Return to Eden

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  “Ship facilities are through the cabin door, down the corridor two meters, and then through the door at the right hand side of the corridor.”

  The voice came out of nowhere and spoke English way better than poor Aidan—English minus the heavy, awkward accent. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant surprise to discover yet another ‘intruder’ although Anya had decided even before she got a response that it must have been an onboard computer that had answered her question. “Who are you?”

  “AI unit 6194,” the computer responded.

  Anya was a little taken aback even though she’d thought it must be a computer—mostly because it seemed to respond to her. Of course AI units—computers were designed to seem as if they were responding, or at least she’d always thought so. “You’re a computer?” she said doubtfully.

  “With AI.”

  “I got that. How come you can speak English better than Aidan?”

  There was a significant pause. “Because he is a biological unit and must learn as a biological unit does.”

  Irritation flickered through Anya. Maybe she was wrong, but it seemed to her that the uppity computer had a superiority complex. “I meant how did you learn English?”

  “I accessed the information available through your technology. It seemed imperative to know how to communicate once I ascertained that the object which caused the damage to the ship was a manmade satellite indicating a technologically advanced civilization. The language is similar in many aspects to languages on the Grinderian home world.”

  Anya felt her heart sink. “Technology that’s gone now,” she said flatly. She didn’t even want to think about what the world was going to be like now that they’d lost so many of the things everybody depended upon. No doubt it was going to be a great deal cleaner without cars and factories to pollute everything but how were people going to get to work? And what were they going to do if they didn’t have a job to go to anymore because the f’ing building had gotten eaten by nanites?

  “Not entirely and the Grinderians fully intend to restore what they inadvertently destroyed.”

  She’d believe that when she saw it! Shaking her head, she followed the directions the computer had given her and found the facilities. A hot bath and the discovery of clothing—even though it was clothing that didn’t fit all that well—went a long way toward restoring her equilibrium. She discovered when she left the bath that the smell of food was in the air and her cup runneth over with joy and gratitude. Thank god for civilization!

  Aidan eyed her somewhat warily when she reached the kitchen/dining area, having followed her nose.

  She didn’t have a clue of what was on the plate that Aidan handed her—and she was pretty sure she didn’t really want to know—but it smelled wonderful. It was hot. And it tasted like the food of the gods. She hoped it wouldn’t kill her, but she thought she would die happy if it did.

  Days without anything but a few bites of those horrible survival bars!

  That thought abruptly produced a happy one—she bet she’d lost pounds!

  Of course her scales probably weren’t there anymore to tell her that—because her apartment probably wasn’t or her clothes ….

  When she’d finished eating, she settled back to try to translate the full story from Aidan—who couldn’t speak as well as the AI bitch but knew the story a lot better. Of course the computer was able to set forth the plans the Grinderians had come up with as restitution for their mistake.

  By the time she had the entire story she was feeling a lot more hopeful. Assuming, naturally, that the Grinderians were sincere—and she didn’t see any reason to believe they weren’t. After all, they hadn’t been compelled by anything more than their own integrity to offer restitution!

  They were offering to replace everything they’d ‘inadvertently’ destroyed, though, and not only did that mean fixing things back the way they were, it meant better than before because it would all be new! Beyond that, they’d confessed that they’d terraformed both Mars and Venus with the terraformers, which meant both of them would be habitable soon if they weren’t already! All they wanted was a treaty that would allow them to put colonies of their own on the three planets ….

  Well people might be hard to convince about allowing a colony of Grinderians to move in on their territory/backyard, but, really, it was a hell of a trade off! So they’d lose a little real estate. They’d be gaining a hell of a lot more.

  Convincing people to accept the terms of the treaty, Anya was sure, wasn’t going to be easy.

  Who was she kidding? The people weren’t going to get a say in it at all! The government would make all the decisions for them—probably in favor of the treaty for economic reasons and also because they would have to know that not only would it beat war, but humans probably would lose any war they started with the Grinderians.

  To her thinking, though, it could turn out to be the best thing that had happened to humans in a very long time if they could just be convinced to see it that way.

  “Flyers!”

  Aidan looked at her blankly and then consulted his computer and then looked at her blankly again. “Flywers?”

  “Not flowers ….”

  He frowned. “No say fl-ow-rs. Say … ting you say.”

  Anya thought about it. “Actually that isn’t that bad an idea. I mean women, at least, would probably be won over by that kind of gesture, but I don’t see how y’all could manage that. The flyers, though—a simple message of peace and promise and then when the robots started rebuilding everything and they saw your people really meant it …. I think the Grinderians would be forgiven and that’s important—whatever the government decides.”

  She wasn’t sure that Aidan had understood a word of what she said. He looked thoughtful, but that could mean anything. Abruptly, he grinned, grabbed her and kissed her soundly on the mouth.

  Startled, Anya barely had time to start appreciating the affectionate gesture when he pulled away. “Dis good ting, Ah-na! People hurt. Make tings good wid dem most important. Den govment listen.”

