Engineman (39 page)

"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 assumed 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 assured 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 assumed it was his rescuer.

"It has been decided, Enginemen..." He read Mirren's name-tag stitched 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 succumbing 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 assumed 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 massacred... 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 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.

Mirren 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.