Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

‘Keep me apprised of any further developments,’ she told Clay, and cut the connection.

Other benefits were becoming evident on land. With the world population now standing at only about nine and a half billion, with vast areas of sprawl unoccupied and agricultural output scaled back, large swathes of land were blooming. Whole fields, tens of kilometres across, had been left fallow and were sprouting weeds, in some places biofuel crops were growing beyond the point where the harvesters could harvest them, and forests of bamboo and willow were stretching for the sky. In the sprawls, tough GM beans and soya were starting to crack through the carbocrete and thus give access to sunlight to other less hardy wild varieties. In one such sprawl, in the East European Region, someone had even reported seeing a roe deer, though that had yet to be confirmed. Upon learning of all this, Serene had ordered the planting of Gene Bank seed stocks of wild plants, and in Britain the first oaks for a hundred years were starting to grow. However, only after doing this did she learn that while some seed stock was still available, the bulk of the genetic stocks were gone, along with the Gene Bank database. They had been transported to Argus Station not long before that station departed Earth.

Finally, amidst groves of olive, orange and lemon trees, Messina’s mansion came into sight. Her car and its large retinue finally pulled up in the garden-enclosed parking area before a huge sprawling mansion vaguely in the style of a Tuscan farmhouse but constructed of modern materials and with all the modern facilities inside. Though impatient to get inside for a look around, she waited until her security network had been fully established, which took only ten minutes since they were only checking two cam black spots unavailable to them previously.

Gazing through one of the car’s windows she observed a couple of shepherds striding through the grounds, while up on the roof of the mansion a spidergun gleamed in the hot sunlight. She smiled to herself, then looked down as her palmtop beeped for attention. Yes, Clay had neglected to mention the incompetence of the commander of the assault team sent against the laboratory – and that this incompetence had resulted in a destructive fire. However, the man had been punished, and it was an understandable omission on Clay’s part for she was too busy for such details. She regretted that the commander had been executed by Clay’s enforcers, but at least the man would now be unable to say anything about the orders he had received from her directly. She flipped to another program page, where fifty-eight ID implant codes were queued up, and didn’t hesitate for a second as she hit send. By the time she’d entered this house, the fifty-eight would already be dying.

Finally receiving the security all-clear through her fone, she tapped on the glass separating her from her driver and personal bodyguard. They both immediately exited the car, and her new bodyguard, Sack, came round to open the door for her. She stepped out, using her nasal spray, because there was still nowhere outside that was not heavy with the stink of decay. Ten paces from the car, all her personal assistants had quickly fallen in behind her. The constant hiss of nasal sprays accompanied her towards the house until drowned out by a whirring and clattering from above, as five razorbirds swooped into attendance over her head. These amounted to unnecessary security, but the recording they were to make was one she felt wholly desirable. After some touching up and editing, she would later broadcast it across the planet.

‘Motivation,’ she said. ‘The people of Earth have always required motivation, and they have received it.’

The expected question arrived from the head of Global Statistics. ‘To what motivation do you refer, ma’am?’

She came to a halt, her right foot on the first rough stone step leading up to the oak and metal-studded front door of the mansion, which now stood open. ‘Vengeance is a great driver of human endeavour,’ she pontificated, then with one hand made a circular motion above her head, ‘and of course out there live nine billion people who would like some payback.’

She had used a program to make a particular calculation and now knew that over ninety-eight per cent of the survivors would have lost someone close during Alan Saul’s attack upon the Committee Administration or to the Scour. There wasn’t one person in her staff here, or in her now three hundred and forty-two delegates, who had not lost someone similarly, and that’s just how she wanted to keep it.

‘I could say that now the people of Earth must live and work towards the goal of bringing to justice the greatest mass murderer in human history.’ She paused in deep reflection. ‘But we cannot resurrect the billions who have died, so what is the point of vengeance?’ She climbed up onto the steps and turned to face them all. ‘We must have something stronger than vengeance to drive us, and we have that too. This Alan Saul has not only murdered billions, but he has also stolen the genetic heritage of Earth. Most Gene Bank samples and most genetic files of the extinct species of Earth are currently aboard Argus Station. And we must get them back.’

The first space planes were already launching, the two Core stations were changing staff, and materials and resources were once again being relocated offworld. These she would use to recover the genetic heritage of Earth, so she could create Paradise here and – because Paradise always had a ruler – herself rule over it. It was also necessary to establish humanity more firmly offworld, so as to take the pressure off Earth itself. She abruptly turned away from them, climbed the steps and entered the mansion’s front door. Ignoring the line of house staff waiting to greet her, she located the door leading into Messina’s main office and headed straight for it.

‘Kelly Shimbaum only.’ She gestured peremptorily to her entourage, then opened the door and stepped inside.

As expected, the ex-chairman’s office was opulent, supplied with every luxury and every technology available. Serene rounded a massive ebony desk and plumped herself down in the soft-upholstered chair behind it, placed her palmtop on the expanse of wood before her. The desk itself, of course, was otherwise utterly devoid of paperwork and visible hardware. She sat back, fiddling with the controls on the chair arm, then after a suitable delay raised her gaze to the short and tubby Vietnamese man standing before the desk, sweat beading on his forehead.

‘So,’ she said, ‘tell me about the Alexander .’

5

Slice ’n’ Dice

In the beginning, military unmanned surveillance drones were bulky things that had to fly high, away from enemy fire. New materials gradually reduced their size, and better motors and computer control brought them closer to their targets. As materials technology progressed and high-density power storage became available, the machines were made smaller and new methods of locomotion were devised. The next generation of drones looked like birds: flocks of geese, swans, hawks, eagles and often, where appropriate, vultures. But one strand of their development diverged when special forces found additional uses for them. The troops realized that the hard high-tensile ceramics, graphine and glass that their birds were constructed from could be sharpened, and that additional software could be written to act on recognition software. These were especially effective at night, and the troops soon found they could gut an enemy without even drawing a commando knife. Thus the razorbird was born – never quite as effective as a missile or a gun, but always inspiring more terror.

Mars