Neal Asher - The Departure

‘Stay behind me,’ he said, and perhaps meant more than just those words.

Peering through the cam network, he saw Langstrom limping down a corridor, with Sergeant Mustafa, the Nordic woman Peach and three other soldiers accompanying him. Obviously they had survived the acceleration. Just a thought and the readergun positioned in the ceiling of the intersection ahead would finish them off. Instead Saul spoke, his voice transmitted through the Political Office public address system, and then, because it seemed easier, throughout the station.

‘Okay, everybody, listen very closely. Security Director Smith is dead and I, Alan Saul, am now in complete control of Argus Station, which is, as you may have noticed, no longer orbiting Earth. I now repeat my instructions to all the troops still aboard this station. Those who were engaged in attacking will withdraw to the outer ring; those defending will return to station barracks. Furthermore, all technical control staff will return to Tech Central to organize and assign essential maintenance and repair tasks. And, for the present, all construction work will remain on hold.’

He watched Langstrom and the others come to a halt, and then gaze up at the readergun just ahead of them. Saul proceeded to limit the transmission of his voice to the Political Office only. ‘And you, Langstrom, and those with you, will place your weapons on the floor.’ Just to drive this point home, Saul made the readergun swing towards them and begin rotating its three barrels.

Langstrom was the first to react. He drew his side arm, held it up in plain view, then ducked to place it on the floor in front of him. In that same moment it occurred to Saul that there would be an excess of weaponry scattered all about the station, which perhaps would not be healthy for him and Hannah. He would have to do something about that, soon.

Langstrom’s companions followed suit, till shortly a stack of side arms, machine pistols and assault rifles lay on the floor. Saul began to walk again, beckoning Hannah after him. They rounded the corner just as Langstrom and crew were turning to head off again. They swung back and just eyed Saul carefully. As he advanced, he studied them too, through his own eyes and through the sensors of the readerguns behind him and also behind them, their electronic triggers at the ready, and a program already loaded that would have them responding to the detection of any overlooked firearm.

Saul came to a halt ten paces away from them.

‘Smith’s back there?’ Langstrom enquired, jerking his chin towards the dead man’s one-time control centre.

‘He is.’

‘What do you intend doing with us now?’

Saul gazed at him steadily. ‘You live or die at my whim. At present it is my whim that you live.’

‘No change, then,’ the commander replied. ‘We lived or died at Smith’s whim.’

‘And yet you obeyed him and deliberately led me into a trap. Also you killed Braddock.’

‘I’d seen what happened to those who ever disobeyed him.’

‘There then is the difference between myself and Smith.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yes – I wouldn’t torture you for disobedience, I’d just kill you. Now,’ Saul paused in apparent thought, ‘most of your companions here can return to barracks, but for you,’ Saul pointed at Peach, ‘and you,’ he indicated Langstrom, ‘I have another task.’

When Langstrom just stood motionless, Saul added, ‘Now.’

Langstrom waved a hand and all but Peach retreated, glancing behind them as they went. Despite Saul’s claim otherwise, they probably thought he meant to kill Langstrom – and the commander himself probably thought so too. Saul felt he could perfectly justify that to himself, as vengeance for Braddock, but, no, he actually had something else in mind.

‘So what’s this task?’ Langstrom asked.

‘I want you to go and collect Smith’s body. Then I want you to take it to the nearest digester, which is at the bottom level of the Political Office. You’ll have to strip him of his clothing before he goes in, as a VC suit won’t digest.’ Now he turned to Peach, and pointed to the combat recorder extending alongside her temple from her fone. ‘You will film your commander here while he carries out my orders. I want clear images of Smith’s face, and unbroken footage of him being taken to the digester and fed into it. Then, after you have both returned to barracks, I want that same image file made available to every console aboard this station. Is that clear?’

Langstrom nodded numbly, as Peach reached up and adjusted her combat recorder. Saul glanced at Hannah, who had been watching expressionlessly, then he nodded towards the corridor ahead. They set off, stepping round the pile of guns, then past Peach and Langstrom as the two moved aside. Saul did not bother to watch them further. If they tried to attack him, they would be dead in an instant, and he didn’t want to show he was nervous that they might try. Soon they were out of sight, and by now Saul could see the exit airlock from the Political Office up ahead.

‘Why?’ Hannah asked.

‘They need to be certain Caesar is dead,’ Saul replied, ‘before they can feel safe in obeying his replacement.’

‘I’m betting you have assembled enough image data of your own already.’

‘True enough, but the sooner I start issuing orders accompanied by implicit threats, the sooner it will be that I can issue orders without any need for threats at all.’

Hannah nodded. ‘Yes, you need to firmly establish your rule here, which must extend beyond just the power to kill at whim.’

‘Because if I don’t do so quickly,’ Saul continued, ‘there’s going to be a lot more killing.’ Then after a pause he added, ‘And then I might just get bored with the whole idea of keeping anyone alive.’

As they approached the airlock – presently closing behind a large troop of soldiers – he studied her reaction.

She shrugged. ‘I can see how it would become a trial to you.’

As he suspected, his last words had come to her as no surprise at all. She fully expected him to stop playing games, and resort instead to the much easier option of mass slaughter. He had already decided not to follow that easier route and, of course, the avoid-killing-people test was about to get much harder now that he intended paying a visit to Chairman Alessandro Messina and the remaining delegates of the Committee – people whose own experience of mass slaughter made him look like an amateur.

But, no, that would be Hannah’s test. It would be her choice.

20

I’m Killing You for Your Freedom!

Freedom as an absolute does not exist since there are always constraints: genetic predetermination, surrounding environment, the society in which you live and, in the end, everything. Freedom is always a matter of degree: you cannot wish for the freedom to flap your arms and fly so long as gravity exists, nor can you wish for the freedom to breathe water. You are of course free to try both, but the results of such endeavours are not within your power. This is the big problem with freedom when it is taken up by some political ideology, for those who rely on the term are often trying to adjust the parameters of reality, and they simply cannot. And, when the revolutionary cries that he is fighting for ‘freedom’, be sure to go running away from him just as fast as you can, for you can be damned certain he’s fighting for the freedom to tell you what to do.

Antares Base

Var gazed at the telescopic ladder now extended to the ceiling of the reactor room, its base clamped to one of the pillars supporting the reactor itself. Perched at the top of it, Lopomac was using a piton gun to drive the spikes into the bonded regolith of the ceiling, immediately around the big, recessed, double-door hatch situated up there. Because of its position, dividing internal air off from the atmosphere of Mars itself, this particular hatch’s sensors did not extend to locking it down if they detected changes in the air mix, though it was locked down by the pressure differential. Its purpose had been to provide an opening through which to lower reactor components by crane. Var calculated that Ricard would know nothing about that.