Engineman (42 page)

Ella Hunter smiled and closed her eyes. "Earth, here I come."

Mirren glanced across the lounge. A tall, slight alien stood at the top of the ramp, staring at him. As he watched, it raised its long arm, as if in greeting. Mirren said to Kelly, "You'll find food and drink dispensers by the bulkhead, washrooms along the corridor. Excuse me."

He nodded to Kelly and Hunter and walked across the lounge. With the recollection of the crashlanding and his audience with the Lho so fresh in his memory, it was as if no time at all had elapsed between then and now, as if the past ten years had miraculously ceased to exist.

He halted before the Lho; they all, to his eyes, appeared very much the same, but there was something almost familiar about the alien before him.

"Rhan?" he ventured.

The alien reached out, touched Mirren's brow with its long forefinger. "Rhan was murdered by the militia shortly after speaking with you," said the Lho. "I am Ghaine. I was present when Rhan brought you to our hide. Of the ten Lho gathered there that day, I am the only survivor. I welcome you back to Dharvon, Mir-ren, and thank you."

Mirren reached out and took the alien's hand in his.

Behind Ghaine, twelve Lho carried six aliens on stretchers up the ramp and into the 'ship. They were met by other Lho, who escorted them into the elevator to the astrodome. Mirren watched as the Lho were carried past. They were naked, and seemed to Mirren to be ancient, their limbs thin and their extended rib-cages and pelvic flanges dangerously prominent.

"They are the Effectuators," Ghaine said. "They have been like this for many, many years. They are selected from our finest religious minds. Ideally, there should be twelve at any one time. But as the older Effectuators left us to begin their final journeys into the One, there have been fewer and fewer Lho to take their place.

"Through rigorous mental discipline they have induced upon themselves the process of withdrawal from this universe. They exist on the cusp of this reality and that of the continuum, having relinquished their egos and the burden of self."

"My brother..." Mirren began. He recalled what Bobby had said aboard the
Sublime
, about the
nada
-continuum and his place in it.

"Ten years ago, when the Organisation returned you to Earth, we expected you to relay our messages, both to the UC representative on Earth, and to your brother. We did not know what they had done to your mind. We found out only later, from contacts we had within the Organisation." Ghaine paused, then went on, "The Effectuators contacted your brother and attempted to draw him into the continuum. It was only partly successful. We required him to accompany you on the flight here so that the Effectuators might accomplish the task." He paused, then said, "It was wholly successful. Robert is the first human Effectuator."

Mirren felt his pulse quicken. He recalled what Rhan had said ten years ago, that there was no such thing as death, that all would be explained when he communed.

"Ten years ago I was promised communion," he whispered to Ghaine. "Is communion possible now?"

The Lho regarded him with its large, dark eyes and blinked once, slowly, from the bottom up. "Please, Mir-ren," Ghaine said at last. "Follow me."

They ascended in the elevator to the astrodome.

The Effectuators were laid out to form a six-armed star, heads together in the centre of the dome. Their attendants ministered to their needs, washed down their bodies, massaged them, murmured mantras or prayers.

Ghaine crossed to where four Lho sat beneath the crystal convexity of the dome, cross-legged, their folded shanks jutting. He knelt and spoke to the four, and as he did so they turned their heads and stared across at Mirren.

He remained by the sliding door, something about the unfamiliarity, the sheer strangeness of the scene before him, causing him to have second thoughts about the process of communion. There was something so primitive, almost shamanistic, about the tableau, that he was given to doubt any truth espoused by the aliens - then he recalled Bobby, and what the Effectuators had done for him, and he realised that as crude and primitive as the aliens seemed to be, they were in contact with something that had taken humankind millennia, and the advent of technology, to discover.

For so long Mirren had poured scorn on the tenet of the Disciples, considered it the superstitious belief system of weak-minded people, that to give credence to such belief now, when faced with the prospect of his death in the not too distant future, seemed to him an act of contemptible heresy. Which, he thought, was an admission of weakness in himself. Surely, when faced with the truth, he should be strong enough to admit that he was wrong.

Ghaine stood and rejoined Mirren. The other Lho followed him, gathered around Mirren, staring at him with their odd, up-blinking eyes. One or two reached out, touched his silversuit. Another took his hand and examined his fingers. The fourth alien moved around him, and he felt cold fingers probing the base of his skull above his occipital console.

"Do not be alarmed," Ghaine said, in response to Mirren's reaction. "They are merely assessing your receptivity. Communion is not a process undertaken lightly by anyone involved. It is the most ancient and sacrosanct act known to my people."

Mirren felt the fingers on his skull, but refused to believe that this
assessment
was anything more than meaningless ritual, a superstitious performance that preceded each communion. After a minute the aliens stepped back and spoke to Ghaine in their high, piping voices.

They retreated to their former position across the astrodome, sat in a circle and busied themselves in the shadows with implements that Mirren could not make out.

Ghaine said, "They have decided. You may experience communion. They consider it your reward for saving the Lho, and also the honouring of the promise made by Rhan."

Mirren inclined his head. "Please convey my gratitude," he said. "How...?"

"I will explain the process in due course, Mir-ren. You are only the third human to commune. The first, a Major in the Danzig Organisation, was adversely affected by what he experienced. Hunter, on the other hand, was stronger, and though he found what he looked upon terrifying in the extreme, he overcame his fear, as he had to, and the very fact of your presence here today is testimony to that fact, and the culmination of a long process which began many years ago with his communion-"

"Why is it terrifying?" Mirren asked. "What happens?"

