Engineman - Eric Brown [29]
The terminal was low and shabby. The courier who led them from the coach and into the building was garbed in the green uniform and the black beret of the Danzig Organisation. "All travellers onwards to Mephisto and Jet, continue through to lounge two. Passengers bound for Hennessy's Reach, please take a seat and wait here."
The majority of travellers continued through to the second lounge. Five others, besides Ella, seated themselves before the rain-spattered viewscreen: three low-ranking soldiers in uniform, an officer with a peaked cap and over-the-top epaulettes, and a businessman with a briefcase. Ella took a seat well away from them, conscious of being the only woman and casual traveller, and stared out at the bleak scene of the 'port.
Two minutes later the 'face activated, and before she had time to hope that the first world onto which it opened would be the Reach, she recognised the familiar sky-scape of the Rim world. Framed in the exact centre of the portal was the apex of the fiery red giant, like a plasma graphic committed by an incurable romantic. Before the giant primary was an expanse of dark sea, the great Mérida ocean which covered a quarter of the planet's surface. In the foreground was the 'port, a collection of functional terminal buildings and control towers. Ella found herself staring at the low arc of the red giant, at the great loops and geysers of flame erupting from its circumference in majestic slow motion. She recalled her last summer on the Reach, a certain friendship prematurely ended, and experienced a sour-sweet pang of sadness.
A long convoy of armoured vehicles trundled across the rain-swept tarmac and approached the interface. Before she could remind herself of the repression represented by such a show of force, something elemental within her thrilled to the power, uniformity and synchronised precision of the military convoy. The vehicles rumbled through the 'face with a deafening roar of engines. Ella recognised tanks and personnel carriers, nuclear rocket launchers like long tankers and fliers lashed to the flat-beds of low-loaders - but there were other vehicles, bulbous pantechnicons and things that looked like helicopters without rotor-blades, the function of which she could only guess at.
She recalled Hennessy's Reach from the days in her teens. It had been a quiet, backwater world on which nothing ever seemed to happen. She remembered that her father had considered his posting there as a demotion, which might have been a contributory factor to his moods at the time. Now she wondered what had happened, in the ten years she had been away, to account for the military build-up.
She stared through the interface. In the fifteen minutes since the 'face had opened, the sun had set fractionally. Sunrise and sunset lasted for five hours on the Reach, with correspondingly long days and nights - approximately fourteen standard hours each. The sunset phase had been Ella's favourite time of day, warm and balmy. She'd spent long evenings swimming in the sun-warmed lagoons of the Falls with her friend L'Endo-kharriat.
The bitterness provoked by these memories was stopped short when the military courier called, "Everyone for Hennessy's Reach..."
She shouldered her bag and crossed the lounge to the desk, standing in line behind the military officer. When it was his turn to be processed, the official at the desk gave his card a cursory scan and saluted. "Pleasant trip, Major."
He was not so swift in dealing with Ella.
He examined her card, then slipped it into a computer scanner. He read the information revealed on the screen, frequently glancing at Ella. She pulled the lapels of her jacket together, conscious of her silversuit beneath.
"I take it that 'Fernandez' is an assumed surname?" he asked.
"Right."
"And that you're a Disciple."
What good would come from denying it? "Right again."
The official tapped at his keyboard, entering the information. "Your profession?"
Her details were on the identity card. He was trying to intimidate her with his authority.
"I'm an artist," she