Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2) (42 page)

Mars

As she pulled away from the remains of Antares Base, the work lights had picked out an ATV labouring away ahead of its train of linked trailers, each stacked with bonded
regolith blocks from Hex Four. Over to the right of the hex, robots and a number of workers in EA suits had been further disassembling the roof panels, ready to be loaded when the ATV returned with
its trailers empty. The move was going well back there, and everyone knew what they were doing, which seemed more than could be said for the team uninstalling the old lifting gear from the edge of
the Coprates Chasma.

It had seemed to be a good idea to send Rhone out here to oversee the work, since he was a former chief of staff who no longer had a department to run – preparations currently being made
to dismantle it for transport – but nevertheless he was fudging the new job. Martinez, apparently, could get no sense out of him and no reasonable explanation for the delays. Lopomac’s
earlier visit out here had not speeded things up either.

Things had been starting to look up as she had realized that the general mood of the base was more pessimistic than hostile and that it was not due to her. She pushed herself harder, becoming
more diplomatic and more optimistic. She congratulated and cajoled, made frequent reference to what was happening with Argus, and noting what it might be possible to achieve. And, slowly at first,
the general mood had changed to one of cautious optimism. However, as she now peered ahead through the Martian dawn, she felt a return of the anger she had managed to control since her brief
exchange with Martinez.

The sun was casting a weak light across the Martian landscape as Var drove her ATV the last few kilometres towards the chasma, and now she could see that the lifting framework had still not been
disassembled.

‘What did he say: “all the bolts rusted solid and needing to be cut”?’

‘That’s what he said,’ Lopomac replied from beside her. ‘He did seem to have a case, but it wasn’t corrosion – they’d used some sort of bonding in the
joints.’

‘Even so, he’s had cutting equipment there for five days now.’

‘Quite,’ agreed Lopomac.

It wasn’t entirely necessary for her to drive all the way out here to discover why there had been so many delays. Really, she could have ordered Rhone and his crew back, then sent someone
else out here instead. However, she needed a bit of time away from the base to think some things over.

And there was a lot to think about.

My brother is the Owner. . .

She had been stunned by the discovery, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She could think of no other single person more likely to manage what he had clearly achieved.
If, in the past, someone had asked her to identify one person who could make a difference to the situation on Earth, after she had dismissed the likelihood of someone like Chairman Messina making
any changes, Alan would have come to the forefront of her mind. But even Messina, who thought he could have made great alterations to how things worked on Earth, could never have managed the things
Alan had done; like getting himself aboard the Argus Space Station, stealing it, then destroying Committee infrastructure on Earth . . . And now, with the station under his control, a space drive .
. .

It was, she felt, a terrible shame that one of the greatest steps forward in human history was being made at a time when humanity itself was in such a dismal position. What Alan was doing aboard
Argus Station should really be marking the beginning of some golden age, as wonderful horizons opened up for humanity. It should not be something born out of necessity just for some people to
escape the grasp of nightmare totalitarianism. But then, it was ever thus. Hadn’t some of the biggest advances of the past been the result of the horrible necessities of war? Hadn’t
nuclear power generation arisen from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

But still.

Var understood herself enough to know that her recent disconnect from the exigencies here, and her present focus on what Hannah Neumann had told her, was a purely selfish thing. In her childhood
she had been obsessed with the idea of space travel; as she grew up, that obsession had never waned, and eventually she’d arrived at precisely where she wanted to be. Admittedly her parents
had helped her up the first steps of that ladder, but it was her own ability that had taken her all the way to the top, to become the chief overseer of the Mars Traveller project, and of the
Alexander
– now named the
Scourge
. And now her brother was about to test out what seemed likely to be one of the biggest advances in the technology of space travel that the
human race had ever experienced.

She wanted to be there for it.

‘Here we go,’ she said, as she drew the ATV to a halt.

