1 Power to the People! The rebellion was doomed to failure, even had its ostensible leader General Malden succeeded in his plan to drop the Argus Station on the largest bureaucratic conclave of the Committee, which was then located in Brussels (originally the centre of the old European Union). Malden, like so many would-be rebels of the time, was under the illusion – which the Committee promulgated – that the world government actually possessed a heart that could be cut out. In reality the Brussels governmental sprawl was just a larger and more wasteful version of the old European Parliament – real decisions weren’t made there at all, but during teleconferences between Committee delegates generally residing like old-time kings in their regional palaces which, along with the Inspectorate HQs, were the real centres of power. Alan Saul’s attack proved more surgical, destroying many of those HQs, and thus killing a large portion of the Committee Executive and annihilating much of the infrastructure of control. However, the government of Earth was like a hydra and, even though Saul cut off a number of its heads, they soon began to grow back. It could also be argued that he cut off many diseased heads, and the lesser number that grew back had sharper eyes and all their teeth. Zero Minus Ten Days – Earth It seemed somebody had left food on a barbecue for too long; the rich saliva-inducing smell like that of cooking belly pork was overwhelmed by the stench of charred fat and burning meat. Delegate Serene Galahad’s stomach rumbled inappropriately and, trying to ignore the fact that she had wet herself, she checked various computer channels through her fone and linked implants. Everything was down; the worst-case scenario had occurred, and the Chestrekon Protocol had been applied. As a result, trillions of specially designed computer chips all across Earth had dismembered Govnet. WiFi was down, because optics, cable, simple fone-lines and satellite channels had been electrically unplugged. Bluetooth was now black. Shakily, Serene uncapped her water bottle, took a swill and spat it out to get the dust out of her mouth, then finally took a swallow. She had been right about that – about the necessity of the Protocol – as she had been right about so many things. Certainly she had been right about the danger inherent in the requirement for every citizen of Earth to have an ID implant. For those in the higher echelons of government – like Committee delegates such as herself – should not be thus encumbered or so easy to track down. This could be turned against them by terrorists and subversives, just as it seemed it had now been, though on a scale unforeseen. Recapping her water bottle, Serene gazed out from under her desk – past where her bodyguard Jimbo lay face down, a gaping hole in his back where the first two readergun bullets had struck; most of his head missing where the final one had slammed home. At the edge of the spreading pool of his blood lay her watch. This contained her ID implant, which responded to electronic queries as if it was actually where it should be – inside her forearm. She had pulled it off her wrist and cast it away the moment the readergun, fixed up on the conference-room wall, had flashed into life to set the Sectoring Consultancy team jerking about in their seats, and spraying chunks of them across the wide teak desk before them. She expected to feel sick, but just felt numb. Perhaps it was shock, so maybe some stronger reaction would occur later. But the carnage was over now and it was probably safe for her to come out. Certainly it wasn’t safe for her to stay here – that noxious smell told her there was a fire inside the Dome’s conference chamber, burning up what was left of all those frightened idiots who had come here to the Straven Conference to debate further their unimaginative solutions to Earth’s population problem. The anger and the contempt that had driven her here in the first place quickly banished her current numbness, and now impelled her out into the open. She stood up, placed her water bottle down on the gritty surface of her desk, pulled a wad of perfumed tissues from her personal dispenser to clean her hands, then tried to brush some of the debris from her tight grey jacket and skirt. Annoyingly, bits of Jimbo smeared to leave streaks of blood and brain. She took another wad of tissues to clean her hands again, and finally surveyed her surroundings. The blast had taken out one entire side of the Millennium Dome, even while the readerguns were turning the Straven Conference attendees into broken meat. Through the smoke the new opening gave a view across the Thames, over what looked like the mangled remains of the nose of a scramjet. The same view showed that the Gull developments and sectored areas of Blackwall looked undamaged, yet to their left, on the other side of the West India Canal that divided Canary Island from the main city, and where Committee tower blocks and cubic Civil Service arcologies clustered, pillars of smoke rose into the sky amid numerous massive collapses. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Serene should never have been here. The conference had just been getting under way when a nuke took out Inspectorate HQ London. Yet, while it had been mooted that they should suspend the conference for the interim, Messina had issued orders for them to continue – business as usual. When Serene subsequently learned that one space plane had been crashed in Minsk spaceport even while another was being stolen, and that a hundred and fifty Committee delegates had been slaughtered in a terrorist outrage in Leuven, she had realized that the expected rebellion had begun. But still Messina would not shut down the conference. Meanwhile he and many of his pet delegates had disappeared – all further orders received from him coming by sat-link. Even as terrorists continued their concerted attack on the state all across Earth, Serene had to stay here discussing decidedly un-radical plans for population control. She turned back to scan the rest of the conference chamber. Those here would no longer be discussing the continued sectoring-out and controlled starvation of the Earth’s zero-asset population. The only sign of movement left here was the flames still rising from where some lump of hot wreckage had smashed into the lower-tier horseshoe table. The five Committee delegates who had been sitting there, and their PAs, bodyguards and other support staff, were strewn on the floor, bloody meat. Delegate Schubert lay across the same table. The readergun shot that finished him must have hit him in the back of his neck, for his head was nowhere in evidence. The upper-tier tables had been similarly depopulated. It was, very literally, a bloody mess. Time, Serene felt, for her to leave and put into motion her own plans, whether Messina agreed or not. She should see today’s chaos as an opportunity for her to demonstrate the effectiveness of her own population-control plan, to take leadership away from the present incompetents in government, including Chairman Messina himself. She just needed to get back to the Aldeburgh Complex, and there get ready for when the Chestrekon Protocol ran its timed course and Govnet would begin its secure start-up. Clutching her briefcase, slim laptop inside, water bottle tucked into its special waterproof compartment beside it, tissue-wrapped watch in the other and a disabler clutched in her right hand, Serene made her way past burning wreckage and shattered human beings towards the conference-hall exit. As she walked out into the outer halls of the Dome, she felt a surge of euphoria. She had been right and, because of that, had survived, and would not now succumb to shock because she was too much of a realist. After stepping into an executive toilet, she removed her knickers and tights, and upon finding the water and power were off, wiped herself clean with tissues. Wetting herself had been a purely physical reaction to danger; just one situation for her to deal with in a whole series of them. The outer halls of this part of the Dome were structurally undamaged, but the readerguns had been at work. This area hadn’t been as crowded as the conference hall itself, but still she sometimes had to walk through pools of blood. Finally she reached the elevator doors, waited for a moment, then swore at her own stupidity. The power was off – she would have to use the stairs. The main exit from the Dome was surprisingly clear of corpses; just a bullet-riddled guard booth evidenced that the readerguns had been in action here. As she walked out into the stink of burning plastic and began heading towards the executive car park, it seemed she was the only living human in the vicinity. Then she saw that she wasn’t. There was no way she could mistake these people for anyone she might demand assistance from. Even from this distance she recognized their generic attire, their slouching fearful attitude, their poverty, for zero assets were here. Of course sector-fence readerguns were offline and, from the devastation she had seen, probably many of the sector fences had even been destroyed. She picked up her pace along pathways through the Millennium-Plus-One Garden – a sad attempt, she felt, to bring some green to this place – and finally reached the open gate into the executive car park. Here she paused, noting by the spatter patterns from some of the corpses that they had been shot not by the fence readerguns but by those mounted on some of the aeros parked here, perhaps even the one she had arrived in. There was a chance that whatever had penetrated Govnet – and these aeros – was still in operation. Then she dismissed the idea. The range of the aero guns was well beyond the compass of the car-park fence, so if they were still operating she would have been dead by now. A hundred more slightly unsteady paces brought her to her own aero, whose doors refused to open automatically in response to the ID implant in her watch. She uncapped the manual handle, opened the door and hauled herself up inside, closing and then locking the door behind her. She had come to the conference