by Neal Asher
‘Let’s get to it,’ said Ghort, opening the crate and taking out the first of the neatly packed mass of stress sensors, which were crucial for a column expected to support such a load as this one would.
In one week they would be hauling across the already detached Mars Traveller engine, along with its shock-absorbing bed, and attaching it here. Alex looked forward to the sight of that behemoth being moved, and already regretted his wait-and-see attitude to the new cerebral implants, for through such a device he would have been able to make sensory recordings that he could view again at leisure. And apparently there would be masses of file space available for such recordings, since everyone possessing an implant would be linked to his own information repository. Or, at least, that was how Ghort had explained it in a rather offhand and dismissive way.
Five hours later, their shift ended, their tools taken up by another team, whose leader also took control of the robots without even a pause. They returned up the column towards where Tech Central had been disassembled, ready to be slotted into a central sphere which was already in the process of being prefabricated. Halfway there, they launched themselves from the column towards the entrance to their accommodation unit, bringing themselves down neatly with impellers, entering through the airlock two by two and shedding their suits.
‘Now that was a good shift,’ said Akenon, ‘and I’m going to spend some of that station credit in the Olive Tree!’
This was another change that had been suggested by Var Delex, and instantly instituted by the Owner. No longer were they working just to survive, but they were getting a wage. They received station credits for their work which could be spent on some of the luxuries now becoming available. It was also possible to withdraw those credits as coinage which could be spent on some luxuries that were technically under the wire: cannabis, tobacco, bootleg alcohol and various personal items. Alex realized that being able to buy such things made the likes of Akenon and Gladys feel that somehow they were getting one over on the Owner, but he knew they were fooling themselves. Saul would not have introduced coinage if he cared so much about what people spent it on, and to believe that he did not know about the growing black market aboard the station was foolish. It was deliberate, because it made the powerless feel that they had some control over their own destiny.
‘Going to get some more herbs?’ Gladys enquired.
‘Maybe,’ replied Akenon cautiously, eyeing Ghort.
‘Doesn’t matter to me,’ said Ghort, ‘just so long as you’re not skull-fucked at the start of our next shift.’
Such casual exchanges concerning the mundane routine of their everyday lives were here thrown into contrast with the massive changes occurring outside. Alex shook his head. Was it because he was a clone, and because of his years of reprogramming that he could not slide into such casual human acceptance of it all? Perhaps because he himself had never lived a ‘normal’ life, he could not whittle the numinous down to such normality.
‘What about you?’ Gladys asked him.
Alex shrugged; he just didn’t know.
She turned to Akenon and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, skunk-brain, let’s go.’
As they departed, Ghort moved up beside Alex and watched them go, muttering, ‘Bread and circuses.’
Alex did not have Ghort’s immediate system access, so he had to use the console in his cabin to track down this phrase. Slowly beginning to grasp its implications, and those attending Ghort’s general attitude, his acerbic comments and suppressed bile, Alex began to realize that it might be in his best interests to keep a close eye on their team leader.
Scourge
Clay gazed up at the five corpses gyrating slowly in the air, holes ripped through their heavy hazmat spacesuits to expose the lead mesh and the pipe networks of their isotope scrubbing systems, with beads of blood and fragments of flesh and bone still orbiting them.
‘Someone aboard is working for her,’ opined Scotonis.
That only made sense if someone had communicated with Earth and struck some sort of deal, which seemed unlikely unless there was a hidden transceiver aboard. But, even then, why would Galahad order someone to start killing the crew? Being highly radioactive, the Scourge wasn’t worth salvaging, so surely Galahad’s best option would be just to wait until it was in range, then hit it with one of her big new railguns? Unless, of course, the traitor was one of those who already knew, or had recently discovered, that Saul had, in an attempt to forestall their attack on him, transmitted the Gene Bank data to them, and that they had not passed it on to Earth and kept it stashed on board.
