Engineman

by Eric Brown

  She left the room and closed the door behind her. At the end of the hall she was confronted by her image in the wall-mirror. She set little store by how she looked, and was often surprised when she encountered her reflection. She was short and thin, permanently drawn and tired-looking—even when she was on a high and felt energised. She shaved her head regularly, and this, together with the lines that delta’d from the corners of her eyes, made her look ten years older than she was. And yet today, she told herself, I feel young and confident, full of life. She smiled at herself. She’d just completed a piece she was happy with, which accounted for her high. Tomorrow, when the creative glow diminished and she could regard the sculpture more critically, and see its weaknesses, she’d become depressed, tell herself that she could do better, had to do better—even though she would doubt that she could ever create anything original again... It was all part of the cycle.

  Thinking about her work reminded her that she had a painting out at the moment, a triptych canvas she’d sent to her agent a couple of months ago.

  She finished her coffee, went to the kitchen for a refill, then approached the vid-screen in the lounge. The room, like the rest of the apartment, was run-down and in need of a good interior decorator, not that Ella gave a damn about things like habitat pride. However, one corner of the room, which faced the screen, was done out with flock wallpaper and a square of carpet she’d found dumped in the street. A mock Schreiber recliner, which she’d made herself on the cheap—faced the screen. The effect was a minor work of art in itself, a mini film-set in the grimy chaos of her living room. Vasquez was a snob, impressed by things like appearance.

  Ella sat cross-legged in the chair, tapped in Vasquez’s code. She decided not to come straight out with, “What do you think of my latest piece, Carmen?”

  Five year ago, Vasquez had sold one of Ella’s paintings to an off-world art-collector for a good sum. The oil, entitled Conversion—a visual attempt to convey the wonder she’d experienced upon her conversion to the Disciples—was one of her favourites. For years she had not bothered about the identity of the purchaser, but a couple of months ago—wondering on which far planet her work might be hanging—she’d written to Vasquez asking her if she could reveal the identity of the buyer.

  Now, Ella would remind her agent about the enquiry, and then ask what Vasquez thought about her latest piece.

  The calling tone purred. The screen remained blank, then Scrolled up the fact that Carmen Vasquez was in a meeting, but if the caller would like to leave a message after the tone...

  Ella composed herself, drew her wrap closed at the throat. The tone played out. “Ah, Carmen—Ella Fernandez here-” Damn! That was obvious! Vasquez would be watching the recording of Ella, wouldn’t she? “I was just wondering—it isn’t really important—but I wondered if you could tell me who bought Conversion ? Ah... that’s all—if you could call back when you have the time, there are one or two things I’d like to ask you. Okay, see you later. Bye.” She grinned at the screen, waved her fingers, then felt self-conscious and cut the connection.

  She was still laughing at herself when the roar sounded outside. The apartment shuddered as if in an earthquake. When the vibrations came to an end and the flakes of paint stopped snowing from the ceiling, she got up and crossed to the door. She belted her wrap and leaned against the jamb, waiting for Eddie to appear from the escalator across the hall.

  His flier had been in the garage of some third-rate mechanic down the road for a month now, until such time as Eddie came up with the credits to pay for the repairs. Now she realised why he’d stolen the gold dust.

  After three minutes Eddie had still not shown himself, and Ella began to feel a little silly in this nonchalant-cum-confrontational pose. She pushed herself from the jamb and rode the elevator to the roof.

  It was a warm night. The stars were out in a clear sky. Vines and creepers were growing around the girder stanchions of the landing pad, despite Eddie’s daily efforts at clearing them. He was sitting on the hood of his battered old Peugeot, his thick-set middle-aged frame and the flier’s art deco bulk somehow complementary. They were silhouetted against the glow of the interface like a cinema advertisement for Libyan hash.

  Ella padded across to him, holding her shoulders. She leaned against the flank of the flier next to Eddie’s silversuited legs and feigned an interest in what he was watching. Over at the spaceport, the interface had activated. Through the screen could be seen the busy ‘port of some distant colony world.

  She felt his hand on the back of her neck, warm and strong. He had a stock of these gentle, affectionate gestures which he used in lieu of conversation. Sometimes he went for days without speaking.

  “You took my dust,” she said at last.

  He made a sound in his throat which might have been an admission of his guilt, squeezed her neck as if that might make things better.

  “I wouldn’t care. If you’d asked, Eddie... You know that? If you’d asked, “Ella, I need creds to get the flier fixed.” I’d’ve given you the damned dust.”

  He said, in his soft, slow Californian accent, “I needed the flier. I’ve got a job lined up at Orly. I’ll pay you back next week, okay, Princess?”

  She supposed she should have been glad he’d condescended to speak to her, but she was troubled that he’d found work at Orly. She hitched herself up onto the hood and looked at him.

  He was watching the interface with that far-away look in his eyes, as if remembering the time when the stars had been his, and recognising the fact that now they were denied him forever. Ella was aware that he’d been slipping into a depression over the past Week, and she feared that it might culminate in another protracted bout of drinking, of her having to scour the streets of Paris for him, comatose in some gutter.

