Engineman - Eric Brown [95]
Fernandez!
He could not believe it. He was escorted forward, then right. He stood on a metal disc with just one other person. They rose, his stomach lurching with the ascent. Then forward, and right, along a carpeted surface. Right again. He could sense by the atmosphere around him that he was in a small, enclosed space.
The hand released its grip on his upper arm.
Bobby stood in the darkness, heart beating wildly, hardly daring to believe where he was - where he thought he was. What could it mean?
He held out both arms, took a step forward. His fingers came up against a wall, its surface familiar. He turned to the left, his fingers tracing the shape of the enclosing walls. He found the oval indentation and knew it for a viewscreen.
To his left, if he were correct, would be a bunk, beside it a hammock sling. He moved to his left, sat down abruptly on the mattress.
Why? Why had they brought him here?
He could not believe it, but it was true.
He was in the cabin of a smallship.
Chapter Sixteen
Mirren arrived early at the Blue Shift restaurant-cum-cabaret club. The place brought back memories. Years ago he'd come here to wind down at journey's end. He had never really thought about why it was so popular with Enginemen and -women, but now he realised that the clientele, far from needing a complete change of ambience on their return home, had required familiar surroundings to ease them back into the routine of Earth. Then, as now, it was fitted out in a series of individual dining-booths simulating the lounges, rest-rooms and observation cells of bigships. The semi-circle of open-ended units, like display modules in some vast habitat emporium, faced a circular dance-floor. Beyond was the raised platform where a band played slow music.
He ordered a second lager and sat back in the comfort of the U-shaped couch. That morning he'd fallen asleep with his head full of the fact that he was dying, and the first thing that had come to him on awakening this evening, swooping down to cloak his thoughts in darkness, was the spectre of his illness. It was ironic that, just as he had been promised the chance to flux again, he should be struck down with Heine's. Still, it could have been worse: he could be dying without the promise of the flux to ease his passing. He recalled what Hunter had told him, that after the mission the smallship would be theirs. The thought of being able to flux for four or five years was a great comfort. He considered Bobby, and his inability to tell him about the mission. Maybe later, he thought, when we have the 'ship; maybe I'll be able to tell him then, grant him his desire to achieve the ultimate union he so believes in.
He glanced at his watch. Caroline was fifteen minutes late. He smiled to himself at the thought that she might have stood him up. He drank his lager and watched the choreographed movements of the dancers on the floor, turning to the music like tesserae in a kaleidoscope.
Five minutes later Caroline edged her way around the dance-floor. She saw him and pulled a face expressing her effort at side-stepping through the close-packed bodies. She was wearing a black bolero jacket, tight black leggings and boots. She'd had her hair cut even shorter since yesterday and bleached gold. Facially, she was very much as he remembered her from twenty years ago. He tried to recall what he'd felt for her back then. He must have loved her - whatever that meant - but all he experienced now at the sight of her was a vague familiarity, a few memories dulled by the years and the flux.
He decided to say nothing to her about his illness. He didn't want her sympathy.
"Ralph. Sorry I'm late." She slipped into the booth across from him. "Been here long?"
"About two lagers. Can I get you a drink?"
"The same. One at a time, though."
She watched him seriously as he press-selected a lager from the table-top