Owner 03 - Jupiter War (25 page)

‘And the Owner cannot do that.’

‘He knows right from wrong, but his morality is harsh and unforgiving.’

‘Is there any other morality available to us now?’ Da Vinci swung away to survey their surroundings again. ‘To fret over what is right or wrong is a luxury that has to be put aside once questions about survival come along. We can debate these things interminably, but in the end how many people have refused these backups? How many would set the chance of eternity against some questionable morality and still choose the latter?’

‘I think we should take this debate to the Olive Tree,’ said Hannah, only in the last instant changing her proposal of location from her own room.

He turned and touched a hand to the base of her back. ‘Yes, let’s do that.’

Hannah smiled at him, starting to get used to the sensation. For a second her gaze strayed to a nearby cam, as if challenging any watcher to comment. But, of course, Alan Saul was no longer subject to such human frailties; he was out of reach and, if she was honest, had been out of reach since he had stepped out of the Calais incinerator.

The room was devoid of visible cams or other forms of surveillance, so Marsin had assured him. They could talk freely here; they could discuss subjects none dared raise while under the watchful gaze of Alan Saul. They apparently ran a debating group here, and Alex must be properly assessed before he could be allowed to join.

Marsin, a slightly chubby Asian with a generally friendly demeanour was, in view of his history, not quite what Alex had expected. The man sauntered over to the two-seat sofa in the cramped apartment and sat down, picked up a remote control to turn off the wall screen, then gestured with the remote towards the chair opposite. Alex sat down, too.

‘On Earth we were subject to a worldwide dictatorship,’ Marsin began. ‘We could dream of being free but in reality we knew that the only way to personal freedom was by acquiring power, and in trying to do so we just enhanced the power of the state.’

So what exactly is freedom?
Alex wondered idly, impatient for him to get to the point. However, the question stirred up memories embedded in his mind which were now, as Hannah Neumann had told him, beginning to shake themselves free. He clearly recollected a doctor, who looked very much like Marsin, slicing into his head and then the horrible feeling of his scalp being peeled back and the subsequent grinding of the bone saw. It was unbelievably agonizing, but he was unable either to scream or to move.

‘Painkillers interfere,’ the man had explained, ‘but perpetual wiping of his short-term memory during the process gives us the same outcome.’

‘I know because I have an interrogator who uses similar techniques,’ Messina had replied.

Alex had been able to see the Chairman just at the edge of his visual field, arms folded, his expression showing mild interest. Then came a jump, a hiatus, whereupon he
remembered
forgetting the initial cuts, and returned to a world of pain, then another jump found him waking up on his bed in his small cubicle, and feeling a strong resurgence of his love for and loyalty to Chairman Messina.

‘So there we were, clawing our way up firmly embedded ladders, when we were dragged away,’ Marsin was saying. ‘Dragged away from the slavery we knew and made subject to the whims of yet another dictator.’ Marsin shook his head. ‘We can never hope to be free here.’

Alex reached up and touched his skull, the psychosomatic ache fading. He shook his head and focused properly on Marsin.

For all his high-sounding tone, Alex had no recollection of Marsin fighting to keep the Subnet online, being part of the revolution, or hoarding arms in preparation for a fight for his rights and the rights of his fellow man. However, having run a lot of close security for Messina, Alex had encountered this man before, and now, after things were freed up in his head, recollected him as the toady aide to Delegate Lamont, and knew that he had only escaped mind-wipe here because he had always made damned sure that no responsibility for anything could attach itself to him.

‘And yet we had more freedom than you, Alex,’ he said, ‘so you must feel more deeply what we are feeling now.’

Patronizing twit.

Alex had expected Ghort to make the approach, but perhaps they used the likes of Marsin initially because whatever inner council they had, and it was certain they had one, considered Marsin more dispensable. The man had also set himself up as the go-to guy for the disaffected, being very vocal in his criticism of the Owner and the regime aboard the station. He was acting as a filter – perhaps in place to weed out those whose disaffection was only temporary.

‘I agree, we can never be free here, but then I also question if there is anywhere that we can be,’ said Alex.

