Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

20

The Dead Hand on the Helm

Looking back, we can now see how the introverted gaze of the human race resulted in the disasters of the past, and that this began the moment that socialism and social justice were taken up and perverted by the politicians. Ostensibly focusing on the ‘greatest good for the greatest number – and right now’, while actually gathering more power and wealth for themselves, they failed to learn the lessons of history and failed also to prepare for the future. Had the Committee expended more world resources on building up the space programme rather than on augmenting its leaden bureaucracy and the mechanisms of controlling the growing population, had it not suppressed science that did not directly serve the Committee itself and therefore relegated original thinkers to its cells – effectively bringing technological growth to a halt for over a century – things would have been altogether better. It is contestable that, rather than now looking back on the mass exterminations occurring in the twenty-second century, we would be looking back instead on a flowering of humanity across the solar system, combined with the technological singularity and the beginning of the post-human world. Twenty-twenty hindsight is always too easy, but that’s not to say it isn’t correct.

Scourge

All of Liang’s forces had been deployed inside and were now engaged in shooting up the station.

‘So now it’s time to go,’ said Clay, because he did not like the introspective silence the three on the bridge had fallen into.

Scotonis took a moment to reply, so perhaps he was having second thoughts. Perhaps he, too, had felt that odd sense of pride in seeing the troops they had brought here storming the station.

‘Make him do it,’ murmured Trove. ‘Let’s see if he has any value at all.’

‘Yes, time to go,’ Scotonis said, then turned his gaze up to the camera through which Clay was watching him. ‘And time for you to make yourself useful.’

A familiar sinking sensation occupied Clay’s gut. ‘In what way?’

‘One of our anchors is failing to disengage,’ said Scotonis. ‘I want you to suit up, head down to the barracks section and collect a two-kilo demolition charge from there – Liang left plenty behind for resupply. Then place it on the anchor concerned, which is clearly visible just beyond the disembarkation ramp.’

‘You what?’ Clay exclaimed in dismay.

‘You know how to put on a suit and you know how to operate that type of charge,’ said Scotonis. ‘Which of my instructions are you finding unclear?’

‘Send one of your crew,’ argued Clay.

‘Yes, I could do that.’ Scotonis nodded introspectively. ‘I could order one of my crew – twelve of whom have already died and eight more of whom are in Medical – to go and risk their lives while you sit there comfortably in Messina’s quarters.’

‘They would be better at it,’ protested Clay desperately. Why was Scotonis doing this? Did he intend to leave Clay behind on Argus, too?

‘No, it’s a simple task,’ said Scotonis. ‘All it requires is a little technical knowledge, which you have – and a little bravery, which we have yet to ascertain.’

Trove’s words finally hit home and Clay realized what this was all about. He reckoned there must have been some disagreement concerning him. Doubtless Trove – and maybe others – had argued against Scotonis’s decision not to kill him. This was therefore in the nature of a test. This was to see if he ‘had value’; it was his hazing, his baptism by fire. Obviously Scotonis knew his crew well enough to consider it necessary. And quite likely it was necessary, if Clay was not to end up being murdered in one of the ship’s corridors during the return journey to Earth. Clay had to show these people he was one of them.

‘Very well,’ he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.

He unstrapped himself from his chair and stood up, tried to think of something appropriate to say, but found his mouth had dried out.

‘And close up the space door on your way back in,’ said Scotonis, offering him something. ‘We can’t control that from up here – it can only be accessed remotely by Liang or closed by using the panel beside it. That’s another divisive allocation of control from Galahad.’

Clay reluctantly turned and headed for the door, and went through it. For a while he walked in a dismal haze, then shook himself out of it as he reached the executive quarters. Here he located a suit storage room, which he quickly entered. He had hoped for a nicely armoured VC suit but his search revealed that only an adapted Martian EA suit remained – offering no protection at all. He began to don it slowly, then mentally pushed himself to hurry up. The quicker he moved, the sooner this nightmare would be over.

