience."

"Have you ever thought of taking him to the Church?" Dan asked. "He's a believer, isn't he?"

Mirren smiled. "He's not what you'd call an orthodox Disciple, Dan."

For five years before joining the European Javelin Line, Bobby had pushed boats for the Satori Line out of Rangoon. In the countries of the East where the precepts of Buddhism, Zen and Tao had been taken as read for centuries, the discovery of the nada nada-continuum had come as no surprise; it was the Nirvana accepted by their philosophies for so long. Enginemen were looked upon as the enlightened, those who had attained Buddhahood on Earth, and whose destination after this life was Nirvana or the nada nada-continuum. Bobby had taken this belief as his own even before he became an Engineman, and then he had discovered the Disciples. Now, as he liked to remind Mirren, he'd transcended all Earthly creeds and religions.

Dan said, "Have you decided what you're going to tell him about Hunter's offer?"

"No. No, I haven't..." Mirren stared at the grounds of his coffee. The antic.i.p.ation of the push was soured by the familiar guilt he experienced whenever he considered his brother.

Casually, Dan said, "Bobby could always take Caspar's place and push with us, Ralph." He looked up, his stare a challenge.

"You know I couldn't do that."

"It's what Bobby would want."

"Even so... I couldn't allow him to do it. Would you let your brother kill himself just like that?"

"It's not certain that Bobby would die-" Dan began.

"The medics didn't give him a very good chance of surviving another flux. But you haven't answered my question: if you had a brother in Bobby's condition-"

Dan said, "If the circ.u.mstances were the same as Bobby's... then yes, of course I'd let him flux."

Mirren smiled. "You're religious. You've got to look at it from my point of view."

Dan laughed at this. "From your your point of view! Ralph, you don't know how selfish that sounds. Why don't you look at it from Bobby's point of view?" point of view! Ralph, you don't know how selfish that sounds. Why don't you look at it from Bobby's point of view?"

Mirren closed his eyes. "I couldn't hold myself responsible if anything happened to him."

"But from Bobby's perspective, and mine, and that of thousands of other Enginemen, you wouldn't be responsible. Can't you accept that?"

As Mirren looked at it, his brother's condition was made worse by the fact that if he were ever to mind-push a 'ship again, the chances were that the effort would kill him. He'd die a flux-death, the death that religious Enginemen considered the ultimate exit, but which he, Mirren, considered just as final and pointless as any other death.

Mirren had always thought that no matter how terrible and restricted his brother's life was, it was an improvement on the oblivion which awaited him upon death.

"Look at it this way," Dan said. "If you asked Bobby whether he wanted to push the 'ship, what do you think he'd say?"

Mirren sighed. "He'd jump at the chance."

"Exactly!" Dan hit the table. "Now, could you honestly live with yourself if you denied Bobby the opportunity to flux with us?" Dan hit the table. "Now, could you honestly live with yourself if you denied Bobby the opportunity to flux with us?"

Mirren closed his eyes. The thought of leaving his brother alone in the apartment, while he went off mind-pushing the smallship...

"But how could I live with myself, Dan, if I sent him to his death?"

"It would be what he wanted," Dan said gently. "Please, when you get back, explain the situation and give him the choice. Promise me."

He told himself that Dan was right. There was really no excuse for not telling Bobby; to deny him the right to make the choice would be indefensible.

He found himself nodding.

"Good." Dan looked at his watch. "Come on, it's time we were going. The Church closes for the day in a couple of hours."

"How much further?" Suddenly, the thought of going to the Church no longer appealed.

"Just around the corner."

Mirren clamped the back of his neck, ma.s.saging the ache that had been mounting for the past hour.

Dan was watching him. "You okay?"

Mirren wondered whether to tell him about the flashbacks. "Well..."

Dan stared. "Don't tell me you're getting them too?"

Mirren laughed. "The flashbacks? You too? Fernandez, I thought I was going mad."

"We might be," Dan grunted. "I don't understand it. For ten years I've remembered nothing about that last trip, and then suddenly I'm reliving, not just remembering, but reliving the events again."

In the early days after their discharge, when he'd seen more of Dan, they'd both commented on how odd it was that they should all be afflicted with an identical memory loss.

"So what the h.e.l.l's going on, Dan?" he asked.

"You tell me... I've always wanted to know what happened during and after the crash-landing, and now I suppose I'll find out."

They paid the bill and left the cafe.

A warm breeze sprang up from nowhere, lapping over them. Mirren shivered, overtaken suddenly by the bone-wearying ache he'd awoken to the evening before. He wondered if this bout was no more than a psychosomatic reaction to his dilemma over Bobby.

They continued through the streets in silence.

The Church of the Disciples of the Nada Nada-Continuum was an old, converted smallship anch.o.r.ed to an area of wasteground between a burnt-out mosque and a derelict warehouse. It squatted on its belly amid overgrown mounds of bricks, its hydraulic rams long since amputated and its sh.e.l.l a patchwork of rust and old paint. The rear auxiliary engines had been removed and replaced by a set of double doors approached by a rickety flight of wooden steps. The viewscreens along its flanks, and the delta screen above its nose-cone, were concealed by bulky metal units which looked for all the world like refrigerators.

