No Direction Home

by James Baddock

  ‘And she’ll be brainwashed by then in any case, won’t she?’

  ‘I’d rather say re-educated.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you would. However, I’d like to see her chamber.’

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘In a word – no.’

  Ferreira let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Very well. Her chamber code is GX-13B-21RA.’

  *****

  GX-13B-21RA.

  Vinter stood beside the cryosleep chamber, trying not to compare it to a catafalque; it looked for all the world like a metal coffin, except that there was a transparent partition that gave him a head and shoulders view of the occupant. And, yes, it was Ilona Novaska, and according to the readout display, she was as healthy as could be expected from someone who had been frozen to within a few degrees of Absolute Zero and whose metabolism had been slowed right down to a single heartbeat every minute or so. Or, to put it another way, she was still alive and only ageing at about a sixtieth of normal rate; she would only be just over four years older, physically, at PlanetFall than she was now.

  Vinter felt himself beginning to relax and it was only then that he realised that, even though he had only mentioned Ilona as a means of distracting Ferreira from thinking too much about the meeting with Kari, he had been genuinely apprehensive about visiting her chamber; he had needed to see for himself that she was safe. He pushed himself away, drifting slowly in the weightless conditions, and looked around, taking in the row upon row of identical chambers that stretched off both before and behind him, as well as above and below. Here, two thousand colonists were in dreamless sleep, and, for most of them, that would last until PlanetFall – provided they arrived there at all.

  ‘See you in two hundred and fifty years?’

  ‘Looking forward to it.’

  If they were lucky.

  Very lucky, the way things are going…

  Vinter shook his head at the thought, then tugged gently on his tether to take him back to her chamber – although why they called it a chamber was beyond him – a chamber was a room of some sort, for Christ’s sake. Although if they’d called it a casket or coffin or whatever, it probably wouldn’t have helped… Perhaps ‘chamber’ was better – it implied some sort of accommodation, if nothing else.

  He looked down at Ilona; she was naked and that fact alone kicked off a series of memories, seeing that same face smiling up at him, or gasping in ecstasy. Shit, hadn’t he almost called her ‘Anji’ that first time? Anji…

  Guilt. That was what he felt now. Guilt for waiting this long to find out what had happened to Ilona, but also for betraying Anji. And it was no good claiming that he hadn’t known about Anji when he had been with Ilona, the fact was that he had slept with someone else at the first opportunity – how much had Anji really meant to him, in that case?

  For crying out loud, you didn’t know there was an Anji then, did you? You only remembered Livvy and that wasn’t anything like what you had with Anji. As far as you were concerned, you were a free agent, so why should you feel guilty? One of the advantages of having a split personality, I’d say.

  Bullshit. It might have been OK for Livvy’s Vinter, but it isn’t for me…

  OK, what about this then? You’re not Anji’s Vinter either, are you? You were never on Earth, you never knew Anji or Livvy, right? You might remember them, but that’s all. More to the point, the Vinter Anji knew isn’t you and never was. You’ve only actually existed for a matter of weeks – and, so far, this woman here, Ilona Novaska, is the only lover you’ve ever had. So why feel guilty over someone you’ve never met?

  Again, bullshit… I can remember Anji – she’s real to me. I miss her so much…

  But there, in the distance, the thought that made him turn away and head back towards the Habitat Section: You can’t miss what you never had…

  *****

  In the end, there was a curious lack of ceremony about the opening of hostilities; the technician on the control panel for the accelerator simply turned around, said, ‘Ready for launch, sir,’ to Ferreira, who nodded briefly in acknowledgment, the tech turned back, clicked on the mouse and that was it. ‘Projectile launched, sir.’

  ‘Very good. Set for continuous firing.’ Ferreira sighed, then turned to the group of officers standing behind him and said, ‘That’s it, gentlemen and lady. The First Space War has just begun.’

  Vinter, standing slightly behind the others, shook his head imperceptibly. They just have to have their moments of vainglory, don’t they? The First Space War… They couldn’t even wait to see if the other side had anything to say, could they? Aloud, he said, ‘So we fired the first shot after all, then?’

  Ferreira glared at him. ‘We don’t actually know that, Vinter. For all we know, they might have already launched their own attack several weeks ago.’

  ‘Yes, but we didn’t wait to find out, did we?’

  ‘You may wish to cling to the moral high ground, but I am more concerned with the survival of everyone on board, which should also be your priority. The fact that we did not wait to come under fire is only a technicality in any case.’

  Vinter compressed his lips; Ferreira was right about survival, dammit… They didn’t have time to consider legal hair-splitting, if only for the fact if they were ever to be held to account for firing the first shot, it would be because they had lost the resulting conflict – and the winners of any war were always the ones who decided issues of right and wrong.

  But there was something basically unsettling about this situation, he realised suddenly. Outside, on the hull, the rail gun was firing off roughly spherical metal pellets, no more than a couple of centimetres in diameter, at a rate of almost a hundred a minute, aimed astern, towards the onrushing Stalker at a speed of over four thousand metres a second, and would continue to do so for the next two hours – yet there was no indication that anything had happened at all, no flash of artillery, no deafening concussion of huge guns opening fire, no roar of jet aircraft, not even the crackle of small arms, or a bugle sounding the attack…

  Yet what might well be the last war in Mankind’s history had just started.