Once he had the suit on, he ran diagnostics and found no further excuse for delay. He headed down to the barracks, now open to vacuum, and stepped through the airlock to gain access. Inside the new disembarkation tube, he gazed at the mess all about him: fragments of material drifting through vacuum; equipment abandoned at the last moment, such as packs, magazines for missile-launchers and one or two weapons; and four corpses with suits burned black, hideously mutilated faces gazing through their spattered visors. He moved along the tube, avoiding the entrance into the section where the maser had struck, and entered the next section. Further equipment here, stacked in a more orderly manner.

Clay walked over to a stack of plastic crates whose labels indicated that they contained explosives. Checking the contents lists below the labels, he soon found what he wanted and pulled open that particular crate. Two-kilo demolition charges were stacked inside it like packets of butter. He pulled one out and studied the inset detonator, which was no more difficult to operate than setting up a wristwatch. He stood up, still holding it, and headed for the space door.

The disembarkation tube took him to the open space door, now hinged down to act as a ramp. The vista of Argus Station beyond was nicely lit up by the Scourge’s exterior LED lights. He paused at the threshold and gazed across a plain of metal extending to Tech Central, studying the torn-up areas where the station’s weapons had been destroyed, but the only movement he could detect there was of corpses drifting amidst wrecked robots and other shattered equipment. The battle was now taking place inside the station, so there was no danger for him here. He had been stupid to be so fearful.

With new confidence Clay strode down the lowered ramp, paused to locate the cable emerging from underneath the ship, and traced it to an anchor embedded in the station’s hull just twenty metres away. He headed over there and started to position the charge against it at the joint where the cable connected.

‘Ruger, get a damned move on, will you?’

This sudden order from Scotonis made him jump, the demolition charge tumbling away from him until he snagged it out of the air.

‘It’s not sensible to be too hasty when dealing with explosives,’ Clay replied sniffily, securing the charge in place before flicking on the timer of the detonator. He set the countdown to five minutes, which should give him plenty of time to get back inside the ship and see the space door safely closed.

‘Are you done?’ asked Scotonis.

‘Yes, I’m done.’ Clay stood up.

‘Then perhaps you’d better take a look over at the station’s technical control centre.’

Clay glanced that way, and gaped. He could see the flashing of weapons, fragments of metal and the debris of ceramic bullets cutting lines across the station’s hull. A number of Liang’s troops were now running back towards the ship, under fire from Tech Central, where Clay could now see construction robots scuttling into view.

‘Move it, Ruger!’ Scotonis bellowed.

Clay moved it, but had to slow down as, in his panic, his gecko boots threatened to detach themselves from the hull. He concentrated on walking as fast but as safely as possible, which didn’t increase his pace much above a stroll. Finally he mounted the sloping ramp of the space door, headed up inside and turned to the console that controlled the door. A glance at the approaching troops made him realize he might already be too late; nevertheless he clicked through the menu to set the motors running, and slowly the door began to rise.

‘Use the ship’s guns on them,’ he urged.

‘I was more concerned about the robots,’ replied Scotonis. ‘A few deserters are hardly a problem to us.’

Clay did not bother pointing out that, though they might not be a problem to Scotonis or his plans, they could certainly be a problem for Clay himself. But Scotonis already knew that, and clearly it didn’t much concern him.

Clay watched the figures approaching. The firing from Tech Central had ceased, and one of the two pursuing robots seemed to have been disabled. The other one was still coming, though slowly, and apparently damaged. Two of the men were down, slumped motionless against the hull. One of the soldiers towards the rear turned and opened fire on the surviving robot, just as the first of the men leaped onto the rising door. It must have been accurate shooting because the robot went down like a felled buffalo. That soldier at the rear hurried after the rest, and Clay realized that all of them were going to get aboard.

Time to go.

Clay turned to head up the disembarkation tube. He would proceed through the airlock, and back into executive quarters, then seal the airlock behind him. He managed only two paces before a gloved hand slammed down on his shoulder, pulled him back and thrust him to the floor. He now found himself gazing along the barrel of a Kalashtech towards the face of a black man. He didn’t recollect seeing a black man among Liang’s soldiers – not that he had necessarily seen them all. Suddenly he began to get a feeling that something was very wrong here. The black man raised a finger to his visor. Shush, be quite now. Clay did not dare speak.