‘Freedom must be actively strived for,’ said Marsin vaguely.

‘So how do you propose we go about that?’ Alex asked. ‘There’s nowhere we can escape to, and even if we could get to Earth, we’d end up dead or in adjustment.’

‘We must strive for freedom here,’ Marsin observed, becoming a little more specific.

‘I don’t see the Owner turning this ship of his into a democracy.’

‘We don’t call it a ship – we call it a station – and we don’t call him the Owner, since to do so would be acceding to his will and accepting that we are
owned
.’

‘We?’

‘Before I can tell you any more I need to know where you stand on this issue,’ said Marsin. ‘If you are happy to be one of the supine occupants of this station gratefully receiving the trifles Saul dispenses, then we may as well end this conversation now.’

‘I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t think there were matters to discuss,’ said Alex, ‘though I’m unsure that such discussion will get us anywhere.’

‘Discussion is a beginning.’ Marsin waved the remote control airily. ‘But after that beginning, what do you yourself think should be done?’

‘Saul will never stand down,’ said Alex. ‘Like all dictators, he will cling to power even to the point of destroying what he has power over.’ He paused in reflection: maybe best to get it out in the open now. ‘Saul had Alessandro Messina mind-wiped and then had him taking part in a military action that resulted in his death, so, as the Chairman’s clone and being conditioned to protect him, I have to say that my feelings are strong. The only way to free ourselves of Saul is to bring him down, and the only way we can do that is by killing him.’ There, it was said. Alex grimaced as another clear recollection slid into his mind: one of him walking into a room where four younger versions of himself sat around a table, clad in hospital whites, with their skulls shaven and covered with scars, trying to play cards but their attention straying, their hand movements jerky, and two of them drooling. There had always been failures, and it had always been best to get rid of them quickly. On that occasion Alex had used an electrostun abattoir tool so there would not be so much mess to clear up afterwards.

‘Much the same conclusion we have all come to.’ Marsin nodded, but he was still watching Alex very carefully. ‘However, Saul is very powerful and if we move against him we must do so with the utmost caution and precision.’

‘Secure communications would have to be first priority,’ Alex opined. ‘The only reason Malden’s revolution wasn’t stillborn was because of its secure subnet communication.’

‘And upon gaining a secure method of communication?’

‘Organization, command structure, arms caches and some sort of assassination plan.’ Alex paused. ‘I would also suggest that recruits be organized into cells of four or five with only one of those able to communicate with the commanders. You wouldn’t want just one fuck-up to result in the whole network being taken out.’

‘We already have our cells,’ said Marsin, now moving beyond simple debate. ‘The problem here is the technology being developed by Hannah Neumann, and effectively controlled by Saul. Anyone captured who possesses a link to command could be mind-reamed for information.’

‘But,’ said Alex, ‘you must ensure that no one within the cells actually knows who they are talking to.’

‘True, but all that secrecy makes both organization and recruitment a very difficult task.’

‘You have two choices, then,’ said Alex. ‘You must do it quick and dirty, sacrificing secrecy, or you must play a long and slow game.’

‘Our choice has been for the former,’ Marsin told him. ‘It’s our contention that, once Saul takes this station out of the solar system, our chances of succeeding against him will rapidly diminish. We need to strike while he is still uncertain of his power.’

Quick and dirty . . .
Yes, Alex now remembered persuading certain revolutionaries on Earth of that course, resulting in the death of some delegates who had been an irritation to Messina, followed very quickly by the deaths of the revolutionaries themselves. He sat back and folded his arms. So, this was no debating society, then. He wondered if they’d actually killed anyone yet; if any potential recruits had decided they didn’t want to be involved after hearing too much. During the recent frenzy of construction, there had been two deaths. Could it be that one or both of them had not been accidents at all?

‘So you have a plan?’ he asked.

‘I need to first know if you’re in.’

Alex studied the man, realizing that perhaps there had not yet been any killings, because usually the recruiting process was slower and the weeding out more precise. However, he understood that his own recruitment was to be ‘quick and dirty’ and that therefore the revolutionary command had already contemplated their first killing. Marsin was undoubtedly armed; his body language gave that away. Alex reckoned the remote control he continued to hang on to must control something other than the screen – probably something hidden in the chair Alex sat in.

