Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

Minds , ten of them the utter proof of how something good and right could come from something so ugly, like roses growing in pig shit. So much data, so much information . . . weaned from the most inhuman research. That man called Nelson, or Leonardo, and his ways of maintaining life making the brilliant vivisection cruelties in HUD a possibility. Even Hannah’s research taken there and hammered into new and horrible shapes . . . the most advanced robotics forced into an amalgam with screaming flesh.

Ten beautiful minds – touched on in dreams that seemed an age ago now, and free at last.

Who are you?

She wouldn’t go away. She was watching him, and he felt that she had always been watching him. He found himself discomfited by her gaze . . . while drifting, catching new information. Some sort of news story acting as a further illustration of the horror caused by that arch demon Alan Saul?

The image was an old one, from the North India Region, from the Brahmaputra–Ganges flood basin. Saul gazed at the boy squatting by the mast of his small boat, a cloth over his mouth and his eyes wide and black. He looked as if he was out on a fishing trip on a mountain lake. However, a closer study revealed the true picture, which, so the narrator informed the waiting public, was taken only five kilometres from where millions upon millions of corpses had been heaped, literally into mountains. The climate and the flies had ensured that the corpses were quickly bloated, rotten and seething with maggots, and a subsequent monsoon had caused the scene displayed here. The flood of billions of litres of water, maggots and fluids from dissolving corpses had completely swamped the urban sprawl that occupied the flood basin, and this boy was one of the few survivors. His boat rode on the writhing glutinous mess while the mountain behind him consisted mainly of bones to which a few stubborn fragments of flesh and gristle still clung.

‘He must be punished,’ continued Serene Galahad. ‘And we must retrieve the Gene Bank data he stole.’

Did it seem to him then that the other woman looked on with a slight twist of contempt to her mouth? No, no, she looked just the same – and she wasn’t looking there, she was looking there . . .

A massive ship sat in its construction station, big robots peeling away surrounding scaffolds like a loose rind, clearly revealing the gleam of heavy armour, missile ports and a maser turret. Was this a dream? No, he knew it was real, and that ship was as imminent as a sledgehammer. He had to pull his consciousness out of this well, and back into the real , but the effort was too much and he felt so utterly exhausted . . . Hannah, help me . . .

After she had suited up, she expected them to take her to Tech Central, but it soon became apparent that they were moving round the circumference of the asteroid rather than heading up on top.

‘Arcoplex One?’ she enquired over her suit radio.

‘Yes, it seemed best, since there are conference rooms available there,’ said Langstrom. He glanced round at her. ‘Best place for a long sit-down discussion of our situation. It may take some time because this is no longer about a single individual issuing orders.’

Ah, democracy , thought Hannah, remembering Saul’s opinion of such a concept in this environment – and how they might all die even while the votes were being counted.

Once they were inside Arcoplex One, Hannah studied her surroundings. She had not visited this cylinder world since first coming here with Saul when he dropped the Argus network on Earth and then issued his ultimatum to Messina and his delegates. No corpses were visible – none of the two thousand victims Messina’s troops had nerve-gassed during their attack – though there were still stains visible on walls and floors, and the occasional scrap of clothing had stuck in place. All the corpses taken from here had either gone through overworked station digesters or been moved to the outer ring to be stored in cold vacuum – as a potential resource.

Just beyond the elevator doors, Langstrom and Peach divested themselves of the EM weapon, passing it on to some waiting troops, who swiftly set about remounting it on a tripod. That was a precaution, doubtless, against the arrival of a spidergun or some other kind of robot. Did this mean they were completely turning against Saul? Peach remained there with the troops, while Langstrom gestured for Hannah to follow.

It seemed to her that they were heading towards the conference room where Saul had confronted Messina and the delegates, but they soon diverged from that route to come up to a set of sliding double doors. Langstrom detached his suit glove, pressed his palm against a lock and the doors slid aside. Within lay a long conference table with people already seated, some of whom she recognized and others she didn’t know. Le Roque sat at the head with Chang to his right and an empty seat to his left. Those seated two down from Chang on the other side were a woman called Dagmar, who ran Zero-Gravity Hydroponics, and an Asian man called Taffor, another agronomist, who ran the Arboretum. Next along, sat another two men who Hannah vaguely recognized as having something to do with Construction. At the further side of the table sat an unfamiliar man and woman, then came two empty seats and another empty seat at the end. Le Roque immediately stood up and gestured to the seat beside him. Hannah gazed at him for a moment, then took the seat at the far end of the table. He acknowledged that gesture with a shrug, and sat down again. Langstrom took one of the other empty seats.

‘I rather resent being dragged away from my patient like that,’ said Hannah. ‘Why is it so important that I be here?’

‘We need to know the Owner’s condition,’ said Le Roque. ‘I’ve been trying to talk to you about that for some time . . . so has Langstrom. We may be heading away from Earth but the danger the Committee represents is by no means over, and we face new trials, new dangers. We are in deep vacuum now, and it’s quite possible we won’t survive it. What is the Owner’s condition?’

Hannah considered various answers, various lies, but in the end decided on a partial truth. ‘Saul was very badly injured by the assault made on him. I’ve repaired most of the damage and things are looking good, but obviously going slowly. He is currently sleeping, which is perhaps best while he heals.’

‘How long until he wakes?’ asked Langstrom.

‘How long is a piece of string?’ Hannah shot back. ‘Any time now, or maybe a month from now.’

‘He’s not conscious, then,’ Langstrom affirmed, ‘which means we need to get a firmer grip on station security.’

‘Yes, I’m not surprised that you would suggest that,’ said Hannah sarcastically.

‘You have your laptop?’ Le Roque asked.

Hannah unhooked it from her belt and placed it on the table before her. ‘I do.’

‘Check the file attached to the last email I sent you.’

Her laptop blinked on the instant she opened it, and she checked her mail. There had been a lot of it, some from eddresses she did not recognize but nevertheless had to be those of people aboard this station. She checked down until she found a message from Le Roque, with an attachment.

She read his message: ‘Here is the DNA map of the individual who shot Saul. Check it against the further DNA map below, look at the name, and please get back to me.’

A cross-matching program was imbedded in the attachment. The first map corresponded to the second to within ninety-nine point nine eight per cent. That couldn’t be right. Then she realized that, of course, it could. Some of the scientists alongside her in the Albanian mountain enclave, before it was broken up, had been working on such projects. She studied the name below the final DNA print, and shuddered. Really, she shouldn’t feel such superstitious dread, as this surely didn’t mean much.