The Engineer ReConditioned

by Neal Asher

  “You still have not told me.”

  “For fifty hours out of every fifty-two you are trapped on the surface of its prison. At one time you were its warder, until it drew one of its own scales to the surface, and until it began to speak to you,” said Bellan.

  “I would be free of it,” I said, quickly.

  “It is why we are here,” said Hallack.

  “We’ve been following you for a long time. The beast feeds through you,” she nodded at my sudden guilty expression. “Meagre fare for it, but enough to empower its leaps through time and keep it ahead of us, and enough, should you feed it enough, for it eventually to break from its prison.” How could I tell her the true source of the sick guilt I felt?

  Hallack pulled a cloth package from behind himself and unwrapped it. He revealed a tor.

  “You must place this upon your arm. It is all we have. Our own machines are too slow and too crude. It is ironic that only with what it used to entrap you may you escape.” The sphere was below me; poised on the edge of the real. I could hear a muttering. Perhaps I fooled myself. Perhaps it was really a distant snarling. He rolled the tor down the dune-face to me.

  “Put it on and shift to another time. Escape it, Marten,” said Hallack. It was thorned glass and silver; a perilous thing to slip onto my forearm. I took it up. It was heavy and it cut my hands. The pain seemed distant. I gazed up at Hallack and Bellan. They were backing away up the dune face. Behind them flowing irises were opening in the air as they returned to their machines. I slid the tor over my right forearm. Skin peeled and flesh parted like earth before the plough. I groaned at the sudden increase in pain as blood jetted from slitted arteries. The pain was intense, but it seemed to promise something else. Very quickly the blood ceased to flow. I studied the thing. It was bonding to my flesh, and the bones beneath, just as I knew it would. Then the tor, parasitic form that it was, cleaned my blood for me, scrubbed my mind, made me a more wholesome beast on which it could feed. And memory returned like falling wall.

  Oh Hallack my brother. Dear friend Bellan. Below me the muttering from the sphere became a raging scream. I shifted as it shifted Earthward and tried to snatch me up. Suddenly I was falling into the grey abyss, through a tunnel of bones. Someone fell past me screaming my name, then the sphere was falling upon me. I shifted sideways and saw the Earth as through a distorting lens; its continents on fire. I felt something groping for me, unable to find me, but well able to find the tor. I shifted again and hurled myself for the world. All my will was concentrated on this act. All its will was exerted to hold me back. Something had to give and what gave was my arm. I felt it snap and tear, and I felt the tendon rip away from somewhere inside my shoulder. There was no pain at first. I felt and heard its muttering and raging as it receded from me, lost me, and I lay my head upon a flat rock while my arm stump bled into the matted grass all around.

  “Marten!”

  Hallack, my brother. I regained a delirious consciousness, watched him shooting some sort of weapon into the air to scare-off a hunting smilodon. He bound my arm and talked all the while. He said how we must move quickly to find Bellan, before her field loci went beyond the detection of his own.

  “The late twenty-first,” I managed and he stared at me in a puzzled way. “That’s where she is.”

  “How do you know, Marten?” he asked.

  “Because that’s where I killed her.”

  Perhaps we can get there…in time.

  ABOUT “TIGER TIGER”

  Honest, I didn’t know of the Alfred Bester one of the same name until long after I’d written this (which is surprising with the amount of SF I’ve read), but then probably Mr Bester was not the first to snitch those two words as a title, and I certainly won’t be the last. In this story the tigers came first, then the title, and it being an ‘Owner’ story it seemed almost inevitable that I had to put in that line from the poem at the start. The Owner is like the Old Testament God, who is, I suppose, everyone’s expression of the ultimate power fantasy. And that’s his appeal. No matter how liberal or well-meaning any of us is, we want that power, though many of us would never admit that.

  TIGER TIGER

  “What immortal hand or eye

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

  A tiger had taken the orphan Jeleel Welder down by the Wishpool. Her blood speckled the Rhode’s dark green leaves and they found her soul, on its unbreakable silver chain, depending from its roots. Sapher found tracks near the pool and told their story to the villagers.

