Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

  She pushed open the door and stepped into the corridor, and decisively set forth. Within a few minutes she had arrived at Da Vinci’s surgery, encountering five personnel sitting outside in the corridor, awaiting their turn to have their ID implants removed.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said cheerfully.

  Through the window opposite the seats they occupied along one wall, she could see dust settling after a windstorm in the night, its particles ignited in shades of rose and amethyst by the sun peeking over the horizon.

  ‘Director,’ one of them nodded in acknowledgement.

  The others nodded too, but quickly returned their attention to their palmtops. She stepped over to the door and pushed it open. She found Da Vinci bending over the forearm of a patient seated in a surgical chair. He held up a cautionary hand for a moment, then abruptly stood upright, waving his patient away. The woman shot Var a wary look, then quickly headed for the door. A sterile circular plaster now covered the skin where her chip had been removed.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Var asked Da Vinci.

  ‘You saw the very last of them sitting outside as you came in, Base Director,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s not a complicated procedure.’

  ‘The last time you called me “Base Director” was when Ricard was still in control,’ said Var. ‘There’s no need to be so formal.’

  ‘It seems a healthier option,’ said Da Vinci.

  ‘So you, too, believe I killed Delaware?’

  He just watched her for a long moment, then said, ‘Perhaps you didn’t yourself, but there may be some useful idiots around you who did do it. So it seems sensible to behave in a way that lessens one’s chance of becoming a target.’

  The expression on his face indicated analytical interest, but Var could not help noticing the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. He was obviously frightened of her, indeed scared to be saying such things.

  ‘That seems the same advice that everyone else in this base has taken, and there I have a problem,’ she said. ‘Our personnel are all keeping their heads down, just as they did under Ricard.’

  ‘But that is no problem, surely?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is,’ Var asserted. ‘Our survival here is still not assured and we need innovation, new ideas, invention. We need clever people arguing with each other and batting around ideas. What we don’t need is people sitting on useful ideas because they want to remain beneath notice.’

  ‘And this has happened?’

  ‘It has. On the base’s message board, and only because his discovery was referred to by someone else, I found out that Haarsen of Mars Science has found a way to cut down on our heat loss by five per cent,’ Var explained. ‘He didn’t flag his discovery or bring it to the attention of Martinez, and when I went to see him about this he was terrified, expected to be arrested. He hadn’t reported it to Martinez because he thought he would get into trouble for using samples of insulating spray in his experiments. This is madness.’

  ‘So what’s the solution?’ Da Vinci asked.

  ‘You tell me,’ Var replied. ‘People are talking to me as if I’m Ricard. What I should do?’

  Da Vinci hesitated, looking hunted. ‘I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it’s you I’m asking now.’

  After a further hesitation he bit the bullet. ‘The feeling is that you should step down, that a new base director should be voted in, and that the murder investigation be handed over to Mars Science.’

  ‘That’s what people think?’

  ‘That’s the consensus.’

  A very coherent consensus of opinion, Var felt, almost like one that had been carefully nurtured. Was she paranoid to think that someone specific was working behind the scenes to unseat her? No, she wasn’t, for the fact of Delaware’s very inconvenient death remained. Now she had two things to consider: what was best for the base, and what was best for her. Perhaps she was being arrogant in assuming that she was the best person to lead this place but, as she well knew, those who were never accused of arrogance were also those who never succeeded at anything.

  If she stepped down, the chances of this base surviving might be reduced but, then again, with the people here happier about who was in charge, the opposite might happen. But what about her? It seemed highly likely that whoever ended up in charge would turn out to be whoever had been working against her. And, though she couldn’t prove it, she felt sure it was Rhone of Mars Science. If that was the case, then she could be utterly sure that any murder investigation conducted by Mars Science would not exonerate her. What then? She would certainly be executed, because this base could not afford the resources for a prison – and Rhone could not afford to have her wandering free.

  ‘Then I will have to consider that,’ she replied to Da Vinci, and turned back towards the door. He made no reply as she stepped out into the corridor, just followed her to the door and called the next patient in.

  Var walked away, deep in thought, only realizing after a short time that her route was taking her towards the Mars Science laboratories. She continued to consider her options but there seemed no way out. It was not as if there was some haven she could flee to – the base was rather like the entire planet Earth in that respect. She had to stay in power here, and to do that she would probably need to be . . . harsher. Her alternative was her own death.

  The sound of footsteps behind her only impinged at the last moment, as whoever was coming hurried to catch her up. She began turning, wondering what problem she was about to be presented with now, then a stab of paranoia spun her round faster. The knife speared towards her midriff but, taking a slice across her forearm, she managed to bat it aside. Christen glared at her, pulled the knife back and slashed at her face. Var stumbled back as Christen followed her, striking again and this time clipping the front of her shirt.

  A whole series of calculations passed through Var’s mind. She was unarmed, so perhaps her choice all those months ago not to wear a sidearm had been a foolish one. If this went on any longer, Christen was going to slice her up. If she ran, she’d likely end up with that knife in her back. She had to end this now, quickly, but how?

