Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

6

Comlifers

Over a century ago the phrase ‘computer life’ described computer programs that mimicked life. In other words, they grew and bred and evolved. However, over the ensuing years it became a catch-all term not only for programs that modelled living creatures and ecologies, but also for those that mimicked the function of the human brain. Towards the end of that century, the term became restricted to describing brain modelling, and to a limited extent displaced the old term ‘artificial intelligence’, which itself was applied to expert systems that often possessed no human characteristics of thinking at all. In the time of Alan Saul, it became completely confined to describing computer reconstructions of a functioning human brain that could effectively be used as a software interface between a living human brain and a computer. In that time, under Serene Galahad, those people who thus interfaced with computers were called comlifers, with its intimation too of them serving a life sentence.

Argus

The voice speaking over the station intercom was Saul’s, sounding utterly reassuring and utterly in control, yet Hannah knew he lay apparently comatose in her surgery. This only made sense if she considered that all of Saul did not reside in his physical body’s organic brain.

‘Prepare for a course correction,’ he said. ‘The Mars Traveller engine will be firing at 7.00 a.m. station time.’

Another prepared statement maybe? And how long ago had it been prepared? What the hell, exactly, was guiding this station?

Le Roque issued his instructions calmly, no more aware of Saul’s condition than anyone else aboard, except Hannah and the Saberhagen twins. Preparations were made and, after the big Traveller engine fired up, ran for two weeks without anyone being hurt, people soon returned to their usual tasks. Le Roque, however, wanted to talk.

‘He’s not answering me,’ said the technical director.

Hannah shrugged. ‘What am I supposed to do about that?’

‘You’re closer to him.’ Le Roque glanced up at a nearby cam, obviously anxious. ‘What the hell is he doing? This route change is taking us off course for Mars and swinging us out into the edge of the Asteroid Belt. That could kill us.’

‘The Asteroid Belt is not the same as the one you see in space-war interactives,’ Hannah lectured him snootily. ‘They’re not very close together.’

‘No, what we define as asteroids are in fact not very close together, but that definition fails to take into account small rocks capable of vaporizing large chunks of this station at the speed we’re now going,’ said Le Roque. ‘Do you have any idea what a chunk of rock the size of a pea could do at twenty thousand kilometres per hour?’

‘Yes, I’m not entirely—’

‘And we’re heading straight for the disruption zone,’ Le Roque interrupted.

Hannah was suddenly annoyed, though she knew herself well enough to understand that was because she didn’t really know what the director was talking about.

‘Disruption zone?’ she enquired.

‘It’s where the asteroid below us came from,’ he replied. ‘Think of it: millions of asteroids and what were previously thought of as asteroids but have turned out to be loose accumulations of rubble, dust, fragments – all barely stable after billions of years – then we come in and snatch the Argus asteroid away, meanwhile sending the remains of the Traveller VI tumbling into the belt. That destabilized the immediate area, and the disruption spread, so that now nearly two million kilometres of the belt is a mess.’

‘The objects in the belt are still very far apart, so we should be fine,’ said Hannah, further annoyed with herself the moment she said it, because she considered herself quite capable of admitting to her own errors.

‘Maybe, but Argus station presents one hell of a big profile.’

‘Best you take it up with him, then,’ Hannah replied, then quickly left Tech Central.

For over a month Saul just lay there, apparently with rigor mortis set in, but for the fact his heart kept beating and he kept breathing. He was still healing, though, the brain tissue she had used steadily growing and making connections; the organic net from his bio-interface unwaveringly repairing itself and reinstating connections. As he lay there, she’d tried to guide the process, to make it adhere to the maps she had of his mind as it was before, but had only been partially successful. The problem was that it grew with reference to the two masses of other brain tissue sitting in two one-metre-square boxes in her clean-room, and also seemed to be making partial connections to certain parts of his brain that he seemed to have partitioned off in some way. Yes, he was healing, but would he ever wake up and, if so, would what then woke up even be defined as a person?

Connections from his brain also remained open into the entire Argus computer system, and it seemed that, through that system, windows opened into his dreaming mind. She’d heard complaints from technical staff about strange strings of code propagating in their computers, like worms, then just transferring away, also disturbing images appeared in screensavers and visual coms, and nonsensical messages and spine-crawling sounds issued from speakers. The whole station seemed to have turned into a haunted house. People spoke in whispers, jerked nervously at unexpected sounds, and checked the shadows in the corridors. All this created an air of gloom, as well as a fear difficult to nail down.

There were ways she could force things with Saul, but she was in entirely uncharted territory here and might do irreparable damage. She had so far ascertained that he had allowed himself to sleep but without putting in place the processes that would wake him up. He was in a coma, and it seemed she had stepped a hundred years into the past with him, to a time when people woke up from comas for no real discernible reason, or woke not at all.

