Brother Termite

by Patricia Anthony

  “Yes. That sounds perfect.” Reen had always pictured himself as the benevolent caretaker of the last of humanity.

  “I see no point in wasting resources,” Tali said. “I suggest we begin the process of euthanasia.”

  Oomal clapped his palm to his brow. “God, Tali! How can you say that?”

  “Before we landed, the First Brother gave us a promise–did you not, Reen-ja?–that if the situation began to get out of hand, the viruses would be used. The situation is now deteriorating. “

  “Oh, come on,” Oomal said. “Reen was pandering to our xenophobia. Those viruses were never intended–”

  Tali leaped to his feet. “Do not listen to him, Firstborn! See how he has become human himself! And this has gone too far! Your first responsibility is to the Community, Reen-ja. Must I remind you of that?”

  Reen was startled by his Second Brother’s vehemence. Oomal simply groaned, “Tali, Tali. Haven’t you seen enough murder?”

  Tali was apoplectic. “Murder! Third Brother, how do you accuse me of murder?”

  “Our ancestors,” Oomal said, “wiped every sentient race but the humans off the face of the galaxy.”

  Tali said heatedly, “The Community expanded, yes. It is in the nature of the Community to expand. Do you have a problem with that, Cousin Brother Economist?”

  Reen studied his hands, imagining blood on them. He, like Oomal, had always disliked Cousin history. Reen’s people were cowards, but in the depths of their fear cowards could be deadlier than heroes.

  “Of course I do. Don’t you?” In a quieter, more reproachful voice Oomal asked Reen, “Cousin Brother Firstborn, don’t you?”

  Reen had no answer. Perhaps his ancestors had been right. Contact was a perilous thing–Reen had never before realized how perilous. Other cultures were so alluring. Tali’s humanity was more subtle than Oomal’s, but it was there nonetheless. At M Street, Reen had felt a very human darkness in Tali’s touch. He could now sense hidden agendas in his demands.

  Had he made a mistake by landing? Reen was young when he first met Eisenhower, barely out of the Communal attraction of adolescence, that time when he and Tali and Oomal and the rest of his Brothers slept side by side, locked in shared thought. When he was a child, Reen had only to lift his hand for the others to lift theirs, too. That was when the fraternal bond had been made. Now Third Brother argued with Conscience. Conscience forced decisions on First.

  Oomal said, “Our ancestors murdered without cause. Those other species didn’t even get a chance to protest. Bang, and they were gone. Just like that.” He snapped his forefinger and claw together. Reen knew Oomal had practiced diligently to get that gesture right. “What our ancestors chose to do is done, but we have a chance to make amends. We’ll eradicate the humans, fine. Since they’re a warlike species, I can see the reasoning in that. But if we want to have our children’s respect when we die, let’s please get it right this time. Because our children are half human,” he said quietly, “and they will judge us.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Tali took his seat. Into the abrupt and unsettling quiet Reen wondered aloud, “In the meantime what do I tell the Germans?”

  Oomal snapped his eelskin case closed. “Put something else on the plate.” He noticed Reen’s confusion and explained:

  “Find something else to talk about. Accuse them of something. When in doubt, attack.”

  Reen nodded slowly. “They are planning to invade China.”

  “That’s wonderful! Hit them with the invasion of China! And if the production discrepancy comes up, blame it on me. Tell them you have a Cousin up there running Gerber who doesn’t know his ass from straight up. Tell them Cousins aren’t used to money. Tell them you think Gerber will be run into the ground inside of three years and that corporate raiders are circling over the bones. Next week sometime I’ll get the governor into one of our ships and explain to him just how uninteresting strained peas really are.”

  Oomal started for the door but paused in the center of the presidential seal to give Reen an encouraging look. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything, Cousin Brother Firstborn. Hassenbein will forget about the strained peas.”

  Then with a wry smile and a shake of his head he told Tali, “And, hey. Call the toll-free number on that card, Second Brother. Tell them I sent you. And lighten up, okay?”