Securing their EA suits, she and Lopomac climbed out of the vehicle and looked around. Two other ATVs, both with trailers, were pulled up nearby. A power supply of stacked super-capacitors
rested next to the lifting gear, in the framework of which a few people worked. The buzz of a diamond saw could be heard, just a weak mosquito whine out here, and some lengths of the framework had
already been stacked on one trailer. It wasn’t enough, though – they should have been a lot further ahead than this. Then her gaze came to rest on one of the ATVs, and she saw something
that immediately made her suspicious. The vehicle was one of those possessing a standard-fitting satellite dish, but why was it unfolded and pointing upwards? She began walking towards it.

Rhone shortly stepped out of the ATV concerned and walked over to them. Two others who had exited the same vehicle before him were already carrying heavy tool bags towards the lifting gear. A
routine tea break maybe?

‘I suppose you’ve come here to tell me off,’ said Rhone.

‘Not really,’ Var replied, ‘but I would like some explanation of why it’s taking so damned long.’

He gestured towards where the work was in progress, then led the way over. Soon they stood beside the towering framework. Over to their left lay the drop into the chasma itself, and beyond it a
superb view of the gorgeously unreal landscape. Rhone pointed out one of the joints in the framework.

‘I told Lopomac here about the joints,’ he explained. ‘I earlier made the mistake of assuming it was some form of electrolytic corrosion, but he then helpfully pointed out that
it looked like epoxy bonding. He was correct.’

‘Seemed fairly obvious,’ said Lopomac.

‘So,’ said Var, ‘the fixings are bonded. We cut through them, and just weld the framework after we get it back to Martinez.’

Rhone nodded and dipped his head down to peer more closely at the joint, as if further considering her words. At that moment a dull clattering issued from where the workers were located inside
the framework. Over radio came an odd crunching sound.

Rhone now stood upright. ‘I knew you would come out here eventually,’ he said.

It took her half a second to realize what had happened. She whirled round to see Lopomac falling, his visor smashed and spattered with blood, vapour issuing from an exit hole that had removed
the back of his skull. As she turned back, Rhone had moved out of her reach, and the two who had left the ATV before him were stepping forward. Both of them carried Kalashtech assault rifles that
were aimed at her. Var backed up, expecting a bullet at any moment.

‘Traitor,’ she spat.

‘No,’ Rhone replied, ‘just someone who wants to survive. Your arrogance will kill us all. We stand no chance against Earth.’

‘So you’ve been talking to them,’ she said. ‘You’ve been talking to the
Scourge
?’ She glanced around but could see no way out. They were going to kill
her here and now, and that would be the end of it. ‘They’ll just stick you on trial, then in an adjustment cell. Your torture and death will probably appear on ETV primetime.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Rhone, ‘I’ve been talking to Serene Galahad directly and she has made guarantees.’

‘And you believe her?’

‘I believe her guarantees more than I believe that we can survive here unaided. I believe her guarantees more than I believe your fantasies, Varalia Delex.’

Var realized she had backed up right to the edge of the chasma. She was doing their work for them. When they shot her, she would topple into it and they wouldn’t have the messy task of
throwing her over the edge. Doubtless Rhone would then return to the base with some story about a nasty accident occurring out here. They weren’t that uncommon.

‘I suppose you killed Delaware just to undermine me,’ she said desperately, turning now to glance down at the long drop behind her. She noticed then how there were rails bolted
against the surface down which the lift-cradle had run, because the drop wasn’t sheer.

‘No, that wasn’t the main intention,’ Rhone replied. ‘I killed him merely to shut him up. I wish the distrust in you that his death engendered had been enough, but it
wasn’t. Those fools back there still carried on believing in you.’

How badly she had misjudged the base personnel in that, and how right she had been about Rhone. She should have been altogether more ruthless.

‘And so you’re going to kill me,’ she said, trying to extend the verbal exchange further as she desperately searched for a way out. ‘Do you really think anyone will
believe whatever story you’re likely to concoct?’

‘I’ve no intention of lying to them,’ Rhone replied. ‘Once they know that Galahad will let them live, and that she only wanted the true rebels here dealt with,
they’ll just do what they’re so used to doing, which means whatever they’re told.’