  “It took her here while she washed Baum’s shirts. She fought it here and it dragged her to here and this blood is where it bit her. It is arterial blood and there is much of it. She probably died before it took her deep into the Rhode and ate her,” he said.

  He was very matter of fact about it all and Tamsin felt sorrow for his brother. He knew how much Sapher had loved Jeleel. How intensely he had courted her. The villagers peered to the Rhode. The dendrons were in flower and deep in them was all perfumed shadow.

  “This cannot be,” said Baum, the Elder, pointing the grey spade of his beard at Sapher. “The Agreement. He does not allow this.”

  “The Agreement,” spat Sapher. He stabbed his spear into the earth to demonstrate how he felt about the Agreement.

  Baum continued, “I know your thoughts on this, but there has to be some other explanation. ‘Man must not kill tiger and tiger will not kill man.’ The Owner was very specific.” As he mentioned the Owner, he touched his pendant with his forefinger then made the sign: his hand held out flat, parallel with the ground.

  “The Agreement is just that. It does not bind. What about Temron Drivetech? He killed a tiger. Who is to say that tigers may not break the Agreement as did he? Perhaps this is their vengeance,” said Sapher.

  “Vengeance was done upon Temron,” said Baum.

  They all nodded and remembered. After his sister had died of the ague Temron had denied the Agreement and vehemently claimed that there could be no Owner. He had then, in the madness of his grief, told the village that his sister would be buried in a tiger-skin burial robe. He had killed a tiger and done this thing; his sister wrapped in skin that was still bloody. The following night Temron had disappeared.

  “You say vengeance was done upon him. I saw no evidence of it. I saw only his footprints leading into the Rhode. I saw only that he left us,” said Sapher.

  “What Temron’s fate may have been is irrelevant. What do we do now?” said Tamsin. He watched his brother. He needed to hear this, though he did not want to.

  “We go after the tiger and we kill it,” said Sapher.

  “I cannot allow that,” said Baum.

  Sapher ignored him and turned to the villagers. “Who will come with me? This must be done. Too long we have been bound by superstition and fear. We are stronger and more cunning than the tigers. We should rule here, as is right!”

  Some stepped forwards, but others shook their heads and turned away—returned to the village. Ephis came up and stood beside Tamsin.

  “You will go with him?” she asked, frightened that she might lose this newly found love.

  “I must,” said Tamsin, placing his hand against the side of her face. “He is my brother.”

  “This is madness,” she said. “The Owner will punish us.”

  “Your father has faith so you must have faith,” he said.

  She pushed his hand away. “Can you doubt the truth of the Agreement?” He smiled at her. She was like so many of the villagers; she never questioned the old teachings, never wondered what might or might not be true. He loved her but sometimes her beliefs caused painful argument. If only her father had not been Baum. This, he decided, was not the time for argument—his brother needed him.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  She regarded him for a long moment.

  “Then I will go with you,” she said.

  Though half the village agreed to go with him, Sapher was livid at the rest.

  �
��Yes, crawl back to your huts and sleep untroubled. When the tigers come in the night to eat you I will laugh and climb a tree to watch,” he sneered at those who departed. Amongst those who remained were Tamsin, Sapher and Ephis, Torril and Chand—husband and wife who had always been closest to Sapher, and who hunted with him all the time. The surprise members were Baum and Ghort.

  “My daughter is all I have now. I will come with you. I will interfere in no way. I will not stop you killing the tiger, nor will I help you,” said Baum.

  “I will come,” said Ghort.

  They all looked around. The huge man was sitting on a boulder with his elbow on his knee and his chin resting on the palm of his hand. He blinked blue eyes at them and said no more. That was the thing about Ghort: no one noticed he was there until he let them know. When they did know they were again awakened to the fact that this was the man who had lifted a fallen coral ash from his hunting partner Dorlis, and who had, at a run, carried Dorlis the ten kilometres back to the village. A vain rescue though, for Dorlis had taken poison rather than spend the rest of his life a cripple.