  CHAPTER 9

  Vinter and Kari were shown into Ferreira’s office by an unsmiling corporal, who gestured at the two seats in front of the desk. ‘The Colonel says to take a seat and that he will be along as soon as possible.’ He closed the door behind him.

  Vinter exchanged glances with Kari, then shrugged. ‘Busy man,’ he commented.

  ‘Obviously,’ she replied. ‘Also letting us know our place in the scheme of things.’

  ‘You could say that, yes.’

  A somewhat awkward silence fell – it had been that way ever since that meeting in her quarters three weeks earlier. It was as if both of them had regretted letting their guard down, of admitting vulnerability to a relative stranger, but it also helped dispel any suspicion Ferreira might have that they were conspiring against them. The evident lack of cordiality reinforced the impression of two people being forced to work together despite their reservations – which was also the truth, of course, if he were to be totally honest about it, Vinter realised. She didn’t – couldn’t – trust him, that was all there was to it. Not yet, anyway.

  And maybe not ever.

  ‘You and the others have done a pretty good job on this,’ he told her, more to break the silence than anything else.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ She flashed him a brief smile, reminding him again how attractive she was. And also bringing another stab of guilt at what had happened in her quarters.

  How much had he manipulated her? How much had opening up about his memories been calculated to win her sympathy and support? He hadn’t been aware of it at the time; as far as he could remember, there had been a need to talk about what had been done to his memories and he had given way to it, even though he knew it was a sign of weakness… But did part of him know, even then, that the display of vulnerability would bring the two of them closer together? Just how calculat
ing had he been?

  Not much of a choice, is it? Either you’re a lot less self-sufficient than you think, or you’re cold blooded and calculating.

  Or both.

  On the other hand, she had been carrying out her own manipulation exercise in that she had persuaded him to open up to her by using the fact that he was attracted to her and had used that for her own ends. It was all there – the wine, the relaxed atmosphere, the feeling of shared confidences – and the galling thing was that he had fallen for it. He would never have opened himself up the way he had if he had been talking to a man, but with a woman who, more and more often, reminded him of Anji… Excellent interrogation technique, of course – identify the subject’s weakness, then go for the jugular.

  The door opened and Ferreira’s voice said, ‘It’s OK – don’t get up.’ He came around the desk and sat down opposite them; not for the first time, Vinter wondered if he really was not that concerned about military protocol or he wasn’t giving them the chance to snub him by staying in their seats anyway. Ferreira gave each of them one second’s look, then said, ‘Report.’

  Vinter leaned back in his seat, then said slowly, ‘If you want the full report, it’s been entered on the system under the relevant file. I take it you want a digest as the full version runs to over forty pages of text printout.’

  Ferreira glared at him. ‘Of course I want a digest.’

  ‘OK.’ I really must stop winding him up… but it’s so bloody easy to do it. ‘I’ll need to backtrack a bit, because Lieutenant Sondgren and her team have covered a good deal of ground since you set this in motion. Perhaps I should let her take over for now.’

  Picking up her cue, she said, ‘What we had to do was to sort out what sort of intelligence network EarthCorp would set up on Terra Nova – what would they want from it? There would not have been much point planting spies aboard a ship that was leaving Earth forever and would never be in contact with EarthCorp again, unless EarthCorp ultimately intended to claim Terra Nova for itself. We believe that this is exactly what they planned – that they would eventually send their own colony ship to Delta Pavonis and that their agents would form a Resistance cell that would be activated once EarthCorp’s ship arrived at Terra Nova.’

  Ferreira’s expression was one of surprise; clearly, this element had never occurred to him – he had simply assumed that EarthCorp had planted agents aboard Terra Nova because that was the kind of thing they always did, rather than that there might actually be a good reason for it. ‘You’re sure about this?’

  Kari glanced at Vinter, who said, ‘No, we’re not sure – how can we be? But it’s the explanation that makes most sense. You don’t plant agents just for the hell of it, especially when you’re talking about sleepers, which is what Teixeira was – you plant them because you anticipate using them further on down the line.’

  Ferreira considered this for a moment, then nodded. ‘Continue.’

  Kari took up the narrative again. ‘The signals from Stalker were probably to instruct whichever of their agents were awake to stand by for further orders, or whatever. But they may have been to activate the conduit we detected that led to Teixeira’s comp. Or both, of course.

  ‘The point is that, so far, any sleeper agents they have on board have not been required to do anything, because they’ve had nobody to report to – or, rather, they have, but only with a considerable delay given the distance involved to Earth. And what could they have reported that would be of any significance to EarthCorp on Earth? All that was intended to happen was that they would serve their six months’ shift, then go back into cryosleep for the remainder of the journey. Their real job would start at PlanetFall.’

  ‘Where they would basically be waiting for an EarthCorp ship to arrive before becoming active?’ interjected Ferreira. ‘The problem with that is that if the ship following us is EarthCorp, it’s going fast enough to reach Delta Pavonis the best part of forty years before we do.’

