No Direction Home (11 page)

He couldn't… That was the answer, pure and simple. Had they given him the ultimate male fantasy? And had he fallen for it, hook, line and sinker?

OK, perhaps it was understandable that his main memories of her would be from the bedroom, bearing in mind that sex was all either of them had wanted from the relationship, but – what else had they done together? There were vague memories of meals in restaurants – but which ones? Or where? Did they even buy each other presents? Go to the theatre? Watch vids or share VRs in a multiplex? Did they ever have arguments – eight years with never a cross word spoken?

Apparently not…
All he had was an eminently satisfying – and, yes, convenient – relationship that would cause him no guilt or regrets – at most, a gentle longing, perhaps. And was that the idea? Probably – these memories wouldn't prey on his mind as much as if they had been a bad experience for him; they wouldn't be so distracting. If so, it had worked – since his revival, he hadn't really thought much about her at all. Not until now, anyway.

Shit… they fucking well
had
been edited. How much of it had ever happened?

More than that – had Livvy even existed? Was someone who had been part of his life for eight years simply a computer construct? A fantasy made real?

And why am I even thinking this, when the file corresponds exactly to what I remember?

Because of what Becky Adebayo had said, how she had named Anji and Emma – why would she lie? If she wasn't, and there really was an Anji in his past, then that would explain why the name kept on coming into his head, especially in connection with sex or intimacy. And Emma, his daughter?

Nothing. No memories of her – or of Anji, supposedly his wife, for God's sake, beyond the momentary images of someone who might not actually have been her – how the hell could he have forgotten them if they had ever existed?

Because they'd interfered with his memory, that was why… Not only had they turned him into a killing machine, they had taken away his memories, his past and substituted their own version…
It's all right, we've told you what to dream…

That
bloody
snatch of song again – where the hell was it coming from? It wasn't as if he was particularly interested in music anyway, so…

Hold on a minute – not interested in music? What do you mean? With the music collection I had back on Earth…

Music collection?
What the fuck?

Vinter leaned back in his seat, rubbing his eyes – the thought had gone, tantalisingly out of reach again, but for a second or so, it had been there, a clear recollection of a shelf full of old style vinyl LP records – but now he could not recall any of their titles.

OK… think back to that line about telling me what to dream…
And there it was in his head again, an old rock song, with the synthesisers producing an effect of a huge machine pounding away in the background…

Welcome To The Machine…
That was it, that was the title of the song. But who had recorded it?

Dammit, once I was pretty much word perfect on it – it was on one of my favourite albums…

No. Gone again.

At least that was easy enough to solve… He typed in
Welcome To The Machine
on his comp and selected ‘Search'; the information came back in seconds.

Pink Floyd: album ‘Wish You Were Here', released September 1975.

Of course it bloody was… He could even recall the album cover now, the images symbolising Earth, Air, Fire and Water – but why couldn't he remember it before? And why would a song from the Twentieth Century keep coming into his head?

Oh, come on, use your brains – think about the significance of the lyrics… Welcome to the machine, we've told you what to dream – it's your bloody subconscious trying to tell you something, isn't it?

OK, I'll buy that. But what?

The alert on his wrist comp buzzed insistently; he gave a
moue
of irritation, then lifted it to his mouth. ‘Vinter here.'

‘Ferreira here. Meeting in five minutes in the Briefing Room.' The mini speaker went dead.

Vinter glared at it, then logged off from his comp and stood up, before a further thought occurred to him on his way out of the door.

Wish You Were Here…
was that a message as well?

*****

Vinter stared at the image of Stalker that was being displayed on the large monitor screen in Ferreira's day cabin, wondering whether there was any real point in having it up there at all; the only images they had managed to obtain had been slightly larger versions of the fuzzy disc that Lahtinen had shown him during that first meeting in his cabin. The best guess was that the design would probably be very similar to their own, possibly smaller, given that Stalker's speed was in excess of their own; that implied less mass to accelerate – or more powerful ion engines. Vinter was well aware that Ferreira and his astrogation team had tended to dismiss the second option on the grounds that Stalker had only been launched seven years after
Terra Nova
and so would not have been able to develop the technology to generate significantly more power in that time, but that could also be wishful thinking…

The thing is, we just don't bloody know, do we?

