The Noise Within Read online

  "You see?"

  "Oh, come on," Philip said, recovering from his initial shock. "You could probably do that with almost any ship; after all, there are only so many basic hull shapes. Knock bits off a million vessels and you'd come up with something that looked like that."

  "But this doesn't simply 'look like that' and you know it. This is identical in every respect. I'm telling you, Philip, it's her."

  "You can't be certain..."

  "Of course I can!" His father's voice rose for the first time. "I designed the fucking thing. Stop being so stubborn, Philip, and trust me on this, will you? It's The Sun Seeker. She's finally come home."

  The hovering ship faded, to be replaced by an image which Philip had determined never to gaze upon again: that of his father's face.

  He went with the dinner suit in the end, deciding there were enough distractions already and he could live without looking as incongruous as he was inevitably going to feel.

  As he sat in the back of the limo en route, it wasn't his choice of clothes that occupied his thoughts or even the imminent speech but rather Mal's revelation about The Noise Within. He would be studying the images received in minute detail, yet gut instinct told him that the old man was probably right. Much as he hated to acknowledge the fact, no one knew ships better than Mal Kaufman.

  Bad enough that he was about to be upstaged by his own partial's reputation; being made to feel inadequate by two partials in the same evening was more than any man should have to put up with, particularly a man reputedly as brilliant as he was.

  But such, it seemed, was to be his fate.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The craft was an odd one. Bulkier than the speedsters commonly used for racing, larger than the one-man exec ships designed for the in-system hopping of business magnates and playboys, and smaller than just about everything else. She was also equipped with more manoeuvring vents and thrusters than any standard vessel had a right to. She needed them.

  Jenner, the ship's sole occupant, felt completely at ease as he swooped in on the target asteroid, following its course and rapidly overhauling. He deftly turned his craft through 180 degrees some distance before reaching the rock and fired the engines so that he was accelerating hard against his original momentum. The asteroid commenced to shoot past him, seeming to slow the whole while until the final section drifted past as if in slow motion, allowing him to appreciate the sheer brutal size of the thing as it sailed majestically on a predetermined course, an inanimate leviathan of the spaceways, its irregular surface pitted and craggy, composed mostly of dirty ice. At a little over 12 km, this was hardly the largest asteroid even in this sparse belt, but it was big enough. Soon the entire rock was fully in front of him once more. By the time it was mere tens of metres away Jenner had matched velocities perfectly, to hang behind it like some diminutive, unwanted shadow.

  Then he started to ease the ship forward, sliding towards the asteroid's underbelly from his perspective. Jenner had marked the spot he wanted and knew his timing had to be perfect. He also had no doubt that it was.

  The rock's steady rotation made the term 'underbelly' inappropriate, since every part of the thing was destined to be 'underneath' at some point, but Jenner always preferred to make his approach this way, watching as one particularly large shadow rolled around the back end of the object. The shadow represented an unusually deep pit, one that was far from natural, and his approach had to be timed perfectly so that his arrival coincided with its. He checked constantly to ensure that it did and that no last-minute adjustments were needed, multiple calculations flying through his brain in fractions of a second.

  His craft slipped smoothly into the opening, which was less than double the width of the vessel. Once inside, the fun really started, as he brought the full array of ship's thrusters and vents into play, nudging it this way and that in a lightning-quick series of short, sharp manoeuvres, all designed to match the asteroid's rotation while continuing to move into the chamber hollowed from the rock's innards. The chamber was considerably wider here than at the entrance but, even so, a single miscalculation could spell disaster. Which was fine with Jenner, who had no intention of making any.

  In terms of the asteroid's overall size, the chamber was a small one - the rock had not been completely gutted, merely pitted, a cavity gouged into the surface rather than a full coring - leaving enough mass to still be consistent with its size. Jenner eased the small vessel towards the far wall, where a framework of metal braces and mechanical grapples stood ready to receive it. As he felt the ship grasped by the docking mechanism and so made one with the rock, he cut the engines; not with any surge of triumph or flood of relief, but simply with satisfaction at a job well done.

  He started to unbuckle his harness and could dimly see movement on the outside of his gel suit as others hurried to help. The figures became clearer as the gel drained away to reveal a trio of white-suited assistants. Then somebody disconnected his head-jack and he forgot all about the figures as reality came crashing down and consciousness fled towards aits central core, withdrawing from the wider world as if it were shallow water draining down a plug hole, or a two dimensional scene folding rapidly in on itself, until all that remained was the limitation of 'me.'

  Jenner blinked at the hands which now reached to help with his harness, and squinted up at half-familiar faces which he felt certain would be fully recognisable once he had regained some equilibrium.

  One in particular loomed closer as the helmet came off, the air feeds pulling out from his nostrils, a young woman. Pretty, with a small mouth, cute snub nose and large almond eyes - a little bloodshot as if overtired, but still pretty - a face which he categorised as being vaguely oriental.

  The headache kicked in; a searing lance of pain which emanated from somewhere deep in his skull and found a focus in the centre of his forehead.

  He must have winced, because the young woman asked, "Are you okay?"

