Africa Zero (24 page)

Beyond
the wall was an apartment. A man and a small boy crouched to one side. The man
held a console on his lap and had a laser pistol at. his side. He looked at me.

“Funny
man,” said the boy, pointing at me.

“Collector,”
said the man. I walked over to him, reached down and picked up the pistol.
“Cardinal status,” he said. I nodded to him and headed for the door. He had
locked himself in. I decided it best to leave him that safety.

“Code,”
I said. He told me, I punched it, and walked out into the corridor.

This
upper residential section was separate from where I wanted to go. Here the
Director’s staff and wealthier stationers resided. I reckoned there would be
more defences between me and Callum Manx Enmark. As a last resort I’d no doubt
he had loyal soldiers armed with APWs and the like. I bet on him having every
access covered with enough armament to blow the top off the station. He was
probably suited now and getting ready to board his personal transport. I also
bet on him not covering one other option.

I
am not a man. I am metal, nano-circuitry, and syntheflesh, though not the
latter at that moment. All that is human of me is a brain and spinal column
held at absolute zero in a superconducting grid. Because I normally look like a
man people make the mistake of expecting me to have a man’s requirements. I do
not need to eat, nor do I need to breath.

The
airlock was at the centre of this residential section. I went through into
vacuum on the top of the station, fused the locking mechanism with the laser,
then walked across the metal surface towards the centre of the station. There I
could see the dome of the Director’s apartments and control centre. Next to an
extensible airlock was a fast shuttle: a craft shaped like a flattened egg. I
walked across to the dome, found a window, and looked inside.

There
was much activity in the control centre: people in blue overalls were running
about, others in Enmark businesswear were arguing, punching at consoles, and
generally looking as if they wished they were somewhere else. I watched this
chaos for a moment then moved on to the airlock. Even as I arrived it was being
extended to the shuttle. No doubt my presence on the upper floors had been
reported and Callum was taking the precaution of getting himself aboard. From
there I supposed he could still run things, then run, if it became necessary. I
climbed into the extending tube of the lock and hung on.

The
tubular corridor hit against the side of the shuttle and locked down.
Immediately air rushed in and filled it. I watched frost forming on my hands
while I sat on the floor and waited. Eventually the lock was up to pressure and
the station door whined and clunked, then opened inwards.

“You
can’t mean it,” a woman said.

“I
damned well can. I’ve spent years on this project and I’m not having some
pre-Convulsion ‘chronism dictating terms. We blow the top as soon as he’s in
the control room.”

The
second voice I recognised as the voice that had spoken to me before my tank was
destroyed by the sun laser—Callum Manx Enmark.

“You
can’t do that,” said the woman.

“I
won’t let you do that,” said a third voice, that of a man.

“Leave
it,” said Callum.

By
then the door was halfway open.

“You’ll
die,” said Callum.

The
door swung full open on a strange little diarama. A short stocky thug in grey
businesswear had his hand poised at his jacket pocket. He was facing me. A
ginger-haired woman in a clinging wrap and spring heels stood next to him. With
his back to me was a tall man with long curly blond hair. He held a laser
pistol, similar to the one I held, on the two of them. The thug saw me and
commendably showed little reaction other than a widening of his eyes. The woman
saw me and screamed. I pressed the snout of my recently-filched laser against
the back of Callum’s neck.

“Drop
it,” I said.

He
turned and fired.

The
laser scored a groove across my rib cage, then flashed beyond me into the
airlock. Of a sudden there was the roar of escaping air. The man and woman held
themselves in the station lock as it automatically began to close. Callum was
pulled off his feet and slammed into me. As I closed my hand on the edge of the
lock he hung onto my arm. I looked at him then released my hold and stepped
back into the tunnel. The station lock closed. Callum looked at me in horror as
his eyes bulged and air jetted from his lungs. The last of the air gusted from
the tunnel and he lay on the floor gulping, water vapour puffing from his mouth
and swollen eyes. His body swelled as that of a fish pulled up from deepest
sea. It took him about two minutes, I suppose. I wasn’t really counting. I just
watched and thought about the slaves of the Army of God, Sophist and those
other sauramen that had died, and of David Enmark finally sent into oblivion .
. . When it was finished I walked over and knocked hard on the station airlock.
About a quarter of an hour later they let me in. An hour after that the
remaining sauramen were back on the lifter and certain Enmark activities shut
down. I decided that I would stay until the Enmark system was back online and
until I had decided who to put in charge. The irony was that the only available
memplant for the system AI came from a bloated corpse brought in from outside,
and that because I effectively owned the Enmark Corporation, Callum Manx Enmark
would spend the rest of his existence with a pre-Convulsion anachronism
dictating terms to him.