Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

by Neal Asher

  ‘I kept myself functional because of this Scour, because we needed to know what it was all about. I should not have done so. My body, brain and mind required time to heal. I ideally needed to shut down to allow that process to commence properly. However, our situation was too dangerous for me to release my hold completely. I first ensured that the robots would obey you, and you alone, then as I slid into unconsciousness I partitioned my mind, delegating my will and intentions to its various parts.’

  ‘It seems that you achieved a lot in a very short time,’ said Hannah, spraying antivibact on the skin behind his ear as she pulled out a hair-thin optical probe penetrating the inside of his skull. ‘I thought you could hardly manage to look through one cam, at the time.’

  ‘It was instinctive,’ said Saul dismissively, then added, ‘though instinct is a questionable description of what I did.’

  ‘Like, for example,’ said Hannah, ‘instinctively calling just about every robot on this station to your present location.’

  In an instant he was gazing through cams located outside the arcoplex, then into the minds of the massed robots and isolating what had brought them here. It was something that had spread virally from the two spiderguns now stationed outside the door to this laboratory. He could define it as computer code, but an easier description would be that it was their protective instincts kicking in. He shut it down, he reassured them, and sent them back to work, watched them hesitantly moving away as if unsure that he knew what he was doing.

  ‘They are returning to work now,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ Hannah shrugged, ‘that certainly shows that you are in charge but, anyway, we soon found out that you never really weren’t.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Saul agreed, ‘though my awareness of that fact wasn’t wholly conscious.’ He reached up to pull the teragate plug from the socket in his skull, and switched the data stream going through it over to his internal radio modem, then continued, ‘I lapsed into unconsciousness without preparing any way to wake myself. Partitioning my mind was almost a survival effort, but it has had some beneficial results.’

  ‘What did wake you?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Let me get to that in its turn,’ Saul said.

  ‘Okay, you’re the boss.’ Hannah’s expression was wry, almost sad.

  ‘The parts of my mind were not completely separate, however,’ he said. ‘There were those for my senses, the other functions of my body and the functions of my mind, but access was required to them for one other partition. I needed to analyse our situation perpetually and make the best decisions about what to do to improve our chances of surviving. Hence the orders for Rhine’s vortex generator to be built, and the subsequent course changes – these decisions were made inside that partition.’

  ‘It’s an interesting theory,’ said Hannah sniffily, ‘and I would guess that from your point of view the different parts of your mind would seem like partitions. In reality the human brain, and thus mind, is already a divided thing.’

  He understood her reaction at once and knew that she was uttering such half-truths because he had infringed on her territory, her expertise. Even in her computer as she tried to map what was happening to him, she had labelled the partitions. Therefore it was so childish of her to react in this way. He paused in that train of thought, and realized that he had sounded bombastic, pompous and patronizing. He understood that if he clearly stated his thoughts to anyone now, he would always sound that way, while much of what they said to him would seem like the wittering of children.

  Re-establish humanity . . .

  ‘Yeah, I guess so, but it’s much easier to use computer analogies’ – he smiled ruefully at her – ‘especially after someone started sticking computer processors in my head.’

  ‘Never by choice,’ she said crossly.

  ‘Ah, choice,’ he said, humanity re-established. ‘Anyway, those bits of my mind that were damaged eventually healed.’ He studied her carefully, deciding it would be best for her to see it for herself rather than have him lecture her. ‘You said the bio-interface in my skull would grow according to demand, and that those bits of my mind governing my senses, the processing of certain kinds of information like mathematics, spatial ability, even aesthetics if there is such a part, were internalized, they had no reference frame . . .’

  He saw her expression, blank at first, then frown lines appearing on her forehead as she realized she had something to think about here, rather than just absorb.

  ‘Without any reference frame, without connections to the other parts of your mind, the bio-interface wouldn’t have known whether or not there was demand,’ she said. ‘It would have had two options. It could simply stop growing its neural net or have it keep on growing.’

  ‘It kept growing.’ He stabbed a finger towards the clean-room door. ‘And there was room for it.’

  ‘But that’s . . . separate . . .’

  He nodded once, waiting for her to catch up – and she did.

  ‘Of course, it continued to grow physically in your skull but informationally in your . . . spares.’

  ‘My vision is a prime example of what’s happened inside this body,’ he said. ‘The net has grown into my optic nerve and done a lot in my visual cortex. I can see into infra-red now, and a little into ultraviolet – though I think that’s the full physical extent available to me. I’m also no longer using the usual mental shorthand for anything I see.’

  ‘You’re processing everything, every detail?’

  ‘Different shorthand – using up a few more pages.’

  ‘Omniscience?’ Hannah asked, opening a container down beside his bed and taking out a standard undersuit for space apparel.

  ‘Hardly.’

  Swinging his legs off the surgical table was not quite so difficult as sitting upright had been, but still he felt exhausted after the effort. He felt disconnected too, but it was the familiar inertia experienced after a long deep sleep. An urgency in him was growing and his focus kept drifting away from this laboratory, out towards the smelting plant and the cinnabar asteroid, to the vortex generator and to the eight proctors now ranged all the way round it like priests guarding some temple relic.

