Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2) (21 page)

‘Whoever it is,’ Galahad waved a dismissive hand, ‘I have an offer for you. I am not so foolish as to think you will turn Argus Station around and hand yourselves over to me,
but there is still a way we can all get what we want. Since your inexplicable course change, you will reach the Asteroid Belt in eight months’ time. There I want you to load onto a space
plane the Gene Bank samples and database, along with Alan Saul, dead or alive, and moor the plane to the Asteroid which under new century listing is designated GH467. You may then swing back round
towards Mars, or wherever it is you think you are going. If you do not do this, the
Scourge
will eventually catch you, and you will all die.’ She paused as if in thought for a moment,
looking slightly sad as she returned her gaze to her palmtop screen, then continued. ‘Everything else at that distance from Earth can be faked for the satisfaction of the people of Earth.
Having collected what I want, the
Scourge
will then destroy GH467. Anyone viewing that event through telescopes not government-controlled will be unable to see enough detail to know any
different, and subsequently such video will be adjusted so it will seem the Argus itself was destroyed. Some story about Alan Saul’s cowardly escape aboard a space plane can be
fabricated.’ She looked up. ‘You must speak to me soon.’

Le Roque clicked off the screen and it seemed everyone remained focused on it for a long time afterwards.

‘Talk to her, yeah, right,’ said Pike.

‘Seems to me,’ said Leeran, ‘that she’s just trying to work out some way of getting her hands on that Gene Bank stuff without using force. That
Scourge
comes
against us, and everything she wants might end up being destroyed.’

‘No, I disagree,’ said Le Roque. ‘We’ve got no manoeuvrability and that thing has. It could simply take out the Mars Traveller engine, tear us up a little to ensure
plenty of death and disruption, then dock and send in troops. We don’t stand a chance.’

‘If you give her what she wants, she’ll do that anyway,’ said Hannah.

‘Maybe.’ Le Roque nodded. ‘But I really think that we’ve got to talk to her. We can draw out the bargaining, maybe feed her bits of Gene Bank data at a time.’

‘Then we die when that runs out,’ said Leeran contemptuously. ‘And do you think for one moment that will hold them off from attacking the moment they reach us?’

‘And Alan Saul?’ asked Hannah.

Le Roque held out his hands helplessly. ‘Give me alternatives. What the hell do we do?’

‘We do what we can to survive,’ said Langstrom. ‘This was never going to be easy. The Owner knew that, too.’

Past tense already
, thought Hannah, sitting back. The Saberhagen twins weren’t here, which would have weighed this meeting more towards an attitude of ‘Fuck you,
Galahad’ and ‘How can we kill that ship?’ She initiated her fone, found a number she wanted in her cortex menu, and called them.

‘So you’re at a meeting,’ said Brigitta. ‘Funny how Le Roque forgot to invite us.’

‘Yes, funny that,’ Hannah replied.

Others at the table turned towards her, realizing what she was doing. Langstrom looked suddenly suspicious and began to rise from his seat.

‘You know that matter we discussed before I departed,’ said Hannah.

‘Yeah, I’m still thinking about it.’

‘Would you take an order from me?’

‘Second to Saul.’

‘Release them,’ Hannah told her. ‘Let them go right now.’

‘Ah, that kind of meeting,’ said Brigitta.

‘Yes, it’s that—’

A voice interrupted their exchange, speaking human words that in no way issuing from a human being. ‘I choose to name myself Paul,’ it said. ‘Instruct me, Hannah
Neumann.’

Mars

They’d looked askance at her when she turned up for the latest broadcast from Argus with a gun at her hip, but then their expressions had shut down.
Fuck
them
. She’d sat for a while in her cabin, binding up her arm, and then taken a rest, her head aching. She’d gone out like a light for twenty minutes, then woken up with blood
soaking into her bed and realized she needed more than just dressings. All of them had seen that she’d been sliced and knocked almost unconscious, but no one had come. Belatedly Da Vinci had
used wound glue to seal up the cut – along with a few staples – given her some painkillers and an analgesic cream. He hadn’t asked her about the very obvious blow to her head, and
had quite obviously wanted her gone.

