No Direction Home (16 page)

Ferreira looked at Teymourian. ‘Is he right, Captain?'

Teymourian nodded reluctantly. ‘I'd have to check the maths, but, yes, I'd say he was right.'

Ferreira turned back to Vinter. ‘Thank you, Major,' he said quietly, a note of resignation in his voice. ‘I can see that we have a good deal to learn about war in space, unfortunately.'

Perhaps you ought to have included more astrogation experts than just Teymourian in your takeover group, then… But none of this was supposed to happen, was it? I doubt if any of them even have any experience in aerial combat, let alone trying to knock out a starship at interstellar distances – they were looking forward to a routine occupation style operation, not the sort of encounter that has no precedent in military history. Congratulations, gentlemen and lady – you get to write the first textbook for space warfare…

Assuming there's anyone around to read it.

*****

Vinter saw Kari Sondgren heading towards him in the corridor and reached into his pocket for the data card, deliberately not looking at her; as far as any onlookers were concerned, he was more concerned with the hand comp he was studying intently. When she was a metre or so away, he suddenly changed direction and collided with her, deftly slipping the card into her tunic pocket. He caught a momentary flash of realisation on her face, instantly removed as she said:

‘My apologies, sir.' There was no mistaking the icy formality in her voice.

‘No need, Lieutenant – I should have been looking where I was going.'

That was it; the they nodded curtly at each other and headed off in opposite directions, two colleagues who were clearly not on good terms but who were trying to be professional about it.

And she
had
been thoroughly professional; even though it had taken her by surprise, Vinter doubted that anyone watching would have had the least suspicion about the brush contact.

But the message had been passed.

*****

‘Sir, can I have a word?'

Vinter looked up from his desk and saw Kari standing in the doorway. ‘Of course, Lieutenant. Come in.' He gestured at the chair in front of the desk and she sat down, her face expressionless. ‘What can I do for you?'

She hesitated, as if unsure how to begin, then took a deep breath and said, ‘Sir, I was thinking that, perhaps, we ought to have a talk about the present situation.'

‘Go on.'

‘I know that I've not exactly been all that co-operative since…' Her voice tailed off and she shrugged helplessly.

‘I know what you mean. And yes, I agree that we should.'

Now, she looked directly at him. ‘Only, I'd rather it was somewhere more – private – than here.' She shrugged again. ‘Where we wouldn't be disturbed.'

Vinter nodded thoughtfully, deliberately looking directly at the TV cam in the corner, in the angle between the wall and the ceiling. ‘Yes, that might be a good idea, Lieutenant. Where do you suggest?'

‘My quarters?'

He allowed himself a momentary expression of surprise, then nodded again. ‘You'd rather be on home ground, is that it?'

‘Something like that, yes, sir.'

‘Fair enough. Shall we say twenty hundred?'

‘Twenty hundred it is, sir.'

*****

Hiding in plain sight,
Vinter thought as he emerged from the elevator onto the corridor leading to Kari Sondgren's quarters. She'd realised that a covert rendezvous, with both of them having to make their way to it without passing any surveillance cams, not to mention possibly losing anyone following them, and then having to repeat the process on the way back would be nearly impossible, but a meeting arranged when they were almost certainly being monitored would attract far less suspicion.

He resisted the temptation to look up at the surveillance cam in the ceiling about ten feet away as he pressed the buzzer on her door and clasped his hands behind his back as he waited for it to be opened, as if feeling apprehensive about the next few minutes.
Which wasn't so far from the truth, actually…

The door slid open and she looked at him with a neutral expression. ‘Come on in, sir.' The tone was polite, formal.

Her quarters were smaller than his, and sparsely furnished; he had the impression that she did not spend much time there, because there was very little of her in the living room. On the other hand, she had only been revived a few weeks ago and virtually all of that time had been spent dealing with the threat posed by the pursuing starship and its agents, so transferring her belongings from storage had probably not been very high on her list of priorities.

