Engineman

Engineman

Eric Brown

Solaris

For Rog Peyton, Birmingham's own Engineman, with thanks.

First published 2010 by Solaris

an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

www.solarisbooks.com

ISBN (.epub version): 978-1-84997-217-8

ISBN (.mobi version): 978-1-84997-216-1

Copyright © Eric Brown 2010

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Designed & typeset by Rebellion Publishing

Chapter One

It was another hot night out on the tarmac of the old Orly spaceport when Ralph Mirren saw what he thought was a KVI ghost.

He was tired and uncomfortable. The base of his skull throbbed painfully, a sure sign that he was due another flashback. The darkened cab of his grab-flier was like an oven. He couldn't win: with the sidescreens down, the breeze blowing across the 'port carried the alien spores which had drifted in through the interface two days ago from Chenowith. The spores caused respiratory complaints, and word had gone out to all 'port workers at the start of the shift to protect themselves. With the sidescreens sealed, the temperature inside the cab climbed into the high nineties. It was a basic design fault of these old Citroën grab-fliers that the cab was situated between the twin jet engines.

He killed the electro-magnet. The container he was carrying dropped into place beside the dozen others like the penultimate piece of a giant mosaic. He was turning to collect the last container when something flashed in the corner of his eye. He snapped his head around. The electric-blue spectre darted down an alley between the stacked containers. Shaken, Mirren lost control of his vehicle. It lurched for a second like a sea-borne vessel rocked by a wave. He gathered himself, righted the flier and brought it to rest on the tarmac. The dying whine of the jets gave way to a sudden silence. If his senses were to be trusted, then what he'd seen was the manifestation of what some Enginemen called a KVI ghost - hard though that was to believe. Mirren had always treated stories of the fleeting banshees, which came screaming from the
nada
-continuum via the portals of the Keilor-Vincicoff interfaces, with a healthy degree of scepticism.

He sat for seconds in the silence of the cab before cracking the hatch and climbing out. He knew he wouldn't find anything. The image he thought he'd seen was no more than a hallucination, the product of too much work and not enough sleep.

He stepped from the flier towards the containers, their corrugated flanks washed by the blue light of the interface across the spaceport. He turned sideways and edged into the gap down which he'd seen the spectre disappear. There was no sign of anything untoward. A hallucination - it could be nothing else.

He turned a corner in the maze of containers, and there it was again. The ghost stood ten metres from him, its human form giving off a dazzling electric-blue glow. Cautiously he stepped towards it and the ghost took flight, disappearing between two containers. Mirren gave chase. When he reached the corner he turned and stared. The ghost had passed down the length of the container and emerged on the tarmac beside the flier. It paused there, as if regarding him. He approached the shape, the sound of his heart loud in his ears. As he stepped from between the containers, the scene before him was transformed. At first he thought it was a trick of his eyes; then he realised that the out-fall of light from the Keilor-Vincicoff Interface, towering over the spaceport, had downshifted from the brilliant cobalt of its deactivated phase to pastel shades of blue and green: through the 'face could be seen the hills and sky of a distant colony world. Instantly, the figure before Mirren was dispossessed of its burning vestments and stood revealed for what it was. Mirren stared at the frail old man garbed in a spacer's silversuit, clutching a bottle before him like a leper with a bell.

"Stay clear and allow me on my way!" He was obviously terrified. There was something at once pathetic about the plea, and yet dignified.

Mirren held out a hand and stepped forward.

"You can't stop me!" the old man called, swinging the bottle in a crazy sweep.

Hard on the realisation that he was dealing with flesh and blood, and not ectoplasm, Mirren assumed that the man was an old drunk who had wandered onto the spaceport by mistake. Then it came to him that, a drunk though the oldster might be, he once had been something more - and that his presence on the 'field was intentional. He recognised the look of bewildered abandonment in the oldster's eyes, heightened by the wild grey hair and straggling beard. His physical enfeeblement spoke of a similar state of mental disorientation. Mirren looked for and found the bulky spar of an occipital console spanning the oldster's shoulders beneath his silversuit like a miniaturised yoke.

"No closer! Leave me be!" He swayed, swinging the bottle in his fist. It slipped from his fingers and shattered at his feet. A dark stain spread across the tarmac and the reek of cognac rose in the hot night air.

