Engineman - Eric Brown [148]
He had so much to apologise for, so much back-dated affection to bestow on her.
"Six, five, four, three..."
As he waited for the smallship to materialise, he realised that he had never felt so excited before in his life.
"Two, one... zero! Phasing in!"
A wind blasted out from nowhere, storming through the assembled spectators and causing some to turn away or hide their eyes. Hunter stood his ground, gasping and registering the brief flicker of an image, soon gone. The gale changed direction, the air in the hangar sucked into where the 'ship had briefly existed. Again, the silver, streamlined shape appeared, disappeared and then returned. It strobed into existence, the periods of its absence diminishing, so that within fifteen seconds it had fully materialised and sat on the concrete of the hangar as if it had been there all along.
Hunter could see the shapes of figures at the main viewscreen, looking out. He strained his eyes to see Ella, desperate now to gain visual confirmation of the miracle Kelly had announced.
The hatch remained closed for just five minutes, but to Hunter it seemed like an eternity. Mechanics swarmed over the 'ship on ladders, connecting leads and pumps, monitoring exterior gauges. All about him was activity, while all he could do was stand and stare.
Then, quite suddenly, the hatch swung down and hit the concrete with a resounding clang. Enginemen and Lho appeared at the exit, paused and then made their way down the ramp to cheers and applause from the ground-crew. The aliens descended warily, looking about them as if in wonder. Lho stretcher-bearers carrying the Effectuators emerged from the 'ship and were met at the foot of the ramp by armed escorts who ushered them across the hangar to the dome. Disciples spilled out, men and women who had worked with Hunter in the early days. They shook hands with him, spoke hurried words of celebration and triumph, and he returned both handshakes and words, but hardly realised he was doing so, his gaze locked on the exit for the first sign of his daughter.
The first wave of passengers cleared from the ramp, and there was a short delay until the next group appeared. Hunter saw Miguelino and his pilot and three more Enginemen - and then, behind them, the tiny, fragile figure of Ella.
Miguelino and the pilot strode down the ramp, embraced Hunter and spoke greetings he never heard, then passed on.
Ella had stopped at the top of the ramp. Reality seemed to dissolve around her; things vanished from his perception, sound became silence. All he could see was his daughter, all he could hear was his heartbeat.
She stepped down the ramp and limped towards him. Her face was bruised and swollen, her right arm swaddled in a white bandage. She looked so small and frail and vulnerable, ill-treated and in need of what, for years, he had denied her.
She almost fell the last metre into his arms, and she was no weight at all as he caught her and held her to him. He felt her warmth against him and the slightness of her body as she wept against his chest and he repeated her name like an incantation.
Above her head, at the top of the ramp, Ralph Mirren appeared, Dan Leferve beside him. Mirren carried his brother in his arms. He seemed like a man transformed, then, purged of torment and pain. Slowly, they made their way down the ramp and joined Hunter and Ella, and together they crossed the hangar towards the geodesic and the act of communion about to take place.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mirren sat in a booth at the back of the Blue Shift restaurant bar, nursing a beer and considering the events of the past few weeks.
The bar was quiet, unlike the last time he was here. It was five o'clock, and the serious partying was yet to begin. He enjoyed the quiet, and the solitude. For a week after his return from the Reach, he'd been hounded by news agencies wanting his story. He'd