The Engineer Reconditioned (19 page)

"Oh God ... Is it dead at last? Is it dead? I would have preferred the soul of a shark. Yes ... I would have preferred that." Pallister is babbling. Hinks stands. He had not even time to get to his feet. That fast, it happened that fast. He looks at the remains of the crew. Jan, standing with her mouth open in shock, Pallister, babbling to himself now that no one else is listening, Cheyne, silent, three other crew, one on the deck with his face hanging off, but still alive, one squatting by the mast gazing about him in bewilderment, one mechanically stabbing pieces of the Fage with a great knife and flicking them over the side.

"You,Tanis."

The man by the mast stands and looks to Hinks with a kind of hope. Hinks keeps the Book firmly tucked under his arm as he gives his orders.

"Help him ... in whatever way he requires."

Tanis gazes with compassion to his companion on the deck and draws a knife from his belt sheath. Cheyne is still grieving but now Jan is with him and they hold each other. Hinks does not want to go below decks just yet. He does not want to see what is there.

"Hinks ... sir," the other crewman calls to him.

"What is it ... Lai?"

Hinks walks over and stands beside him.

"Watch," says Lai.

The man skewers a piece of the Fage and throws it into the sea — as it hits the water it changes into a turtle crab, the next piece turns into a green mackerel, and the next into a small shark. Hinks understands now why the Captain was always frightened. The Book is heavy under his arm and he has only seen a few of its many thin pages. He wonders what the Captain read that frightened him so badly, and if he ever read any more.

THE THRANKE

To Mark, the runcible was the altar to some cybernetic god of technology, and he felt like an acolyte come before it for the first time. He considered it the nearest thing to an icon in this Godless society, and consequently looked upon it as an enemy of his faith.

Skaidon technology.

The religion.

The room containing the runcible was a fifty metre sphere of mirrored metal — the containment sphere beyond which the buffers operated. It was floored with black glass, and mounted on a central stepped pedestal or the same substance, were the ten metre incurving bull's horns of the runcible itself. Between these shimmered the cusp of the Skaidon warp, or the spoon. Mark could remember someone trying to explain five-dimensional singularity mechanics to him, but the subject did not interest him.
They dined on mince and slices of quince.

He was to be quince: he was to be a mitter traveller.

He advanced into the room, across the black glass to the steps, mounted them. Before the cusp he paused for a moment and tapped the cross, tattooed on his wrist, for luck.
Our Father who art in Heaven
—

He stepped through.

STOPSTART.

Hallowed be thy name.

He had travelled by runcible many times before, and on every occasion found it a deeply disturbing experience. He could not grasp that the step he had just taken had been light-years long. The universe should not be so big. He refused to believe there were things the unaugmented human mind could not understand.

"Mark Christian?"

He turned his attention to the woman waiting on the black glass of this second runcible chamber. She was short, with the muscular body of one raised on a plus G planet. Her hair was cropped and dyed with rainbow spirals and she wore skintight monofilament overalls. Her eyes were the eyes of a cat. In terms of Earth fashion she was about two years out of date.

Mark allowed himself a smug little smile as he walked down the steps to meet her. "Yes, I am. Pleased to meet you."

He pumped her hand and gazed beyond her to the door of the chamber. Where was the Director? Who was this woman? He would have to have words. Didn't they realise who he was? "I am Carmen Smith. Welcome to Station Seventeen."

"Oh, really?"

Mark released her hand with a touch of distaste. She had calluses!

"If you will come with me I will show you to your quarters. Sorry not to have a welcoming committee here, but we are very busy and don't spend much time on the social niceties." He only realised his gaffe when he was following her out.

Carmen Smith ... Oh God!

He had just met the Director.

Xenoethnologist my ass. I don't need this.

"I take it you received all your immuno treatments?"

It was a stupid question to ask, she was well aware, but she did not think she would be having a sensible conversation with this idiot.

"Yes," said Christian.

Carmen noticed he was a little pale. "You do know this is an open runcible?" Mark nodded. Carmen studied him for a moment, wondering what his problem might be. Perhaps he knew of her objections to him coming here. She shook her head and turned to the door. It slid open and they stepped outside.

