No Direction Home Page 4

  A good team – but then it damn well should be…

  But, were they a far more high-powered counter-intelligence team than was absolutely necessary? The only reason they were aboard at all was as a result of unconfirmed reports that the starship project had been infiltrated by either EarthCorp or New Dawn agents or both, so did they really need this much specialist firepower? Not that he was complaining, but it did seem like a case of using the proverbial sledge hammer to crack a walnut. Unless, of course, they’d known that someone was going to send a starship after them – which would explain the hundred Peacekeeper troops currently being revived.

  There again, if they had known that something like this might happen, they might have bloody well warned us…

  Realising that all but Mendis had finished reading their briefing material, Vinter cleared his throat for attention. ‘OK, does anybody have any questions on what you’ve seen so far?’

  As he had expected, Simunic spoke up first. ‘These signals – has there been any attempt to decrypt them so far?’

  ‘Some, yes, but only enough for them to realise that it needed an expert to get anywhere with them.’

  Simunic smiled briefly, acknowledging the compliment. ‘At first blush, it looks as if they’re going to take a while.’

  ‘Which is how long?’

  ‘At least a week, but probably longer. Possibly a lot longer. These signals have all the signs of very heavy encryption – we could be reduced to straight number crunching.’ Simunic shrugged. ‘Or we could get lucky and find it next week.’

  ‘But you don’t think so.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Fair enough – just do what you can. You’ll have access to all the comp resources you need.’ He looked around at the others, but there were no more questions, which didn’t surprise him – Simunic was the only one who had anything substantial to get his teeth into. ‘OK – this is what we’re going to do. We need a detailed breakdown of where in the ship anyone can receive signals from outside and, once we’ve got that, a log of who’s got access to those places, especially those who can be there without attracting attention. Mendis and Adebayo, you’re the experts here – you’ll need to run all that through the comps, but we’ll all need to get involved at gathering the data. I know it’s not what your specialities are, but we don’t have anything for the rest of you yet. I’m requesting more revivals for people to do the legwork, so they should come on stream fairly quickly.’

  ‘It doesn’t look as if there’s any need for Naragama or me at all yet,’ Moreira pointed out, with a hint of peevishness.

  ‘I know,’ Vinter acknowledged. ‘It wasn’t me who drew up the list in the first place – you were already being revived before I was even briefed.’ He put an edge into his voice. ‘But you’re awake and the others aren’t, yet, so you’ll just have to get on with it, won’t you?’

  Moreira’s eyes held his for a moment, then the other man nodded. ‘True… and this does seem rather urgent, I must admit.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Vinter said curtly; he did not have time for any prima donna moments. He addressed the others at the table, although Simunic already seemed oblivious to his surroundings; he was already typing in queries and instructions on his comp pad. ‘The other line of enquiry involves even more legwork, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’ll be me, then,’ said Sondgren, brightly – and there was a series of smiles in response to her comment around the table. Within seconds, she had defused what had become a tense atmosphere and Vinter looked at her with increased respect; he had no doubt that had been her intention. ‘I suppose it means going through the files of everyone currently awake?’

  ‘Got it in one. But we’ll both be doing that.’

  She shrugged. ‘OK.’

  ‘Right, unless anyone has any further questions, that’s the end of the briefing as far as I’m concerned. I’ll be assigning more officers to each of you once they’re revived, but, for the moment, Mendis, Moreira and Naragama – you’ll be assisting Adebayo. It shouldn’t be for long. Lieutenant, you’re with me.’

  Vinter and Sondgren watched as the others filed out, then Vinter turned to her once the door had closed. ‘Well?’

  ‘Simunic is perfectly happy – you’ve given him a bone to chew on and he’ll worry away at it until he gets there. Same with Mendis and Adebayo – once they the data, they’ll get going on it. The other two are definitely feeling hard done by.’

  ‘I can’t honestly blame them,’ said Vinter. ‘There was no way either of them needed to be revived yet. Moreira doesn’t have anyone to interrogate and there’s no forensic evidence for Naragama to put under the microscope. Lahtinen, or whoever it was, didn’t really think ahead, just simply chose five section heads to cover a wide range of expertise – too many chiefs and not enough Indians.’

  ‘OK, so we go through the files,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s occurred to you that everyone on the Terra Nova will have been rigorously checked and evaluated during the selection process, so there’s probably not much chance of us turning up anything the original screening might have missed?’

  ‘Yes, it has occurred to me,’ Vinter replied, sighing. ‘It’s also occurred to me that our agents might not even be awake at the moment – how would anyone in that ship behind us know who would be on what shift? They’ve been sending the signals for weeks now, the same ones over and over, so they’re hoping that someone will be around to pick them up and act on them, but we can’t afford to assume that our agents are actually on this present shift. The next batch will be revived in two months’ time – they could be amongst that lot – or they could have gone back into the chambers four months ago.’

