Engineman Part 6

At the sight of her, the driver withdrew his feet from the window and started the engine. "Hotel, senorita senorita?"

She peered in at him. "Can you take me into Zambique?"

The driver made a pained face. "Not possible, senorita senorita. City closed. Military patrols. Local hotel, yes?"

Ella recalled the small town three kilometres down the coast where she'd stayed once with her father. She dumped her bag on the back seat and climbed in beside it. "Do you know the Hotel Santa Rosa, Costa Julliana?"

"Si, senorita senorita. No problem."

She sat back as the car chuntered from the forecourt and headed down the coast road. The driver braked, then muttered something under his breath as the military convoy pulled from the s.p.a.ceport and moved north. The procession of identically camouflaged jungle-green vehicles pa.s.sing before them soon became monotonous. Ten minutes later, as the last armoured truck left the 'port, Ella asked in Spanish, "What is the problem? Why all the military?"

The driver glanced at her in the rear-view mirror, smiling sadly. He mimed locking his mouth and throwing the key through the window. "No questions, no answers, no awakenings at two in the morning." He drew a finger across his Adam's apple and made an accompanying gurgling sound in his throat.

"Christ," Ella murmured to herself. She stared out at the fields of rice and the occasional sumptuous villa.

Hennessy's Reach was one of half a dozen planets on the Rim settled almost seventy years ago by colonists from the countries that made up the Latin Federation. Over a period of twenty years, two million citizens from Spain, Mexico and South America had made the journey by bigs.h.i.+p to the Reach, and settled on the world's three largest continents. It had never been a prosperous colony, even in the early days when subsidised by the Federation. Twenty years ago, the Danzig Organisation launched a successful economic take-over of the planet - one of over two hundred which had fallen domino-like to the Organisation around the Rim - and since then the economy of the planet had declined still further. The four million inhabitants of the Reach managed to feed themselves, but only just. Ella guessed that the Hennessians had finally had enough, and instigated a rebellion - hard though that was to imagine of a people she remembered as being peaceable and easy-going. She wondered why she had heard nothing of the trouble on any of the news channels back on Earth.

The taxi followed the coast road around the headland. The small fis.h.i.+ng town of Costa Julliana nestled in a horse-shoe cove ahead. A few lights burned in the windows of the stone buildings on the hillside, but the main square which fronted the ocean was empty, as was the jetty extending from the harbour wall. Ella recalled the town's inhabitants promenading along the jetty on hot evenings.

The driver was cutting though the square, heading for the continuation of the coast road and the hotel, when Ella saw the statue. She leaned forward. "Stop here!"

"But your hotel, senorita senorita?"

"That's okay. It's not far. I'll walk from here."

She paid him in the local currency she'd bought back on Earth, grabbed her bag and climbed from the taxi. As it started up and u-turned, Ella stood on the cobbles beside a dry fountain and stared across the square.

A hover-truck was parked on the harbour wall, the crane on its flat-bed silhouetted against the sunset. A corps of green-uniformed engineers stood around, regarding the statue. Ella moved forward, then stopped - close enough to see the detail of the towering figure, but not so close that she attracted the attention of the engineers.

She had never seen the statue before - it had certainly been erected since her departure from the Reach. She found the piece terribly moving not just in an aesthetic sense, but also in what it symbolised. The bronze casting, perhaps three metres high, was of a figure standing and staring inland, a staff in its right hand - a male member of the Lho-Dharvo race, the aliens native to the Reach. To human eyes, the statue seemed to be out of proportion, too tall and attenuated for the insectoid width of its starvation-thin limbs, as if stretched to the point of being unable to bear its own slight weight. Its rib-cage was long, each individual, curving bone distinct beneath its copper and bronze piebald skin. Its head was long and thin, too, with large eyes, no nose other than two vertical slits, and a mouth no more than a thin humourless line. To a human observer, the alien at first seemed too too alien, and then when the eye accepted its similarities, it appeared rea.s.suringly humanoid. Only then, when the observer had been fooled into accepting the alien as familiar, did its differences rea.s.sert themselves and mark the statue for what it was - a member of a sentient species not human. alien, and then when the eye accepted its similarities, it appeared rea.s.suringly humanoid. Only then, when the observer had been fooled into accepting the alien as familiar, did its differences rea.s.sert themselves and mark the statue for what it was - a member of a sentient species not human.

