Engineman - Eric Brown [120]
Mirren gripped his hand, too overcome to recall the relevant signs with which to express his relief. He hoped the pressure of his grasp would be enough to communicate his feelings.
Dan hauled a diagnostic scanner on its boom from the ceiling, swept it the length of the recumbent figure. The screen in its globular head glowed green with its report. Dan shook his head. "He's fine, Ralph. He's as well as when he entered the tank, but how the hell did he do it?" He batted away the diagnostic device, glanced at Mirren. "His surviving is miracle enough. But his performance..."
Mirren stared, bewildered. "What?"
"He's been in the tank just under two hours," Dan went on, "but he's pushed us all the way to the Rim. We'll be phasing-in in just over fifteen minutes."
"That's impossible..."
Dan spoke to Miguelino, who swung himself around in his web. "Check, Dan. We've traversed twenty thousand light years. We're on the Rim, and no mistake."
Dan said, "He pushed the 'ship to the Rim in just two hours, Ralph. It should have taken over twenty-five..."
Mirren looked down on his brother. It was usual to remain in a trance immediately following defluxing - the wonder they experienced left some Enginemen blitzed for hours - but something about Bobby's total lack of response worried Mirren.
"Dan?"
"After that performance I'm not surprised he's a little out of it." He checked the Engineman's pulse, thumbed his eye-lids. The smile on Bobby's face never wavered. "He seems okay. Let's get him to his berth."
Between them they eased Bobby into a sitting position, then chair-lifted him across the chamber to the up-plate. They rose to the lounge, Bobby limp between them, carried him to his berth and laid him out on the bunk.
"I'll leave you with him," Dan said. "I'll probe the tank, try to work out what happened." He closed the door quietly as he left.
Mirren drew up a seat and sat staring at Bobby.
Almost as if afraid to do so, he took his brother's hand and, after some deliberation signed, Can you feel this? Can you feel anything Bobby! - and, though he had meant to end the communication with an appropriate question mark, he mistakenly signed an exclamation instead.
There was no response.
In all his years as an Engineman he had never witnessed this degree of post-flux bodily dysfunction; but then he'd never witnessed the feat of pushing that Bobby had just achieved.
Something flickered on his brother's face - a lessening in the degree of his rapture.
Mirren grabbed his hand again. Bobby, it's me, Ralph. Can you feel this?
Mirren watched the wall-chronometer flick away the minutes. He found it ironic that, a few hours ago, he would have been overjoyed if Bobby had survived his stint in the tank. All he wished for now was the return of the brother he could communicate with, even if only through the restricted medium of touch-signing.
Bobby said, "Ralph... Ralph... I know you're there, somewhere..."
Mirren signed, I'm here. You're okay. You survived.
Five minutes passed. It was as if Bobby was oblivious to Mirren's signing.
"Ralph... Ralph," he said at last. "This is truly wonderful..."
What is? What's happening?
Mirren cried out loud as Bobby failed to respond.
Five minutes later: "Ralph... When I entered the tank and fluxed, something very strange happened." Bobby fell silent. Mirren told himself that he should be grateful for this sign of animation from his brother, but what he said, and the eerie, removed manner in which he relayed it, sent a chill down his spine. "Something very strange and wonderful, Ralph. I should have gone another twenty-four hours before experiencing the flux, viewing everything that had happened leading up to the time I was tanked, but I didn't... Instead, as soon as I was jacked in, I lost the sights and sounds, tastes and smells of the preceding day and experienced the wonder of the flux immediately. Only... only I experienced it - I'm still experiencing it - like never before. I am closer to the immanence, the