  Christen lunged again, over-extending herself. Var evaded the stab, turning to catch hold of her attacker’s wrist, desperately, in both hands. Christen drove a foot down against Var’s shin and agonizingly into the top of her foot, and Var’s grip began to slip. The woman was much stronger than she appeared to be. Next her fist smashed against Var’s temple and everything went black etched with bright yellow veins. Var just reacted wildly. She let go of Christen’s wrist with her left hand and brought her elbow back just as hard as she could, aiming for Christen’s head. The woman jerked her head back at the last moment, and Var’s elbow hit her hard, right in the throat.

  The next thing Var knew, there were people all around, intent on separating them. Her legs gave way and she ended up with her back against the wall. A horrible choking sound issued from somewhere as a crowd of half-seen figures gathered around Christen.

  ‘Get Da Vinci!’ someone yelled.

  ‘The knife,’ Var managed, but she was ignored.

  She began crawling across the floor to where she could see the knife. It was now Christen’s only hope. Var had felt the cartilage break under her elbow. Christen needed to breathe or she would die, and only a tracheotomy could save her now. But someone kicked the knife away, and then a boot slammed against Var’s head, bringing back the darkness and those yellow veins. She never actually lost consciousness, but events for some minutes remained unclear to her. When she finally managed to stagger to her feet Da Vinci had a tracheotomy tube in Christen’s throat and was trying to revive her, but she seemed just inert meat.

  Martinez and Lopomac then arrived, and Var could see the doubt in their faces – and when Rhone arrived, she could see nothing in his face at all. Everyone else looked hostile. Var walked away, dripping blood. She would wear her sidearm from now on, and the people here would do what they w
ere damned well told, or know the consequences.

  Argus

  Alex felt a surge of unaccustomed delight. He was alive, Chairman Alessandro Messina was alive! Alex squatted down beside Alexandra – his communications officer and the only other surviving member of the squad – and watched the short video file as it cycled. Initially the figure it showed did not have the Chairman’s face, but the program Alexandra was using had soon decoded the plastic surgery and revealed his true underlying features. There he was, Messina himself, clad in overalls as he walked along beside a hydroponics tank, stopping periodically to use a pipette to take a sample of tank nutrient and place it in one of a series of numbered sample bottles.

  Only after the initial euphoria had passed did Alex start to get angry. They were making the ruler of Earth carry out the work of a robot, a slave, a zero asset. They’d humiliated him by forcing him to wear the clothing of a menial. This, if nothing else, confirmed for him just how petty and vindictive were the terrorists who had taken control of the Argus Station. However, most of Alex’s anger was directed towards himself. He reached up, as he often did in moments of stress like this, to rub at the fine web-work of scars at his temple and extending up into his cap of black hair – which was distinguished from that of his dead brothers only by a tuft of grey over one slightly larger scar located there.

  ‘We allowed ourselves to succumb to despair, Alexandra,’ he said, noting her glance at him in brief puzzlement upon hearing her true name. ‘We did not sufficiently check the data, and now our task is even more difficult.’

  They should have tried for job reallocation and ensured they ended up out on Smelter Two, where the Chairman and numerous other repro delegates had been moved after the first assaults. They could have protected him from the final assault that put him in hospital, from which the news surfaced that he had died, when in fact he had undergone facial reconstruction. No . . . Alex shook his head in irritation.

  ‘So, beyond vengeance, we return to our primary objective,’ he said, his voice carried from his suit to Alexandra’s via an optical cable – radio wasn’t a good idea here as, even when coded, it might be used to locate them.

  ‘Just freeing the Chairman will not be sufficient,’ Alexandra reminded him. ‘We must continue to make meticulous preparations. We cannot afford to get ourselves killed, like Alex Two.’

  The two of them paused to contemplate her words, remembering the brief scream as the fusillade from the spider-gun tore Alex Two to shreds. Alex, who until a few days ago had possessed the secret name Alex One, nodded in agreement. This was precisely why they had not tried to get close to the Chairman. If they were to rescue him, they needed to find a way off this station, and that way was clearly the Imperator and its as yet untried hibernation chambers.

  ‘But, really, Alex Two did not waste his life,’ Alexandra contended. ‘It is only because Alan Saul is dead that I was able to find this.’ She gestured to the video clip. ‘While he was alive, I couldn’t penetrate the system as I now can.’

  ‘If he is dead,’ said Alex. ‘That broadcast he made seemed pretty real to me.’

  It seemed an age ago now since Alan Saul had spoken about the terrible disease that had swept across Earth, and displayed those horrifying images. Since then the two survivors of the squad had spent their time merely surviving, living like rats in the walls, slowly accruing resources, but aimless and depressed because they believed their prime reason for existence had died, while still unsure if their shot at vengeance had succeeded.

  ‘Falsified,’ said Alexandra confidently. ‘We saw where those bullets hit and it’s not possible that he could talk after that.’

  It was her lack of experience that made her so sure, Alex realized. She had only ever seen people die when gunned down. She had never seen, as had Alex, shattered meat put back together again by modern surgical methods.