  ‘We felt you,’ said the proctor named Judd. ‘Your orders?’

  ‘Unchanged by full consciousness,’ Saul replied mentally. ‘You have done well.’

  ‘There are inefficiencies,’ said the proctor Paul, who was currently with another proctor called David in the Arboretum cylinder world.

  ‘If you had taken full charge,’ Saul informed the android, ‘station personnel would have rebelled, creating greater inefficiencies.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Yes, of course you do.’

  These beings were something Saul needed to focus on closely when the opportunity arose, but right now he needed to get moving, to show himself to the people of this station, to optimize their chances of survival. Because, still, the approaching Scourge felt like a hot nail driving towards his eye.

  ‘I need to run some tests,’ said Hannah, frowning.

  ‘Only for your own reassurance,’ he answered. ‘I know my condition.’

  ‘Okay, so let me ask you again,’ she said. ‘How do you feel?’

  He allowed the sensation of pain for a second, then quickly shut that down. ‘Like I was shot three times and then operated on. Like my head has been opened up and most of the contents scooped out, and like I’ve been flat on my back for several months.’

  ‘Then precisely as you should feel.’ Hannah passed him the undersuit, then stooped down again to the container to begin unpacking a VC suit. In merely storing that clothing here, she had obviously tried to remain optimistic. ‘Do you need any help?’

  Despite her keeping garments ready for him, her tone told him she didn’t approve of him getting out of bed now without her checking him over. Perhaps she didn’t understand just how irrelevant his body felt to him. It was a much more complicated device than the robots he had earlier controlled and
was now reassuming control of, but to him it was still merely a telefactored biological machine.

  Considering that, his mind wandered off into some half-fugue state. There, in a strange way, he felt grateful for the shooting for, even though the manner of its occurrence was catastrophic, Saul had been pushed to what seemed like the next stage of his personal evolution: immortal mind – distributed, copied, safe, and his physical body just one of many he now controlled. In that moment he saw a possible future. As his abilities and the technologies he controlled increased, eventually there would come a time when he could grow replacement versions of himself, place within them the minds he required for any particular task and reabsorb that mind into his whole self after it completed that task.

  Then reality came back. All that was still for the future, and he had to survive the now.

  ‘I can manage,’ he replied – the answer intended for her and for something inside him.

  Slowly and methodically he eased himself from the bed, pulled the undersuit on over his scarred and tender flesh, then donned the vacuum combat suit, meticulously tightening its concertinaed seams. As he did this, he was also aware that when the alert had been transmitted to Hannah’s fone to bring her here, she had told Rhine what she was responding to. Rhine had quickly taken an almost childlike pleasure, which wasn’t without malice, in telling Le Roque. The technical director froze like a rabbit in the headlights before informing Langstrom, who had looked equally as frightened before getting himself under control and informing his staff. Thereafter the news had spread by fone and computer throughout the station.

  ‘How do I look?’ he eventually asked.

  ‘Like something hot from a Transylvanian tomb.’

  ‘Thank you for your support.’ He paused, now considering whether to answer her earlier question, and decided there would be no advantage in her not knowing.

  ‘You asked what woke me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes – you haven’t really explained that.’

  ‘It was a connection to the outside world, the conscious world, a connection running so deep it could not be ignored,’ he explained. ‘Even in the state I was in, I was still watching this station and still listening. I heard your recent tanglecom exchange with Varalia Delex.’

  ‘I don’t see any deep connection,’ said Hannah, puzzled.

  ‘Perhaps you did not notice her reaction when you told her my name. Maybe it’s understandable that you missed it. As for me, I hardly recognized her – since so few of the memories remain.’

  ‘Memories of what?’

  ‘Her name is Varalia Delex, but that’s her married name – from her husband, Latham Delex. Her maiden name is Varalia Saul. Hannah, she’s my sister.’

  Hannah’s expression registered shock, then all sorts of rapid calculation and reassessment. ‘You knew she was out here?’ she tentatively asked.

  ‘I knew she was offworld but I had no idea where. Perhaps that knowledge was a subconscious driving force, but I can’t even speculate on how much influence it has had on my actions and decisions since I found myself on the way into the Calais incinerator.’

  ‘You knew,’ Hannah asserted.

  ‘I thought you only dealt with empirical fact, Hannah?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, obviously still thinking hard.

  ‘Let’s get moving, shall we,’ he suggested.

  She gazed at him dubiously for a second, then reached up and touched her fone with her fingertips. ‘Langstrom is waiting for you outside, and Le Roque awaits you in Tech Central.’

  ‘Yes, I am aware of that.’ Saul smiled.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘I am not going to kill anyone, Hannah.’ He knew about Le Roque and Langstrom’s attempt to take control of the station, and he understood why they had felt the need.

  A dizzy spell hit him as he began to walk, and his vision doubled for a second as he established further control over his brain’s visual centre. Elsewhere within that organ, he could feel other control firmly establishing itself: the unsteady beat of his heart stabilizing as he finally relinquished remote control of it; other functions consciously controlled sliding over to autonomous function; memories copying back from his ‘spares’ as structures connected up in this physical body’s brain to contain them; the new neural network from the biochip firming up and windows flashing open and closed into the virtual world of the station. Opening the door and stepping out, he turned to his police commander, who was now accompanied only by the repro Manuel.

