Engineman - Eric Brown [136]
"Sit down," Ghaine said. "Cross your legs."
Mirren sat as instructed between two recumbent Effectuators. They seemed to be in a trance, perfectly motionless, eyes closed. Their ancient, lustreless skin was like weathered bronze.
Ghaine sat before him, cross-legged too, their knees almost touching. "Soon the process will begin," he informed Mirren. "You will drink haar, which I am informed tastes vile to humans. This will prepare you mentally for contact. Please do not be disturbed by the strange effects brought about by the drug. You are in safe hands."
Mirren merely nodded, unable to find the words to express the mixture of curiosity, anticipation, and apprehension he was feeling.
"For fifteen minutes you will be conscious," Ghaine went on. "Then you will lose consciousness, we will lay you out, and you will commune."
Mirren was aware of activity in other parts of the 'ship, the vibration of elevator pads, pneumatic sighs and clunkings from outside as the Sublime went through the involved process of pre-flux flight checks. Beyond the hemisphere of the dome, along the length of the 'ship, safety lights flashed.
One of the four Lho who had inspected him earlier now approached, bearing a thick stone bowl. He passed it to Ghaine, who raised it to his forehead and murmured a litany of near-silent words.
Then he passed the bowl to Mirren.
He put his lips to the wide stone rim and tipped the bowl. The thick, white liquid rolled smoothly into his mouth. It tasted, as Ghaine had warned him, vile: at first sweet, and then burnt-bitter in aftertaste - but it was the texture that Mirren found especially unpalatable. It was as thick and cloying as rubber solution, and it slid down his throat in one continuous length that almost made him retch. He closed his eyes and forced down the contents of the bowl.
Ghaine was regarding him, nodding as if in satisfaction. "Good," he said. "Now, relax, empty your mind, wait..."
Mirren tried to do as he was commanded. He was aware that the four Lho, positioned now around the astrodome, were humming deeply within their throats, producing a continuous bass note.
He stared at his upturned palms in his lap. The haar seemed to be having an effect already; he felt relaxed, lethargic, heavy of limb. Then he noticed that its effect was not just physical. He found the act of concentration impossible: he could not follow through a logical course of thought. He stared across the dome to the lights on either side of the sliding door, and wondered what they were, what purpose they served - while he was aware that another part of him knew full well the purpose of the lights, but he could not access this information. He was aware of his time-sense becoming warped. He thought that surely the Sublime should have phased-out by now, should almost be home, as surely hours and hours had passed while he'd been sitting here, even though Ghaine had told him that he would be conscious for just fifteen minutes...
Then his vision blurred. Shapes and colours ran into each other in a diffuse, impressionistic abstraction. His last sense to go was that of touch; he felt hands on him, the floor beneath his body as he was laid out, and then nothing. He was cradled in a comforting limbo, aware only of his own tiny identity. He had half expected the process of communion to be similar to that of fluxing - but there was no sudden rush of wonder... it came slowly, gradually, and the wonder, when it arrived, was of a degree far greater than anything he had experienced in flux.
At first there was only darkness. Mirren felt six forces drawing him from the physical prison of his body. He was aware of a deep thrumming somewhere within him, like the lingering resonance of a plucked string. Then this vibration slowly intensified until it seemed that his whole being, his every cell and molecule, was oscillating in harmony with some cosmic tempo - and as the vibration reached such a pitch that he thought he must surely explode with the