Engineman Part 25

He took the limp hand. Bobby Bobby.

Fifteen minutes pa.s.sed. Then, suddenly, Bobby resumed. "The truly amazing thing is that, although I know I'm no longer in the tank, I am still experiencing the flux, the continuum. My touch has gone the way of my other senses. I am truly lapsed in time now, Ralph. I think I have achieved that which for years I have been seeking - the ultimate freeing of my ego from my self. I no longer suffer the illusion of worldly reality, the pain of being. I have progressed to a higher state. I have transcended...

"At the same time as I inhabit the continuum," he continued, "I am aware of you, of Dan and the pilots aboard the 'ship. I cannot see you, but you are there - like points of light in the darkness of your reality. I can sense your humanity, Ralph. I am experiencing your essence before you transcend and integrate with the ultimate..."

He said no more then, and the minutes stretched. Mirren felt at once awed and humbled. He became aware that he was not alone. Dan was standing silently at the door.

"Did you hear that?"

Dan nodded wordlessly. They stared at the figure on the bunk.

"I've no idea what happened, Ralph - why he's like that, or how he pushed us all that way. We learned nothing from the tank." Dan's tone was hushed. "I came to tell you that we're about to phase-in."

Mirren released his brother's hand and followed Dan from the berth. They took the down-plate and dropped into the darkened chamber of the engine-room.

Beyond the viewscreen, the blue depths of the nada nada-continuum glowed and pulsed, the white streamers of light stilled now as the Sublime Sublime came to rest at journey's end. As Mirren watched, the blue field faded. Then, for a fraction of a second, the cobalt backdrop was replaced by their destination. The view strobed - the intervals of its appearance becoming longer, interspersed with brief glimpses of the came to rest at journey's end. As Mirren watched, the blue field faded. Then, for a fraction of a second, the cobalt backdrop was replaced by their destination. The view strobed - the intervals of its appearance becoming longer, interspersed with brief glimpses of the nada nada-continuum. Finally, the scene outside became solid and constant.

A second later, and without warning, the pain in Mirren's head crescendoed. His vision fractured.

He flashbacked- He was standing in a jungle, beside the wreckage of the Perseus Bound Perseus Bound. The air was humid, loaded with the sickly-sweet stench of burnt flesh. Jan Elliott sat cross-legged on the ground, weeping. Olafson knelt before her, doing her best to comfort the stricken Enginewoman. Dan jumped from the sheared-off section of the engine-room and made his way across to Mirren, scanning the navigation unit.

"Where are we, Dan?"

"Planet called Hennessy's Reach - a Rim world. Like most of them in this sector it's run by the Danzig Organisation."

The screen on the unit showed a map of the planet's northern continent. A flashing point indicated their position.

"How far to the closest settlement?" Mirren asked.

Dan shook his head. "Nearest human settlement - the city of Zambique, a couple of thousand kays south-west. But there's a native village just fifteen kays north of here."

Mirren peered into the gloom of the jungle. "What about the aliens? Friendly?"

Dan typed in a new set of commands, read the screen. "B3s. Humanoid, sentient. They're an ancient race, apparently friendly. Known as the Lho-Dharvo."

"Is the village likely to have communications with Zambique?"

Dan shrugged. "Doesn't say. I guess there'd be some contact."

"What do we do, Boss?" Fekete asked.

"We either stay here and wait for the salvage team to find us - that might take a few days. Or we make for the village and rest up there..."

He looked out across the wreckage at the bodies, made up his mind. "We're heading for the settlement. Any objections? Fine. Fekete, break out the rations. Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here."

Mirren led the way as they filed from the crash site and down an avenue of tall, mast-like trees, their progress unimpeded by undergrowth. Mirren estimated that if the terrain remained this hospitable all the way, then it would take four or five hours to reach the village. Dan warned them that the planet had its fair share of man-eating predators and poisonous insects, and Mirren could not shake a feeling of danger as they marched through the twilit jungle. He was trembling. The horrors he'd witnessed back at the crash sight, the fact that he had survived against all odds, were beginning to have an effect: delayed reaction shock. He braced himself against the shakes. He didn't want the others to see him weakening.

They walked for hours, with frequent stops to consult the navigator. Calls and cries accompanied their march, but all from animals and birds in retreat. When the jungle canopy grew threadbare, a thrusting range of mountains could be seen, stark against the starfield. They caught infrequent glimpses of the sun to the west, the upper few degrees of a red giant on the horizon.

Three kilometres from the native settlement, the lie of the land began to change. They followed a worn track, clearly in frequent use, which wound uphill through bushes of broad green leaves and red blooms.

His team was silent. He and Olafson occupied front and rear, ever watchful as they pushed through vines and creepers. Dan was immediately behind him, dependable as ever. Fekete had ceased his wisecracking, and Elliott was quiet after her initial panic.

Ahead, the jungle thinned, and on the sides of the revealed valley was a scattered settlement. One hillside was in shadow, the other bathed in the red light of the setting sun. They emerged from the margin of the jungle and entered the valley, Mirren noticed the air of stillness and silence which hung over the area. The track broadened as it climbed, opened into wide, green slopes. Crude dwellings sprawled up the hillside, timber built A-frames on high pillars.