  Anya shifted uncomfortably. “Well, government, you know …. Can’t promise that, but I will tell you honestly that if you don’t win people over it isn’t going to matter what the government promises. There won’t really be peace. There’ll be resentment. A lot of people lost a lot of stuff that was important to them—to their comfort and survival. They may even have lost loved ones because of those things. They aren’t going to be easily won over. Sorry just isn’t going to cut it.”

  Sobered, Aidan nodded grimly. “I know dis. Bad ting. Berry bad ting. I try to stop.”

  Anya studied his expression and saw no reason to doubt him. “I believe you. I trust you. I’ll try to help you convince everybody else to trust.”

  She hoped it wasn’t something she would live to regret!

  * * * *

  Aidan’s first order of business seemed to be to clear the rubble from the ship. Anya’s was to find something recognizable to eat.

  Not that the food Aidan had fed her wasn’t good—when she was starving—but at the same time there was just enough difference in the taste to make it obvious the ingredients were beyond foreign and it didn’t exactly sit right on her stomach. She did her best to convince herself it was all in her mind, but her stomach didn’t agree.

  Campfire cooking wasn’t exactly her forte, though, so she was glad when she managed to find a can of peaches—either one of the ‘bombs’ she’d used the day before to discourage the beast from making a meal out of her or another can entirely. The AI helped her get into the can and, once she’d found something to fish the slices out of the can with, she settled at a short distance from Aidan to watch him work and wrestle with her conscience.

  Thankfully the battle wasn’t a long or particularly complicated one. She did manage to give herself a tension headache trying to figure out ‘hidden’ agendas the aliens might have, but, from a logical standpoint, she managed to reassure herself that it wasn’t actually reasonabl
e to think they might have evil in mind.

  They’d sent terraformers from across the galaxy if not another galaxy entirely. That technological wonder was enough to convince her the Grinderians had no need to use subterfuge to hide evil designs. They could’ve been completely straightforward and there wouldn’t have been a hell of a lot the survivors on Earth could do about it.

  So she could accept, she thought, with a clear conscience that she wasn’t helping ‘the enemy’. At least they didn’t seem to be enemies at this point.

  The tricky thing would be to convince everybody else that they weren’t enemies so that they didn’t become enemies.

  She wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea of tackling world peace even after she’d convinced herself she wouldn’t be a traitor to her own kind by actively helping the aliens, mostly because she was nobody really and felt overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the task.

  Having finished her peaches, she set the can aside, tucked her eating utensil into a pocket of the suit she’d ‘borrowed’ from the stores aboard ship, and went to help Aidan with his task. Her mind wasn’t really on that job, though. She followed Aidan’s efforts mechanically while she composed and discarded various messages for the people.

  Simple would be better, she decided after a while. It would, hopefully, be harder to misunderstand something short and straightforward plus that had the added benefit that people might actually read it. The longer it was the more likely people would be to skim it and misinterpret the entire thing.

  She finally settled on:

  People of Earth:

  This is NOT an invasion. The people of Grinderia apologize for their error and want to assure you that they seek peace NOT war. They deeply regret their mistake and will do everything in their power to repair the damage they have inadvertently done.

  It was still a little longer than she would’ve liked and, at the same time, didn’t seem to cover the ground that needed to be covered, but she decided a series of short messages might work better in the long run.

  Aidan studied the message with frowning intensity for some moments, consulted his computer and then turned to study her and finally smiled. “Tank you, Ah-na.”

  Anya was warmed both by the smile and his appreciation. She, Aidan, and the AI worked on a delivery system. More of the power grid was down than up and there were only spotty—very sketchy—portions of the internet left, but they agreed that every possible means of communications needed to be used in order to reach as many people as possible.

  Fortunately, they had managed to get a campaign to inform the public launched and well underway by the time the first supply ships arrived from Grinderia. It was still touch and go for a while. Distrust was rampant. Anger was high. Most people had been reduced by circumstances to little more than rocks as self-defense, but they lobed everything they could lay hand to at the drones that buzzed the ground distributing propaganda/information and supplies.

  Thankfully, the governments decided to settle for a ‘show of force’ rather than attacking. Anya thought they displayed far more wisdom than she would’ve previously given them credit for, because the show of force was a lot more effective, she was sure, than showing the Grinderians that Earth had no real defense against them. Soldiers and war machines were everywhere, aimed at the alien crafts or circling them like a swarm of angry bees, but there were no ‘incidents’ that she heard of—making it clear that, however angry and/or frightened everyone probably was, they were displaying a rare caution/wisdom in dealing with their visitors that was more likely to have a happy outcome than trying to attack them and drive them off.

  She would’ve far preferred to keep her part in trying to make peace a deep, dark secret, but, unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be in the cards. Aidan’s people had saddled him with the task of making peace and convincing the governments of Earth to negotiate a treaty with the Grinderian government and Aidan seemed convinced that she was completely agreeable to being dragged through the arduous process with him.

  They made the news!