‘Le Roque called me up to Tech Central again,’ said James, her lab assistant.

He had only just returned with some downloads obtained directly from a construction robot, all of which type were still working on the station enclosure – in fact getting near to completing it. Saul remained connected to them, too, via some of those mental partitions, and she hoped to get some data on what was happening with him. James’s approach to a spidergun for the same reason had been unsuccessful – they wouldn’t let anyone near.

‘What does he want now?’ she asked.

‘He wants to talk to you personally, and he wants to know why you’re not answering your fone.’

Hannah checked her visual-cortex menu and noted eight unanswered calls from Le Roque, twenty from Langstrom, five from Rhine and a recent one from Brigitta.

‘Tell him that I’ll speak to him when I’ve got something to report,’ she said, then opened up the channel to the last of these. ‘Brigitta?’

‘How is he now?’ asked the more talkative Saberhagen twin.

‘Healing, slowly, but still not conscious,’ she said. Then, with some irritation, ‘I said I’d let you know.’

‘That’s not really why I called. I need your input.’

‘On what?’ Didn’t Brigitta realize just how bad things could get? Hannah couldn’t leave Saul now while he was so vulnerable. How long before either Le Roque or Langstrom decided to take full charge of the station? How long after that before they decided that maybe they would like to stay in control, and that maybe it was time for Saul’s coma to end, permanently?

‘I’m in HUD with Angela . . . you need to come and see this.’

‘I do have my own problems here,’ Hannah replied.

‘This may be related . . . we’re getting the same data-exchange processes here that you’re seeing between Saul and the robots. We think he’s loaded something to them.’

‘Them?’

‘The androids.’

Hannah felt a chill. She turned to gaze at the body lying in her clean surgery, almost lost among the feeding tubes, optics and wires she’d plugged into him.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered to him, and stood up. ‘Keep an eye on things here,’ she instructed James. ‘No one is to have access unless I say so, understood?’

He nodded. ‘I doubt anyone will try.’ He pointed towards the laboratory door.

‘Yes, quite,’ she replied, heading that way.

Stepping outside, she turned to study the spidergun still installed outside her laboratory. The constant presence of machines like this was probably why both Le Roque and Langstrom weren’t being as demanding as she might have expected. Neither of them was entirely sure what the situation was with Saul; and neither of them wanted to become the focus of his attention by doing anything . . . hasty.

It took her a few minutes to reach Humanoid Unit Development, during which time she ignored a call each from Langstrom and Le Roque. The Saberhagen twins were waiting for her outside the door leading into the unit. The two were smoking hand-rolled cigarettes – a new affectation among some on the station since a patch of mature tobacco plants had been found growing in the Arboretum. The smoke would be unlikely to have caused any problems in HUD, so it looked to Hannah as if they had come outside for a break, for an escape from whatever seemed to be stressing them out. Even they were not unaffected by the present odd atmosphere aboard the station.

‘So, what’s this about?’ Hannah asked.

Brigitta drew on her cigarette, then ground it out in a little hinged box she was holding, snapping it shut before she reached to palm the door lock. ‘Come and see,’ she said, pushing the door open and entering.

Hannah followed her, glancing at Angela, who remained leaning back against the wall, smoke trailing from her mouth and with her eyes closed.

‘Over the last month we’ve been building some basic programming and frankly struggling, as nothing seemed to stick. Two days ago something dumped those programs and took over,’ she said. ‘It just closed us out. While Angela worked on trying to continue programming them as planned, but failing, I’ve been tracing the source of the interference, and it came through the computers we were using for programming, via the station network, from your lab. I then managed to shut it out, but that’s made no difference. They’re all interlinked and when I try to wipe it out in one of them, it immediately starts recording back across from the others.’

‘Viral?’

‘Call it a virus, call it a worm, whatever – it’s programming that perpetually recreates itself and it’s very, very complex.’

‘Comlife.’

‘Yeah,’ Brigitta agreed.

Hannah turned to study the androids. They had been fascinating before, even when they were immobile, for the leathery-skinned manikins stood over two metres tall and looked as tough as old oak. They were sexless things that possessed practically featureless heads, without ears or eyes, just a visor of the same leathery material as their skin and the harsh slit of a mouth, and big, long-fingered hands.

Now, however, they were on the move. Even as she entered the room behind Brigitta, ten eyeless visages turned towards her. The one nearest her tilted its head like a curious child that had spotted something of interest. Further down the row, one of them had an arm free of the frame and the nylon webbing straps which had previously supported it and still bound it. It was holding up the same hand for inspection, clenching and unclenching it slowly.

‘Let me see,’ Hannah said, walking over to one of the consoles.

