‘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 the 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.
‘That’s a political system that probably can’t work satisfactorily out in space,’ Hannah admitted. ‘It has to be a Captain and his crew.’ Then she couldn’t help adding, ‘Or the Owner and the owned.’
Saul merely snorted.
As they reached the base of Arcoplex One, two more spiderguns approached them down the length of the cylinder, like dogs eager to greet their masters, joining them just as Saul and Hannah propelled themselves up towards the endcap. The spiderguns proceeded first through the airlock, but on the other side Hannah saw no one they needed guarding against. She reached up to detach her helmet, but Saul caught her arm.
‘The levels of putrescence in the air here have risen substantially,’ he advised. ‘Better remove it when we are a little further in.’
Only then did Hannah notice the flies gathered around the blood-crusted mouth of a nearby corpse.
‘Are all Messina’s people confined in here now?’ she asked, as they moved away from the mounded bodies and along a concave street.
‘They’re all here,’ he confirmed. ‘Messina and his delegates broke off for a recess after two hours of exhausting debate, and they have now secured themselves suitable apartments after ordering their staff to clear them of the previous occupants. Some of the staff even started using a digester to dispose of the corpses, but were ordered to desist until the Committee came to a decision on the matter.’
‘Are they total idiots?’
‘No, just mentally hardwired, still adhering to the old hierarchy – whilst Messina himself can’t accept that he now rules nothing.’
It seemed they were now far enough away from the endcap, because Saul removed his VC helmet and hung it from a hook on his belt. As Hannah removed her own, she detected some of the stink. Perhaps those already here for a while hadn’t noticed the smell increasing. But they would definitely notice once the corpses began crawling with maggots.
Ahead, now, Hannah could see people on the move, all of them heading for a large building extending right up to the central spindle of the cylinder. Many of them kept looking back towards her and Saul, while trying to propel themselves along faster. She glanced at Saul questioningly.
‘I ordered them all to their conference chamber. The place has room to contain all of them, and is equipped with large screens.’
‘And what images will you display on them?’
‘Enough, let’s hope, to burn out some of that hard wiring.’
Govnet opened up like a whore eager to get her business over with and virally dispatching copies of the programs he was running aboard the station proved easier still. He particularly needed to shift round vast blocks of data, but not necessarily in his own mind, so he just hijacked a range of computer systems down on Earth and let them do the work instead. All this meant was that it would all take just a little longer to kick off. Essentially he was doing, on a vaster scale, what he had already done aboard the station at large, and this time no other comlife stood in his way. Leaving processes running, he now focused a small proportion of his attention elsewhere.
‘Langstrom,’ he said, uttering the name merely in his mind, as he saw the new Security Director suiting up along with forty of his men.