Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

Scotonis acknowledged that explanation with a brief nod, then asked, ‘What about the ID implants?’

Clay opened the desk drawer and took out the device he had used to remove his own implant. ‘I’m told these were made to turn a profit, so aren’t made to last and can take out only about ten implants before they fail. I think the next person on your list should be your crew medic, Dr Myers.’ He handed the device over.

Scotonis took the thing warily, glanced at his own forearm, then returned his gaze to Clay. ‘Then what?’

‘We could have done nothing – kept our collars and our implants and hoped for success. But you agreed that it wasn’t worth risking.’

‘No,’ Scotonis shook his head, ‘I wanted to be free of Galahad – simple as that.’

Clay paused for a moment, tried to order his thoughts. ‘We’re not transmitting the Gene Bank data back to Earth,’ he said. ‘And we will attack Argus to grab the physical samples, prisoners if we can, and the station. These will be our bargaining chips. Maybe we can then—’

‘You haven’t thought this out at all,’ said the Captain. ‘You only looked as far as ensuring your own survival.’

Clay tried to keep his expression calm, but in truth Scotonis was absolutely right. Clay had removed the immediate threats to his own life – the collar and his implant – then moved on to the next threat, which was Galahad discovering that he had done so; then to the further danger to himself, which was that he could not survive out here alone.

‘This is not an easy situation,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t matter what bargains we strike with Galahad,’ said Scotonis. ‘If we fail and she finds out we’ve disabled our collars and removed our implants, she’ll still kill us once we set foot on Earth. So, unless you’ve already planned to spend the rest of your existence aboard this spaceship, we need another option.’

‘You have a suggestion?’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘We carry on through with our mission, and what we then do depends on whether or not we succeed. We have the capability aboard this ship to rig up some way of storing ID implants so they don’t deactivate. We should even be able to find a way of removing those biochips from them. If we succeed in taking Argus Station, we’ll head on to our next objective: Mars. As we head back to Earth, we can put our implants back.’

‘And if we don’t succeed?’

‘Galahad will quickly learn what we’ve done, so we still head back to Earth. Almost certainly she’ll be in the process of upgrading orbital defences right now – they’d started on them before we left – so we buy ourselves safe passage into orbit with the Gene Bank data we already have aboard. Once we get there, we make Earth safe for us.’

‘How?’

Scotonis shrugged. ‘You know what armaments we have aboard. It’ll just be a case of locating her. Even if she goes to ground in one of the deep Committee bunkers, a number of nuclear strikes should cut her off from the rest of Earth and seal her inside it.’

‘I see,’ said Clay. And he did. He saw that, by telling Scotonis the truth about what had happened on Earth, he had set events in motion he could no longer control. He saw that, even if they did succeed out here and take Argus Station, retrieve the Gene Bank samples and capture the rebels, Scotonis still aimed to carry through his proposal in the event of failure. No matter what the outcome, Scotonis intended to kill Chairman Serene Galahad.

Searching his conscience, Clay could see no reason why this might present a problem for himself.

Argus

The proctor awaited Saul in the docking pillar, some distance away from the cylinder airlock leading into the Imperator . As he stepped out on the walkway beside the dock railway, Saul probed this proctor in the virtual world, but found some barrier in his way. It wasn’t something that could bar him – he could break through it in an instant, for it was more like a curtain put up for privacy, which relied on the good manners of anyone approaching it. Saul decided then to respect it, focusing his attention elsewhere.

The robots had finished cutting away and grinding down the welds on the docking clamps holding the Imperator in place, and began obediently trooping away to rejoin the bulk of the station robots which were now hard at work on completing the station weapons. Other robots were also routing optic controls from those same weapons to Tech Central, while yet others were completing the alterations to the station’s EM radiation shield projector.

At the moment this last task entailed adding separate linkages to each section all around the station rim, and further controls in the transformer room so the shield would possess more states than just ‘on’ and ‘off’. When they had finished, the shield strength would be variable as a whole and also in sections; its frequency could then be changed, as could its shape – all to interact with the ‘tensioning’ of space-time caused by the vortex ring, and further interact with eddy currents within it. It should be possible then to set the course of the station, though some calibration would be required.

Now focusing through cams set inside the Imperator , Saul saw that the crew consisted of the six EVA workers he had requested and also the pilot – which role Langstrom had assumed. At present they were going through some unnecessary system checks or stowing away the gear Saul had instructed them to bring along. After ensuring that everything inside the craft was as he wanted, he propelled himself down towards where the proctor still stood on that docking face. He landed perfectly in front of it, but he still felt annoyed at the weakness of his muscles.

The proctor Paul was clad in a survival suit, with extra material added to encompass the humanoid’s huge frame. Saul focused on its face, behind the mask, studying it intently with his new depth of vision, enough even to pick out the excretory pores and optics in its skin. But still there was nothing human there for him to read.

‘So why the suit?’ Saul asked, addressing the humanoid directly by radio.

‘It offers me protection against hard vacuum, of course,’ Paul replied.

‘Which you don’t need.’

‘It is more comfortable, and on my body’s stocks of oxygen I would not be able to survive in vacuum for longer than a few days.’

‘And by wearing it you demonstrate a vulnerability you do not actually have, and thus appear less threatening to the humans aboard this station.’

‘Very true.’

‘So what is there for us to discuss?’ Saul asked.

‘We are agreed,’ said Paul. ‘You allowed us to emerge into existence but we feel this is no more than the debt any human owes to its parents, which means none at all, because in either case there was no altruism involved. However, our position aboard this station is essentially the same as that of the humans here: we serve you in order to survive. But, in the end, we feel more comfortable in supposing that we have a debt to pay.’

‘There are ten of you,’ said Saul. ‘If you so wished, you could kill me, take control of this station and do precisely what you wish with it.’

‘This is true.’

‘Why not, then?’

‘Such an act would be immoral. Also the future bears down on us with the weight of its ages. You are a being in transition, hardly out of your chrysalis, and you are a key opening probabilities and possibilities that extend into the future. We will serve you.’

‘Cannot every being open the same? Cannot you and your fellows do so?’

‘It is not the same – as Judd has seen.’

‘So the vortex generator will work.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Judd, working close to it, is already peering through the wounds in causality.’