  ‘Oh, terrific… But, unless they’re banking on a very lucky break in terms of their agents being amongst only forty people awake at any given moment out of two thousand, then they must be banking on there being at least some awake in every shift.’

  Vinter nodded. ‘Exactly. If that’s the case, then there could be a hell of a lot of these agents in the chambers, which would mean that the screening process is a load of manure. Or… someone here has sent a signal to the ship behind us that they’re awake and ready for orders.’

  ‘Which they could act on at any time… We’d better get moving, sir.’

  *****

  ‘You’re looking a little confused, sir,’ Sondgren said a little hesitantly. She and Vinter were sitting facing each other on opposite sides of a comp unit; both were reading data off screens in front of them.

  ‘I am, a bit, to be honest. I’m trying to draw up a priority list of UNSEC personnel to be revived and I’ve just found out that I don’t actually know any of those in the chambers. Not one of them.’

  ‘Is that surprising? I don’t know any of them either, but we’re talking about only thirty five UNSEC personnel making the cut out of over twelve thousand, so the odds are that we’ll all be strangers.’

  ‘OK, but, apart from me, not one from Canberra Office, supposedly an elite posting? The best of the best?’

  ‘Maybe they wanted to spread the selection over as wide a geographical area as possible – more experience that way.’

  ‘True,’ Vinter conceded reluctantly. He saw her glancing at her watch surreptitiously, then abruptly remembered: ‘Shit – I forgot. It’s your birthday, isn’t it? You wanted to get away early, right? And you’re almost an hour over time.’

  ‘If that’s OK.’

  ‘Course it is. Get moving.’

  ‘Thanks, sir.’ She stood up and headed for the door, then paused, looking back at him. ‘You’re very welcome to come along, sir. We’re just meeting for a few drinks in Harry’s Bar.’

  Vinter grinned – the main social area had acquired that name somewhere along the way – but then shook his head. ‘No, you go on. You’ll all be better off without me – it’s never a good idea to have the boss along when you want to let your hair down.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine. It’s
not my sort of thing anyway, to be honest – getting too old.’ Oh yeah? Drinking competitions, trying to drain steins of beer in one go while lying flat on your back – that was you, wasn’t it? And not that long ago, either, not in subjective time, anyway…

  ‘OK, but if you change your mind, you know where to find us.’

  ‘Go on, enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Thanks, sir.’ She flashed him a dazzling smile, then was gone, leaving him staring at the doorway. Not for the first time, he thought how attractive she was, but there was no way that he would have an affaire with a colleague – it was totally unprofessional. He had seen far too many cases – and careers – ruined because officers couldn’t or wouldn’t keep their hands off each other and he was not going to make the same mistake. Somewhere in the back of his mind, however, was the suspicion that he would get precisely nowhere if he did try anything on with Kari Sondgren, because she was just as professional as he was – she wouldn’t have reached her present rank at a prime posting if she wasn’t. Was that the real reason for his principled stand – the feeling that she’d tell him where to get off anyway?

  It hadn’t stopped him with Livvy, after all. She’d been a colleague at UNHQ in Canberra, albeit only a liaison officer at Economic Aid and Development; the point was that she hadn’t been a full-fledged UNSEC officer and it hadn’t caused any conflicts of interest or problems for anyone else. Both single, unattached and with no intention on either side of making it any more serious than it needed to be… they’d both had a good time and when it ended, it did so amicably, with no ill feelings. It was just the sort of relationship he’d needed after that bitch Naomi at University – sensational in bed, but not just with him, as he’d found out eventually – a complete slag…

  Here, hold on… Slag? A bit strong, isn’t it? Just because she dumped you for someone else…

  Yeah, after she’d been around most of my mates as well – the things I heard about her afterwards…

  Oh, right, she was sensational in bed and you thought she hadn’t ever been with anyone else, is that it? Why did you let it get to you? Admit it, the main reason you shacked up with Livvy was because it was never going to get serious and you were scared of getting involved… You damn near let Naomi put you off women for good.

  OK, I take your point. And yes, I certainly didn’t have any complaints about her at the time…

  Vinter was vaguely aware that he had leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, allowing the erotic images running through his head full play. That’s another problem with having a rejuvenated body… you start thinking about sex a lot more often… There was Cheryl, the first – although it sure as well wasn’t for her… That girl at the party – Lauren, wasn’t it? – just a month later… you were on a roll there, weren’t you? And Jessica, with legs that seemed to go on forever. Then there was the married one, the boss’s wife at that summer job – what was her name?

  Anji.

  No, it wasn’t Anji…

  Abruptly, he sat up, frowning. Who the hell is – was – Anji? I keep thinking of that name and I’ve never met an Anji, ever, let alone slept with one… but was she the woman in my dream, the one with long blonde hair in the same bed as me?

  At that moment, a vivid image of a laughing face seemed to explode into his mind – just the face with long blonde hair cascading down each side, gone almost before he realised it was there… Shit, she was bloody gorgeous, stunning – I’d never have forgotten that face, would I?