Brigitta followed, tapped in a command and data began scrolling. Hannah studied it for a long moment, then sat down and pulled up her sleeves and set to work. She began opening files, inspecting packets, linking to the computers in her lab and opening analysis and diagnostic programs, trying to ignore her immediate snap assessment but only finding confirmation of it. After a while she sat back, her heart thudding hard in her chest, her mouth slightly dry.

‘Well,’ she said finally.

‘Well what?’ asked Brigitta.

‘They’re alive,’ declared Angela, who had just returned.

Hannah swung round in her chair and regarded the pair of them. These two were brilliant, their education and knowledge extending across numerous disciplines, but they simply were not familiar with the things Hannah herself knew.

‘Comlife is largely a copy of the synaptic neural processes we see in life, but running on, at its basis, binary programming,’ she lectured. ‘That’s what made it possible for living human beings like Saul, Malden and Smith to interface with computers. There’s a gap to bridge, because of translation difficulties, and a heavy reliance on modelling.’

‘Then this is comlife,’ said Brigitta.

Hannah shook her head, not quite sure how to reply. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling her way. ‘Saul loaded an AI called Janus to the hardware and bioware in his own skull. It was a comlife copy of Saul’s mind, with a binary base that allowed him access to computer systems. It was, if you like, his guide and translator, though much more closely interlinked. The core of Saul is mainly human, organic, synaptic, even though much augmented, operating through silicon binary hardware. These,’ she gestured to the row of androids, ‘are the reverse. They’re mainly binary AI with a smaller organic synaptic component. Yes, I guess what’s running inside their heads can be called comlife, but of a kind we’ve not seen before.’

Hannah stood up, not knowing what more to add.

‘Release us,’ said the first android in the row, the resonance in its voice sending a shiver down her spine. ‘Instruct us,’ it added.

Hannah stared at the thing. The sound of that voice meant nothing to her. A complete psychopath could reside inside that body, even if such a typically human description could be applied. It occurred to her that the same reasoning might now apply to Saul.

‘That’s a new one,’ remarked Brigitta. ‘So far it’s mainly just been asking to be released.’

Hannah gestured to the door and they trooped outside, closing it behind them. Once outside, Angela began rolling herself another cigarette, spilling tobacco from her shaking hands.

‘What are they capable of?’ Hannah asked.

‘They’re strong and fast,’ Brigitta replied. ‘And they have defences.’

‘How strong? How fast?’

‘Their bones are made of concentric microlaminations of carbon fibre and steel, all with bearing surfaces, which means they are flexible but practically unbreakable. They’re packed with artificial muscle sustained with oxygen and nutrients through microtubules and tensioned electrically. That makes them about five times stronger than a human being and they can act and react faster than any human nerve impulses. The stepper motors at their joints increase that same strength to something equivalent to that of a construction robot.’

‘Dangerous, then,’ said Hannah contemplatively, realizing something that maybe the twins had missed.

‘That isn’t all of it,’ said Angela, puffing out a cloud of smoke as she spoke.

‘Tell me.’

Angela reluctantly continued, ‘Their skin is another laminate. You’d be able to penetrate it only with an armour piercer, and then the chances are that you’d encounter another layer of armour underneath. Even if you get through that as well, your chances of hitting something vital are remote. Everything inside them is distributed: mind, power supply, nutrient supplies and stored oxygen.’ She tapped her skull. ‘The brain isn’t only in here, it’s everywhere. Even their senses aren’t completely located in their heads, as they have receptors for light, sound and smell located all over their skins.’

‘Hard to kill,’ Hannah observed. ‘You’re scared of them.’

‘Yes,’ said Brigitta. ‘Shouldn’t we be?’

‘Anything else?’ Hannah asked.

‘An electromagnetic field is generated through the skin – so EM weapons won’t work against them and, to a certain extent, they’ll deflect coherent radiations,’ Brigitta said. ‘That’s about it, I think, but it’s enough.’

‘No,’ corrected Angela. ‘Remember the internals.’

‘That’s right,’ said Brigitta. ‘They’ve got internal nanomachines that they can consciously control, which means they can repair any damage. I don’t know yet if they can also be used as a weapon. That’s it now, I think.’ She glanced at her sister, who merely shrugged and drew on her cigarette.

‘One point you neglected,’ said Hannah. ‘If they can consciously control those nanomachines, that means they can grow and change. Already they are growing mentally, as is obvious from the readouts, which are very like some I saw from Saul as he expanded his new neural net.’

‘Enough reason to be afraid,’ said Brigitta.

‘When you feel you are ready,’ said Hannah, ‘you should then decide whether or not to release them.’

‘What?’ Angela exclaimed.

Hannah studied the two of them. They had analysed and understood so much and, like so many brilliant minds, they’d missed seeing the wood for the trees. In fact they’d missed something blatantly obvious. This was why sometimes scientists needed prosaic minds around them, to slap them across the backs of their heads and point out the elephant in the room.