  “Why should you come?” asked Sapher, bitterness still in his voice. Tamsin glared at his brother, hoping he would say no more. Ghort would be a valued member of such an expedition and must not be put off.

  “I come because I wish to,” said Ghort.

  “You believe in the Owner,” said Sapher.

  Ghort just regarded him with those blue eyes. Sapher turned away in frustration.

  “Very well,” he said after a moment. “Be back here in the hour. You know what supplies to bring, and if any of you have access to family weapons you may bring them.”

  “Family weapons?” said Baum, outraged.

  Sapher glared at him and he desisted.

  They wore the canvas trousers and jackets that were necessary for travelling deep into the Rhode. The only family weapon brought to the hunt was the one Sapher carried: the Logisticson’s gun. Tamsin allowed this even though the gun had been his assigned responsibility from his fifteenth year. Since its last firing, in Tamsin’s grandfather’s time, it took a month of bright sunlight to get it up to eighty per cent of a charge. It would take no more. That charge also tended to bleed away during the hours of darkness. It was all something to do with the flickering red lights on the side of the weapon, but Tamsin could not decipher them—the manual had been lost four generations ago.

  Torril and Chand brought their hunting bows and long knives, plus all the usual supplies for a hunt when the prey were deer and swamp elk, not tigers. Tamsin was not skilled in the use of a bow, so he brought his father’s two spears—serviceable weapons with wide blades fashioned of ship metal; blades that took ages to lose their edge and ages to sharpen again.

  Ghort came with only one spear, but what a spear it was. The blade was two hands wide and as long as a normal man’s forearm. The Smith had taken months to cut the metal for it, from the old hull, and months to sharpen it. It was Ghort’s reward for his rescue of Dorlis, who killed himself the day after the presentation.

  Ephis brought her crossbow with its quarrels fashioned of Rhode wood. Her father, Baum, brought no weapons at all. He brought the Agreement. Sapher looked set to explode when he saw this, instead, he climbed a rock to address them all.

  “We have two hours left until darkness,” he said, then waited a moment until sure of all their attention before continuing. “The tiger went east to the Ship. We will camp there for the night then use it as our base while we hunt the beast down. The Plain of Landing is probably its main hunting ground.” He glared at them all belligerently, daring them to dispute his words.

  “He can tell an awful lot from a few tracks,” Ephis whispered to Tamsin. Tamsin glared at her, then moved away from her to be closer to his brother.

  “If we work together on this we should have the beast’s skin within days. We will kill this tiger for Jeleel!” As he said this he punched the air with the family gun. There came a grumbling response from the crowd that could have meant anything.

  Then a voice spoke up from the back. “Does Jeleel want you to kill a tiger?” For a moment there was absolute silence, then heads turned to seek the source of that voice. Abruptly the crowd parted and a raggedy scarecrow of a man walked through.

  “Owner save us!” exclaimed Baum, clutching the Agreement to his chest.

  “That option he left to you,” said the man, then he held out his hand to Baum. “Now give me Jeleel’s soul pendant.”

  “Who are you to make demands?” yelled Sapher, jumping down off his rock. Tamsin moved up beside him and grabbed his arm. “That’s Temron: the tiger killer,” he said, and this news stilled even Sapher.

  They watched while Baum groped about in his pouch and eventually came up with a tangle of chains and pendants.

  “That’s old Nigella, and that’s Dolic. Ah, here.” He separated out a pendant, “I see you’ve lost yours,” he said as he handed Jeleel’s pendant across to Temron.

  Temron smiled and closed his fist around the object.

  “I have been dead for eight years and now I am back,” he said. At this there came a concerted muttering and most people moved back from him. All except one, Tamsin noted. Ghort moved closer, his expression strangely intense.

  Temron continued, “I died out in the Rhode because I broke the Agreement. I died alone and in pain, but at least my pain was my own.”

  Temron raised his fist and a voice spoke out that all recognised. It was Jeleel’s voice:

  “Now, with what I know, I wonder if I should forgive him. I find that I cannot. Life was sweet and seemed likely to become sweeter. I was innocent,” said the voice.

