noted, not exactly pleased to have been right.
‘Did not have . . . ID implants removed,’ Saul whispered through her fone.
Hannah nodded; that was it, of course. The twenty-two victims were those delegates who had not had their ID implants removed before the EM shield shut down. She picked up a scalpel, ran a finger
down the corpse’s arm until she felt a slight lump, made an incision and, using a pair of forceps, removed the implant and took it over to the nanoscope.
‘Le Roque,’ said Saul from the intercom. ‘I want you to return to the control centre and get a team busy analysing that data from Earth further and collating anything else they
find of relevance.’
Tick-tock – another prepared order.
‘I see,’ said the technical director.
As she stood beside the nanoscope, Hannah turned and glanced back at Le Roque through the glass. He looked pale and grim as he headed away. Did he hear it? Did he notice the disconnection
between Saul’s words and Saul himself? Or was that just her imagination working overtime? She returned her attention to the implant and dropped it into a sample tube, which she then inserted
into the nanoscope. She concentrated fully on what she was doing but, even so, the implication of Saul’s instruction nagged at her. The video feed she had seen might be only a very small part
of the whole story. The implications hit home fully when she studied the implant, checked the hardware that interfaced with the body it occupied and found the biochip. It was saturated with the
virus and its surface structures clearly indicated that, when active, it had actually been in the process of generating the thing.
‘Earth was hit first,’ she said leadenly, ‘then the signal got through once our EM shield went down.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Raiman, moving over to stand beside her. He had not seen the video feed; wasn’t entirely sure what this was all about.
‘Check implants already removed . . . if they . . . still available,’ Saul said to her through her fone, then out loud, ‘Yes, Earth.’
He had to hang on in: there was too much to do, too many preparations to make. He drifted about the station, sometimes watching ghostlike through cams, sometimes wholly
occupying virtual worlds. He felt weary, utterly drained and at the limit.
Must concentrate.
A view opened into Langstrom’s office, where the soldier sat at his desk gazing at a video file on his screen. It was a transmission picked up from a camera on an aero back on Earth, and
the horrifying scene it showed was thoroughly familiar to Saul.
‘You have a report for me,’ he said, speaking from the intercom, his cam reception breaking up even with that small effort.
Langstrom jerked and looked around at the door, then up at the nearest cam. He nodded and cleared his throat. ‘I do.’
‘Make it.’
The soldier cleared his throat again, and stood up. ‘The shooter might have been one of Messina’s troops, because we’re getting no DNA match with anyone we know of in the
station. During our search of the outer ring, one of my teams was fired on, and two of my men killed. We returned fire, then went in pursuit and saw two people fleeing.’ He paused, obviously
uneasy. ‘We had them backed up against one of the ring sections, where new supports are going in for the enclosure, but they escaped across it and lost themselves somewhere in the next two
kilometres of ring.’
Langstrom had relied on Saul’s omniscience; expecting the two shooters to be unable to cross an area swarming with robots, expecting these people to be caught or killed. Here, then, was
definite proof of Saul’s debility.
‘Keep searching . . . I want them found,’ he said, unable to put together a plausible explanation for the inaction of his robots in the time he had to talk.
‘We’ve still got them confined to the outer—’ Langstrom began.
‘Later,’ Saul snapped, then set pre-recorded words running. ‘You need to go to
‘Did not have . . . ID implants removed,’ Saul whispered through her fone.
Hannah nodded; that was it, of course. The twenty-two victims were those delegates who had not had their ID implants removed before the EM shield shut down. She picked up a scalpel, ran a finger
down the corpse’s arm until she felt a slight lump, made an incision and, using a pair of forceps, removed the implant and took it over to the nanoscope.
‘Le Roque,’ said Saul from the intercom. ‘I want you to return to the control centre and get a team busy analysing that data from Earth further and collating anything else they
find of relevance.’
Tick-tock – another prepared order.
‘I see,’ said the technical director.
As she stood beside the nanoscope, Hannah turned and glanced back at Le Roque through the glass. He looked pale and grim as he headed away. Did he hear it? Did he notice the disconnection
between Saul’s words and Saul himself? Or was that just her imagination working overtime? She returned her attention to the implant and dropped it into a sample tube, which she then inserted
into the nanoscope. She concentrated fully on what she was doing but, even so, the implication of Saul’s instruction nagged at her. The video feed she had seen might be only a very small part
of the whole story. The implications hit home fully when she studied the implant, checked the hardware that interfaced with the body it occupied and found the biochip. It was saturated with the
virus and its surface structures clearly indicated that, when active, it had actually been in the process of generating the thing.
‘Earth was hit first,’ she said leadenly, ‘then the signal got through once our EM shield went down.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Raiman, moving over to stand beside her. He had not seen the video feed; wasn’t entirely sure what this was all about.
‘Check implants already removed . . . if they . . . still available,’ Saul said to her through her fone, then out loud, ‘Yes, Earth.’
He had to hang on in: there was too much to do, too many preparations to make. He drifted about the station, sometimes watching ghostlike through cams, sometimes wholly
occupying virtual worlds. He felt weary, utterly drained and at the limit.
Must concentrate.
A view opened into Langstrom’s office, where the soldier sat at his desk gazing at a video file on his screen. It was a transmission picked up from a camera on an aero back on Earth, and
the horrifying scene it showed was thoroughly familiar to Saul.
‘You have a report for me,’ he said, speaking from the intercom, his cam reception breaking up even with that small effort.
Langstrom jerked and looked around at the door, then up at the nearest cam. He nodded and cleared his throat. ‘I do.’
‘Make it.’
The soldier cleared his throat again, and stood up. ‘The shooter might have been one of Messina’s troops, because we’re getting no DNA match with anyone we know of in the
station. During our search of the outer ring, one of my teams was fired on, and two of my men killed. We returned fire, then went in pursuit and saw two people fleeing.’ He paused, obviously
uneasy. ‘We had them backed up against one of the ring sections, where new supports are going in for the enclosure, but they escaped across it and lost themselves somewhere in the next two
kilometres of ring.’
Langstrom had relied on Saul’s omniscience; expecting the two shooters to be unable to cross an area swarming with robots, expecting these people to be caught or killed. Here, then, was
definite proof of Saul’s debility.
‘Keep searching . . . I want them found,’ he said, unable to put together a plausible explanation for the inaction of his robots in the time he had to talk.
‘We’ve still got them confined to the outer—’ Langstrom began.
‘Later,’ Saul snapped, then set pre-recorded words running. ‘You need to go to
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