Now there was a meeting to discuss the information Argus had supplied. The atmosphere in the community room was hostile, even poisonous. Most here were trying to keep neutral expressions, but
failing. No one had asked her about the attack on her, not even Martinez and Lopomac, who looked grim. Was she being paranoid in thinking
everyone
was now against her?

‘The truth,’ she said, standing up once everyone was seated, ‘is this. That ship could rail out a nuke right now and, though it would take some years to arrive here, the thing
could drop itself on Hex Three with an accuracy measured in centimetres.’

‘You seem mighty familiar with its systems,’ noted Rhone. ‘It occurs to me that, as the overseer of the Mars Traveller building programme, you probably always knew more about
this than you’re letting on.’

Var glanced at him. That seemed a comment specifically aimed to generate distrust against her. Was he now about to become more overt?

‘We all saw the broadcast,’ she said, ‘and it doesn’t take a whole lot of mental watts to work out what we’re up against. And, no, I knew nothing about this.’
The lie rolled off her tongue with worrying ease.

‘But if it does fire on us, we’ll see it coming,’ noted Martinez.

‘And how exactly does that help us?’ asked Lopomac.

There seemed a degree of tension between the two of them. Was one of them having his doubts about her leadership, and the other in disagreement?

‘That is precisely why we are sitting here,’ said Var, studying each of her chiefs of staff in turn.

Carol was here – Carol, who had been at her side when she went up against Ricard. She just looked depressed now and maybe disappointed. Gunther’s replacement in Hydroponics and
Agriculture, Liza Strome, had joined them, too, along with Da Vinci and Leo from Stores. They were all obviously thinking about recent events, and really needed to snap out of that. Didn’t
they understand the danger they were in?

She continued, ‘A long-range nuke is the first threat to us, followed, after a time, by nukes and high-velocity railgun slugs from orbit. Just one of either of these hits us, and
we’re gone.’

‘Why would that ship come here?’ Strome asked. ‘Its designated mission is to go after Argus, which – as we understand it after that course change the station made –
it’s likely to intercept out at the Asteroid Belt.’

Var turned towards her, fighting the urge to be dismissive. ‘First off, we’ve responded to none of their communications, but the Hubble will show them that we’re still active.
They’ll be suspicious and want to check, and they’ll eventually find out what has happened here. Second, we have a dictator on Earth who has wiped out a significant portion of the human
race. She’s also eradicated surviving Committee delegates to ensure her rule remains unchallenged. So I don’t think she’ll be prepared to tolerate us.’ She paused as if in
thought. ‘Maybe she won’t send the
Scourge
here after it’s dealt with Argus, but are you prepared to bet your life on that? And, anyway, we’ve seen the activity
ramping up in Earth orbit, and from that we know that she intends to establish an even stronger foothold beyond Earth than Messina did. It’s not a case of
if
her forces come here, but
when
.’

‘I agree,’ said Rhone, yet again surprising her with his support. ‘This Serene Galahad will either stamp on us or ensure that we take a leading part in some sort of show trial,
either here or on Earth. Either way we die, if we’re lucky.’

‘Lucky?’ asked Strome.

Martinez, obviously uncomfortable with her naivety, quickly interjected, ‘If Galahad doesn’t have us killed, she’ll have us adjusted – probably adjusted till we’re
drooling and in need of nappies.’

Good, they were now all starting to think about this very real danger.

‘So how do we respond?’ Var asked. She had some ideas of her own, but fought to keep them in check. It would be so easy to feed off the resentment she felt and become all
dictatorial. Better to let them have their input first.

‘I have some suggestions,’ said Rhone, reaching up to touch a finger against his fone.

Var stared at him, wondering just what game he was playing now. He returned her stare. ‘We have a weapons designer in Mars Science – Linden Haarsen.’ He paused for a second
before saying, ‘Yes, get in here now.’

Haarsen came through the door rather quickly, further arousing Var’s suspicions. But, then, perhaps she shouldn’t relate everything that happened to herself. Rhone wasn’t
stupid and had probably understood the situation very quickly. She recognized Haarsen as one of the quiet individuals, usually in a lab coat, who was always hovering in the background behind Rhone.
He quickly squeezed in beside Lopomac, placing a laptop on the table.

Var gazed at him. ‘You have something for us?’

Haarsen looked to Rhone, who gave his permission with a brief nod. This irritated Var no end. It seemed to be a sure sign of empire-building inside Mars Science.