The sky was alien. No other word applied. He could have said it was the colour of blackberry cordial shone through with a sun lamp or that the clouds were like the froth on fermenting red wine. But those were descriptions taking as their basis things from Earth — things familiar. The sky was not familiar. It was something seen in Technicolor nightmares and the strangest of dreams. He stood under a sky an unimaginable distance from Earth. Another world. Another place. An element in the dreams of another species. Abruptly he realised Carmen was speaking to him.

" — it's fatal to anthropomorphise."

"Sorry ... ?"

"The Orbonnai are very like us physiologically."

"Oh, yes ... I am trained in these matters."

"I thought it best to warn you. There have been members of Station Seventeen who had formed too close an attachment to the likes of Paul."

"Paul?"

Carmen gazed at him speculatively. Abruptly he felt foolish, but the sky and the weird contorted landscape below it had denuded him of words. He shrugged as if making himself more comfortable in his fashionable jacket.

"That is anthropomorphising in itself," he said. "I myself adhere to Gordon's dictum; 'If it is alien, give it an alien name'. 'Paul' is far too prosaic."

He glanced at her again and took in the angular beauty of her tanned features. She'd had alterations other than her eyes, yet, because she was out of date she seemed more ... plausible. She said, "The runcible technicians named him Paul. Edron, the co-ordinator of the planetary biostudy team, then tried to have his name changed to Xanthos or some such. Never caught on." Mark nodded to himself like someone with access to privileged information. "I would be most interested to view any studies made of him."

Carmen glanced at him. "I'll have the recordings sent to your quarters directly." After leaving the shower and donning his silk Faberge lounging suit, Mark dropped in the chair before his viewing screen and caressed a touch-plate with his finger. The screen flickered on to show him a scene of dense jungle on the edge of a stream with banks of blue sand. He fast-forwarded it until there were signs of movement from the jungle. A narrative began as he watched. He jumped with surprise then glanced around guiltily before returning his attention to the screen.

The orboni edged out of the jungle, wire-taut as it surveyed its surroundings, then squatted down in the sand at the edge of the river. It was difficult not to ascribe human characteristics to it, with its bilateral symmetry, arms and legs, and its upright stance. Yet, it was bone-white and with a head like the bare skull of a bird. Half listening to the narrative, Mark watched it intently.

" — and the immediate and invalid assumption being that Paul was a tool user. Note the three fingered hands and opposable thumb. As we now know, Daneson was in error. It is far too easy to anthropomorphise when faced with creatures which bear such a close physiological resemblance to humanity. Here we see the true use of that opposable thumb, and more importantly, the long mid-finger with its hooked point. It is relevant at this point to add, that the Orbonnai do not have nails. As Gordon once had the temerity to conjecture; 'If they don't have nails they don't use tools. Imagine bashing your finger with a hammer.' A most dubious — "

Mark turned the sound down as he observed Paul. He did not need the distraction of this babble. He knew what he was searching for, and he knew he would find it. According to the highest Church authorities the Orbonnai were pre-ascension.

The orboni reached into the stream and fumbled around for a while. Eventually it withdrew its hand, holding a snail the size of an ash-tray. Mark watched it intently as it inspected its prize, and felt a momentary flush of excitement. Could it be that all the evidence he needed would be on these memory crystals? He noted a number of rocks laying nearby. Would Paul make the connection? The way he was inspecting the snail looked very much as if he was satisfying his curiosity. Mark willed Paul to pick up a stone. If there was no evidence here then he would have to go outside. He shuddered at the thought and turned the sound up again.

" — Again he was in error. This 'turning' of the nautiloid is not due to aesthetic appreciation. It is an instinctive behaviour that mimics the tumbling of the mollusc in the current of the stream when it has been dislodged from its hold on the bottom. Shortly we will see the reason for this." Abruptly Paul darted his 'long' finger inside the snail, twisted it, and pulled out the white squidlike body it contained. With relish he pecked this up, tipped his head back and shook it to get the morsel down. He discarded the shell.

