“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.
ABOUT “THE OWNER”
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.
THE OWNER
There is a place where stands an ancient pillar. It is taller than a man, just, and wider. It is a plain cylinder without plinth or capital and is made of grey corrosion-free metal. Its surface is intagliated with strange runes, or circuit diagrams, and it stands upon sand in a bleak place where few have heard of Ozymandias. It is real, absolutely and solidly real, as if its location has formed around it — an accretion of reality. Standing on the sand by this pillar is a swordsman. He is just in its shadow; all dark fabric and iron, and seemingly part of that shadow. Such fancy he would perhaps allow a smile, knowing a permanence greater than that of the grey metal.
They were tired of running, tired of forever being on guard, and tired of the fear, but there was only one alternative. Cheydar knew this and it churned him up inside. Sometimes he felt a hopelessness so strong he just wanted to stop, to sit down and wait for the end, but he hadn’t, not yet. The Code would not allow him suicide without permission.
When he saw him, the man seated on a boulder out on the flats, watching them, Cheydar thought, Here is another killer come for the Cariphe’s reward. And, as he waved his two sons to his side and moved out from the campfire he wondered if he might die this day. The boys spaced themselves and pumped full the gas cylinders of their air guns. Cheydar was weary, loath to kill yet again, frightened he might not be able to. Behind him Suen held her daughter close and looked on. Suen, wife of Tarrin, to whom he and his family were sworn service of life. All this for her and the girl now. He knew that sometimes she damned the loyalty that kept him and his kin with her, only sometimes, without it there was only that one alternative.
The man was motionless. It seemed as if he might have sat there all night watching their camp. When he finally moved, when he finally came down from his rock, it was at the precise moment the sun gnawed a red-hot lump out of the horizon. Cheydar felt his throat clench: The Daybreak Warrior. Then he damned himself for a fool and the bitterness inside threatened to overwhelm him. He was too old for such fairy tales. If only Tarrin had been as wise.
“He looks a handy one this,” he said.
It was the way the man had come down from the boulder: lithe, strong. That had been a four metre drop and he had taken it as if it was nothing and was strolling towards them with the loose-limbed gait of a trained fighter… killer.