  "Yes," he lied automatically. The pain had settled now to a throbbing ache. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but this time around it seemed less intense than usual.

  Gel clung to his face in amber globules, tickling his cheek where a clump slid down, while its antiseptic taste clogged his mouth and nose. "Yes I'm fine, thanks," her name came to him at the very last second, "Lara."

  She smiled, and only then did he remember that he loved her.

  Philip Kaufman suppressed a stab of envy as he watched the young pilot, Jenner, being helped from the simulator. His gaze flickered down to the multiple readings on the desk screen before him, which looked perfect at first glance. No question that this was their best prospect.

  In truth, Philip was finding it hard to concentrate on the figures. His thoughts were still preoccupied with everything that had happened the previous evening and that morning. On arriving at work he had cleared his diary for the day, told his staff he was not to be disturbed for anything short of imminent global disaster and then spent the best part of the morning tinkering - dissecting the images Mal had sent through last night, deconstructing them and then building a program which could exactly mimic the stripping away of the ship's hull. After that he refined it, so that the initial three stages occurred in ever smaller steps, until individual attachments could be plucked away at will. Once perfected, he applied the result to a series of standard hull designs, running the program backwards and forwards, adding layers of body kit, sensor arrays, weapons systems and the other accoutrements that The Noise Within boasted, before reversing the process and taking them away, only to begin again.

  Several times he had ended up with something that outwardly resembled The Noise Within but which, under closer examination, never quite measured up; literally. However similar the resultant image might appear to be, detailed analysis would reveal that the actual proportions varied significantly from those of the enigmatic pirate vessel. Only in a single instance was the match perfect in every determinable regard - the very last hull on which he tried the process; that of T
he Sun Seeker.

  One of a multitude of pioneering ideas developed during wartime and spawned by the insatiable quest for tactical advantage, The Sun Seeker was a unique vessel - it had to be. True, Malcolm Kaufman had begun the design with the specs for a standard ship's chassis, but he and his team had constantly reconfigured them, changing dimensions and proportions as the project evolved. The hull which the shipyards eventually produced for him was not quite the same as anything they had birthed either before or since.

  And now Malcolm's son and heir had become completely absorbed in analyses inspired by the ghost of that vessel, attacking the task with an obsessive focus that precluded all else. By the time he had finished that morning, any doubt regarding the true identity of The Noise Within had been well and truly swept away. Gut instinct was shown to be right again; his father's partial really had stumbled on the truth. The Noise Within was definitely The Sun Seeker reborn.

  Whatever his misgivings where Mal was concerned, the partial had given him exactly what he needed, what they all needed. If this didn't spur on those board members whose resolution had begun to waver of late, nothing would.

  Having reached this conclusion he took time to review everything, to ensure that he had considered all the angles and covered every pitfall. Only then did he summon the other board members to an extraordinary meeting.

  It had come as no surprise when Catherine was the first to call.

  Catherine Chzyski was one of the most formidable people Philip had ever met. He was told that she had been a great beauty in her youth. He didn't believe it.

  Philip had seen photographs and holographic recordings of the younger Catherine and he still didn't believe it. Perhaps his perception was too clouded by the image of the hard-faced woman he knew - pepper-grey hair habitually pulled back from her prominent forehead to reinforce the severe countenance - for him to ever see her as beautiful, or perhaps she never had been, whatever reports might claim to the contrary.

  "You should have known her back then," one of his father's colleagues - a man who had known her in her youth - once told him, "before she partnered, before she had responsibilities, in the days when she didn't have a care in the world. She took society by storm. It wasn't just her looks, you see, it was her spirit - the force of personality which animated the flesh. She had an aura, a genuine presence. Magnificent, truly magnificent." This last was spoken wistfully, with a shake of the head as if to dissipate lingering memories.

  Philip was still far from convinced.

  Catherine's face peered at him from the viewscreen, her mouth pursed in waspish disapproval, momentarily diverting his attention from her too-sunken cheeks. She had always spurned the temptations of rejuve and instead flaunted her age as if it were some badge of honour, famously destroying one young and pretty reporter impetuous enough to raise the subject in the space of two sentences: "I earned this face and I'm going to keep it. Can you say either of those things about your job?"

  After appraising Philip for a second, Catherine spoke. "A meeting, you say. Today. In person."

  "Yes," he replied simply.

  Her eyes were the only feature that hinted at a glorious past; clear, bright and of a piercing blue. For long seconds her gaze held his, as if measuring his worth, his integrity. It was all he could do not to flinch.

  "Very well," and, with a nod of farewell, she broke the connection.

  Philip let out a breath which he hadn't even realised he was holding. At least Catherine had not been crass enough to ask why he was calling the board together. She for one had the intelligence to realise that he would not be insisting on a physical meeting were he willing to discuss the subject so readily.

  If only others were equally as perceptive.

  "What the hell's this all about, Philip?" David Benn had demanded.

  "I'll tell you at the meeting."

  "Don't be ridiculous. I can't simply drop everything just on your say so!"

  But he did.

