Engineman (21 page)

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 anticipation 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 circumstances 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
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?"

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, massaging 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 hell'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
-Continuum was an old, converted smallship anchored 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 shell 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 passed 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 spaceship. 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-analogue 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
-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
-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 pass/ 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 bass 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
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 bastard 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..."