The settlement was deserted.

They hiked through, stopping to cautiously inspect the interiors of the occasional shack. At the end of the valley the path climbed, and in the crook of a still higher valley could be seen the leaf-woven rooftops of more dwellings. Mirren was about to suggest they continue towards it when Olafson cried out, "Here, Boss!"

She had halted some way back, and was staring into the gap between two timber A-frames. Mirren and the others joined her. Between the stilts of the building was the body of an alien child, lying face down in a patch of mud trodden and churned by domesticated animals. Mirren approached the body and knelt.

Then he looked up and saw the others.

It was a strange sensation: at first he saw just a dozen bodies in the ditch behind the dwellings; then he glanced further along the ditch and saw more, and from that second, wherever he turned his head, right and left and up the hillside, his vision registered dozens, fifty, perhaps a hundred bodies. His first reaction, before he even began to think about who might be responsible, was amazement that he had not noticed the carnage sooner. It was like an optical illusion in which the subject remains obdurately hidden until, by chance, the brain works out the delusion and the eye is flooded with the obvious image.

Mirren stared, overwhelmed by the scale of the slaughter. Many of the Lho were semi- or entirely naked. But for the gold and bronze colouration of their flesh, they might have been so many human beings lying dead beneath the setting sun.

Fekete kept his comments to himself, for once. The others looked on in disbelief, as if unable to come to terms with a second tragedy so soon after the first. Dan pa.s.sed Mirren and moved up the hillside, stepping between the bodies. From time to time he knelt to examine an alien he thought might still be alive, then stood and moved on.

Mirren gathered himself. "Dan, be careful. We don't know who did this."

"Every last one's been shot in the back of the head," Dan reported.

'They're not an advanced people," Fekete said. "They don't have the technology to produce fire-arms."

Elliott said, "Fernandez, listen!"

Then it came to them, drifting down from the second, higher valley: the distinctive, percussive blast of one projectile shot after another, on and on and on...

Mirren looked at his team, their faces ashen with shock. He made a split-second decision. "Stay here."

He set off at a sprint up the hill towards the second valley. Before cresting the brow, he left the path and approached the second settlement through the undergrowth. He moved with stealth, so as to go undetected by the green-uniformed militia standing sentry at the entrance to the village. A helicopter troop-carrier stood in the clearing between the raised dwellings, and dozens of Organisation men occupied the far crest above the settlement to prevent the herded Lho from escaping up the hillside.

Mirren crouched behind a stand of shrubs and stared out. Beyond the dwellings on the far side of the clearing, six militia-men moved along the rows of kneeling aliens and dispatched them with quick, efficient shots to the back of the head. He heard pitiful cries, moans and screams of terror. As he watched, one alien staggered to his feet and ran, only to be brought down by a bullet between the shoulder blades.

Mirren turned at a sound behind him. Elliott was running up the incline, her eyes wide. "What the h.e.l.l!" Mirren hissed. "I told you..."

Elliott dodged him and sprinted into the clearing.

Dan and the others appeared over the brow of the incline, exhausted. "We tried to stop her!"

"Elliott!" Mirren cried.

Screaming, Elliott attacked a militia-man bare-handed. The guard recovered, raised his laser rifle and beat Elliott with its b.u.t.t. The Enginewoman folded, fell at his opponent's feet. The militia-man looked up, in the direction from which Elliott had come, and saw Mirren and the others. Briefly, the killings ceased as the executioners paused and stared down into the clearing.

Mirren turned. "Into the jungle! Run!"

He sprinted down the hillside, veered from the path and went crashing through the undergrowth, falling headlong in his haste to get away. Behind him, he heard the resumption of the sickening, relentless gunfire. He was aware of Dan and Olafson on either side, sprinting through the shoulder-high shrubbery towards the sanctuary of the jungle. Shots whined around them, shredding tree trunks. He lost his footing and skidded down a ravine, sliding on his back through thickets and bushes. He felt nothing but the surge of adrenalin which gave him the strength to pick himself up and sprint into the jungle. He chanced a glance over his shoulder. High up on the hillside, Fekete had halted, arms in the air, and was being manhandled by three militia-men. He saw Olafson fall, screaming and holding her thigh. There was no sign of Dan. Mirren ran on, zigzagging through undergrowth. He heard shouts behind him as the militia co-ordinated their search. The ground sloped. He was climbing the far side of the ravine, losing his footing frequently in the mulch of the jungle floor. The cries became distant, then faded altogether. He had no idea how long he had been running. Probably only minutes, though it seemed longer. The incline went on forever. Doggedly he planted one foot in front of the other, grabbing undergrowth and dragging himself up the hillside. He was sure he had lost his pursuers. He came to an overhanging rock, partially veiled by creepers. He dived into its cover and crouched, aware of the ragged gasping of his breath and the thumping of his heart. He closed his eyes and hugged his legs, striving to control his breathing.