  Surprise, surprise!

  Anya actually appreciated the coverage. She hated it, but it at least gave her a chance to tell her side of the story—why was she with Aidan and did she really believe they meant no harm when they’d destroyed fully half of Earth’s civilization in less than a day?

  It was actually more like three quarters—minimum—but who was counting?

  She pointed out that that made her case. If they were capable of that and had not only stopped their machines, they’d offered to repair the damage—and in fact had already dropped construction bots to do just that—wasn’t that all the proof anybody needed to convince them that the Grinderians wanted to be friends not enemies?

  It should have been enough to convince everybody, but Anya wasn’t really surprised that it didn’t.

  Everything that was destroyed was replaced with new—NEW—and some of the buildings that had been destroyed looked as if they should have been demolished anyway. Ditto the cars that were replaced with new, etc., etc. And to top all of that off, the technology was better than what anybody on Earth had had before. And top that off with the terraformed planets humans got as part of the bargain, because the Grinderians had terraformed both Mars and Venus and although neither were complete, they were going to be open to colonization within a decade or so. All the Grinderians were asking for was a piece of the action and peace. They wanted to put a colony on Earth and more on Mars and Venus once they were habitable.

  Nothing, of course, could replace the people lost in the initial disastrous mix-up, but as valuable as each of those individuals were to those who loved them, there were actually very few casualties.

  By the time Aidan deposited her on her doorstep, Anya was totally exhausted and thoroughly disgusted with the entire mess. There was not going to be an easy truce between them. This was something, she was sure, that was destined to be a long, drawn out process. Maybe, in time, humans would begin to actually make friends with their new neighbors, but trust was going to take time to earn.

  Despite her weariness and her gladness to be home, though, Anya discovered she wasn’t happy at all to see Aidan go. They’d spent weeks together, surviving, and then campaigning for peace between his people and hers. She’d just gotten used to being around him, she told herself.

  And he still had much to do before he was officially off the hook for ignoring his people’s laws and heading to Earth to prove his theory that there were other intelligent species ‘out there’.

  It was an awkward goodbye. They’d been monitored since the night they’d spent together in intimacy. Anya comforted herself with the thought that that was why there hadn’t been further intimacy—the complete lack of privacy on top of the frenzied work necessary to avert further disaster. If the situation had been different ….

  Well, they wouldn’t have gotten together at all.

  She liked to think it had been more than just animal need that had thrown them together, more than the need for comfort and release from tension.

  She might be lying to herself.

  She was absolutely miserable, though, when he left.

  Chapter Eight

  There was no picking up her old life, Anya discovered. Nobody knew she’d been intimate with an alien, but they didn’t have to know. Pictures of the two of them together had been plastered all over every form of media known to man. The news people arrived on her doorstep as soon as they discovered Aidan had returned her to her home and they camped there, showing no signs of growing tired of hassling her every time she stuck her nose out the door for any reason.

  She had a sneaking feeling the only reason she still had her job was because her boss was afraid the aliens might retaliate if she was fired.

  Her boss still sent her home on leave since it was impossible for anyone to get any work done with news people swarming the office.

  Her sister arrived for a visit in the middle of the media siege.

  “Wow! You�
�re famous!” Myra said with a chuckle when Anya opened the door and yanked her inside.

  Anya was so glad to see her sister she didn’t do anything but hug her for many moments. She’d heard her sister was ok, but she hadn’t gotten to see her sister for herself. She struggled with the urge to burst into tears for a few moments and finally conquered the impulse. Drawing away, she grinned at her sister a little sourly. “Yeah! Wow! Come on and have a seat in the living room so we can catch up. You hungry? Thirsty?”

  “I’ll take anything cold and wet that you’ve got,” Myra instantly responded, looking the apartment over as if she’d never seen it before and then heading to the couch. “The little bastards didn’t get this far?”

  Anya shrugged as she returned and handed her sister a glass of ice tea. “Yes and no. They got this far but not much damage. I’m almost sorry. I could’ve used some new furniture.”

  Myra made a non-committal sound. “Soooo … tell me about this yummy alien you’ve taken up with. I’ve been dying to know …?”

  Anya instantly had to fight another round with the urge to feel sorry for herself and weep. Her nose and eyes stung. She sniffed. “He scared the hell out of me. I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you to hear that, but I’m not sure I would’ve made it without him.” She shuddered. “Actually, I’m pretty sure I would’ve been one of the casualties—I was caught out in the open, on the road, alone, when the terraformer landed. And in completely unfamiliar territory. I had no idea where to find water or food and no weapon—plus, like everybody else here, I didn’t have a clue of what to expect.”

  Myra sobered. “It was pretty rough—on everybody. The refugee camp was … indescribably miserable. Everybody was fighting over the food and water.” She shook her head. “But, no sense in dwelling on the negative. I was so relieved when I heard you were ok—and mom and dad. The nanites didn’t actually get to their farm. Of course, refugees did, but thankfully things didn’t get out of hand.”