“I don’t believe what this country has turned into,” Len growled as the pickup ground and shuddered to gain speed. “Roadblocks; people being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night. Things never used to be that way. Yet the media talk about it as if it’s normal. People forget. It’s alien ways. They’re turning us into a colony in our own country.”
“That’s what we’re fighting,” Marie reminded him unnecessarily. The hills back from the highway looked green and peaceful. Water behind the trees reflected patches of sky. Marie felt weary of it all: combat training and sabotage; constantly having to be ready to move; always being haunted by the specter of capture, interrogation, and everything that went with it. Why couldn’t she just live a safe and familiar day-to-day life somewhere, enjoying little things like friends stopping by to visit, or being alone with her thoughts on a hill after a walk up through a forest?
All that the people needed to take their country back was solidarity and awareness. Even with all their technology and alien backing, the powers that were robbing them of their livelihoods and turning them into property like some modern version of a feudal order could never prevail against a determined majority. But the majority were uninformed and unorganized. What did it take to wake them up to what was going on? Why did Marie care? She could go back to China, find a niche there, and probably never have to worry about being directly affected to any serious degree again. So why had she come back?
For the same reason she had left the comforts and security of her former life in California, she supposed. The restlessness that compelled her to contribute even a token to putting something right with the world. How anyone could remain complacent when there was so much going wrong with it, she was unable to comprehend. How could she once have dreamed of making a life with Roland? Because he was Roland. She still thought of him, even though all that had been a different universe, a million years ago. That was the stupid thing.
“Do you know there was a time when you could drive from anyplace to anyplace anytime you felt like it?” Len said. “Didn’t have sensors under the road reading who was leaving the state. Didn’t need no ID with a tax compliance sticker to get gas.”
“Anywhere? Like New York to California?”
“Yep, if the fancy took you. Just get up and go.”
“It sounds unreal.” Marie was distant, still partly lost in her own musings.
“People don’t remember,” Len said again. “Everything’s rules and restrictions. We’re being turned into an alien military base, that’s what it is.”
Marie used to wonder why, if their world was so disciplined and orderly, governed under a single ruling system, the Hyadeans possessed a military establishment at all. Their answer was that they needed to protect themselves against a rival power known as the Querl, who inhabited a group of worlds loosely strung across the same star systems. The Querl were of the same race as the Hyadeans, having split off as a rebellious faction and left to found a culture based on their own political and economic principles. According to the Chryseans—which was the correct name for the Hyadeans of the home planet and its subject worlds—these principles were unsound and illogical, resulting in chaotic rule by ill-defined authorities, with consequent depletion and degradation of the Querl planets. The Chryseans would educate Earth and provide guidance to prevent similar things from happening here. And the institutions that were ultimately in control of things—in the West, anyway—were lending themselves readily to bringing their own houses into line. A compliant media establishment spread the word and the imagery, and for years the people, by and large, had been buying the line and not seeing the regimentation, exploitation, and the slow erosion of what had once been their rights. But now they were feeling the effects, and that was changing. Recruitment for Sovereignty was on the increase, and support was quietly spreading across a wide but largely invisible infrastructure of American life that didn’t have access to the interplanetary financial markets and saw little prospect of benefiting significantly from the proceeds. As resistance grew, the classical escalating pattern would develop of what one side saw as protest and suppression being viewed by the powers in control as provocation and response. The times would get ugly before they could improve. CounterAction was preparing.
Marie didn’t see herself as a subversive fighting against America. By all the principles she had been told about and grown up believing in, she was fighting for what America was once supposed to have stood for.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The message on Cade’s laptop offered a flat introduction fee plus a 2.5 percent commission on net proceeds if Cade could put the sender’s brokering agency in touch with a Hyadean concern interested in buying Terran graphical programming services. There was a big demand for Terran software skills on Chryse and its associated worlds. Most programming there was performed by various kinds of AI, with results that were solid, reliable, acceptable . . . and utterly without trace of any insight or creative flare that went an iota beyond meeting the minimum specification. The efforts of Hyadean manual programmers fared about the same: in Mike Blair’s phrase, which was his favorite appellation for just about everything they did, “dull and plodding.” Terran programmers, by contrast, could come up with ways of doing things that Hyadean minds were incapable of mimicking. More often than not they worked for companies whose existence was threatened by Hyadean competition.
But it wasn’t a time to be thinking too much about things like that when Julia was sitting at the vanity in her underwear and a negligee, combing out her hair and attending to the feminine bedtime ritual of removing makeup and applying lotion and perfume. Cade stared at her for a while from the bed, watching the tossing waves of her red hair and the lithe, feline motions of her back. Sometimes, he reflected, it seemed as if life treated him too well.