Clay winced: he knew his thought processes were slow but they would be equally slow if he came off his meagre supply of painkillers and tried to think round the constant ache of his body. He therefore tried to put it all in order in his mind.
Before the gravity wave had ripped through the ship, it had been Scotonis’s plan to use the Gene Bank data as a bargaining chip to get them close to Earth – pretending to Galahad that they believed she would let them live in exchange for that acquired data. Once close enough, however, they would try to locate Galahad and launch a nuclear strike against her, and against anything else that seemed an immediate danger to them. Then, during the ensuing confusion, they would dock at Core Two and somehow get from there down to Earth and into hiding. That last part of the plan had all been very vague, and very desperate.
After the damage to the Scourge, the strategy had changed. The ship was certainly on course back to Earth but, as far as Galahad knew, all aboard it had been killed by Alan Saul’s activation of the Scour virus imbedded in their ID implants. This was what they would use to get them close, because their ship wouldn’t be perceived as a threat. Under further evolution, the plan had changed, with Trove submitting the idea that, with just a few nuclear strikes, they could take control of all orbital facilities, bombard Galahad, then use both the Gene Bank data and their position in control of those facilities as a basis on which to bargain with whatever regime arose after her. Clay felt such plans were just the desperate and the futile meanderings of people already dying. They had then become even more implausible when it was discovered that after the gravity wave and the subsequent dirty bomb explosion in the Scourge’s nuclear arsenal they might not even be capable of launching the nukes.
And now this.
The five slaughtered crewmen had been among those assessing the damage to their nuclear capability and trying to work out how to restore it.
‘When did this happen?’ he asked.
‘Sometime within the last week,’ Scotonis told him.
Clay glanced at him. ‘You can’t estimate it more precisely than that?’
‘No.’ Scotonis shook his head. ‘We can’t use radio, because Earth might pick it up, and the comlines to the arsenal are out. I just left each team to it and had them file a report once their dosimeters maxed out, and then only if they had anything worth reporting.’
That statement struck Clay as very odd, because surely Scotonis would have wanted to keep himself completely up to date.
‘So it’s been a week since any report was filed?’
‘It has.’
‘Therefore this could have happened before Myers was killed?’
‘Certainly.’
There was something very wrong here but Clay could not quite nail it down. Sunk into depression and sickness, many of the crew were certainly getting slack about their work, some giving up on it entirely. But Scotonis had always seemed a lot more driven, especially after finding out that the Scour, which his wife and children had succumbed to, had been spread by Serene Galahad herself. Clay shook his head in an effort to clear it, then, noting the colour code of the dosimeter on his shoulder, stepped hurriedly back towards the door. Scotonis followed, watching him with an intensity he did not like, his gaze unwavering as he too stepped out into the corridor and closed the door to the suiting room behind him.
‘So what was their latest assessment?’ Clay asked.
Clay suddenly understood the danger he was in. It seemed that someone was carrying out the kind of plan he himself had in mind, but had not yet acted on or properly thought through. Scotonis assumed it was Clay killing people aboard. Scotonis thought he was the traitor, before he had even had a chance to do any betraying.
Clay knew certain things: the proliferation of orbital weapons around Earth made it highly unlikely that they could take control in orbit, so their chances of taking out Galahad with an orbital strike were remote at best, and if he did not get proper advanced medical care on Earth he would inevitably die. All that remained in their favour was the Gene Bank data; all that remained, in fact, in his favour. His aim, vaguely, had been to get in communication with Galahad, using his primacy in system access, then tell her about the data, steal a shuttle and take the data with him, ensuring that she knew of Scotonis’s intentions with the nukes. The Scourge would be destroyed and he would be rescued, then there could be only one story to tell. His story would be about how he had been a virtual prisoner from the moment he had stepped aboard, how he had been powerless to stop Scotonis’s disobedience. The chances were that she would have him killed anyway, but his chances of survival with her would still be better than they were by adhering to the captain’s plans. Now it seemed someone was pre-empting him with a similar survival plan – one that would undoubtedly interfere with his own. He had to find out who and stop him or her immediately.
