Neal Asher - The Engineer Reconditioned

“…fourteen star systems and the new gates are opening more all the time,” they heard, followed by the grating voice of one of the Proctors.

“So much to learn, to see. This must be the time.”

By then Lumi and Bradebus had reached the fire. The woman looked up at them cautiously. The Proctor that had been speaking turned its head in their direction and watched them approach. Lumi was the first to speak.

“Are you uninjured?” he asked the woman.

She nodded. He continued. “I am Chief Scientist Lumi and my companion is the tracker Bradebus… by what name should we address you?”

The woman smiled. “At last someone with a civilised attitude. No one has yet asked me my name. The man Cromwell considered me a means to an end, though it turned out it was his own. These Proctors speak beyond names.” She stood up. “I am Manx Evitel, ambassador from Earth.” She held out a greasy hand, which Lumi took.

“Names have importance to us,” said the Proctor, and Lumi looked at it in startlement. “All of us have names. We are one but we name ourselves singly, but what purpose identification to us?”

“What is your name, then?” asked Lumi, as he moved in and squatted by the fire. Bradebus came with him, his mouth closed and his expression alert.

“I am called David,” said the Proctor.

“Why… why are you here, David?” asked Lumi.

“Here is opportunity,” said the Proctor.

Lumi left it, it sounded cryptic enough to be an avoidance, and he had no wish to push Proctors. He turned back to the woman, who had seated herself again.

“Why are you here then?”

She smiled again. “I am here as an ambassador. The wars have been over for many centuries now and the human federation grows faster than some of us can cope with. I have come here to seek the Owner, we need his wisdom, his great knowledge. He travelled the galaxy millennia ago in his great ship. There are things he will know.”

“It’s more than that,” said Bradebus.

She looked at him. “Yes, it is more. Our expansion has brought us to the edge of an alien civilisation. It is vast and they are… difficult to understand, yet, from what we have learnt in our few encounters, they know about the Owner. He has been there. There will be things he knows… There is so much he knows.”

“Some believe the Owner is dead,” said Lumi.

“This… is possible,” said the Proctor, David.

“How?”

“We have been one with the mind of the Owner for millennia. In the last fifty years the contact has been broken and we have gained independent existence. This is why we are here. We want to see and know more than this world. We want to do more than enforce the Owner’s law.”

“You have what you seek,” said Bradebus to Manx Evitel. She looked abruptly surprised at this, then regarded the Proctor calculatingly.

“You have not been in contact with the Owner for some time then?” The Proctor shook its head.

“Has anyone seen the Owner since?” She glanced at Lumi and Bradebus. Lumi realised he must be the last to have seen him.

“Twenty years ago I saw him,” he said.

Evitel nodded and turned back to the Proctor. “What use might you be to us should we transport you from this place?”

The Proctor said, “The Owner called them the Snark-kind in reference to a poem by one Lewis Carrol. He traded with them and observed their civilisation for two hundred years. Every one of us knows what he learnt about them. We were one with the Owner’s mind.”

Evitel abruptly got up and faced her ship. “Ship, open,” she said. In the side of the great cylinder a slot of light appeared, and with eerie silence a segment of metal folded down, straightened out, became a ramp. Lumi stood and glanced back towards the camp where he could hear shouting. Suddenly there was gunfire. Lumi and Bradebus began running in that direction. More gunfire. A figure ahead, crouching, something across its shoulder. A spear of light.

“Shit!” said Bradebus, both he and Lumi hitting the ground. There was an explosion behind them. In the light of the flame Lumi saw the girl Keela with the missile launcher across her shoulder. He drew his pistol, fired twice. She staggered and fell.

The Proctor David lay on the ground, flickers of blue light on his skin. His side was open to expose something like organs and something like electronics. Evitel stood to one side. A shimmer winked out around her. All along, a personal force shield, Cromwell could not have harmed her. The Proctors began standing, something like a growl of anger coming from them.

“How the hell did she get hold of that?!” Lumi shouted at Brown as he reached Keela and turned her over onto her back, his pistol in her face.

“She knocked out Lambert. We didn’t think she… she is a third child…” Enough, thought Lumi, there was never any getting away from the stigma. Brown stared in terror at the Proctors, they were moving now, all their fields flicking on. Lumi watched them too, not knowing how to stop what he felt sure was to come. A Proctor had been killed, the first ever.

“Tell them to stop,” he said to Evitel.

“Wait!” she shouted. The Proctors ignored her.

“Hold,” said Bradebus. He was crouched down by the corpse of David. All the Proctors froze then turned in his direction. Lumi saw the man’s rough clothing fade, become a black body suit, piped and padded and linked to half-seen machines, saw his appearance change. The Owner. He touched David. He and the Proctor flickered out of existence. There was a crack as air rushed to fill the space. The remaining Proctors turned towards the ship and slowly began to mount the ramp. More of them came out of the woods.

Twilight, birds beginning to sing, immediate warmth in the forest. The Proctors were all aboard, but for one called Mark. He and Evitel sat by a fire with Lumi and Brown. The other constables were taking the prisoners, the wounded, and the dead, back to the town.

“We are one with his mind again,” said Mark.

“What is he doing?” asked Lumi.

“He has repaired David.”

“What are his intentions?” asked Evitel.

“You may ask him.”

The Owner came out of the forest with David walking behind him. He said, “It was my intention that the Proctors go with you. They have my knowledge and they have wisdom.” He squatted by the fire, the machines gone, his eyes normal. He grinned at Lumi. “I had intended not to show myself, but, six thousand years of wisdom and knowledge is too much to lose.” He looked towards David and nodded. Mark rose, the two Proctors walked towards Evitel’s ship.

“Why the subterfuge?” asked Lumi.

“Because I wanted it,” was the reply.

“I would have preferred you to come,” said Evitel.

“For that there will be no need. My Proctors will be sufficient to the Snark-kind.” He looked at Lumi and Brown, then pointed out beyond the lake. In the sky they saw falling lights like a meteor shower. “This place has remained closed for too long. Here my constructors will build a spaceport and this world will join with the human Polity. All my laws will no longer apply. There is much room in space. I leave this place in trust.” He stood.

“Where will you be?” asked Evitel.

“Around,” said the Owner.

The ash of the fire gusted as air replaced him. The third moon, like a polished metal ball, rose in the twilight sky, made a right angled turn far above them, receded into dark. Lumi felt the tug of the huge mass moving away, heard waves breaking on the lake shore, squinted at the sudden flare of a star drive igniting.

There’s not much to add about this story. It’s another ‘Owner’ one in its distinct future history, but has no history itself (i.e. wasn’t published anywhere but in The Engineer collection). I reckon I’ve got about four or five future histories going now, and probably will start more of them. Looking at the ongoing creation of the ‘runcible universe’ I wonder how many writers love or feel trapped by their speculative creations, or both.