‘I’m in,’ he said, ‘and, if possible, I want to be in at the front end.’

‘You want to be the one who pulls the trigger on Saul?’

‘I do, since then I will have paid the debt owing to my past, and can move on.’

As Alex was discovering, his past was full of debts and many of them could never be repaid.

‘Though some of us have had reservations about you,’ said Marsin, smiling now though still holding the remote control, ‘most of us were sure your response would be such.’ With his free hand, he rooted in a pocket of his loose-fitting shirt, took out a flat square of dull metal of the kind Alex had seen Ghort surreptitiously attaching to his relay, and tossed it over.

‘What’s this?’ Alex asked, after he had briefly inspected it.

‘You attach it to your relay.’ Marsin pointed to the polished cube hanging on a thin chain around Alex’s neck, ‘and that turns it on. It encodes to the recipient any transmission you send, and you’ll learn how to use it quickly enough.’

‘And who are the recipients?’

‘Your cell commander is your work team leader, Ghort.’

‘As I suspected,’ said Alex, as he pressed the square device against the side of his relay. He wasn’t going to pretend he did not know about Ghort, not now he was about to use a communication method that made attempts at lying difficult.

‘You suspected Ghort was considering rebellion?’ Marsin asked, his lips not moving and the words generating inside Alex’s head without the intervention of his ears.

‘Suspected is too mild a term,’ said Alex. ‘But then I have been trained to look out for stuff like this, which is why you’ll find me useful.’

‘And you still want to be at the sharp end?’ enquired Marsin, implant-to-implant. ‘You still want to be the one who kills Alan Saul?’

‘I want to be the one who kills him, yes.’ Alex paused for a second, watching some remaining tension fading from Marsin’s expression, as he finally released his hold on the remote control. ‘But, tell me, do our cells only consist of those who are chipped like us?’

‘Yes, because we can only be sure of each other like this.’ Alex felt that the revolutionaries had misunderstood the title ‘the Owner’. Hadn’t they realized that Saul did not claim ownership of them but of this ship he was building, of the technology that surrounded them – claiming it in the same way as any pre-Committee human being would have claimed the ownership of his own body. If they had understood that concept, they would not have put such a heavy and dangerous reliance on one piece of technology inside that technological body. They had much to learn, these people, and yet probably not enough time.

When they arrived here, the ship had possessed its supplies of superconducting cable, but not enough. One of the smelting plants – now permanently sited in its dock since most of the ore-transport tube below had been dismantled and most of the carbon composite cable it had been wound out on had been taken away and cut up for other purposes – had, after many days, come close to solving that lack. Saul had watched his robots transport the selected chunks of asteroid matter, out of which the requisite materials could be refined, into the plant where older-style robots had fielded them and fed them into the gravelling machines that led to the smelters. Within an hour, other machines had begun braiding fulleride and copper oxide filaments, spiral-wrapped in HTS tapes, to provide the extra cable required. This, because of a lack of rare earth elements, was not completely superconducting but would be good enough for the job in hand.

Meanwhile, the two space planes that had earlier launched from Dock Two – the same craft that had taken out the two work teams to slice up the ice asteroid – were now arriving at their targets. Saul watched through cams as one plane matched course with and descended upon a Mars Traveller solid-fuel booster tank – one of hundreds currently in orbit about Jupiter. He felt docking bayonets clunk into place in holes prepared in the booster tank for precisely such retrieval, then felt in his bones the space plane’s engines labouring to pull its load to a new course. Just at that moment, the second plane docked with its own load, and likewise began shifting it.

‘ETA approximately twenty hours,’ one of the pilots declared unnecessarily. ‘Work team heading out.’

Saul had selected the personnel with more caution this time. The likes of Ghort and the other wannabe rebels could not be trusted with fielding and bringing in such large and heavy objects. Some inadvertent accident might result in one of those tanks ending up on a fast trajectory towards the centre of the station itself, therefore towards Saul’s inner sanctum, and he had no intention of making things that easy for them.