Engineman - Eric Brown [107]
Mirren signalled assent on the palm of Bobby's hand.
Bobby said, "What's happening, Ralph? Why did they bring me here?"
I don't know where to begin... They want you to push this 'ship, Bobby.
Bobby sat upright, suddenly animated. "Who are they?"
I don't know. The mission's fronted by an off-worlder called Hunter. We're going out to the Rim to bring back some people... I'm sorry, I honestly know no more than this. He paused there, considering. I would have told you yesterday, when we spoke. I wanted to tell you, but at the same time... I don't want to see you kill yourself, Bobby.
Bobby said, "I object to you using the word 'kill', Ralph. The word's meaningless. I would be giving myself to the flux. Giving myself gladly."
But can't you see - from my point of view you'd be risking your life?
"But from my point of view, Ralph, I wouldn't be. That's what matters, not your... your guilt."
Mirren looked up, into his brother's staring eyes. What do you mean?
"Ralph, Ralph... Do I really have to tell you? You're guilty that it was me who contracted Black's - not you, who'd pushed more 'ships for many more years than me. You're guilty that you can't find it in yourself to believe. You're even guilty that over the years we've drifted apart."
I'm sorry!
"Don't be. It was as much my doing as yours. You remember that old line about the Middle Way between emptiness and compassion? Well, I was never very hot on the second."
Mirren blinked away the tears. You're not the only one...
Bobby squeezed Mirren's hand. "Ralph," he said. "You're wrong to think that if I remained alive we might... I don't know - be as close as we were as kids. That's all in the past. We're as close now as we've ever been."
Mirren returned the pressure on his brother's hand.
"Ralph, if you didn't let me flux, if you denied me that, just think of the guilt you'd carry then." He smiled. "So, are you going to let me join your team, or not?"
Mirren signed: I don't really see how I can refuse.
"Thanks," Bobby said. "You've made me very happy."
Chapter Eighteen
Ella surfaced from unconsciousness in gradual stages, sense by sense. She recalled the militia at her father's villa and the brutal attack. After that, she had a vague recollection of a hospital, an operating theatre, green-garbed military medics - like images from another life. At the same time she experienced a surge of paradoxical well-being that she did not understand.
She felt a cold, hard surface beneath her. The air was heavy with the rich stench of oil and petrol. She heard the occasional whine of an engine and the laboured blatt-blatt-blatt of a helicopter's rotor blades. She opened her eyes. High overhead was a lattice of grey girders supporting a sloping corrugated tin roof. To her right was a wall of expanded-concrete bricks, and to her left the cavernous expanse of an aircraft hanger. A dismantled flier stood at the far end of the chamber, before a tall sliding door.
She was amazed to find that she could sit up without difficulty. What had been the searing agony of bullet wounds and broken bones was now no more than a dull ache. She was wearing a pair of baggy green hospital trousers and her own red t-shirt. She slipped a hand underneath the waist-band, fingered the closed wound on the inside of her thigh. The shoulder of the t-shirt was holed where the bullet had entered and exited. She pulled down the collar and bared her shoulder, peering awkwardly at the stitched flesh, white against her olive tan. She rotated her arm. The joint was tender, but not painful. She touched the line of her jaw. In her memory it was the vicious kick to her jaw that had offended her, an act that seemed more vindictive than the impersonal round of rifle-fire. She opened and closed her mouth experimentally. Her jaw was tender, numb, but again there was no real pain.
She climbed to her feet, and only then noticed the manacle around her ankle. She was chained to a big iron ring bolted to the oil-stained concrete three metres away. Looking down each side of the