aboard this vehicle with four Inspectorate executives along with their complement of bodyguards and PAs. A couple of them she had known vaguely, but she felt no regret at their loss. Seating herself in the pilot’s seat, she first strapped herself in, then began checking the controls. Other executives did not familiarize themselves with such systems, feeling it beneath them to do so. Again she felt a sense of satisfaction because again she had been proved right. All the aero’s components were functional, it was fuelled and powered, but the main computer was down – its hard drive wiped and all exterior communications shut down by the Chestrekon chip. Serene popped a cover concealing console electronics, found the chip and extracted it, replacing it with a spare chip clipped inside the cover. The console went live, with three LCD screens coming on to display code prompts. Selecting one of them Serene ordered a selective reboot, ensuring exterior com remained inoperative because there was always the chance that whatever had attacked Govnet remained active. Even as she did this, her fone signalled to her that an exterior channel had become available to it. She hurriedly shut it down, worried that her rebooting of the aero computer might have activated something else, then checked carefully: general independent fone network, voice only, no data packets and no computer linkage. Still cautious, she kept her fone shut down and selected that particular channel through the aero console, then used the wholly archaic method of tapping in a fone number. No response, just the beeping to tell her she had reached the fone she was after but no one was answering. It could be that this fone remained intact in whatever remained of its owner’s head. After half an hour of the computer rebooting, Serene saw that the ZAs had drawn closer. They were searching the dead, checking dropped bags, but had yet to summon up the nerve to enter the Dome itself. However, about twenty of them were gathering by the gate to the executive car park. They were looking for food, as always, and certainly knew that some of the vehicles here would contain it. She paused the reboot and ran checks on the weapons system, consigning one screen before her to manual targeting. She had plenty of ammo, since it hadn’t taken many bullets to kill those within her aero’s vicinity. Using a console ball control, she brought a target frame over the one who seemed to be the leader of the ZAs at the gate, and poised a finger over the ball. If she waited too long they would enter the car park and then disperse, becoming more difficult to hit, and once inside the car park they would, without a doubt, be a danger to her. No one above a certain level in government went anywhere near ZAs without a great deal of protection – since their gratitude for the minimal dole they received was . . . somewhat lacking. Why was she hesitating? This was such a small thing compared to her overall plan. She clicked the ball control down then moved it gently from side to side. The guns, underneath the aero, made a sound like a compressor starting up, and Serene turned to watch their effect through the side window. Full automatic: two machine guns, each firing at a rate of two thousand rounds a minute. The crowd disintegrated, flew apart in a mass of body parts and ragged clothing, a bloody mist boiling out behind it. Another click on the ball control and the guns shut down. Serene studied what she had done. She had expected some to survive, to be running away now, but it looked as if every one of them had been put through a mincer. No movement at all. She felt something like awe then, and a tight hard excitement. Just a few finger movements had done that. Now here was power. She tried to dispel the feeling, for what she had just done had been entirely necessary. Somewhat shakily, she returned her attention to the reboot and, long before anyone else ventured near the car park, she started up the aero’s fans and took it off the ground. Then, as her view of London expanded and she saw the sheer extent of the devastation, the steady beeping from the console interrupted her inspection and a tired, familiar voice spoke out against a raucous crackling. ‘I should not be surprised that you survived, ma’am.’ ‘Nor should I be surprised that you survived too, Simeon,’ Serene replied curtly, though mildly pleased that her security director, Simeon Anderson, was still alive. ‘Why am I getting so much interference?’ ‘Well, Govnet being down doesn’t help, ma’am, but it’s not only that,’ he replied. ‘I’m told we’re building up to a humdinger of a solar storm – seems almost to have poetic timing.’ ‘Yes, whatever,’ she said. ‘How many of the team survived?’ ‘Hard to say,’ he replied. ‘We lost seventeen here, but fifty-four were either at home or outside the Complex for other reasons, and I’ve been unable to contact any of them.’ Serene grimaced. Readerguns had come as a standard fitting when the Aldeburgh Complex had been built but, as she took charge there and made the place her own domain, she had deactivated them. ‘What killed the seventeen?’ she asked. ‘Aero guns – they just opened up on anyone within range.’ That figured. ‘How many of you there now?’ ‘Twenty-four.’ ‘Keep trying to contact the rest. I’ll be with you within an hour.’ ‘What happened, ma’am? What the hell happened?’ This was the closest she had heard her security director come to voicing emotion and she paused for a moment, gazing out of the screen as she considered her reply. Everywhere she looked, smoke was rising into the sky. She had just passed over a long scar cutting through the urban sprawl where it seemed likely another scramjet had come down, and to her right a massive smoke cloud marked the spot where she knew the Northeast Inspectorate HQ was located. ‘We got hit hard. What data are you getting now?’ ‘Nothing from the satellites, which might be due to the storm, and Govnet won’t secure-start at least for another hour. I foned whoever I could get through to – Breckon in North America, Mouheed in China, Rocheur in Germany – and the same story from them: readerguns, spiderguns, razorbirds and shepherds all turning on government employees, all air traffic dropping out of the sky. And Breckon, who has access to the Kansas radio telescope array, tells me that, despite the solar interference, he can see that the Argus Network is gone.’ ‘Gone?’ ‘Dropped out of the sky . . . I saw a few fire trails but I didn’t make the connection until I spoke to him. Apparently it was quite a show, night-side.’ The whole network? Serene just did not know what to say, but she incorporated this fact into her calculations. More than ever now, her plan seemed the right one. ‘Not just that,’ Anderson continued, ‘Argus itself is currently beyond the orbit of the Moon and heading away.’ ‘I see,’ said Serene, trying to keep her voice in keeping with her name. ‘So Breckon, Mouheed and Rocheur weren’t at their respective Inspectorate HQs when this went down?’ ‘All of them at home.’ Serene considered all that had been happening prior to her diving under her desk at the conference. The rebels had penetrated Govnet at an unheard-of level, and taken control of all of Earth’s military resources. She now suspected she knew what that fire over to her right might be. Clearly, the rebels had dropped the Argus Network satellites on Inspectorate HQs all across Earth, and that smoke cloud rose from HQ Northeast. It seemed the rebels had also either stolen Argus Station, or dispatched it off into the Solar System. ‘Keep gathering data and be sure we have as much capacity as possible for when Govnet comes back online,’ she said. ‘You’ve checked our system for comlife?’ ‘Comlife . . . yeah, had to be. Our system was visited, and a lot scrambled – someone knew every damned access code. We’re now fully hard-system; I’ve changed all the codes and closed doorways it left behind.’ ‘Okay . . . do you still have outside power there?’ ‘No, the Sizewell fusion reactors did a safe shutdown. We’re using the wind turbines.’ ‘Good enough,’ she replied. She didn’t need a great deal of electrical power for what she intended. The signal would transmit virally through Govnet, to be rebroadcast from any available radio transmitter. Not too many of them would be needed either, because those ID implants it reached would then rebroadcast it again, and it would spread, like a plague. Argus The scanning helmet completely covered Saul’s head and face. Usually this would not have been disconcerting for him, for he could have kept watch through the cams pointing down from the ceiling, or through any nearby robots like the spidergun squatting over by the door into the laboratory. However, after his attack on Committee rule on Earth, it seemed almost as if the sun itself had registered its protest at the destruction he had wrought. Just hours after Argus Station swung around the Moon in a low-fuel course change, then fired up the Traveller VI to begin its non-conjunction course for Mars, the solar storm had begun. The last sight Saul had of the sun was a flare arcing out and back down – forming a bridge large enough to roll entire worlds around – then it had been necessary to put up the station’s EM field to prevent those inside being roasted by the sleet of radiation. Only the optical telescopes still functioned, and their images weren’t the best. But this also meant that right now he could not, without plugging an optic directly into his skull, access the station’s computer system and thereby any cams or robots. ‘Your synaptic density is about twice that of a normal human being,’ said Hannah. ‘Do you have all the data you need?’ he asked. ‘You don’t like being blind,’ she remarked. ‘I do not.’ ‘Yes, you can take off the helmet.’ Saul quickly lifted it from his head and gazed across to where Hannah had ensconced herself before an array of screens. Did she look unwell? Did she still hate him for the task he had given her? It was difficult to tell. He swung his gaze across all the equipment occupying her laboratory, to the viewing window into her adjoining surgical theatre. He’d known from the moment he came in here that she had been preparing for that ghoulish chore. Arcoplex One, which was one of the three cylinder worlds extending like thick spokes from the centre of Argus Station to the outer ring, contained seventy delegates, along with Chairman Messina. They were all guilty of murder, whether personally guilty or having issued orders for mass exterminations. They had been given a choice of life or death, though in order to live they must have their minds erased. None had chosen to die, and Hannah must now carry out the chore of implanting specially designed biochips that changed neurochem, zapped synapses and made new connections – wiping a human brain like a magnet drawn across an old magnetic tape. Of course, mindless humans were a resource drain they could not afford here, so Hannah intended to make the wipe quite specific, so that a lot of what had been inculcated into them as children and as teenagers would not be erased. They wouldn’t lose their toilet training, for example, or the ability to communicate, or much of their early education. Saul supposed they would end up much like children, though like children with little urge to play. He now swung his attention to the screens ranged before her. Here were pictures of his brain, energy statistics, data-flow diagnostics and much about the medical side of what had happened to him. One screen showed the bio interface as a blur at the centre of the neurons it had grown. Since those neurons and the synaptic connections they made were based on his own genetic blueprint, they weren’t distinct under resonance scan until Hannah ran a computer program to utilize data that had been stored in the hardware in his skull. This provided the scan image of his brain before she had installed the interface and its related hardware and, now able to make the distinction, the program coloured new growth in a vibrant green. The interface looked like the core of an epiphyte, its branches spreading throughout his skull and even penetrating down into his spine. Mistletoe in my head, Saul thought, but then remembered that plant was poisonous so decided to drop this analogy. ‘It grew too fast – there are imbalances,’ she said. Inevitable – since it responded to mental pressure, and I was under a lot of it. The epiphyte underwent forced growth. What are the dangers?’ She sat back from her consoles, wiping a hand down her face. ‘Epiphyte, yes, quite . . .’ she said, and then continued, ‘The blood supply in your skull is struggling to keep up. You’re growing new capillaries, and the old ones are expanding, but still demand is outstripping supply . . . You’re going to need supplements.’ She stood up and walked over to a cupboard, took out an electrical pill dispenser and began inserting tubes of pills. ‘You’re eating?’ ‘There hasn’t been much time to, but, yes, every opportunity I get. I’m always hungry.’ ‘To be expected,’ she said. ‘I would say you are near the limit of what your body can handle without further assistance and, frankly, what it’s handling is already beyond the limit of a normal human body. You should be dead by now.’ She was referring to the things he had done to himself before Smith wiped out his original mind. Using nano-machines and tailored viruses, he had upgraded what nature had given him. As a result he healed faster now, adapted faster, his immune system was boosted. ‘Any further growth and any increase in processing will put you in danger of embolism. You are also at the point of diminishing returns, due to cell starvation.’ She finished filling the dispenser and now began programming it. ‘So what can we do?’ ‘We can install carotid valves to control the blood pressure in your skull. There are ways of upping your red-corpuscle count, and I can run nutrients straight into your bloodstream. However, the best option would be for you to shunt some of that processing outside yourself.’ ‘Which I already do – since a lot of me is now in the computer systems of this station.’ But, of course, he knew that wasn’t what she was talking about. ‘But you’re disconnected from it right now.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s beside the point, anyway. You do run processing outside yourself, but you mirror and map a lot of it inside your organic brain, because you’re translating from machine code to organic processes. Though what you can do outside yourself is becoming increasingly complex, your organic brain is still the control centre.’ She paused, losing her doleful expression to a glint of maniacal enthusiasm, as she always did when venturing to the cutting edge of her research. ‘Exolocation,’ he said, unable to resist second-guessing her. She turned towards him. ‘Of course, you already know that.’ ‘How would you go about it?’ he asked. ‘Do you need to ask?’ ‘Yes, because I’ve decided to give you the opportunity to tell me about it.’ ‘Big of you.’ She handed over the dispenser. ‘Do go on.’ ‘I would take samples of your brain tissue, place them in nutrient-infused aerogel matrices and, through carbon microtubules, feed in oxygen and further nutrients.’ ‘How would you take out the waste?’ ‘With simplified leucocytes and biomechanical kidneys.’ ‘And this would work?’ ‘There would be failures, which is why I’d first grow maybe three or four samples.’ Saul smiled. It was a thoroughly fascinating prospect: organic extensions to his brain, extra brain mass grown from his own brain tissue and maintained in portable units. He hesitated. There was so much still to do and he now wanted to get back to his room in Tech Central, plug an optic into his skull and get on with it. However, he understood himself well enough to know that his anxiousness to leave stemmed from how vulnerable he felt when unable to connect into the systems around him. He relaxed, sat back. ‘Take your samples.’ Earth During World War Two the British government had developed radar here and, during the ensuing cold war, atomic weapons research had been sited here. Throughout World Wars One and Two, and until the nuclear age, a huge amount of bomb development had been conducted here too. Serene felt that her own work here was thoroughly in keeping with this place’s history. Orford Ness extended parallel to the coast, from what had once been the town of Aldeburgh, but was now one of the big coastal cities incorporating Orford and Leiston on either side. Over the previous century the spit of land had grown, tidal action heaping up more shingle, while concrete rafts and docks were built out to sea to support first the maintenance of the wind farms, then the spread of fish farms. Upon all this, the Complex itself had been built, also bridging inwards to the land. Serene took her aero over Aldeburgh itself and sucked in a sharp breath at the extent of the devastation, and again resisted the temptation to seek data from Govnet, which, only ten minutes previously, had begun its secure start-up. She would wait until she was within the Complex and able to ensure that any precautions that could be taken were made. The city’s population had mostly consisted of government employees running the sub Northeast administration, but now it seemed that the only movement visible down there was flocks of ragged gulls scavenging in the bloody streets, or fires eating through the office blocks. However, there would be more movement some time hence. She had already seen hordes of zero assets, from the massive sectors of the Cambridge sprawl, slowly tramping about in the previously forbidden agricultural lands of Mid-Suffolk. She had also seen much similar movement across Essex. Though there was some damage in the Complex, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the inward city. She noted people gathering on the landward side of the Ness channel, and she wondered if at least some of them might be her missing staff. Certainly, even if they weren’t, she would be needing recruits. Beyond the Complex, the sea was chequered with decaying fish farms extending all the way out to the ragged towers of wind turbines, for most of which there had been neither the funds nor the inclination to repair. However, five turbines were now working again, powering her Complex now that the Sizewell reactor was down – another precaution she had taken earlier and further affirmation of what now seemed to be her destiny. Coming in over the aero-port, she circled for a moment while deciding where to land. She could see bloodstains on the carbocrete and, parked off to one side, a forklift with its tines loaded with corpses stacked like logs. Then, as she began her descent, she saw Anderson striding out with two uniformed security staff behind him. For a second she didn’t like that, didn’t like to see him accompanied by armed men. But in the end she must trust, at least to a limited extent, someone. She took her aero down and landed, shut down its engines and headed for the door. ‘You’re gathering data?’ she said as he held out a hand to assist her down from the aero. ‘As we speak,’ he said, looking grim and slightly distracted – probably by a feed issuing from his fones and the implants in his skull. ‘Chairman Messina is gone, along with most of his pet delegates.’ ‘What?’ ‘We’re still trying to get the story clear . . .’ Anderson paused, and seemed slightly stunned. ‘You said we were hit hard, but I wonder if you know just how hard.’ Once she was down on the carbocrete he gestured inland. ‘All across Earth, it’s the same as what you probably saw over there. We estimate that over two-thirds of the upper Committee Administration, Military, Executive . . . everything . . . dead.’ She had suspected something like this, had seen some sign of it during her flight here, made her calculations on that basis, but now actually being told she was right jerked her to a halt. For a second she just wasn’t sure what to say next, then, ‘Zero assets and societal assets, people outside of the Administration?’ ‘Mostly untouched – massive casualties from aero and scramjet crashes and infrastructure collapse, of course, but generally the zero-asset death rate is down on the previous quarter, while our programs predict that societal assets will show a greater propensity for survival now.’ She gazed at him assessingly. ‘Then we must ensure that the former don’t swamp us, as that stupid sectoring idea will have turned them more hostile than before.’ He nodded, understanding perfectly. ‘So, now tell me about Messina,’ Serene asked, as they began to head towards the Complex’s entrance. ‘The rebellion was widespread and damaging, but had no chance of success, and was just a distraction while rebels seized Argus Station. When that space plane crashed at Minsk, another was in the process of being stolen—’ ‘Yes, I know that,’ Serene interrupted. ‘Who exactly are – or were – they?’ ‘It’s a little confused at the moment.’ Anderson pushed the door open ahead of Serene and held it for her. ‘Initially we have reports that the leader of this group, this “Revolutionary Council” was someone called Malden, who escaped IHQ London.’ ‘Seems plausible, since IHQ London was nuked.’ She strode ahead down the corridor, glancing through one door into a big clean-assembly room. Ahead lay the chip-etching plants and the biochip division, all self-contained, run on robotics controlled from the Oversight Room. Her operation here had been very efficient. Her future – and much larger – operation would be more efficient still. ‘Yes, but it seems this Malden died during the attempt to seize Argus Station, and Station Director Smith had regained control. This did not stop Messina summoning his delegates and taking an assault fleet from the Australian Outback spaceport.’ Serene smiled nastily. ‘Messina wanted an excuse to take Smith down anyway, and he wanted to shift his powerbase offworld.’ She paused, suddenly confused. ‘So Messina controls Argus now?’ Anderson shook his head. ‘The last we heard was from assault-force communications. It seems someone else seized control of part of the station, and started up the Mars Traveller Engine at just the right time to wipe out most of Messina’s force. It seems likely that it was this man who brought down the satellite network and turned our own guns against us.’ ‘Do we have a name?’ ‘We do – he’s called Alan Saul.’ ‘Any data on him?’ ‘Just a fragment from IHQ London: a disposal order sending him to the Calais incinerator.’ Serene wasn’t sure why that got to her. She shivered. Soon they reached the armoured doors leading into Oversight, which slid open ahead of her at some unheard command from Anderson. She walked inside and surveyed all those personnel sitting gathering data at the various consoles. ‘Administration survivors – anything useful?’ she asked abruptly. ‘North Region survivors with available transport are heading to the enclaves on the Isle of Mull, though some are making for Inspectorate HQ Glasgow – one of the few to remain untouched. Those in the Midlands are heading to those places as well, or to the offshore algae farms. The same pattern is being repeated all across Earth – Committee survivors with access to transport are trying to put water between them and the zero-asset hordes.’ ‘A sensible move, but one of limited duration. Have you managed to contact any European delegates?’ ‘None at all.’ ‘Then I have authority over the European Region, so summon those on Mull and elsewhere here.’ She paused to strip off her jacket and sit at her own console. ‘We’ve got some organizing to do.’ She glanced over at the door leading into her apartment, telling herself she would head there sometime soon, clean up, then pause and ready herself for what she must do next. However, it would be ten days before she passed through that door for anything more than short power naps, to use the toilet or to gulp down another handful of stimulants. Mars The news from Earth was now completely non-existent, but even the dismal picture they had obtained, before the solar storm blew up, lacked impact, especially since they had been on the very knife edge here, where, for survival, even air had been rationed. For five days after Varalia Delex blew out the windows of Hex Three at Antares Base on Mars, it had been necessary to divert a large portion of the reactor’s output to melting Martian ice and electrolysing the water for its oxygen. It had also been necessary to cut all non-essential power usage, even to cut heating in all non-vital areas. During those five days a total of eighty-two personnel were confined to their cabins with the instruction to stay in bed and breathe shallowly – to remain as inactive as possible without being dead. It had been close, and luckily no one had actually achieved that state of total inactivity. Now they had power to spare again, and they were using it. Var walked slowly ahead of her two companions along the roof of the wing adjoining Hex Four, finally coming to a halt at the edge of the building. The construction robots, newly fired up, were dipping and weaving inside and outside the hex like a flock of iron swans. Gazing at this activity, she allowed herself to feel hope, perhaps for the first time since the Committee had sentenced them to death. In deciding to scrap the Traveller spacecraft through the bubblemetal plants of Argus, to shut down further Traveller construction and thus abandon the personnel here on Mars, the Committee had expected the eventual demise of her and her fellows to be almost certain. To push that demise to complete certainty, it had instructed the political officer here to thin out the population, ostensibly because this would enable the remainder to survive, but really because the resulting loss of expertise would ensure that those left behind didn’t live. But Political Officer Ricard and his staff were all dead, because Var had killed them all. ‘So run through it for me,’ she said. ‘How far along are we?’ Martinez, chief of construction and buildings maintenance – which, in this environment, was a very important task – gazed at the work in progress. ‘We’re finishing the upper section of the block-work wall and cementing in the ties for the dome. The furnaces are up to speed, I’m told, but best to ask Lopomac about that.’ He gestured to the other man accompanying them. Lopomac, who had been one of those who had helped her dispose of Ricard and his crew, nodded sagely. ‘The furnaces are now running and we’re processing the silica sand. We should be able to start pouring the glass panes soon.’ ‘That’s a lot of power we’re burning,’ she commented. ‘I really hope Gunther knows what he’s talking about.’ ‘He’s the expert,’ said Lopomac. ‘Relying on experts, as has become quite evident, is how we’re managing to stay alive.’ Lopomac was referring to another near-disaster when the reactor started to fail. Among the staff here they had managed to find a specialist in powder-cast ceramics who had been mis-assigned, in a typical Committee screw-up, to work in construction under Martinez – epoxy-bonding regolith into building blocks. That man had managed to work out a method of making the reactor components the Committee had perpetually failed to send them. Notable, Var felt, how that same man had been on Ricard’s kill list as a non-essential. Var nodded agreement, but her mind started to stray to other concerns. The Argus Station was still on course to reach Mars in just over two years, but whoever was aboard it had not responded to their earlier attempts at communication. Also, she had been unable to find out whether Messina’s Alexander was still under construction, though she did find out that other Earth-orbit stations were still functioning. Another concern was why both Martinez and Lopomac had been keen for them to come out here. She now switched her suit radio to a private band they had selected while suiting up. ‘So now we’re out here, let’s talk,’ she said. ‘It’s come to our notice that there are those here who are a little unhappy with the power structure,’ said Lopomac. He glanced at Martinez. ‘They’ve been attempting to recruit others who might not be completely loyal to you.’ ‘I wasn’t aware of that, but I still don’t see why it was necessary for us to come out here.’ ‘Simple answer,’ Lopomac responded. ‘They’re mostly in Mars Science, and we’ve suspicions that they’ve hacked into Ricard’s security system.’ ‘Rhone?’ ‘As far as we know, not him. Delaware and Christen seem to be the ringleaders. They are contending that we should run things here under a scientific meritocratic democracy – the strength of voting being proportional to IQ, which of course would mean more power for Delaware and Christen. It would also mean, Delaware feels, that he would be in with a chance of running this place, since his IQ is only a few points below your own.’ ‘And yet,’ Var noted, ‘despite such high intelligence, he’s too stupid to realize how any squabbling now has a very high chance of being fatal for us all.’ ‘What do you want us to do?’ asked Martinez – that question implying much. Var considered the first option. Those two scientists could have some unfortunate accident. However, she felt there was no one here they could afford to lose – two first-class minds least of all. So what to do about them? ‘Actually, we do have a form of “meritocratic democracy”, in which my chiefs of staff have their say, though of course no vote. I will therefore delegate this to one of those chiefs. Tell Rhone what’s going on and leave it for him to deal with.’ She paused in thought for a moment, recollecting her history class and the phrase, ‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’ and added, ‘Though you should ensure he is aware that we really cannot afford to lose any personnel at all.’ ‘Will do,’ said Martinez. ‘They tried to recruit me, too, so it’s best coming from me.’ ‘Any other business?’ she asked. ‘Not really,’ said Lopomac. As they turned and began heading back towards the central hex, Var felt a sudden surge of disappointment. Humans in adversity could be at their best, but take the pressure off just a little and they resorted to type: squabbling for notice, clawing for power, security, comfort, luxury. She remembered something her brother Alan had once said. ‘We are a disappointing species,’ he had noted in his usual flat uninflected tone. She had thoroughly agreed with him but wondered, as ever, if that species included Alan Saul himself.