Engineman - Eric Brown [125]
"I'll do everything I can to let the UC know the truth," Mirren said. "But why...?" He gestured in the general direction of the carnage.
"One standard year ago," Rhan said, "we approached General Villiers and explained the situation, gave him the benefit of our knowledge. He refused to believe us, so we had no option but to kidnap one of his Majors, take him to the northern mountains and grant him the experience... We hardly expected him to react as he did. We assumed that communion with our Effectuators would have the desired result - that he would report to Villiers the truth of our claims and he would then bring about the closure of the Danzig Organisation interfaces, and those of the other companies around the Expansion... We later heard that Villiers considered the Major to be deranged, or drugged. and that our opposition to the Organisation was merely political, an alliance with the Disciples of the Reach to overthrow their regime. We tried to send representatives to Earth to plead our case, but always we were prevented from doing so, often violently. So, finally, and with reluctance, we joined forces with the Disciples - many of us resorted to armed resistance, forming guerrilla bands and striking at the heart of the Organisation. Their retribution was terrible. Villiers ordered our elimination. Many of my people are falling to the plague they unleashed upon the planet. Those of us who survived are hunted and massacred... You witnessed a small part of that today."
Mirren was aware of the aliens, regarding him intently. He was suddenly very hot. He could not keep a note of disbelief from his voice when he said, "You want the closure of the interfaces?"
Another Lho, seated in the circle to his left, spoke in a fast, twittering tongue. Rhan replied. He looked around his people as if asking their consent. Several made definite gestures.
"Before we attempt to return you to Earth," Rhan said, "we will first take you to the mountain temple. There you will commune with the Effectuators, and learn the truth. You will take this truth to your people."
"The truth?" Mirren asked.
Rhan gestured. "I do not know the human terms to express the concept," he said. "But you will experience it for yourself in two days, when you commune."
Rhan conferred with his people again. Mirren tried to take in what the alien had told him. The heat in the chamber was making him dizzy.
Rhan returned his attention to Mirren. "We wish you to inform your leaders that, in return for the closure of the interfaces, we will endow your Enginemen the ability to push starships at speeds never before imagined. A voyage of five thousand light years will take just minutes. This will compensate humankind for the loss of the interfaces. But we will grant your Enginemen and Enginewomen this ability only if your people agree to close the interfaces."
Mirren stared at the alien. His first impulse was to laugh. "How can you possibly grant..." he began. "It's impossible!"
Rhan said, "We began this process one standard year ago, as a way of persuading you to continue with starflight. Unfortunately, it was less than successful. Our Effectuators contacted certain of your Alpha Enginemen while they were pushing, and... and attempted to absorb them into the Oneness."
As Rhan spoke, Mirren thought of those Enginemen who had suffered the fatal condition known as Black's Syndrome - the time-lapsed men, as they were called - and then dismissed such thoughts as superstitious nonsense. There was, so far as he was concerned, no such thing as the Oneness into which anyone could be absorbed.
"Our Effectuators drew forth these Enginemen in the only way they knew - by one sense at a time, with the aim of leaving the subjects with no conception of the present or self and thus eminently able to appreciate the illusion of this 'reality' and conjoin in the ultimate reality of the continuum. As it happened, the mechanisms of the flux-tanks detected our Effectuators'