‘They’re as strong as construction robots, you told me,’ she explained. ‘So do you think that, if they wanted to break free, those nylon webbing straps would be enough prevent them?’ She watched them gape at her, then added, ‘Maybe they’re just making a polite request?’ The twins still had nothing to say to that. ‘I have to get back to Saul,’ she said, and headed away.

As she walked back to her laboratory, Hannah tried to ignore her conscience, which at that moment was telling her she was being a coward. The twins had wanted someone there in charge, someone else to be responsible, to tell them what to do. She had simply pointed out something obvious, and then run away. It was like the situation with her and Saul regarding the mind-wipe she had conducted on the Committee prisoners aboard the station. She had not wanted the responsibility, and had only accepted it when he forced it upon her. She now felt uneasy and slightly disgusted with herself.

Such thoughts occupied her wholly, to the extent that she did not realize an escort had fallen in behind her as she entered the corridor leading to her laboratory. She halted abruptly when she saw what lay directly ahead. The spidergun was right up against the wall, all its limbs folded inwards, clenched – and it wasn’t moving. She transferred her gaze further along the corridor. Langstrom and Peach stood watching as two repros held her assistant James pinned against the wall while they cuffed him. The medic, Raiman, and two other medics from Tech Central were also present. She glanced back as two more of Langstrom’s men closed in behind her.

‘Dr Neumann,’ said Langstrom, stepping forward, shouldering some sort of large heavy weapon with a silvered barrel ten centimetres across, a power cable leading from it to the heavy pack Peach carried on her back. Clearly he’d made one of the EM tank-busters portable, and used it on the spidergun.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ She transferred her gaze from the EM tank-buster to his sidearm, then briefly flicked a glance over some of the weapons the others were carrying. ‘I see you’ve armed yourselves – against the Owner’s explicit instructions.’

He tapped a hand against the top of his sidearm. ‘The situation requires them – there’re things that must be discussed. We’ve called together a meeting of heads of staff, and your presence is required.’

‘Like hell.’

‘I’m sorry, but you have to come along,’ he said.

‘What are they here for?’ she gestured at the medics.

‘They are here to make an assessment of Alan Saul’s condition,’ Langstrom replied.

And so it starts . . .

‘They will do nothing of the sort . . . he’s my patient and I’m staying here.’

‘Unfortunately not, Dr Neumann. Please don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be.’

Hannah swung her attention back to the spidergun. Still it wasn’t moving. Probably from this they had assumed that Alan Saul wasn’t paying attention, might even be dead. Such an attack on one of his robots should undoubtedly have elicited a response from him.

Hannah did not make it difficult, because in the end she was an unarmed woman – and not the sleeping demigod in the room beyond.

Mars

Var was spending far too much time in her cabin, but she would have had to be a robot not to feel some resentment about the attitude of other base personnel towards her. It was as if they had lived so long under totalitarian rule that they could not accept any other condition. They seemed incapable of questioning their belief that she had killed Delaware and, beyond getting some sort of justice for the man, there seemed therefore no reason to pursue the investigation. No one would believe the results, because all of them believed she was the guilty party. She insisted the investigation continue, however, out of a stubborn belief of her own – the need to discover the truth.

Now, having finished her shower, and again fully clothed and knowing there was nothing critical she could pursue on her computer, Var hesitated at the door. What was her way out of this bind? She wanted to be pragmatic in her running of Antares Base, which required some degree of authoritarianism, but she did not want to be seen as oppressive. Yet she had noticed how the people here were now working less enthusiastically for their own survival. It was a crazy situation.

She pushed open the door and stepped into the corridor, and decisively set forth. Within a few minutes she had arrived at Da Vinci’s surgery, encountering five personnel sitting outside in the corridor, awaiting their turn to have their ID implants removed.

‘Good morning,’ she said cheerfully.

Through the window opposite the seats they occupied along one wall, she could see dust settling after a windstorm in the night, its particles ignited in shades of rose and amethyst by the sun peeking over the horizon.

‘Director,’ one of them nodded in acknowledgement.

The others nodded too, but quickly returned their attention to their palmtops. She stepped over to the door and pushed it open. She found Da Vinci bending over the forearm of a patient seated in a surgical chair. He held up a cautionary hand for a moment, then abruptly stood upright, waving his patient away. The woman shot Var a wary look, then quickly headed for the door. A sterile circular plaster now covered the skin where her chip had been removed.

‘How’s it going?’ Var asked Da Vinci.

‘You saw the very last of them sitting outside as you came in, Base Director,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s not a complicated procedure.’

‘The last time you called me “Base Director” was when Ricard was still in control,’ said Var. ‘There’s no need to be so formal.’

‘It seems a healthier option,’ said Da Vinci.

