No Direction Home

James Baddock

Copyright © James Baddock 2015

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries

concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

All characters, places and incidents in this novel, other than ones clearly in

the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual

persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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To Melanie, for… well, everything, really.

‘
The fast pace and intrigue… are formidable. Without doubt, James Baddock leads the field in suspense mystery.'

Clive Cussler

‘…a cracking good novel, and an exciting read.'

A.J. Quinnell

‘Much in common with Jack Higgins, if anything bigger… subtle twists… stunning climax… great stuff!'

Daily Express

‘A deftly written thriller… Skilled writing… well-sustained tension… whizzes right along up to a slam-bang ending.
'

Publisher's Weekly

‘Taut, wartime thriller… Good, no frills storytelling.'

Kirkus Reviews

‘The pace is quick, the action continuous, and the battle of wits… intriguing.'

Booklist

‘
Fast paced and taut… a purist's thriller.'

Baltimore Daily Record

‘Moves along at a good clip… exciting and taut.'

Milwaukee Sentinel

‘Vivid characters and excellent pacing intensify the punch in this knockout thriller.'

Publisher's Weekly

‘Another thriller, and a good one… Mr. Baddock is a deft writer.'

New York Times Book Review

Without the film Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) and Pink Floyd's album Wish You Were Here (1975), this book would have turned out very differently. In fact, it might well never have been written at all…

It seemed to take Vinter longer than usual to wake up, so that he only gradually became aware of his surroundings; perhaps it was because he was reluctant to tear himself away from the half-remembered impression of a naked woman with blonde hair lying next to him in the bed. She had her back to him, the duvet down around her slim waist, and he very much wanted her to turn over so he could see her face, but the image faded as his eyes finally opened and he began to look around.

Hospital ward… bright light above, drip feed, pricking sensation in my wrist – what do they call it? Canal? Cannula – that's it… What am I doing here? Can't remember being in an accident… Concussion?

Why couldn't he remember? Come to that, what
could
he remember?

OK, my name is Chris Vinter and I'm an UNSEC Inspector and…

What the hell am I doing here?

Good question… A
very
good question, actually… Take a look around and sort out exactly where you are.

OK, so it wasn't a ward, after all. He was in a windowless room, lying on his back in a hospital bed that was surrounded by electronic screens showing various readouts – pulse, respiration, blood pressure, the lot, the kind of state of the art equipment you'd normally only get privately. There were no other beds in the room, so he was getting pretty privileged treatment by the looks of it.
None of which helps me figure out where the hell I am, or what's happened to me…

Abruptly, a door over to his left opened and a dark haired woman in a medic's outfit came in
– no, not the woman in the dream, although I wouldn't have minded if she had been…
Mid twenties, with blue eyes in an attractive face, slim figure and a welcoming smile. ‘So you're awake, Inspector – about time, if I may say so.' She ran a quick eye over the monitor screens and nodded approvingly. ‘Physical signs optimal,' she said, holding up a comp pad; presumably, she was keeping an audio record. ‘Testing recall responses.'

She turned to face Vinter. ‘So, Inspector – do you know where you are?'

He hesitated momentarily, then nodded slowly. ‘I'm having a few problems there, I must admit.'

‘Don't worry about it – that's nothing unusual following revival.'

‘Revival?' Then realisation struck him. ‘I'm on the
Terra Nova
, right? Have we arrived, then?'
A child asking ‘Are we there yet?' and adults laughing…

‘Actually no, we haven't, Inspector.' A new voice, coming from the doorway; Vinter found himself fighting down an impulse to spring up from the bed –
Shit, you startled me…
The newcomer was also in medic's garb, but older than the woman, in his mid forties, probably, Middle Eastern origins, medium height, slightly running to fat –
sounds like I'm describing a suspect
. ‘Doctor Al-Nashrawi at your service, Inspector.'

‘Delighted to meet you… any chance of something to drink? My throat feels…' He broke off suddenly, realising what he was about to say.

‘Like a camel-driver's jockstrap?' Al-Nashrawi chuckled. ‘I'm not surprised. Ms Novaska–?'

But the medic was already pouring a glass of water from a pitcher; carefully, she held it to Vinter's lips, pressing down gently on his chest as he tried to sit up. ‘Don't try moving just yet, Inspector.'

‘I won't,' he promised hoarsely.
Too right I won't – I'm as weak as a kitten…

‘Anyway, to continue,' Al-Nashrawi said briskly. ‘No, we haven't arrived yet – you've been revived early, Inspector.'