  "Well?" demanded a familiar voice.

  Philip's reveries slipped away. He hadn't even noticed the approach of Susan Tan, his senior research assistant.

  "Looks pretty good," he temporised, while pulling his focus back to the readings in front of him.

  "Pretty good? That was fantastic!"

  "Perhaps," and his eyes darted across the figures, seeking imperfections and finally focusing on something, "but that approach turn and acceleration would have killed him in real life, if not for the gelsuit."

  She snorted. "Oh, come on. That's like saying that in real life he'd have died in the near-vacuum of space without the ship; which is why we build ships and why we've designed the gelsuit. You're going to have to do better than that."

  She was right, but at least the banal observation had given him enough time to hunt down more significant indicators. "Look at the stress levels," he said, pointing to the relevant figures. "You're right, that performance was just about perfect, but this was one manoeuvre lasting only a matter of minutes... and just look at the strain! If we'd subjected Jenner to a couple of hours of this, let alone a day or two, he'd most likely be dead."

  And therein lay their real frustration. No matter what drugs they fed in and cushioned it with, no matter the gelsuit and all the other physical supports they provided, the human brain still struggled to operate at these levels for any length of time; it simply couldn't keep up without burning itself out. Yet they were so close. He could sense it, everyone involved could sense it.

  "I know." Susan's sigh was a weary one. "But this is something, isn't it?"

  "Yes," he agreed, "it's more than just something. This is fabulous progress." He left the many 'buts' unspoken; Susan could hear them as clearly as he could. Philip checked the time, and was surprised at how much of it had passed. "I have to go."

  "Ah yes, this mysterious board meeting of yours. Maybe, if I'm lucky, you'll eventually get around to telling me what it's about some time."

  Philip suppressed a smile. Susan's inquisitiveness was legendary. He supposed it went with the territory; after all, what good was a senior researcher who didn't yearn to discover things?

  "When I can," he assured her. He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You'll be the first to know, I promise."

  "I'll believe that when I see it."

  He afforded her a wry smile from under raised eyebrows but turned without further comment and strode away.

  "More likely I'll be the last, as usual," she called after him.

  Philip returned to his office. He knew there were preparations to make before the meeting but was strangely reluctant to begin them. His thoughts kept returning to The Sun Seeker and all that the ship meant to his company, his family.

  He picked up a statuette awarded him for innovation some years ago, running his fingers distractedly over the familiar contours of the clichéd rocket ship's hull, putting it back only to pick it up again. He couldn't sit down, could not stop fidgeting, while his mind switched incessantly between considering the past and reviewing that morning's work. With a conscious effort he battened down the former and concentrated on the latter, reaffirming its significance to his own satisfaction and making sure that he wasn't allowing his enthusiasm to run away with him and cloud his judgement.

  No, this really was as important as he imagined it to be. He found himself near-breathless with an excitement unmatched since the very earliest days of the ongoing project, the latest chapter of which he had just witnessed.

  The somewhat blandly named Homeworld may not have been the centre of the universe, or even of that small portion of it claimed as human space, but at least Kaufman Industries had ensured that the planet's name remained prominent on any map. Popular myth had it that the world's underwhelming name came about because this was the world where a base was first established when this section of space was originally being explored. Those early pioneers, weary after protracted time in the cramped confines of their ships, would talk about returning to 'home base' or simply 'home' and
the name had stuck, expanding to encompass the whole world. Philip had no idea whether the story was apocryphal or not, but a sentimental part of him hoped it wasn't.

  Kaufman Industries had been innovators in ship systems and engine design for three generations, rising to real prominence under the stewardship of Philip's father. Malcolm Kaufman had overseen the development of the Kaufman Drive, a completely new approach to the propulsion systems which powered starships through wormholes and enabled them to sidestep the laws of physics and traverse the gulf between the stars. So revolutionary was the system, so much cleaner and more compact than anything seen before, that the name 'Kaufman' soon became synonymous with all ship's engines in the minds of the general public.

  Such success came at a price, and competitors were quick to latch on to Kaufman Industry's meteoric rise, doing all they could to hang onto KI's shirt tails. 'Imitation is the greatest form of flattery; except when it hits you in the bank balance!' had been one of the company's maxims since Malcolm's time. KI's past was littered with lawsuits against the manufacturers of devices with such dubious epithets as the 'Kouffman Drive' and the 'Kautman Drive', all with suspiciously familiar logos.

  Yet despite its eminence and despite having branches on over half the settled worlds - including every single one that mattered - the company's roots were surprisingly provincial and their power base remained so. The seven people who joined Philip in the boardroom towards the end of that day represented almost the entire board of Kaufman Industries. Only Daniel Ackerman was absent, being out of town and unable to get back in time.

  Philip was well aware of the irony of the situation: only the previous evening he had been cursing the organisers of the Gügenhall for insisting he attend an event in person, and now here he was, dragging seven equally reluctant souls across town to do the same. However, he had examined his own motives carefully. He was wholly satisfied that the situation merited every precaution, and that this was not some form of perverse transference of his own enforced discomfort. At least, not entirely.