The Departure (44 page)

Hannah felt a surge of contempt. Smith had always spoken like this, in such a convoluted manner, and sometimes it was difficult to work out exactly what he meant. The Committee had completely lost control, so was using gas, live ammunition and robots programmed to kill in order to prevent itself being overrun by the starving mobs. In the three areas mentioned, its forces had withdrawn to their bases for the time being.

“And with the few remaining lasers that you and Saul didn’t wreck, between you,” said Langstrom, “there’s no way of reversing that disintegration now.” The soldier said it without emphasis, but the hint of criticism was there. Smith, however, did not seem to notice it.

“One must await the appropriate time,” he replied, and pointed to the screen showing the launching space planes. “Messina is aboard one of those planes, which is already on its way here, perhaps to oversee any future interventions.”

Langstrom gazed steadily at him. “Is he going to try and take the station away from you?”

“He may indeed wish for primacy.”

“You’ve warned them over in Arcoplex One?”

“There is no necessary benefit in doing so. Alessandro Messina will not establish himself in control here by means of policy statements or Committee votes, therefore my pet delegates would not prove effective in such a situation.”

As they both returned their attention to the screens, Hannah digested this reference to delegates. Didn’t Saul say earlier that Smith had opened a back door into the laser network? It seemed he had been clawing for power, and control of the network had been one chip in the dangerous game he was playing. Meanwhile, he had used his bargaining position to get all those delegates prepared to back him transferred up here, only now things had drastically changed. Perhaps the Committee had hoped to retain control down on Earth with the seven hundred satellites previously available, using mass slaughter as a tool, when necessary. Now that so few laser weapons were immediately available, it seemed Messina and the rest of the Committee were ready to abandon the planet, for now. Whatever way it went, the power base was now up here on Argus, and that’s where all the politicians wanted to be. And once they got up here, they would fight, as ever, to become top dog.

“Let us assemble a small reception committee,” said Smith. “I believe you should ensure it consists primarily of those whose martial usefulness is in question. The rest of your men should be deployed around the core installations: here at Tech Central, the Political Office and the cell complex.”

“More sacrifices, you mean?”

Smith tilted his chin towards the screen. “I am ignorant of the orders issued to those in the approaching space plane. Whoever meets them can direct them straight to the nearest rim-side accommodation and, if they agree to go there, that will give time for you to move out there from the core, and be ready to negate their interference.” He turned his gaze fully on Langstrom.

“Once they dock on the rim they’ll probably head straight in towards the core,” suggested the soldier.

“A more likely and even preferable scenario, because we’ll then know Alessandro’s true intentions. Militarily it is preferable, too, since a great number of readerguns and robots lie conveniently between the rim and the core.”

“They’re going to be well equipped and there’s no guarantee they’ll use a dock at all,” Langstrom observed.

“I have enabled access for your men to Kalashtek assault rifles, and ceramic ammunition capable of penetrating VC suits,” said Smith, “and you may also wish to deploy carousel missile-launchers wherever feasible.” When Langstrom still did not seem in any hurry to depart, he snapped, “Is there anything further?”

“Nothing at all, sir.” Langstrom gestured for his men to follow him and, even as he departed, new staff were arriving and taking up positions at the consoles around the room.

“You three,” Smith indicated Chang and the twins, “return to your accommodation for now. We will discuss that ‘choice’ you mentioned at a later juncture.”

So much for keeping their heads down.

***

The nightmare was a repeat of one he’d experienced more times than he could count. He was strapped naked to a cold steel wall, while in front of him stood a bench scattered with the kind of tools to be found in any workshop: screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutters, a soldering iron and an angle grinder. In this nightmare, however, he could hear the words.

“The people,” declared Smith, “need to know.”

It wasn’t Smith, however, who now stepped into view, but some interrogation-block technician—no, not even that; just some recorded mock-up of a human being. Saul could distinguish the man’s enforcer uniform underneath his transparent plastic overalls, but no sign of his face, for he wore a hazmat filter mask and green-tinted goggles. Careful not to tear his surgical gloves, he picked up the angle grinder, removed the grinding disk and replaced it with one used for coarse sanding.

