‘Why are you here?’ Malden countered.

‘I’m here to take Argus and the Argus Network out of Committee hands.’

Malden gazed at him blankly for a moment, then stepped closer, studying Saul more intently.

‘It’s true,’ Hannah interjected. ‘You’re not the only one who doesn’t care for our rulers.’

‘Yet, despite your dislike, you worked for them willingly enough,’ Malden commented.

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Little is fair, in this world.’ He returned his attention to Saul and continued, ‘Do you know they never decommissioned the Traveller VI engine on the Argus asteroid? They kept it at first because they were going to reposition out at the Lagrange point between Earth and the Moon, then as a safety protocol. They’ve kept that engine fuelled and workable for decades just in case the asteroid needed to be used against anything bigger coming in out of the Oort cloud.’

‘Yes, I do know,’ Saul replied. ‘But why does it interest you so?’

‘I’ll use it to drop the asteroid on Brussels,’ said Malden. ‘The impact should depopulate much of Europe and take out most of the Committee and nearly forty per cent of the Executive.’ He paused. ‘Centralized world government is never ever a good idea.’

Hannah sat quietly chewing that over. Saul had previously stated his intention of seizing control of Argus and the satellite network, and now that she looked at it in the light of Malden’s statement, it didn’t seem enough. Had Saul intended to do something similar? Because, once he had taken control up there, the question remained: what next?

‘That seems . . . drastic,’ said Saul.

‘You disagree?’

‘Let’s say I have moral doubts,’ Saul hedged.

‘Why?’ Malden asked.

‘Perhaps I’m not so careless of human life as you,’ Saul suggested. ‘Anyway, I’d have thought the power of the Argus Network would’ve appealed to you.’

It was like seeing two big cats facing off in a world full of herbivores, but Hannah felt one of them was severely underestimating the potential of the other. Malden had been an intelligent and resourceful man, who was now running some serious hardware and software in his head. Saul had been a genius with an intelligence difficult to describe, let alone measure, and the additions inside his skull were of an order of magnitude more powerful than Malden’s, or at least they would be when the organic interface had made sufficient connections.

‘Of course, it does,’ Malden replied. ‘But Argus Station is not essential to that network. In fact, once I’ve seized control of the network and taken the Argus computers out of the equation, I can operate it from down on Earth.’

Hannah seriously doubted that would improve the situation on Earth for anyone.