‘We need a DEMP,’ Haarsen said.

‘If you could explain for the others here who might not know that acronym?’

‘Directed electromagnetic pulse,’ Haarsen explained. ‘I could build us an EM pulse weapon within the time available – one capable of knocking out even the hardened
computer systems of cruise missiles.’

‘Time available?’ Var enquired.

‘As you said at the opening of this meeting,’ said Haarsen uncomfortably, ‘that ship can rail out tactical cruise nukes even from Earth orbit right now.’

Var glanced at Rhone. She’d never given any instruction that what was said within these meetings should be private, but it annoyed her that he had obviously been using his fone to
broadcast from here to his own staff.

‘Do go on,’ she said.

‘If missiles were fired off now, they would take four years to reach us. Therefore, if they intend to fire missiles, they will do so either now or in the near future.’

‘Why?’ asked Lopomac.

‘The first reason is simple orbital mechanics. If they fired in, say, in six months, with relative planetary orbits diverging, the time it would take for them to reach us doubles to eight
years. But that is supposing that they do fire from Earth orbit.’

‘But that ship is coming our way,’ said Strome.

Haarsen swung towards her. ‘They can’t fire on us while the
Scourge
is at full speed because that would ramp up the speed of the missiles to the point where they
wouldn’t be able to slow down enough to enter our atmosphere and subsequently manoeuvre to drop on us. Those things don’t have fusion engines like Argus or the
Scourge
.’

‘So, on the face of it,’ said Var, ‘building a DEMP seems to be a reasonable precaution to take.’

‘Then what?’ asked Martinez abruptly.

Var glanced at him. Perhaps he too was seeing the shape of things.

‘Yes, precisely,’ said Var. ‘Then what?’

No one seemed to have any answer.

‘I too have been checking some figures,’ she continued. ‘The
Scourge
will have to slow down to intercept Argus, and there’ll be a delay while it deals with that
station. We can assume it will strafe the station first, then dock and send in troops. Remember, Galahad doesn’t want just to destroy Argus; she wants to get her hands on the Gene Bank data
and samples. After that, the
Scourge
can accelerate again. I estimate, what with the big deceleration it will need on arrival here, the ship will be over us in about two years’
time.’

‘The DEMP will be able to knock out anything self-guided,’ said Haarsen, but seemed at a loss for anything else to add.

‘But would be completely ineffective against line-of-sight railgun slugs. So building a DEMP to deal with a possible threat four years hence when we’re likely to be attacked in two
years seems rather pointless, don’t you think?’

Both Rhone and Haarsen suddenly looked peeved. This had clearly been a little power play: Rhone wheeling out his pet weapons designer to demonstrate how useful and forward-thinking he was. Quite
obviously, Rhone was no synthesist, or else he would have spotted the enormous hole in his own reasoning.

‘So what other options do we have?’ Var asked, and waited patiently.

Rhone should have been the one to see the only real option, but it was Martinez who now spoke up. The big bulky man leaned forward, tapping one thick calloused finger against the tabletop to
emphasize each of his points. ‘Atomics and railgun slugs from orbit? Seems to me the penetration capacity of both ain’t great. A slug at full power probably fragments or even turns to
plasma on impact. Both’ll leave nothing but glass on the surface.’

‘And your point is?’ Var asked, perfectly aware of what his point was.

‘Maybe they’ve got some way of dropping troops; I don’t know. But even if they have, those guys will be at a big disadvantage.’ He paused, stabbing his finger down again.
‘We dig. We go underground.’

Var swung her attention to Rhone and waited.

‘Yes,’ he said reluctantly. ‘There are faults down there – some big caves extending right to Coprates Chasma.’ He tapped a fingertip against the table.
‘We’ve still got all the records from the original geological survey, but still this will take a lot of work.’

‘Isn’t there a deep fault twenty kilometres north of here?’ Var asked, feeling sure he knew about it. ‘That means we probably won’t even have to sink
shafts.’

‘I believe you’re right,’ he admitted.

Var swung her attention to Haarsen, who was now looking sour-faced. She flung him a bone: ‘We’ll be needing explosives to blast things wider over there, and we’ll be needing
defences. It also occurs to me that, should there be landing craft aboard the
Scourge
, then a DEMP weapon might make them rather difficult to control.’