"There. A study of nautiloid behaviour shows they open the clypeus of their shells to re-attach themselves to the bed of stream after about thirty seconds 'tumbling'. This is what Paul was after. Other studies have shown that the Orbonnai still follow this instinctive behaviour even with empty nautiloid shells taken from the beds of the streams. Empty or otherwise, these shells are always discarded after thirty seconds. It is well to note that the blue nautiloid, which has a tumbling response time of fifty seconds, has displaced the green nautiloids in the Graffus island chain, as it is slowly doing here, and that there are no Orbonnai there."

"Stupid woman," said Mark, and ran the recording forward.

" — the miracidia of the so-called 'brain fluke' parasite are caused to break secondary encystment by the heating of the faeces. Their vector here is — "

" — once in nautiloid waters they begin their cyclic swimming patterns. This greatly increases their chances of finding a host — "

" — a matter of conjecture. If green nautiloids are the infested form of blue nautiloids then — " Mark swore and jerked the memory crystal from the machine. He looked at the label in disbelief.

NAUTILOID-ORBONNAI-THRAKE POPULATIONS

BY CARMEN SMITH.

He closed his eyes and tapped his cross for luck, then reinserted the crystal and ran it to near its end. When he turned it on the scene presented to him froze him in his seat.

" — but of course the thrake has no need to be this mobile. It is my opinion that this is a throw-back to the tumbling delay, and a time prior to such widespread infestation. This is, of course, based on tenuous evidence. There may be a cyclic — "

Mark was not listening. He was staring in horror at the creature on the screen. It bore the appearance of a giant metallic wood-louse bent into an L. It had four short insectile legs on the ground, and six of what could only be described as arms. They were long, had two joints. The pair nearest its head ended in crablike pincers, and the pair below ended in clubs. The final pair Mark could not see because they were the ones holding down the orboni, while the thrake dismembered it with its pincers, and conveyed it piece by piece to its nightmare, machine-like mandibles and grinding mouth.

"My God!"

He had never been more sincere in that exclamation. He felt sick. He jerked the crystal from the viewer and tossed it to one side as if it were infectious. He then took up the next crystal. SOME XENOETHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THRAKE ...

"Barbarians!"

He tossed the crystal aside and took up the next.

"Let me get this right. You wish to go out alone to study the Orbonnai. I do hope you are aware of the ... difficulties," said Carmen.

"I saw that obscene recording of the thrake creature," said Mark. Carmen looked askance at him then shook her head.

"They're no problem — "

"I beg to differ."

"You can beg all you like, but no amount of begging is going to get you near the Orbonnai. They move very fast when they want to ... well, in most cases. Most of the recordings we've managed to make have been by remote chameleon drone. Paul was the exception. He came close to the station to feed because he was old and had been driven away from his group by a younger male."

"Then perhaps he is the one I should seek. In that other," Mark pursed his lips in distaste, "recording, I noted that Paul had been radio tagged."

"Which crystal was that?"

"You are well aware of the one I am referring to."

"Oh yes, 'Sexual Dynamics In Orbonnai Family Groups'. I remember it — a most definitive study."

"I still wish to make my own observations."

Carmen stared at him in annoyance for a moment. "I will do everything I can to prevent you. You were foisted on us here at Seventeen by the New Christian Church at Carth. It is unfortunate that Earth Central have not seen fit to keep the likes of you off our backs."

"I resent your inferences, Madam."

"And I resent your beliefs. I find the practising of your particular brand of pseudoscience here, where real science is being carried out, most distasteful, and quite possibly damaging. I know why you are here. Your Church knows there are creatures of near-human appearance and all of a sudden they've got the missionary bug. When are you going to learn — "

"I do not have to tolerate this. Creation Science has its basis in the most sublime of works. The New Carth Bible is — Where are you going! Come back here!"

Carmen ignored him.

Once back in his room Mark picked up a memory crystal at random and smashed it against the wall. Then he dropped to his knees. "Oh Lord, give me the strength to go on. Give me the will to bear this ignorance of your plan and your presence." He bowed his head and clasped his hands below his chin. Didn't they understand? What worth had their universe of facts without a binding deity? How could they believe the magnificent complexity and pattern of the universe was not created by God? He hated so-called 'true' scientists. Where would the human race be without God to guide it? He unclasped his hands and stood up. As a Christian in the face of adversity, he would do what he had to do. It had always been so.
Their
science was irrelevant. He opened his case and removed some things he would need.