The last of the soldiers had managed to get in by throwing himself through a steadily narrowing gap as the space door closed up. Watching them, Clay did not notice the panic-stricken relief of troops who had just escaped with their lives. They seemed efficient; seemed to know what they were doing. One of them went over to a wall console and began tapping something in. Red lights started flashing as the door fully closed – an indication that the space was now recharging with air. Other men started moving along the tube, checking each of the troop sections in turn, entering them just like soldiers checking buildings during urban warfare. As the lights flashed to amber, one of the troops began disengaging his helmet. That was when Clay realized everything he had witnessed out there had been staged, and that the enemy was aboard.

The lights turned to green, indicating the space was fully pressurized. Clay knew that if he spoke, if he tried to alert Scotonis, he would get a bullet straight in his face. He therefore kept his mouth firmly closed as all the other men removed their helmets, but for the one holding him at gunpoint. The black man then gestured him to his feet and indicated that he should remove his helmet, which he did. As another soldier pressed the barrel of an automatic against Clay’s temple, the black man also removed his helmet, and Clay finally recognized him as Commander Langstrom.

‘Stinks in here,’ observed Langstrom.

‘Seems the maser cooked a few of them,’ said another, stabbing a thumb back towards the rear troop section. ‘Why did you bother to keep him alive?’

‘I thought it was a good idea,’ said Langstrom, ‘as we might need some intel about the ship’s interior.’ Langstrom turned to another member of this group, who presently stood with his back to the rest as he studied a wall console. ‘Do we actually need him, sir?’

That other individual turned round, and Clay felt stark terror as he was examined by those pink eyes in a preternaturally pale face. Alan Saul himself was right here in front of him, just a few metres away from him.

‘We’ll keep him for the moment,’ said Saul. ‘If I can’t access the ship’s systems from here, he can show me a better access point.’

Taking an optic from a pouch at his belt, Saul plugged one end straight into a socket in his skull, then turned and plugged the other into a jack point in the console. He dipped his head, obviously concentrating hard while the others fidgeted nervously.

‘That’s interesting,’ he said contemplatively, then turned his gazed back to Clay. ‘So, tell me, Clay Ruger, why did you offline all the ship’s inducers?’

‘They weren’t needed,’ Clay replied, the gun barrel pressed against his head feeling as if it was about to bore into his skull.

‘I see,’ said Saul, his expression turning distant. Then he added, ‘I have them.’

Clay risked speaking again. ‘What do you have?’

‘Sending now,’ Saul ignored him, ‘though of course it will be a little while before it takes effect.’ He then smiled briefly. ‘I’ve also left a little something for Galahad.’

‘We need to get out of here, too,’ said Langstrom.

‘No problem,’ Saul explained. ‘I’ve disabled all the ship’s armaments, and they just won’t have enough time to get them working again.’

‘That’s it?’ said Langstrom disbelievingly.

‘That’s it,’ Saul replied, disconnecting the optic, coiling it up and putting it away again.

The green lights were now back on, flashing before changing back to amber, and Clay could hear the wail of escaping air as all around him began putting their helmets back on.

‘What about him?’ asked the one who was holding a gun to Clay’s head.

‘What about him?’ Saul shrugged. ‘He’s as dead as the rest of them and, like them, he just doesn’t know it yet.’ Saul donned his own helmet.

Escaping air became like a wind as the weapon withdrew from Clay’s temple. He quickly put his helmet back on. He could have been shot then for doing so, but he would just as certainly die if he merely stood there. The ramp was now part of the way down again, and one of the soldiers was getting ready to climb out. Clay began backing away from them, and was ignored.

What did he mean by ‘dead as the rest of them’?