Ferreira cleared his throat, bringing the meeting to order; he was seated behind his desk, with the other six individuals sitting facing him in a half-circle. ‘If we can proceed. As this is the first time we've met as the Command Team, can we each introduce ourselves and our specialities? I'm Colonel Ferreira, Senior Military Officer aboard the
Terra Nova.
' He nodded to the man on the right of the semi-circle, who inclined his head briefly and said:

‘Major Yung-Sien. Second in command.'

‘Major Watanabe. Ballistic weaponry.'

‘Captain Sharma. Strategic analysis.'

‘Captain Teymourian. Astrogation.'

The next officer, sitting next to Vinter, was the only woman present. ‘Major Varaphan. Communications.'

Everyone's eyes swivelled to Vinter, who shrugged and said, ‘Inspector Vinter. Security, intelligence and, apparently, military genius. Oh, and part-time killing machine.'

Ferreira glared at him, then said, ‘The inspector has been co-opted and, regrettably, has not been an entirely willing recruit. However, he has realised that he best serves the interests of his people by co-operating with us. Is that correct, Inspector?'

‘I'm afraid it is, yes.'

‘Good… The reason for this meeting is to discuss what options we have regarding Stalker.' He gestured vaguely at the image behind him. ‘One, which is undoubtedly the option favoured by the Inspector here, is that we continue to try and establish contact with Stalker in order to ascertain its intentions. Is that so, Inspector?'

Vinter nodded. ‘Look, we don't even know for certain whether it's EarthCorp or New Dawn in that ship. The last we heard, both of them were building starships, so which side is Stalker on? You'd look pretty damn silly opening hostilities with your own side, wouldn't you?'

‘If that is the case, then why haven't they responded to the coded passwords we have included in our transmissions?' Ferreira asked, mildly. ‘Thus far, however, there has been no response from Stalker whatsoever. Major Varaphan, is there any reason why they might be
unable
to respond?'

Varaphan shook her head. ‘Not unless they have suffered serious damage to their antenna array. If that is the case, then the whole ship would probably now be severely incapacitated. In any case, they've been sending encrypted signals directed at us for some time now, haven't they?'

‘Exactly. So… the most likely reason for the fact that Stalker is not responding to our signals is that they are choosing not to, which would imply a hostile approach, would it not? Are we agreed on that? Except for Inspector Vinter, of course – but then he is here in a purely advisory capacity.'

‘Actually, I
do
agree about the likely hostile intentions,' said Vinter. ‘I just don't want to be the first to fire a shot.'

‘A typical weakness of the United Nations throughout its history, regrettably. However, as I have said, it doesn't honestly matter what you think at the moment. I certainly have no compunction about opening fire on them without warning.'

‘We don't even know what their mission is,' Vinter protested. ‘Look, we've seen the images from Earth, or at least I assume we all have?' Seeing the brief nods around the table, he continued, ‘So whatever the situation was when they left Earth, it's changed completely now. It's almost certain that our two ships contain the last survivors of human civilisation, so maybe we need to think carefully about shooting first and asking questions later. They might want to join forces for all we know.'

‘Peace terms? EarthCorp? Do you really believe that, Vinter? They're only interested in destroying us.'

Vinter shook his head. ‘How can you know that? I've told you not to believe your own propaganda – has it occurred to you that they might not actually
be
Evil Incarnate?'