“In what manner precisely did you alter the functions of your body?” asked Smith, now also stepping into view. “We need to know why the viral nanite you created has killed all the subjects we’ve tested it on. And how does it function in combination with the anti-ageing drugs, and what alterations did you make to those drugs themselves?”

Saul stared at him, dressed in his immaculate white suit, looking so incongruous in this dark and filthy place. Everything Saul had done appeared absolutely clear in his mind: the way the viral nanite had been modelled on his own individual DNA, therefore was in many ways equivalent to the bespoke magic bullets already used by the medical profession; the way he altered the fix so that some parts of it worked more slowly, thus allowing the virus to finish its work before sealing it perfectly. The whole wonderful complexity of what he had achieved lay there opened up to the inspection of his inner eye. But he could not explain this to Smith: the man was just too stupid to understand, and Saul didn’t possess the words to make it clear. Furthermore, at the core of him lay a rebellious stubbornness and a disinclination to communicate which just locked him into continuing silence.

The enforcer started the grinder rotating and brought it up close to Saul’s chest.

“As a consequence of the antishock drugs we have injected into you, you will undoubtedly stay conscious for an appreciable period of time,” Smith explained, in his usual laborious fashion. “Blood loss resulting from this treatment will not be sufficient to render you unconscious.” He indicated a set of blood bags tubed into his victim’s arm, which Saul hadn’t noticed before.

The sanding disc came down against his chest, producing an unbelievable explosion of agony. Saul shrieked, and struggled against the restraints, blood and skin spraying all about him. He now wanted to tell Smith, wanted to tell him everything, but the words remained locked up inside him. And even in his agony he noticed that not one fleck of the bloody detritus had marred Smith’s pristine white suit.

Saul retreated from this nightmare of pain, but just couldn’t locate himself in time or space. His groping mind tried to incorporate a thousand cam views, tried to get a grip on the huge traffic of computer code surrounding him, yet found it frustratingly slippery to his mental grasp. He sensed robots stirring in recollection, from wherever they crouched amid the inner-station substructure like roosting birds, felt others blocking him out as they began to move under someone else’s instruction. Such exploration was almost instinctive to him, yet at least it gave him his own location.

I am aboard the Argus space station.

An outside view suddenly of a space plane coming in to dock. He felt a sudden surge of panic at the sight, but had no idea why. He needed to take control, needed access, but it all now seemed far too confusing. First he needed to return to himself and locate himself precisely in space and time. He needed to rediscover his fleshly ego, and from that firmer basis regain memory and purpose. But which of these thousands of views came through his own human vision? The only way to find out was to disconnect from all obvious cam-signal traffic, which he did as rapidly as he could, and finally he opened his eyes.

A cell?

He felt as if he had been beaten from head to foot, and his skin scoured with acid. Because he was bound upright, naked and cruciform against a white-tiled wall, with manacles about his wrists and ankles and a steel band about his waist, he instantly thought he had returned to the world of nightmare. But reality possessed a much sharper edge, and a particular pain throbbing in his side reawakened memories of Smith’s knife going in, and his surroundings smelt of shit, which he realized must be his own as soon as he saw the pain inducer projecting from a ceiling-suspended framework. Turning his head slightly, he noted an optic cable trailing from his temple to a box mounted on the wall, just above his shoulder. From this, yet more optics ran up the wall and across the ceiling, connecting into the hardware above the inducer. And then he remembered precisely how he had got here.

“The three…bodies,” Saul had managed, after being dragged down here from the Political Office, and when the two soldiers secured him to the wall.

“Three bodies?” Smith had enquired with interest, standing with Saul’s VC suit draped over one arm. “What three bodies?”

“On the way in…the blood on them was dry.”

“Oh, yes.” Smith had nodded. “I used some of the casualties from our previous encounter, just to set the scene. I also needed to let you kill a few yourself, just so you would feel confident enough of victory to come directly against me. Rather negligent of you to leave your robot behind, but that wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since I had one of my officers standing by with a PA50 tank-buster, just in case.”