  “Eddie,” she whispered. “Have you been to the Church recently? You know, they have good counsellors there. They’d be able to help you.”

  Eddie grunted something non-committal.

  She sighed. It worried her, the fact that he no longer attended the services or counselling sessions, even when she tried to drag him along. At one point, concerned by his indifference, she had accused him of no longer believing. Eddie had replied, simply and calmly, that he did believe—but that he did not need faith as she needed it because he had fluxed, had achieved the numinous union with the nada-continuum, and did not need the dogma of the Church to uphold his belief. Unlike Ella, who as a civilian had never experienced the flux, and therefore required blind faith to sustain her belief.

  The vast majority of Disciples on Earth were Enginemen and Enginewomen. Ella was one of only a dozen non-spacers in France who’d undergone conversion. She was that rarity, a believer who’d never actually experienced the flux, and thus her faith was questioned and probed all the more rigorously by the devout. She had never opened up and divulged to anyone—not even to Eddie—the circumstances of her conversion during her teens on the colony world of the Reach.

  She laid her head on Eddie’s shoulder, felt the occipital console beneath the material of his silversuit. Over at the ‘port, the screen had deactivated, returned to its cobalt blue phase. She shivered.

  Eddie put an arm around her and squeezed. What you thinking, Princess? his hug said.

  “This place, Eddie... The nearest store is an hour away. The apartment’s damp, smelly. The gangs... Eddie—have you seen the street gangs around here?”

  Another squeeze. Don’t fear the gangs.

  “Let’s just get the hell out of here, Eddie.”

  This provoked a more definite response. He actually turned his head and looked at her.

  “Move out to ...,” she went on, “buy a place by the river.”

  “That’d cost, Princess.”

  With the fee she’d received from selling a couple of sculptures last year, she had enough for a down-payment on a small unit by the Seine. She didn’t tell Eddie this, because in her heart she knew that there was no way he’d agree to leaving Orly.
And if he knew she had credits, he’d want them.

  “If I sell the picture I have out now...”

  “You want to be back in with your artisan friends-”

  “I want to leave this place!”

  “Or do you want a little house by the river as another statement?”

  She pulled away and stared at him. “What?”

  “Like your motorbike, your hair-”

  “What hair?”

  “Exactly, my little shaveskull.”

  “My bike, my hair; they’re me, Eddie. It’s not a damned statement, it’s who I am.”

  He turned a gentle smile on her. “It’s what your father made you, Princess. A rebel.”

  Before she could find the words for a half-hearted denial, the chime on the vid-screen sounded, floating up from the open window in the lounge.

  “That’ll be for you,” Eddie said, and turned his gaze back to the interface.

  Ella hurried down to the lounge, arrived breathless and pressed the accept stud. She sat on the recliner as the screen flared into life. She just had time to arrange the collar of her wrap before Carmen Vasquez appeared, standing beside a marble fireplace and smoking a cigarette in an ivory holder. She wore a long, black strapless gown and, with her tanned oval face and Latin poise, looked as though she’d just stepped off a cat-walk.

  “Ella, darling—I received your call.” She had the socialite’s practised ability of dispensing endearments without really seeming to mean them.

  “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” Ella began.

  “Of course not. I had intended to call you anyway.”

  “You had? You can tell me who bought Conversion?”

  Vasquez drew on her cigarette, her cheeks hollowed. She exhaled and fanned away the offending smoke with a languid wave. “Part of the deal, Ella darling, was that the buyer should enjoy absolute anonymity. I’m afraid it’s not my place to divulge client’s private details.”

  Ella felt as though she’d been chastised. “I don’t suppose you have any idea which planet the buyer-”

  “All I can tell you is that my client was an off-worlder,” Vasquez said coolly. “If I were you. I should be thankful for the fee you received.”

  Implicit in which statement, Ella thought, was the suggestion that Vasquez thought the fee exorbitant.

  “Ah... I was wondering about my latest piece,” Ella ventured.

  “Actually, it’s that I was meaning to call you about.”

  “It was? I didn’t mean to rush you. It’s just that—well, it has been two months...”

  Vasquez nodded, tapping a centimetre of ash into an onyx tray on the mantelpiece. She returned her attention to Ella. “As a matter of fact, the piece has been causing me no small amount of difficulty.”

  Ella’s heart sank. “It has?”

  “It’s a rather angry piece, isn’t it?”

  Ella was taken aback. “Well, I suppose it is.”

  Vasquez frowned, examined the length of her cigarette. “It’s full of anger and hatred.”

  Ella was at a loss for words. She feared what was to come. She shrugged. “It’s a personal statement, of course. It’s how I was feeling at the time.”

  Vasquez was staring at her. “But didn’t you know, darling—hatred is out at the moment.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Hatred, anger, rage—my customers don’t want to adorn their walls with such images. Hatred is out.”