‘You won’t get away with this,’ she said, feeling like a cliché from a million fictional dramas.

Rhone reached out a hand and one of his two men handed over his rifle.

‘I’m just playing the odds,’ he said, raising the weapon.

Var turned round and stepped off the edge. It was likely she would not survive this fall, but it was even less likely that she could survive the ceramic bullets about to punch through her suit.
She, too, knew how to play the odds.

Argus

Hannah glanced at Saul as she walked along at his side. So, his sister was still alive, and was actually the technical director of Antares Base. Hannah felt uneasy about
that news, felt it was some kind of game changer, but she could not logically nail down why. He had said the fact that Var
Saul
was offworld might have been an unconscious driver of his
actions, but how could something like that be quantified? She wanted to ask him about that further, try to see her way clear, but in the end what use was such knowledge to her? He was in charge of
Argus Station. He was the de facto dictator here and his decisions were final.

She followed him into Tech Central and gazed at the new equipment recently installed: the big console with three seats before it, and screens extending above. A couple of technicians had taken a
large portion of the floor up and were busy installing optic cables and junctions. From here the adapted EM radiation field could be controlled, as could the vortex-generator ring itself, and the
place now looked more like the bridge of the massive spaceship that Argus Station had become.

The murmur of conversation ceased once all present saw who had entered.

‘Welcome back,’ said Le Roque, somewhat pensively.

‘Glad to be here,’ replied Saul, his voice remote and carrying no hint of being annoyed or even happy, no hint of human emotion at all. ‘Everything is proceeding to
schedule?’

His gaze strayed to the three main screens up on the wall. Hannah noted that they showed various views of the nearby asteroid. One was from the dock for the smelting plant that had recently been
extended, which showed the plant now merely tens of metres from a surface that glared red under powerful work lights. Another was taken from the smelting plant itself, showing the big anchor cables
that had been extended across, along with all the umbilicals connected to an excavator robot down on the surface. And the third, from the robot, showed its big rotary digging blade already gnawing
into the cinnabar and feeding it into the machine’s maw.

Le Roque watched Saul for a moment, then swung his attention round to Leeran and Pike. It was Pike who responded.

‘We’ve already filled up our first furnace,’ he paused and shrugged, ‘though the word furnace implies temperatures that we’re not using. Better to call them ovens.
We’re cooking up the first batch, and already mercury vapour is going into the condensers for primary condensation. Secondary condensation – purification – should begin within six
hours, and about eight hours after that we should be ready to start pumping pure product directly into the vortex generator. But, of course, we won’t be able to do that until they’ve
completed the ring – and put the section in over the Traveller engine.’

‘Good,’ said Saul, ‘then I won’t delay you here. I want you back out at the smelter plant, making sure nothing goes wrong.’

Pike gave a brief nod. ‘Good to have you back. Things have been edgy.’

‘Yes,’ Leeran agreed, ‘it’s good to have you back.’

Hannah watched them both obediently depart.

‘Brigitta and Angela,’ Saul now addressed the two grinning Saberhagens, ‘you have the time now to commission all the station weapons you’ve built.’ He glanced round
at Hannah. ‘At this juncture it is pointless building replacement sections for the vortex ring. If it is hit once it’s up and running, it will tear apart the outer ring of the
station.’

The two twins sobered instantly and Hannah immediately began to review recent history. She’d given the orders for spare sections to be made. If she’d checked the running specs of the
vortex generator she’d have known that they were redundant. But she couldn’t think of everything, because she wasn’t omniscient.

‘Now would be good,’ Saul added.

The twins left, and in a like manner he disposed of all those others who had gathered here: giving orders to secure the various hydroponics units, to ensure the cylinder brakes were working in
readiness to stop the spin of the cylinder worlds and lock them down, and numerous other orders besides. But Hannah knew that he could have issued all these orders just as easily through the
system; and could probably have carried out the tasks himself without further human intervention. He was here just to show himself, to demonstrate that Argus now had a firm hand on its helm.