Owner 03 - Jupiter War Read Online Free

now.’ She cut the link.
    Suddenly feeling very weary, Hannah leaned back against one wall of the elevator, almost glad that the damage to Arcoplex Two had made it necessary to cut its spin again. She was pleased not to have to trudge through an artificial one gravity to her quarters near her laboratory. As the doors opened to admit her to the arcoplex, she opened her suit visor and was immediately hit by the smell of burned plastic and cooked human flesh, and sharply reminded of what had happened here. To distract herself she thought about the meaning of the instructions Saul had issued.
    He seemed to be mapping out the immediate future and keeping everyone busy, but what about afterwards? Obviously he was aiming to rebuild Argus Station, almost certainly turning it into the spaceship he had once named it. Doubtless he intended to ensure it was self-sufficient, manoeuvrable, powerful . . . and then? Did he intend to move against Earth or move away? Did she, in all honesty, have any chance of understanding his future aims and divining his present plans?
    Mars
    Saul had understood, from the moment Var breathed easily again, that it was time to start acting and stop reacting. Images from Earth he had viewed during his descent to Mars showed that, while the
Scourge
had been out here hunting them, Serene Galahad had not been idle. He counted at least ten mass drivers operating, the framework of three huge ships taking shape amidst the ever-expanding Mars Traveller construction station, also a structure down on Earth that already looked like a test bed for something similar to the Rhine drive. If he continued just
reacting
they would die, so he needed to work harder and faster than the sum industrial and technical might of Earth.
    ‘We’ll need more power than what’s available out here,’ said Var.
    Saul focused his human facet on her, aware already that he was dealing with someone angry and prideful and little in love with being merely a subordinate. Whether his sister had always been like that he did not have sufficient memory of her to know. He also wondered if her recent experiences here might have changed her.
    ‘Fusion should supply enough power to begin the work, but, yes, I agree: we need more power.’ He turned and stepped into the cave. ‘I’ll take Argus close to the sun when we are done here.’
    ‘And what do you intend to get
done
here?’
    ‘As I said, I want to get the Mars-format space plane up and running,’ he said. ‘The people here will be relocated to Argus while I strip Antares Base of anything useful, like the fusion reactor.’
    ‘You’ll give them no choices?’ she asked, apparently pleased by the idea.
    ‘They can stay on Mars and die, if they so choose,’ he said bluntly.
    The floor of the cave was uneven, and in places they had to scramble over boulders, after which Saul found himself panting, despite weighing just over a third of what he weighed on Earth. Deeper in, he began to note calcite formations – the nubs of stalactites and stalagmites that had never had a chance to get as big as anything similar on Earth. They had to be billions of years old.
    ‘But, still, there is the problem of Rhone,’ Var observed.
    Saul grimaced, annoyed with himself now because he had not thought to bring a weapon. Just getting here and rescuing his sister had been an uncharacteristically overriding concern, while anything after that, down here, had seemed of little importance compared to everything else he had needed to do. Now, because he hadn’t been paying attention, the problems down here could become critical. Once out in the open again, he could take over their systems, but there were no readerguns he could use to remove Rhone. He and Var could sneak in and maybe seize some weapons – he had confidence enough in his own abilities in that respect – but all that seemed untidy, and there was still a chance that one or both of them might get killed.
    ‘What do you suggest?’ he asked,