He initiated shutdown, set the computer aside on the night stand, and stretched back comfortably to rest against the headboard, his hands clasped behind his head. Julia caught the movement in the mirror. “So, are you going to fix them up with the same contact that Vrel gave you last time?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Maybe better than that. I was thinking we could use Sigliari. It might lead to a whole bunch of direct lines in there.” Sigliari was a promoter from San Diego who had visited Chryse recently and was actively soliciting business there. Who knew what possibilities a lead like that into the home planet might open up?
“Sounds like a cool idea,” Julia agreed.
Cade shrugged. “Who knows? I might even work a trip there myself one of these days.”
“Even cooler. Does that mean I’m invited?”
“Just try staying behind. Can you see me having fun running wild and free with nothing but Hyadean women around? You’re essential baggage—also wanted on the voyage.”
“Women here don’t seem to have a problem with Hyadean guys,” Julia commented. “You’ve only got to look at Dee and Vrel.”
“Which only goes to show how less discerning women are,” Cade replied. He realized that didn’t sound very good. “Not that there’s anything wrong with Vrel. I mean, he’s a great friend. It’s just . . .” He threw out a hand helplessly. There was no gracious continuation. He had painted himself into a corner. Julia rose, came over to the bed, and disposed of the few garments she was still wearing. Cade let his gaze wander over her, and in moments all thoughts of his impasse had fled. She slid in beside him, entwining bodies, and drew close.
“Then think about a Terran woman for the time being,” she murmured.
They made love skillfully, satisfyingly, with the ease and confidence that come when time has bred a familiarity that goes beyond just good companionship and has banished uncertainties. The physical gratification that they shared at night was the ideal complement to the professional intimacy that they shared during the day. At times, Cade was tempted to bring up the possibility of marrying again; but then, he would ask himself, why risk messing with a good relationship?
Afterward, they
lay contentedly, Julia resting her face on his shoulder, her finger tracing idle designs on his chest. “You make me feel like a woman,” she told him.
“What did you expect? Orangutan? Wildebeest? Sumatran two-horned rhinoceros?”
“Oh, don’t be so unromantic. You know what I mean.”
Cade grinned and slid an arm around her shoulder. “Of course I do. Life just gets better, doesn’t it?”
A few seconds of silence passed, as if Julia were pondering something. “Wasn’t it ever good before?” she asked finally.
“It depends when did you mean? Any time in particular?”
“Oh . . . when you were with Marie, for instance. Was it good like this then?”
“It had its ups and downs, I guess.” Cade was surprised. “What made you bring that up?”
“I’m not sure. . . . Maybe when those two ISS people came here, asking about her.”
Cade shook his head. “Like I told them, that was all over years ago. The last I heard, she was in China.”
“They seemed to think she’s come back,” Julia reminded him. She seemed to let the subject rest there, then added lightly, “Do you ever hear from her?”
“What? Hell, no. Why should I?” Cade turned his head. “Don’t tell me you’re getting jealous.”
“I was just curious,” Julia replied.
The next morning, Mike Blair called to inform Cade that he was going to Australia. Krossig, the Hyadean anthropologist at the LA mission, would be leaving almost at once to join the Hyadean scientific field station still being operated there. He and Blair had gotten to know each other in the course of Blair’s long periods of ensconcing himself at the mission, which had resulted in an invitation for Blair to go too as Krossig’s Terran scientific understudy and consultant.
“It sounds good, Mike,” Cade told him. He had taken the call in the gym behind the garage at the side of the house, where he had been working out with Luke. “So when is this likely to happen?”
“Once these guys make their minds up, they don’t fool around. It could be a matter of weeks.”
“What’s the political situation like there?” Cade asked. He was always curious about backgrounds that could affect business.
“With a pure scientific research station, it’s okay. The government’s trying to keep the contact but stay out of any main currents. The Hyadeans have had a presence there since the first landings. It’s probably good diplomacy to just go along with them.”
Cade nodded. “It sounds like we’re going to need another party to send you guys off, then.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say no to that.”
Luke came through on his way to the shower room, clad in a blue track suit with a towel tucked around the neck, his face still red and perspiring. “It’s Mike,” Cade told him, gesturing with the compad. “Krossig’s transferring to that place they’ve got in Australia, and Mike will be going too.”
“Great,” Luke acknowledged.
Cade thought for a moment. “What do you think Hyadeans might say to a day out fishing, Terran style, instead of another party?” he asked Blair on the screen.
“Vrel would like it for sure. Probably Krossig too. . . . I don’t think he’s ever tried anything like that. Sounds like a good idea.”
Cade looked back up at Luke. “Talk to Warren when we’re done, would you? Tell him to get the boat set up for a day out. We’ll make it a smaller thing this time, just family—something different for them to talk about when they go back to Chryse.”