Mirren pointed them out as they crossed the street. "What are they?"

Dan smiled to himself. "You'll see when we get inside."

They were not the only Enginemen attending the Church that morning. Others approached from along the street, stood on the steps awaiting entry. Mirren and Dan joined the queue at the foot of the wooden construction. "It's not usually this busy," Dan said. "There must be a service on."

They pa.s.sed inside. Mirren was surprised first by the size of the place, and then by the atmosphere of reverence that permeated what was, after all, nothing more than a junked s.p.a.ceship. The surprising dimensions were easily accounted for: the ceiling which had formerly divided the body of the ship into the engineroom and, on the second level, the crews' lounge, had been removed to create a yawning cavern reminiscent of the nave of a cathedral. In pride of place at the front of the church was a flux-tank - or rather a reasonable facsimile. Above it, the pilot's cabin had been opened up and fronted with rails to form a gallery for the choristers: six cowled Disciples in gowns of light blue chanted in a language Mirren guessed was Latin. The measured, dolorous tone established the ecclesiastical atmosphere, and other religious appurtenances like pews and burning incense left no doubt that this was a place of worship. Above the altar, affixed to the rails of the gallery, was a blue fluorescent infinity symbol. The pews were steadily filling with the devoted who knelt, heads bowed in prayer or contemplation.

Mirren slipped into a pew at the rear, while Dan stood in the aisle and conducted a whispered conversation with a tall, robed figure. As he took his seat he began to wonder what he was doing here, and considered the irony of the fact that in all his years as an Engineman he'd prided himself on never entering any of the similar establishments on the many colony worlds serviced by the Canterbury Line. The Church of the Disciples had been in existence for as long as the starship Lines themselves. Most of the Enginemen he had worked with down the years had been believers, and he had often wondered why he could not believe that what he experienced in the tank was Nirvana. Was it just a cussed streak that would not allow him to follow the majority, even though he secretly knew the truth of their faith; some fatal flaw in his soul which prevented his full absorption into the flux; or the realisation that his fellow Enginemen, like most people, were essentially weak creatures who could not accept the fact of their mortality and needed some bogus abstract belief with which to make their lives bearable?

Mirren thought of Bobby, the certainty of his belief. He felt a deep emptiness like an ache inside him. There were times when he wanted nothing more than to share in the comforting faith that this life was not everything.

Dan joined him, seating himself quietly.

"What's going on?" Mirren whispered. The chanting had increased in volume and tempo and celestial organ music played.

"It's the funeral service of an Engineman," Dan told him. "A believer from Nanterre. Heine's disease."

Heine's...

Heine's was a neurological virus which attacked the victim's nervous system, a highly contagious meningital-a.n.a.logue that had come through the interface three years ago from the newly-discovered world of El Manaman. There was no cure for the infected, who usually died within a few years of contracting the disease.

The organ music ceased abruptly. The chanting continued, each chorister sustaining a long, mournful note. The lighting in the chamber dimmed, and Mirren was put in mind of the half-light of an engine-room immediately before phase-out. Then the chanting ceased and was replaced by a familiar, low-pitched hum. Mirren was suddenly flooded with memories and he realised that, for him, this little stage-show would soon be played out for real. He was choked with emotion. Tears welled in his eyes. Through the viewscreens let into the flank of the 'ship, the cobalt blue of an ersatz nada nada-continuum, streaked with marmoreal streamers of white light, gave the illusion that the smallship was actually phasing-out. He understood then the function of the bulky units on the outside of the 'ship that he had noticed earlier. Around him, Enginemen murmured in appreciation.

The robed figure Dan had spoken to earlier climbed into the pulpit beside the flux-tank. The lighting in the Church dimmed; a spot-light picked out the High Priest as he pushed back his cowl to reveal his bald head. The chanting ceased, along with the low-pitched hum, and the congregation fell silent.

"Brothers and Sisters," said the High Priest, his voice resonating in the chamber. "On behalf of the Church of the Disciples of the Nada Nada-Continuum and our departed colleague, I thank you for attending. Let us pray..."

Around Mirren, Enginemen and Enginewomen knelt. Mirren followed suit, feeling self-conscious in his ignorance.

"We give thanks to the Continuum/" the Priest intoned, "The Sublime, the Infinite/ Into whose munificence we pa.s.s/ At the end of this cruel illusion..."

Spontaneously, the congregation took up the chant. "We give thanks..." Mirren mumbled along, wishing the service would end so that he could escape.

When the congregation had repeated the verse, four dark figures in robes stepped slowly up the aisle, swinging censers and exclaiming in Latin. The scented smoke filled the air, roiling through the beam of the spotlight. The censer-bearers came to the altar and stood on either side of the flux-tank, still chanting. They knelt, heads bowed.

The Priest continued, "We have lived, we are mortal/ For our mortality we give thanks/ Without this illusion we would be without immortality..."

Around Mirren, Enginemen started up, "We have lived..."