‘Right… There's been some kind of emergency?'

The doctor seemed momentarily surprised, then nodded; perhaps he had not been expecting Vinter to make such a rapid deduction. ‘Apparently there is, but there is no need to worry about that just yet – and, for a second time, stay where you are.'

Vinter realised that, again, he had tried to rise from the bed almost without conscious volition –
Conditioned reflex?

‘They told me you would probably react like this, Inspector, but you're going to have to wait. You haven't actually eaten anything substantial for eighty-two years, after all.'

‘Eighty-two years? Is that all? We're not even a quarter of the way there yet and I'm not supposed to be revived until PlanetFall. So – again, what's going on?' He noticed Novaska making a rapid note on her comp pad while nodding again, as if in approval.

As before, Al-Nashrawi looked momentarily startled, then inclined his head briefly. ‘I'm afraid that I cannot answer that, because, to be perfectly frank, I don't actually know. Clearly, there is some sort of emergency, otherwise I myself would not have been awoken at this stage, but my instructions are that, now that you are awake, the first priority is for you to build up your strength before
anything
else happens.' He paused as if to let that sink in, then continued, ‘The cannula in your wrist is feeding you right now, giving you all the nutritional requirements you need to even start to walk properly – or don't you remember the briefings you were given before Departure?'

Vinter nodded doubtfully. Revival was a lengthy process – it would be at least twenty-four hours, probably nearer thirty-six, before he would be able to walk any distance unaided. In the meantime, he would need physiotherapy to stimulate muscles that would have atrophied during cryosleep. But more memories were beginning to surface: he was on a starship, heading out to Delta Pavonis, almost twenty light years from Earth, journey time of three hundred and thirty years, more or less – and there was an emergency just eighty years in?
What the hell was going on?

As if answering his unspoken question, Al-Nashrawi said, ‘As I said, someone will brief you on the situation, but
not
until you are passed as medically fit. Is that clear?'

Vinter nodded slowly, forcing himself to accept the situation. ‘As crystal.'

‘Good. Ms Novaska here will be supervising your rehabilitation and you had better do as she says.' He smiled briefly. ‘She is not just a pretty face – for this stage of the process, she knows what she is doing far better than I do. I'll leave you in her very capable hands.'

*****

He was on a starship…
Now, he could finally believe it. He was in the observation gallery, staring out at the stars trying not to gawp like some rubber-necking tourist, sitting on a foam-backed bench facing the huge wall screen that showed the star field rotating slowly around them. In reality, it was only a video projection – installing what would have been a very thick reinforced plexiglass screen to provide the actual view would have been horrendously expensive. There was also the consideration that it would have involved standing
on
the damn thing and looking downwards, because, given the simulation of gravity provided by the rotating Habitat Section,
down
was actually towards the hull and
up
involved facing the hub of the ship. Those kind of thoughts did rather spoil the magic of the moment, he reflected… And, as for being a tourist, well, he was, really; they all were, just passing through on their way to somewhere else. The thing was, he could still see recognisable constellations and stars – Orion's belt, Sirius, the Plough… But then they hadn't yet travelled anything like far enough for there to be any perceptible change in the pattern of the stars. True, they were about five light years away from Earth – say about fifty
trillion
kilometres (or thirty trillion miles as some parts of EarthCorp would put it) – but that was virtually next door in a galaxy that was a hundred thousand light years across. Even so, it was unsettling to realise that, despite the distance they had travelled, the stars still looked pretty much the same.
So much for engaging warp drive…

He frowned; where had that flash of memory come from?
Warp drive?
OK, the notion of faster than light travel had been around since the Twentieth Century, but that particular jolt of memory had been far more specific than that – he had actually heard someone using that phrase somewhere, presumably in a vidscreen entertainment, but when – and where?

‘Impressed?' Ilona – Ms Novaska – asked him, holding out a bulb of a liquid that was described as coffee; as far as he was concerned, any resemblance was purely coincidental.

‘Thanks,' he said, taking it from her. ‘And yes, I am.'

‘Me too,' she said, sitting down next to him and sipping from her own bulb. She had brought him here, to what was known as the Star Lounge, ten minutes earlier; he had managed about half of the journey from the Med Lab under his own steam before he had been obliged to let her support him. She stared at the display for almost half a minute, then shook her head slowly. ‘To think that I'd have missed this if they hadn't woken me up,' she said softly. ‘Can we see The Sun from here?'