‘So you, too, believe I killed Delaware?’

He just watched her for a long moment, then said, ‘Perhaps you didn’t yourself, but there may be some useful idiots around you who did do it. So it seems sensible to behave in a way that lessens one’s chance of becoming a target.’

The expression on his face indicated analytical interest, but Var could not help noticing the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. He was obviously frightened of her, indeed scared to be saying such things.

‘That seems the same advice that everyone else in this base has taken, and there I have a problem,’ she said. ‘Our personnel are all keeping their heads down, just as they did under Ricard.’

‘But that is no problem, surely?’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ Var asserted. ‘Our survival here is still not assured and we need innovation, new ideas, invention. We need clever people arguing with each other and batting around ideas. What we don’t need is people sitting on useful ideas because they want to remain beneath notice.’

‘And this has happened?’

‘It has. On the base’s message board, and only because his discovery was referred to by someone else, I found out that Haarsen of Mars Science has found a way to cut down on our heat loss by five per cent,’ Var explained. ‘He didn’t flag his discovery or bring it to the attention of Martinez, and when I went to see him about this he was terrified, expected to be arrested. He hadn’t reported it to Martinez because he thought he would get into trouble for using samples of insulating spray in his experiments. This is madness.’

‘So what’s the solution?’ Da Vinci asked.

‘You tell me,’ Var replied. ‘People are talking to me as if I’m Ricard. What I should do?’

Da Vinci hesitated, looking hunted. ‘I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask.’

‘Maybe not, but it’s you I’m asking now.’

After a further hesitation he bit the bullet. ‘The feeling is that you should step down, that a new base director should be voted in, and that the murder investigation be handed over to Mars Science.’

‘That’s what people think?’

‘That’s the consensus.’

A very coherent consensus of opinion, Var felt, almost like one that had been carefully nurtured. Was she paranoid to think that someone specific was working behind the scenes to unseat her? No, she wasn’t, for the fact of Delaware’s very inconvenient death remained. Now she had two things to consider: what was best for the base, and what was best for her. Perhaps she was being arrogant in assuming that she was the best person to lead this place but, as she well knew, those who were never accused of arrogance were also those who never succeeded at anything.

If she stepped down, the chances of this base surviving might be reduced but, then again, with the people here happier about who was in charge, the opposite might happen. But what about her? It seemed highly likely that whoever ended up in charge would turn out to be whoever had been working against her. And, though she couldn’t prove it, she felt sure it was Rhone of Mars Science. If that was the case, then she could be utterly sure that any murder investigation conducted by Mars Science would not exonerate her. What then? She would certainly be executed, because this base could not afford the resources for a prison – and Rhone could not afford to have her wandering free.

‘Then I will have to consider that,’ she replied to Da Vinci, and turned back towards the door. He made no reply as she stepped out into the corridor, just followed her to the door and called the next patient in.

Var walked away, deep in thought, only realizing after a short time that her route was taking her towards the Mars Science laboratories. She continued to consider her options but there seemed no way out. It was not as if there was some haven she could flee to – the base was rather like the entire planet Earth in that respect. She had to stay in power here, and to do that she would probably need to be . . . harsher. Her alternative was her own death.

The sound of footsteps behind her only impinged at the last moment, as whoever was coming hurried to catch her up. She began turning, wondering what problem she was about to be presented with now, then a stab of paranoia spun her round faster. The knife speared towards her midriff but, taking a slice across her forearm, she managed to bat it aside. Christen glared at her, pulled the knife back and slashed at her face. Var stumbled back as Christen followed her, striking again and this time clipping the front of her shirt.

A whole series of calculations passed through Var’s mind. She was unarmed, so perhaps her choice all those months ago not to wear a sidearm had been a foolish one. If this went on any longer, Christen was going to slice her up. If she ran, she’d likely end up with that knife in her back. She had to end this now, quickly, but how?

Christen lunged again, over-extending herself. Var evaded the stab, turning to catch hold of her attacker’s wrist, desperately, in both hands. Christen drove a foot down against Var’s shin and agonizingly into the top of her foot, and Var’s grip began to slip. The woman was much stronger than she appeared to be. Next her fist smashed against Var’s temple and everything went black etched with bright yellow veins. Var just reacted wildly. She let go of Christen’s wrist with her left hand and brought her elbow back just as hard as she could, aiming for Christen’s head. The woman jerked her head back at the last moment, and Var’s elbow hit her hard, right in the throat.

The next thing Var knew, there were people all around, intent on separating them. Her legs gave way and she ended up with her back against the wall. A horrible choking sound issued from somewhere as a crowd of half-seen figures gathered around Christen.

‘Get Da Vinci!’ someone yelled.

‘The knife,’ Var managed, but she was ignored.

