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Neal Asher: Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

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Beyond the Complex, the sea was chequered with decaying fish farms extending all the way out to the ragged towers of wind turbines, for most of which there had been neither the funds nor the inclination to repair. However, five turbines were now working again, powering her Complex now that the Sizewell reactor was down – another precaution she had taken earlier and further affirmation of what now seemed to be her destiny.

Coming in over the aero-port, she circled for a moment while deciding where to land. She could see bloodstains on the carbocrete and, parked off to one side, a forklift with its tines loaded with corpses stacked like logs. Then, as she began her descent, she saw Anderson striding out with two uniformed security staff behind him. For a second she didn’t like that, didn’t like to see him accompanied by armed men. But in the end she must trust, at least to a limited extent, someone. She took her aero down and landed, shut down its engines and headed for the door.

‘You’re gathering data?’ she said as he held out a hand to assist her down from the aero.

‘As we speak,’ he said, looking grim and slightly distracted – probably by a feed issuing from his fones and the implants in his skull. ‘Chairman Messina is gone, along with most of his pet delegates.’

‘What?’

‘We’re still trying to get the story clear . . .’ Anderson paused, and seemed slightly stunned. ‘You said we were hit hard, but I wonder if you know just how hard.’ Once she was down on the carbocrete he gestured inland. ‘All across Earth, it’s the same as what you probably saw over there. We estimate that over two-thirds of the upper Committee Administration, Military, Executive . . . everything . . . dead.’

She had suspected something like this, had seen some sign of it during her flight here, made her calculations on that basis, but now actually being told she was right jerked her to a halt. For a second she just wasn’t sure what to say next, then, ‘Zero assets and societal assets, people outside of the Administration?’

‘Mostly untouched – massive casualties from aero and scramjet crashes and infrastructure collapse, of course, but generally the zero-asset death rate is down on the previous quarter, while our programs predict that societal assets will show a greater propensity for survival now.’

She gazed at him assessingly. ‘Then we must ensure that the former don’t swamp us, as that stupid sectoring idea will have turned them more hostile than before.’

He nodded, understanding perfectly.

‘So, now tell me about Messina,’ Serene asked, as they began to head towards the Complex’s entrance.

‘The rebellion was widespread and damaging, but had no chance of success, and was just a distraction while rebels seized Argus Station. When that space plane crashed at Minsk, another was in the process of being stolen—’

‘Yes, I know that,’ Serene interrupted. ‘Who exactly are – or were – they?’

‘It’s a little confused at the moment.’ Anderson pushed the door open ahead of Serene and held it for her. ‘Initially we have reports that the leader of this group, this “Revolutionary Council” was someone called Malden, who escaped IHQ London.’

‘Seems plausible, since IHQ London was nuked.’ She strode ahead down the corridor, glancing through one door into a big clean-assembly room. Ahead lay the chip-etching plants and the biochip division, all self-contained, run on robotics controlled from the Oversight Room. Her operation here had been very efficient. Her future – and much larger – operation would be more efficient still.

‘Yes, but it seems this Malden died during the attempt to seize Argus Station, and Station Director Smith had regained control. This did not stop Messina summoning his delegates and taking an assault fleet from the Australian Outback spaceport.’

Serene smiled nastily. ‘Messina wanted an excuse to take Smith down anyway, and he wanted to shift his powerbase offworld.’ She paused, suddenly confused. ‘So Messina controls Argus now?’

Anderson shook his head. ‘The last we heard was from assault-force communications. It seems someone else seized control of part of the station, and started up the Mars Traveller Engine at just the right time to wipe out most of Messina’s force. It seems likely that it was this man who brought down the satellite network and turned our own guns against us.’

‘Do we have a name?’

‘We do – he’s called Alan Saul.’

‘Any data on him?’

‘Just a fragment from IHQ London: a disposal order sending him to the Calais incinerator.’

Serene wasn’t sure why that got to her. She shivered.

Soon they reached the armoured doors leading into Oversight, which slid open ahead of her at some unheard command from Anderson. She walked inside and surveyed all those personnel sitting gathering data at the various consoles.

‘Administration survivors – anything useful?’ she asked abruptly.

‘North Region survivors with available transport are heading to the enclaves on the Isle of Mull, though some are making for Inspectorate HQ Glasgow – one of the few to remain untouched. Those in the Midlands are heading to those places as well, or to the offshore algae farms. The same pattern is being repeated all across Earth – Committee survivors with access to transport are trying to put water between them and the zero-asset hordes.’

‘A sensible move, but one of limited duration. Have you managed to contact any European delegates?’

‘None at all.’

‘Then I have authority over the European Region, so summon those on Mull and elsewhere here.’ She paused to strip off her jacket and sit at her own console. ‘We’ve got some organizing to do.’ She glanced over at the door leading into her apartment, telling herself she would head there sometime soon, clean up, then pause and ready herself for what she must do next. However, it would be ten days before she passed through that door for anything more than short power naps, to use the toilet or to gulp down another handful of stimulants.

Mars

The news from Earth was now completely non-existent, but even the dismal picture they had obtained, before the solar storm blew up, lacked impact, especially since they had been on the very knife edge here, where, for survival, even air had been rationed. For five days after Varalia Delex blew out the windows of Hex Three at Antares Base on Mars, it had been necessary to divert a large portion of the reactor’s output to melting Martian ice and electrolysing the water for its oxygen. It had also been necessary to cut all non-essential power usage, even to cut heating in all non-vital areas. During those five days a total of eighty-two personnel were confined to their cabins with the instruction to stay in bed and breathe shallowly – to remain as inactive as possible without being dead. It had been close, and luckily no one had actually achieved that state of total inactivity. Now they had power to spare again, and they were using it.

Var walked slowly ahead of her two companions along the roof of the wing adjoining Hex Four, finally coming to a halt at the edge of the building. The construction robots, newly fired up, were dipping and weaving inside and outside the hex like a flock of iron swans. Gazing at this activity, she allowed herself to feel hope, perhaps for the first time since the Committee had sentenced them to death. In deciding to scrap the Traveller spacecraft through the bubblemetal plants of Argus, to shut down further Traveller construction and thus abandon the personnel here on Mars, the Committee had expected the eventual demise of her and her fellows to be almost certain. To push that demise to complete certainty, it had instructed the political officer here to thin out the population, ostensibly because this would enable the remainder to survive, but really because the resulting loss of expertise would ensure that those left behind didn’t live. But Political Officer Ricard and his staff were all dead, because Var had killed them all.

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