13

Argus

Var locked down her overseer’s office, on the ship’s skeleton, just fifty metres away from where the hull had yet to be fully enclosed. Despite Le Roque’s order for her to head to one of the more protected accommodation units, or one of the arcoplexes, she remained precisely where she was. Her brother had issued instructions to the effect that Le Roque was in charge of the human complement aboard until such a time as the humans decided otherwise, and Saul’s only interventions would concern the safety of his ship and himself. How he assigned such responsibilities in detail was all very debatable, though it was noticeable how generally terse his instructions and warnings were becoming.

However, one thing was certain: it was Var’s fault.

Var cringed inwardly and could not shake off her own sense of guilt. There were no blood spatters evident on the suit she wore – they had all been cleaned off thoroughly – yet it seemed she could still taste Gilder Main’s mouth, from when she had tried to resuscitate him, and still feel the weight of the adjustable spanner in her hand as she brought it down on Thomas Grieve’s skull. And she could still hear him crying.

These actions of hers had pushed Saul over the edge. She was someone he had risked much to save and to whom he had entrusted the task of turning Argus Station into an interstellar spacecraft, then she had repaid him by displaying a lack of trust in his judgement. Behaving like a member of the Inspectorate, she had committed murder, and now he had washed his hands not just of her but of them all. But didn’t that simply prove her point? He had always been on the edge of something like this, always been on the edge of saying: Damn you, you’ll do what I want, but beyond that I don’t care. Didn’t his very order that humans – as if he was no longer a member of their race – should police and govern themselves prove that he wished merely to dispense with them? Could she not be right in still thinking that his latest action was just one small step on that route, and that he would still use the impending assassination attempt as an excuse to do just that?

Light glared throughout the ship and Var felt as if an invisible hand was trying to shove her to one side. Checking her instruments, she saw that the cables were now all wound in and that the Traveller engine had just fired up, in order to carry the ship away from Io’s flux tube. On an intellectual level she knew he was using that rather than the Mach-effect drive to keep the latter secret from ‘the enemy’, but on a basic emotional level she cursed him for failing to inform anyone where and why he was moving the ship, just as she damned herself.

‘Where are you taking us, Alan?’ she asked through her fone but, as with the other questions she had recently directed at him, no reply was forthcoming.

What to do?

The temptation just to do nothing, simply to wrap herself in misery and wait, was leaden inside her. But Var, who had pushed herself all her life, knew she was incapable of giving in to such a sense of failure. She set her overseer’s office moving, meanwhile putting a call through her fone and routing all imagery available to the screen before her. After just a few minutes she received her reply.

‘Langstrom here,’ said the police commander. ‘What can I do for you, Var?’

‘I have all their names and I know what they’re planning,’ she replied, noting how he had allowed only a static image icon to come through, even for those with fones capable of displaying real-time images.

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Langstrom replied. ‘Whose names and what plans?’

Var felt a hollowness in her stomach that had nothing to do with hunger. The police commander must know that someone she had gone to visit had since disappeared. Was he now trying to distance himself from any involvement?

Before she could say anything, he continued, ‘Perhaps we should meet to discuss this. I much prefer talking face-to-face with anyone claiming to have important information.’ He paused for a second. ‘I see you’re moving your office down towards the outer endcap of Arcoplex One. I’ll come out to join you from Lock Seven. See you shortly.’

Ah, perhaps not arse-covering but an understandable caution.

Being utterly sure of its grip on the ship’s skeleton, under the drag of acceleration, the overseer’s office continued its progress down towards the endcap. Meanwhile, Var began working on something she had been neglecting. If she became the focus of an investigation, she had to cover herself properly now. She dispatched a program to hunt down and erase any available data about her previous meeting with Langstrom, and was surprised when it found cam footage taken in this very office and then did manage to erase it. So was Saul actually allowing her to cover her tracks? A moment later she discovered something else: data trails leading to large portions of the station system were now partitioned off so tightly that not even a byte or two could squeeze through. So, while Saul had left the human population to its own devices, he was also leaving them their own portion of the station system, and had separated away his essential self so that what he already knew could never be erased by anyone else.

Next she began shutting down cams and other data recorders inside the office so that the most anyone could ever know was that Langstrom had visited here. Then, as the office reached a tentative limb out onto the bearing endcap, set to make its way over to Airlock Seven, she abruptly had second thoughts. Maybe this was precisely what Langstrom wanted her to do, so that he could then completely remove any evidence of his involvement in the murders she had committed. No – far too paranoid – so she finished the disconnections.

