No Direction Home (22 page)

‘And none of that bothers you? That you've been brainwashed and given a set of memories that are utter bullshit?'

‘It bothers me, but what the hell am I supposed to do about it? Whether I have the original memories or not doesn't seem particularly important to me in comparison to simply being here, to be honest, given what happened to the other three hundred and ninety four Vinters who never made it. I am what I am, same as you, and there's not much point in wishing things were different. Neither of us is the original Vinter and we never will be. More to the point, everything that's been put into our heads is false anyway, because – well, you know why.'

‘Because it never actually happened – not to us, anyway.'

‘Exactly. There
is
one thing that I resent, I suppose.'

‘That I have both sets of memories and you don't.'

‘Exactly. You know me better than I know you. Could put me at a disadvantage.'
Now, his voice sounded shrewder, more calculating. Vinter knew why; they both knew that were almost certainly going to have to fight each other at some point and that only one would survive – assuming either of them did…

‘OK. This is where we get to the matter at hand, is it?'

‘We'll have to do it some time.'

‘OK. You've initiated all this, so presumably you've got something to say.'

‘Right. I think we both know that we're all in a dead end scenario. Our original mission was to catch up with you, destroy you with nukes and then head on to Delta Pavonis to claim it for ourselves, but it didn't exactly work out as planned. I don't suppose I need to tell you that we had an argument with a larger than usual piece of cosmic debris about thirty years ago that cost us nearly a third of our deuterium mass, which means that we can't slow down enough at PlanetFall. The bottom line is that we need your cryochambers, and Shadrin will be going all out to make that happen.'

‘Shadrin?'

‘He Who Must Be Obeyed. Our commanding officer. Colonel Yevgeny Ilyich Shadrin. He led the assault on Mumbai.'

‘Bloody hell… Not exactly an idiot, in other words. And pretty ruthless to boot.'

‘Indeed. He had no qualms whatsoever about nuking
Terra Nova
and everyone aboard, but now, of course, he can't do that, so he'll try and capture you instead. However, it's going to be complicated by the fact that we can't afford to use all our firepower, because we daren't risk damaging
Terra Nova
, so all the nukes, railguns, missiles, lasers, armour plating to deal with kinetic missiles and so on that we've got are going to count for bugger all. Our firepower will give us some advantage when it comes to the crunch, but any attack is going to involve heavy casualties on both sides. Interrupt me, by the way, if I'm stating the bleeding obvious too much – I suspect you already know all this.

‘However, what you won't know for certain is exactly how bad the propellant mass problem is. It's bad enough. Like I said, we won't be able to decelerate enough at Delta Pavonis to achieve any kind of orbit, not unless we ditch a substantial amount of mass along the way, which will include about half the cryochambers – along with their deep frozen colonists. So the reasoning is, why do that when we can grab yours and transfer all our colonists across? Why ditch half of our colonists when they'll all survive if we can take over
Terra Nova
? OK, so it'll mean spacing all of yours, but so what? You're the enemy, after all.

‘The thing is that, if we combine our deuterium masses, we could probably get a significant proportion of the colonists, both lots that is, to Delta Pavonis. It'd need some pretty nifty engineering work, not to mention recalculating orbital vectors, using light sails or something similar, maybe taking longer over decelerating and doing it at a lower rate or using both ships in reverse slingshot manoeuvres to slow down, but we could come up with a solution that would bring in the largest number of survivors. How many, I don't know, because I'm not an expert in orbital or celestial mechanics, not that good, anyway, but we could at least have a stab at it. I'll pause here, because you might have spotted something I've missed.'

‘Unlikely. So Shadrin won't go for a combined solution because he want to have all his colonists survive rather than simply some, right? But you're talking about the greatest good for the greatest number.'

‘Exactly. But there's no way I can get Shadrin to go for this and, believe me, I've tried. He couldn't care less about your colonists, to be honest.'

‘Ferreira's the same. You're the enemy, so you don't deserve any consideration at all as far as he's concerned.'

‘Even though we're probably all that's left of Mankind? Did you realise that?'

‘Yeah – we received the broadcast. Fucking Armageddon.'

‘Exactly.'

‘What we don't know is what happened to bring it about. The last we heard before that, things were getting worse. You and New Dawn were both building starships and rattling sabres at each other.'

‘OK. Things got a lot worse. The cover stories about Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti being the destinations were a load of bullshit. Both starships were intended for Delta Pavonis all along, simply because it had the most Earth-like planet. Both sides simply intended to kick out the UN once they got there, even if they couldn't manage to intercept and destroy you on the way. We managed to get going first and, once EarthCorp realised what New Dawn were up to, they destroyed New Dawn's ship while it was still in orbit. Things went downhill fast after that. New Dawn hit London with a chemical attack, we did the same thing to Tokyo, then they nuked New York, we nuked Beijing and so it went on. It's like both sides had a fucking death wish all along.'

‘Jesus… The stupid bastards…'

‘Exactly. They threw it all away – everything. And all because both sides thought their way was right. Or they didn't want to give up the power they held, more like.'

‘How bad was it?'

‘Pretty much total annihilation. There might be a few survivors in more remote areas or in underground bunkers, but the radiation will get them in a few years, because neither side bothered about using clean nukes – assuming any nuke can be called clean, that is… If any do manage to make it through somehow, they'll have been blasted back to the Stone Age.'

‘There's nothing left at all? Not even the Tycho Base?'