She began crawling across the floor to where she could see the knife. It was now Christen’s only hope. Var had felt the cartilage break under her elbow. Christen needed to breathe or she would die, and only a tracheotomy could save her now. But someone kicked the knife away, and then a boot slammed against Var’s head, bringing back the darkness and those yellow veins. She never actually lost consciousness, but events for some minutes remained unclear to her. When she finally managed to stagger to her feet Da Vinci had a tracheotomy tube in Christen’s throat and was trying to revive her, but she seemed just inert meat.

Martinez and Lopomac then arrived, and Var could see the doubt in their faces – and when Rhone arrived, she could see nothing in his face at all. Everyone else looked hostile. Var walked away, dripping blood. She would wear her sidearm from now on, and the people here would do what they were damned well told, or know the consequences.

Argus

Alex felt a surge of unaccustomed delight. He was alive, Chairman Alessandro Messina was alive! Alex squatted down beside Alexandra – his communications officer and the only other surviving member of the squad – and watched the short video file as it cycled. Initially the figure it showed did not have the Chairman’s face, but the program Alexandra was using had soon decoded the plastic surgery and revealed his true underlying features. There he was, Messina himself, clad in overalls as he walked along beside a hydroponics tank, stopping periodically to use a pipette to take a sample of tank nutrient and place it in one of a series of numbered sample bottles.

Only after the initial euphoria had passed did Alex start to get angry. They were making the ruler of Earth carry out the work of a robot, a slave, a zero asset. They’d humiliated him by forcing him to wear the clothing of a menial. This, if nothing else, confirmed for him just how petty and vindictive were the terrorists who had taken control of the Argus Station. However, most of Alex’s anger was directed towards himself. He reached up, as he often did in moments of stress like this, to rub at the fine web-work of scars at his temple and extending up into his cap of black hair – which was distinguished from that of his dead brothers only by a tuft of grey over one slightly larger scar located there.

‘We allowed ourselves to succumb to despair, Alexandra,’ he said, noting her glance at him in brief puzzlement upon hearing her true name. ‘We did not sufficiently check the data, and now our task is even more difficult.’

They should have tried for job reallocation and ensured they ended up out on Smelter Two, where the Chairman and numerous other repro delegates had been moved after the first assaults. They could have protected him from the final assault that put him in hospital, from which the news surfaced that he had died, when in fact he had undergone facial reconstruction. No . . . Alex shook his head in irritation.

‘So, beyond vengeance, we return to our primary objective,’ he said, his voice carried from his suit to Alexandra’s via an optical cable – radio wasn’t a good idea here as, even when coded, it might be used to locate them.

‘Just freeing the Chairman will not be sufficient,’ Alexandra reminded him. ‘We must continue to make meticulous preparations. We cannot afford to get ourselves killed, like Alex Two.’

The two of them paused to contemplate her words, remembering the brief scream as the fusillade from the spider-gun tore Alex Two to shreds. Alex, who until a few days ago had possessed the secret name Alex One, nodded in agreement. This was precisely why they had not tried to get close to the Chairman. If they were to rescue him, they needed to find a way off this station, and that way was clearly the Imperator and its as yet untried hibernation chambers.

‘But, really, Alex Two did not waste his life,’ Alexandra contended. ‘It is only because Alan Saul is dead that I was able to find this.’ She gestured to the video clip. ‘While he was alive, I couldn’t penetrate the system as I now can.’

‘If he is dead,’ said Alex. ‘That broadcast he made seemed pretty real to me.’

It seemed an age ago now since Alan Saul had spoken about the terrible disease that had swept across Earth, and displayed those horrifying images. Since then the two survivors of the squad had spent their time merely surviving, living like rats in the walls, slowly accruing resources, but aimless and depressed because they believed their prime reason for existence had died, while still unsure if their shot at vengeance had succeeded.

‘Falsified,’ said Alexandra confidently. ‘We saw where those bullets hit and it’s not possible that he could talk after that.’

It was her lack of experience that made her so sure, Alex realized. She had only ever seen people die when gunned down. She had never seen, as had Alex, shattered meat put back together again by modern surgical methods.

‘Also,’ she continued, ‘the search for us has involved human personnel, but not robots. Consider what happened when Langstrom’s troops first located us.’

Again a pause for contemplation. On that occasion they’d been cornered, backed up against an area occupied by construction robots, as the human searchers were closing in. In what he had thought was the vain hope that Alan Saul had at least been sufficiently disabled by Alex Two’s assassination attempt to not be watching, Alex had made the decision to cross that occupied area. The robots had ignored them. So it was just possible that Alexandra was right, and Alan Saul was dead.

‘So we must reinstate our previous plan of action,’ he declared.