Out on the endcap the office finally paused over the chosen airlock, lowered itself to mate with it, seals and bayonet fittings thunking home. After a moment the floor hatch swung upwards and Langstrom, wearing a VC suit with the helmet detached, propelled himself inside. He then paused to gaze up at the nearest cam.

‘This is a black spot now,’ Var assured him.

‘So who are they,’ he asked carefully, ‘and what’s their plan?’

Earth

‘We have a problem,’ said Calder. ‘And I am calling to advise you, for your own security and for the security of Earth, to leave the station now.’

Maintaining an expression of slightly distracted boredom, Serene studied his image on the desk screen. The man was difficult to read, perhaps because his face was not so clear through the visor of the vacuum survival suit he wore. Was he frightened?

‘I trust this is not some problem that might delay the departure of the Fist and the Command,’ she replied. Then, realizing she wasn’t reacting properly, she asked, ‘What exactly is this problem?’

‘We have an outbreak of the Scour aboard, and whether or not the crews or soldiers aboard the Fist and the Command have been infected I can’t even guess. It’s very serious, since at least two hundred people have died and many more are infected.’ He paused for a second, then continued, ‘We should have your space planes prepped and ready for departure within the hour.’

Serene stared at him for a moment, reflecting that the planes he mentioned should be ready shortly after the two spaceships were underway, then she glanced up from her screen at Elkin, the woman’s two aides and Sack. Elkin looked terrified, obviously having already gleaned knowledge of this outbreak just beforehand, while the two aides appeared both puzzled and scared. Sack was even more difficult to read than Calder, with his reptilian skin blunting all human expression. Serene returned her attention to the screen, exuding seriousness and concern.

‘Can you give me more detail on this outbreak?’ she enquired, making no comment on his suggestion that she depart.

Blank-faced, Calder replied, noticeably no longer using the honorific, ‘Just that it must have started amidst the Inspectorate personnel, since it seems to be mainly them who are infected.’

‘Well’ – she dipped her head for a moment as if in consideration – ‘I’ll leave it to you to speak to Bartholomew. It’s essential that his mission is not delayed, for its importance outweighs anything else, but he will need to institute ship-quarantine measures and have the medical staff aboard both ships running blood tests. If it turns out that he does have the Scour aboard, we must leave it to him to decide how to respond. He must therefore try to limit any outbreak and persevere with his mission.’

‘Understood,’ said Calder, grimacing.

‘You’re putting quarantine measures in place here?’

‘I am. Those infected thus far are being moved to areas I’m separating off from the rest of the station, while I’ve ordered all personnel not infected to use vacuum-survival or spacesuits and switch over to independent air supply. Meanwhile, I’m opening some areas to vacuum, to kill anything that might be lingering there, while flooding the remaining main air supply with a virobact vapour.’ He paused for a second. ‘You and your staff will also need to use similar suits and go over to independent air supply.’

‘Very well.’ Serene nodded to Elkin and Sack, who immediately went to a nearby locker and began dragging out vacuum-survival suits. For veracity’s sake, Serene reached down beside the desk and picked up the helmet of her VC suit, pulled it down over her head and clicked it into place, before closing its visor and turning on its integrated speaker.

‘How long until the virobact vapour is cleared from the shuttle bay Ruger is due to arrive at?’ she asked, glancing across the room just as one of the aides headed across to the door and opened it, admitting a swarthy, stocky individual in a VC suit, who surveyed his surroundings carefully as he stepped in. Serene instantly recognized Vaughan, the commander of her security team based here. With his big grey moustache, cropped hair and tendency to stomp giving him the mien of an antediluvian general, he was difficult to forget.

‘Within the hour,’ Calder replied. ‘It should be mostly clear by the time he docks; however, the medical advice is that we should stick with independent air supplies until four hours afterwards. Shall I inform Ruger of that?’

‘You will tell Ruger nothing,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want him being scared off. He might decide to try docking at another station.’

‘Very well,’ said Calder, still not resorting to ‘ma’am’.

Serene glanced up from the screen at Elkin, now in a survival suit with her visor closed, then transferred her gaze to Vaughan. ‘Are any of my security personnel infected?’ Of course she knew that none of them was, but didn’t want others to realize that she knew.

‘Thus far, no, ma’am,’ he replied, seemingly coming to attention.

