The Engineer ReConditioned Part 18

"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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

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 s.p.a.cecraft that had landed in the wilder."

Lumi turned from his nautiloids. "s.p.a.cecraft?"

"Yes."

"The Owner?"

"No."

"Please explain."

"A s.p.a.cecraft 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ced 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 subs.p.a.ce machinery of the Great s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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."

"Do you think he is a G.o.d?"

"As near as makes no difference to us. Think of the war. Our ancestors came here in an escape craft from a s.h.i.+p capable of destroying planets and which itself had been destroyed. The Owner allowed them to settle ... it's an old story ... but think about some other facts: This world was in the war zone yet nothing touched it, nothing came into the system unless the Owner allowed it. The two warring factions of the human race had no power here whatsoever."

"Then, what power does Cromwell have?"

"He could get us all killed. With high tech weapons he is sure to try to destroy Proctors. It might be that he could become just enough of an irritant to get himself flattened."

"A good thing, surely?"

"One microbe or the whole Petri dish. The laws are for a reason. We are here on sufferance. The population stricture should have told you enough. The people killed when the population tops two billion are not the idiots who can't control their gonads and there is no enforced birth-control or sterilisation unless we do it. The Owner's message in this should be evident: We keep our own house in order. I have a horrible feeling, no, I am certain, that if Cromwell starts killing Proctors then the Proctors will start killing back, and they won't stop."

Bradebus the tracker was the most irascible old man Lumi had ever known. He was also reputedly the best tracker known and had often helped the Constabulary find criminals who had fled into the wilder.

"Who you after then?" the old man asked, scratching at a ragged mess of a beard.

Brown looked to Lumi then said, "Cromwell."

"Ah! Got something on the b.a.s.t.a.r.d then?"

"You could say that. He's gone into the wilder with many of his people. We want to catch up with them as soon as possible."

"Who's going?"

"Myself, Chief Scientist Lumi here, and fifteen constables."

"When did he go?"