Alex now considered that further, because even without Saul controlling the station, their position was bad. He damned himself for acting out of despair in that assassination attempt, and for earlier procrastination. Their squad had been placed on Argus for very specific reasons: they were first of all Alessandro Messina’s spies, rooting out plots against him, passing on the results to his main protection teams; and next they were his secret protection team, providing the last resort should all else fail. Concealed by false identities as diagnostics and maintenance engineers, they had been able to range about the station to this purpose, but no longer. Almost certainly their presence had been missed from the maintenance teams, and analysis of Alex Two’s remains would have been carried out. So, surely inevitably, by now someone would have worked out precisely who and what they were.

Damnation! Perhaps if they had acted right at the beginning of all this, there might have been a chance, maybe a very small chance, for them to grab Messina, steal a space plane and head back to Earth. That chance had passed as the station moved beyond the Moon and began heading out towards Mars, and then they found themselves simply unable to act in a station filled with hostile robots, humans and the ever-watchful and dangerous being that had taken control here. Alex shook his head: twenty-twenty hindsight was indeed a wonderful thing.

‘We need to talk to Earth,’ Alexandra said abruptly.

‘Why?’ Alex asked, gazing at her bright-eyed naivety. ‘There’s no help for us back there.’

Alexandra stared at him, a flicker of disbelief crossing her expression. ‘Schematics,’ she explained, gesturing to the mess of jury-rigged hardware she had put together. ‘Remember, our computer access is minimal out here, so I won’t be able to download a station schematic without being detected.’

Alex nodded, for she had a point. ‘So right now we’re operating on what we remember, and otherwise we’re blind,’ he said. ‘We first need to know where we can resupply ourselves, after Langstrom uncovered our hide. We need oxygen, food and water – and more firepower.’

‘All the data on this place is back there, along with tactical planners who can help us,’ said Alexandra. ‘I’m sure they will help us when we give them this news.’ She gestured at the video on the screen.

Alex could think of many reasons, however, why they would get no help. Carefully he said, ‘But we saw what happened back there.’

‘We saw, but we also know that Committee power is still current – so we have to try.’

Ah, the optimism of a four-year-old, thought Alex. He watched her intently. ‘What can you do?’

Alexandra pointed towards the outer edge of the station. ‘There’ll be dishes out there,’ she said. ‘I should be able to hack one and get a signal out, and I’m certain someone will be listening, despite everything.’

He tried to cast doubt: ‘I have to wonder if Delegate Serene Galahad would be prepared to help us. It seems quite likely that she won’t want the Chairman back.’

Alexandra looked quite offended by the very idea. ‘We have to try,’ she pronounced.

He nodded and smiled, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to educate her any further today.

‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that even if she doesn’t want Alessandro back, she certainly won’t want this station to remain in the hands of terrorists and subversives. We’ll have to play on that, so let’s go.’

As he pushed himself away from the wall, ready to head for the nearest exit from their hideaway, Alex called up his visor display, noting he had about eight hours of air left. Since they shared air between them, that figure applied equally to Alexandra. Over their time as refugees they had resupplied themselves through dangerous forays into pressurized parts of the station, occasionally grabbing some water but otherwise reusing the water processed out of their urine packs, and very occasionally finding something to eat. If they came close to really running out of the means of survival, if all options to that end were finally closed down, as seemed to be Lang-strom’s aim, what then? Surrender?

In some emotionless part of his mind, Alex realized that even surrender might give them a further chance to free the Chairman, but his conditioning prevented him from contemplating it too deeply, at least for now. As he found his way out towards the edge of the station, he vaguely recollected those long sessions with his teachers, interspersed with the regular visits to surgery, followed by thumping headaches and healing cuts in his skull.

Earth

Amazing, just a month after the population reduction around the Great Lakes, and the sewage plants were already back at optimum performance, processing everything heading their way. Clean water was being pumped back into the system while well-rotted and dried human sewage was coming out of the conveyors to pour into the backs of automated trucks. These then conveyed this form of fertilizer to the maize fields further south. They now even had hydrogen fuel available for that. The only fly in the ointment was that half of the trucks had necessarily been reassigned, along with something like fifty per cent of the Great Lakes transport system, to move the bodies, and that many of the maize fields were now occupied by fresh pyres.

‘You’ll have more up-to-date stats than me,’ she said to the figure appearing on her screen wall. It was a lie, of course, as she knew precisely what the numbers were.

‘It’s now gone over twenty million,’ said the dead-faced woman, Gene. She was the environmental officer for Serene’s new North American delegate, and a woman who had recently lost her husband and two children to the Scour. These three had died along with the previous delegate and any of his staff possessing knowledge of the report on effluent pollution of the lakes. After all, Serene did not want anyone joining up the dots.

Gene continued, now with a flash of anger, ‘You’re going to get him for us, ma’am. You’re really going to get him. It’s not all talk . . .’

