Engineman - Eric Brown [22]
They crossed the circular floor to the exit hatch and strode down a corridor, Mirren's curiosity increasing by the second. Hunter pushed open a swing door and stepped through, and Mirren followed. They were in the crew's lounge - a long, comfortably-appointed relaxation area which obtruded through the skin of the 'ship. Hunter strolled up to the vast, concave viewscreen and looked down the length of the bigship. Mirren stopped on the threshold and stared at the great rococo name-plate affixed to the curving flank of the 'ship.
Hunter lifted the mobile half of his mouth. "The Martian Epiphany, Mr Mirren. The 'ship you pushed for five years, two of them as team-captain, before your transfer to the Perseus Bound, if I am not mistaken."
Mirren crossed the lounge. The air was cloyingly humid, making him feel dizzy. He took in the low, plush loungers, the sunken bunkers in black leather. He was taken back in time fifteen years. Between stints in the tank and hours sleeping in his cabin, he would come down here and stare out at the cobalt-blue magnificence of the nada-continuum, shot through with streamers of milky luminescence like streaks in marble which believing Enginemen claimed were the souls of the dead and departed. How many hours had he spent here, gazing out in dazed wonder?
He recalled who he had been back then, what he had been, a team-commander with authority and confidence...
Hunter was smiling at him with an expression that seemed cognisant, in its compassion, of his distress. "Wasn't this the 'ship where you first commanded the Engine-team you were to be with till the end?"
Mirren stared at the off-worlder. "How do you know so much? This 'ship, my team...?"
"I've read Mubarak's memoirs, E-man Blues. It's all in there. Have you read it?"
"Started it. Couldn't read much. I found it too painful." He'd worked with Mubarak in the early days on the Martian Epiphany. His memoirs had become a bestseller around the time the Lines were folding.
"He painted a glowing portrait of you, Mr Mirren. A fine Engineman - strong, capable, respected by your fellow E-men, a pusher destined to go on and lead your own team, which of course you did. You were also one of the few Enginemen not to be associated with the Disciples. A disbeliever."
Mirren said, more to himself than to Hunter, "Mubarak was a rabid Disciple. We were equally scathing about each other's views, but we didn't let our differences get in the way of our work."
"He has nothing but praise for the team you commanded aboard this 'ship and the Perseus."
"They were the best," Mirren stated simply. The thought of his team, the events they had lived through, tortured him.
Hunter strolled the length of the lounge beneath the arc of the viewscreen. Down below was an avenue, and across it more ranked starships. He gazed through, silent, as if contemplating his next question.
"Are you in contact with any of your team, Mr Mirren?"
The question took him by surprise. "One or two... The others..." He shrugged. "I suppose we've drifted apart."
The truth was that he had hardly kept in contact with even the one or two he claimed. Dan Leferve, his second-in-command back then and closest colleague, he had last seen five years ago. Leferve ran an investigation Agency in Bondy, and he was religious - and it seemed to Mirren that they no longer had anything in common. Which was really just an excuse for his inertia and apathy.
He'd last seen Caspar Fekete seven years ago, before the Nigerian became a big noise in the bio-computer industry. For all his agreement with Fekete's atheism, he had found the man arrogant and opinionated. The other two, the Enginewomen Christiana Olafson and Jan Elliott, he hadn't seen since their discharge from the Line. He'd heard that Olafson was living in Hamburg, but