Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

‘Yes, there was another outbreak of the Scour, which caused over a hundred million deaths, whereupon subversive elements in the regional administration took the opportunity to seize control of a ballistic-missile launch site and threaten the European regions. I necessarily replied to this with TEB. The damage that caused and the subsequent infrastructure crashes caused many, many more deaths. Back to you.’

Serene returned to the deer report, then issued instructions. The perpetrators of this crime were to be taken alive and held until she decided what to do with them. Admittedly she no longer countenanced petty vengeance, but an example would have to be made, on ETV. Humans needed to understand their relative value in the ecosystem of Earth.

‘How many in total?’ Clay asked her.

Again the time had sped by, and Serene sat back, completely focusing on him. There was something she had wanted to say about that whole farrago on ETV, something she had wanted to shout from the rooftops but knew she couldn’t. The Asian extermination had been necessary because, despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that Earth might still die from the wounds inflicted on it by having had to support a population of eighteen billion, and despite the population strictures she had imposed, the birth rate in those regions had suddenly shot up. Her enquiries into this painted an unhappy picture of incompetence, mainly due to the lack of a sufficiently well-trained and ruthless administration – the blame for which she could lay squarely at Alan Saul’s feet – also an abrupt increase in food supplies, and misplaced hope for the future in a highly family-oriented culture. She had selected the most inefficient regions and released the Scour on them, then taken out their administration centres with tactical nukes. Even now the dozers and macerating machines were moving in.

But none of this was what she wanted to shout from the rooftops.

Eight point nine eight billion . . .

A watershed had been reached. Earth’s population was finally down to a sustainable level and, though the diversity of fauna and flora was still limited, the planet was starting to bloom again.

‘Two hundred and sixty million is the initial estimate, though with the infrastructure problems it’s difficult to be sure.’ He just gazed at her, not reacting because he had not yet heard her words, so she continued, ‘Despite this tragic loss, one must take the long view and realize that the Scour, as terrible as it is, has quite possibly saved us from an extinction event. Earth’s human population is now down below nine billion.’ There, she’d said it at last.

Now she sat back to await his reply, no longer able to concentrate on the reports in front of her. It seemed to take so much longer for him to come back and, when she checked the time, she saw that it had actually taken six minutes over and above the signal delay.

‘Surely the Scour, in itself, is an extinction event, ma’am?’

She didn’t like the tone of his voice, and she didn’t like that hint of something she was noticing in his expression. Did he know more than he was letting on? He had been close to her during those first days, after all . . . She suddenly felt very uncomfortable and considered sending on its way the signal that would close up that collar around his neck.

‘But I understand what you mean, ma’am,’ he continued. ‘We can never again allow the population of Earth to rise as high as it was, and must ruthlessly enforce population strictures. It is just worrying that this disease keeps recurring as it does, because it could as easily kill someone we cannot afford to lose, like yourself. I simply hope our scientists will find some cure for it soon.’

‘Very true,’ she said. ‘But meanwhile I must soldier on, as must you, Clay. As before: keep your reports coming and get in contact at once should there be anything further I need to know. That’s all for now.’ She shut down com.

His return to normal deference had been plausible and it seemed likely he knew nothing about the Scour’s true source. He hadn’t been that close, and she doubted that his erstwhile senior had let him in on the secret. Even so, Serene felt that his attitude added weight to her earlier decision to place him aboard the Scourge as a disposable asset – as someone high status she could kill as an object lesson to the rest of the crew, should that be required. She now switched to images taken from various aeros and hovering razorbirds, which she had just lately found very soothing.

The huge sprawls in the territory that had once been called Pakistan now lay before her. Even as she watched, a giant two-hundred-storey arcology gouted smoke from its base and collapsed as if it was being sucked into the ground, dust clouds spreading like pyroclastic flows through the surrounding streets. As it went down, birds launched from its roof, but these were birds of metal, graphene and numerous sharp edges. To the left of this, Serene spotted a group of shepherds striding through the sprawl like herons hunting frogs, eliminating any survivors of the Scour, for such survivors had to be subversives who had removed their ID implants. To the right of the collapse, ten robot bulldozers and five excavators, all on caterpillar treads of which each link was bigger than the average hydrovane car, were carving a lane through the lower-elevation sprawl beyond.

Behind them came the even larger bulks of two macerating machines, their giant, toothed front rollers clawing up the rubble so as to pass it inside themselves – big industrial magnets and computer-controlled sorters inside extracting metals and other useful materials, which were regularly spewed out again into the backs of awaiting all-terrain trucks.

The first machine tore up and macerated the surface rubble, spewing out behind it a massive cloud of fragments of carbocrete, concrete, brick and other building materials, doubtless slightly dampened by the numerous human corpses it had just rendered to sludge. At its rear end were deep plough attachments that were busy hooking up foundations, sewers and other underground infrastructure to a depth of ten metres, which the ensuing macerator then chewed up, too. By the time the second macerator passed, its ploughs probing deep into the ground, there were patches of soil now visible amidst the thick layers of ground-up rubble. And these were patches that Serene knew would, given time, turn green.

She had seen that steady spread of green already; seen Earth healing its wounds. She never tired of seeing it, and intended to see a lot, lot more.

Argus

His suit had been leaking, both from the oxygen pack and the gunshot in his leg – the repair patch and breach foam not having proved sufficient to seal the damage. Running out of air, he took great risks in getting himself back to the hydroponics unit – the drugs his VC suit automatically injected into his system conspiring to make him less cautious. Nevertheless, he made it back there without being caught and, because of those drugs, managed to strip off his suit without screaming in pain. Once he had done so, he soon realized he would not be putting it back on. It had used up all its breach foam, the patch he had used was the largest available and it now fell away, and though the leak from his oxygen pack was slow, it was still losing air faster than the recharging pump could replace it.

Where the bullet had struck his shin, splintered bone protruded from his leg. He knew that if he wasn’t to die, he needed to work quickly, for now, with the breach foam peeled off the wound, it was bleeding heavily. He opened his medical kit and first used a spray of artificial skin with an integral coagulant, then he dragged himself around the hydroponics unit in search of materials for a splint – finally detaching the legs of a mantis-like agribot for that purpose. He cut the right boot from his discarded VC suit and put it back on, attached the splints to it, then hung a roll of duct tape from the top of one of them, above his knee, in readiness. After injecting himself with a powerful painkiller, he lodged his boot in a framework and, looping his arm around a nearby strut, he pulled.