Returning her focus to the screen, she said, ‘Since, as you say, it’s mainly Inspectorate personnel who are afflicted, my own personnel will now take over in the shuttle bay, where I will go to meet Ruger the moment he comes aboard. I’ll also need you to ensure that once he releases the Gene Bank data to us, it is recorded here immediately and simultaneously dispatched to the multiple locations that Elkin will provide. In the meantime, I’ll also want constant updates on the situation aboard the Fist and the Command.’

‘You will be meeting Ruger in person?’ he said, apparently puzzled. ‘But your space planes…’

‘I will not be requiring them just yet.’ She paused for a second, still gazing at Calder’s image. ‘That will be all.’ She shut down the call.

‘We’re still meeting Ruger, ma’am?’ Elkin was trying to keep her voice steady.

Serene studied her, aware that, with the Scour aboard, the woman in front of her wanted to get off the station as quickly as possible, but seemed to have forgotten their present situation. Calder had also expected Serene to flee but, even while the Scour was wiping out any physical threat to her here, she still had not negated the threat beyond it.

‘Note the timings,’ she said. ‘Our space planes will be ready shortly after the Fist and Command have gone. Note I said “planes” plural, so that both myself and all my security team can head neatly out into vacuum. What do you think Calder will do then?’ she asked. ‘And don’t ask Tactical – just work it out for yourself.’

Elkin seemed briefly puzzled, then she looked slightly sick.

‘He still controls the railguns,’ she ventured numbly.

If Serene fled, there would doubtless ensue an unfortunately timed test firing of the railguns, and the unfortunate demise of Earth’s dictator and her entire security team. But to react like someone who believed the Scour was a virulent and dangerous disease that she could catch at any moment would only hamper her plans. After the Fist and Command were definitely on their way, she wanted to meet Ruger to ensure the safe transmission of the Gene Bank data. She then wanted Ruger to hand for a long private conversation, and she wanted Calder arrested and available for a more public conversation on ETV, once he was found guilty of spreading the Scour aboard the station during an attempted coup d'etat.

‘Yes, we’re meeting Ruger,’ Serene continued, swinging her chair round and standing up. ‘Are all the arrangements for the ETV broadcast now in place?’

It took a brief moment for Elkin to recover her calm, whereupon she said, ‘Everything is ready for you, ma’am.’

Serene turned her attention to Vaughan. ‘You are fully apprised of the situation here concerning the Inspectorate personnel and Calder?’

He lowered his head gravely. ‘I am, ma’am.’

‘I am sure Calder will not make a move on us while the Fist and the Command are still present. Once we are in the shuttle bay, I’ll order Bartholomew to fire on this station’s railguns and disable them. While that is happening, I will board a shuttle. Once the railguns are disabled, we all depart for Core One.’

It all sounded like a perfectly plausible plan, though it was not one she would adhere to. If Bartholomew really started firing on the station, his own ships would probably end up disabled or destroyed, and with no guarantee that everything Calder could use against her departing shuttle had similarly been disabled. Unforeseen circumstances such as, for example, all the Inspectorate personnel ending up dead, would cause her to alter her plans.

‘What about the Inspectorate personnel now in the shuttle bay?’ said Vaughan. ‘We’re clearly outnumbered.’

Thinking on the hoof, Serene suddenly said, ‘It occurs to me that there is actually no Scour outbreak aboard this station, or else one has been artificially implemented.’ Yes, this was a good idea; this might work. ‘Calder is merely trying to push me into fleeing, whereupon some unfortunate accident involving the test firing of a railgun would occur.’ She paused and dipped her head contemplatively. ‘Now knowing I am heading to the shuttle bay, he will most likely, as instructed, be withdrawing his Inspectorate personnel, perhaps holding them ready to return once the Fist and Command have gone…’ She looked up. ‘If that is not the case, Vaughan, then you must be prepared to fight. It’s as simple as that.’

Every expression standing before her seemed to be hiding something. These weren’t stupid people, so could most certainly smell the odour of rat. Their suspicions would grow, too, when it became evident that every single one of the rebel Inspectorate personnel aboard was dead.

‘Let’s go.’ She headed for the door.

Argus

The Vision remained in orbit about Europa, with its version of the Alcubierre drive kept ready, according to his readings, to be brought up to speed within half an hour. If he used his own Rhine drive to get to it, it would doubtless deploy this theorized weapon it possessed for knocking out his warp bubble, stopping him before he got close enough to use the Saberhagens’ weapons against it. However, he did not intend to attack as directly as that, at least not yet. As his ship headed out from Io, Saul focused EM spectrum telescope arrays beyond the Vision, on the rocks and dust floating out there, on the disperse gas and scattered atoms, and began recording vast amounts of data. There he should be able to find a hole in their communications and from them confirm that the attack he was about to make had been effective. Now, with the ship on a long curving intercept course, he shut down the Traveller engine.

