Engineman (38 page)

He took the limp hand.
Bobby
.

Fifteen minutes passed. 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
-continuum glowed and pulsed, the white streamers of light stilled now as the
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
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
. 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 hell 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 passed 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 hell!" 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 butt. 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 passed 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 massive 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 massacred 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 massacre or outsiders, Mirren could not tell. Each alien approached him, peering, some venturing to touch his silvers in apparent wonder.