  “Out?” Ella echoed. She tried not to laugh. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “But art... art’s supposed to reflect reality.”

  “Reality does not exclusively consist of anger and hatred, Ella, darling.”

  She wanted to shout that her reality did.

  “Ella...” Vasquez began in a placatory tone.

  Ella leaned forward. “Look around you. The world is full of hatred. Look at what’s happening in Africa, China. Christ, look at Europe!”

  “But there are other images you could employ.”

  “I don’t want to employ other images!” Ella cried. “I’m angry. Look, for Chrissake. Look!” And before she could stop herself, she picked up the screen and staggered with it over to the window ledge. She turned it around, so that the relay cameras presented to her agent the street scene, the crumbling buildings opposite. She wished she could carry the screen around the ghetto with her, so that Vasquez might witness all the filth, the poverty and the wretchedness.

  She swung the screen back to face her. Vasquez wore an expression of fastidious distaste. “Europe is fucked. The people who live here are fucked. And you want me to paint bunches of flowers. I paint from experience, damn you!”

  “If you intend to take that tone-”

  She swept on, “It’s okay for you to dictate what I do, Miss Privilege in your fucking penthouse suite in the richest country in the world.” Ella stopped herself, panting, aware that she’d gone too far.

  Vasquez was silent, regarding her. “Thank you for making your views so abundantly clear, and so eloquently expressed, Ella. As we seem to have irreconcilable differences of opinion as to what can constitute a work of art, I think it would be best if we parted company. Don’t bother sending me any more of your work, Ella. I’ll return your latest forthwith.”

  Ella smiled through her rage. “There’s something I’d like to say.”

  Vasquez raised an imperious eyebrow. “Oh, and you haven’t said enough?”

  “Too right,” Ella smiled. She raised her foot, placed it in the image of Vasquez’s face, and pushed the screen off the ledge.

  “You bastard!” she yelled after it. She leaned from the window and watched it fall. It sailed through the air, crashed through the undergrowth and hit the street with a dull explosion.

  Ella straightened, massaging the small of her back. She stared up at the stars. The adrenalin rush at what she’d done gave way to the sobering realisation of her circumstances. She didn’t know whether to be more appalled at Vasquez’s view of art, or the fact that she was back at square one, without an agent. She supposed she could always go back to selling her work on the Champs-Elysées.

  She wandered into the kitchen, not sure whether to laugh or to cry. Vasquez’s expression when Ella thrust her bare foot into her face... It was just as well she hadn’t confronted Vasquez in the flesh.

  She pulled two beers from the cooler and returned to the roof. Eddie was still sitting on his flier, unmoving, staring intently at the deactivated screen of the interface in the distance. Ella interposed herself between the screen and the Engineman. “Here.” She held out a beer. “Brought you this.”

  He made no move to take the bottle, but reached out and touched Ella’s shoulder, signalling that she should move. She stood her ground, defiant. Eddie leaned to his right to get a better view of the screen. He seemed to be in a trance.

  She unscrewed the top from her beer, took a long drink. “That was my agent,” she said at last, aware that she was talking to herself. She shrugged. “I don’t have an agent any more, Eddie.” She laughed. “I dropped her.”

  She looked up at Eddie. No response.

  “What am I going to do?” Something in her tone moved him to look at her, but only briefly. He returned his gaze to the screen.

  “Fuck you,” she whispered. “You’re as blind and uncaring as that bitch...” Then: “Eddie! Look at me. I need to talk.”

  He gestured. “Not now, Princess.”

  “Not now? But I need to talk now.”

  He was far gone, lost.

  “You bastard!” Impulsively, she flung the full beer bottle at him. It missed, sailed way over his head. He didn’t even flinch.

  “Hey,” she said. “You know what? Why don’t you fly over there and throw yourself through the screen? Go fry your fucking self and see if I care!”

  She hurried away, her anger suddenly usurped by regret, and the hope that Eddie hadn’t heard her. She ran to her room, sickened suddenly by the plethora of her failed work stacked against the wa
ll, mocking her. She curled up on her bed and cried out in frustration.

  She had no idea how long she’d been asleep when she rolled onto her back and blinked herself awake. The noise that had begun in her dreams continued now, and as she stared up at the ceiling she wondered when her tired mind would stop taunting her.

  Then the walls of the room began to shake, and the noise became thunderous. A sudden dread clutched at her. “No,” she said to herself, jumping from the bed and running to the balcony.

  The ugly bulk of Eddie’s flier edged from the landing pad, filling the sky above the street as it moved off in the direction of the spaceport, the roar of its jets diminishing. “No, Eddie!” she screamed. “No!”

  She pulled on a jacket and trousers and, still barefoot, ran down the stairs, taking them in threes and fours. Her heart was pounding and she was hardly able to comprehend what Eddie was doing. She told herself that what she feared just could not be happening, while the realist in her thought back over the week and recalled all the tell-tale signs of Eddie’s increasing disaffection.