  ‘Also,’ she continued, ‘the search for us has involved human personnel, but not robots. Consider what happened when Langstrom’s troops first located us.’

  Again a pause for contemplation. On that occasion they’d been cornered, backed up against an area occupied by construction robots, as the human searchers were closing in. In what he had thought was the vain hope that Alan Saul had at least been sufficiently disabled by Alex Two’s assassination attempt to not be watching, Alex had made the decision to cross that occupied area. The robots had ignored them. So it was just possible that Alexandra was right, and Alan Saul was dead.

  ‘So we must reinstate our previous plan of action,’ he declared.

  Alex now considered that further, because even without Saul controlling the station, their position was bad. He damned himself for acting out of despair in that assassination attempt, and for earlier procrastination. Their squad had been placed on Argus for very specific reasons: they were first of all Alessandro Messina’s spies, rooting out plots against him, passing on the results to his main protection teams; and next they were his secret protection team, providing the last resort should all else fail. Concealed by false identities as diagnostics and maintenance engineers, they had been able to range about the station to this purpose, but no longer. Almost certainly their presence had been missed from the maintenance teams, and analysis of Alex Two’s remains would have been carried out. So, surely inevitably, by now someone would have worked out precisely who and what they were.

  Damnation! Perhaps if they had acted right at the beginning of all this, there might have been a chance, maybe a very small chance, for them to grab Messina, steal a space plane and head back to Earth. That chance had passed as the station moved beyond the Moon and began heading out towards Mars, and then they found themselves simply unable to act in a station filled with hostile robots, humans and the ever-watchful and dangerous being that had taken control here. Alex shook his head: twenty-twenty hindsight was indeed a wonderful thing.

  ‘We need to talk to Earth,’ Alexandra said abruptly.

  ‘Why?’ Alex asked, gazing at her bright-eyed naivety. ‘There’s no help for us back there.’

  Alexandra stared at him, a flicker of disbelief crossing her expression. ‘Schematics,’ she explained, gesturing to the mess of jury-rigged hardware she had put together. ‘Remember, our computer access is minimal out here, so I won’t be able to download a station schematic without being detected.’

  Alex nodded, for she had a point. ‘So right now we’re operating on what we remember, and otherwise we’re blind,’ he said. ‘We first need to know where we can resupply ourselves, after Langstrom uncovered our hide. We need oxygen, food and water – and more firepower.’

  ‘All the data on this place is back there, along with tactical planners who can help us,’ said Alexandra. ‘I’m sure they will help us when we give them this news.’ She gestured at the video on the screen.

  Alex could think of many reasons, however, why they would get no help. Carefully he said, ‘But we saw what happened back there.’

  ‘We saw, but we also know that Committee power is still current – so we have to try.’

  Ah, the optimism of a four-year-old, thought Alex. He watched her intently. ‘What can you do?’

  Alexandra pointed towards the outer edge of the station. ‘There’ll be dishes out there,’ she said. ‘I should be able to hack one and get a signal out, and I’m certain someone will be listening, despite everything.’

  He tried to cast doubt: ‘I have to wonder if Delegate Serene Galahad would be prepared to help us. It seems quite likely that she won’t want the Chairman back.’

  Alexandra looked quite offended by the very idea. ‘We have to try,’ she pronounced.

  He nodded and smiled, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to educate her any further today.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that even if she doesn’t want Alessandro back, she certainly won’t want this station to remain in the hands of terrorists and subversives. We’ll have to play on that, so let’s go.’

  As he pushed himself away from the wall,
ready to head for the nearest exit from their hideaway, Alex called up his visor display, noting he had about eight hours of air left. Since they shared air between them, that figure applied equally to Alexandra. Over their time as refugees they had resupplied themselves through dangerous forays into pressurized parts of the station, occasionally grabbing some water but otherwise reusing the water processed out of their urine packs, and very occasionally finding something to eat. If they came close to really running out of the means of survival, if all options to that end were finally closed down, as seemed to be Lang-strom’s aim, what then? Surrender?

  In some emotionless part of his mind, Alex realized that even surrender might give them a further chance to free the Chairman, but his conditioning prevented him from contemplating it too deeply, at least for now. As he found his way out towards the edge of the station, he vaguely recollected those long sessions with his teachers, interspersed with the regular visits to surgery, followed by thumping headaches and healing cuts in his skull.

  Earth

  Amazing, just a month after the population reduction around the Great Lakes, and the sewage plants were already back at optimum performance, processing everything heading their way. Clean water was being pumped back into the system while well-rotted and dried human sewage was coming out of the conveyors to pour into the backs of automated trucks. These then conveyed this form of fertilizer to the maize fields further south. They now even had hydrogen fuel available for that. The only fly in the ointment was that half of the trucks had necessarily been reassigned, along with something like fifty per cent of the Great Lakes transport system, to move the bodies, and that many of the maize fields were now occupied by fresh pyres.

  ‘You’ll have more up-to-date stats than me,’ she said to the figure appearing on her screen wall. It was a lie, of course, as she knew precisely what the numbers were.