The Departure

by Neal Asher

  “Understood.” Langstrom would do as instructed—he had risen in the ranks rather than ended up in a digester. Saul gestured towards the door, and Langstrom set off.

  “Does that answer your question?” Saul asked Brigitta.

  “Some,” she replied. “But how much freedom are we going to be allowed?”

  “How do you measure it?” Saul asked.

  “The Arboretum?” Angela asked.

  Brigitta picked up on that. “We were never allowed in there.”

  “Unless there are contamination problems I don’t see why that should continue.” Saul paused for a moment. “Everyone here will have the freedom to go where they want within this station. You will all have the freedom to do whatever you want so long as the work is done and whatever else you do does not endanger others or this station.”

  “I hope you’re telling the truth,” said Brigitta.

  “I am.”

  “Better living conditions would be nice. Better food too.”

  “You three can take apartments in the Political Office.” He paused, checking the assignment of living accommodation and beginning to make alterations. “I have just reassigned you to Inspectorate Executive quarters. Once building recommences in Arcoplex Two, and the living accommodation is completed there, you’ll be reassigned to apartments near the robot assembly plant and the research laboratory.” Saul waited a moment for a response, and when none came, he turned to Chang. “And you?”

  “I’ll stay here,” Chang replied, nodding towards the nearby consoles. “But one of those PO apartments would be nice.”

  “It’s done,” said Saul, then turned to the others and gestured to the consoles lining the back of the control room. “Okay, grab your chairs and take your positions.” He beckoned to Le Roque, now returned clad in a padded overall. “Get them ready.”

  As Chang, the twins and the thirteen remaining moved quickly to their various consoles, Le Roque headed over beside Hannah and gazed for a moment at the bullet-damaged console, then stepped away to select another one. They began powering up, and Saul watched them for a moment. Meanwhile he called up separate views on the three wall screens: the middle screen displaying a distant view of Earth, and those on either side relaying orbital views transmitted from the laser satellites.

  “You seem to have everything well under control,” Hannah commented as he approached her.

  Saul went on studying the screens. “I see no purpose in wasting resources on regimenting every detail of people’s lives, nor on trying to control how they think.”

  “There’ll be problems later.”

  As Saul accessed the control systems for the entire array of laser satellites spaced around the Earth, he acknowledged to himself that, yes, there would be problems. But the niggling, annoying problems of administration, of government, would perhaps be the least of them. For a start, it was by no means certain that the station could be made utterly self-sufficient, or that they could ultimately survive out here.

  “The people here are used to being told what to do, and when they begin to realize that I am not instructing them all the time, that’s when the problems will start. It’s also going to be difficult for those currently redundant,” he said. “I’ll need to decide what to do with all those bureaucrats who’ve spent most of their working lives driving a desk and enforcing misery on others.”

  “Do the digesters often need cleaning?”

  “Generally not, though those in Arcoplex One might develop faults.” He glanced at her. “Have you made a decision yet?”

  Hannah winced.

  And well she might. A glimpse into Arcoplex One revealed that the digesters had yet to be put to use. Chairman Messina, accompanied by forty-one delegates and a further twenty bodyguards, had pushed his way to the head of the queue and entered first. They had then occupied a conference hall and were currently debating the agenda, having thus far merely drawn up a list of important subjects to be considered—such as the assignment of living quarters, a resources survey, their negotiating position and who would chair the escape-assessment working group. No one had yet got round to mentioning the corpses, of which only a few had been found so far, the majority occupying private quarters or piled up at the far end of the arcoplex. The situation seemed beyond satire, and Saul wondered how long it would take before this “hard-headed organizational approach to extreme circumstances” completely fell apart.

  “Most of them are guilty of murder,” Hannah suggested.

  “Every single Committee delegate has been responsible, to some extent, for mass murder. They’re also ultimately responsible for every other atrocity the Inspectorate has committed.”

  She turned to look at him. “Nuremberg?”

  “We don’t have the resources.”

  “I have to think more about this.”

  She bowed her head and Saul thought she looked ashamed. He decided then that he would burden her with no further decisions of life and death. He caught hold of her shoulder and directed her across the control room, towards the door through into Le Roque’s former quarters. As they walked, he summoned the spidergun in behind him.

  “You must sleep on it,” he said, as she went through the door ahead of him, then he turned to see Le Roque eyeing him curiously. “We’re not to be disturbed,” Saul declared, before closing the door behind them. He watched through the spidergun’s sensors, whilst Hannah moved over to the hammock and pulled herself down on to it, its fabric adhesion clinging to her suit. By the time the multi-limbed robot had squatted down outside the door, and raised two of its weapon-bearing limbs warningly, Hannah was already fast asleep.

  Saul soon joined her, but some time still passed before he descended to a level of humanity where sleep again became possible for him.

