Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

Now she sat back to await his reply, no longer able to concentrate on the reports in front of her. It seemed to take so much longer for him to come back and, when she checked the time, she saw that it had actually taken six minutes over and above the signal delay.

‘Surely the Scour, in itself, is an extinction event, ma’am?’

She didn’t like the tone of his voice, and she didn’t like that hint of something she was noticing in his expression. Did he know more than he was letting on? He had been close to her during those first days, after all . . . She suddenly felt very uncomfortable and considered sending on its way the signal that would close up that collar around his neck.

‘But I understand what you mean, ma’am,’ he continued. ‘We can never again allow the population of Earth to rise as high as it was, and must ruthlessly enforce population strictures. It is just worrying that this disease keeps recurring as it does, because it could as easily kill someone we cannot afford to lose, like yourself. I simply hope our scientists will find some cure for it soon.’

‘Very true,’ she said. ‘But meanwhile I must soldier on, as must you, Clay. As before: keep your reports coming and get in contact at once should there be anything further I need to know. That’s all for now.’ She shut down com.

His return to normal deference had been plausible and it seemed likely he knew nothing about the Scour’s true source. He hadn’t been that close, and she doubted that his erstwhile senior had let him in on the secret. Even so, Serene felt that his attitude added weight to her earlier decision to place him aboard the Scourge as a disposable asset – as someone high status she could kill as an object lesson to the rest of the crew, should that be required. She now switched to images taken from various aeros and hovering razorbirds, which she had just lately found very soothing.

The huge sprawls in the territory that had once been called Pakistan now lay before her. Even as she watched, a giant two-hundred-storey arcology gouted smoke from its base and collapsed as if it was being sucked into the ground, dust clouds spreading like pyroclastic flows through the surrounding streets. As it went down, birds launched from its roof, but these were birds of metal, graphene and numerous sharp edges. To the left of this, Serene spotted a group of shepherds striding through the sprawl like herons hunting frogs, eliminating any survivors of the Scour, for such survivors had to be subversives who had removed their ID implants. To the right of the collapse, ten robot bulldozers and five excavators, all on caterpillar treads of which each link was bigger than the average hydrovane car, were carving a lane through the lower-elevation sprawl beyond.

Behind them came the even larger bulks of two macerating machines, their giant, toothed front rollers clawing up the rubble so as to pass it inside themselves – big industrial magnets and computer-controlled sorters inside extracting metals and other useful materials, which were regularly spewed out again into the backs of awaiting all-terrain trucks.

The first machine tore up and macerated the surface rubble, spewing out behind it a massive cloud of fragments of carbocrete, concrete, brick and other building materials, doubtless slightly dampened by the numerous human corpses it had just rendered to sludge. At its rear end were deep plough attachments that were busy hooking up foundations, sewers and other underground infrastructure to a depth of ten metres, which the ensuing macerator then chewed up, too. By the time the second macerator passed, its ploughs probing deep into the ground, there were patches of soil now visible amidst the thick layers of ground-up rubble. And these were patches that Serene knew would, given time, turn green.

She had seen that steady spread of green already; seen Earth healing its wounds. She never tired of seeing it, and intended to see a lot, lot more.

Argus

His suit had been leaking, both from the oxygen pack and the gunshot in his leg – the repair patch and breach foam not having proved sufficient to seal the damage. Running out of air, he took great risks in getting himself back to the hydroponics unit – the drugs his VC suit automatically injected into his system conspiring to make him less cautious. Nevertheless, he made it back there without being caught and, because of those drugs, managed to strip off his suit without screaming in pain. Once he had done so, he soon realized he would not be putting it back on. It had used up all its breach foam, the patch he had used was the largest available and it now fell away, and though the leak from his oxygen pack was slow, it was still losing air faster than the recharging pump could replace it.

Where the bullet had struck his shin, splintered bone protruded from his leg. He knew that if he wasn’t to die, he needed to work quickly, for now, with the breach foam peeled off the wound, it was bleeding heavily. He opened his medical kit and first used a spray of artificial skin with an integral coagulant, then he dragged himself around the hydroponics unit in search of materials for a splint – finally detaching the legs of a mantis-like agribot for that purpose. He cut the right boot from his discarded VC suit and put it back on, attached the splints to it, then hung a roll of duct tape from the top of one of them, above his knee, in readiness. After injecting himself with a powerful painkiller, he lodged his boot in a framework and, looping his arm around a nearby strut, he pulled.

Splintered bone retracted into his leg and, maintaining the tension, he used his free hand to wrap the duct tape round several times above his knee. He then laved on an antivibact salve, followed that with another layer of skin spray, then wound the rest of the tape round his leg, down to his ankle.

I should surrender, he thought, at last. Then he considered how that thought had not occurred to him until now. What would happen if he did surrender? It was possible that the rebels would hospitalize him first, and then lock him in the cell block. However, Alan Saul had said right from the start that there could be no freeloaders, no people on this station who did not contribute to the overall running of the place and to the survival of its residents. They might just kill him out of hand. Then a further thought occurred to him – one that had not occurred while he was lecturing Alexandra about the benefits of surrender. They might simply do to him what they had done to the delegates here, and to Messina. They might erase his mind, and how then would he rescue the Chairman? He wouldn’t even be able to remember that service to Messina was the sum purpose of his life.

No surrender, he thought, feeling a deep regret for everything he had said earlier to his companion.

The painkillers lasted him only for five days, the medical kit having been made for short-term use to keep a soldier alive until he could be taken to a hospital. The pain then returned, along with fever and hallucinations. He ate sparingly from the ration packs or from the produce grown inside the unit,