Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

released his hold on consciousness, but his unconsciousness wasn’t of the human kind.

‘Surely you can see that wasting resources on this could kill us?’ she said.

‘On the contrary,’ Paul replied, ‘if we do not construct this device, we are finished.’

‘Can you elaborate on that,’ said Hannah, even though the meaning was plain.

‘The Scourge will first disable us, then launch an assault. With two thousand troops at their disposal, and doubtless spiderguns too, it is a certainty that we would lose. The only uncertainty is whether or not their victory would be a Cadmean one, because the station and all aboard could be destroyed in the conflict.’

There it was, stated out loud and in plain terms: everything the tactical models had been telling them, everything Le Roque had banged on about in those early meetings, and everything they had since tried to ignore. She had often wondered about Le Roque’s rather easy acquiescence to her; how, once it was evident she controlled the robots aboard Argus, he hadn’t tried anything else. There had been no assassination attempts, no further efforts to take her captive, no angry protests – just acid observations. She now understood why. Le Roque had sought power not because he loved it, but because he knew someone needed to take charge. The moment Hannah took command away from him, he stepped aside with alacrity, because nobody ever wants to be captain of a sinking ship.

Hannah turned to Brigitta and Pike, who stood goggle-eyed as they listened to this exchange. Meanwhile, Rhine had returned to his equipment and was now frantically working a console.

‘None of this leaves the room,’ she declared. ‘At some point wider knowledge of the construction going on out there will get out, so we need a story to cover it.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said Brigitta, who was clearly sharper than the other two.

‘What do we do?’ asked Pike.

Hannah focused on him carefully, feeling less sure about how he would react. ‘I – and a few others I trusted – knew about this all along. I allowed construction of the vortex ring to proceed in secret, because I did not want its purpose generally known. Messina’s clones currently aboard have been in regular contact with Earth, and I did not want them to find out about it and inform Earth.’ It was essential that the likes of Le Roque and Langstrom did not know how this development had blindsided her. They might lose any confidence they had left in her; so might feel the need to try and take control again.

She glanced next at Paul but the proctor was unreadable. She then strode over to where Jasper Rhine sat working. ‘What are the chances now of this vortex generator working?’

He glanced up with a slight dreamy smile on his face, which did nothing to inspire her confidence. ‘I never checked this. It’s amazing.’

‘Answer the question, Jasper.’

He waved a hand at the console screen. ‘Another two months and main construction will be completed, after which we’ll need to connect it up properly to the station system. It will, of course, work – but there’s much we still need to do.’

‘Like what?’ Hannah asked.

‘I checked with our long-range sensors, and I also checked the old asteroid survey maps,’ continued Rhine. ‘We need to further alter our course by half a degree and begin decelerating in about a month, so that we can moor to asteroid HJI457.’

‘You what?’ asked Brigitta, from behind Hannah’s shoulder.

‘That’s where we’ll get the ore,’ he explained, looking at her happily. ‘We should be able to swing one of the smelters right round to it, and haul the stuff straight across. It’ll be a low-temperature process compared to the usual smelting, and we can condense it in pipes cooled by vacuum, then use vacuum distillation to purify it.’

‘This still isn’t very clear, Rhine.’

‘Nearly eighty per cent cinnabar and vermilion, eight per cent pure product, and the rest is just rock.’

‘What product?’

‘Mercury, of course,’ Rhine replied, as if that was patently obvious. ‘You didn’t think the vortex generator would work without it, did you?’

Her throat trying to close up on her, Hannah asked, ‘And how much mercury do we need, Rhine?’

‘Oh, don’t worry. There’s enough there. We’ll have to process about three-quarters of the asteroid to achieve about ten thousand metric tonnes of the pure metal.’

Pike grunted as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

‘Oh, is that all?’ he said.

Hannah closed her eyes, fighting the urge to start crying, then gritted her teeth as a call came through on her fone from Le Roque.

‘What is it?’ she asked sharply.

‘We’re in trouble,’ he replied.

‘Tell me.’

‘The smelting plants just folded up their mirrors and are retracting into the station rim.’

‘I see,’ she replied. ‘I rather think we’ve been here before.’

‘Certainly,’ he continued, ‘and, just like last time, there’s a course correction in the system queue – and it