‘Either Trove or Cookson,’ he decided. ‘If someone is working for Galahad, it has to be one of them. Only they have the system access, and only they would know about the Gene Bank data and be able to use that as a bargaining chip.’
‘You think so?’ Scotonis enquired, now raising a sidearm to point it straight at Clay’s visor. ‘You’re the Inspectorate worm aboard this ship. You’re the eyes and ears she put here.’
‘You’re forgetting that I’m also the least useful one she placed aboard, simply to ensure she had someone non-essential she could punish,’ said Clay. ‘You’re also forgetting that she sent the signal to close my strangulation collar just as slowly as possible.’ Clay hurried on. ‘Trove and Cookson, however, can both claim that they were only following your orders.’
‘I trust them,’ said Scotonis.
‘Which makes you easier to manipulate.’
‘I should just shoot you now. You’re no use to me.’
‘Without me you would never have known the truth,’ said Clay, then added, ‘and without me you won’t know who the traitor is.’
‘You know?’
‘I know how we can find out,’ said Clay, suddenly realizing that the answer was simple and that he knew precisely how to identify who had killed these men, and perhaps Myers too.
Earth
The greatly extended Traveller construction station was occupied by an all-but-complete smaller vessel, a prototype, alongside two gigantic hulks – part of a new generation of battleships that had never flown. The prototype was just a much smaller and less manoeuvrable version of the Scourge, possessing the same vaguely torpedo shape. It was a quarter of the size, at half a kilometre long and a hundred metres wide, with a rear fusion engine and four, rather than the full eight, fusion engines located around its body for rapid course changes. However, it was also encircled by the ring of a vortex generator, so resembled an axle stub in the middle of a wheel. Though a prototype, it was a working vessel, but the tacticians had decided that the vortex ring was far too vulnerable where it was currently positioned, and it interfered with the aiming of its own weapons. They had then gone on to suggest that this vessel would be better staying out of close conflict and should therefore take on more of an observational role. Serene had decided to name it the Vision – since the Argus, the name of a mythical giant with a hundred eyes, was no longer available.
The second vessel extended a kilometre from its nose to its fusion engines, but contained the ring of its vortex generator inside its hull and, inside the compass of its weapons systems, it bore the shape of a spinning top. This was Admiral Bartholomew’s vessel so, after little thought, Serene had named it the Command.
The third vessel bore the shape of a smaller version of what Argus Station was now becoming. Here everything had been much better integrated, and all wrapped in a new design of composite armour. In this two-kilometre-diameter sphere there was more room for the two-thousand-strong assault force, along with a cornucopia of heavy weapons, including two of Calder’s new design of missile.
‘Have you thought of a name for it yet, ma’am?’ asked Admiral Bartholomew.
Serene glanced at the diminutive man who bore such a heavy title. He was smaller even than Serene and seemed to disappear in the physical presence of his command crew, which mostly consisted of big steroid- and cyber-enhanced brutes. Yet, when he spoke in his soft Brazilian-accented tones, everyone attended to him at once. Physically small he might be, but he was bright and sharp, and amidst his crew seemed like iron amidst plastic. Out of thousands of prospects, this erstwhile commander of the Core One station had been ranked way above the rest.
Swallowing wetly on an urge to vomit, which the anti-nausea pills had yet to negate, Serene sat back in the co-pilot’s chair of the space plane as it drifted towards the dock of the construction station. She had considered naming the last ship after some historical figure, maybe a general or a political leader, but now decided on something in keeping with the brevity and concision of the other names.
‘I name that ship the Fist,’ she said.
Bartholomew allowed himself a tight smile. ‘Apposite.’
‘So you intended to remain aboard the Command,’ she said.
‘Now you’ve named it, what else can I do?’
Serene turned to study him more closely. Was he just making a little joke or was he starting to show his true colours, now his strangulation collar had been removed?