  WHEN OOMAL left, Tali returned to Reen. “Behold the danger of consorting too much with humans, Reen-ja. You see how the Cousin Brother Economist has given in to slothful habits of speech and thought. He has copied the body language to make the humans accept him more easily. They probably trust him, yes, but only because they no longer see him as Cousin.”

  Reen ignored him.

  “It will ruin our race,” Tali said with a Cousinly gesture of his hand which, after Oomal’s expansiveness, seemed awkward and self-conscious.

  Reen said firmly, “What is there left to ruin, Cousin Brother? Aren’t we the last of our kind? It seems to me that Oomal finds enjoyment in acting human, and I for one am glad for him. We must all find our solace where we may.” He hit the intercom button. “Natalie. Have the Mercedes brought around. I’ll be going to Dulles to pick up the Germans.” Then he asked Tali, “Will you come with me, Brother Conscience?”

  Tali’s curt, negative reply was the best news Reen had had all day. “No. Thural will take me to Anacostia in a few minutes, Reen-ja. Go ahead.”

  But there was something in the way Tali lowered his eyes that caused Reen to wish he could stay and see what business Tali had at the White House while he was gone. “I will walk you to the ship,” Reen offered.

  “Oh, I am in no hurry, First Brother,” Tali said in a pitiful attempt to sound casual. “Do not fret about me,”

  “As you wish.” With a final backward look, Reen proceeded to the anteroom where Natalie was standing, a mink-collared pink coat over her shoulders.

  “Let’s go, sir. The Mercedes is in the driveway.”

  Had she actually said, “Let’s go?” Reen looked at the briefcase in her hand. It was a tattered brown thing, an old government issue that even the seal of the President of the United States couldn’t make respectable.

  “You can’t go!” Then he softened his tone. “Hassenbein and I are going to be speaking about sensitive issues.”

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight. You have a whole stack of documents to review and sign, and you were gone all morning. If you insist, I’ll take a taxi back from Dulles after you pick up the Germans.”

  “All right.”

  Natalie prattled all the way down the hall and through the exit. “I mean, it’d be an inconvenience to get a taxi, but if that’s what you want... . Don’t forget, though, I have the highest security clearance. Probably higher than the governor himself. Who types your memos, anyway?”

  The limo was poised like a slick black cat in the afternoon light. Reen walked past the juniper border and climbed in without answering. When Natalie was seated, too, the chauffeur shut the door, sealing them into a leather-scented silence.

  As the limo purred around the circle and down the drive, Reen looked out the window at the lawn made an eerie chartreuse by the bulletproof glass. Beyond the army troops at the gate the limo picked up its police escort.

  The speaker at Reen’s shoulder gave a spit of static. “The sirens bother you, sir?” the chauffeur asked. “You want the radio on?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The click of the snaps on Natalie’s briefcase brought his head around. “Here,” she said, putting a two-inch stack of papers in his lap.

  He switched on the reading lamp and began at the top of the first page.

  Pursuant to the agreement made April fifth was as far as he got before the rushing of the scene outside and the slower movement of his eye over the page began to make his stomach churn. He returned the page to the stack and pulled
down the blind at his window.

  Natalie reached over him and raised the blind. “I’m claustrophobic.”

  “Oh.” After an uneasy glance at some gawking tourists near the ramp at the Roosevelt Bridge, Reen wondered what time it was and checked his watch. He always wore the Rolex that Oomal had given him, but he wore it more for memory than as a timepiece. It wasn’t a digital, so he had difficulty deciding whether the little hand was closer to the two or the three. The three. Three forty-five.

  On Route 66 the limo speeded up. Reen slumped back into the leather seat and thought about his visit to Michigan, how the few Cousins there had fit into the company party Oomal threw like round pegs nestled happily in square holes.

  It had been a nice party, Reen remembered, much more festive than what he was accustomed to in Washington. The humans wore blue jeans and, after a great deal of beer and barbecue, laughed very loud. And when Oomal handed Reen the pretty package and explained to the humans in such a simple way that Reen was his big Brother whom he loved very much, one of the women cried. “That’s so sweet,” she said. “Isn’t that sweet?”

