Engineman - Eric Brown [145]
A great central column rose to the apex of the dome, its length fluted and engraved with arcane alien symbols. At the foot of the column, a dozen stone slabs radiated like spokes. In the illumination of the spotlights, the entire effect was suitably other-worldly.
For the next thirty minutes Hunter gave a short history of the Lho, and then told the dignitaries what little he knew about the Effectuators and the nature of the communion. What he could expound upon in more detail was his own experience in the original chamber almost six years ago, an experience both joyous and terrifying that would live with him forever.
They returned to the lounge in contemplative silence.
"The thing is," Johan Weiner said when their glasses had been refilled, "how can we be certain that our experience of heaven in the communion will be genuine, and not a drug-induced hallucination?"
Hunter was shaking his head. "It isn't heaven," he said. "It cannot be defined as any of the many afterlives described by the organised religions. They all have it wrong-"
"Even the Disciples?" Weiner snapped.
"Many of the Disciples have experienced whereof they speak, so of all the so-called organised religions, they have come the closest to getting it right. Having said that, many of their rituals are merely the trappings of a human-based belief system and have no relevance to what follows this existence. The afterlife experienced in the nada-continuum is not a heaven or a hell or a purgatory - it is another realm which exists as a state of positive energy-"
"You still haven't answered my question," Weiner went on doggedly. "How do we know that what you experienced was anything more than a hallucination?"
Hunter paused. He looked around the assembled VIPs. They were waiting for his reply. "I know what I experienced, Herr Weiner. I know that I experienced a state of positive energy, and that that energy was under threat of annihilation. I know that the annihilation I perceived in the continuum was the most soul-destroying and terrifying force I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing... I'm sorry - I can't explain it any better than that, and of course there is nothing I can say to convince you of the truth. Only your own experience of communion will do that."
The dignitaries shifted uncomfortably, exchanging glances.
The Director of one of the Core interface companies said, "Do you realise what you are asking us to do in closing down the entire interface industry, Mr Hunter?" She stared at him accusingly.
He returned her stare. "Perfectly, Ms de Souza," he said. "I am asking you to preserve the realm of existence which follows this one."
Weiner grunted a laugh. "An ecological clean-up of afterlife, you mean?"
"If you wish to put it like that, Herr Weiner, then yes, exactly that."
Weiner muttered into his drink.
De Souza said, "The closure of the interfaces would ruin the economies of so many planets around the Expansion that untold numbers of lives would be at risk."
Hunter restrained himself from saying that human lives mattered little beside the continued existence of the nada-continuum. He began, "There are ways of avoiding-"
"I don't think you understand that some planets in my sector rely on the interfaces for their very existence. Dozens of colony planets would be bankrupted by such closures as you envisage-"
"I was about to say that there are ways of avoiding immediate financial catastrophes on the more far-flung worlds. We would not merely cut them off willy-nilly, in fact the closures would be phased out over a number of years, with UC subsidies going to those planets more drastically affected."
Weiner interrupted, "Fine words, Hunter. You don't belong to the UC. You don't have to put your hands on those 'subsidies'."
Hunter continued, not allowing his anger at such petty short-sightedness to show. "If the closures were phased in over years, that would give us time to re-establish