Neal Asher - The Departure

‘Are all Messina’s people confined in here now?’ she asked, as they moved away from the mounded bodies and along a concave street.

‘They’re all here,’ he confirmed. ‘Messina and his delegates broke off for a recess after two hours of exhausting debate, and they have now secured themselves suitable apartments after ordering their staff to clear them of the previous occupants. Some of the staff even started using a digester to dispose of the corpses, but were ordered to desist until the Committee came to a decision on the matter.’

‘Are they total idiots?’

‘No, just mentally hardwired, still adhering to the old hierarchy – whilst Messina himself can’t accept that he now rules nothing.’

It seemed they were now far enough away from the endcap, because Saul removed his VC helmet and hung it from a hook on his belt. As Hannah removed her own, she detected some of the stink. Perhaps those already here for a while hadn’t noticed the smell increasing. But they would definitely notice once the corpses began crawling with maggots.

Ahead, now, Hannah could see people on the move, all of them heading for a large building extending right up to the central spindle of the cylinder. Many of them kept looking back towards her and Saul, while trying to propel themselves along faster. She glanced at Saul questioningly.

‘I ordered them all to their conference chamber. The place has room to contain all of them, and is equipped with large screens.’

‘And what images will you display on them?’

‘Enough, let’s hope, to burn out some of that hard wiring.’

Govnet opened up like a whore eager to get her business over with and virally dispatching copies of the programs he was running aboard the station proved easier still. He particularly needed to shift round vast blocks of data, but not necessarily in his own mind, so he just hijacked a range of computer systems down on Earth and let them do the work instead. All this meant was that it would all take just a little longer to kick off. Essentially he was doing, on a vaster scale, what he had already done aboard the station at large, and this time no other comlife stood in his way. Leaving processes running, he now focused a small proportion of his attention elsewhere.

‘Langstrom,’ he said, uttering the name merely in his mind, as he saw the new Security Director suiting up along with forty of his men.

Langstrom looked up. ‘I hear you.’

‘I want you positioned at the base of Arcoplex One. Some people will be coming out soon, and I want them escorted to their assigned quarters both inside the ring and in the worker units situated within the lattice walls. I’ve already sent the details to your palmtop.’

‘Chairman Messina?’ Langstrom prompted.

‘Is not your concern.’

Saul refocused his attention on the activity within Arcoplex One.

Delegates arriving in the conference chamber were obviously annoyed to see so many others present and started gesturing back to the walls any who had the temerity to gather about the tiers of horseshoe tables and chairs. No sign of Messina there – he was still in his apartment questioning two of his bodyguards about where the other two had gone. The missing pair were already in the chamber, one clutching the hand of his young daughter whilst the other leant back against the wall, arms folded and his expression sour. Saul had already checked on earlier discussion between them, whose content was little different from so many he had already heard. Messina was fucked, they had agreed, and now the time had come for them to look after themselves. Out of curiosity, Saul reviewed the data on these two men. The one called Ghort, leaning against the wall, had not actually killed anyone, so under Hannah’s terms was salvageable. Unfortunately the one with the daughter had eagerly dispensed Messina’s personal justice in the past, and even kept image files of the proceedings.

Finally Saul and Hannah themselves reached the entrance to the building containing the conference chamber. There he paused, gazing along the length of the arcoplex. It seemed not all had answered his summons. Two were in fact hiding nearby, in a room where they had first smashed all the cams. A recorded video showed them entering the place, while the station net had registered the toilet being used only a minute ago.

‘If you do not both go to the conference chamber straight away, I will have to send a spidergun after you,’ he announced loudly, via the intercom inside their refuge. Hannah turned to him in puzzlement, then swung her gaze to follow his. After a minute a door opened and a couple of people propelled themselves out. They abandoned their hide at a reluctant pace, but speeded up once they registered the spiderguns.

‘There, that’s all of them,’ declared Saul, folding his arms.

‘We were—’ began Delegate Margot Le Blanc, as she approached him with her bodyguard.

Saul waved her inside. ‘I don’t care what you were. And that’s something you’ll all have to learn very quickly.’

‘Very well.’ Delegate Le Blanc swept on past, her dignity somewhat diminished by her lack of experience in using gecko boots.

After a moment, Saul dispatched one of the spiderguns after her, while simultaneously watching through cams as Messina finally quit his apartment and entered the conference chamber. The Chairman took the prime seat at the horseshoe tables, and only when properly seated with his two remaining bodyguards behind him did he gesture imperiously and the delegates took their seats. As Le Blanc hurried in and sat down, Messina eyed her calculatingly. He seemed just about to say something, but then the spidergun entered. Some delegates leapt from their seats and began backing off, while an uproar arose among the surrounding crowd as they retreated further against the walls.

Saul grinned. ‘Let’s go.’

Entering the lobby, they climbed a spiral stair two floors up, then took a short corridor to the double doors leading into the chamber. These had meanwhile swung closed, muffing the uproar inside. This entire building, Saul had discovered, had been planned as the Committee base inside the station. The three tiers of horseshoe tables within the chamber had seating for no more than a hundred and fifty, so it seemed to have been intended for Messina and his core delegates only. Whether the remaining delegates were due to have been assassinated, or just abandoned on Earth, he did not know. He stepped up to the doors, with Hannah at his side and the second spidergun close behind.

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.

‘You’ve not made your decision,’ he replied, pausing, ‘and I now realize you may be incapable of making one.’

‘But it’s not my decision,’ she said. ‘You’ve already decided that Messina and the rest must die, and you just want me to confirm that.’

‘No, I want you to perceive the correct course.’ He turned to her, wishing he could force her into seeing what was so plain to him. ‘Tell me, if we were back on Earth, with unlimited resources, what would you do with them there?’

‘Try them, then send them to prison for life,’ she replied. ‘They’re guilty of too much wrongdoing to ever be released, and if they were released they would only scrabble for power again. They would never be genuinely useful.’

‘So a trial would be irrelevant because you already know they are guilty. It would just paint a gloss of justice over a course of action that is already just.’

‘Some might be innocent . . .’

‘No, not among the seventy-nine.’

Hannah shrugged, looked away.

He continued, ‘This Argus Station is not Earth, and its resources are severely limited. Keeping this lot alive, whilst they contribute nothing, would definitely mean others here dying. So what is the right decision?’