“Why?” Saul had asked.

“Why what?”

“Why the charade, if you had suitable weapons…to hit my robots?”

“I only have the one, you see. Initially, I could have sent my soldiers directly against you, but that would have resulted in too many deaths, and I will be needing them now. It was better just to manipulate you, which of course was so easy. You even destroyed those three space planes for me, which of course I can now deny responsibility for.” Smith had smiled.

Despite the pain in his head, Saul had retained enough analytical capacity to realize that Smith could have brought him down much earlier. It seemed that this whole charade had not been necessary, but merely to satisfy Smith’s enjoyment of manipulation.

Saul had blinked, the ache in his head partially receding, and he had begun to probe the computer networks in his vicinity, first picking up on the cam view inside the cell itself, then venturing beyond it to see soldiers moving about in the corridors of the cell block. He had reached further, trying to get in contact with Hannah—but then Smith was there, blocking him, undermining him.

“I did consider shutting you completely out of the station network, but it seems that switching off your internal modem would require either destructive computer intervention or even surgery,” Smith had said. “I then considered keeping you unconscious until we two found an opportunity to spend some quality time together, before I got Hannah to surgically extract all that hardware in your skull, but the problem is that while you’re unconscious you are not suffering, and I so very much want you to
suffer
, Alan Saul.”

Smith had stepped back and, with a surge of dread, Saul could clearly see the inducer in the ceiling. The man had continued, “Then I figured out the perfect solution: recurrent inducement. For any normal subject, periods of unconsciousness last between ten minutes and an hour, but I feel certain, in your case, the recovery period will be quicker. Let’s see, shall we?”

The agony, as ever, had been unbelievable. He roasted, screaming, in invisible naked flame, his contorted body pounding against the wall behind him like it was being electrocuted. Blackness had overcome him…then, seemingly in no time at all, he had been back in the cell, and trying to remember who he was, where he was…

“That took only four minutes,” Smith had said, checking his watch. “Remarkable.” He had departed, slinging Saul’s vacuum suit over his shoulder.

Then the agony once more, again and again, Smith’s voice recurring too, after the first two times. How many times thereafter, Saul had lost count.

“Readings indicate that you are now fully conscious,” declared that hated voice.

Saul licked desiccated lips, trying to think of the words to beg for relief, even though he knew he was merely hearing a recording.

“And once again it is time for instruction.”

“No…please…”

A light appeared, up there in that hardware, blinking from red to green, and in the next instant every square millimetre of Saul’s skin began to burn. He felt a moment of utter disbelief that such agony could be possible, as he glimpsed his arm, corded with veins, and could not understand how the skin wasn’t melting. He screamed repeatedly and tried to tear his manacles from the wall till, after an eternity of just ten seconds, his mind escaped once more into comfortable darkness.

Saul crept into wakefulness like a wild animal approaching a suspicious bounty of food. He couldn’t remember where he was or even when he was, but knew danger lurked close by. He therefore needed to move fast. With a feeling of déjà vu, his mind groped out and tried to incorporate a thousand cam views, tried to latch onto the huge surrounding traffic of computer code…

Not fast enough.

17

RETIREMENT WITHOUT PENSION

As the Committee steadily expanded in power, it grew far too large and complex, until in danger of ceasing to function in any meaningful manner. Sitting above the massive bureaucracy there were over three thousand delegates representing countries or regions across the Earth. Even minor matters, like the standardization of paperclips, became the subject of debates that raged for years, while vastly more important issues were consigned to a political wasteland. However, a winnowing process was already at work as some of the delegates clawed more power to themselves, and created factions or supporters, whilst others of their kind were consigned to a political void. Secret decisions began to get made as an ostensibly egalitarian regime shed any pretence of equality for all. This was the time of the efficiency experts, promoting the division of Earth into larger regions and thereby the dismissal of delegates who failed to secure their hold on power. And, as with all such regimes, the penalty of failure was inevitably severe. It has, ever since, been the case that very few delegates will go into quiet retirement. And the word “retirement,” in Committee circles, has become a euphemism for something a great deal less pleasant.