It took less than four seconds, and by the time Brigitta Saberhagen dared peer nervously into the lobby, Saul had already donned an undersuit and was pulling a VC suit out of an open locker. Drops of blood and bits of brain still tumbled through the air, as she stared at him, lost for words.
‘Hide somewhere safe,’ he urged her. ‘Somewhere in the outer levels might be the best choice.’ He paused in thought for a moment. ‘Be sure to wear survival gear, and try to find some way of immobilizing yourselves.’
‘What are you intending to do?’
‘Something rather more than I originally came here to do. I am going to free Earth of the Argus Network, and incidentally free it of the Committee, too. Now you go.’
Brigitta ducked back out of sight.
With his VC suit fully secured, Saul collected various weapons, gratified to find a couple of short Kalashtek assault carbines. He slung them on his back, along with a large pack of ceramic ammunition, then belted a side arm round his waist, after discovering it could fire the same bullets. He also broke open a computer supplies cupboard to find some neatly packaged optic cables, which he slipped into a pouch on his belt, before heading out towards the cell-block airlock, switching himself over to the VC suit’s air supply as he went. Exiting the half-completed tubeway, he watched the fireworks display far ahead of him, noting all the troop positions within the lattice walls. He knew precisely what he was going to do, but the time for that was not yet right. He needed Messina, along with whatever forces the man had brought up into orbit, landed on the station itself, and preferably embroiled in battle further in than the outer rim.
Then he would kill them.
Despite his initial confidence, it seemed Smith was not so sure of himself now. His forehead was beaded with sweat and he kept gobbling painkillers and stimulants like sweets. From a recent fraught dialogue between him and Langstrom, Hannah gathered that the assault force had unexpectedly fortified its position around the dock and, despite Langstrom sending troops against them, stubbornly refused to be drawn into an all-out conflict. And now it seemed that an entire fleet of the space planes was on its way up, obviously bringing in reinforcements as well as Messina and his inner circle of trustworthy delegates.
‘You’re going to lose,’ said Hannah.
Smith seemed not to have heard her, his concentration perhaps focused elsewhere in the station, then he jerked upright as if some subsidiary part of his mind had only just brought her words to his attention. He turned to stare at her, his expression somewhat puzzled.
‘The blame for current circumstances lies with Alan Saul,’ he announced. ‘Alessandro Messina will soon realize why I have so few readerguns at my disposal.’
Hannah tried to make sense of that statement, but just couldn’t fathom it. It was almost as if Smith expected Messina to forgive him for him proving unable to kill Messina’s troops. Always, on hearing Smith speak, she had been conscious of there being something about his convoluted verbal structures, his strange emphasis on certain words and inappropriate emotional reactions, that combined to hint at some sort of malfunction inside his head. However, now it seemed utterly plain to her: Smith had completely lost his mind. Hannah did not get a chance to take this conversation any further because, almost as if that mention of his name had summoned him, Alessandro Messina himself appeared on one of the screens. Smith turned back to it, nodding to himself, as if Messina’s appearance somehow confirmed his most recent statement.
‘Good morning, citizen,’ said Messina, ‘or whatever part of the day it is where you are.’
There was something odd about Messina’s appearance now, on this high-definition screen, that Hannah had never noticed before in his regular broadcasts to the people. At first glance, he looked like a thirty-year-old, with those clear eyes, clear skin and black curly hair, but closer inspection revealed a shiny, almost plastic, texture to his skin, teeth that were altogether too perfect, and a nose and ears that seemed strangely out of proportion to the rest of his face. That skin tone she assumed must be the result of some early anti-ageing treatment he had undergone. The teeth were clearly ceramic implants, and the ears and nose were so big because those earlier treatments did not halt the continued growth of nose and ear gristle which was found in the very old. Messina, after all, had been alive for nearly a hundred and ten years.
‘By current Argus time, it is just after midday,’ Smith volunteered.
‘Ah . . . well, the sun was just rising as we departed Earth, so for me it’s still mid-morning. How are you Smith, no ill effects from those cerebral implants, I trust?’
‘I am perfectly functional, Chairman Messina,’ Smith replied. ‘All the same, despite the superior mental functions I now enjoy, I am puzzled as to why your troops arriving here felt it necessary to murder at least fifty Committee delegates before seizing part of this station. I therefore wonder if the rest of the Committee is aware of this action.’
‘Most of the remainder of the Committee now accompanies me, aboard these planes. I want to keep them close so as to ensure their . . . safety. Oh, perhaps you have not yet heard about the latest tragic event? During the recent insurrection, some terrorists managed to release nerve gas inside a hall in which about one hundred and seventy delegates were assembled for an off-the-record meeting.’
Smith stared at the screen for a long moment, before repeating numbly, ‘One hundred and seventy.’
‘Yes,’ Messina continued with relish, ‘and for the duration of this emergency the remaining delegates have voted me a position worthy of my ancestry. They have made me dictator for life.’
‘Yet that still does not explain why your troops have embarked upon such a hostile penetration of this station,’ Smith insisted.
‘The Argus Station, as far as we are aware, is under the control of someone evidently hostile to the Committee. How else to explain the laser attack upon Minsk, the subsequent destruction of two space planes, and then the systematic disabling of most of the working portion of the Argus satellite network?’
‘One Alan Saul, a person of whom you have knowledge, temporarily took control of a section of this station. He now languishes in a cell, under inducement,’ said Smith, ‘so now I take it I can expect the hostilities up here to cease?’
‘It will be necessary for me to assess the situation personally,’ replied Messina, putting on a sad expression. Then a thought seemed to perk him up. ‘However, I do look forward to renewing your acquaintance, Smith. I look forward to that very much.’
Messina’s image blinked out, to be replaced by Langstrom’s.
‘What is the current number of planes approaching?’ Smith asked him.
‘Twenty-eight,’ Langstrom replied.
‘And in your estimation, how many troops?’
‘Messina knows exactly how many are based here, and therefore the resistance he may expect to face,’ said Langstrom. ‘He’ll be bringing up no less than two hundred troops, but with that number of planes, he could be bringing as many as a thousand.’
‘Then it is my requirement that you mount your defence on that basis.’
‘We’ve got no defence that’ll work.’
‘When you have your plans ready, submit them to me at once.’
‘Sir, we don’t stand a chance.’
‘You should also prepare a hard copy to keep on file, whilst transmitting a data copy down to Central in Brussels. It is best not to be incautious in such matters.’
Langstrom gazed at him in silence for a long moment, before he said, ‘Whatever,’ and shut off the connection.