It was, thought Ella, a fitting tribute to an extinct race. Eleven years ago, the first of the Lho had succ.u.mbed to a viral epidemic, and four years later all three million aliens on the four continents of the Reach - or Dharvon, as they knew it - were dead. Ella had read of the extinction in a Paris magazine, and she felt now much the same sense of impotent rage and personal loss.

As she watched, an engineer took a cutting tool and sliced through the statue's thin left ankle. A noose suspended from the crane was slipped around the alien's n.o.ble head.

A noise on the other side of the square, behind Ella, made her turn. A flier descended and landed on the cobbles. Someone - in the descending twilight it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman - climbed out and stared across at the statue's removal.

Cautiously, Ella approached the engineers. She stood beside a sergeant who seemed to be in charge of the operation.

She gestured at the statue as its left leg was severed with a shriek of tortured metal. Now only its staff secured the statue to its plinth. The hawser around its neck tightened, drawing the alien off-centre.

"Why...?" she asked, shaking her head.

The sergeant glanced at Ella. He was a tall, grey-haired and patriarchal European, as n.o.ble in his own way as the statue.

"I wish I knew," he said in a Scandinavian accent. "It's rather beautiful, isn't it? But I have my orders."

They watched together as the staff was severed. Released from its final mooring, the alien hung from the noose and rotated absurdly. Half a dozen soldiers steadied the statue and directed it towards the hover-truck.

Unable to find the words to express the sense of loss that was like a cavity within her, Ella turned and hurried off across the square.

Someone stepped from the shadow of the fountain. For a second, she thought it was the driver of the flier, but then she saw that the figure was short, dumpy: an old woman.

"Ssst! Senorita Senorita!" the woman hissed. "A hotel, yes?" She pointed along the harbour to a white-washed building overlooking the sea. She smiled, a gold tooth gleaming in the light of the sun.

Ella hesitated. She had wanted to revisit the Santa Rosa, to stir old memories.

The old woman caught her arm, not unkindly. "Senorita, it is almost curfew!" she said in Spanish. "They will take great delight in shooting you in the head at the first stroke of eight! Please, this way..."

Ella judged that there was nothing mercenary in the old woman's concern; she seemed genuinely concerned for Ella's safety. She gestured towards the hotel, taking Ella by the hand and dragging her from the square.

As they turned the corner, the woman looked back over her shoulder at the tall figure standing beside the flier. She hissed something under her breath, then hauled Ella up three steps and through the timber door of a small whitewashed building.

Two old men were bent over a board-game in the bar-room. Wooden chairs and tables stood on a polished timber floor, and supporting the ceiling were what looked like genuine oak beams. Ella reminded herself that she was on the Reach now, a relatively young colony world with abundant natural resources. The use of timber would not be regarded as profligate here, as it would on Earth.

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 me? Who?"

The woman gestured with her thumb. "Who else? The b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the flier. Here, drink!"

The woman took a small gla.s.s of colourless liquid from the rough-grained timber bar and pa.s.sed 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 senorita. One month ago his son was arrested by the military on suspicion of a.s.sisting 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 n.a.z.is, 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 gla.s.s 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 nodded. "Very well. This way." They turned and hurried through the door. The old woman hugged Ella. "You will be well with them, little one. Do not be scared!"

A trap-door behind the bar gave access to a flight of steps, descending into the darkness. Ella was pushed down after the first Disciple, and the two others followed. By the light of an ancient paraffin lamp she made out a stretch of water and a small fis.h.i.+ng boat. She was bundled over the gunwale. A hand gripped her chin and her head was pulled back. Something cold and metallic touched her temple.

"One word, one wrong movement... the slightest sign that you work for them, senorita senorita..."

Chapter Six.

Bobby Mirren was the Time-Lapsed Man, or the Man Who Lived in Two worlds, according to the headlines of some of the tras.h.i.+er journals which ran stories on him a decade ago. In fact, Bobby liked to think of himself as the man who lived in four worlds. He lived nominally in the present, and more substantially a day in the past; he lived a rich life in his memories, and an even richer life antic.i.p.ating the future. Some part of him was in contact with the numinous reality of the nada nada-continuum, a tenuous and subtle contact like two spheres touching but never interpenetrating, a contact which promised that some day he would merge, become one, and in so doing totally fulfil himself. On the edge of his consciousness when he meditated he was aware of a sweet calling.