The words charged the air, creating an atmosphere that even Mirren, as a none believer, had to admit was powerful, even emotional.

The low-pitched humming of phase-out resumed, a ba.s.s note more felt in the solar plexus than heard.

Then, six pall-bearers made their way slowly down the aisle, a streamlined silver coffin on their shoulders. They halted before the flux-tank and placed the coffin reverently upon the slide-bed. Mirren made out the decal of the old Taurus Line painted on the lid of coffin below a blurred pix of the dead Engineman.

"Brothers and Sisters," the High Priest intoned, "we are gathered here today to bless the mortal remains of a fellow Engineman. He has made the great leap to the ultimate we have all experienced, and to which we will all return, and for his release we give thanks. Edward Macready served twenty years pushing the Pride of Idaho Pride of Idaho for the Taurus Line..." for the Taurus Line..."

The Priest went on, but Mirren heard nothing for the pounding of his pulse in his ears. He seemed to be aware of the proceedings around him as if from a great distance; he felt suddenly isolated with the burden of his knowledge.

He clutched Dan's arm. "I knew Macready!" he hissed.

Dan glanced at him. "You did? I'm sorry..." And he returned his gaze to the front.

"You don't understand - I was with him when he died!"

Dan leaned over and hissed, "That's impossible! He had Heine's. He'd've been quarantined until he died-"

"For chrissake, I was with him. He broke into the 'port. I stopped him from trying to kill himself. We sat talking for a couple of hours." Mirren recalled the scotch. "We even shared a bottle."

"You sure it was the same guy?"

"How many other Macready's have pushed for the Taurus Line and died recently?" He tried to keep the panic from his voice.

"But Heine's cases are supposed to be kept in isolation."

"Then the b.a.s.t.a.r.d escaped. He wanted to throw himself into the interface. He even told me he was ill."

Around them, Enginemen murmured their disapproval.

Dan gripped Mirren's elbow. "How do you feel?"

His stomach turned. "Terrible..." He was shaking again.

Dan ran a hand through his hair. He looked at Mirren. "We're going. We've got to get you to a hospital."

Mirren gave a hollow laugh. "Isn't that a little too late?"

They were already out of their seats and edging along the pew, disturbing disgruntled Enginemen as they went. They hurried to the exit, and behind him Mirren heard the priest intone, "Let us now rejoice that Edward Macready has cast off this cruel illusion..."

Chapter Twelve.

Ella leaned expertly into the bend. The snow-capped peaks of the Torreon mountains stood high and distant to her right, and to her left was the ever-present sunset. She came into the straight and accelerated, luxuriating in the feel of the headwind, the illusion of liberty gained through speed and an open road.

She might have been physically free, but mentally she was the prisoner of her thoughts. She could not shake from her head the images of Eddie and Max, Jera.s.si and Rodriguez. They had given their lives willingly; Eddie through despair, and the others for a cause far greater than their lives, and maybe through despair, too. They were all in a far better place now, but that didn't make the pain of her bereavement any easier to bear. Ella had faith, she believed in the joyous afterlife that awaited everyone, but all she asked was for a little joy in this life, too.

She had been on the road an hour, stopping and pulling into the cover at the side of the road only when she spotted vehicles up ahead. She had no doubt that, after the destruction of the interface, the militia would be all the more vigilant in their search for possible accomplices. So far she had seen only civilian vehicles, farm trucks and the occasional private car, and fortunately not many of either.

Now she slowed as she came to the last bend before her destination, rounded it and brought the bike to a halt.

Ahead, the central plateau lowered itself in ever-widening steps down to the coast. Each semi-circular terrace was bountiful with wild jungle and carefully cultivated tropical gardens, ablaze with bougainvillea and a dozen varieties of alien flowers. Dwellings of different designs occupied the levels, from traditional villas to A-frames, ziggurats in white ceramics to cl.u.s.ter-domes like so many over-blown soap bubbles. But more spectacular than the gardens and mansions was the feature that gave the Falls its name. Perhaps a hundred waterfalls poured cleanly from level to level, perfectly geometrical like arcs of blue gla.s.s, each maintaining the water-level of as many dazzling lagoons. The sight always struck Ella as breathtakingly beautiful.

She kick-started the bike and set off, but not in the direction of the residences. Perhaps because she feared the impending meeting with her father, or because his villa held fewer happier memories than where she was heading, she turned right along the track which switch-backed up the steep face of the hillside.

She braked at a bend in the track before she reached the top. In the sudden silence she heard the musical cascade of splashing water. She concealed the bike beside the track, ducked under the branches of a palm tree and found herself suddenly on the very edge of the lagoon.

The sight of the oval sink br.i.m.m.i.n.g with bright blue water released a flood of happy memories. The sanguine light of the sunset, filtering through the surrounding foliage, gave the scene a tint of rose which corresponded with her recollections. The unbroken arc of water which tipped from the rockface high above might have been the very same that had surged down ten years ago. There was the flat rock she had used as a diving platform, and there, in the very centre of the lagoon, was the camel's hump.