Owner 03 - Jupiter War by Neal Asher Page A

– probably one of the canisters that inflated the gas bags, but nothing large enough to damage a drop tank.
    ‘I have been pondering something,’ he said. ‘Will those who supported Rhone be a help or a hindrance to me? Should I let them live even though they killed your friend Lopomac and have murdered people in your base? Should I capture them all, find out who the killers are, and have Hannah mind-wipe them?’
    ‘What?’ said Var, immediately feeling stupid for repeating herself, and hating it.
    Saul stood up. ‘Let’s go down to meet them.’
    ‘Are you crazy?’ She paused. ‘You
are
crazy.’
    ‘Trust me,’ he said, and gave a perfunctory smile. It wasn’t a very good smile, but then he’d never really been able to muster a sincere one ever since he’d realized, at a young age, how most people were idiots to him. What he thought of other people now had to be a matter for much concern.
    He headed for the path leading down off the butte, and Var hesitated before following. She had no choice but to trust him now because, with the open ground all around them, there was nowhere to run. It seemed he had walked them both into a trap.
    The ATV had drawn to a halt at the base of the butte and its four occupants were now outside it. Saul paused beside a boulder just before he – and she – stepped out into sight.
    ‘So, should I let them live?’ he asked again.
    ‘Only if they’re no danger to us,’ Var replied sharply, angry because she still had no idea what he had planned.
    ‘Very well.’ He turned away from her. ‘This is Alan Saul,’ he began, addressing the four gathered around the ATV as he stepped out from behind the boulder. ‘I suggest you put your weapons on the ground and step back from them.’
    ‘And I suggest you walk over here,’ replied someone whose voice was vaguely familiar, but whom she couldn’t put a name to as she too stepped out. ‘I also suggest you put your hands on your heads and walk very slowly. Whether we have bodies or living prisoners for Galahad is a matter of indifference to me.’
    ‘No,’ said Saul patiently, ‘you’ll put your weapons on the ground now and step back from them. This is the only chance you will get.’
    ‘And why the fuck should we do that?’ asked the same voice as the four stepped away from their vehicle and began to approach.
    ‘Because this one warning is the extent of my generosity to murderers.’
    What the hell was he doing?
Var suddenly felt very vulnerable as one of the four began raising his assault rifle to his shoulder. She felt a moment almost of betrayal. Because of everything he had done, her brother must have some insanely over-inflated opinion of his abilities. Did he really think these four would give up so easily? Did he really think the presence of Argus above and the lack of any support from Earth here would be enough to make them rethink?
    ‘Please keep your finger off the trigger,’ he said mildly. ‘Last chance for you all.’
    ‘One in her leg,’ said one of them. ‘She might survive if we get a patch on.’
    A series of short thrums carried on the thin air. Dust exploded around the four, and they danced and spun in explosions and jets of vapour. Bits of EA suits and bits of human being sprayed out, rifles tumbled away, and the four went down.
    ‘I needed them away from the vehicle,’ Saul stated.
    ‘It came down with the drop tank,’ she said, suddenly understanding, ‘behind the heat shield.’
    ‘Certainly,’ he said as, with delicate sinister steps, a spidergun rose from behind another nearby boulder and stalked closer, two of its weaponized limbs not wavering from the four corpses. ‘Now let’s take their ATV and go and pay Rhone a visit. I want to be back aboard Argus before the next Martian sunrise.’
    Earth
    The giant aero was half a kilometre long, with a hammer head to the fore containing flight and weapons control, and also Serene’s personal cabin with its viewing lounge. The long and