Now - though the word was largely meaningless to Bobby - now now he sat in his armchair in his bed-sitting room. What he could feel, the threadbare arm of the chair beneath his hand, was out of context with what he was experiencing from yesterday. One day ago he had an open book on his lap and was finger-reading the Braille translation of a Buddhist tract. Now he could see the great tome spread across his lap, could see his hand speeding along the dotted lines, but he could not feel the weight of the book on his lap nor the raised pointillism of the Braille beneath his fingertips. His lap was empty and he could feel the material of the armchair beneath his fingers. He laid back his head and closed his eyes, and he continued to see what his eyes had been directed at yesterday, the book, the carpet before his feet, the far wall... He heard the sound of a flier pa.s.sing overhead, but knew that the vehicle had pa.s.sed by a day ago and would be long gone by now. he sat in his armchair in his bed-sitting room. What he could feel, the threadbare arm of the chair beneath his hand, was out of context with what he was experiencing from yesterday. One day ago he had an open book on his lap and was finger-reading the Braille translation of a Buddhist tract. Now he could see the great tome spread across his lap, could see his hand speeding along the dotted lines, but he could not feel the weight of the book on his lap nor the raised pointillism of the Braille beneath his fingertips. His lap was empty and he could feel the material of the armchair beneath his fingers. He laid back his head and closed his eyes, and he continued to see what his eyes had been directed at yesterday, the book, the carpet before his feet, the far wall... He heard the sound of a flier pa.s.sing overhead, but knew that the vehicle had pa.s.sed by a day ago and would be long gone by now.

Bobby Mirren's every sense, with the exception of his sense of touch, was lapsed by almost twenty-four hours. What he saw today he had looked at yesterday; what he heard now first came to his ears a day ago. Similarly with his senses of taste and smell; he would eat a meal today, and, although he would be aware of the texture of the food filling his mouth, it would be tasteless - until the following day when its taste would flood his mouth. He compensated by taking his meals at the same time each day, so that he could taste yesterday's meal while eating today's. In the early days he had experimented - eating steak and then the following day at the same time eating strawberries, so that he would taste the b.l.o.o.d.y meat while having the sensation of chewing the soft fruit. He had experimented too with the other odd phenomena of his unique condition. He would set off and walk thorough the streets of Paris, feeling his way around the masonry and railings and gla.s.s shop-fronts like a blind man - the difference being that, although in his fumbling hesitation he might have appeared blind, he was in fact seeing what he had looked upon the day before: the interior of his room, a vid-doc.u.mentary, a meal he had eaten... The following day Bobby would remain in the apartment and finger-read a religious tract, while visually and aurally experiencing his trip outside the day before. The dichotomous sense of experiencing two different realities, both just as unreal, had given him, after the initial, nauseous surge of disorientation, a cerebral thrill, an intellectual high, which he tied in with his wide reading in Buddhist philosophy: simply, that this life with an illusion - and he had been vouchsafed, for some reason, the condition that made this obvious. The strange sensory anomaly, which most people would consider a curse, Bobby from the outset looked upon as a blessing, a sign from beyond this reality that he was special, even chosen.

He was the only time-lapsed man to have survived. There had been five beside himself in the last couple of years before the closure of the bigs.h.i.+p Lines. The first two Enginemen, Black and Thorn, had died after just a few days of hospitalisation and observation. The following three had lasted months. All five had drifted irrevocably into comatose states, and then pa.s.sed from this existence to the next.

But Bobby Mirren had survived.

He recalled his final s.h.i.+ft in the flux-tank as if it were yesterday. It would have been his last push anyway, even if he had not succ.u.mbed to Black's Syndrome. The Javelin Line had been bought out by an interface organisation, and portals were to replace bigs.h.i.+ps in the sector of the Expansion served by his Line. He, along with every other Engineman, had been at first incredulous and outraged at the news that the 's.h.i.+ps were being phased out, and then when the fact and its implications sank in, psychologically devastated. Enginemen lived for the flux; it was what made their lives worthwhile, a contact with the infinite that nothing - no amount of wors.h.i.+p, prayer or study - could replace. Bobby had gone into the tank for the last time hoping that he would die a flux-death, so as to be spared the years of terrible deprivation. In the event, he almost got his wish.

