The Noise Revealed (18 page)

"Thank you."

She watched Teifer depart. One more thing to tick off the list, and the list was a long one.

"You look exhausted," Leyton told her as he entered the bridge a moment later. "Get some rest, for all our sakes. The ship doesn't need a commander who makes errors of judgement through tiredness."

"I will, I will," she promised. Yet an hour later found her still at at her station on the bridge, her thoughts grim. No sooner had Nyles left her in command of the ship than she led them straight into a ULAW ambush. Only their hybrid engines had enabled them to survive and those engines were now damaged. She felt confident Teifer would do what she could, but they both knew that wasn't much. Nobody aboard had the expertise to tell her how long the drive would hold out, how many more jumps it was good for and when exactly it was likely to fail completely and leave them all stranded. The situation was intolerable.

In truth, she knew they'd escaped the skirmish relatively lightly, having fled before ULAW could bring any heavier ships into play, but it had still happened on her watch, and after the news of the habitat's destruction even one more casualty was one too many. She scrolled down the list of the dead - twenty-three of them - and could put a face to every name. These were her friends, people she'd grown up with, folk she'd known all her life.

Realising that wallowing in her own hurt was a base form of procrastination and the very last thing that those relying on her leadership deserved, she blinked, wiping the list from her lenses. No point in putting things off any longer; a decision had to be made.

She felt as torn as the engines' energy fields. She was desperate to continue working, filled with the conviction that her own people's future and perhaps even that of all humankind might hinge on discovering what was really going on between ULAW and the Byrzaens. Yet in the current circumstances she didn't see how she could. She'd even contemplated jettisoning the data packages collected at the pickup point, afraid that they might be contaminated - one final trap set by the United League of Allied Worlds to snare them - but she rejected the idea. People had died to retrieve this information. How would those deaths make any sense if she didn't do her utmost to extract every iota of useful intel from these packages as possible? So they remained there, waiting for her to find the time to digest and analyse their content; which, unfortunately, was not now.

Kethi was self-reliant as a rule, but not to the point of believing that no one else ever had a valid viewpoint. Seeing no alternative herself, she called a meeting of the ship's officers in the hope that they might. Leyton was also included, almost as an afterthought, on the basis that he'd bring a different perspective and possessed knowledge that the habitat natives didn't.

Kethi spoke succinctly and dispassionately, outlining the situation before concluding, "So the most obvious course of action is for us to abandon our mission and go home, retreating to Far Flung, where the drives can be repaired and overhauled." She even managed to get past the word 'home' without stumbling. "If anyone has an alternative suggestion, I'll be glad to hear from them, otherwise we'll set course for Far Flung within the hour."

She glanced around the small group, more in hope than expectation, and was only mildly disappointed by the silence.

"There might be one person who can help," Leyton said, just as she was about to call the meeting to a close. "A ship's engineer, said to be brilliant, name of Kyle."

"
The Rebellion'
s engines aren't exactly your standard Kaufman drive units..." Kethi said slowly, certain that Leyton already knew this and wondering what he was thinking.

"I know, Byrzaen hybrids; but, you see, Kyle was the first man recruited by
The Noise Within
, and he worked with
their
hybrid engines when they developed a hitch."

Of course, Kethi recalled the name now. The man had a first class record before jumping ship to join
The Noise Within
. She didn't realise he'd actually worked on the engines though. This opened up a whole new set of possibilities, though she foresaw one fairly major obstacle. "And how exactly would we go about finding this Kyle?"

"After
The Noise Within
was crippled, the surviving crew were arrested by ULAW for piracy. Kyle's out now, but..."

"The authorities would have tagged him!" Kethi suddenly realised.

Leyton grinned. "Exactly, just as they did Mya, just as they do with everyone who's passed through their penal system, however briefly."

Kethi found the corners of her own lips twitching upwards to mirror Leyton's expression. "Now that
is
interesting."

