Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

The screen flicked back to show the mining robot still hard at work.

‘What was the point of that?’ asked Le Roque. ‘You’re throwing away one of our biggest bargaining chips.’

Saul turned to him, and Le Roque abruptly took a pace back.

‘I agree with him,’ Hannah interjected, not so much because she did agree but in the hope of forestalling any nasty reaction from Saul.

Saul watched her as she moved round to stand beside Le Roque, his face expressionless until he remembered to appear human, and he smiled ruefully.

‘It was, in effect, about a number of things,’ he replied. ‘I actually do want a copy of that data back on Earth, in fact as many copies as possible, because I am not a nihilist and the death of Earth’s biosphere concerns me as much as it concerns those still living there. However,’ he held up one finger, ‘consider just how much data that copy will contain. It would consist of the DNA maps for maybe twenty per cent of Earth’s species, which incidentally includes most of the macro fauna and flora of the planet. It comprises literally terabytes of data – more than could possibly be checked through by the Scourge’s computer security.’

‘You’re making a link, then,’ said Hannah. ‘You’re going to take control of their ship.’

‘I hope so,’ he said, ‘though it is quite possible they will route the data straight into completely isolated storage. My hope is that, instead, they will then begin transmitting it back to Earth, where it is more likely that someone will be careless in their handling of it.’

‘What’s the benefit to us?’

‘There is a small chance that it won’t go into isolated storage, and right now we need to grab every chance we can get. It’s also the case that, if it is routed back to Earth, it could come in useful in the future . . . if there is a future for us at all.’

‘You said something about comlife back there,’ said Hannah.

‘While I slept, I felt it,’ he supplied, ‘but just before we came in here I tried to obtain data from Govnet. This Galahad has set her own guards on the computer networks of Earth, seven of them. They do not have my grip on the data world, however, so I suspect the bioware used was an earlier version of yours, but with transmission delays they are enough to keep me out. However, if what I am currently weaving into the Gene Bank data is released there, I will gain a foothold.’

‘A foothold in the future doesn’t help us now,’ said Le Roque.

Saul shook his head briefly, as if in irritation. ‘Again you fail to grasp the danger we are in. I had to send it simply because of the small chance of it being effective on the Scourge. But, of course,’ he continued, ‘I am not betting our lives on that possibility.’ He turned towards the door. ‘We need that drive, we need those weapons, and we need to do all we can to give us the time for them to be completed.’ He paused at the door, and Hannah hurried to catch up with him. Before stepping out, he added, ‘And one way of giving us some time is to lay a minefield.’

Earth

It had taken some weeks to prepare the place, because Serene had wanted it open and with no buildings in sight. She had ordered that the entire area previously evacuated during the search for the deer killers should remain unoccupied – its three million previous residents being reassigned to accommodation emptied by the Scour. Next the big dozers and ploughs were flown in, first clearing a mountain in the misnamed Transylvanian Plateau of its infection of apartment blocks and then heading outwards, tearing up further buildings and dumping their rubble in various valleys, canyons and gorges. Serene estimated that by the time the machines had finished there the place could truly be called a plateau.

The polished aluminium spikes specially commissioned for this site were erected on hinged brackets attached to a concrete dais – the medical monitoring equipment inside them constantly checked until the arrival of those who would require monitoring. The nine had been well fed, all their medical needs had been attended too, and they were probably the healthiest they had ever been throughout their miserable lives. As the doctors attached further monitoring devices, injected them and attached fluid and plasma feeds, they remained subdued and compliant. But when they finally saw the nine spikes tilted over on their hinges, ready to receive them, their reaction was not unexpected.

With a hard-faced expression, Serene watched the whole process through to its completion, watched the spikes raised with the nine writhing and screaming in inescapable agony, silhouetted horrifically against a dull iron sky. It soon began to snow, big flat flakes of it tumbling down. She cut the sound of screaming when, after the ETV compere of the show had finished his narrative, her own lecture began.

I did not enjoy that, she told herself, but it was necessary.

She flicked to other cam images and now watched the dozers at work some kilometres from the scene, pushing over buildings and exposing long-hidden earth. Here was something really necessary that she enjoyed so much more. Elsewhere on Earth the scene was being repeated now that surviving populations were being moved to population centres. Whole swathes of sprawl were being cleared. New rock-grinding machines were turning concrete and carbocrete to sand and the contents of now-redundant digesters were being spread. Satellite pictures showed a steadily climbing percentage of greenery all across the five continents, and further massive algae blooms had appeared in the oceans.

She had done so much but was aware that her achievements were fragile. With the new resources that had become available after the Scour – the plentiful food and energy – Earth’s population was again rising. Even after the hard lessons of the last century, it seemed that people refused to learn. This was why Serene now returned her attention to the work she had paused while watching the execution of sentence on the nine.

The Safe Departure clinics needed to be reopened, for clearly she had been premature in her closure of them. However, new rules needed to be enforced. In the past, safe departure had been a voluntary exercise, though there had been a great deal of social and state pressure on those whose working life had ended to take that route. It must now be made compulsory. She would not be so foolish as to set some arbitrary limit as, generally, with modern medical technology, the working life of a citizen could be extended into a second century. It would all have to be based on a finer status system than the old ZA/SA system. This would grade how useful a person was to the state, and in that