He began, as they doubtless expected, probing for a direct way in, pinging the other ship at different radio, microwave and laser frequencies, and searching for some response. Already he had built up a huge collection of computer viruses and self-assembling worms to penetrate any gap in its defences, but it soon became apparent that the ship was hardened and closed off. However, the fact that there were no communication openings told him that the Vision did not have a comlifer aboard, and therefore another possible opening could be tried.

The Vision had clearly been watching, so it must have telescopes open to receiving certain portions of the EM and visual spectrum. Saul began close-scanning older images of the other ship, tidying them up so that he could study all its exterior equipment. Soon he located the dish of a radio telescope, and then the glinting dome of an optical telescope. It seemed highly likely that both of these would not be attached to the main computer systems of the ship itself. Most probably the images they captured would instead feed into the isolated computer of a tactical assessment team, there to be studied and checked before being transmitted back to Earth.

Saul began building, within his extended mind, models of the kind of enclosed systems he himself would have built to keep out someone like him, and began to look for holes. He himself would have ensured complete separation between the computers controlling the various sections of such a ship. He would scan all the visual data for anything nasty or potentially infective before transmitting it elsewhere. No, there would be too many safeties and too many protections involved on that route in. But there was one system interfacing with this visual data that would not be thus protected: the human mind.

The Argus telescope arrays detected a flicker beyond the Vision, bouncing off a chunk of rock which a spectrometer designated as consisting of nicely reflective aluminosilicate and mica. They were using a tight-beam green laser to send coded data back to Earth. Saul dumped data outside the spectrum of that laser and concentrated on the remainder, gathering fragments of code, here reflected from a swirl of graphite particles, there from ice crystals marking the orbit of Europa. He then began comparing those fragments with the image data and likely messages that the Vision would now be sending.

‘Brigitta,’ he began, viewing the Saberhagens inside their laboratory in Arcoplex Two, while firing up a steering thruster to alter his ship’s course slightly and then calculating orbital vectors with an accuracy he knew had been impossible until now – until him. ‘At this precise moment I want you to fire your railguns here, tracking across in this arc.’ He sent the timing and coordinates. ‘Twenty-three missiles should be sufficient.’

Brigitta peered at a screen, ran some vector calculations and sat back, puzzled.

‘What’s the point?’ she asked. ‘They’ll go nowhere near the Vision and hardly even worry the crew.’

‘Communications,’ Saul replied briefly, now copying across to his extended mind the models stored in Hannah Neumann’s files of human thought processes, along with other data concerning visual-centre reprogramming.

‘Ah, understood,’ Brigitta responded, quite quickly, Saul felt. ‘We’ll use the plated ones for partial atmosphere targets as they’re more reflective.’

‘What are you doing, Alan?’ Hannah asked from her laboratory, having been instantly notified by her computer that her files were being copied.

‘Induced psychosis by light-pattern emission,’ he explained.

‘It’s only temporary and you need a lot of data on the viewer,’ she replied.

‘Of course,’ he said, understanding that to her the functioning of the human mind was a complex thing, while his own understanding was now some way beyond that.

‘Perhaps if you can pass on some of the data?’ she enquired, reaching for the strap securing her in her seat, intent on standing up from the console and screen she had been working at – the one where she was assessing up-to-date data on Da Vinci’s condition and trying to see what problems might arise when the cryogenic pod started to bring him out of suspension some hours hence.

‘That will not be necessary,’ Saul replied.

Already he could see how the technique of mental reprogramming a human being through the eyes could be combined with one of his self-assembling worms. The psychosis would be longer-lasting and fed by a self-perpetuating paranoia. The result of these could extend from a crippling mental debility to a violent reaction, depending on where the recipient fell in the list of human mental types Saul had selected. He made two packages – one that was within the spectrum of the optical telescope and another to build the images from radio reception – and sent them both to the two telescopes operating aboard the Vision.

His ship was now flying just beyond the orbit of Europa, but still lay far enough away from that icy moon for the crew aboard the Vision to feel few worries. They might also be puzzled by the twenty-three missiles currently being fired out beyond Europa.

‘Do you need any more?’ asked Brigitta.