Minutes pa.s.sed without a sound from outside, and gradually his apprehension turned to relief. Then he thought of his team. He cursed Elliott, then Dan and the others for not stopping her. Then he cursed himself for leaving them in the first place. Christ, if they were dead now it was all his fault. He should have done the sensible thing and ordered an immediate retreat back to the remains of the 'ship. He tried to calm himself and think about his situation. The simple fact was that the militia of the Danzig Organisation were cold-blooded killers. Even if he did somehow escape their clutches now, what chance had he of getting off the Reach and back to Earth?

He felt a hand close around his arm and he almost cried out.

"Engineman," said the voice, "do not be afraid."

In the faint light filtering through the overhanging foliage, Mirren made out a face close to his. It was long and insect-like, with a thin slit of a mouth, a nose no more than two centrally located holes, and ma.s.sive eyes composed mainly of dark pupil. The alien blinked, its lids operating from below and covering the eye with a disconcerting upward sweep. Mirren had hardly noticed the alienness of the ma.s.sacred Lho, but faced with this creature he was made aware of how fundamentally dissimilar it was to him. He backed off.

"Engineman," the Lho said in a whispery voice. "We are your friends. We will help you. Please follow."

The alien, bent double, moved off along the overhang from where he'd approached Mirren, peered through the vines and slipped out. The instinct for survival overcame Mirren's qualms. He followed, shaking uncontrollably. The Lho beckoned and ran quickly and quietly up the hillside, dodging fleetly between trees. Mirren gave chase, exhaustion overwhelming him. The alien paused on the crest of the rise. He ducked through the undergrowth. Mirren bent after him and found himself in a tunnel-like track through clinging briars. The natural corridor darkened, excluding the dying sunlight filtering through the jungle canopy far overhead. The alien gripped his wrist and guided him forward. The corridor opened into a circular chamber like the lair of some great beast. A torch gave off a roseate glow and fragrant smoke like incense. Three other Lho occupied the chamber, squatting on their haunches. They looked up and spoke in their own high, fluting tongue as Mirren entered and sank to the ground. His rescuer answered their queries, and as the debate continued they were joined by more aliens - whether survivors of the ma.s.sacre or outsiders, Mirren could not tell. Each alien approached him, peering, some venturing to touch his silvers in apparent wonder.

"Engineman," they whistled to each other, gesturing at him. "Engineman!"

The first Lho called the others to order. He did most of the speaking in the heated debate that followed - either because he was their leader, or had a.s.sumed the role through rescuing Mirren.

He was shaking. Fear of the militia gave way to a greater fear. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. Despite what his rescuer had a.s.sured him, he felt terrified. It occurred to him that he was to be tried as the representative of the race responsible for the slaughter of the villagers.

He opened his eyes, alerted by the sudden silence. Ten alien faces regarded him with unreadable expressions. He realised that in his weariness he no longer recognised the Lho who had rescued him; their faces appeared identical.

One of the aliens moved from the circle, sat cross-legged before Mirren. He a.s.sumed it was his rescuer.

"It has been decided, Enginemen..." He read Mirren's name-tag st.i.tched to his radiation silvers. "Mir-ren? I am Rhan."

Mirren inclined his head. He was trembling and didn't trust himself to speak.

"We will do our best to return you to Earth," the alien said, "for ourselves as well as for yourself. You must inform the Terran representative of the United Colonies of what you have seen... He must call an emergency session to debate our situation. The Danzig Organisation must be stopped." Rhan spoke with painstaking care and precision, and the relief Mirren experienced on learning that they would help was followed by confusion.

"But there's a UC representative on this planet," he said, his voice wavering.

Rhan spread his arms wide in what might have been a dismissive gesture. "The UC official on this planet is in the pay of the Danzig Organisation. He reports to Earth that we are succ.u.mbing to a natural plague."

"I'll do everything I can to let the UC know the truth," Mirren said. "But why...?" He gestured in the general direction of the carnage.

"One standard year ago," Rhan said, "we approached General Villiers and explained the situation, gave him the benefit of our knowledge. He refused to believe us, so we had no option but to kidnap one of his Majors, take him to the northern mountains and grant him the experience... We hardly expected him to react as he did. We a.s.sumed that communion with our Effectuators would have the desired result - that he would report to Villiers the truth of our claims and he would then bring about the closure of the Danzig Organisation interfaces, and those of the other companies around the Expansion... We later heard that Villiers considered the Major to be deranged, or drugged. and that our opposition to the Organisation was merely political, an alliance with the Disciples of the Reach to overthrow their regime. We tried to send representatives to Earth to plead our case, but always we were prevented from doing so, often violently. So, finally, and with reluctance, we joined forces with the Disciples - many of us resorted to armed resistance, forming guerrilla bands and striking at the heart of the Organisation. Their retribution was terrible. Villiers ordered our elimination. Many of my people are falling to the plague they unleashed upon the planet. Those of us who survived are hunted and ma.s.sacred... You witnessed a small part of that today."

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 superst.i.tious 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 superst.i.tion?

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.