  A woman wailed and fell to her knees. The voice went on:

  “Do not weep, mother. You will be with me again some day.”

  “Who has done this?” the woman shouted.

  “Sapher did this to me. He raped me, then he beat me and cut me with his knives, then he tied rocks in my dress and threw me into the Wishpool. Despite his beatings and his cuttings, I drowned in the end.”

  “You murderer!” Baum bellowed.

  Tamsin was turning to his brother when Sapher yelled.

  “Nooo!”

  An actinic flash burnt the air and a sound like a rock hitting a tree trunk, opened it. Tamsin staggered back with the smell of burning flesh in his nostrils. He saw Baum falling with smoke pouring from the embered cavity of his chest. His brother had fired the gun.

  “Sapher!”

  Sapher turned the weapon on Tamsin. Tamsin saw the look in his eyes and dived to one side. Behind him he heard a scream. He rolled and ran into the Rhode. Fire behind him. Screams and chaos. His brother had raped and murdered Jeleel. Tamsin ran in semidark until a root tripped him and brought him to his knees. He pulled himself to a tangle of trunks and tried to bite down on the tears that threatened. Had he known this already? He dared not entertain the thought. Distantly he heard shouting and the sounds of people running. Then close to he heard something and moved as quietly as he could to observe. It was Temron walking up a path through the Rhode. He seemed almost to be gliding, moving faster forward than his pace should actually have taken him. He also seemed somehow blurred. Behind him Ghort was running to catch up. Temron turned when the big man was close. Ghort staggered to a halt and rested his weight on his spear. Temron seemed to be fading into the background, or perhaps it was that another background was reaching out from somewhere to grab him back. Abruptly he came back into focus and was no longer Temron. Dark hair turned white over a thin face. Dark eyes turned red, demonic. Canvas clothing transformed into something more like the inside of a machine than attire for a human being. Around him, indefinable engines lurked at the limit of perception; gathered and poised like a planetoid only moments before impact. Ghort sank down onto his hocks and placed his spear on the path next to him. He kept his eyes down while he regained his breath. The entity before him did not move. It just nailed him with its viper eyes. Eventually Ghort looked up. />
  “Owner,” he said. “Take me with you.”

  The Owner’s reply came after a suitable pause. Tamsin felt that this pause was not for reflection. This was a god after all.

  “Are you wise, Ghort?” the Owner asked, and the voice had nuances of power. Hearing it, Tamsin realised it might be possible to kill with a word.

  “I am wise,” said Ghort.

  “Ah,” said the Owner. “Yet patience is integral to wisdom.” The Owner turned and things distorted somehow, as if he was attached to everything around him by invisible threads. For a moment Tamsin saw something vast—the inside of an iron cathedral. Then the Owner was gone and Ghort was bowed down with his forehead in the dirt. Tamsin thought he might be crying.

  Tamsin waited a moment or two then moved over to the big man and stood next to him. Ghort abruptly pulled himself upright and brushed dirt from his forehead. He sighed, then abruptly turned and studied Tamsin.

  “You saw?” he asked.

  “I saw, but I’m not sure what I saw,” said Tamsin.

  “What you saw,” said Ghort contemplatively. He went on, “What you saw was the Owner. Surely you realise that?”

  “I don’t believe in gods or supernatural beings. Everything has a reason,” said Tamsin.

  “Yes, you’re sure of that,” said Ghort, observing him. “You are very unusual in your attitude to life. Practically unique. It’s probably why he let you see him.”

  “Let me?”

  “Don’t believe for one moment that he wasn’t aware of your presence,” said Ghort. Tamsin closed his eyes and tried to straighten things out in the storm that was raging between his ears. “I do not believe in gods or supernatural beings,” he said stubbornly. He opened his eyes when Ghort’s hand clamped on his shoulder.

  “He is not a god nor a supernatural being, Tamsin. What he is is a ten thousand year old man with the power of a god and command of a technology that seems almost supernatural.” Tamsin suddenly felt very calm as things began to click into place.