No Direction Home Page 10

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say.’ She smiled slowly, seductively. ‘So follow me, big boy.’

  That had been the beginning of one of the nights of his life. Perhaps half an hour later, they had pounded their way to shattering climaxes, only seconds apart, her legs coiled tightly around him, digging her nails into his shoulders as her body arched convulsively under his… And then again, Livvy straddling him, her head thrown back in orgasm as he thrust up into her, frantically… The following morning, taking her from behind, her fingers like claws as they clutched the pillow, her body slamming back against his. ‘Yes, Chris… Oh yes, yes… harder… Harder!’ And the rest… the feel of her hands caressing him, exciting him, the soft pressure of her lips around his cock, the low moans of pleasure and gasps of encouragement once he was inside her…

  She’d been incredible…

  And then, maybe a fortnight later…

  ‘Chris?’

  ‘Umm?’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘After what we’ve just been doing, you can ask me pretty much anything you like.’

  ‘Was it that good?’ A husky, sexy chuckle.

  ‘Definitely that good, yes.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’ She was lying next to him, the whole length of her naked body pressed against his, her head resting on his chest as his arm gently stroked her shoulder. Now, she moved her upper body over on top of his, so that she could look into his face. ‘Have you ever been really serious about anyone? I know it’s none of my business, of course – but I’m interested in how someone as… well… as good at fucking as you are is still unattached.’

  He smiled at her intentional coarseness; she liked to do that, to use earthy comments as if to counterpoint her privileged upbringing. She might be Australian, but she’d also been to Roedean and a Swiss finishing school (where, according to her, she had lost her virginity to a ski instructor, having decided that this should be part of her education as well). ‘Well… there was someone, back at Uni, I suppose. Girl called Naomi – I thought it was the real thing, but then she ran off with someone she’d been screwing behind my back for six months. Along with several others, as I found out later on.’

  ‘I see… So she put you off women, did she?’

  ‘Well, not women, no, as you can probably tell… Just put me off getting involved, I suppose.’

  ‘In case it happened again?’

  ‘What, getting hurt? Pretty much, yes.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s OK – it’s not a problem for me. My own story is pretty much the same – some guy called Jason, rich and good looking. Only he wanted a little wife at home and I wanted a career, so it all went pear-shaped and more than a little bit nasty as well. I’ve never trusted anyone called Jason since and if he owns a Ferrari, forget it… Well, no, I take that back about the Ferrari, thinking about it.’

  ‘But not the Jason bit?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Just as well my parents changed their mind about calling me Jason then, wasn’t it?’

  She stared suspiciously at him. ‘You know, I never know when you’re joking, you’re so deadpan at times.’

  ‘Just joking – I’d never have forgiven them if they’d even been thinking about it.’

  She chuckled again, then moved up the bed so that she could kiss him, her lips soft and willing against his. ‘The reason I’m asking is because I’d like to get… us… sorted out.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘You and me, dummy… Where do you want this relationship to go? We’re two weeks down the line, we’re pretty good in bed together…’

  ‘It sounds as if there’s a “but” in there somewhere.’

  ‘You leave my butt out of this – well, for the moment, anyway… No, seriously, I’d just like to get a few ground rules laid down, because I don’t want either of us to be hoping for something that isn’t going to happen, OK?’

  ‘OK. What ground rules?’

  She seemed to hesitate, but Vinter was pretty certain she knew exactly what she was going to say next. ‘I don’t want a heavy involvement. What I’d like is regular sex with you, the same as so far, but with no strings or commitments, just sex that is fun for both of us. I don’t want – or expect – anything else. Now… are you OK with that?’

  ‘I’m up for that, yes. What red-blooded straight male wouldn’t be?’

  ‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say.’ She reached down for his penis and began stroking it gently, smiling as it began to respond. ‘So, if we’re talking about regular sex, it’s been almost an hour since the last time…’

  Her mouth pressed down hard on his and she brought up her knees so that she was kneeling astride him. He grinned and reached up to caress her breasts, feeling her nipples harden.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, a mischievous glint in his eyes, ‘have you ever thought about irregular sex?’

  ‘As in kinky?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Oh, yes… Definitely. How irregular do you want to be?’

  ‘How does utterly perverted grab you?’

  ‘Sounds like fighting talk… All right,’ she said softly, then chuckled. ‘Show me what you can do, big boy.’

  ‘Umm, OK… You wouldn’t happen to have any handcuffs around, would you?’

  ‘Funny you should say that… Try the bedside table, top drawer.’

  Altogether, the relationship lasted almost eight years, until Livvy was promoted to a post in UN New York; there had been an idyllic fortnight scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef followed by an epic final night together in Livvy’s wide bed, where they had seemed determined to repeat every experience they had shared during their time together, then she had boarded the orbital jetliner to New York and that had been the last he saw of her. There had been vidcalls and mails, often pornographic in content, but they had gradually tailed off, as both had expected; he had not heard from her for over a year before Terra Nova had left Earth. It had been one of the reasons he had been chosen for the project – there were no ties or commitments on his part to complicate the issue.

  Or regrets…

  *****

  But now, thinking about it, wasn’t it all just a little too nice and convenient? A relationship with no strings, ending amicably and with enough time passing for it to be no more than a pleasant memory, one that would only occasionally impinge on his thoughts? How much could he actually remember of her, bearing in mind that they had been together for eight years?

  Not very much, he realised slowly. She had promised to show him around Australia, but he could only remember vacations with her in Queensland and a long weekend in Sydney. How many times had they been to Queensland? Damned if he could remember – more than once, but how many more? OK, so they’d had sex an awful lot – but where? There seemed to be very little context there – for example, that threesome they’d tried had been on holiday in Cairns–

  Hold on a minute – a threesome? Really? Are you sure about that?

  OK… They’d been in Cairns – in a hotel? Beach apartment? – and the other girl had been a petite redhead, but what had her name been? And how had they actually met her and persuaded her to take part? On the beach, perhaps – but had she been alone?

  He couldn’t damn well remember – his recollections only started in the bedroom, with Livvy and the girl taking off each other’s bikinis while he watched on the bed. A girl they had apparently only just met, but who had just happened to be bisexual and remarkably eager to take part in a three in a bed session with a pair of strangers… More like a porn vid than anything that would happen in real life, come to think about it… I mean, how likely was that, in all honesty? And, given that it was the kind of event that doesn’t exactly happen that often, why can’t I remember more about it?

  And what about the other memories?

  Reluctantly, he had to admit that the same thing applied, at least for a large proportion of them. There seemed to be a lot of amazing sex, with Livvy in the role of a
n uninhibited sexual partner, game for anything, sometimes submissive, sometimes an out and out dominatrix, but who was always satisfied by her constantly enthusiastic lover – himself. Always… Now that he thought about it, really thought about it, he couldn’t recall a single time when sex hadn’t worked for them. Not once. And was that the intention? Provide powerfully erotic memories for him to savour – the kind that he would never even think about questioning, or even want to, simply because they were so pleasurable – and ego-boosting? They seemed real – he could even recall the tactile sensations, especially when Livvy performed fellatio – but how could he know for certain?

  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 prob
ably 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?’