  Sweet, he thought, staring at the Rolex and wishing he had made a note of the time Hassenbein had called.

  As the limo leaned into a long right turn, Reen saw that they were exiting onto the Dulles Access Road. He would probably be early.

  Natalie asked, “You going to sign those or what?”

  “I can’t read them in the car.”

  She snatched the top inch of papers. “Pursuant to the agreement of April fifth,” she began.

  With a stomach-lurching jolt the limo braked and veered. Reen heard the crunch of gravel as it slowed to a stop.

  Natalie punched the speaker button. “What’s going on?”

  With a hum the tinted glass between driver and passenger compartments began to lower. Reen saw the usual sparse traffic on the Dulles Access whipping by and noticed that the motorcycle escort had parked their bikes on the shoulder.

  The policemen were walking toward the car, their guns drawn.

  The chauffeur was facing Reen, his elbows planted on top of the opposite seat. “Get down on the floor,” he said.

  Reen’s attention snagged on the chauffeur and the silver revolver in his hand. He couldn’t believe it. The man was pointing a gun at him.

  “You, too,” the chauffeur said, waving the black well of the barrel in Natalie’s face.

  Reen decided it would be wise to comply with the chauffeur’s wishes. The man’s expression was inflexible. But Reen couldn’t get his body moving. The policemen were very close now, and they looked remarkably like real policemen.

  “Get down!” the chauffeur bellowed. Reen jumped.

  Something shoved Reen in the back and toppled him to the carpet. “The man said down, sir,” Natalie said sharply. “Didn’t you hear him?” To the chauffeur she said, “Listen. You’re kidnapping us, okay? But I’m dying for a cigarette. You got a light?”

  Reen was on the floorboard where Natalie had pushed him, and her shoes were in his face. New shoes, he thought stupidly, wondering if she had bought them with the White House credit card. They were navy high heels with small gold bows. Natalie was rummaging in her purse. It was a big beige purse and it didn’t match the shoes. That wasn’t at all like Natalie.

  “On the floor!” the chauffeur shouted.

  Three popping sounds, one right after the other. Natalie bounded to the opposite seat and wriggled through the partition. The limo jerked forward, the sudden acceleration pushing Reen’s shoulder into the upholstery behind.

  Clunk, clunk, clunk went the limo as it slammed into metal. The motorcycles, probably, judging from the way the big car bounced.

  He heard a hum and sat up. The partition’s opaque glass had been raised. The Mercedes was rushing up the Dulles Access, weaving in and out of traffic.

  “Natalie!” Reen cried, punching the intercom button.

  No one replied. He hit the lever to lower the partition’s glass. Nothing happened.

  Reen lay down on the floorboard again. The Mercedes was so heavy that, without looking at the gray screen of winter trees rushing by the window, he might have thought they were gliding along at a sedate twenty.

  The car slewed. Brakes screamed. Reen was flung toward the door. There were four jarring bumps as the big car mounted the curb, and four more as it dropped to street level again.

  Reen sat up and saw they were headed in the opposite direction from the airport. The Mercedes skidded across three lanes, cutting off a green pickup. Ahead was the red-striped toll barrier and a small gesticulating figure in a booth. With a muted bang and a shudder, the Mercedes plowed through the barrier, knocking it several feet into the air and over the car. Reen looked out the rear window and saw it lazily falling, a candy cane from heaven, before a thicket of leafless hickories hid it from view.

  They whipped through a residential section of Tyson’s Corner and took Chain Bridge Road toward Wolf Trap, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights. Somewhere near Vienna they turned west onto a winding lane with woods on one side and pastures on the other. Then they were deep in Virginia horse country.

  Reen punched the intercom button. “Natalie?”

  The limo was flying down the secondary road, going much too fast for him to jump to safety, even had his paralyzing fright allowed.

  “Natalie? Are you there? Please. Are we going back to the White House now?”

  The ammoniac smell of urine and the copper-penny smell of human blood spread through the heating ducts like a contagion.

  “Natalie?”

