Engineman - Eric Brown [117]
-- I found that my recollections of the journey, the crashlanding and the subsequent events had been wiped from my mind by the Danzig Organisation after they picked us up all those years ago; our memories had been edited by the process known as mem-erase. This system was in its prototype stages then, and its faults and flaws were not known. We now know that no memory can ever be truly erased. If they do not resurface as trauma or psychosis, then they return in the form of regular flashbacks. We all suffered these flashbacks of information in increments because that was how, in the days we were quarantined by the psychologists of the Organisation, our memories of what we had witnessed were taken from us, from our first recollections of the journey out, to what we saw later in the jungle. That is the order in which they returned to us. I discovered also that the name of the planet on which we crashlanded had been excised from our memories. We were told that the world was unnamed and unexplored.
There was a pause.
For a timeless duration Mirren considered what Fekete had told him. Then he asked: Why didn't they just kill us and claim we had died in the accident, if what we saw was so...?
-- From my memory banks I found out that we released a rescue beacon shortly after the crashlanding, and this probably saved our lives. It contained information on survivors, our position and where we were heading. The signal was picked up by a passing bigship of a rival Line, and the Danzig crowd couldn't very well kill us then without it looking suspicious. So they did the next best thing.
Mirren asked the all important question: What did we see, Caspar?
When Fekete replied, his words reached Mirren as if from a great distance. He had to concentrate to make them out.
-- When we left the crash sight we headed through the jungle to a settlement fifteen kilometres distant. A few hours later we came upon the village and discovered... Here Fekete hesitated, as if either the signal had been broken, or the machine which he had become found the recollection too painful to relate. -- We found that Danzig militia-men had massacred over a hundred aliens. In the next settlement, a short distance away, the massacre was still in progress.
Mirren looked into his mind and tried to find a memory of the massacre. He recalled nothing.
-- We were discovered when Elliott, unable to bear any more, ran from cover and tried to attack a militia-man. She was knocked unconscious and the militia came after us.
Why? Why were they killing the aliens?
-- I don't know, Ralph. There is, of course, no information available on the subject. Officially, the Danzig Organisation reported that the aliens known as the Lho had succumbed to a devastating plague... However, if anyone can tell us why, it is you.
Mirren expressed his surprise. Me?
-- You of the five of us were the only one to escape when the militia came after us. We were rounded up and taken to a garrison town a hundred kilometres away, where we underwent the mem-erase treatment. You were brought in a day later, beaten and haggard. We heard you being questioned about the aliens. Something about a mountain stronghold of the aliens which the Organisation was intent on discovering.
Before the link was lost completely, Mirren asked, What was the name of the planet we crashlanded on?
-- The planet was Hennessy's Reach, a Danzig-run world on the Rim. Do you see now why I had to contact you? To warn you...
The signal faltered, crackled.
Warn us about what? Mirren almost cried with his mind.
Fekete responded, the words faint almost beyond comprehension. -- I accessed the Sublime's programming, Ralph, and discovered your destination. The Sublime is headed for Hennessy's Reach.
Mirren asked, But why?
-- I know as much as you. Perhaps... even less.
The signal was breaking up.
-- Take care... Contact me when you return.
And the whispered thoughts in his head were extinguished like the dying flame of a candle.
Without a reference point to determine the parameters of his