  22

  YOUR VOTE COUNTS

  Democracy is a luxury enjoyed by simple low-population societies, though wealth can maintain it for longer than its natural span. However, societies grow in population and complexity, the technological apparatus of control improves, individual freedoms impinge upon others until they demand “action” from government that is generally eager to comply and accrue more power to itself, and democracy gradually sickens and dies. This is what happened on Earth, but out in space democracy dies a different death. On ancient Earth all the necessities of life were free to every potential user: air, food and water, the materials from which to build a shelter or craft the tools of survival. As we built more complex societies, more and more items on this list fell under the control of others, and ceding such control is the way we forge our own chains. Out in space, every single item on such a list has to be either transported there or produced there at great cost, under the control of small specialist groups, or the regime which put the project up in vacuum. Also in space, where decisions about survival must often be made quickly, there is rarely time for full debate, for a vote. In space, meritocracy is the nearest to democracy you can hope to get, and neither of them are rugged survivors.

  A long grassy slope curved ever downwards away from her, and as she ran it grew steadily steeper. Eventually she would fall, but she knew all she required in order to fly was an effort of will. Shortly the slope disappeared from beneath her…but at that moment she knew she could only fly in her dreams, and so she fell. When dream slid into reality, the sensation of falling did not leave her even as she opened her eyes.

  “How long was I asleep?” she asked.

  Saul was naked, towelling himself down vigorously after using the shower. Hannah could not help but notice how he showed no sign of sensitivity when rubbing the area where he had been stabbed, which meant the wound must have continued healing at the same speed she had witnessed while she had been operating on him. She sat up, licking her tongue round a dry mouth. She felt grotty and was momentarily tempted to lie back and go to sleep again, but instead her guts tightened and a familiar feeling of panic arose. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself.

  “You okay?” Saul asked.


  “Panic attack,” she explained, and saying it out loud seemed to help her get a handle on it and suppress it. And even as the weight of the decision he expected from her descended again, she managed to stave it off. It was time to do something about those people in Arcoplex One. They weren’t entitled to cause her such grief.

  “They’re not all guilty,” she remarked.

  He didn’t even ask who she referred to, his mind operating so fast. “Define guilt.”

  “I believe it is no more than can be attributed to many others on this station.” She stood and took off her VC suit and underclothes, then headed for the shower. “Messina is as guilty as hell, as are his core delegates and whatever staff implemented their decisions. But there must be members of staff, bodyguards, wives, husbands and children who are no more guilty than anyone else you’ll find out there.” She pointed to the door leading to the control centre, before propelling herself into the shower booth.

  The spray was good and hot, as she washed away the grime, clouding the water with soap till she seemed to be floating in a pool of milk. As she came out of the shower, she found Saul standing motionless, his gaze distant.

  “Forty-one delegates, plus Messina himself, have been involved in the decisions about sectoring, and the euthanizing of dissidents. All of those have blood on their hands, as do most of their staff and some of their family members. Most of the Executive present here are killers, too. However,” he now focused his gaze on her, “how exactly do we measure guilt? They are all of them the product of a society where the only route to power and wealth was a career in government, and it was impossible to rise high anywhere in this regime without getting blood on your hands. Bucking the trend in any way would be suicidal, and altruism a fast route to poverty—and quite possibly to readjustment in an Inspectorate cell.”

  “Then the buck stops with Messina and his forty-one delegates,” decided Hannah. “And anyone else who has directly ordered or committed an act of murder.”

  Saul blinked. “That means thirty-eight more, then, according to their records.”

  A tightness returned to Hannah’s stomach, but this time it wasn’t panic but a strange species of excitement—and awe. While just standing there, he must be processing hundreds of personnel files, running searches, decoding govspeak and assessing every one of all those people currently confined in Arcoplex One.

  “The others must be allowed to leave the arcoplex,” she declared.

  “What do I do with them?” he shot back.

  “Assign them quarters and find them work to do throughout the station. Give them a chance to redeem themselves.”

  Saul gave a doubtful sneer. “Generally, their skills aren’t of the kind the station requires. These people are bureaucrats now deprived of their natural environment of endless micromanagement and interference.”

  “Then they must be retrained on the basis of whatever other skills they possess.”

  “Very well.” Saul headed for the door. “But you still haven’t told me what you want done with the remaining seventy-nine.”

  He wanted her to tell him that they must die but, even though she knew they did not deserve to live, she could not bring herself to make that pronouncement. In her eyes it wasn’t right. No one should be forced to make such a harsh decision.

  “They will remain in Arcoplex One,” she pronounced, with as much firmness as she could muster. “Their task will be to feed the corpses into the digesters.”

  “And then?”

  “Surely there is a way they can be dealt with?”

  “Yes, I am sure there is a way,” he said, staring at her while something hardened in his expression. “Let’s go.”

  “Food first,” said Hannah quickly.

  He paused. “Yes…of course.”

  Hannah suddenly wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all, but instead she merely turned away. She found a fresh elasticated undersuit in one of the wall-length cupboards, then picked up her discarded one and just stood staring at it helplessly. Saul turned away from the fridge and pointed to a little door set in the same wall. Hannah pulled on the handle, hinged out a hopper, and tossed the soiled undersuit inside.