  But, apparently, he had… It was as if he could remember every detail of that face, the laughter lines on each side of her blue eyes, the long, smooth neck and flawless complexion… but nothing else. No memory of ever having met her, or who she was – was she Anji? Or a figment of his imagination?

  Another image, of a film star from way back when against a shadowy background – Memories… you’re talking about memories – then that was gone as well.

  Vinter leaned forward, the frown deepening. Dr Al-Nashrawi had mentioned people experiencing disorientation and lapses in memory when they came out of the chambers. Does something happen in cryosleep that affects our memories? He knew that everyone emerging from the chambers was given subliminal hypnosis sessions during the wake-up period, supposedly to update them on the current situation aboard ship – But what if they’re editing our memories? Only giving us back the ones they think we’ll need? Maybe they’re holding back the more distressing ones that will only distract or upset us – if they’re about people we’ll never see again, for example, the ones left behind on Earth… It could be a way to keep people sane, by not tormenting them with memories of people and places they would never see again and things that were gone forever.

  For their own good…

  Vinter wasn’t sure he liked that.

  It’s all right, we’ve told you what to dream… Another snatch of music, old rock, but with a synthesiser dominating – and where did that come from, for crying out loud? Snatches of film or music that didn’t mean anything to him, but seemed to tie in with what he was thinking, some sort of associative recall – except that he had no idea where they were coming from.

  Had they done it? Had they altered his memories?

  Not that he would ever really know, he realised bitterly – and even if they had, what the hell could he do about it anyway?

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘Hallo, Inspector,’ said Ferreira, coming around the desk to greet him; his handshake was firm, businesslike. ‘Good of you to be so prompt.’

  Didn’t know I had any choice in the matter… Vinter sat down in the chair in front of the desk and watched Ferreira as he resumed his own seat. The other man was in full Colonel’s uniform, but, even without it, there was no mistaking the military bearing. This was a professional soldier to his fingertips, one who had risen rapidly in the UN Peacekeeping Force following his transfer from the Brazilian Army fifteen years earlier. He also showed no sign of any after-effects of being rushed through the revival process; his eyes were clear, alert – and shrewd.

  ‘I’ve been reading through your reports on the investigation into the suspected agents,’ Ferreira began without preamble. ‘To be blunt, there doesn’t seem to be any indication of much progress.’

  Vinter looked thoughtfully at the other man. Strictly speaking, the investigation was none of Ferreira’s business; he was Military, not Security, when all was said and done. But, since his revival, it had become obvious that Ferreira, not Lahtinen, was now the de facto Commanding Officer of the Terra Nova, even if he had not yet invoked the Emergency Powers that would make it official. ‘No, there isn’t,’ he admitted. ‘The problem is that we’re looking for a passive agent – or agents – who doesn’t actually have to do anything but receive signals. There have been no acknowledgements of them, or any indication of any covert action so far – it’s a situation where if he, she or they do nothing but simply lie low, it will be virtually impossible to find them. Short of hooking everyone currently awake up to lie detectors and interrogating them, of course.’

  ‘It may come to that, Inspector,’ Ferreira said gravely; Vinter stared at him in near disbelief. Admittedly, he had thrown out the suggestion to see how the other man would react – Ferreira had revealed far more than he probably intended in that respect – but, in practice, it would be a violation of standard UN policy. But Ferreira had not discounted it as an option…

  ‘However, that would only be a last resort, of course,’ Ferreira continued smoothly, as if belatedly realising how much he had given away. ‘I take it you’re proceeding on the assumption that they are probably EarthCorp agents and checking all backgrounds with that in mind?’

  ‘We’re not making any assumptions at all, Colonel – after all, both sides were building starships after we left. I’m inclined to agree with you that we are more likely to be dealing with EarthCorp than New Dawn, but we’re keeping all options in mind.’ Now why did I say that? Why do I instinctively feel that it’s more like the sort of thing
EarthCorp would do?

  ‘Well, I suppose you know your own area best, but…’ Ferreira shrugged, leaving Vinter in no doubt that he felt the UNSEC team was wasting its time tracking down any links with New Dawn. ‘However, I would be interested in any thoughts you might have about this spacecraft behind us – we’ve given it the codename “Stalker” by the way. Hardly original, but appropriate, one feels. Apparently, it will overtake us in twelve weeks or so if it continues at its present speed, but I want to make sure that there is no possibility of any useful information being transmitted to Stalker in the meantime.’

  ‘We’re keeping all possible communications channels under twenty four seven monitoring, but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘It actually would be very useful to us if our agent did try to contact Stalker.’

  ‘Meaning you could then trace the signal?’ Ferreira nodded approvingly.

  ‘The thing is that whoever it is – or they are – I don’t think they’ll show their hand unless it’s worth the risk. It would need to be something pretty significant that they would feel they have to pass on straight away, regardless of the risk of discovery.’