Neal Asher - The Departure

Smith stood upright, hauling Hannah to her feet by her neck, before transferring his grip to the front of her survival suit. He then swung his attention to Chang and the twins, who remained standing by their consoles.

‘We had no choice,’ said Chang defensively.

‘In no known situation are choices lacking,’ Smith replied. ‘We must therefore work diligently together to reveal how difficult your choices were.’

Hannah could see the sudden terror appearing in their faces, for they knew the techniques Smith would use to discover whatever version of the truth suited him. Chang moved forward slightly, but Smith swung the machine pistol towards him. For a moment, Hannah thought Chang might charge him, but the big man desisted, holding his hands out to his sides. ‘What do you want of us?’

Smith hesitated, flicking his gaze to the three large screens, all of which now instantly changed images to show different views of the approaching space plane.

‘My current preference is for you to seat yourselves again, and then refrain from further comment,’ he said.

Shooting worried looks at each other, they obeyed him. Maybe if they just kept their heads down, he would forget about them. Hannah did not think so, but understood their bunker mentality.

‘What happened to Saul?’ she abruptly asked.

Without even looking at her, Smith released his grip, swung his arm away, then struck her hard with the back of his hand. The blow felt like it dislocated her jaw, and the adhesive sole of one of her shoes ripped free of the floor. Lights flashing in her vision, she tumbled over backwards, her spine jarring against the floor. In an instant he was crouching over her, the machine pistol again in her face.

‘Saul has suffered a misfortune, for him at least, in that he is still alive.’ He grinned nastily. ‘Presently he occupies an interrogation cell, and is enjoying recurrent inducement – just enough to keep him from regaining full mental coherence.’

Hannah felt sick. The Inspectorate used that technique to break people: give the victim just enough time to regain consciousness and some awareness of his situation, before hitting him repeatedly with an inducer until the pain again knocked him out. At that moment Saul would be in hell.

‘Didn’t you already do enough to him?’

‘It would appear that I did not and, though I feel more than his current mental retraining is required, I don’t want to damage the hardware and software installed in his brain, do I?’

She knew at once what he meant: Smith wanted to himself possess the more advanced hardware and biotech inside Saul’s skull. It seemed pointless, life-threatening in fact, to try explaining to him how very different was Saul’s organic interface from Smith’s, and also how it could not now be removed.

‘Okay,’ she said, giving a little nod. Pretend to knuckle under, pretend that to survive she’d do whatever he wanted. But why not? Before Saul had freed her, that was how she had always behaved.

Just then the doors opened, and in came Langstrom accompanied by three of his soldiers. Smith stepped back, hauling Hannah upright. He beckoned to one of the soldiers, a heavily built black man. ‘Restrain her.’

‘You want her in a cell?’ the man asked.

‘No, restrain her here within my sight.’

The man picked up the chair she had been sitting in, gripped Hannah by the biceps, and towed both of them over to one side of the room. Quickly and efficiently, he slipped a plastic tie about her wrists, then used strong tape to bind her to the chair. Meanwhile, Smith and Langstrom were busy studying the images coming up on the screens.

‘In twenty minutes they will be joining us here on Argus Station,’ Smith announced.

‘You’ve told them that we’ve solved our little problem?’

‘Yes, I have so informed them, but such information will not prevent them from docking.’ Responding to a limp hand gesture, one of the screens changed to show a massive airfield in some desolate desert location. Hannah squinted at the image, realizing, with a sudden lurch in her gut, that the thirty-odd shapes revealed were space planes, some of them in the process of launching.

‘I thought they were meant to wait until after full commission of the Argus Network?’ observed Langstrom.

‘That was the original intention, but it seems that, now the predicted societal collapse has begun, things are accelerating.’ Smith shook his head slowly. ‘In all regions we must rely on extreme measures to quell insurrection, but throughout most of South America, North Africa and Southern Europe we are not preventing the collapse, and have therefore withdrawn resources back to our bases, in preparation for later intervention.’

Hannah felt a surge of contempt. Smith had always spoken like this, in such a convoluted manner, and sometimes it was difficult to work out exactly what he meant. The Committee had completely lost control, so was using gas, live ammunition and robots programmed to kill in order to prevent itself being overrun by the starving mobs. In the three areas mentioned, its forces had withdrawn to their bases for the time being.

‘And with the few remaining lasers that you and Saul didn’t wreck, between you,’ said Langstrom, ‘there’s no way of reversing that disintegration now.’ The soldier said it without emphasis, but the hint of criticism was there. Smith, however, did not seem to notice it.

‘One must await the appropriate time,’ he replied, and pointed to the screen showing the launching space planes. ‘Messina is aboard one of those planes, which is already on its way here, perhaps to oversee any future interventions.’

Langstrom gazed steadily at him. ‘Is he going to try and take the station away from you?’

‘He may indeed wish for primacy.’

‘You’ve warned them over in Arcoplex One?’

‘There is no necessary benefit in doing so. Alessandro Messina will not establish himself in control here by means of policy statements or Committee votes, therefore my pet delegates would not prove effective in such a situation.’

As they both returned their attention to the screens, Hannah digested this reference to delegates. Didn’t Saul say earlier that Smith had opened a back door into the laser network? It seemed he had been clawing for power, and control of the network had been one chip in the dangerous game he was playing. Meanwhile, he had used his bargaining position to get all those delegates prepared to back him transferred up here, only now things had drastically changed. Perhaps the Committee had hoped to retain control down on Earth with the seven hundred satellites previously available, using mass slaughter as a tool, when necessary. Now that so few laser weapons were immediately available, it seemed Messina and the rest of the Committee were ready to abandon the planet, for now. Whatever way it went, the power base was now up here on Argus, and that’s where all the politicians wanted to be. And once they got up here, they would fight, as ever, to become top dog.

‘Let us assemble a small reception committee,’ said Smith. ‘I believe you should ensure it consists primarily of those whose martial usefulness is in question. The rest of your men should be deployed around the core installations: here at Tech Central, the Political Office and the cell complex.’

‘More sacrifices, you mean?’

Smith tilted his chin towards the screen. ‘I am ignorant of the orders issued to those in the approaching space plane. Whoever meets them can direct them straight to the nearest rim-side accommodation and, if they agree to go there, that will give time for you to move out there from the core, and be ready to negate their interference.’ He turned his gaze fully on Langstrom.