The Engineer Reconditioned (22 page)

"You have had time to consider my proposal," said Cromwell.

The woman glanced up at him and nodded absently.

"Will you give me access to your ship?"

She shook her head.

"Perhaps I am not making myself clear. Perhaps you actually think you have choices in this matter. Well, in a way you do ... you see, there are drugs I can use, some nasty little insects that are local to this area, pain, endless amounts of pain."

The woman met his stare directly. Her expression showed an analytical curiosity now. "What do you want from my ship?"

Cromwell stared at her for a moment, took another drag on his cigarette.

"High tech weaponry," he said at last.

"There is none," she told him.

"Unfortunately I do not believe you. You can of course prove me wrong by allowing me access."

"I think not," said the woman.

Cromwell grinned nastily. She was not a very good liar. There were weapons aboard her ship, weapons probably powerful enough to deal with Proctors. Cromwell's grin turned to a sneer when he thought about that. Damned Proctors. The Owner was a myth kept alive by idiots like the Chief Scientist. Only the Proctors with their stupid arbitrary restrictions were real. He winced when he thought about the money he had outlaid on the sluice from his paper mill. The sluice had led into a river in the wilder and there had been no interference until the day of the first outflow. A Proctor had walked out of the wilder and methodically smashed the sluice to pieces. Cromwell ordered his men to fire on it, but only two dared to do so. They had been brave men. He was generous in compensating their families. These thoughts in mind he stepped forward and grabbed hold of the woman's hair.

"You'll let me in your ship or I'll skin you from the feet up," he hissed. The next moment he found himself on his back on the floor, the woman standing over him.

"I do not understand you," she said, and it sounded as if she really did not. "If you had such weaponry the Owner would never allow you to use it."

"There is no Owner," Cromwell spat. "I would use the weapons on the Proctors to free us from them!" The woman sat down on the floor again, staring at him all the while.

"I come from Earth," she said. "I am here to see the Owner to tell him we are ready for his guidance now. He exists."

Cromwell stood up, stared at her in disgust, then banged on the door of the cell. He stomped down the corridor pulling another cigarette from his packet and lighting it. At the end of the corridor he mounted a stairway that led up to his office. There he paced for a while before eventually throwing himself into his chair and flicking on the communicator.

"Owner my ass," he said as he punched up a coded number.

The screen flicked on and the face of a young woman gazed out at him.

"Is it done?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Any problems?"

"Yes."

Cromwell had not expected that.

"Go on," he said carefully.

"Your son was injured."

Cromwell sat back in his chair and stared at the woman coldly.

"How badly?"

"The board cutter had his cutting tool with him. He took a lump off your son's arm before we killed him. We took him to Doctor Grable. He's in a room in the nursing home."

"Evidence?"

"We cleared as much as we could find, but it was dark ... the residents were showing an interest, sir."

"Keep him concealed. No one is to know where he is. The board cutter ... he had no time to speak to anyone?"

"We got him before he reached Lumi's house."

"That, is not what I asked."

"He spoke to no one."

"Very well." Cromwell stubbed out his cigarette as he considered his options. "If they start genetic testing we'll have to move fast. Has there been any Proctor activity?"

"I'm told one was seen at the scene of the killing while Lumi was there." Cromwell swallowed dryly. They should not be interested. It was not in their remit.

"Okay, keep your eyes and ears open. Anything unusual and I want to know. If they start testing I want Jamie moved to Cosburgh. Keep me informed." He cut her off then quickly punched in another number. After a pause a bald-headed man with a walrus mustache looked out of him.

"Doctor Grable," he said.

Lumi studied the two patterns on the screen then turned to Brown.

"It wasn't Cromwell, but there is a close match. I would say it was a relative, perhaps his son or his brother. I suggest you check them both out. No general testing, that will alert him."

"We'll check all the nursing homes. If he's badly injured Cromwell will have him in one of them," he said.

"How about Grable's place?"

"My men are moving in now."

