Engineman - Eric Brown [33]
The woman ordered an old man behind the bar to pour Ella a drink, then all but pushed her into a chair beside an open hearth. Ella took off her jacket, and the woman stared with round eyes at the revealed silversuit. Then she saw the infinity symbol on Ella's arm.
"Mama mia! No wonder they follow you!"
"Follow me? Who?"
The woman gestured with her thumb. "Who else? The bastard in the flier. Here, drink!"
The woman took a small glass of colourless liquid from the rough-grained timber bar and passed it to Ella. Hesitantly, she took a sip, gagged and coughed. She regained her breath, her eyes watering.
While she was recovering, the old woman was speaking to the man behind the bar in Spanish so rapid that Ella had no hope of following what was being said.
The woman smiled. "Your taxi driver. He called five minutes ago to tell me that you had been followed from the 'port. He thought you needed help. He was a brave man to even call me, senorita. One month ago his son was arrested by the military on suspicion of assisting the Disciples. The following day he was found in an alley with his throat cut." The woman shook her head. "But you cannot stay here, little one. It is not safe. Costa Julliana swarms with the military. My husband will arrange for your people to come and take you away-"
"My people?"
The old woman slapped Ella's arm with her meaty hand. "Disciples, who else? Now come this way."
She took Ella through to a back room. Sheep skins were draped over armchairs and old photographs and images of Christ covered the walls. Ella sat in a comfortable chair. She was still clutching her drink. She took a mouthful, the alcohol helping to calm her.
The woman drew up a three-legged stool. "Now - you need not tell me if you so wish - but why did you come to the Reach? Surely you have heard about the troubles?"
Ella shook her head. "We've had no news on Earth-"
The woman closed her eyes. "I hoped at least that help might arrive from somewhere, if what was happening here was known. So you came here in all innocence?"
Ella hesitated, deciding to tell only half the truth. "I came for a holiday. I lived here as a child. I wanted to revisit-"
"I'm truly sorry. You might have been allowed onto the Reach, but let me tell you, little one, that there's no way they would let you leave the planet. We are under military command. Many citizens have fled south, down the coast."
"But what's happening? Why should they be persecuting the Disciples?"
"Something is happening in the mountains - don't ask me what. For weeks, convoys have been heading north. All over the Reach, Ex-Enginemen and -women, their families and friends, are being rounded up, interrogated. Most are never seen again. I am an old woman - it is a mystery to me. But I know on whose side I stand! Ever since the organisation came to the Reach - no good. Have you heard of the Nazis, little one?"
"Of course - fascists who ruled Germany in the middle of the twentieth century and again in the twenty-first."
The old woman was nodding. "Well, these people are every bit as evil."
Ella raised the glass to her lips. This time, the tequila went down as smooth as honey.
The door from the bar swung open, startling her. Three men entered the room. They wore peasant's jackets and their faces were blackened. Ella noticed that the left sleeve of the first Disciple's jacket was empty, flattened and pinned to his side.
"There she is," the old man said, coming in behind them.
The one-armed Disciple regarded Ella, then grabbed her arm and roughly turned it over to reveal her tattoo. Far from acting as she might have expected a rescue party to behave, these men seemed nervous, suspicious - perhaps with good reason, if half the things the old woman had told her were true.
The Disciple