Chapter Eleven

Philip still felt something of a novice when it came to Virtuality, but at least he was beginning to think of it as home rather than an exotic place he'd come to visit while on holiday. Tanya had turned up again. The meeting had been predictably awkward, at least for him; she seemed to take everything in her stride. She was as flirtatious as ever but he didn't feel able to respond, not now that he knew her real interest in him was business rather than pleasure. In fact, wounded pride made him positively frosty to begin with.

"Lighten up," had been her advice. "Who says we can't combine the two? It's not as if I'm going to fall pregnant... though that might be fun come to think of it. In Virtuality, I mean; wouldn't want a baby out
there
, far too much hassle."

Yet he remained resolutely formal in her presence, determined to treat her as a business associate rather than the sassy woman he fancied like mad; the only stiffness he now wanted in their relationship was in his attitude.

Their small cabal had gained another member. They'd been able to confirm straight away that the Byrzaen-inspired alcoves at Bubbles were not a recent addition to the nightclub. The relevant coding predated first contact at New Paris by at least a year, even if it wasn't part of the initial construct. The fact that the alcoves weren't an original feature wasn't significant in itself either, since add-ons and facelifts were frequent for establishments in Virtuality - such tinkering being a great deal swifter and cheaper than they would be in reality. Nor could they see anything strikingly unusual about the program written for the alcoves; there was nothing obvious to delineate it from the code sequences used to build everything else, but then neither Philip nor Malcolm were programming experts. They desperately needed the help of someone who was.

Catherine Chzyski came to their rescue. Lara Chinen was one of the best programmers Philip had ever worked with, and when the Kaufman Industry's CEO placed her expertise at their disposal he could not have been happier. Philip felt certain that if anyone could spot whatever he and Malcolm were missing, it would be Lara.

He remembered her as a quiet, petite young woman, an efficient worker who got on with the job with a minimum of fuss. What he'd forgotten, or perhaps had never before noticed, was how pretty she was - a delicate beauty courtesy of almond eyes and Asiatic features, a genetic trait that was rare on Home and so lent her an air of the exotic.

Lara had made a vital contribution to the Kaufman Industries 'project' which Philip had pursued relentlessly for so many years. That project resulted in the process of gestalt between human and AI minds enjoyed by the pilots of the needle ships that had defeated
The Noise Within
. Philip vaguely recalled that Lara had been involved with one of the potential pilots... Ah yes, Jenner, the cream of the crop. He wondered whether that emotional link persisted and, if so, how she was coping with her beau's protracted absence now that the needle ship squadron was seeing active service and found itself constantly in demand.

The logic chain his mind had constructed in the split second it took him to associate Lara to Jenner also intrigued him. This had been no intuitive leap instantly linking the pair, but instead a clear chain of connection leading from one to the other. Was that how all thinking worked for him now? Had he just caught a first glimpse of one of the fundamental differences between his past life and this new one - rigidity of thought?

He filed the matter away for further consideration later.

Lara produced results almost immediately. Tanya wasn't present at the meeting, evidently manifesting only for the virtual side of things. Philip still had no idea how closely her avatar mirrored her corporeal self's actual appearance, if at all, and determined to find out once this was all over.

"Of course, there are no telltale differences between the code underpinning your alcoves and anything else in Virtuality," Lara explained to them.

"Of course," Malcolm agreed, after they'd spent an age searching for just such differences.

"So what I've done is make a couple of assumptions. The first being that the date the alcoves were introduced is significant, that it represents the point where alien influence began to permeate Home's Virtuality."

Which made sense. Why hadn't they thought of that?

"The second is that any other objects showing Byrzaen influence would contain some similarities in the coding sequences to these alcoves of yours. To track that down, I've instigated multiple iterative searches running in parallel, beginning with one which looked for coding that's identical to the alcoves and then spawning search-trees from there, each dedicated to finding wider variation from the original than its predecessor."

"Told you she was good," Philip said to Malcolm.