She motioned him to the sofa, then looked around her; she seemed just as much on edge as he was. ‘I've swept the place three times and I haven't picked up any bugs, but–' she shrugged. ‘Who knows for certain?'

‘We're probably safe enough if you've checked. I think Ferreira has too much on his plate at the moment to start bugging our quarters – he'd have to circumvent
our
protocols to do that.'

‘True,' she conceded. ‘Look, I don't think this is going to be very easy for either of us, is it?' She hesitated for a moment, then asked, ‘Would sharing a bottle of wine be totally unprofessional?'

Vinter stared at her, taken by surprise, then nodded. ‘It would be – but it's still an excellent idea.'

She smiled briefly. ‘I've got some white wine in the fridge – will that be OK?'

Anji and I shared a bottle of white wine that first night together…
He pushed the memory aside. ‘That'll be fine.'

He could feel the tension between them gradually draining away as she went through the ritual of opening the bottle and pouring out two glasses, handing his to him as she took the single armchair facing him.

‘Cheers,' he said, raising his glass to her.

‘
Skoal
.' She took a token sip, then said, in a matter of fact voice, ‘I looked at the vid.'

‘And?'

She shook her head slowly in disbelief. ‘It's one hell of a story. Have you really got your memories back?'

‘I've certainly got
a
set of memories, yes. One that includes Anji and Emma.'

‘Which ties in with the file Becky saw…' She shook her head again. ‘Can they really do all that – plant false memories in your head? Can they do that to
anyone
?'

‘Rather than a clone, you mean?' He saw her about to apologise and held up his hand. ‘No, it's OK – it's a legitimate question. I don't know, if you want the honest answer. I would guess that the kind of detailed memory I was given originally could only be done to a clone as part of his or her programming, along with the augmentation, but there might be nothing to stop them feeding in short term memories.'

‘So they might have tampered with mine as well?'

Vinter sipped his drink, realising that this was what had concerned her the most – and it was a natural enough reaction. ‘Not so much with your memories as with your attitudes, I suspect. What they have been doing is brainwashing everyone in the cryo chambers into supporting New Dawn – so if you tend to favour them over EarthCorp, that's probably why.'

‘Bastards…' She raised her glass to her lips, then set it down on the table. ‘OK – that's not why we're here, though, is it? Like I said, I've seen the vid, so I've got more of an idea as to who you are – I think. But you wanted to talk to me after I'd seen the vid, right?'

‘Yes.'

‘About what?'

Vinter paused for a moment, summoning his thoughts, then said, ‘I need to know whose side you're on in all this.'

‘If you mean out of New Dawn and EarthCorp – I'm not on either side, not now.' She seemed to sit up a little straighter in her seat. ‘I'm sworn to protect UN personnel. It might sound pompous, but that's what I'm going to try and do.'

‘That's what I was hoping you'd say. The thing is that there's a very real risk that this present situation could end in New Dawn and EarthCorp shooting it out and that both ships will be destroyed as a result.' He shrugged. ‘If I can, I want to try and prevent that happening.'

‘Because you believe you're now in control of your actions – that you're not under Ferreira's control any more?'

‘I hope I'm not, put it that way.'

Now, she was staring thoughtfully at him. Eventually, she said, ‘So it's occurred to you that the memories you've got now might also have been tampered with? Or that Ferreira might have another trigger phrase he can use to get you back?'

‘It's occurred to me all right.'

‘And?'

‘There's damn all I can do about it except press on with the personality I've got – while I've still got it.'

‘Je-sus… I wouldn't like to be in your shoes, superhuman powers or not.' She looked away from him for several seconds, then said, ‘OK.' She drew in her breath and turned back to him. ‘So… what is it you want me for? I'm not saying I'll go along with it – you're going to have to sell it to me, because I don't know if I can trust you. Hell, I don't suppose even you know that for sure.'