‘Actually, yes, it has.' The reply took Vinter by surprise – not for the first time, he realised that Ferreira was anything but simple and straightforward… ‘It may be that we
are
conditioned by our own propaganda, but so are the officers on Stalker. Their first impulse will be to attack us and they will find it just as difficult as we do to think in terms of compromise or peace, especially after what happened on Earth. We – New Dawn, that is – are in a state of war with EarthCorp, and will remain so until any cessation of hostilities is negotiated. At the moment, Stalker is refusing even to talk to us, so what conclusions are we to draw from that? We have no alternative but to assume that they will attack us in some way once they are close enough to do so. Any other course of action would be irresponsible in the extreme, wouldn't you say, Inspector?' He held Vinter's gaze for several seconds, almost as if he wanted to persuade him to his cause, then he leaned back and looked along the row of officers. ‘Very well. I take it we are agreed that we take offensive action against Stalker?'

There was a silent chorus of nods.

‘Excellent.' Ferreira made a note on his pad. ‘Sharma – strategic analysis?'

‘While Stalker is behind us, we hold a tactical advantage, but that will be cancelled out once it overtakes and moves ahead of us. From then on, Stalker will hold the advantage.'

Ferreira turned to Watanabe. ‘Explain, major.'

Watanabe inclined his head. ‘The only weapons we have available are kinetic, to be honest.' He shrugged apologetically. ‘We do not have the technology for a
Star Wars
space battle. Lasers are ineffective at any kind of range – their power decreases with distance and have little effect in any case against a reflective surface. Obviously, we have no missiles or battlefield nukes aboard – there is no way that we could have smuggled
those
past UNSEC checks–'

Vinter let out a harsh laugh, shaking his head. ‘Bloody typical – the one time when they might come in handy and we don't have any. Still, I suppose there wouldn't have been any need for them at PlanetFall if everything had gone according to plan, would there? Two thousand colonists, all nicely conditioned into thinking New Dawn was the greatest thing since sliced bread – you probably wouldn't even have needed the troops to maintain control, let alone nukes.'

‘Indeed,' Ferreira said, evidently irritated at Vinter's interruption. To Watanabe: ‘Continue, Major. What
do
we have?'

‘We could use rail guns, I suppose – magnetic accelerators. If we can build any in time, that is.'

‘Or we could throw rocks at them,' said Vinter, receiving a glare from Ferreira before he continued, ‘Or ice. Anything, really – even getting hit by a ball bearing at the kind of velocities we're talking about is going to have an effect because you would be talking about a terminal deceleration of several thousand gees. That's what you mean by a tactical advantage, isn't it? They're travelling at about three thousand kilometres a second faster than us, so if we simply leave a projectile behind at even the same speed as we're doing, in about six weeks' time, they could, if we're lucky, run into it at three K a second. If that happens, there won't be much left of Stalker. If they want to throw stuff back at us, they've got to catch us up, so they'll have a much slower relative velocity, no more than four or five thousand
metres
a second, even with the most powerful accelerators – a tiny fraction of what we could manage.' He noticed the others staring at him, then shrugged. ‘Well, you did say I'd had an extensive military training, Colonel.'

‘I did indeed.'

‘The point is that
Terra Nova
is
not
a warship – it's a colony starship, no more and no less than that. Forget about rail guns for the moment – the only weapons it carries at present are the automatic lasers mounted around the edge of the ice shield to destroy any larger chunks of cosmic debris coming our way before they hit us. They're all pointing forwards, of course, so are not going to be much use against a ship coming up from behind, unless we remount them, which leaves us vulnerable to the aforementioned cosmic debris.' He held up his hand to forestall Ferreira's interruption. ‘Hear me out – I probably know more about
Terra Nova's
capabilities than any of you, so you really do need to listen. Apart from those lasers – and they are essentially close range weapons – we have absolutely nothing we can use against Stalker. As Major Watanabe said, we can perhaps manufacture rail guns, although I'd have to check to see whether we can generate the sort of electromagnetic power we'd need to give us any real velocity on the projectiles, especially if we want to build a number of launchers.