  Vinter nodded. ‘But they didn’t know that at the time, did they? They were taking the long view – they didn’t know how long it would be before they launched their own starship, so they were covering all the angles. As it is, if it comes to a shootout here, they’ve got their own agents in place, ready to act.’

  Ferreira nodded thoughtfully. ‘So it seems,’ he said slowly. ‘So, your summary of the present situation?’

  ‘Difficult to say,’ Kari replied, at a nod from Vinter. ‘We don’t have any way of knowing how many agents are awake at this moment, or how many have been in the past. This conduit into our system only leads to Teixeira – there are no other connections at all, apparently. It only became active a few hours after Teixeira moved into his quarters – we assume that’s when he gained access with, presumably, a password or phrase. There’s no way of knowing whether anyone previously used the conduit.’ She paused as Ferreira held up his hand.

  ‘These signals from Stalker – do we know what they contained?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not so far, no – Simunic is still working on them.’

  ‘Speculations?’

  Vinter stepped in again. ‘Could be anything. They’re probably asking what kind of information the agent had access to, what part of the ship he can get to without arousing suspicion. I doubt very much if they know what our shift rotation pattern is – and, anyway, Teixeira was awoken well ahead of schedule – in response to the emergency.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe they knew he would be revived once Stalker appeared on our screens, so had something specific in mind, but we’ll probably never know.’

  ‘Because he’s dead?’

  ‘Because he’s dead.’

  ‘But you no longer think he was protecting someone?’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t have known any other members of his Resistance cell – he’d have no reason to, not until PlanetFall.’

  ‘So why did he kill himself?’

  ‘He didn’t actually have any choice in the matter, did he? It was a built in cut-out so that we couldn’t get at the passwords, codes and protocols that were in his head. He could have given us access to the conduit and then on to whatever network they have concealed somewhere in the main Comp system.’

  ‘There could be others, though?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘And, assuming that they can be conditioned to kill themselves rather than be captured, presumably they could be programmed to act as suicide bombers, for example?’

  Vinter nodded. ‘Almost certainly.’

  Ferreira shook his head. ‘That’s all we need.’ He thought for a moment, then said, ‘You say Teixeira had a password to gain access to the conduit?’

  ‘Probably.’ Vinter laid a heavy emphasis on the word. ‘It would make sense for that to be the case, but we don’t know for certain.’

  ‘So, assuming you’re right about this, take me through this logging in procedure. How you think it’s done.’

  Again, Vinter nodded at Kari. ‘Basically, when an agent is revived, he or she sends a unique password during their first log on to the Ship comp – that activates the conduit. Given that we can find no other similar conduit within the comp network, we’re working on the principle that, once the agent has finished their six month shift, they sign out of the system and all trace of their conduit is erased. Or they all use the same conduit, but with different passwords and perhaps only one at a time. The point is that Teixeira’s conduit into the network is the only one we’ve found – and it’s not for want of trying.’

  Ferreira rubbed his cheeks; suddenly he looked tired. ‘So he might have been the only one of theirs awake?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So… Can’t one of your computer experts hack into the conduit, even if it is heavily encrypted?’

  Now, it was Kari’s turn to look at Vinter, who shook his head emphatically. ‘Too dangerous,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘That conduit goes right into the heart of the Ship Network. It’s probably booby-trapped, so
typing in the wrong password could end up with a virus being released across the network, which could then lead to entire sections being shut down or malfunctioning. OK, I know we’ve got very high level anti-viral packages on board, but EarthCorp’s computer scientists are just as good as ours, so can we guarantee they’ll work against a sufficiently sophisticated virus? It probably won’t happen if we get the password wrong once – they’d have to legislate for human error, hitting the wrong key by mistake, for example – but if we keep on getting it wrong, how many attempts will we get before the booby trap is triggered?’ He shrugged again. ‘OK, maybe nothing will happen, maybe we’re worrying about nothing, but, according to Adebayo and Mendis, who are the experts, there’s the potential to do a lot of damage, given the cross-network nature of the conduit. So it’s a case of do we even want to run the slightest risk of, say, Life Support shutting down? It could be a viable tactic from Stalker’s point of view – kill us all off without a shot being fired, so they can just come aboard at their leisure.’

  Ferreira stared at him, then murmured something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Shit…’ under his breath. ‘Could they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know – neither does anyone else, but do we want to run that risk? Or of having all our airlocks opened simultaneously to Space?’

  ‘No… You’re right. We do not want to take that chance, at least not until we know more, or can take suitable precautions.’

  ‘Colonel, from what I can gather, the only foolproof precaution would be to shut down Ship Network completely and then reboot it after a complete rewrite of the entire system – which is hardly an option, is it?’

  ‘Hardly.’ Again, Ferreira rubbed his face wearily. ‘So – what are our options?’

  ‘Limited, to put it mildly. Basically, the best thing to do is nothing.’

  ‘Nothing.’ Ferreira’s tone was flat, dismissive.

  ‘At the moment, we can monitor the conduit for activity, even if we can’t tell what data is being transmitted through it. But if anyone else logs on to it, we’ll know immediately.’