It was a haul like any other, a three day push from Earth to Reqa-el-Sharif along the spiral arm. He had jacked-in and laid on the slide-bed with the usual reverence that the ritual called for, but with a sense of poignancy also that this time would be the last. He had slipped into a trance as he entered the tank, suddenly aware of the vast, numinous infinity of the nada nada-continuum, and his part in it; a tiny, insignificant speck of life. He wanted nothing more then than to cross the cusp all the way and become one with the sublime.

Then - and he had been sure that some part of him experienced it at the time, sure that it was not a retrospective illusion - he was conscious of a presence presence within his mind, a crawling, probing heat that seemed to be investigating the many layers that made up his being. He felt areas of his brain closing down, becoming stagnant - and he received the distinct impression that he was being stripped down to his essence, his basic animal self, before being accepted more fully than ever before into the continuum. He was dimly aware of a consciousness at work within him, a guiding intelligence behind what was happening, which was benign and had only his well-being at heart. within his mind, a crawling, probing heat that seemed to be investigating the many layers that made up his being. He felt areas of his brain closing down, becoming stagnant - and he received the distinct impression that he was being stripped down to his essence, his basic animal self, before being accepted more fully than ever before into the continuum. He was dimly aware of a consciousness at work within him, a guiding intelligence behind what was happening, which was benign and had only his well-being at heart.

On the very edge of his awareness he heard the intelligence, calling to him...

Then with a sudden, terrible wrench, he was ejected from the flux-tank. He felt his body being manhandled from the slide-bed, the medics giving him a thorough examination - but all he could see was darkness, and all he could hear was the quiet humming that accompanied the process of en-tankment... He had read about Black's Syndrome, and he knew then that he was its sixth victim.

Bobby had spent almost a year in a private medical inst.i.tute in New York, his senses lapsing by a few minutes each day, until the time they ceased their drift and halted at almost twenty-four hours. He had been quite prepared for death - he had after all experienced the wondrous realm that followed - but, a month after his senses had stabilised, he was told by the medics that he had survived, could lead an almost almost normal life, and part of him had been disappointed at the news, cheated at the thought of being unable to follow the other sufferers of the Syndrome to a better place. normal life, and part of him had been disappointed at the news, cheated at the thought of being unable to follow the other sufferers of the Syndrome to a better place.

He had tried to find out what, medically, neurologically, had happened to him - but the medics, although they bl.u.s.tered, had no real idea. They talked of malfunctions in the tank-leads which had affected certain areas of the brain, and gave Bobby lectures on complex neurological dysfunctions which meant nothing at all to him.

The very fact that he had undergone the mysterious transformation and survived convinced him that he had been affected for a reason - this and the fact that ever since his final push he had been blessed with a greater recollection of being united with the infinite. Usually after a push, the fleeting, elusive awareness lasted only hours, but with Bobby it continued, so that even now all he had to do was relax, meditate and concentrate, and he would experience again some measure of the rapture of the union. At these times he could almost hear the calling, a signal from the intelligence that had tried to ease him into the continuum ten years before.

He had come to Paris, moved into his brother's apartment, and after the sickening, sycophantic attention of the media during which he became a nine day wonder, eliciting pity, proposals of marriage - even death threats from a Muslim sect who considered his claims of contact with a higher force as blasphemous - he had settled down to a quiet life of study.

Over the years he had read widely of all the various mystical religions on Earth, and several from beyond, but always came away dissatisfied, aware that none of them addressed what he had experienced while in flux. Even the Disciples, who he had joined when becoming an Engineman, were too obsessed with ritual and dogma. He had stopped looking for answers in human religions, realising that he had experienced the ultimate truth in the nada nada-continuum and occasionally in meditation - and merely read Buddhist and Disciple tracts out of interest, a second best as there was no real codified treatise to explain the continuum; it merely was was...