  Reen sat back, linked his hands in his lap, and, to keep the little death from taking him, began frantically thinking of pleasant things: Oomal and the party. Oomal handing him the present. Reen not knowing quite what to do with it because no Cousin had ever given him a gift. He remembered his Brother saying gently, “Open it, Reen-ja.” How the humans and Cousins had gathered around, the woman crying, “How sweet.” And Oomal, because he could not embrace him, had hooked his claw into Reen’s sleeve and asked, “Do you like it?”

  Reen looked long and hard at the Rolex. My big brother whom I love.

  The Mercedes squealed to a halt. The door opened. A man in a white hard hat reached in and grabbed Reen’s arm. The workman was huge, his hands enormous. Reen found himself being dragged from the Mercedes, and he hit his side painfully on the green phone receiver the man wore at his belt. The workman slammed the Mercedes door and gave the side a sharp slap.

  The limo sped away. In horror, Reen watched it disappear around the next curve.

  Feeling the man’s grip momentarily relax, Reen tore himself free and ran across the road toward the woods. He was thigh-deep into a patch of thorny blackberry bushes when the man flailed in after and grabbed him again. Reen struggled. The man fought to hold on. The subpoena dropped from his pocket.

  “Come on, sir,” the man said as he grasped Reen about the waist and pulled him to a white and green Chesapeake Bell panel truck.

  The man threw Reen facedown onto the truck’s carpet. The rear doors banged shut, and a moment later they were speeding down the road, the opposite way the limo had gone.

  Huge hands grabbed Reen and pulled him up onto a cushion. “How many fingers?” the phone company man asked, holding three stiff fingers before Reen’s face.

  Reen looked away. If he had to die like Jonis and the rest, then he would do the best his small courage allowed and at least keep silent.

  The man sat back, sighed, and unfastened a walkie-talkie from his belt. “Domino’s delivers,” he said into it. Then he crawled away and sat with two other phone company men who were checking their Uzis.

  Yes, Reen decided, the best thing to do now, the easiest thing, was die quickly before they caused him pain.

  The three linemen were too alike to tell apart, all broad-s
houldered with slim waists. Their hard hats hid their hair. One of them crawled forward and held four fingers up to Reen.

  “How many fingers, sir?”

  Reen turned his head away. Right now they were elementary questions; later the questions would get more difficult. Why are you here? What are your plans for us? And then would come the agony. To protect the humans, Reen had hidden his suspicions from the Community. In fact, his suspicions were so terrible, he himself had dismissed them. The kidnapped Cousins had not died gently in those three allotted days. Reen knew they had died tortured.

  “You hear me,” the man said. “I know you can hear me.” The man went back to the others. “I think he’s okay.”

  No, Reen thought, seeing his death as clearly and as close as the carpeted wall before him. I am not okay. When they had held him long enough, they would see his life seep from him, and they would wonder. With perverse satisfaction he wished he could see the astonishment on their faces.

  The truck braked. Reen heard the slam of the driver’s door. He glanced warily at the three men in the back, but they were intent on their guns. The door slammed again. The vehicle inched forward and stopped.

  Reen’s heart faltered. If only he had been able to overcome his own squeamishness and bring some Loving Helpers along. The Helpers, condemned to a life sentence in Communal Mind, were an uncomfortable reminder of the ancient Cousin past, the declining Cousin future; but a touch from them could send human consciousness to a place where free will did not exist. Reen loathed the panic he had seen on human faces when they found themselves sinking into that dark well of compliance. At this moment, however, he would have given anything to see his kidnappers wearing that same powerless look.

  Someone flung open the rear doors. They were in a barn. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through weathered slats. Reen took a breath and smelled the dry, prickly scent of hay, the earthy aroma of long-vanished horses.

  A man dragged Reen out and unceremoniously dumped him on a pile of straw.

  Reen sat quietly, watching the bars of sun slant through the gaps in the wood. He listened to the ticking sounds of the van’s engine, the quiet murmur of the kidnappers’ voices. Then a man threw a blanket over Reen’s legs and set a chilled can of Coca-Cola beside him.