‘I’ll let you know,’ Saul replied as he counted down the seconds.

A block of coded data fell into his mind as the first of the missiles crossed the beam of the laser that was pointed back towards Earth. Then, in quick succession, the other twenty-two followed. Into the comparison programs he now added data about his own course, the firing of those missiles, about an attack through telescope imagery, psychotic episodes in tactical crew and the likely cut in the flow of telescope imagery to Earth. As he worked at the code, he was reminded of how just a few spoken words had given him access to Salem Smith’s encryption when he first boarded Argus, but this was proving very much quicker.

The cut in the flow of image data gave him his first foothold, because he could identify portions of what had been sent before as image data. His next foothold was a message which, by its overall pattern and timing, obviously related to that same data. And, after that, the coding they were using unravelled like a rotten net.

‘No more needed for the moment,’ he informed Brigitta, firing up the Traveller engine and swinging back in now, aware that the Vision had closed down its telescopes and would be, for a while at least, all but blind to his sudden course change and acceleration. Half a gravity spun his chair round in its gimbals, and put a boot on him.

As his ship now sped towards the Vision, he continued to work the code, telescope arrays still focused out beyond Europa. He wanted to know exactly when the Vision ceased to be blind, and he wanted to know what orders it would then receive from Earth. Meanwhile he also checked on the readiness of everything internal, since he needed to build up velocity, and it would be an hour yet before he could begin his true attack.

The Rhine drive was ready, the recent accelerations only minimally distorting the ring of the vortex generator; the Mach-effect drive, now always partially engaged, worked to stabilize the ship’s skeleton; while the Traveller engine had eaten up just ten per cent of its new supply of fuel; and the Saberhagens’ weapons could not be more ready. The only injury reported was a broken finger in the Arboretum, where a man had ignored Le Roque’s injunction for everyone to stay secured and had caught his hand in an unsprung door that slammed shut during the last course change.

Checking further on the human population, Saul found he could not locate Var through any of the cams, but from previous footage knew she was in her mobile overseer’s office, where Langstrom had recently visited her. Maybe she was confessing her sins and being arrested. Saul found it difficult to find any kind of emotional reaction to that thought. Meanwhile, the prospective rebels had gathered together in a single accommodation unit, then abruptly gone off the radar by doubtless travelling through the cam black spots, which Saul had provided, out towards the old station ring. At the same time, still attached to the armour just twenty metres away from Saul himself, their bomb continued its countdown. He considered, at that moment, sending robots to locate and kill them all, but that could be done if his primary plan – involving his minimal interference and subtle manipulation – failed. No, leave them to it, and allow them to die from their own stupidity.

There were new flickers now off the faces of flakes of methane ice, so it seemed that communications from Earth were sent by the same sort of laser, but using different encryption. One hour passed and soon Saul was perfectly positioned to pick up the laser reflections from the hull of the Vision itself. He played with the code, found the inversions and sketched the shape of the mind behind it – the mind that had taken the first code and changed it – and he managed to crack it in just thirty-four seconds. It was laughably easy, and Saul was banishing a human feeling of superior contempt from his mind when reality caught up and sank its teeth into him. The Vision had received a reply to the concerns of its captain. The Fist and the Command were on their way and, since they were travelling within spitting distance of the speed of light, they would be following not far behind the message itself.

Earth

‘You’re certain these are clear?’ asked Admiral Bartholomew once he saw that the visual feed from the Vision had been restored.

‘They are clear,’ confirmed the comlifer Christopher Shivers.

Apparently the man was the most trustworthy of them all, having never tried to rebel openly or even to kill himself during his conditioning, but Bartholomew did not like to put too much trust in someone who obeyed only on pain of… pain. He put the image feed on hold, since everything coming through was, of course, old and would probably be irrelevant by the time they arrived out there.

‘He used a visual-cortex reprogramming technique rather cleverly combined with a self-assembling worm,’ Shivers added. ‘It’s possible he might try something else but, so long as all this sort of data is routed through me, there will be no more deaths like those that occurred aboard the Vision.’

That incident had been quite horrible. Two of the four-person tactical team on duty at the time had dropped into some kind of coma, another had acquired himself a Kalashtech and opened fire on other crew members, killing two and injuring eight before being brought down by a disabler, while the fourth member had been found sitting at his console, having used his ceramic dinner fork to gouge out his own eyes. Here the effect had not been as bad: the two people assessing the images and data had turned on each other, but managed to do little damage before being grabbed and restrained by ship’s security officers. Bartholomew shuddered, considering how other tasks had kept him from his usual visit to Tactical to inspect the same images.

