Engineman - Eric Brown [135]
Mirren felt his pulse quicken. He recalled what Rhan had said ten years ago, that there was no such thing as death, that all would be explained when he communed.
"Ten years ago I was promised communion," he whispered to Ghaine. "Is communion possible now?"
The Lho regarded him with its large, dark eyes and blinked once, slowly, from the bottom up. "Please, Mir-ren," Ghaine said at last. "Follow me."
They ascended in the elevator to the astrodome.
The Effectuators were laid out to form a six-armed star, heads together in the centre of the dome. Their attendants ministered to their needs, washed down their bodies, massaged them, murmured mantras or prayers.
Ghaine crossed to where four Lho sat beneath the crystal convexity of the dome, cross-legged, their folded shanks jutting. He knelt and spoke to the four, and as he did so they turned their heads and stared across at Mirren.
He remained by the sliding door, something about the unfamiliarity, the sheer strangeness of the scene before him, causing him to have second thoughts about the process of communion. There was something so primitive, almost shamanistic, about the tableau, that he was given to doubt any truth espoused by the aliens - then he recalled Bobby, and what the Effectuators had done for him, and he realised that as crude and primitive as the aliens seemed to be, they were in contact with something that had taken humankind millennia, and the advent of technology, to discover.
For so long Mirren had poured scorn on the tenet of the Disciples, considered it the superstitious belief system of weak-minded people, that to give credence to such belief now, when faced with the prospect of his death in the not too distant future, seemed to him an act of contemptible heresy. Which, he thought, was an admission of weakness in himself. Surely, when faced with the truth, he should be strong enough to admit that he was wrong.
Ghaine stood and rejoined Mirren. The other Lho followed him, gathered around Mirren, staring at him with their odd, up-blinking eyes. One or two reached out, touched his silversuit. Another took his hand and examined his fingers. The fourth alien moved around him, and he felt cold fingers probing the base of his skull above his occipital console.
"Do not be alarmed," Ghaine said, in response to Mirren's reaction. "They are merely assessing your receptivity. Communion is not a process undertaken lightly by anyone involved. It is the most ancient and sacrosanct act known to my people."
Mirren felt the fingers on his skull, but refused to believe that this assessment was anything more than meaningless ritual, a superstitious performance that preceded each communion. After a minute the aliens stepped back and spoke to Ghaine in their high, piping voices.
They retreated to their former position across the astrodome, sat in a circle and busied themselves in the shadows with implements that Mirren could not make out.
Ghaine said, "They have decided. You may experience communion. They consider it your reward for saving the Lho, and also the honouring of the promise made by Rhan."
Mirren inclined his head. "Please convey my gratitude," he said. "How...?"
"I will explain the process in due course, Mir-ren. You are only the third human to commune. The first, a Major in the Danzig Organisation, was adversely affected by what he experienced. Hunter, on the other hand, was stronger, and though he found what he looked upon terrifying in the extreme, he overcame his fear, as he had to, and the very fact of your presence here today is testimony to that fact, and the culmination of a long process which began many years ago with his communion-"
"Why is it terrifying?" Mirren asked. "What happens?"
"You will see for yourself," Ghaine said. "This way." The alien led Mirren to the centre of the astrodome where the six Effectuators lay head to head, their emaciated bodies describing the spokes of a wheel. Ghaine spoke to the attendants,