Just then the charge detonated outside; a bright flash showing through the opening space door, shortly followed by a shower of metal fragments. Clay used this distraction to break away and run for the airlock leading back into the ship’s executive section, expecting to receive a bullet at any moment. As he opened the airlock, he saw shots pinging off the metalwork nearby, then his head was jerked sideways by one ricocheting off his helmet. He threw himself beyond the airlock and ran, diving into one of the crew sections, desperately searching for some kind of weapon and finding only a large wrench. He picked it up and waited.

‘Are you done there?’ asked Scotonis over his suit radio. ‘That door is still open.’

Clay peeked out. The intruders were all gone – he could now see them loping towards Tech Central, the two who had apparently fallen out there getting up and rejoining them. He stepped out and headed for the space door control, and set it to close again.

‘I’m done,’ he replied. ‘We need to go now.’

‘We are going,’ replied Scotonis. ‘Did you send those troops back out?’

‘They left voluntarily,’ Clay replied, slightly worried about the tinge of hysteria in his voice.

Argus

A blizzard of hardened breach sealant swirled through the smoky air. The fight in the dividing section of the Arboretum had spilled out into the main Arboretum itself, and the crackle of gunfire was now constant. Alex’s main problem was identifying his targets. Someone had told them to put their helmets back on, which rather buggered up infrared detection, especially with the numerous fires and other hot spots created by explosions and tracer bullets.

‘It is getting a little fraught up here,’ noted Messina.

It certainly was. The crackling of gunfire in the surrounding trees was frequently punctuated by the crump of a grenade going off. Though they were concealed by the surrounding foliage, it in no way protected them. Alex studied the arm of his suit, where the padding had been rucked up and was spattered with blood. It didn’t hurt and his mobility was unimpaired so he didn’t think there could be much damage. However, he was aware how, in the heat of battle, it was easy not to register quite serious wounds.

Bullets zipped like vicious hornets into the foliage in a nearby tree, leaving severed leaves and twigs drifting away. Alex swung his rifle towards the spot where he suspected the shooter was concealed, but he could see no identifiable target through the smoke.

‘They must have some general idea where we are by now,’ he said. ‘Should we relocate?’

‘Is that what a soldier would do?’ asked Messina, eyeing him doubtfully.

‘Yes, it is, sir.’

‘Sir?’ said the erstwhile Chairman, his expression flat.

‘It’s what I always used to call you.’

‘You knew me . . . from before?’

The hidden sniper fired into the other tree once again, using up an entire clip to hit the same place as before. Whole branches tumbled away and tracers started a couple of small fires. So much foliage had ended up drifting away after that one fusillade that it must soon be evident that the tree was unoccupied. Someone obviously thought they were concealed there, but it wouldn’t take them long to realize their mistake. Similar saturation fire into the tree they were hiding in would kill both himself and Messina very quickly.

‘Did you clock that?’ said Messina.

‘I’m on it,’ Alex replied, adjusting his aim to the source of the tracer bullets. Nothing much was identifiable through the murk, but at least he now had a better general idea of the shooter’s position. He centred his cross hairs, squeezed the trigger and held it back, emptying a full clip, then he quickly changed clips and waited.

‘That seems to—’

A hail of gunfire hit their tree, smacking and cracking all about them, raking up nests of splinters like porcupine spines. Alex reached out, grabbed Messina by the shoulder and shoved him off the edge of the platform. The man didn’t need any more impetus before taking himself rapidly down the tree trunk. Alex hurled himself down next, head-first, flipping over at the last moment and landing heavily on his back, before bouncing and then floating up again until Messina grabbed him. The fusillade of fire continued for a while longer, then abruptly cut out.

‘So you knew me from before?’ said Messina.

‘Yes, I knew you from before,’ gasped Alex, turning towards him.

Messina nodded contemplatively, then pointed towards a nearby penetration lock. It seemed a sensible place to go, since it offered more cover than anything else nearby. They began to crawl towards it.

They were just ten or so metres from the tree when a grenade exploded behind them. Both hung on to the ground, twigs and leaves storming above them, shortly followed by the whole tree tumbling end over end. Yes, if they’d stayed in it, they would be dead by now.

‘What was I like?’ Messina asked as they began crawling away again.

