No Direction Home (3 page)

Why not?

‘You're right,' he said, coming back into the living area. ‘I
do
look fifteen years younger. And fitter,' he added, looking down at himself. ‘What took me so long to notice?'

There was a look of professional interest on her face. ‘I don't think you're the sort of guy who spends a lot of time looking at himself in the mirror. And the fitness is a by-product of the cryosleep process – your body has had virtually all of its toxins drained away while it's been in the chamber. We're all coming out of the chambers fitter… if a little confused.'

‘And fifteen years younger?'

She shook her head slowly. ‘No… we've had not reports of anything remotely like that. Fitter, yes, a better sense of well-being, of being more healthy, but that's about all. It certainly didn't take fifteen years off my age, which is just as well, as I'd only be ten… It's something I'll need to put in my report, though.'

‘Your report?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘How much of
this
will you be reporting?' He gestured at the bed.

She smiled impishly. ‘Well…' she said teasingly, then shook her head. ‘I do have
some
discretion… unless you want me to use it as some sort of reference?' She tilted her head to one side, her eyes flirting with him again.

‘Depend on what sort of rating I get.'

‘A proper evaluation would need a little more research, I think…' She moved towards him, then reached her hand down into his groin, gently stroking him; his response was immediate. ‘It rather looks as if you're ready for some more field work, doesn't it?'

‘It would appear so, yes.'
Shit, it's been years since I've been ready for it again so rapidly… Twenty-five? Bring it on…
‘I could get to like this,' he said, chuckling, as he raised his hands to her breasts, feeling her nipples hardening against his fingertips.

She looked down at his hands, smiling. ‘Me too…' She murmured, huskily.

And this time, try to remember she's called Ilona, right?

‘OK, so this is the bridge, Inspector Vinter,' said Ilona, her voice exaggeratedly formal, even though her eyes were twinkling at him. ‘Oh eight hundred – dead on schedule.'

‘Thank you, Specialist Novaska,' Vinter said, equally politely; last night, it had been Chris and Ilona – and, again, this morning, barely an hour earlier… He winked surreptitiously at her. ‘I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed the supervision.'

‘The pleasure was
definitely
mutual.'

He stepped closer to her, ignoring the guards on duty at the hatchway leading to the bridge. ‘Seriously, Ilona – thank you.'

‘Any time, Chris.' She shrugged. ‘See you in two hundred and fifty years?'

‘Looking forward to it.'

There was a moment's hesitation, then she held out her hand; he shook it, remembering how it had felt on his skin. ‘Good luck, sir.'

‘And to you, Ilona.'

Her eyes held his for a moment, then she released his hand, smiled her goodbye, then turned and walked briskly away. Vinter watched her until she turned a corner and moved out of sight, then sighed and strode up to the guards, producing his ID.

‘I've to report to Captain Lahtinen.'

‘Yes, sir,' said the taller one, a corporal. ‘He's expecting you.' He typed in a series of numbers on the key pad next to him on the wall –
or should I call it a bulkhead? –
then motioned Vinter through onto the bridge itself.

Although he had never been there before, Vinter knew its exact layout from the briefing sessions he had attended before Departure – a video ‘walk through' that had been as impressive for its 3D interactivity as for providing concrete information; at the time, it had almost felt like an advertising promo, with its images of generic humans all calmly at work on their assigned duties. Now, however, it did not look anything like as orderly and untroubled – most of the bridge personnel were calling out figures from monitor screens relating to distance and speed, or demanding updates
now, dammit..
.

And looking anything but calm…
Well, they had said it was an emergency.

Captain Jukka Lahtinen was a tall, balding individual in his late forties at a guess and he was leaning over the shoulder of a lieutenant who was peering intently at a comp screen as Vinter approached him. Lahtinen was one of twenty ‘captains' who would take command of
Terra Nova
at some stage during the journey; unlike most other crew members who would only serve a single two year shift, he and his fellow COs would have to put in two five year tours of duty
en route
. Was he cursing the luck of the draw that had landed him with this emergency on his watch?
I certainly would…

‘Very well, Khumalo – let me know when you have the results collated.'

‘Aye aye, sir.'

Do they still talk like that? Apparently so…

Lahtinen turned and nodded at Vinter. ‘Inspector – good of you to be so punctual. I appreciate that you have been rushed through the Revival process, but this matter is rather urgent. Can we talk in my office?' He gestured at a door about ten feet away, then, without waiting for an answer, led the way towards it; Vinter followed.

