Neal Asher - The Departure

With her face still averted, she replied, ‘They should die.’ She then turned to him, her expression registering shock at her own words. Doubtless she was now telling herself that she was equally as bad as those she had judged. He tried not to feel contempt for her weakness.

‘I am glad to hear you say that at last. Now consider this point: It has been within your power to sentence those people to death, but it is also within your power to allow them to live – and within your power alone. When the time is right, I am going to ask you whether I can offer them the choice.’

She was clearly confused, for she hadn’t yet seen that other option, but eventually she would.

He continued, ‘As for what I want you to do now, just go wherever you feel comfortable.’

‘I’d feel more comfortable not being here.’

He glanced at her. ‘Which was exactly the position of many decision makers within the Committee who had dissidents killed or drew up the plans for sectoring.’

Hannah showed further discomfort at that statement, but stayed by his side as he pushed open the double doors and strode through, heading straight out into the middle of the chamber. Behind him, he had one of the robots remain on guard at the door, whilst the second climbed the wall and scuttled across the ceiling, positioning itself up above like some macabre chandelier. The uproar quickly waned, for they were frightened, but from Saul’s presence they now knew they weren’t facing instant extinction.

For a moment he scanned the faces all around him. Seated as many were, they obviously felt themselves to be in a superior position, but no matter. In a bit of theatre, he waved his hand, and the six massive screens ranged high on the walls all around the room flickered on. The views he chose for three of the screens were the same as those displayed previously in Tech Central: one of Earth from the station, another of Earth from cams on the Argus satellites, and finally a view of some of the satellites themselves.

Messina cleared his throat. ‘What can we do for you, citizen?’

Most of those present were wearing fones, but some were not. Saul nodded towards a fourth screen, routeing through to it a list of the names of everyone in the chamber, excluding the seventy-nine. ‘There are one hundred and fifteen of you here who are, from the available evidence, not directly responsible for the murder of citizens you governed. You will see your names are on this list and, as soon as I have finished here, you may depart forthwith to quarters assigned to you.’

‘Doubtless my name is not there,’ said Messina.

Saul turned to face him. ‘No, it is not.’

‘So you intend to kill me and everyone else not on your precious list,’ Messina suggested, with lazy contempt.

‘That decision is not mine, and has yet to be made.’ Saul eyed him steadily. ‘Some seem to find it more difficult to pass a death sentence than you do, Alessandro Messina.’

‘Perhaps that’s because they are not properly elected representatives of the people,’ the Chairman replied. ‘These last few years have needed some hard decisions about the very survival of the human race.’ He sat up straighter and stabbed a finger towards Saul. ‘It seems to me that you yourself are demonstrating that you do not have the strength of character to make such decisions. You treat us with spite, whilst running away from Earth and all that must be done there.’

‘Yes, I may be fleeing Earth,’ Saul replied, ‘but I have nevertheless made some decisions.’ Again he waved a hand towards the screens. ‘Twenty-three of your satellite lasers are still functional, and they can each fire a shot every two seconds. They could keep that rate of fire up for five days, until depleting their fusion reactors of fuel.’

Messina glanced at the delegate sitting beside him, a woman with her hands poised over an open laptop, and with some very sophisticated fones seemingly welded against her head. Saul knew her to be officially the delegate for New Zealand and the Antarctic Region, but that was an empty title since she was primarily Messina’s personal statistical analyst.

‘Yes,’ Messina continued, having just received some figures from her. ‘Enough to kill five million people.’

‘Not nearly enough,’ said Saul. A rumble of whispered conversation broke out, and hissed like a wave over shingle. Saul noted Hannah staring at him, appalled, but he kept his eyes on Messina as he added, ‘However, I have some extra proposals.’

‘Oh, yes?’ The Chairman sat forward. Obviously the word ‘proposals’ gave him the odd idea that he still retained some influence over events.

Saul changed the screen views, adding two more on the blank screens.

‘Even though this station may be moving away from Earth, I still have access to Govnet,’ he informed Messina.

One screen now showed an aerial shot of a mass of buildings protected by high fences, and it was possible to see the readergun towers surrounding the place, and the hundreds of aero gunships lined up, row upon row, across an enclosed landing field. On the other four screens views appeared briefly only to be replaced by new ones. Some of these Saul snatched from groundlevel cams operating in bright sunlight: they showed armed enforcers departing a gunship, armoured groundcars, a cell complex, warehouses, government bureaucrats hurrying busily to some new assignment, yet more enforcers overseeing prisoners clad in yellow boiler suits as they rolled drums out of a warehouse; several Inspectorate execs up on a roof, peering at something in the distance through image amplifiers, with the familiar shape of a spidergun squatting behind them.

‘One of you here will recognize this place,’ Saul remarked.

‘Inspectorate HQ Brazilia East,’ stated a swarthy individual who was seated five seats over to Messina’s right.

‘Of course you recognize it, Delegate De Sousa. It cost eight hundred billion, approximately ninety-three per cent of one year’s budget, to build it, and brought forward by ten years the expected famine in South America, at a further cost, thus far, of over a hundred and eighty million human lives.’

‘Hard choices,’ replied De Sousa. ‘They were going to die anyway.’

‘Yes, quite. Billions are due to die anyway, and many of you here have been busy running the selection process.’ Saul paused. ‘Just prior to your departure, De Sousa, food riots broke out in central Salvador, but now no one goes hungry there since, on your way up here, you ordered your people to drop nerve gas. Under your orders, too, they’re presently struggling to sector the North Salvador sprawl, but power outages keep taking the readerguns offline and therefore ZAs keep escaping.’

‘And what would your solution be?’ Messina asked.

‘You’re about to find out.’

Saul was already beyond the confines of the chamber, mentally, delicately tuning programs that controlled massive data flows. It was as if he was manipulating screen icons that governed the rotation of tornadoes or the rolling force of tsunamis.

Hannah felt like a child that had been summoned to her political officer to receive a lecture. With only herself and Saul and the spiderguns here, she still felt wrong-footed, in an inferior position, for surrounding her were some of the recently most powerful people on Earth. She wanted to fold up inside herself and disappear.

‘Is all this drama strictly necessary?’ Messina demanded. ‘Are you really using the hard decisions we were forced to make to justify killing us?’

He still sounded so superior, so in control.

‘No, I need no justification for that.’

Even as Saul said this, Hannah felt something akin to embarrassment. Why was he revealing all this? Certainly it could not be for the benefit of those here. It seemed more like grandstanding, showing off. Or was he demonstrating all this to himself, simply to justify the actions he was about to take? Could it even be extra data for her to integrate, so she could offer all those present that mysterious choice he had mentioned?