Serene nodded confidently, suppressing the anger she felt at having this menial dare question her. ‘Alan Saul and the rest of those rebels aboard Argus Station will pay for their crimes, for their assault against Earth and against humanity. They will pay the ultimate price. My only regret is that they cannot be made to pay it a billion times over.’ Then again, the more she learned about the research and development conducted by this Hannah Neumann, the more she realized how people could die more than once. ‘Something like twenty per cent of the resources of Earth are now being diverted to this end. Space-plane production has recommenced, and I’ll soon be making another announcement concerning that matter. However, the business of running this planet cannot be neglected, so I would like you to continue with your report.’

‘Lake Huron is dead,’ Gene said, ‘well, apart from the masses of anaerobic bacteria it contains. It’s now just sixty thousand square kilometres of sludge, so what we’re doing will make little difference in the short term.’ Her image gave way to one side to show an image of the lake, divided up by the fish-farm barriers, processing plants and floating roadways, and surrounded by sprawl heaped up like technological mountains. Processions of big tipper trucks previously used to bring in feed, along with the cargo flatbeds that used to be employed to transport out the processed fish protein, were working all across the lake. The tippers were emptying their contents into the lake; forklifts were unloading the flatbeds. The lake had thus far swallowed seven million corpses, and was now acting as a giant digester tank.

‘What’s left of Lake Ontario we might just as well fill in, what with the heavy metal pollution, but Superior and Michigan are doing surprisingly well, and the water-purification plants are making some headway there. We’ve done better with Erie because of its size, and we have short-term algae blooms and some small areas of water weed re-establishing. If things continue at the present rate, we may be able to start restocking that lake at least within five years.’ Gene paused, her expression turning bitter. ‘The Scour seems to have spared at least some of them.’

‘I don’t think that’s somewhere we want to go, do you?’ Serene berated her, suppressing her own delight. Now, if only she could find some excuse to start demolishing the surrounding sprawl, natural landscape could be exposed, trees planted . . .

‘I’m sorry,’ said Gene. She gazed out of the screen speculatively. ‘I’m a little distracted . . . I’ve been asking for reassignment.’

Why did she think Serene needed to know this?

‘Really?’

‘I want to go offworld and help with our projects out there, help to bring Alan Saul back . . .’

‘I understand,’ said Serene. ‘Everybody wants vengeance and everyone who has lost someone wants to be involved. However, you must remember that you are involved. Everything you do to improve efficiency, rebuild infrastructure and ensure the smooth running of our planet means more resources can be diverted towards dealing with Alan Saul. With your expertise, Gene, you are better placed where you are.’

‘But—’

‘No buts,’ Serene interrupted, her voice hardening. ‘Consider yourself lucky to be alive and in a position to help, and try to remain alive in order to do so.’ Serene swiftly cut the link. The damned cheek of it! Just because her own ruthlessness had not been overt, well – she eyed the expanse of self-cleaning carpet before her desk – outside her immediate vicinity at least, there were people who thought they could question her. Perhaps she needed to be a bit more blatantly ruthless?

‘Ma’am.’

The channel was assigned Priority One through her fone, so he’d better have a damned good reason for contacting her through it.

‘What is it, Clay?’

‘We’ve got communications from Argus Station, and I felt you needed to know about this at once.’

‘Alan Saul?’

‘No, it seems there’s a small undercover squad, one of Messina’s, still free on the station. They’ve managed to turn a dish towards us and get in contact. Apparently they made an assassination attempt on Alan Saul, and he may well be dead, but now they’re in hiding.’

Serene experienced a sudden surge of disappointment, followed briefly by anger. It annoyed her that Saul might have been killed by some means other than as a result of her own orders.

‘What do they want?’ she snapped.

‘Data. They lost a lot of data and equipment recently. They want station schematics and access to a tactical planning team.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘They want to rescue Alessandro Messina, who is apparently still alive.’

‘And they think I would like to help them? I hope you didn’t laugh out loud.’

‘Certainly not, ma’am – they’re a good source of data, and are giving us some gold on the current situation aboard the station. That structural work we observed in the recent Hubble pictures is them enclosing the station disc.’

‘I need to talk to them,’ Serene decided.

‘You can, but there’s a com delay of thirty seconds and their situation, as regards their oxygen supply, is critical.’

‘Okay, give them station schematics and limited tactical planning – just enough for them to resupply themselves. Then I’ll speak to them.’

‘Will do, ma’am.’ He closed the channel.

Serene sat back in her chair, her elbows on its arms and her fingers interlaced under her chin. The Alexander had already test fired its railgun and was now just days away from test firing its main engine. And then, after maybe a further few months of testing and work on the internals, it would be ready to begin its pursuit of Argus. It seemed to her that she felt the hand of destiny on her shoulder.