Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

Hannah’s stomach felt tight, dreading what the android’s response might have been to her instruction to protect Alan Saul, to protect the Owner. Had this Paul and its fellows gone straight to her laboratory to kill Dr Raiman and any other medics found there? Had they also killed the guards Langstrom had left behind? She wished she’d been more specific.

‘One of those things the Saberhagens were working with is now in your laboratory,’ confirmed Le Roque. ‘Raiman and his people are out in the corridor – it won’t let them near the Owner, told them to stay out.’

Some relief there, but this was by no means over. Hannah swung her attention towards Langstrom, who was listening to his own fone, his expression grim. He turned to Le Roque. ‘My men opened fire on it,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No effect – so I’ve ordered other men to break the armour piercers out of storage.’

Le Roque continued to gaze at Hannah. ‘I need an explanation, Dr Neumann.’

Hannah spread her hands placatingly. ‘I’ve simply ensured that Saul remains protected. He won’t be handed over to Galahad, and he’s going to remain under my care.’ She glanced at Langstrom. ‘You’ve no need of armour-piercing bullets, and they wouldn’t work anyway. The androids were programmed by Saul himself and, until he is well, they will take their orders from me.’

‘A police force he can trust absolutely,’ remarked Langstrom bitterly.

Hannah shrugged, trying to appear confident, though unsure of her ground. ‘Police for Saul only. You still police this station at large.’

‘More like doctrinal police,’ said Langstrom. ‘Real police are real human beings who retain the ability to question, to make decisions based on reality.’

‘Proctors,’ said Hannah abruptly, remembering the enforcers of correct political thinking from her university days, and also remembering how, before the Committee, such proctors had kept the chaotic and undisciplined student body in line. Wasn’t there an older meaning still? Yes, religious police – and that seemed appropriate since they were guarding a being who had, at least for a short time, been a demigod.

‘Proctors,’ said Le Roque. ‘So what else do you intend to do with these proctors, Dr Neumann?’

Hannah stood up. ‘I intend to ensure that we find a way out of this that doesn’t involve giving up Saul or surrendering ourselves. I intend to ensure that we survive, and don’t all end up shitting on the floor of an adjustment cell on Earth.’ She looked around at the others seated at the table. ‘We’re done here now until I can pull together those staff who’ll provide a more positive input. Then I suggest we discuss this matter again.’

‘Langstrom,’ said Le Roque. ‘Take Dr Neumann into custody while we resolve this situation.’

Langstrom stood up, looking very unsure, his hand on his sidearm.

‘Who do you take orders from, Langstrom?’ Hannah asked.

‘I take orders from the Owner,’ he said. ‘However, in the Owner’s absence I must take orders from the next person in authority aboard this station, and that is Technical Director Le Roque.’

‘You merely follow the chain of command, then, and tend not to think for yourself?’

He frowned, then abruptly dipped his head and reached up to press his fingers against his fone. He listened for a moment, then abruptly spat, ‘Get out of its way – then get over to the armoury. We’re going to need something a bit more substantial.’

He glanced pensively at the door before quickly moving round the table. His gun came out of its holster as he caught hold of Hannah’s jacket. He pressed it into her side and dragged her away from the double doors, which at that moment abruptly slid open. One of the newly named proctors ducked inside, the top of its head only a few centimetres below the ceiling. Little pieces of blue ceramic fell off its tough skin – the remains of low-penetration station weapons. It shrugged, shedding further fragments, and a pink haze like St Elmo’s fire rippled across its hide. Hannah did not know precisely how, but she recognized this as the first one that had addressed her, and as the same one that had spoken to her over her fone.

‘The EM weapon couldn’t stop it,’ said Langstrom – his comment directed to Le Roque as he pulled Hannah closer.

‘Hello, Paul,’ she said.

‘Hello Hannah Neumann,’ the proctor replied. ‘Would you like me to disarm Captain Langstrom, and render him harmless?’

‘Not right now,’ Hannah replied, shivering. The resonance of the voice was completely off key and, though the proctor spoke such reasonable words, there seemed to be terrible implications behind them.

She turned to Le Roque, who, along with the others, had stood up and moved back from the table. ‘So where do we go from here, Le Roque? If I order this proctor to free me, how are you going to counter that?’ She paused for a second. ‘And you, Langstrom. Are you going to kill me and then die shortly afterwards just so Le Roque can maintain power here?’

‘Le Roque?’ Langstrom enquired. Hannah could feel the dampness of his sweat through his uniform, could see it on his cheek. He was in a horrible position and knew it. What would he do next? She must not underestimate the possibility that, faced with this thing called Paul, he might not react rationally.

‘Release her,’ said Le Roque.

The gun retracted, a sigh escaping Langstrom as he let her go. Slightly unsteadily she walked over to stand beside the proctor, Paul. The android towered over her, completely immobile, but with a thunderstorm tension in the air all about it. Then it turned and dipped its head as if to peer down at her.

‘Your instructions?’ it asked.

She felt a moment of panic, and suppressed it. She should just concentrate on the words it uttered. She should not see them as a question asked by some demon she’d just summoned up from Hell. ‘We go back to Arcoplex Two,’ she replied, ‘and we’ll take it from there.’ She turned towards the doors.

‘Dr Neumann,’ said Le Roque, ‘you understand that we had no choice?’

Power had shifted abruptly.

She nodded an acknowledgement and stepped outside, Paul looming over her, the doors closing behind them.

‘I want you to secure the station armoury,’ she decided. ‘I don’t want Langstrom’s men running around with guns and rocket launchers.’

‘Already done, Hannah Neumann,’ replied Paul. ‘I sent a spidergun the moment Captain Langstrom dispatched Sergeant Peach there.’

‘Spidergun?’ said Hannah, halting abruptly.

‘We have all been awaiting your command,’ the proctor informed her. ‘You have only to issue instructions.’

‘All the station robots?’ she asked, suddenly horrified.

‘All that can hear you, and all the others through those.’

She hesitated, almost felt like running back to Le Roque and handing power back to him. What horrified her? That same thing Saul had shoved into her hands before, and now again: responsibility.

‘This is not going to be an easy conversation to conduct, so we must both think ahead to anticipate questions we might be asked, and add the further detail our answers might require,’ said the woman on the screen.

‘There’s a tidy-up program running alongside this image feed,’ said Alexandra, pausing the broadcast from Earth.

‘So this Serene Galahad is vain,’ said Alex.

Chairman Messina had once met Galahad during one of his many world tours. She was a British delegate, but not as active in the administration there as others – her rank was bestowed simply because of her scientific expertise and her organization of ID-implant manufacturing. Warned of subversive elements within her vicinity, and of some doubt about her own loyalty, his protection teams had been kept on high alert. Alex One and his brothers had been ready in a fast-drop boat underneath an aero hovering above the Aldeburgh facility, just in case something happened there that the conventional protection teams down on the ground couldn’t handle. This was why, out of the hundreds of other delegates he had encountered, Alex remembered her.