"You will see for yourself," Ghaine said. "This way." The alien led Mirren to the centre of the astrodome where the six Effectuators lay head to head, their emaciated bodies describing the spokes of a wheel. Ghaine spoke to the attendants, who re-arranged the crude wooden stretchers. There was now a space in the arrangement for Mirren.

"Sit down," Ghaine said. "Cross your legs."

Mirren sat as instructed between two recumbent Effectuators. They seemed to be in a trance, perfectly motionless, eyes closed. Their ancient, lustreless skin was like weathered bronze.

Ghaine sat before him, cross-legged too, their knees almost touching. "Soon the process will begin," he informed Mirren. "You will drink
haar
, which I am informed tastes vile to humans. This will prepare you mentally for contact. Please do not be disturbed by the strange effects brought about by the drug. You are in safe hands."

Mirren merely nodded, unable to find the words to express the mixture of curiosity, anticipation, and apprehension he was feeling.

"For fifteen minutes you will be conscious," Ghaine went on. "Then you will lose consciousness, we will lay you out, and you will commune."

Mirren was aware of activity in other parts of the 'ship, the vibration of elevator pads, pneumatic sighs and clunkings from outside as the
Sublime
went through the involved process of pre-flux flight checks. Beyond the hemisphere of the dome, along the length of the 'ship, safety lights flashed.

One of the four Lho who had inspected him earlier now approached, bearing a thick stone bowl. He passed it to Ghaine, who raised it to his forehead and murmured a litany of near-silent words.

Then he passed the bowl to Mirren.

He put his lips to the wide stone rim and tipped the bowl. The thick, white liquid rolled smoothly into his mouth. It tasted, as Ghaine had warned him, vile: at first sweet, and then burnt-bitter in aftertaste - but it was the texture that Mirren found especially unpalatable. It was as thick and cloying as rubber solution, and it slid down his throat in one continuous length that almost made him retch. He closed his eyes and forced down the contents of the bowl.

Ghaine was regarding him, nodding as if in satisfaction. "Good," he said. "Now, relax, empty your mind, wait..."

Mirren tried to do as he was commanded. He was aware that the four Lho, positioned now around the astrodome, were humming deeply within their throats, producing a continuous bass note.

He stared at his upturned palms in his lap. The
haar
seemed to be having an effect already; he felt relaxed, lethargic, heavy of limb. Then he noticed that its effect was not just physical. He found the act of concentration impossible: he could not follow through a logical course of thought. He stared across the dome to the lights on either side of the sliding door, and wondered what they were, what purpose they served - while he was aware that another part of him knew full well the purpose of the lights, but he could not access this information. He was aware of his time-sense becoming warped. He thought that surely the
Sublime
should have phased-out by now, should almost be home, as surely hours and hours had passed while he'd been sitting here, even though Ghaine had told him that he would be conscious for just fifteen minutes...

Then his vision blurred. Shapes and colours ran into each other in a diffuse, impressionistic abstraction. His last sense to go was that of touch; he felt hands on him, the floor beneath his body as he was laid out, and then nothing. He was cradled in a comforting limbo, aware only of his own tiny identity. He had half expected the process of communion to be similar to that of fluxing - but there was no sudden rush of wonder... it came slowly, gradually, and the wonder, when it arrived, was of a degree far greater than anything he had experienced in flux.

At first there was only darkness. Mirren felt six forces drawing him from the physical prison of his body. He was aware of a deep thrumming somewhere within him, like the lingering resonance of a plucked string. Then this vibration slowly intensified until it seemed that his whole being, his every cell and molecule, was oscillating in harmony with some cosmic tempo - and as the vibration reached such a pitch that he thought he must surely explode with the sheer orgasmic pleasure of it, he was flooded with a divine rapture, a sensation of overpowering well-being, and the awareness - surely not visual - of brilliant light. There was no way of comparing what he had experienced in flux with what he was going through now: he was aware of being blessed, of achieving something ultimate. The light in which he bathed was not blue, as it was in the
nada
-continuum experienced through the medium of the flux-tank, but a scintillating riot of every colour imaginable - a billion tiny sparks of glowing, fizzing, darting colour that assaulted his mind and filled him with a sense of being accepted, a feeling of union such as he had never known before.

He made out a voice, or a thought, which seemed to emanate from the vastness of the continuum without, and at the same time to manifest itself within his consciousness.

-- Ralph...

He recognised the thought, the cerebral signature.

He responded. He thought:
Bobby
.

-- Apprehend the joy, Ralph. The ecstasy. Consider what it must be like for me, who is fully part of the continuum now.

I can't. I can't imagine a joy greater than this
.

-- You have that to anticipate, Ralph. When you finally leave behind your self, when Ralph Mirren finally succumbs to Heine's, consider the wonder of what awaits...

Something manifested itself 'before' Mirren then, a spark of golden light, comet-like, brighter than those around it.

Bobby?
Mirren thought.

-- To give your still-human thought processes something on which to focus, Bobby thought at him. -- Consider the light as me, your brother, while I show you the wonder of the realm you call the
nada
-continuum; a misnomer, of course. The continuum is not a realm of nothing, but is
full
, bursting with energy and vitality. Come!

Mirren was aware of himself then as a fiery comet very much like that which was now his brother, and he obeyed Bobby and swam, or dived or fell, with him through the vast sea of light and energy.

Bobby maintained a running commentary.

-- The continuum is certainly Sublime, but it is not, despite what the Disciples think, Infinite. It is the size of the physical universe, and expanding with it to fill the emptiness beyond. It is still, nevertheless, vast - far larger than you have the time in this communion to experience.

Mirren, or rather the ball of light that was now his point-of-view, followed the comet that was his brother, dashing in and out of the fiery sparks of his tail.

Where are we going?
Mirren asked.