exact his vengeance on the Committee, to take Argus away from the rulers of Earth, a belated motivation being the knowledge of Smith’s presence here, but underneath all that obviously lay something of the person he had been previously. On some level he had known that his sister was up here, and just as that same inner self had driven him to search for Hannah, it had similarly been driving him to find the only other person he cared about. But now it seemed his sister was not here after all. She had been forcibly transferred to Mars, so now, perhaps, a new course to pursue . . .
But first he needed to stay alive.
Saul again reviewed some of the data recorded within the processors in his brain. Most of the massive ongoing construction and reconstruction was being carried out by robots, ranging from machines the size of monorail carriages which were used to transport materials about the rim, to others only the size of a cockroach, designed to install or repair small electronic devices. A huge number of robots laboured in the three cylinder worlds – the arcoplexes – which were parts of this station he’d known very little about until downloading the schematic. Meteor- repair welding bots constantly searched for holes made by the large amounts of debris drifting out here. Mining robots cut like woodworm into the underside of the central asteroid, while others laboured out in the smelters. Cleaning robots and maintenance robots were constantly at work throughout the station. And his experience with the pair of robots they had recently encountered, did nothing to dispel the certainty that these were the answer.
From the little cleaning robot, data flow had been immediate, and within a second, and without ill effects, he had encompassed it as part of himself. He reprogrammed it and tightened its computer security, shutting down its response to station signals and making it accessible only by a ten-digit code constantly changing according to a formula that only he – and it – knew. Controlling the robot’s laser com, he had opened a communication channel with the loader robot and at once included it in his personal network. He had input the same changing ten-digit code to the larger robot, then reverted to straightforward laser com, without the code, to check its security by giving it new instructions. No response to this. He tried running every code-cracker he had available, but still no response. Even then, he realized that, given a few hours, he might have managed to get through and therefore, given the same time, Smith would be able to get through too, and break his control of the robots. He must not allow his former interrogator sufficient time to do so.
Saul glanced at the maintenance technician, who still seemed to be breathing despite the force of Braddock’s blow. Saul calculated that the low gravity here, and Braddock’s purchase on the floor being only through his gecko boots, had diminished the blow’s force by about 40 per cent. Turning to study the contents of the technician’s toolbox, Saul began undoing the clips holding the upper section of his spacesuit. Once he had stripped it off, he selected the necessary tools, then quickly removed the little robot’s cowling, its processor, power supply and communications laser. Next obtaining sufficient optics and carbon power cable from the bot’s control systems, he linked the power supply and processor into his suit’s hardware and main processors, which were located behind the oxygen pack, then stowed them in an arm pocket of the jacket. He epoxied the laser to one shoulder of it, before once again donning it, then ran the optic from his skull into a port situated in the rear of his helmet, before putting that on.
‘Seems a bit of an unstable rig,’ commented Hannah doubtfully.
‘You should know better,’ he replied. ‘It’s all about programming.’
‘You can do this?’
He didn’t reply as he concentrated on optimizing those disparate items of hardware. In the end, if you avoided shoving a power cable into an optic plug, or an optic into a power socket, it really
‘He’d better be able to do this,’ muttered Braddock.
‘Just ahead of us there’s an area of the station that’s still under construction,’ Saul said. ‘That’s where we’ll find construction robots.’
‘Him?’ Braddock gestured to the prostrate technician.
Saul knew precisely what Braddock meant. If the technician came to before they were ready, he would certainly alert Smith. And once Smith saw the remains of the little robot, he would guess Saul’s intentions. He was about to instruct Braddock to kill the technician, when he caught Hannah’s eye. It would be nice to say that some degree of compassion influenced his next instruction, but it just wasn’t there.
‘Tie him up,’ he said, ‘securely.’
Braddock took a roll of duct tape from the toolbox and set to work, while Saul stepped across to the scattered remains of the robot, scooped them up and took them over to one of the EVA units affixed against the wall – a one-man vehicle with large manipulator arms used for exterior repairs – opened its hatch and tossed the pieces of robot inside. Even if the technician was found, it would hopefully take Smith some time to work out what Saul had been doing here.
‘It’d be better to kill him,’ Braddock remarked, having bound the man securely to the side railing.
Saul agreed, but realized that such a drastic step would push Hannah further away from him – the emotional considerations weren’t too difficult to slot into his calculations. The risk of this man regaining conciousness, and somehow getting free to report to Smith, was worth taking. Though, admittedly, only if Saul had not overestimated the value he was ascribing to Hannah within the formulae in his head.
The conveyor had brought them to the outer edge of the station, almost a kilometre and a half from where they had penetrated it, which almost certainly put them outside the main search area for a while. In that odd, seemingly unhurried gait which was the best anyone could manage here, Saul led them along the corridor to the point where it transformed into a walkway cutting left into open and incomplete station structure – just a vast gridwork of girders and distant walls. Soon they came up alongside what looked like a large room suspended in the open structure, with a single door and windows running round the outside. Closer inspection revealed metal arms extending from its corners, terminating in double clamping wheels. These could be clamped to structural beams, so as to propel this ‘room’ to wherever its occupants next wanted it to be. It was a mobile overseer’s office; a base of operations in the immensity of this unfinished section.
‘Looks like no one home,’ observed Braddock, since no light shone from within. In fact, the only light hereabouts issued from fluorescent work lamps scattered sparsely throughout the surrounding area, presently powered by the station’s EM field.
‘Looks that way,’ Saul agreed, halting to peer at a cluster of shapes suspended underneath the mobile office. ‘Except for our first recruits.’