‘I doubt it. We're a long way out, after all.'

‘So how far out
are
we?'

Vinter grinned sideways at her. ‘Is this a genuine question, or are you still checking my recall capabilities?'

‘Both, actually.' She took out her comp pad and held it in front of her, poised to make an entry, but with a wry grin on her face that provoked an answering smile from him.

‘OK. We are about five light years from Earth, or around twenty five per cent of the distance to Delta Pavonis.'

‘Very good,' she said brightly, touching the comp pad's screen. ‘And the starship we're on?'

Vinter sighed. ‘Why all this obsession with my memory?'

‘It's part of the re-orientation process, along with the physical rehab. We've never dealt with people who have been in the cryosleep chambers for this length of time, so we're carrying out research into all elements of it – physical, mental and emotional. This is simply covering information you were given during pre-launch briefing – how well do you remember it?'

He shrugged. ‘OK. This starship – the
Terra Nova
– is about six hundred metres long, more or less cylinder shaped, with a huge ablation shield of frozen deuterium in the bows to absorb cosmic debris – at the kind of speed we're doing, even a relatively small object could do us a lot of damage. The deuterium also doubles as propellant for the engines. The Habitat Section is a torus shaped section positioned just behind the ice shield that rotates around the ship's central axis, supplying a simulated gravity equal to about seventy per cent of Earth's. The rest of the ship doesn't rotate in relation to the external universe and is thus under weightless conditions. This section, which is about five hundred metres in length, includes the engineering sections and the cryosleep chambers. We've accelerated up to our maximum speed, which is about point zero six of lightspeed, so the engine's been shut down and we will be cruising for most of the rest of the journey. The ship will be rotated at the end of the voyage for deceleration, but that won't be for a while yet–'

‘Cryosleep chambers?'

‘They house about two thousand people who are, basically, deep frozen. Do
not
ask me to explain the science behind that, because I haven't a clue, but, basically, the idea is that most of them will stay in their chambers all the way to Delta Pavonis where they will then be revived at PlanetFall. Long range telescopes and spectroscopic analyis indicate that there is a planet there that will be at least borderline habitable – these sleepers are colonists.' His voice took on a sing-song quality. ‘Of these, a couple of hundred are designated ship's crew and will be awoken on a rotational basis to man the
Terra Nova
for two year shifts. In reality, these will only be needed for routine maintenance work – most of the ship's operations will be carried out by automatic machines run by computers. There are various specialist teams in the chambers who will be revived if there are any in-flight emergencies. Well, minor ones, anyway – if anything major happens, we probably won't know anything about it anyway. Now there's a cheery thought…' He looked across at Ilona and shrugged. ‘Do I pass?'

‘Very good,' she said, smiling. ‘You really are recovering exceptionally well – memory-wise, anyway.'

‘But not physically?'

She pursed her lips for a moment, considering, then nodded. ‘Ahead of schedule, I'd say – but we need more physiotherapy.'

‘Oh, great… I can hardly wait.' He held up his hand as she rose to her feet. ‘Just a minute.' His eyes were fixed on the view outside, of the star field sliding slowly ever downwards as the Habitat Section rotated.
I've always wanted to go into space… now I have.

She followed his gaze. ‘Yes, I know,' she murmured. ‘Beautiful, isn't it?'

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe…
An image of a man's face with very blond or almost white hair, rain streaming down his features…
Tears in rain…

A clip from an old movie – but what the bloody hell was it called?

And just what
was
the matter with his memory?

*****

He winced as she dug her knuckles into his shoulder blade, then gasped involuntarily as she began pummelling his back. ‘Are you enjoying this?' he asked, his voice muffled by the fact that he was lying face down, staring down at the floor through the gap in the massage table.

‘Actually, I am,' Ilona replied lightly. ‘Are you?'

‘No.'

‘Relax – this is good for you.'

‘I'll take your word for that.'

They were back in the Med Lab and, again, they were alone. It had dawned on Vinter that, apart from Ilona and Dr. Al-Nashrawi, he had spoken to virtually no one since his revival. Yes, they had passed people in corridors and there had been three others in the Star Lounge, but nobody had so much as acknowledged their presence. He'd asked Ilona about that; her explanation had been that there were never that many people awake at any given moment – each shift only had about forty crew members – and he was obviously a new revival. ‘And?' he'd asked.