‘Close the door, please, Inspector,' Lahtinen said, going round the desk that faced the door and sitting down behind it. Vinter did so and, at a gesture from the captain, took the seat in front of the desk. A quick look round; there was nothing else of note in the room apart from the desk, with its comp off to one side, and a display screen currently showing an image of some ancient aircraft carrier at full speed by the looks of the bow wave, behind Lahtinen. This was a work place, pure and simple, but Vinter sensed that Lahtinen rarely used it; he did not look the type of CO that left the bridge when he was on duty.

‘Right, Inspector, first I need to know how much you remember about
Terra Nova
and its mission. I'm asking you this because, as I'm sure you've had explained, newly awakened individuals are experiencing memory gaps, at least on a short term basis, so bear with me on this – I need to know how much more briefing you require, because we need to have you up to speed on this as soon as possible.' He leaned back in his seat and waited expectantly.

‘OK, sir.
Terra Nova
is basically a refugee ship, built by the United Nations to enable some people to survive any future war between EarthCorp and New Dawn–'

‘And they are?'

Bloody hell, do I really have to spell it all out?
‘Two multinational power blocs, roughly corresponding to North and South America and Europe for EarthCorp and Asia and most of Africa for New Dawn. They were originally conglomerations of megacorporations that effectively took over political control in what used to be separate nations and–' He broke off again at an impatient gesture from Lahtinen.

‘We'll take that part as read, Inspector. What caused this ship to be built?'

Make up your bloody mind, will you?
Vinter swallowed the impatient retort and continued, ‘There were several armed conflicts in Central and South America and South-East Asia that almost escalated into nuclear war, so the UN had this ship built in order to rescue at least some survivors in the event that, next time, the two blocs would not pull back from the brink.' Vinter was aware that his voice had taken on a sing-song quality again, as if he were reciting by rote, but he probably was, actually; it had only been yesterday that he had been given an orientation update via subliminal input.

‘And how were these survivors chosen?'

‘Selection – the brightest and the best.' He hesitated, then continued, ‘Although there were some exceptions, the candidates for selection were single, or couples without children, if both were suitable candidates. Parents and siblings were excluded unless they were also suitable, otherwise they had to qualify independently. It meant the break up of a lot of families.'
But not yours, Captain, if I remember rightly – your wife, children and grandchildren are all in the cryosleep chambers, aren't they? Others were not so fortunate, but then they didn't know the right people, did they?

Lahtinen seemed to be watching him intently, but now he nodded heavily. ‘Regrettably, it did – but it was necessary… Very well, there's obviously a lot more that we haven't covered, but you clearly know the main points.'

A lot more… you could say that. Seems a bit sparse and simplistic so far
…

‘The reason that you have been revived, Inspector, is this. We have detected what appears to be a large spacecraft following us and which is steadily overtaking us. At the moment, it is too far away to make out any details, but it has to come from Earth – its course exactly matches our own, so it couldn't have come from anywhere else, really.' He smiled briefly. ‘I'm afraid this is unlikely to be a First Contact situation.'

Pity…
‘Another UN ship?' Vinter asked, but he had already guessed the answer.

‘Unlikely. Building this ship more or less drained the UN of its resources. In addition, it has made no attempt to contact us so far, which rather implies that it has come from either EarthCorp or New Dawn. And that its motives are hostile.'

‘Have we tried contacting them?'

‘Yes. With no result.'

‘Do we know its speed?'

‘The best guess is zero point oh seven cee.'

‘About point zero one cee faster than us?'

‘Exactly.'

‘So either it wants to rendezvous with us, or it's on its way to Delta Pavonis as well. And if it's the latter, they'll get there well ahead of us.'

‘Indeed – by about thirty eight years.'

‘More than enough time to be well established by the time we arrive, in other words.'

‘Exactly – and there is no way that we can take them on in a race. We have only enough fuel aboard for the turnover manoeuvre and subsequent deceleration at Delta Pavonis. If we accelerate now and use up literally any of that fuel, then we will simply overshoot at PlanetFall and just carry straight on through the Delta Pavonis system with insufficient fuel to slow us down.'

Vinter stared thoughtfully at the picture of the old warship, wondering vaguely why it was there; as far as he knew, Lahtinen originally hailed from Finland and he was pretty sure they had never had any aircraft carriers.
None of which is exactly relevant, of course…
‘We don't know for certain they're hostile,' he pointed out, conscious he was playing for time; he still couldn't see why he had been revived yet.