He glanced round at his command crew, all busily at work on the final diagnostic runs and checks. He clicked a screen tab for the latest updates from the medics aboard both the Command and the Fist and was relieved to see that no instances of the Scour had yet been reported. Then he again addressed his comlifer.

‘So, since we destroyed that satellite, Saul has no access to data from Earth apart from anything he can pick up with his telescopes, which will therefore be already out of date,’ he said.

‘Not unless he’s found another way around causality,’ Shivers replied.

An image up in the corner of the big curved screen facing Bartholomew’s chair showed the construction station rapidly receding. Presently both the Fist and the Command were under fusion drive, putting themselves between the brightness of Earth and distant Jupiter, and both using a shielding technique that had hidden the station in which the Scourge had been built – coherent projection of whatever lay behind it towards any eyes that might be looking, in this case some pink eyes out in orbit of the gas giant Jupiter itself. Alan Saul would not know that the message to the Vision, which he had certainly intercepted after so quickly cracking their communications, had in fact been a lie; and that Bartholomew’s two ships were not yet on their way out and would not be underway for half an hour.

‘Let’s hope this has worked,’ he said.

‘The Vision was blind and in danger,’ Shivers replied. ‘Even though targeting remained available for its warp missile, it could not use it because Saul was approaching on conventional drive, and the impact would have completely destroyed his ship. The Vision’s choices were then either to fight or to move. If it had fought, it would have lost. Due to Saul’s approach velocity, it could only have used its Alcubierre drive to move, and in that case there was a chance that Saul would have run – and then, especially with the warp missile balancing delay, we would have lost him.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ said Bartholomew.

‘The assessment of our tactical team,’ Shivers lectured him, ‘or rather of those of them not presently in Medical, was that, upon intercepting that message, he will run, whereupon the Vision can use its warp missile, and the plan can continue as before. My own assessment is the same. Even though he’s obviously decided to become a bit more proactive, he’ll see no benefit in hanging round to face us.’

‘Let’s hope they’re right.’

‘We won’t know until we are there,’ Shivers replied.

Bartholomew nodded to himself: by the time any data from the Vision regarding how things had transpired out there reached the Command and the Fist, they would already be under drive and unable to receive it. The admiral again considered the possibility of dropping the Command out of Alcubierre drive in order to receive that data, and he finally made his decision. Yes, he would. In tactical terms it was not such a great idea to divide one’s forces, but if Saul had managed to escape the trap laid for him, they needed to know, for there was a remote chance, depending on whatever route Saul took out of the solar system, of the Command being able to use its own warp missile to stop him.

Bartholomew issued his orders, then opened a channel to Captain Oerlon, aboard the Fist, to keep him apprised.

‘The disabling shot from the Vision should at least take me out of the balancing delay time,’ said Oerlon, tugging at the thick collar of a gel-tank acceleration suit. ‘I’ll make final approach through the Jovian system on fusion, and if he manages to get his drive functioning before I’m on him, I should be able to knock him out again.’

‘You’ll make sure it’s an accurate shot,’ said Bartholomew.

Oerlon, who was a morose-looking individual with a large straggly beard, pale sick-looking skin and some sort of gang tattoo on his temple, nodded gravely and said, ‘None of us can afford to miss.’

The essence of their tactical problem was that Saul could run at any time, and the only way of stopping him was with a warp missile, and they had only four of them: the Fist had two and the Vision and the Command had one each. While the vector calculations made before firing these missiles would be very accurate, and little could change their course once they were fired, the distances involved were huge and the margin for error minimal. Including the acquisition of further tactical data, this was the main reason Bartholomew had ordered the Vision to move in closer to Saul’s vessel. Out of pride, Bartholomew did not want that first critical shot to miss, and beyond that he was aware of what would happen to him if Saul escaped – which was precisely what Oerlon meant.

‘Twenty-three minutes to go,’ said Bartholomew, feeling his stomach tightening.

Within a day, perhaps two, they would either have succeeded or would be contemplating whether or not it was worth returning to Earth.

Argus

Var eased her grip on the stanchion and glanced out the windows of the overseer’s office, but received no clue there about their sudden recent course change.

‘Le Roque tells me he’s taking us towards that ship over Europa.’ Langstrom shook his head. ‘But I’ve not had warnings to prepare for any kind of battle.’