Jamie Cromwell lay on the surgical table feeling slightly sick. There was no pain with the nerve-blocker in place, but he could feel the pullings and cuttings at his shoulder as Grable installed the plastic joint. This was not the kind of adventure he liked. It had always been fun going out to 'sort things out' with Keela. He loved the feeling of power, loved being able to say the words, 'Kill him'. There was nothing else that gave the same buzz.

"How long will I be laid-up?" he asked.

"Oh you'll be up and about after this. But you won't be able to use this arm for three weeks, and I would suggest plenty of rest," said Grable.

Jamie considered telling him that he should save his suggestions for his other patients. He was working on Jamie Cromwell, there was a difference, but when he looked at the doctor's bloodied surgical gloves and close work eye visor, he desisted. There was no telling what the doctor could do to harm him. Jamie did not like pain when it was his own.

"What's that?!"

"Be still!" Grable held him down on the table as he tried to rise. The sound of gunfire had come from outside, and there was shouting now. Grable stood up and walked to the window.

"Constables," he said, after a moment. "A large force of them."

"I must get out of here," said Jamie. He sat up, supporting his arm and trying not to look at the bloody mess of his shoulder. One glance had been enough: the plastic joint was in place in raw flesh and tied-off arteries, all sealed under a layer of translucent jelly. He carefully lowered his legs over the side of the table. Grable was looking at him strangely.

"I have to go," he repeated.

"No," said Grable. "You must not. They will catch you and question you."

"What else is there to do then?" asked Jamie.

Grable turned from the window and went to his medical cabinet. He opened a drawer and removed an old-fashioned syringe. While Jamie watched he squeezed out the air. How would this help him to escape? Grable approached.

"Here, sit down again," he said.

Jamie had a sudden horrible suspicion. "What is that for?"

"It will calm you, relax you."

Jamie did not want to be calm and he did not believe Grable. He lashed out and kicked the doctor between the legs. The doctor swore and bowed over. Jamie swore at the pain of a broken toe and a sudden foretaste of pain from his shoulder. In the surgical gown he staggered for the door. There he turned back in time to see the doctor reaching for the syringe where it had stuck point-down in the wooden floor. Jamie opened to the door and fled.

"Come back!" the doctor bellowed, and Jamie heard him coming after as he stumbled towards the stairs. He reached the landing just as the doctor caught up with him. He tried to yell at the constables he could see coming into the reception area. The doctor's hard hand slammed over his mouth, and he was shoved back against the wall. The doctor lifted the syringe to plunge it in Jamie's neck. Jamie kneed him in an already tender spot. He had learnt a lot from Keela. As the doctor gasped again Jamie grabbed the syringe hand with his free hand, and pulled it down in an arc to stab it into the doctor's thigh.

"Oh! Oh, you bastard!"

Grable staggered back and gaped down in horror at the syringe. He pulled it out of his leg and saw it was empty.

"I must — " he managed, turning back towards his surgery, then he fell on the floor. By the time his screams and convulsions had finished the constables had reached that floor. As they led Jamie away he looked back and noted how the doctor had ripped off his fingernails while clawing at the floor, and how the convulsions had displaced one eye from its socket and broken his teeth.

"Why was he killed?" asked Lumi, his eyes not straying from the nautiloids in their tank.

"He saw something he was not supposed to see," said Brown as he looked around the laboratory.

"And what was that?"

The Chief Constable returned his attention to Lumi to see what reaction his words might elicit. "He saw a spacecraft that had landed in the wilder."

Lumi turned from his nautiloids. "Spacecraft?"

"Yes."

"The Owner?"

"No."

"Please explain."

"A spacecraft of unknown origin landed in a wilder zone ten days ago. Apparently Cromwell's people found out about it first and sealed off the area. Coti saw the ship before they did that. He avoided Cromwell's people there, but they caught up with him in Blue Street. He was killed to silence him."

"Cromwell must see great advantage in this craft. If it is not something to do with the Owner then it's likely from Earth or the colonies. Perhaps he thinks the war is reaching out to us again, the fool. Has Jamie given any indication that his father thinks this?"