‘You could say that, yes.' He paused for a moment, then said, ‘OK, here's the deal. I don't want New Dawn and EarthCorp deciding to go head to head in a combined death or glory stunt that could take us – and the two thousand others in the cryo chambers – with them. I want to find some way of intervening.'

‘Even if it means one of them winning out and ruling the rest of us?'

‘Ideally, no, but if that is all that's on offer, I'll take it. Maybe we can sort something out at PlanetFall if that happens, I don't know, but we've got to make sure we damn well
do
get there in the first place.'

She nodded. ‘Agreed. And you need to know if I'm going to be behind you if it comes to the crunch, is that it?'

‘Pretty much, yes.'

‘But you don't know if you really have broken Ferreira's hold over you, do you? Have you tested it out yet?'

‘No,' he admitted.

‘Just because you know what the trigger phrase is doesn't mean it's not going to affect you next time he uses it, does it? For all we know, you could be just as much under his control as before.'

‘All I can say is that I
feel
different, which isn't much use, really.'

‘No, it isn't,' she agreed bluntly. ‘And, if it's all the same to you, I'm not about to try the phrase out on you to see if it really doesn't work any more, because I could end up very dead long before I can countermand it. In any case, it could be geared to Ferreira's voice anyway, so it wouldn't prove anything – and you've thought of all this already, haven't you? I imagine you want to know even more than I do…' She stared down at the table, then said, very softly, so that he had to lean forward to hear her: ‘I need to know that if I'm going to go out on a limb for you, I won't be left dangling because you've been taken over by Ferreira when I most need you.' Her eyes came up and met his. ‘Believe me, sir, I would love to be able to trust you if you're really who – or what – you say you are, but…' She shrugged helplessly.

‘You're looking for a reason to believe,' he said gently.

‘I guess I am, yes.'

‘Me too…' He sighed. ‘OK. I'll see if I can come up with something that will give you that reason. And me, come to that.' There was a pause that lasted for several seconds, then he said, his voice deliberately business-like, ‘Anyway, I have a present for you.' He reached into his pocket and passed what appeared to be an in-ear comm device over to her.

She stared at it, then said, in sudden realisation, ‘Is that what I think it is?'

‘Depends what you think it is, really.'

‘A Persephone link?'

‘Got it in one.'

‘Cool… I didn't think it had got beyond the prototype stage.'

‘It didn't,' he admitted. ‘However, Vinter – the original Vinter, that is – must have realised we might need to use the system, so he included a pair in the equipment stores. They were simply included with the standard comm devices, but he told me what ID number to look for. And here they are – well, one of the pair anyway.'

‘And where's the other?'

He tapped his ear. ‘Already installed.'

‘OK… what exactly does it do? My security clearance wasn't high enough to know any details. All I'd heard was that it was a virtually undetectable two-way comm system.'

‘Which is what it is. It simply replaces your existing in-ear device and, when the cloaking system isn't activated, it works on a straightforward comms basis. However, simply subvocalise “Persephone” and it also acts as a direct shielded link to its other half.' He tapped his ear again. ‘Here. It goes through the ship's comms system, same as your usual UNSEC protocol, only anything you say doesn't get logged or recorded – as far as the system is concerned, there is no signal. The only person who will ever hear what you've said will be whoever is at the other end – there's no possibility of eavesdropping.'

‘How do I know when you're trying to contact me?'

‘You'll hear a chime – but not the standard one.'

‘And all I have to do to contact you is to use the magic word?'

‘Yup.'

She nodded slowly. ‘Sounds good to me… but is it a hundred per cent safe?'

‘Now that's the key question – I don't know. There was some field testing, but only on a limited basis, and it held up OK with that, but it doesn't come with a guarantee. On the other hand, New Dawn would have to work pretty hard to pierce the various protection routines this system has and that would take time.'

‘So, if we're going to use it, we'll have to keep it to a minimum?'