"Mirren. An Alpha with the Canterbury Line on the
Martian Epiphany
for five years. Then five on the
Perseus Bound
. Take it easy, I'm on your side."

The old Engineman looked up from the broken bottle. Something in his gaze softened. "An Alpha with the Canterbury Line?" Their eyes met, and more was communicated in the silence than either man could possibly have spoken.

"Macready," the oldster whispered. "Beta. Javelin Line. Twenty years on the
Pride of Idaho
."

Their hands locked in a shake. Mirren felt as if he were crushing the fragile bones of a small bird.

He noticed, tattooed on the crepe-textured skin of Macready's right bicep, the infinity symbol of the Church of the Disciples of the
Nada
-Continuum. Aware of what the old Engineman had planned to do here tonight, Mirren felt both awe and horror at his certainty, his faith.

It was as if Macready had read his thoughts. "You can't stop me," he said softly. "I've thought long and hard about it. I have my reasons. I'm old, and ill. Now, if you'd kindly let me by."

Mirren indicated the alien landscape through the distant interface. The 'face stood as high as a towerblock and twice as long, braced in an arc-lighted girder frame. The juxtaposition of a daylight scene set against the backdrop of the Paris night was like something from a surreal work of art.

"It's activated, Macready. You'd end up on that world - even if you managed to evade security. And one planet is much like any other without the flux."

"If you'd not come after me-"

"You still wouldn't have made it in time."

"When does it close again?"

Mirren shrugged. "One hour, two. Whenever they're through with the deliveries." He stepped past Macready, opened the hatch of his flier and pulled out a half litre of scotch from the dash.

"I've almost finished here. We could sit and watch the transfer...?"

"And when it's finished, I can go on my way?"

"How can I stop you?" Mirren asked. In an hour or two, Macready would be in no fit state to go anywhere.

As he helped the frail old man into the passenger seat, Mirren asked himself what right he had to deny the ex-Engineman his destiny. Macready had faith - which was more than he had - and all he wanted was a return to the One.

Mirren engaged the up-thrusters. He banked away from the containers, sped across the 'field and collected the last unit. It hung from the magnet on the base of his vehicle, projecting fore and aft, fully three times as long as the flier. Mirren returned to the stack, dropped the last container and mach'd away on a parabolic course around the periphery of the 'port.

"Where we going?" Macready asked.

"I know where we'll get a good view."

They approached a crescent of abandoned mansions overlooking the 'port. The buildings were three centuries old, ornate and foursquare. Alien creepers shrouded their facades, bearing blood-red orchid-like blooms and other spectacular flowers.

Macready screwed round in his seat. "You said you were Mirren?" He paused. "Surely not Bob Mirren?"

Mirren stiffened, as if liquid nitrogen had replaced his spinal fluid. "I'm Ralph," he said. "Bobby's my brother."

"I knew Max Thorn," Macready said. "Second man to go down with the Syndrome."

Mirren said nothing. He hoped Macready would drop the subject. The silence stretched in the darkness, and as if Macready had sensed Mirren's distress, he said, "I'm sorry."

Mirren cut the thrust and the flier settled on the flat rooftop of a central mansion. He climbed out and helped Macready down. The old man was weak with an infirmity that could not be wholly the result of his advanced years.

Mirren pulled an old chesterfield from beneath a polythene awning and positioned it at the edge of the roof, where the roots of an extraterrestrial vine gripped the edge like clinging fingers. He assisted Macready to the thick, sprung cushion and sat down beside him.

Macready whistled in appreciation. "Fernandez!" he said, invoking the name of the physicist who'd discovered the
nada
-continuum.

They had a grandstand view of that area of the 'port directly beneath the rearing interface. Down below, giant container-hovercraft and juggernauts approached the hazy membrane of the 'face and were processed through, their shapes giving off sparkling coronas of ball-lightening. Instantly they were light years away, trundling across the tarmac of the distant colony planet.

Mirren fumbled with the cap on the scotch, took a slug and passed the bottle to Macready.

He came up here when there was no other way to vent his rage. He'd drink his scotch and hurl the empty bottle and curse the invention which had ended his affair with the numinous flux.