‘They only had supplies for six months, although they lasted for nearly a year in the end. Or some of them did… You don't want to hear the last message they sent, believe me. So it's Delta Pavonis or bust for both of us now, with the added consideration that whoever gets there will be on their own. If there are any survivors left on Earth, they won't be sending out any starships for several thousand years yet, if ever. We are all there is, which makes getting as many of us to PlanetFall as possible even more vital.'

‘And how.' He shook his head slowly. ‘So it looks as if we're going to make the same mistakes here as happened back on Earth. Even when it's in our own best interests to co-operate, we're going to fight it out – for what? Terra Nova is big enough for both of us, for Christ's sake. We could set up separate colonies on opposite sides of the planet if it came to it.'

‘Yes, but do they want to exist together, even if the other side are half a planet away? In any case, can you see either side trusting the other enough even to start negotiating?'

‘They might do, I suppose… but I'm not holding my breath on that one.' He paused, then said, ‘You know, it would be very easy to become arrogant about how much brighter we are than them, wouldn't it, when they behave like that?'

‘It would indeed. Even talking about “them” isn't a good sign, really, is it?'

‘No, it isn't…' Vinter rubbed his face tiredly. ‘OK, let's think this through. Basically, the problem is the fact that both ships are under military control at the moment. Presumably, you've got political leaders on board in the cryochambers? Any chance of reviving them and getting them around a table if I can do the same thing here?'

‘Not on my own, no. I've suggested that to Shadrin as well, but he insists there's no need – there's nothing to discuss, because he has his orders. They were to destroy
Terra Nova
and everyone on board anyway, so he's simply modifying them to enable our sleepers to survive. The real reason, of course, is that he doesn't want any interference from above. As far as he's concerned, we're at war, and that's all there is to it.'

‘Ferreira feels the same way. That's the crux of the matter, though, isn't it? They're both sides of the same coin. If we could take the military element out of the equation, we might be able to get somewhere.'

‘There's really only one time where that could happen, isn't there?'

‘In battle. Maximum casualties on both sides.'

‘And how do we do that, when we're going to have to fight each other? What we want to happen is going to count for fuck all.'
There was a pause and Vinter was about to speak, but then the voice continued,
‘Just for the record, when it does happen – us having to fight each other, that is – it's nothing personal. If it were up to me, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves, but – well, once we're in Augmented Mode, we won't have any choice in the matter, will we?'

‘Yeah, I know – I've been there.'
Six dead UN troopers…

There was silence that stretched out for considerably longer than the signal delay, before Vinter Two said,
‘Actually, maybe the situation will resolve itself anyway. Assuming we go ahead with the attack, there are bound to be heavy casualties. Maybe there won't be enough troops left on either side to be in control afterwards. It would all depend on how many UN people you've got available.'

‘With all due respect, I'm hardly going to comment on that, am I?'

‘No, I suppose not. When all's said and done, I'm still the enemy, aren't I?'

‘Afraid so. I have to assume that you could be made to repeat this entire conversation, if your bosses get to find out about it.'

‘Fair enough. And you're quite right, of course. They can control me whenever they want. You know that as well as I do.'

‘Yeah… I know.' He sighed. ‘This whole thing – the two of us having no choice but to fight each other – it's shitty as hell.'

‘That's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me… Bugger… It looks as if I'll have to go – according to my comms display, Shadrin has been trying to call me for the last five minutes and His Lordship doesn't like to be kept waiting.'

‘Sounds like Ferreira.'

‘Pardon my French, but they're all the fucking same, aren't they?
' There was a silence that lasted for several seconds; Vinter was just about to speak, when the voice continued,
‘Well, at least we got to talk to each other.'

‘True. I'm glad we had the chance.'

‘Me too. Shit… His Lordship has upped the priority status on his call to red, so I really will have to go. Listen… This might sound corny, but it's been great talking to you.'

‘It sounds corny as hell, but, well… The feeling's mutual.' He hesitated, then said, ‘See you around.'

The answer, when it came, was exactly as he had expected:
‘Not if I see you first.'

*****

Vinter did not move for almost half a minute after the voice in his head had gone; part of him realised that he would probably never hear it again and that it was as if he had lost part of himself, a part that he had not known existed until now. But shouldn't the possibility of there being another Vinter out there have occurred to him before now? EarthCorp had obviously taken over the Demeter Project and carried on with it, so the logical outcome of that would be the production of more clones like himself. Had his ego been so taken by the idea that he was unique that he just hadn't thought to question it? Had he done so, he might well have started worrying about the prospect of there being a whole unit of Vinter cloned super-warriors at EarthCorp's disposal before now, because there was no way for him to know whether the other Vinter –
call him Vinter Two, or something like that
– was telling the truth about there only being two successful clones from the Project.

But wouldn't he know if Vinter Two were lying to him? They were both the same person, weren't they?

No, they weren't, actually. Vinter Two was just another version of himself – or of the original Vinter, if truth be told, and he would do well to remember that. He had to bear in mind that EarthCorp might well have built in some advances with Vinter Two, whether in terms of physical or mental capabilities, which would give him an edge in any combat situation.

The point is that they'll have a much better idea of my capabilities than we'll ever have of his. And he'll be more loyal to EarthCorp than I am to New Dawn, because they wouldn't have had to impose the attitudes onto an existing personality, the way New Dawn had to do with me – they would simply have downloaded the relevant memories and attitudes onto a blank slate. Vinter Two is probably far more thoroughly conditioned than I am, for better or worse. And he is going to be at least my equal at everything worth talking about, and very likely my superior in the really crucial elements…

Or, to put it another way, once we're both in Augmented Mode, he's probably going to win.

Terrific.

And what if he had been lying about there being only the two of them?