The question gave Alex pause for consideration. What was Messina like? It having been so long since his last reconditioning, he now found it difficult to form a clear picture of him in his mind.

‘You were a leader of men,’ he replied.

As they approached the penetration lock, Alex paused by a soldier’s corpse. The woman was floating just off the ground, held in place only by a commando knife she had thrust into the soil. There was a bullet hole through her visor and it was full of blood, one eyeball pressing against the glass. He pulled her down and relieved her of her ammunition and her sidearm. Shortly after that, he and Messina reached the penetration lock. After the initial three troops had come through here and died, the attackers had ceased to use it. It could be used again at any moment, but that would be no problem since he and Messina would have plenty of warning. They hunkered down next to it, on either side, Messina covering one direction while Alex covered the other.

The shooting continued all around them, streaks of tracer bullets cutting through smoke and debris. The air quality, Alex noted, was getting quite bad, and he had to keep snorting dirt and splinters out of his nose. This was the problem with fighting in zero gravity: the detritus thrown up by bullets and explosions didn’t just settle back to the ground.

‘It was confusing at first,’ Messina continued. ‘There I was, with no memory of my past, doing what I was told while trying to understand the hatred directed at me. I was assaulted frequently, and nearly got killed on the last occasion. But now my confusion is gone.’

‘It’s gone?’ said Alex, noncommittally.

‘They tried to keep it from me, of course, but the image of the face I possessed before is not something that can be concealed for long.’

Alex looked round to see him up on his knees now and gazing back, resting his shoulder against the penetration lock.

‘I know who I was,’ he said – a little sadly, Alex thought.

‘You were Chairman Alessandro Messina, ruler of Earth,’ Alex stated firmly. Then his gaze strayed to what he assumed was a chunk of debris sailing through the air towards them. It took him half a second further to realize his mistake.

‘Grenade!’ he shouted, heaving himself to his feet and reaching for Messina.

The erstwhile ruler of Earth stood up, ready to throw himself clear, then took a couple of steps forward, forced by the impact of the bullets hitting his back and blowing chunks of flesh and rib out of his chest. Alex rolled aside, firing at a half-seen figure, coming back up onto his knees as the same figure staggered, then sighting properly and emptying the new clip into it. He saw bits of his target flying away, before the grenade detonated and picked him up in a hot fist.

Screaming somewhere . . . Alex realized it was himself as he was hammered into foliage and finally slammed to a halt against a solid branch. With his ears ringing, he dragged himself back to the ground and then headed over to the penetration lock. But Messina wasn’t there. Alex looked up and saw his Chairman’s remains revolving in the air above him, like some grotesque expanded sculpture constructed of offal.

Alex went into the trees and found the assailant dead, cut in half. He moved on, no longer concerned now for his own safety; determined to find someone else to kill. When his ammunition ran out, he grabbed up more from the new corpses; when he couldn’t find any more ammunition he used a commando knife or his bare hands. Towards the end, his opponents didn’t seem to put up much of a fight. He did not know why. How long passed before he realized that the shooting had stopped, he didn’t know. He found himself back by the same penetration lock, on his knees, covered in blood, most of which was not his own.

It was over.

Alex reached down to his belt and drew the sidearm he had taken earlier from the corpse here and which, during his madness, he had completely forgotten about. He put the barrel in his mouth, tasted metal and powder residue, and there he paused for a brief eternity, until he realized he had no reason to pull the trigger. He shoved the weapon back into his utility belt and stood up, looking around.

From close beside Hannah, missile after missile sped up into the roof, the blasts tearing out beams and wall panels, filling the air with hot wreckage and creating a burning hollow down through which the soldiers kept throwing themselves. The fires etched them starkly in silhouette, made them easy targets. Hannah hated how obvious the killing was each time she aimed and fired, then watched one of them jerk about like a fish on a line. Plasma shots rose up like ack-ack fire and turned four of them in a row into screaming torches while oily smoke billowed.