Now, Bobby saw what he had looked at yesterday - his vision dictated by the movement of his eyes almost twenty-four hours ago: the book, the carpet. As he watched, he saw his hands close the great book, its cover the size of a trap-door, and hoist it over the side of his armchair to the floor. He sat upright now and experienced his vision tilt dizzyingly as he had leaned over the arm of the chair. He watched his hands return and settle on his knees. He recalled that he had sat like this, in silent contemplation, for fifteen minutes. He thought back a day, and realised that he had been watching and listening to, from the previous day, a vid-disc doc.u.mentary about the exploration of a newly discovered planet in the Crab nebula. He had stopped his reading when the programme started, to give his full attention to the vid-screen. He could not read normal printed books, newspapers or magazines; unable to see these in real-time, he could not train his eyes to scan the exacting lines of print. He fared much better with the vid-screen, where the visual target was much larger - he'd rest his head against the wing of his chair and stare straight ahead. He tended, though, to watch only hired doc.u.mentary discs on the 'screen, bored by the combination of brutality and triviality of the networked programmes. He spent a lot of time listening to the radio and his own music pins. He remembered that yesterday at six he had put some music on the player, Tibetan mantras followed by a cla.s.sical symphony, lay down on the bed in the corner and closed his eyes - while continuing to watch a news programme about the decline of Europe. Now he snapped open the gla.s.s cover of his wrist-watch and felt for the hands. It was almost four. In two hours he would get up, put some music on the player, and go and lie down, while listening to the music he had selected yesterday; tomorrow, he would repeat the process, and duly enjoy the music he would select in two hours... Unlike everyone else in the world, Bobby could not spontaneously gratify his desires - to see a film, listen to music, taste a certain meal, or whatever. If he wished to listen to a mantra or a symphony, or taste a favourite food now, this second, it was of course impossible. He would put the music on, or eat the food today, and listen to the music and savour the meal a day later. In the early days he had found this frustrating. He was accustomed to it by now, had become practised at looking forward to whatever experience he had selected for himself the day before.

When four o'clock approached, Bobby was ready.

Yesterday at this time he had climbed to his feet and left the room. Now, as soon as he saw his hands move to the arms of the chair and begin to push himself up, he matched the movement with hands he could not see, and stood smoothly. It had taken months of practise to synchronise today's movements with yesterday's vision - for a long time he'd swayed like a drunk, and often fallen over. Now it came as second nature to him.

He walked across the room to the door, seeing what he had looked at the day before - substantially the very same scene he would have seen now if his vision had been normal. When he opened the door yesterday, his hand had lingered on the worn wooden handle, feeling the grain of the wood in his hand. The day before yesterday he had foregone his habitual routine, he recalled, and had climbed up to the roof. He remembered that yesterday at this point, with his hand caressing the door handle, he had been looking out across Paris towards Orly in the north, and the distant glow of the interface. Now, movement and vision were satisfyingly synchronised. He saw his hand holding the handle, and in real-time he held the handle, pulled back the door just as he had yesterday, watched it move towards him, stepped back and then proceeded from the room.

He followed his vision of yesterday across the gloomy hallway. The day before, he had paused for a minute outside his brother's bedroom, before entering. Today he did not want to enter the room on the off chance that Ralph would be awake and would wish to 'chat' with him - not verbally, on Ralph's part, but with a touch-language he would tap out on Bobby's palm.

Now Bobby deviated from the visual route he had taken yesterday. He turned towards the kitchen and felt his way along the wall until he came to the door. He felt his way around the kitchen until he came to the cooler, and pulled it open. In effect, he was doing all this blind, as he was watching what he had been looking at yesterday. Twenty-four hours ago, he had opened his brother's bedroom door and, unable to hear himself, slurred, "Ralph, it's only me."

Now, in the kitchen, he heard the words. He felt for a beer in the cooler, pulled out the bottle and chugged down the ice cold liquid. He saw the interior of Ralph's bedroom, the bed and the tangled sheets and Ralph, lying in his shorts on his back, staring at him. Sometimes, around this time, Ralph would be getting up for an early evening s.h.i.+ft, and they might eat together and 'converse'.

He enjoyed the feel of the beer coursing down his throat. Tomorrow he would taste it.