‘Don’t you think we should deal with those concerns that we can deal with?’ Var suggested.

He nodded doubtfully, and continued, ‘The two who were in the accommodation below Tech Central moved over to join the others’ – he glanced at Var – ‘probably because of this alleged bomb. Just a short while ago, however, they all trooped out and disappeared into the nearest cam black spot.’

‘We need to act,’ Var asserted.

‘But you have no real evidence of any of this, and you continue being evasive about how you obtained this information. It needs to be verified. You also say that he already knows about this plot, so he certainly knows all about the bomb too.’

‘He’ll probably let it blow but not be there himself when it happens,’ said Var, not really sure of her own reasoning. ‘Either that or he’s disarmed it.’

‘So why am I here?’ the police commander asked. ‘You’ve given me nothing I can act on and it seems to me that, if what you’re telling me is true, he probably has something already planned for them.’ He gestured towards the mosaic of mug shots displayed on the screen. ‘As he’s stated, we have to look after ourselves, but he’ll react to any direct danger to the ship or himself. Perhaps you can explain your part in this, sister of Alan Saul… our Owner.’

Var studied the police commander for a long moment, with a sinking sensation in her stomach. She felt sure she had lost him now, but she had to try.

‘The question that has to be asked is what will be the extent of his reaction to this,’ she replied, still unsure of herself but determined to do something. ‘Hannah Neumann once told me that her greatest fear is that Alan will tire of having to fit all his plans about the needs of the human population aboard this ship – aboard his ship. We all know that he is entirely capable of running it now without us. I’ve known from the moment I stepped aboard that, though I was appointed overseer of the rebuild, my position has been completely superfluous. The implants that enable us to control robots and mentally access the ship’s systems were an apparent effort to raise us above our uselessness to him, and what’s been the result of that? Combined robot and human teams are less efficient than the new robots he’s created, and now chipped rebels are seeking to kill him.’

‘The extent of his reaction, you said?’ Langstrom prompted.

‘He might just be searching for a reason to be rid of us altogether,’ said Var, studying the man’s expression, ‘and this attack on him could provide it. He could turn his robots on us in an instant, and then be free of the encumbrance we represent.’ She paused to collect her thoughts. ‘I don’t think he will do that, though I think we’ll all be heading soon for the Meat Locker, and whether we wake up again after that sleep is… debatable.’

‘I’m still not sure what you want me to do,’ said Langstrom.

‘We stop it,’ Var replied, searching for some way to couch things for Langstrom – a man who had probably stuck her brother high on a pedestal. ‘As I see it, he’s given us power over our own affairs and we must therefore take responsibility. I think his recent actions indicate that he wants us to take responsibility; that he demands us to do so and that, if we don’t, he’ll simply finish with us.’

Second guessing the mind of a god, reflected Var, trying to keep the sneer off her face.

‘He’ll have something in place to deal with the threat,’ she continued. ‘Of course he will. But if he is forced to use it, then he’ll see us all as useless as he has already supposed. We must act.’

‘So what now?’ asked Langstrom, folding his arms, still reserving judgement.

‘The bomb first,’ said Var.

He acknowledged that with a nod. ‘I suppose I could do something there.’

‘You must. What have you got to lose?’

Langstrom watched her warily for a moment, then reached up to touch his fone. ‘Colson, I want Disposal One over to the Owner’s sanctum. I’ve an unconfirmed statement that someone might have planted a copper-head armour-piercing bomb against the outer wall. I want you to run a full search and report back.’ After a pause as he listened to the reply, he calmly continued, ‘Yes, maybe he does know about it, but you still do the search, and you still disarm anything you find there. Is that understood?’ After another pause, ‘Yes, right now.’ Langstrom lowered his fingers from the fone.

Var wasn’t sure if she was relieved that things were now in motion. She couldn’t help but feel that the police commander was only humouring her because she was Alan’s sister.

Too many assumptions…

‘If they do find something we’ll have some physical evidence to act on,’ he conceded. And in that moment she knew she had lost him; even if he believed her, he thought there was no reason to do anything about it. Langstrom trusted too much in Saul and therefore did not follow her reasoning, did not see her brother’s arrogance and contempt for humanity.

‘We should head to the outer ring,’ she declared. ‘We’ll need some of your men.’

‘You have no indication of where he’s supposedly concealed his backups out there,’ he stated.

‘None at all, but they are supposedly guarded by a spidergun,’ she replied, pulling herself down to sit at a console, before sliding across the overseer’s office manual control.