Though terrified, Hannah felt a horrified sympathy for the enemy even as she shot them. They possessed no more self-determination than just about anyone on Earth, perhaps even less. They had been directed into this assault with little regard for their lives. To those that had sent them they were just a disposable asset. Taking the station was all that mattered to Serene Galahad; the human cost was irrelevant.

The attack stuttered to a halt amid a snowstorm of fire-retardant foam. Ten minutes passed, though it seemed to be eons. They were probably regrouping, calling in reinforcements, doing whatever it was soldiers did after receiving a bloody nose.

‘Is anyone else hit?’ Hannah eventually called out.

‘James and Tyson are dead,’ Brigitta replied. ‘I’ve lost two fingers from my left hand and none of the rest of us is in good shape.’

Wondering which one of them had been Tyson, Hannah suggested, ‘Use your suit medical kits while you can.’ It would be suicide to venture out of cover now, so they just had to do the best they could.

Brigitta replied. ‘Have you got any ice?’

‘What for?’ Hannah asked.

‘My fingers.’ It seemed Brigitta had a streak of morbid humour, only just revealed.

‘Sorry, no.’

Angela called out to her sister, ‘Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of spares.’ This humour seemed a family trait.

A further twenty minutes dragged past. Gunfire and explosions could still be heard throughout the arcoplex, and somewhere close above them a fierce firefight erupted. This lasted for a good five minutes, until a large blast terminated it abruptly.

‘Get ready,’ Hannah warned.

Another blast behind spun Hannah round. They were trying the corridor again and had encountered another of Rhine’s booby traps. As she opened fire on figures only half seen through the smoke, she heard Angela’s grunt beside her and saw her sit back, gazing down at a hole in her thigh.

‘Angela?’

The quiet one of the Saberhagen twins grimaced, then raised her plasma weapon again and turned the far end of the corridor into an inferno. A few further missiles converted it into a route no one would be venturing along for a while.

Next the soldiers were again descending from above and the firefight was renewed, the nightmare continued. This fresh battle could only have lasted minutes, yet it seemed ages before the firing from above became only sporadic, then finally ceased. Hannah gazed in perpetually growing horror at the scene before her: the corpses floating through the air, the commingled cloud of body parts and gobbets of flesh, blood and a thousand twinkling stars composed of glass and bits of foam. The two lab assistants, who had been taking it in turns with the missile-launcher, quickly ventured into the factory to snare a floating corpse from the air and relieve it of its weapons and ammo.

‘Angela?’ Hannah repeated.

‘It won’t kill me,’ she replied, now tightening a tourniquet about her leg.

‘Are we all good?’ Hannah called.

‘No more deaths,’ Brigitta replied.

Only then did Hannah notice that her own leg was hurting and look down to see it soaked with blood around an embedded chunk of glass. When had that happened? She had no idea. She reached out and touched the bloody shard, before deciding it would be best to leave it where it was.

‘It will take effect quickly,’ Saul whispered to her, through her fone. ‘High heart rate, adrenalin . . .’

‘What was that?’ Hannah asked. ‘Alan?’

Reception was terrible: a perpetual buzzing broke up his next words, turning them into nonsense. Then he spoke again, clearly. ‘They’re stopping now,’ he told her. ‘They know something is wrong.’

‘Alan?’

‘I’ve killed them all,’ he said. Then her fone made a sound like some small animal dying, and nothing more emerged.

Sudden movement behind them.

Hannah whirled round and raised her weapon. One of the attackers was there, but he wasn’t armed. He had just propelled himself into a space amidst the burning wreckage, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. He seemed to be convulsing.

After another twenty minutes had passed, Hannah finally pushed herself to her feet. She didn’t want to think too deeply about what Saul had said. Keeping to cover as best she could, she moved into the factory, first to check on James, who couldn’t have been more dead, then to check on the one called Tyson, who, it turned out, was the girl. She too was irrecoverable. Tired and frightened, all of the others just watched.

She finally headed back to the door, calling over her shoulder, ‘All of you, with me.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Brigitta asked.

Suddenly Hannah was very sure. ‘It’s over.’