Yesterday he had stood at the door, unable to see whether Ralph was in bed, or had left for work - watching, still, the skyline of Paris from the day before. Now he held the cold bottle in his hand and tracked his erratic vision of the day before. Ralph was looking at him, Bobby could see peripherally, with no expression on his face.

He had not seen his brother smile in years. Ralph was forever pale and haggard-looking, often unshaven. His gaze carried that habitual, haunted look of the most severely affected Enginemen. Whenever Bobby saw his brother, he had the urge to hug him, tell him that all would be well - but of course by the time Bobby 'saw' Ralph, a day had pa.s.sed and it was too late, and of course Ralph would have ignored his religiose declarations anyway.

Bobby took another swallow of beer, felt its iciness cut his chest in two.

Ralph, still in bed, sketched a wave. "I'm sorry, Bobby," he said a day ago, the words coming suddenly while Bobby had turned from the room and felt his way out, a.s.suming Ralph had already left for work. "I've had a long s.h.i.+ft and I'm not on till ten. I'm trying to sleep, okay?"

At least, thought Bobby, he had said something so that I'd hear his excuse today, rather than feigning sleep.

They had drifted apart over the years, and more was to blame than the difficulty of maintaining a relations.h.i.+p due to Bobby's condition. Years ago they had both pushed 's.h.i.+ps for Lines based in Paris. They had seen each other frequently, toured the bars and jazz clubs together, attended parties and shows. The fact that Bobby had believed back then, and Ralph had not, had done nothing to deter their friends.h.i.+p. They had more in common than not, and they had genuinely enjoyed each other's company. Every time Bobby's 's.h.i.+p phased-in, the first person he would contact in Paris would be his brother.

It had seemed natural that he should accept Ralph's invitation, almost ten years ago, to come and live in Paris on his discharge from hospital. Since then they had lived their own, separate lives. Bobby tended to absorb himself in his books and meditation, and Ralph...? Ralph read a little, watched a little vid-screen, drank. He seemed constantly depressed, apathetic, living only for a dozen bottles of beer daily and his s.h.i.+ft at Orly, which he hated. They had both, at times, attempted to talk openly and seriously to each other, but Bobby's wholehearted acceptance of an afterlife had often run aground on Ralph's uncompromising atheism. They no longer had any common ground.

Bobby thought back to their childhood in Sydney, their father, a severely materialist nuclear scientist working on Australia's first fast breeder reactor programme. Their mother had died when they were too young to recall her, and their father had been over-strict, ruthless in his punishment for minor misdemeanours he considered grave. Ralph, the eldest and least strong-willed of the two boys, had kow-towed to his father, perhaps even subconsciously taken on board his secular world-view. Bobby, on the other hand, had rebelled, stubbornly studied religion, looking for the right one until he became an Engineman and discovered the creed of the Disciples.

Now his vision of yesterday tracked from the hall and moved into the kitchen. He watched the cooler door open and his hand take out a bottle of beer. Seconds later he saw the bottle rise to his mouth, tasted the sweet hopsy wash of it in his mouth even though his mouth today was empty. He soon remedied that, tipped his own bottle and felt it run tastelessly down his throat. Yesterday, he had turned and sat on the chair he was now occupying, and once again his present position and what he could see were synchronised.

Something flashed on the periphery of his vision: Ralph, in the hall, leaving his room and crossing to the bathroom. He saw only a glimpse of his brother, but it was enough to see that he looked thin and ill, far older than his forty-two years. Bobby told himself that suffering was instructive, but knew that this would be no consolation to Ralph.

Bobby had often contemplated taking his own life, but less so nowadays. He had considered suicide not because he disliked his life or was unhappy - life was to be experienced, and all experience was valid - but so as to be finally united with the ultimate. What had stopped him was the knowledge of how his death might effect Ralph. His brother would be unable to believe that he had taken his life to rejoin the wondrous continuum, but a.s.sume instead that his existence had been intolerable. Ralph felt guilty enough without being burdened with the thought that he had done nothing to ease what he perceived as the trials of Bobby's existence.

Yesterday at this time Bobby had finished his beer. He did the same now, and followed his vision from the kitchen and across the hall.

He selected three pins from the rack on the wall, inserted them into the player and walked across to his bed.

Bobby Mirren lay down and closed his eyes as he had yesterday. Welcome darkness came as he waited for the music to begin.