‘We won’t be able to trace that spidergun, especially if he’s trying to keep these backups hidden.’ He paused, frowning, as the mobile building lurched into motion, then he just gave a shrug. ‘However, these chipped rebels of yours are still dark which means, if they are moving around out there, they’re moving through cam black spots. There are just two places—’

‘Attention all personnel,’ Saul suddenly announced over the PA system. ‘I have evidence that the two remaining Earth warships are currently on their way out towards us. We will therefore be undergoing severe acceleration, so adhere to fusion-drive safety protocols for the moment.’

Var wavered for a second, then instructed her overseer’s office to lock itself down, watching through the windows as it clamped its claws about nearby protuberances before dropping to press the gecko pads on its belly against the metal below. Langstrom could not hide his relief, for they would not be going anywhere for a while. Var suppressed her frustration and contented herself with the knowledge that the chipped rebels would similarly be hindered and, if caught away from some place of safety during the coming acceleration, some of them might be hindered dead. It then occurred to her to wonder why the ship was undergoing such acceleration rather than immediately engaging the Rhine drive. It seemed a pointless thing to do because, surely, once the Rhine drive engaged they were safe until it cut out again, probably deep in interstellar space and far away from Earth and its concerns?

Saul noted a bomb-disposal team had been ordered to head towards his sanctum and, despite his warning, were still following their orders. They weren’t to know that the device Langstrom had dispatched them to find wasn’t really a problem – Saul knew, because he had seen it being made – so he spoke to their leader directly: ‘Colson, get yourself and your men back into some acceleration chairs.’

The man addressed looked up at the nearest cam in the suiting room. ‘Commander Langstrom has ordered me to search for a copper-head explosive on the outer wall of your sanctum.’

‘And I am ordering you to stand down. Langstrom is mistaken. There is no explosive.’

Colson and the rest looked relieved, as they quickly headed out of the suiting room and back the way they had come. Saul pondered for a microsecond the fact that, while he had decided to leave the humans here to look after themselves, he had interfered yet again. Then he focused on other concerns.

If he had engaged the Rhine drive immediately, it would be knocked out before his ship built up enough real space momentum to carry him to the Vision. He needed to be closer and his velocity needed to be higher. By now the crew of the Vision had probably found some way to work around their blindness, therefore he needed to take some risks. He mentally slid into the controls of the Traveller engine, while announcing, ‘Prepare for further acceleration.’ In the engine, he overrode safeties; he put back online two combusters that automatics had shut down; ramped up everything as high as possible without regard for the dirty radioactive wake he would leave. With a huge rumble, the ship shuddered and accelerated, its drive flame sputtering like a gas torch running out of oxygen, a red line of radioactive tritium sketching out behind the ship. Acceleration increased, climbed steadily to one gravity and then beyond. The whole ship’s structure was protesting, but still it wasn’t enough.

Next risk: without notifying the proctors, Saul ramped up the Mach-effect drive, further stabilizing the ship’s structure and increasing its acceleration. There was a danger now that the crew of the Vision would spot the disparity between actual acceleration and what the Traveller engine was capable of. But the Mach-effect was a card he needed to play now. Hands gripping the arms of his chair, he waited – ten minutes, twenty – as velocity began approaching what he required, and the distance between the two ships rapidly diminished.

Time, now.

‘Prepare for possible impact,’ he announced, knowing that most people were already prepared, and showing that he still cared enough to deliver the extra warning.

The proctors, and the robots they controlled, were the most vulnerable now, and he waited just thirty seconds until certain they were all locked down in their respective sectors located around the ship’s skeleton. During a final pause, he ascertained that everything within his purview was as it should be as the ship strained all around him, centred now on Europa and on the Vision.

‘Engaging Rhine drive,’ he then announced.

The colours changed. Jupiter shifted through the spectrum until it glowed a fluorescent orange, its red spot glaring like a ruby held up to the sun. The ship itself seemed to be trying to fold itself in towards some centre point – and then the stars went out. Saul counted down microseconds then, when the entire ship crashed and the warp went out, he felt a momentary satisfaction at this proof of a weapon that could knock out the Alcubierre warp, and chagrin, because he had not divined the nature of that weapon. As an old expression went, he had been unable to see the wood for the trees.

Of course, a warp missile…

Then a blast wave slammed into the ship, peeling away hull plates so the glare of atomic fire could peek inside, and as he lost over sixty per cent of his system, he added the thought:

. . . and one carrying an atomic warhead.