Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

She looked up at him, annoyed. ‘We’re not going fast enough for those effects to be very strong, and anyway they are constant and easily corrected for. This is something completely different.’ She paused for a second to again study her screen. ‘Ah, it’s gone now.’ She stabbed a finger down on a key and sat back with a satisfied look on her face.

‘We should take another look at that station schematic,’ Alex suggested, ‘see if there’s somewhere safer we can use.’

She briefly twitched her head. Negative. ‘We’re not going anywhere for a while,’ she said. ‘Look.’ She turned the jury-rigged screen towards him.

The screen showed robot activity in two directions. The structure they were building was approaching them from either side, concentric with the outer ring. Alexandra then manipulated a ball control to focus down on something nearby. One of those big humanoid robots was in the area, too. Leaving the hydroponics unit now would be highly risky – quite possibly fatal.

9

Cloning

By the mid-twenty-first century the cloning of farm animals and domestic pets was commonplace, while the idea that anyone was cloning human beings was dismissed as just a conspiracy theory. Then came the lawsuits initiated by grown human beings who, suffering one genetic malady or another, claimed to be the results of secret Pan Europa experiments in cloning. These claims did not get far because, by then, the power of unaccountable government had grown huge, and the legal system was in the process of being fully incorporated as an arm of the state. Even though such claims were quashed, it had by then become evident that human cloning had been going on for some time. It was the territory of the rich and the thoroughly egotistical, which by then meant the elite of political and media circles – the latter having essentially given up any pretence of being anything other than a propaganda mouthpiece of government.

The Scourge

‘Good to meet you, Captain Scotonis,’ said Clay, reaching out to shake the man’s hand but finding the motion put him off balance in the heavy combined acceleration- and space-suit he wore, so he had to grab for the edge of the airlock. ‘So you would be Clay Ruger, our new political officer,’ said Scotonis, gazing at him with tired and reddened eyes as he reached up and touched the collar he now wore.

‘You may call me Clay.’ Clay reached up and tapped a finger against his own collar. ‘We live in perilous times,’ he added.

He certainly hadn’t wanted to put it on, having witnessed Galahad take such pleasure in killing with this device, but in the end had no choice in the matter. And how much difference did it make to him personally, when he knew that Galahad could render him just as dead by merely sending a signal to his implant? How different, after all, was strangulation to choking on your own blood as the Scour ripped your body apart?

‘So glad to have you aboard,’ said Scotonis, a trifle bitterly, ‘despite your obvious lack of space legs.’ He turned and propelled himself smoothly along the corridor. ‘You’ll have to take care, Political Officer Clay, because here lack of experience can kill.’

Clay followed him. ‘Are you threatening me?’

Scotonis halted abruptly and turned. Clay nearly barrelled straight into him, but managed to stop himself at the last moment.

‘My apologies, Political Officer Clay. That did not come out right.’ He paused reflectingly, his head turned away as he fought to get himself under control. ‘I just lost two of the assault force to a faulty airlock seal.’ He now turned to face Clay, his expression wiped blank. ‘They failed to follow procedure in two ways: they didn’t check their external suit pressure gauges before unsealing, and they unsealed while still inside the airlock.’

This was precisely why Clay did not want to be here: space was dangerous and it could kill you in an instant . . . a bit like Serene Galahad.

‘I thought all suits and airlocks were computer controlled, with safety backups? I thought it was impossible to open a suit to vacuum?’

‘All modern suits are – but most of them went off with Messina and his assault force. In a perfect world we would have been able to take pre-tested and perfectly functional vacuum combat suits. As it is, we are two hundred short, so are having to use adapted Mars external activities suits.’ He continued moving along the corridor, slower this time, with Clay following.

‘I do hope that is not a criticism,’ said Clay.

‘Certainly not,’ said Scotonis. ‘I understand the urgency of our mission and why waiting another two weeks could not be countenanced.’

Back on Earth, Clay could have nailed Scotonis for the subtle criticism. Unfortunately there was no immediate replacement for the man, which was another problem with space, since people sufficiently intelligent to be trained to operate in this highly technical environment tended to have minds of their own. For this very reason, Galahad had ensured that everyone aboard this ship would be wearing one of her collars.

‘Our lives are unimportant,’ he said, ‘but our mission, to retrieve the Gene Bank data, and to bring Alan Saul and his rebels to justice, is essential to all the peoples of Earth.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Scotonis.

At first sight, the bridge of the Scourge appeared to be an armoured dome, but the floor they walked out on was not attached to the walls, with a large gap lying between, and it actually sat inside the top of a sphere. In suspended acceleration couches all around this sphere, members of the crew worked instruments inset in the wall. Before four chairs on the main floor stood a multi-screen – a single curved piece of transparent pixel-laminate. Two of these chairs were occupied by the pilot and the gunner. A third chair was for Captain Scotonis, while the fourth