Engineman - Eric Brown [220]
Roberts exploded. "Jesus! That's your daughter down there. If we don't get her out of that bloody hole she won't survive much longer!"
Bartholomew peered down the crevice at Elegy, who stared up at him mutely with massive, beseeching eyes and blood bubbling from between her lips. "You don't know what it cost me to create the piece," he said. "It's unique, irreplaceable. I could never do another quite like it..."
In rage I gripped his arm and shook him. "Elegy's unique, for chrissake! She's irreplaceable. Are you going to let her bleed to death?"
Something snapped within him, and his face registered a terrible capitulation. He closed his eyes and nodded. "Very well..." he said. "Very well, use the frame."
I hauled him to his feet and we hurried across the road. With Ralph's help I assisted Bartholomew into the back of the truck, where we stood side by side clutching the bulkhead. Roberts and the chauffeur climbed into the cab and started the vehicle, and we rumbled off down the road at breakneck speed, Bartholomew rocking impassively from side to side between us. He stared into the never-ending sky and said not a word as the desert sped by.
Ten minutes later we roared through the gates of the Oasis, manoeuvred through the concourse and backed up to the continuum-frame. We enlisted the aid of two attendants and for the next five minutes, with Bartholomew looking on and pleading with us to be careful, jacked the frame level with the back of the truck and dragged it aboard. Bartholomew insisted on travelling with it, as if his presence might ease its passage, and Ralph and I joined him in the back. We accelerated from the concourse and through the gates, leaving a posse of on-lookers gaping in amazement.
As the truck raced along the desert road and into the hills, Bartholomew clung to the great rusting frame and gazed into the radiance at its centre, its veined depths reflecting in his bright blue eyes. We lurched over pot-holes and the frame rocked back and forth. Bartholomew stared at me, mute appeal in his eyes. "It's going!" he called out. "I'm losing it!"
I stared into the swirling cobalt glow. As I watched, the marmoreal threads of white luminance began to fade. I could only assume that these threads were the physical manifestation of Bartholomew's sick, psychic contribution to the piece, the phenomena I had experienced as tortured flesh and acute mental anguish. Over a period of minutes the white light dissolved and the bright glow waned to sky blue, and Bartholomew simply closed his eyes as he had at the plight of his daughter.
Before we arrived at the scene of the accident, the truck turned off the road, crossed the desert and backed up to the great slab in which Elegy was imprisoned. We halted a metre away from the face of the rock and Bartholomew, like a man in a trance, touched the controls and extended the blue beam into the boulder.
Then we jumped from the truck and scrambled up the hillside. We gathered around the crevice, peering down to judge how near the beam was to the girl. I stood beside Bartholomew as he stared at his daughter, his expression of compassion tempered by terrible regret, and I felt an inexpressible pity for the man.
"We'll have you out in no time!" I called down to her.
She was staring up at us, blinking bravely. We were not so far off with the beam. It penetrated the rock one metre to her left; all that was required was for the beam to be shifted a little closer to the girl.
When I looked up, Ralph, Roberts and the chauffeur were no longer with us. I assumed they had returned to the frame. I took Bartholomew's arm in reassurance and turned my attention to the girl.
I stared down into the crevice...
I thought at first that my eyesight was at fault. I seemed to be looking through Elegy's crimson dress, through her round brown face and appealing eyes. As I watched, the girl became ever more indistinct, insubstantial - she seemed to be dematerialising before our very eyes. And then, along with all the blood, her image flickered