  ‘Langstrom,’ he said, noting the addition of lines of strain in the man’s face, a few grey hairs and a slight indentation to his jawline that signified the man had lost a tooth and had yet to have it replaced.

  ‘You’re . . . okay?’ Langstrom asked, gazing at him wide-eyed. ‘I didn’t quite believe . . .’

  ‘I am functional.’ Saul paused, remembering to appear human. ‘I’m in surprisingly good shape considering what happened to me, but we have the advanced medical technology here and the expertise.’ He reached over and clasped Hannah’s shoulder. ‘I’m alive, let’s put it that way.’ He smiled, then realized from Langstrom’s expression that he hadn’t managed that correctly. The repro, of course, hardly noticed. ‘So, what news on this remaining Messina clone?’

  Langstrom looked suddenly shamefaced. ‘No sign of him since a robot winged him when we ambushed both him and his partner aboard Messina’s space plane. I’m beginning to wonder if he just crawled away and died.’

  ‘We’ll find him,’ Saul assured the man. ‘Come.’ He set off along the corridor, meanwhile sending a mental summons to certain others whose presence he required.

  The journey to Tech Central was fraught with dangers for him. The tightness of his VC suit helmet caused psychosomatic pains he only managed to rid himself of by shutting down new nerve growth in his scalp. Outside the arcoplex, the zero-gravity falling sensations returned so strong he nearly lost control of his limbs, while also trying to again get the hang of using gecko boots. The weakness he felt from moving about after being so long bedridden could not be dispelled, and by the time he arrived in Tech Central he felt exhausted. However, he maintained rigid control and did not allow these weaknesses to show as he stepped inside the main control room and studied the people here: his people.

  Scourge

  Activity in the Scourge had ramped up and every time Clay stepped out of his cabin there would be someone hurrying to some destination, with an expression worried and intense. Throughout the initial months of their journey, everybody had worked efficiently, just doing their jobs, being professional, but as time progressed such activity sank into a kind of robotic boredom. Then there was the fight in the troop section, and Liang’s execution of one of those involved in it, but not its prime instigator. This had knocked any real trouble on the head, and discipline had further tightened up after Liang doubled up on combat theory and tests, for which the punishment for failure involved the use of a disabler, and he instituted weapons drills outside on the hull of the Scourge, which left the soldiers too tired to attack each other. Now that they were decelerating into the Asteroid Belt, however, they were all inside, constantly exercising in the ersatz gravity to rebuild muscle mass.

  With the crew there had been no further problems since Clay’s punishment of Pilot Officer Trove, and they remained completely correct around him, but distant. It was time for that to change, though Clay worried about what the extent of that change might be.

  ‘You summoned me,’ said Scotonis, after Clay had opened the door to his cabin. There was no audible resentment in his words, nor was it visible in his expression. But of course it was there, safely hidden.

  Clay returned to his chair, beside his small computer desk, and gestured towards his bed. Scotonis entered, moving a little woodenly, and sat down on it. ‘If you’ll pardon me, Political Officer Ruger, I do still have many preparations to make.’

  ‘Call me Clay.’

  ‘Certainly, Political Officer
Clay.’

  Clay grimaced. ‘Everything is thoroughly prepared and checked,’ he said, gazing at the other man. ‘Commander Liang is still keeping his troops constantly at the point of exhaustion, exercising them now we have gravity, then intends to take that load off them in about two weeks – two weeks before we intercept Argus Station. They will be in the very best condition for boarding the station, at least as far as training and physical fitness are concerned.’

  ‘I am at a loss to understand what you require, Officer Clay,’ said Scotonis blankly.

  Clay held up a finger to still him. ‘You are running your own crew ragged, but they are also willingly complying. Every system is being checked and rechecked, every error corrected just moments after it occurs and every nut and bolt tightened because nothing must be left to chance, because we all know the penalties of failure.’

  Unconsciously, Scotonis raised his fingers to touch his strangulation collar, then on realizing what he was doing, snapped his hand back down again. Clay had made his point, and now it was time for the gamble. Failure out here meant he would die, he was certain of that. If they failed to get what they wanted from Argus, yet survived that coming encounter, Galahad would send the signal to his own collar or perhaps to his ID implant and then, when it became evident that he had not died, she would order Scotonis or Liang to arrest him. His control of the inducers and readerguns aboard would give him some advantage over them, but what then? He couldn’t fly this ship alone.

  ‘If we fail out here,’ he said, ‘we all die.’

  Scotonis warily nodded agreement.

  ‘The least Galahad would do is kill both of us,’ he continued, ‘then perhaps kill some of your staff – but not all, because she’ll want this ship back.’

  ‘The least?’ Scotonis enquired.

  ‘I know her, Captain, and I’ve seen how she behaves. It’s quite likely that in a fit of rage she would kill everyone aboard, regret that action afterwards because of the loss of this ship, falsify some story over ETV, then move on.’

  ‘Our position is unenviable,’ Scotonis suggested.