The survivors dragged themselves out of hiding, then moved cautiously out of the factory and joined her.

‘We’ll head back to my lab . . . if it’s still intact,’ she decided.

There wasn’t one of them without injury. Hannah began assessing whom to treat first, then decided that it should be herself, since she probably had a lot of serious work ahead of her.

‘Rhine’s explosives,’ she said, pausing on the threshold of the wrecked corridor.

With her undamaged hand, Brigitta tapped a palmtop fastened at her waist. ‘He sent their location and disarming codes.’ She propped the palmtop on the mass of material she had wrapped round her hand, which was pulled in close to her chest, sorted through menus, then strode ahead.

Once Brigitta had led them out of the wreckage, they came on the first of the invading soldiers, some floating free, but most huddled on the floor, with military equipment scattered all around them. Hannah paused to inspect one of them closely, noted the blood on the lips and one bloody tear below the eye. She knew for sure then what Saul had done – did not need to do an autopsy to know more.

She wanted to cry, but felt arid inside.

Mars

With only three hours to go, three hours of her life remaining, Var had exposed three metres of oxygen pipe, unearthed a lone skull and an old-style laptop . . . but still didn’t know if she was any closer to the compressed-air tank. Only after digging for a number of hours had it occurred to her that these pipes might have fed something else. For all she knew, the tank could be under the rubble pile behind her while the pipes she was following terminated at just another airlock.

She paused and stood upright to stretch her back, feeling sore points all over her body where her suit had been rubbing against her. She considered how all the effort she had put in here would result in some unpleasant after-effects, then remembered that if she did suffer sore and aching muscles later, she would be grateful. Funny that – how her mind kept slipping back to its default position of assessing the future. It was as if, on some unconscious level, a part of her kept cautiously approaching the facts of her situation, then skittering nervously away.

On a conscious level she had a problem too. A while ago, when her crunch time lay many hours into the future, she had felt something like acceptance, but now that time was drawing nigh she could feel her desperation increasing. She didn’t want to die. It wasn’t fair. She had so much yet to do. All the protests of someone on the brink of dying rose up in her mind – all the clichés of an organism never programmed to accept death, and rebelling at the last. She tried not to contemplate this further, ducked down again and continued digging, annoyed by the tears of self-pity filling her eyes.

Another hour of digging excited her inner immortal element as the pipes began rising steeply upwards. This was it; this was where they were not crushed down by the rubble, where they rose up to meet something else. She tried to keep calm, but instead found herself hurling rocks away, scooping off dust, frenziedly hacking with her pick. She started to sweat, but worked even harder when she came upon a heavy pipe joint; felt a moment of euphoria on exposing first a power cable, then the side of the small compressor it led to. Further digging revealed the curving perimeter of the compressed-air reservoir. She worked her way up one side of it, tracking along the air pipes, revealed the top of a pressure gauge, tore away the rubble all around it, exposed a broken dial that could no longer give her a reading, began moving away more rubble – and in the process banged a loose rock against the gauge. The gauge itself, pipes and a heavy valve all shifted. She got hold of the entire assembly and pulled it up, until it came away from the bottle below, revealing the hole out of which it had been torn.

Disappointment punched her in the gut, but her internal organism wouldn’t stop. She brushed everything clear of the compressed-air bottle, exposed the top of it completely. The screw-in assembly had been torn out of its thread, leaving the dark eye of a hole. She stared at it, unable to accept what she was seeing. She turned and searched around until she found a length of reinforcing rod she had cast aside earlier, returned to the bottle and inserted it into the hole. It went right down inside the bottle and she rattled it around, a tinny sound carrying to her ears through the thin air. Then she dropped the rod into the bottle and stepped back, reality catching up.

Weariness hit her hard as she climbed out of the excavation. Her head-up display showed that she had maybe two hours left now, and her likelihood of finding anything to extend her time beyond that was minimal. Stepping away from rubble to dusty ground, Var considered going back into the intact building and leaving some message for her brother, but could not see the point. She walked over to a nearby boulder, slumped down and rested her back against it.

Time to die, now.