Julia brought up the subject of Marie again that evening, while she and Cade were driving to a dinner party in San Clemente. It struck Cade as unusual. Julia was of a practical disposition and had always tended to leave what was over in the past, where it belonged. What kind of a person had Marie been? Intense, Cade said. A human perpetual-motion machine. One of those women who would never have a weight problem because she burned everything off with nervous energy, regardless of what or how much she ate. So how would he describe their relationship? Julia wanted to know. Cade took one hand off the wheel to make a side-to-side motion in the air. “Mercurial,” he told her.
“How did it end?”
“She could never really get comfortable with being comfortable. Know what I mean? When life took swings for the better, she seemed to get more guilty about it—as if it wasn’t right for her life to be coming together while so many other people’s were messed up. She always had this idealistic streak about helping to make the world a better place. . . . I guess when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to change, she decided to move on to find somewhere she could do something about it.” They drove in silence, while Julia either contemplated her next question or digested the information. Cade turned his head to glance at her. “What is this? You’ve never gone into any of this before, and you never do anything without a reason. So what’s the reason?”
Julia remained quiet for an unnaturally long time. Finally, she answered, “An old college friend of mine tracked me down recently—through Dee. Let’s say her name’s Rebecca. She’s in some kind of trouble with the authorities and needs help getting out of the country.”
Cade whistled silently. “As bad as that? What kind of trouble are we talking about?”
“I didn’t ask. But you know what it’s like trying to get through the regular exits. Everywhere’s watched. They’ve got everything about you in the computers.”
“Have you decided to start a new line—people smuggling?” Cade asked. Even now he was unable to refrain from a mildly teasing note.
“She was a close friend, the kind you’d like to do something for.” Julia paused again, then drew a long breath as if committing herself finally. “Look, I was asking about Marie to see if there was a chance you might still be on speaking terms. If she is back in the country as those ISS people said, what might the possibility be of contacting her? Doesn’t that organization that they said she’s with have ways of getting people out—to Asia or somewhere maybe? They’re supposed to have a whole underground organization for moving contraband and people, right?”
Cade glanced at her in mock apprehension. “What are you trying to get me into here? Look, I sympathize with your friend. But even supposing I wanted to get involved, I don’t have any idea where Marie is now. I’ve only got those two spooks’ word that she’s even back from China.”
Julia, however, was evidently not ready to leave it there. “Come on, you’re the Mr. Fixit with connections everywhere, aren’t you?” she said. “I know how you work, Roland. Are you really telling me that with all the friends you and she made over the years, you couldn’t find a way of getting a message through to her if you really needed to?” She reached out and laid a hand on his knee. “Rebecca was a close friend. And it does sound as if she’s in a lot of trouble.”
Cade took his eyes off the road to look across the car for a second. Julia was serious, he could see. “So where is she right now?” he asked.
“In a hotel downtown. I guess one of those nondescript places where invisible people go. Dee didn’t give me any details.”
Cade shook his head. “That’s no good. You’d better bring her to the house while we figure something out. At least it’ll be more comfortable. Can you arrange it with Dee?”
Julia hesitated, as if giving him time to reconsider. “Does that mean we’re going to help her?” she asked.
Cade stared at the highway ahead, wondering what options he had let himself in for now. “Let’s see what she has to say first,” he replied.
After they got back home, Julia went out again and returned a couple of hours later with Rebecca. She was mousy haired and plain, a little on the plump side, not given to talk; or perhaps it was the strain of the last couple of days and whatever experiences had preceded them. Henry took her bags and showed her to one of the guest rooms. Later, she reappeared for a late supper of chicken pieces and fries in the kitchen. Cade and Julia joined her just for coffee, since they had eaten earlier. By then, Rebecca had pull
ed herself more together.
Her story was that she and another woman had coauthored a hard-hitting piece in an underground political newsletter that circulated in print and on the net, detailing dubious and in some cases flatly unlawful electoral machinations that had accompanied the installation of the current administration in Washington, which if proved would make it illicit, and not the result of a constitutionally correct, democratic process. The governor of California, William Jeye, had picked it up in a speech to the Constitutional Club of San Francisco, and the result had been consternation in the Western media, condemnation from the East, and public outcries everywhere. The other author had been arrested. Another woman, who lived on the next street to Rebecca in a house with the same number, was picked up by the ISS at the same time but released twenty-four hours later with an admission of mistaken identity. Rebecca had packed a bag and gone into hiding; she wouldn’t even say where in the country she had arrived from.
“I know I come across like a wimp,” she said. “But I can hold my own with anyone when it comes to words. Julia will tell you that. She knew me at college.”
“She used to tie us all in knots debating,” Julia confirmed.
Rebecca shook her head and drew in a sharp, shaky breath that came close to a shudder. “But I’m not good when it comes to physical things. You know, the things you hear about: interrogation drugs; all the intimidation; worse. . . . I couldn’t go out on the street, knowing they might pick me up anytime. Haven’t really been able to sleep since it happened. . . . I have to get out of here.”
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