‘No offence intended, ma’am,’ he added hurriedly. ‘I believe my record notes a tendency in me to inappropriate humour when I’m nervous.’
Serene nodded. Yes, she had seen that on his record. It was one of the few items in the section his examiners had reserved for listing his faults – a section completely outweighed by his numerous qualifications, his experience and his successes. ‘So why do you choose to remain aboard the Command?’
‘Where I position myself is irrelevant, ma’am, since you have designated me admiral and I command three ships, not one. It is also the case that I am a strategist, and therefore better at assessing situations at one remove, while Captain Oerlon is both a good combat commander and organizer of personnel, so will do much better aboard the . . . Fist, which has a larger crew and the troop complement, and is likely to find itself at the sharp end of any battle.’
Could she accuse him of cowardice? If things went to plan, then the Fist would be the vessel launching the main attack against Argus Station, and the first to dock as it sent in the troops. And, as Bartholomew must be well aware, that had not gone too well the last time. Serene decided otherwise, since Bartholomew had made some decisions in his past that ran counter to the orders he had been given and which, if they had turned out to be wrong, would have resulted in him ending up in an adjustment cell. He was clearly no coward.
The dock drew closer: a triangular pillar jutting out from the main mass of the station, with four space planes already moored to two of its faces, two of them having brought her main security team here a few days previously to liaise with the Inspectorate complement already aboard. It had been necessary for them to spy the station out and to get all protocols in place to ensure her absolute protection. No data about her presence here could be allowed to leak out, since a space station was a vulnerable place for Earth’s dictator to be. Also, staff considered even marginally unsafe must be moved; the readergun network put on hold since the failure rate could not be risked; undercover agents activat
ed; and fast escape routes checked out. Thinking on this last eventuality made her feel queasy, even now that the anti-nausea pills were starting to work, for it meant a fast escape by a drop shuttle re-entry vehicle should something catastrophic happen to the station – such catastrophes being generally related to the arrival of Alan Saul in Earth orbit.
Bartholomew smoothly operated their plane’s controls to bring them to the one empty surface, the station now seeming to loom above them. Serene experienced a moment of disorientation, but by now the accompanying nausea was all but gone. Docking clamps engaged with a reverberating crash and she listened to the low thrum of compressors driving the plane’s airlock cylinder into the dock, as if enacting some obscene technological mating. Bartholomew unstrapped and Serene copied him.
‘I do have a question for you, if I may, ma’am?’ he said as he stood up.
‘Go ahead.’ She obliged.
‘My crews and the assault troops have recently received orders to visit a team of medics you sent over, to have their ID implants removed,’ he said. ‘Why is that?’
‘We’re not sure but, according to a tactical assessment, it seems likely Alan Saul was able to use those implants to locate all Scourge personnel, and via them was able to penetrate secure communications, which is how he beat them,’ Serene explained. ‘Our technicians are working to negate all the advantages that his mental penetration of computer systems gives him.’
And I don’t want him activating the Scour lodged in your implants and killing you all.
‘Hence the comlifer too?’
‘Yes – he is from the original team that has been protecting Earth’s computer security, so is tried and tested. Meanwhile I have more comlifers assuming new positions down there.’
The passenger compartment of the plane contained Elkin and her two aides, besides other ancillary staff, Serene’s small security team from Core One, and some of Bartholomew’s staff. The security team was already up and ready the moment Serene stepped through, and they headed back to the airlock to precede her. There had been no need for Serene to wear a spacesuit, since this dock was pressurized, but, for her safety, Sack had advised her to do so. It was also the case that here the kind of clothing she would normally wear – chosen for the imposing impression it would give – seemed completely inappropriate. She had therefore chosen to have made the suit she now wore. It was a state-of-the-art VC suit of silver and blue, with the armour subtly shaped so as not to conceal her femininity. As she went headfirst down through the lock and, in one of those dizzying changes in perspective, stepped upright out on to the inner floor of the dock, she recalled her history.