Neal Asher: Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

He headed for the door.

Earth

Her palmtop opened with a breathy sigh, and just a short search through the menus brought up the program Serene required. It wasn’t that she needed to use her palmtop – the programs she was accessing were available to her in the equipment surrounding her – but it seemed somehow right. Using this method reminded her of that first time when she sent out the signals from the communications room in Aldeburgh to extinguish a large and useless portion of the human race. The palmtop updated its lists as it also updated other software. Two options were now provided for her. She clicked on the list labelled ‘ Scourge ’ and gazed at it contemplatively. She could kill with the Scour, or she could send the signal to constrict over two thousand strangulation collars

I am calm. I am very calm.

She tried to ignore the shaking of her hands and the ball of something hot and black that seemed to be growing in her stomach. Transferring her gaze to the main screen that stood amid her garden vegetation – whose condition was now much improved – she contemplated the two scenes it displayed. One showed the Scourge , presently under power and on a route taking it out of the Asteroid Belt; the other showed Mars, with Argus Station in orbit about it. Her finger hovered over the send button on her palmtop then she carefully withdrew it.

Why had the Scourge separated from the station? Why did they run away?

She was not sure she wanted to take the time necessary to find out why. They had failed out there – they had failed miserably. She returned her gaze to her palmtop, swallowed dryly, and accepted that she wanted to kill someone. Clay Ruger was already history, but plenty of others remained for her to select from: Commander Liang, Captain Scotonis . . .

What?

The list of ID codes was updating again, each steadily acquiring a tick beside it. No, she hadn’t pressed send; she hadn’t followed through with her instinct for vengeance. What was this? The ticks indicated that those people the codes identified had been sent the signal that would flood their bodies with the Scour, and therefore they would be dying even now. Her immediate thought was that there must have been some sort of software failure; that, as the program opened, it had automatically sent the signal. But that made no sense, since the software she was using was multiply backed-up and mirrored, perpetually ran self-diagnostics, and would close down at any hint of either a hardware or software failure.

Angry and frustrated, she began running checks and it soon became apparent that she had not sent the signal, nor had it been inadvertently sent in any other way. But the status of those ID codes was being updated from the latest transmission from the Scourge . She now turned to that and began frantically searching for some explanation, and soon it became clear. Soon everything started to make sense.

Someone had accessed the Scourge ’s personnel files and downloaded all their ID codes. Someone had done this via a console located in the troop section, after the troops themselves had departed. One of the crew? That seemed entirely possible since now, reviewing the data from the Scourge , she saw that there were many gaps in it. Most of the ship cams were offline, so she could not see a recorded view of whoever had accessed that console. It also became apparent that the inducer network had been shut down . . .

Something appeared suddenly on her screen: the blank square indicating a video file. Where had that come from? From the Scourge data – meaning something loaded it even as the ID codes were being downloaded. A worm of apprehension crawled up Serene’s spine. She quickly ensured that all the latest Scourge data had been downloaded to her palmtop, then shut off its modem and put it to one side. She then picked up a console and accessed the hardware all around her, ordering it to ignore any signal from her palmtop – just in case something started up the modem again. Next she focused on the original data download from the Scourge . She sent a copy to hard storage, isolated that same storage and deleted the original. To be utterly safe, she cut the power to the hard drive it had been stored on. Then she picked up the palmtop again, and proceeded to play the video file.

‘Hello, Serene Galahad,’ said Alan Saul, gazing at her with demonic pink eyes. ‘I know it is you that is seeing this since, for it to load, you had to open up your Scour initiation software, and I doubt you trust anyone else with even the knowledge that it exists. By now the ID code status of your personnel currently aboard the Scourge , and aboard my station, is updating and, even as you listen to this, you will know that they are all either dead or dying.’ He paused for a moment, maybe in reflection, though she could read nothing in his expression.

‘Perhaps you should now consider how the weapon you created is double-edged,’ he continued. ‘However, that is not why I am now contacting you. In your arrogance and psychosis, you might find it difficult to accept that I have no interest in you or what you are currently doing on Earth. Your best course now is to ignore me, because I will go away. If you do not take such a course, then I will be forced to take more of an interest in you, and that is something you will definitely not enjoy. That is all.’

His image froze, but it still seemed like he was watching her. After a second, Serene realized she was panting, then with a yell she hurled her palmtop away. It crashed against the low balustrade of the bridge and dropped into the pond.

‘Fuck you!’ she screamed. Then, when Sack appeared, she snarled, ‘Fuck off.’

Sack quickly retreated.

Serene stood up and began pacing. The Scourge ’s assault had failed and now there was no one left to punish. How dare he kill her people? How dare he take that away from her? She kicked over the nearest plant pot, then reached down and tore a Japanese shrub out of another one and threw it away, tramped over other plants to reach her main screen and kicked it over. She had to do something. She had to do something now.

‘Sack!’ she shrieked, and went striding over the bridge.

Sack appeared reluctantly and gazed at her in silence. She gestured over her shoulder.

‘Get rid of it! Get rid of it all!’

‘Ma’am?’

‘The garden, you imbecile! Get rid of the fucking garden! Burn the fucking thing!’

She strode for the elevator and climbed inside. Someone was going to pay for this; someone was going to pay for this right away. Saul was the one she wanted most, but he lay too far out of her reach, for now. As the elevator rose she felt slightly better to be doing something at least, even if it was just relocating herself to Messina’s old office.

Time for another Madagascar.

She had previously been considering further candidates such as Crete, Indonesia, Sri Lanka . . . No, screw the islands. Something bigger; it was time to think big.

Maybe get continental.

Argus

Hannah clung on to the edge of the surgical table, even though no force actually threatened to dislodge her. When it stopped and that deep sonorous note ceased sounding, and it no longer felt as if some malevolent god was trying to crowbar up reality, there came a short silent pause before the station structure all around her began making worrying complaints.

‘Saul’s moved us,’ she observed.

‘Yes, he has,’ replied Le Roque tiredly through her fone. ‘The Scourge separated from us a short while ago, and doubtless he wants us well out of range of its weapons.’

Hannah unclamped her hands from the table and glanced through the viewing window into her laboratory. There were still many patients to be tended, but she could see that her earlier request to Le Roque had been answered and that the military medic Yanis Raiman had arrived to relieve her. She now returned to the subject she and Le Roque had been discussing just before the Rhine drive engaged.