Engineman - Eric Brown [82]
Then he came across a portrait of himself. He thought - he hoped - it might be an early work; certainly it did not possess the technical accomplishment of her later work, and it was certainly influenced. It showed a head, all cadaver - grey with a quarter splotch of crimson, its features twisted and misplaced, the effect almost Mephistophelean. In its brutality and despair it was almost a pastiche of the twentieth-century artist Francis Bacon. Hunter replaced it behind a stack of others, loath to acknowledge the import of the painting, and moved around the room. Pinned to the wall by the head of the bed was a photograph of Ella and the Engineman, Schwartz - according to the name-tag on his silvers - similar to the one she had sent him. In this one, Ella was riding her lover piggy-back, bare legs wrapped around his waist. Her smile contrasted with the total lack of animation on the face of the Engineman. The Disciple's tattoo on Ella's forearm was prominent.
He took the snap from the wall, sat down on the bed and stared at it. He thought back to the time he had received the photograph from Ella, seven years ago. That year had proved a turning point in his life. During that long, hot summer, events had occurred which made him question the morality of the Organisation and his position within it. Danzig militia had put down a rebellion on Esperance, imposed a puppet dictator, and proceeded to rule the planet with brutal efficiency. Thousands of innocent civilians were interrogated and never heard from again. Over the years, Hunter had risen to a position in the Danzig hierarchy from which he could form a historical overview, thanks to records and data hitherto unavailable to him, of the success and failure of the Organisation's political regimes around the Rim. Propaganda had suggested that they were hard but fair, bringing prosperity to the planets they pacified. In fact, Hunter learned that the Organisation's record on the planets they had taken over was abysmal: they ruled with terror; their human rights record was appalling, and the only prosperity they brought was to the ruling elite on the planets they took over - the vast majority of the citizens lived well below the poverty level. Hunter rapidly became discontent and dissatisfied; his position of power and privilege was soured, came to mean nothing. And then, to end it all, he discovered that the plague that had very nearly wiped out the Lho-Dharvon people had been manufactured, in retaliation for the aliens' armed opposition, by the Organisation itself.
In the middle of this plethora of discovery, Ella's photograph had arrived, the declaration of her independence and conversion. Over the months, it had worked slowly on him... More and more he became curious as to why exactly his daughter had converted, and at the same time, perhaps even subconsciously, he was seeking a philosophy to replace his shattered faith in the Danzig Organisation. He had read books, spoken to Enginemen and Disciples, made contacts with heads of the Church. He was duly initiated, after a rigorous vetting by a naturally suspicious jury of Disciples, while still a Danzig executive. For a couple of years he'd remained with the Organisation, and then dropped quickly from sight and worked actively for the resistance.
Soon after that, the Lho had contacted him.
He sat on the bed and stared at the photograph. He ached to talk to her, to explain himself. He placed the picture on the bed beside him, and only then noticed the disc. Beneath it was the small photograph of himself he had sent along with the disc. He picked up the photo; it had been screwed