Neal Asher - The Engineer Reconditioned

“Spread out now, and move with caution. Lambert, you stay back,” said Brown. Lambert was the one who carried the missile launcher. Before they moved off Brown went to confirm the fallen man was dead. Lumi went with him. Half his head was gone, somewhere on the slope above. They moved cautiously. Shots soon rang out again. The sound of bullets cracking through tree branches. A curtailed scream. Lumi saw the tracker running, his knife drawn and bloody. He was grinning. He looked like he was having fun. Two constables stayed back after that exchange, one to tend to the leg wound of the other. Nearby lay the corpses of two anonymous men and a woman, their blood draining into the pine needles. The second exchange was more intense, then abruptly ceased when Cromwell’s people withdrew.

“What the fuck!” said Brown.

Lumi saw he was looking to one side. Two Proctors were striding through the trees towards the ship. There was another out to the other side of them.

“How many, I wonder?” said Bradebus in a whimsical voice.

This is very important, thought Lumi. As far as he knew the Proctors only enforced those few of the Owner’s laws. There were two thousand of them, one for every million human beings on this, the Owner’s world. Seeing them together was an event rare enough to be recorded. The last time Proctors had been seen together had been forty-three years before, just two of them, and the observer of this rare occurrence had said they seemed almost embarrassed about the matter and had quickly parted. Three Proctors here, in this small area of trees, how many more were there in the vicinity?

The ship and the lake became visible through the trees. Brown scanned the area through compact binoculars.

“They’re dug in around the ship behind log barricades. The camp is clear. Can’t tell how many of them there are. There’s a woman chained to a tree between us and them.” He scanned to one side, then with his expression dumb-founded he handed the binoculars to Lumi and pointed. Lumi brought the lenses to his eyes.

Proctors.

They were on the lake shore, moving through the trees. As he watched, one walked up out of the water of the lake as if it had just walked across the bottom, which might well have been the case. What were they here for? They seemed to be doing little more than waiting and watching; leaning on their staffs and gazing into the distance like old-Earth Masai. The parallel was perhaps not the best. Are we their cattle?

Lumi wondered. Just then Cromwell’s people opened fire and Brown slammed him down to eat pine needles. The constables fired back with their automatic weapons until Brown yelled at them to stop.

“The woman! You’ll hit the woman!”

Lumi looked out to her. She was sat in a position of meditation, not trying to bury herself as would be expected. All the firing ceased.

“Surrender and we won’t kill her!” came Cromwell’s shout.

“He doesn’t want to kill her anyway, she hasn’t let him in her ship,” said Bradebus. How do you know that? Lumi had no time to ask the question. The tracker fired twice. There was a yell of surprise. He turned to Brown.

“You don’t have to shoot low to get them. That Cromwell isn’t the best tactician. Just shoot at the hull of the ship above them and the ricochets will do the rest.”

Brown looked where indicated and grinned, then his grin faded.

“The woman,” he said.

“I would say that problem is about to be solved,” said the tracker. The Proctor came striding in from the side and positioned itself between the woman and Cromwell’s people. It drove its staff into the ground then reached down to take hold of the chain. It was a thick chain. The Proctor snapped it like a cord of plasticene. Cromwell stood up then. He was yelling something as he depressed the trigger of his weapon and emptied its clip. The Proctor’s field flared blue about it and no shots reached the woman as it led her away with a huge leathery hand on her shoulder. It kept itself between her and Cromwell all the time. Cromwell should have remembered the outfall from his factory. It seemed he was not thinking straight, because after he had emptied one clip he remained standing while he fumbled for another. The woman was out of the way. The constables remembered many crimes, many slights, dead friends. How many bullets hit him at once is moot. It would have been difficult to count the holes in what remained.

“Cease firing!” Brown shouted, once Cromwell had disappeared out of sight. From Cromwell’s people entrenched below the ship there was no more firing once the constables lowered their weapons. The sounds of argument could be heard, then a weapon was tossed out in front of the stacked logs and a man rose slowly to his feet with his hands in the air. Someone was yelling at him and he was ignoring that yelling. He stepped out from cover with his hands up.

“Brave fellow,” said Bradebus as he watched the man walk across the no-man’s land between. Twenty feet from the constables the man halted.

“I surrender myself,” said the man. He looked scared but determined.

“Come behind here and lay face down on the ground,” said Brown. When the man had done this Brown searched him and cuffed him. “How many of the others will give themselves up?” he asked.

“Most of them,” the man replied. “Cromwell was all that kept us.”

“Loyalty?” asked Brown.

“Fear, for ourselves and our families.”

Brown raised a sardonic eyebrow at that but did not refute it. “What about the rest?”

“A few who have reason to hate Proctors, only them.”

Shortly after this more weapons were tossed out and another five men and two women approached to give themselves up.

“How many more?” asked Brown.

“Keela is there, her and two of Cromwell’s closest.”

Brown flicked on the com unit on his belt and turned it to public address.

“Will you die?” he asked the hold-outs. He signalled to his constables to be ready. “Where you are we can bounce bullets off that ship until you are all dead. Is this the end you want?” A silence drew as taut as as a garrotte. Eventually three weapons were tossed out and three people stood: Keela and the two men. They walked over to be cuffed with the rest. The night sky was black and moonless, unusually, in that three moons orbited the Owner’s planet. The forest was lit by camp-fires and weird blue glows like the flash of glow worms from where the Proctors waited. Brown, Bradebus, and Lumi shared the glow of a fire, steaming mugs of tea, and bread rolls filled with steaks from a deer Bradebus had shot and wild onions he had collected.

“We must find out why she came here, and what interest the Proctors have in her,” said Lumi.

“And how do you suggest we go about that?” asked Brown, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Why not go and ask?” said Bradebus, and the other two looked at him as if he had suggested eating blade beetles. “Well, why not?”

Lumi and Brown looked at each other. It was Lumi who replied. “For one, they would not answer, for two, we might end up dead.”

“She would answer, and what rules have you broken that might bring their anger down on you?” Bradebus stood up. “Come on, let’s go see them.”

Lumi and Brown stood up staring in amazement at each other as Bradebus strode off towards the Proctors. Lumi hesitated for a moment, then quickly followed.

“I have the prisoners, my men…” said Brown, not inclined to follow. Lumi waved him back and continued on. Brown sat back down and poured himself more tea. He did not want to say anything about all the leaders being killed.

The Proctors were seated around under the trees all facing in one direction. Lumi and Bradebus walked between them and soon came in sight of a campfire, and Proctors beyond that facing inward. The woman was by the fire eating something that had been cooking over it. The rise and fall of speech could be heard. Three Proctors sat around the fire with her, their staffs driven into the ground behind them.