Engineman by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

do."
    "Oh, so you realise that now?"
    "I realised it then, objectively."
    "But why didn't you say anything? Why didn't we talk?"
    "What could I have said? You wouldn't have understood."
    "Thank you. Thanks for giving me the chance!"
    "Caroline, I just couldn't bring myself to care. That's being perfectly honest."
    "But why? What happened to us? At first everything was so good... I don't understand, Ralph. What happened?"
    He looked across at her. He could see that beneath her calm, trained exterior, she was shaken.
    He let the silence lengthen, then said softly, "When I got back after that first flux... all I wanted was to return to the 'ship, experience the flux. Nothing else mattered." He couldn't bring himself to feel anything for anyone - Caroline, his daughter Susan, or his father. "I never once visited my father after I graduated."
    "I know. He never forgave you. He died twelve years ago."
    Mirren said, "I heard."
    "I went to his funeral. Your absence was noticed."
    Mirren regarded his lager. Some part of him wanted to feel guilty, to regret the actions of his past. But he knew that anyone, in his position back then, would have been unable to act any differently.
    He lifted his shoulders in a protracted shrug. "I felt nothing, nothing at all for anyone or anything accept the flux."
    "That's an excuse!"
    "No, that's the reason. You experience the flux, and nothing is ever the same. People don't matter-"
    "All Engineman weren't affected like that," Caroline countered.
    "No, not all. But many were. I was one of them. I didn't have any choice in the matter. There was nothing I could do about it. It was like a drug."
    "Would you have had it any other way?"
    He thought about that. He shook his head. "No, not at the time. I was hooked... Later I realised what had happened, but by then it was too late."
    "What? Ten years ago, when the Lines closed down?" She wore an expression of exaggerated horror. "But you could have come back, got in touch."
    Mirren almost laughed. "You don't understand. By then it was too late. Just because I couldn't flux again, it didn't mean that the desire diminished. I couldn't just cure myself like that!"
    "But what about now? Surely..."
    "Even now, Carrie. Even now I'd give anything to flux again. What happened ten years ago..." It was an indication of his despair that he could only become emotional about the closure of the Lines.
    A silence came between them. He saw the compassion in her eyes, and her pity merely mocked, unwittingly, his inability to respond to it.
    Outside, beyond the viewscreen, the interface had activated. The bright cobalt portal flickered and, hesitantly, like the image on a defective vid-screen, the scene of some far planet's spaceport appeared, backed by a dwarf star binary system in a magenta sky and fringed by alien trees. A convoy of trucks and coaches waited to cross to Earth, along with a queue of patient foot-passengers.
    Caroline was turning her glass between her palms. She whispered, "What was it like, Ralph? The flux?"
    He smiled. "Indescribable. The sense of union, the joy, the incredible feeling of well-being... it was a hundred times greater than the effect of any terrestrial drug. It wiped me out, left me wanting more, looking forward to nothing but the next push. Was it any wonder I couldn't respond to anyone, to feel emotions? Nothing mattered. This reality simply didn't matter."
    She looked up at him and smiled. As if to salvage some consolation from the wreckage of his life, she said, "Well, at least you have the next reality to look forward to, Ralph. The afterlife."
    Her smile faltered when she saw his reaction. "What...?"
    He said, "I don't believe. I can't bring myself to accept that what I - what all Enginemen - experienced in flux was anything more than just a psychological phenomenon existing up here-" he tapped his head "-and nowhere else."
    She stared at him. "You don't belong to the Church?"
    "Of course not. Unfortunately I've never been able to