"He says that this is his father's belief."

"What of the crew?"

"One pilot, a woman, whom Cromwell has captured."

"This is fascinating," said Lumi. "Have you closed in on Cromwell yet?"

"All his residences have been raided. He left this morning with a large group of his people and headed into the wilder."

"Then he's gone to this ship and taken the pilot with him. He must not get his hands on any high tech weapons. He will bring disaster on us. We must go after him immediately."

"I agree," said Brown. He was staring at the tank again.

"We need a tracker," said Lumi.

Brown turned to look at him. "In this we are lucky. Bradebus is in town. My people have gone to hire him."

Lumi looked at him. "You've been ahead of me all the way," he said. "Why do you come here?" Brown smiled bleakly. He pointed at the tank. "Are they the ones? These creatures?"

"Yes, they are the nautiloids the Owner allowed me into the restricted zone to study," said Lumi.

"What was he like ... if you don't mind me asking?"

Lumi thought back to that time when he was twenty-five years old and hiking along the Choom beaches of the wilder, on the edge of the restricted zone, in search of fossil nautiloids to back up his theory that they were not Earth-import life forms. He remembered his frustration when he stood at the marker line: silver posts spaced fifty metres apart. To step through that line was instant death for a human. Human bones in fact lay on the beach there. So wrapped up in his frustration had he been that he thought this the reason he had not heard the man approach. This was not the reason. He turned to see a big man in a black suit of strange design: a suit piped and padded and linked to half-seen machines floating in the air about him. His hair had been white, cropped, his eyes as red as a devil's. Lumi had known in an instant he faced the Owner. The half-seen mechanisms were the subspace machinery of the Great Ship Vardelex, and part of the Owner himself — extensions of his mind and senses, grown and added to over ten thousand years.

"You are Lumi," he had said, and in that moment the machines had faded away around him and his eyes had turned from red to a quite normal hazel.

"I am," Lumi managed.

The Owner pointed to mountains in the restricted zone. "Up there are the fossils you seek. You will not find them anywhere else on this planet."

Was he being taunted, Lumi wondered.

"You may study them at your leisure." The Owner stared at him very directly. "I place no restrictions on you in this matter because I know you to be responsible."

Lumi felt sick with excitement and fear. He gestured at the fence. "I cannot ... "

"It will not harm you. I have instructed the fence here not to harm you. You may pass through." Lumi could not do it. All his upbringing, all the social conditioning, the hundreds of years of tradition ... He was terrified. The Owner saw this in an instant, took hold of his arm with a hand as cold as ice, and marched him between the silver posts. On the other side of the fence Lumi had fallen to his knees and been sick on the sand.

"You may pass through this section of fence for the rest of your natural life. You may study the fossils and nautiloids and whatever else you may find here of interest to you." Lumi had gazed up into eyes returned to red, the weird machinery back.

"Why ... have you allowed me this?" he managed.

"Because I can," the Owner had said, a strange smile on his face.

"What was he like?" Lumi said in reply to Brown's question. "My meeting with him has been detailed time and time again, much has been spouted about how human the Owner is when he disconnects himself from his machines. I think that is exactly the case. He isn't human. He probably ceased to be human thousands of years ago. You know what I felt most strongly about that meeting? It was that only a fragment of him communicated with me, the largest fragment permissible."

"What do you mean?"

Lumi shook his head. "A man does not discuss philosophy with a microbe."

"You think the gap that wide."

Lumi pointed at the nautiloids. "He let me study those. Only in the last few years have I come to a conclusion about them, that conclusion recently backed up by evidence from the fossil beds. They are native to this planet, as are creatures like the blade beetles, but they were extinct before the Owner got here. This was a dead world. He populated it with life forms from Earth and then resurrected some of the old life forms. He must have got the information from their fossils somehow. I also think he created the Proctors, and that they are not machines as is often thought, but highly sophisticated living creatures. I think that in these things we see only a hint of his power."