Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [89]
There was a moment’s frozen silence in the room as they all realised what a risk the young technician had just taken.
Uvanov found he couldn’t summon up the anger he should have felt at the woman’s disrespect. I ’m glad of that, Firstmaster Landerchild, because frankly your attitude to all this makes me sick to my stomach. Perhaps it was because her feelings were genuine. ‘Some years ago,’ he said, ‘there was a problem on a storm mine I was commanding.’
‘Ore raiders on Storm Mine Four,’ Tel said. ‘Mutiny in the Blind Heart, everybody knows the story.’
‘It was the robots,’ Uvanov said. ‘They went on a killing spree. Very few people outside the Company Board know that story.’ And most of them still don’t believe it. Cailio Techlan believed it, though, and he hadn’t told her.
‘Killer robots?’ Ging said. There was disbelief on her face.
‘You mean standard machines?’
‘Vocs, Supervocs, they all went bad. It was an aberration.’ If he closed his eyes he could still see them. Strong, imperturbable, secure figures always there, always strangling, breaking, killing like murderous children, murderous like parents killing. Nothing left of safety. Only angry terror. ‘It was technical intervention. It was dealt with. The problem was solved.’
‘Only it wasn’t,’ Tel said.
Uvanov rubbed his eyes. ‘This is different.’
‘There’s an equipment bay covered in blood that says it isn’t.’
Ging said, ‘How is it different?’
‘There’s no Taren Capel for one thing,’ Uvanov said.
‘Who’s he?’ Tel asked.
‘Madman,’ Uvanov said. ‘Wanted to destroy the world.’ They were right of course, it wasn’t that different. He could use it. He could use the link between Landerchild and the Production Director. He could use the rumours about Landerchild’s plotting. Accuse them of trying to make killer robots. He could save Kaldor a second time and this time they would be grateful.
He would be Firstmaster Chairholder Kiy Uvanov, unopposed and called to power by general acclamation.
‘Not exactly unique then,’ Ging said. ‘This Taren Capel.’
The first thing was to get the Cyborg class contained and under control. ‘All right,’ Uvanov said decisively. ‘There’s no time to waste. I want you two to put together the best robotics tech team we can muster. It reports to me, no one else.’ When he had given them all their instructions, their authorisations and an emergency budget he would have had trouble justifying if it was noticed he sent them to get on with things and turned his attention to Cailio Techlan. ‘Who are you reporting to?’ he asked.
‘You,’ she said, looking confused. ‘Is it a trick question?’
‘Apart from me who do you report to?’
‘It is a trick question,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand.’
The monotone was less pronounced than usual, Uvanov noticed. He frowned and said, ‘I underestimated you. I realise that. But don’t you make the same mistake and underestimate me. Landerchild and his world, your world, is over and finished with. I’m going to win this and if you think about it you know that’s true. So I’m going to give you one chance to put things right with me.’
‘I think maybe you should rest, Kiy,’ The monotone was back and more pronounced. ‘This has all been too much for you, obviously.’
‘I’m not asking you to betray your friends. I know you can’t.
I know it’s a twenty families thing. You can keep right on betraying me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’ve known about you all along,’ Uvanov said. Pity it wasn’t true but she wasn’t going to know that. ‘You’ve been helping to set me up from the beginning. I was going to take the blame for all of it, wasn’t I? It was very thorough. Even little details like forged issue-and-use orders for stun kills at the central service facility.’
‘I had nothing to do with that.’
But it doesn’t come as a surprise, does it, Uvanov thought, and it is interesting what denials tell you. I had nothing to do with that. ‘Tell them everything you’ve heard, just as they told you to do, and just as you’ve been doing up to now.’
‘You are mad.’
Uvanov smiled at her.