  “Where does it go?” she asked, prepared to talk about anything but the previous subject.

  “Ultrasound and gas cleaner,” he replied succinctly. “All clothing worn here is made of material suitable for that kind of cleaning.”

  “One more job the bureaucrats can’t do,” she muttered as she pulled on her VC suit. Meanwhile he placed the two ceramic trays into a microwave cooker, and shortly she joined him to eat bean stew, followed by some sort of treacle pudding. A drinks machine provided frothy coffee and chilled bottles of flavoured water. It all seemed so very domestic, though the coffee had to be sipped through a spout, and the emptied trays went into the ultrasound cleaner, along with their dirty clothes.

  “Now,” said Saul, leading the way out after they had finished.

  ***

  A different shift of staff occupied the control room now, though Le Roque remained in charge. Meanwhile, a crew of technicians was gradually replacing the plastic office chairs with the kind of acceleration chairs found aboard space planes.

  “Good thinking,” observed Saul, as Le Roque wearily turned to face them.

  “We could take more out of the planes, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what you’d want.”

  “The chairs from the one space plane you’ve selected should cover your present needs.”

  After a momentary look of surprise at this, Le Roque said, “I don’t suppose I’ll be needing to make a further report to you then?”

  It was something they would all have to get used to. Saul might stand amongst them like a normal human being, yet his mind could range throughout the Argus Station with the omniscience of a demigod.

  “I can detect what you’ve done so far,” concurred Saul. “All personnel are now aware of the direction of thrust, and where to position themselves, though they’re not yet aware of the duration of thrust, which will be two hours at one-half gravity. You’ve prepared the hospitals, I see, and are presently getting everything loose tied down or securely placed on gecko matting. You should have everything ready within the next thirteen hours. Any additional problems I should know about?”

  “The Arboretum, and hydroponics there and also in the outer ring,” Le Roque replied.

  Saul paused for a moment, tilting his head, then said, “The Arboretum topsoil is layered with a mesh into which most of the trees are rooted. That was done so they would not break free of the soil should it be necessary to use the emergency brakes on the cylinder. The mesh should be enough, and the hydroponics there should be fine too. Those troughs situated in the outer ring need to be drained into their cisterns. Do this precisely half an hour before acceleration and, whilst under acceleration, you should set the misters to operate constantly. That treatment should be sufficient to keep the plants alive.”

  “But some will get thrown free?”

  Saul shook his head. “No, I’m going to use only a gradual increase in thrust. Inside the cylinder there will simply be an increasing fluctuation in apparent gravity, from half a gee to one and a half gees. There’ll inevitably be damage to some plants—an approximate fifteen per cent loss—but we can live with that. Anything else?”

  “That about covers it for now, Dir—” Le Roque paused, looking uncomfortable.

  “I do not like the title ‘Director,’” said Saul, sharply. “It’s got too many unpleasant associations.” Another reflective pause. “Call me by my name but, if you’re not comfortable with that, then refer to me as the Owner—because I own this station now.”

  Le Roque merely nodded, then watched while Saul led Hannah towards the exit, the spidergun falling in behind them and now moving with a spooky fluidity it had not possessed earlier.

  “Where now?” Hannah asked.

  “Arcoplex One—I want this resolved before we round the Moon.”

  Once out of t
he control room, she queried, “The Owner?”

  “For all our lives, everything we’ve laid hands on has been considered the property of the state. Even our own bodies were considered thus. But no more.” He turned towards her, his face a mask pinned by weirdly pink eyes. “Decisions, power, responsibility, Hannah. I am now the most powerful here and therefore the most free, yet inevitably, I am also the least free because I bear the most responsibility.”

  “That still doesn’t explain it.”

  She caught a glimpse of irritation in his expression.

  “I am now in charge and, whether I want it or not, I have the power of life and death over all those here with me, because I physically and mentally own this station, which is the only thing keeping them alive. In fact this entire station now feels to me just like an extension of my own body. It’s something I will not give up, which is something they all need to be reminded of, and the title I’ve chosen does exactly that. I won’t call myself Director, Delegate, Chairman, Governor or King. From now on I’m the Owner—that is enough.”

  Arrogance or truth? Perhaps both. Hannah just did not know for sure. Maybe his choice of title incorporated a degree of calculation that went beyond what he could easily express to her. She wondered if the irritation he had just shown was due to her tardy comprehension, though more likely it was because she still refused to sentence seventy-nine people to death.

  They collected their helmets at the airlock and were soon back outside in the main station. Here Hannah could see crews busily engaged, welding arcs faring blue light across the lattice walls, work lights glaring white and casting black angular shadows, one-man EVA units moving ponderously here and there amidst the rapid insectile precision of countless robots.

  “This is not going to be a democracy,” Saul reminded her over com.