Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

‘You won’t get away with this,’ she said, feeling like a cliché from a million fictional dramas.

Rhone reached out a hand and one of his two men handed over his rifle.

‘I’m just playing the odds,’ he said, raising the weapon.

Var turned round and stepped off the edge. It was likely she would not survive this fall, but it was even less likely that she could survive the ceramic bullets about to punch through her suit. She, too, knew how to play the odds.

Argus

Hannah glanced at Saul as she walked along at his side. So, his sister was still alive, and was actually the technical director of Antares Base. Hannah felt uneasy about that news, felt it was some kind of game changer, but she could not logically nail down why. He had said the fact that Var Saul was offworld might have been an unconscious driver of his actions, but how could something like that be quantified? She wanted to ask him about that further, try to see her way clear, but in the end what use was such knowledge to her? He was in charge of Argus Station. He was the de facto dictator here and his decisions were final.

She followed him into Tech Central and gazed at the new equipment recently installed: the big console with three seats before it, and screens extending above. A couple of technicians had taken a large portion of the floor up and were busy installing optic cables and junctions. From here the adapted EM radiation field could be controlled, as could the vortex-generator ring itself, and the place now looked more like the bridge of the massive spaceship that Argus Station had become.

The murmur of conversation ceased once all present saw who had entered.

‘Welcome back,’ said Le Roque, somewhat pensively.

‘Glad to be here,’ replied Saul, his voice remote and carrying no hint of being annoyed or even happy, no hint of human emotion at all. ‘Everything is proceeding to schedule?’

His gaze strayed to the three main screens up on the wall. Hannah noted that they showed various views of the nearby asteroid. One was from the dock for the smelting plant that had recently been extended, which showed the plant now merely tens of metres from a surface that glared red under powerful work lights. Another was taken from the smelting plant itself, showing the big anchor cables that had been extended across, along with all the umbilicals connected to an excavator robot down on the surface. And the third, from the robot, showed its big rotary digging blade already gnawing into the cinnabar and feeding it into the machine’s maw.

Le Roque watched Saul for a moment, then swung his attention round to Leeran and Pike. It was Pike who responded.

‘We’ve already filled up our first furnace,’ he paused and shrugged, ‘though the word furnace implies temperatures that we’re not using. Better to call them ovens. We’re cooking up the first batch, and already mercury vapour is going into the condensers for primary condensation. Secondary condensation – purification – should begin within six hours, and about eight hours after that we should be ready to start pumping pure product directly into the vortex generator. But, of course, we won’t be able to do that until they’ve completed the ring – and put the section in over the Traveller engine.’

‘Good,’ said Saul, ‘then I won’t delay you here. I want you back out at the smelter plant, making sure nothing goes wrong.’

Pike gave a brief nod. ‘Good to have you back. Things have been edgy.’

‘Yes,’ Leeran agreed, ‘it’s good to have you back.’

Hannah watched them both obediently depart.

‘Brigitta and Angela,’ Saul now addressed the two grinning Saberhagens, ‘you have the time now to commission all the station weapons you’ve built.’ He glanced round at Hannah. ‘At this juncture it is pointless building replacement sections for the vortex ring. If it is hit once it’s up and running, it will tear apart the outer ring of the station.’

The two twins sobered instantly and Hannah immediately began to review recent history. She’d given the orders for spare sections to be made. If she’d checked the running specs of the vortex generator she’d have known that they were redundant. But she couldn’t think of everything, because she wasn’t omniscient.

‘Now would be good,’ Saul added.

The twins left, and in a like manner he disposed of all those others who had gathered here: giving orders to secure the various hydroponics units, to ensure the cylinder brakes were working in readiness to stop the spin of the cylinder worlds and lock them down, and numerous other orders besides. But Hannah knew that he could have issued all these orders just as easily through the system; and could probably have carried out the tasks himself without further human intervention. He was here just to show himself, to demonstrate that Argus now had a firm hand on its helm.

Finally, the only personnel remaining were Le Roque, the working technicians and a few of his staff like Chang, along with Langstrom and herself. She felt a sudden familiar tightening in her torso and in the back of her throat. Though she recognized the first signs of a panic attack, they came to her almost like a balm. Her liar panic attacks only ambushed her when there was nothing actually to panic about. He was back in charge, and she could now return to her laboratory.

‘Langstrom,’ he said, turning to the police chief, ‘I have just started running diagnostic checks on Chairman Messina’s space plane, the Imperator , and fuelling has also commenced. I want you to choose the required crew to fly it, and a six-man team of the best EVA workers you have and get them aboard the plane, ready for a flight in twelve hours.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Langstrom replied. ‘Might I enquire why?’

‘The Imperator is armed, and it even has five tactical atomics aboard. I intend to make things a little difficult for the Scourge ,’ Saul replied. ‘Get on to that now.’

Langstrom obviously wanted to ask more but, grateful to still be alive, he quickly headed off, taking the repro Manuel with him.

‘Now you, Le Roque,’ Saul said, and the man immediately looked as if he expected the hammer to fall, ‘you’ve been receiving requests from the Scourge to open communication.’

‘We’ve said nothing to them,’ said Le Roque hurriedly.

‘Well, now it is time to talk,’ Saul replied.

‘Why?’ asked Hannah. ‘They want us all dead or captured, and this station back under their control.’

‘You will see shortly,’ Saul replied, as Le Roque turned to the console below the three big screens and punched in a command.

The screen just flickered for a moment, and then a tough Asiatic face appeared. It was the man Hannah recognized from the Scourge broadcasts as Captain Scotonis.

‘So you have seen fit to reply at last,’ said the captain, then his eyes widened fractionally as he took in whatever was visible to him on his screen. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Alan Saul.’ He stepped closer to the screens, and Hannah guessed that he had routed an image of himself, rather than the image the screens, with their integral cams, would be currently picking up of Le Roque.

‘So rumours of your demise have been exaggerated,’ said Scotonis.

‘Not entirely,’ Saul replied, ‘but then death has become a rather movable feast with me. Do you yourself have complete authority aboard the Scourge , Captain Scotonis.’

The captain looked momentarily baffled, then said, ‘I’m handing you over to Political Officer Clay Ruger right now.’

The next image to come up on the screen was another that Hannah recognized from previous attempts at communication with them from the Scourge . The man was also recognizable in another sense, for he was a type. Handsome but cold, there was a kind of blankness there, indicating the archetypal murderous Committee bureaucrat. However, upon seeing Saul, he did show a modicum of shock, albeit quickly concealed.