‘We can't afford to assume otherwise – neither power bloc is exactly friendly to the UN, after all. It may be that all they intend to do is overtake us and get to Delta Pavonis first, but they may have more drastic plans in mind.'

‘They could be armed, you mean.'

‘Exactly.'

Vinter stared at Lahtinen. ‘Look, sir, I still don't see where I come into this. I'm a security officer, not a soldier.'

‘Indeed. I've been told you were the best officer in UNSEC, Inspector – as you said, only the brightest and best were chosen. It appears that we have traitors aboard the
Terra Nova
. When I said there had been no contact with the following ship, I was not being entirely accurate. We have detected messages from our pursuer that are beamed directly at us, but are not hailing us. They're in a heavily encrypted code that we have yet to decipher, but–'

‘They're intended for someone aboard here.' Vinter interrupted flatly. ‘And you want me to find them.'

‘Exactly. Find them and question them so that we know what we're up against.'

‘And then? I know we're not supposed to have any soldiers aboard but – do we?'

Lahtinen fidgeted in his seat for a moment, then said, ‘Actually, yes we do. Just in case. They are in the process of being revived. We hoped we would never need them, but…'

‘Looks as if you're going to, though, doesn't it?'
Why did I just say ‘you'?

Lahtinen stared intently at him, evidently picking up the undertones in Vinter's voice. ‘Inspector, surely you were not so
naïve
as to believe that we would not take military units with us?'

‘No, I suppose I wasn't, really, but it was what everyone else was told, wasn't it? How many do we have?'

‘One hundred in the cryosleep chambers.'

‘A hundred?' Vinter stared disbelievingly at the other man. ‘OK, let me get this straight. We're talking about a lifeboat ark escaping from the horrors of modern war carrying a hundred people trained in those same horrors instead of a hundred doctors, nurses, teachers or scientists, right? Five per cent of those aboard? Who were they intended to fight – green bug-eyed monsters or something?'

Lahtinen seemed about to unleash an angry retort, but then he shook his head in irritation. ‘They said you might be like this…' he muttered, almost to himself, then stared down at his comp screen for several seconds as if coming to some sort of decision. He typed in a series of instructions on the comp's keyboard and the aircraft carrier disappeared in a shimmer of pixels to be replaced by an image of Earth from orbit. ‘Inspector, what I am about to show you has only been seen by half a dozen individuals before today. Whatever security classification you regard as being the highest, this is above even that, do I make myself clear?'

Vinter nodded, his throat suddenly dry. ‘Absolutely.' His eyes were fixed on the frozen image of the Earth; somehow, he
knew
, beyond all doubt, what he was going to be shown.

‘We received this signal seventy four years ago,' Lahtinen said gravely. ‘It was broadcast on an open channel, so we cannot absolutely verify it as being genuine.'

‘But you think it is.'

‘Yes.'

Vinter let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘OK,' he said quietly.

Lahtinen touched another key and the image on the screen began to move. It showed an Earth in full daylight, probably from a geostationary satellite, with North America visible; within moments, he saw a sudden bright glow where New York was, followed moments later by Washington DC, Toronto, Chicago… and then the flashes were appearing too rapidly to keep track. The image cut to one of Eastern Asia, with a smouldering red glare where Beijing had once been… Hong Kong, Tokyo…
Cut to
Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires…
Cut
… New Delhi, Mumbai, Kalkuta…
Cut
… London, Paris, Rome, Berlin…
Cut
… Mexico City, Los Angeles… The images were from different sources and distances, some from satellites, others from the Moon, but it was all there.

Armageddon.

The end of the world. The end of thousands of years of history, of the hopes and dreams of the billions of people who must have died in those deceptively innocent looking flashes of light that had been entire cities being obliterated. Had there been any warning for any of those billions, or had it just been an instant of indescribable agony and then nothing? Infinitely preferable, perhaps, to the slow lingering death by radiation for those further away from the epicentres, coughing up their lungs while the burns festered away on their skin…

The bastards… Those arrogant fucking bastards
… They'd fucking well gone and done it after all… Who had started it? Did it even matter any more? It was all over, finished in a blink of an eye.
Now there's no more morning dew…

Morning dew? What was that all about...?

He pushed the stray thought away – it wasn't exactly relevant, after all. Except that it did seem to keep on happening – random flashes of thought that seemed to come out of nowhere. A by-product of cryosleep?

Concentrate, dammit!

Abruptly, with one final bright flash followed by static, presumably as the satellite was vapourised, the signal was over; it had lasted less than three minutes, but there was no need to see any more. He wished to Christ that he hadn't seen even that much…