"So this gives me two lists, one linked to the alcoves by date of origin and the other by some shared coding sequences." She gestured and two columns of numerical series appeared in the air. "I can't guarantee that either of these contains what you're looking for, but a comparison shows that two of the sequences appear in both sets." Another gesture and two lines of numbers in each column started to pulse, while a pair of red cords crossed the gap between columns, linking the identical sequences.

"Thanks, Lara," Philip said and meant it. "At least this gives us a good place to start."

"Two, to be precise," Malcolm said, "and this certainly beats the hell out of searching every nook and cranny in Virtuality."

"Let's go."

"Sure," Malcolm agreed. "As soon as Tanya can join us."

Great; that was all Philip wanted to hear.

It looked like any street in a well-to-do part of some rural town. The only unusual aspect was its brevity - seven houses, three to either side with a sprawling manse at the far end; a cul-de-sac, giving the impression that the six smaller properties were attending on their more significant neighbour. Set against a background of gently sloping fields ripe with corn, and a small copse of tall trees at the crown of a low hill, this could easily have been many people's idyll. Not hers, though.

"Four hostiles in the first building to the left, three to the right," the gun informed her. At the same instant, red dots appeared in her visor.

Both houses looked quiet to the naked eye - the one to her right even boasted a low white picket fence. The two could have been mirror images of each other, with grand porches and a broad window to either side. Those windows were not smashed as yet and no one was shooting at her, but that would undoubtedly change as soon as she stepped between them and put herself in the crossfire. Boulton gathered herself. Had this been a holo-drama, she'd doubtless have strolled down the centre of the street, a gun in each hand, pumping bullets into the windows to either side as she went, taking out enemies with every stride. The whole set against a soundtrack of adrenaline-pumping music - something heavy, fast and edgy. What she was about to attempt seemed like hard work in comparison, and she bet holo-drama performers earned a hell of a lot more than she did as well.

"Sonic."

She lifted the gun's nozzle, squeezed the trigger and played the beam of high-frequency sound across the front of the building to her right. The two ground floor windows shattered spectacularly, razor-edged glass shards imploding into the building.

"Grenade." Already she was sprinting towards the opposite building, raising the gun and firing. One of the two explosive shells moulded to the gun's barrel flipped up and away, crashing through the nearest window.

"Projectile." Bullets tore past her and she could see shapes moving within the building. The grenade exploded. Heat buffeted her and somebody inside screamed, and then she was leaping through the shattered window. Snatched impressions: a body sprawled on the floor by the window, another nearby, moving feebly; a settee on fire against the far wall, a table overturned, figures in motion to her right. She was firing even as she landed. One gunman went down, a second leapt to take cover behind the table. Bad move - he might as well have tried to hide behind a sheet of paper; the table was far too insubstantial to deter the bullets her gun fired. She held the trigger down and peppered the flimsy barrier, watching the wood as it was chewed to pieces and knowing that the man beyond would be faring no better. Her visor showed his red light wink out. She blinked away nascent tears - not for any sentimental reasons but because smoke from the burning settee was making her eyes water.

Movement at the periphery of her vision. Boulton whipped the gun around. The injured man, the one on the floor she'd discounted as being all-but-dead, had raised himself onto his elbows and produced a weapon from somewhere. His dot flared abruptly from dull orange to bright red. The two of them fired at virtually the same time, the sound of their twinned shots overlapping. Something struck her gun hand with jarring force - his bullet - no, not her hand but the gun itself; a glancing blow that reverberated through her wrist and forearm, almost pushing the weapon from her hand. Thankfully that was all his shot struck. The man's red dot had disappeared. Her own aim had been better, taking him in the chest and most likely the heart. No question of his rising from the dead a second time.

The fire from the settee was spreading. A curtain of flame crawled along the back wall, blistering floral wallpaper at its fringes as it was sucked upwards by the stairwell. Tendrils of fire crept along the ceiling, smoke filled the room despite the shattered windows and it was getting unbearably hot.