Quiet Invasion

by Sarah Zettel

  He had forty people working for him right now, counting the U.N.’s contribution of Bowerman and Cleary. Since it was the day shift, about half of the security personnel were at their desks, dealing with complaints or paperwork or helping Venerans fill out forms for passports, marriage licenses, or taxes.

  Only a handful of those people knew exactly how close they’d come to losing their home.

  Or how close they still are, Michael chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. If the validity of the Discovery is called into question, the money flood is going to dry up, and we’ll be right back where we started.

  Enough. The accusation had been made. The only question left was what to do about it.

  First thing, revisit the evidence. Make sure the investigation was as complete as he thought it was four months ago. Second, check out Dr. Hatch. If she was doing this to call attention to herself, maybe she’d done similar things in the past. It might help to have that to hold up to her, or to anyone else who came calling.

  Of course there was somebody on the base who knew all about Dr. Hatch. Michael pictured Philip Bowerman—a big man, serious, but with a sense of humor that ran just below the professional surface. From the beginning Bowerman and Cleary had been polite, circumspect, and very aware that they were unwelcome. Michael, in return, had made sure his people were polite, circumspect, and very aware that Bowerman and Cleary were just doing their job.

  Still, the idea of going to the yewners with this made his stomach curdle.

  And not because you’re worried you might have let something slide past that they’ll catch. Oh, no.

  Michael straightened up. “Desk. Contact Philip Bowerman.” Bowerman was wired for sound, as were most U.N. security people. He and Cleary had given Michael their contact codes within minutes of his meeting them.

  “Bowerman,” the man’s voice came back. “How can I help you, Dr. Lum?”

  “I’ve got one or two questions about the U.N. team to ask you.”

  “Okay,” said Bowerman without hesitation. “I’m in the Mall, but I’ll be right up.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll come down.”

  Eleven years as head of security had given Michael a refined appreciation of how Venera’s rumor mill worked. There would actually be less talk if Michael “ran into” Bowerman at the Mall than if he sat closeted with the man at his desk behind sound dampeners. Lack of talk was something much to be desired right now, especially with Stykos and his camera band roaming the halls.

  “Desk,” said Michael as he stood. “Display Absence Message 1. Record and store all incoming messages, or if the situation is an emergency, route to my personal phone.”

  “Will comply,” said the desk. Its screen displayed the words AT LUNCH, LEAVE A MESSAGE.

  Michael tucked his phone spot into his ear and threaded his way between the desks, heading for the stairs.

  Michael walked down past the farms, past the gallery level with its harvester and processing plants, its winery, brewery, bakery, and butchery, past the research level, and past two of the residential levels with their concentric rings of brightly painted doors, and past the educational level where the irrepressible sound of children’s voices rang off the walls. Below the educational level waited the Mall.

  From the beginning, Venera had been designed to support whole families. Helen had wanted people to be able to make a long-term commitment to their work. The open Mall with its shops, trough gardens, food stalls, and cafe-like seating clusters was one of the features that made the base livable for years at a time.

  The Mall was about half full. An undercurrent of voices thrummed through the air, along with scents of cooking food, coffee, and fresh greenery. Meteorologists clustered around a table screen, probably getting readings of a storm from the sampling equipment Venera carried in its underbelly. Off-shift techs and engineers played cards, typed letters, ate sandwiches, or sipped coffee. Graduate students took advice and instructions from senior researchers, and senior researchers tossed ideas back and forth between each other. A pod of science feeders held a whispered argument among themselves. If the gestures were anything to go by, it was getting pretty heated. Families, knots of friends, and loners drifted in and out of the shops or stood in line at the food booths. Around the edges of the hall, a couple of maintenancers spritzed the miniature trees and dusted off the grow-lights. A cluster of children played with puzzle bricks at their parents’ feet. If anyone’s gaze landed on him, they waved or nodded and he returned their greetings reflexively. Michael no longer knew the names of everyone on Venera, but he knew most of the faces, and he couldn’t bring himself to think of anyone aboard the base as a stranger.

  This was his world. It was not the only one he had ever known, but it was the only one that had ever truly known him.

  Spotting Bowerman took only a quick scan of the room. The man stood out in his subdued blue-and-white tunic. Venerans went in for bright colors.

  Bowerman had picked a table near the far edge of the Mall under a pair of potted orange trees. He spotted Michael before Michael was halfway across the floor and lifted a hand.

  “Please, sit down.” Bowerman gestured toward the empty chair as Michael reached him. “Mind if I go ahead?” he nodded at his lunch—soup, fresh bread, a cup of rich chai, spiced Indian tea that Margot at Salon Blu imported.

  “Please. I’m actually going to meet my wife for lunch right after this.”

  “You two have kids?” asked Bowerman, breaking apart his small loaf of sourdough bread and spreading it thickly with butter.

  “Two boys,” said Michael, going with the conversation and not bothering to mention that Bowerman surely knew this from reading Michael’s files. “You?”

  Bowerman shook his head. “Not yet.” He bit into the bread, chewed, and swallowed. “This is good. I didn’t expect such good food, or so much space.” He gestured with the bread. “I’ve only been to Small Step on Luna, and on Mars once. I got used to the idea that colonies are cramped.”

  Michael noticed Bowerman did not say where he’d been on Mars. “Our one real luxury,” he said, repeating the stock phrase.

  “So.” Bowerman put the bread down and picked up his soup spoon. “How can I help you?”

  Good question. Michael hesitated. He’d made up his mind to do this while he was behind his desk, but now that he faced Bowerman, he had trouble putting the words together. He was about to tell the U.N. there might be a problem aboard Venera. Venera was a colony, and the U.N. looked for excuses to make life difficult for colonies. That was a fact. What if Michael was about to give them such an excuse?

  Bowerman wasn’t looking at him. He concentrated on his soup, making little appreciative slurping noises as he ate. I could get up and leave. I could invent something small and leave, go tell Helen what’s going on, and let her handle it. I could do that.

  “One of the investigative team has raised a question about the validity of the Discovery.”

  Bowerman paused and set his spoon down. “Oh?” The syllable could have meant anything from “Oh, really?” to “Only one?”

  Going to make me say it, aren’t you? Okay, I’d do the same if I were you. “We investigated this exact question extensively when the Discovery first came to our attention. I assume you saw the reports?”

  Bowerman’s gaze turned sharp. Michael had his full attention now. “They looked thorough. Do you think you missed something?”

  Michael sighed. He appreciated the lack of judgment in Bowerman’s voice. Just one pro talking to another. Anybody could miss something. It happened. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But if a fraud accusation is going to be made, that isn’t good enough. I have to know.”

  Bowerman nodded soberly. “How can we help?”

  Michael studied his fingertips. The scent of beef and tomatoes reached him from Bowerman’s soup and his stomach rumbled. “If this is a fraud, it cost money,” he said slowly. “And Venera was running on a wing, a prayer, and short credit. If somebody did thi
s, they got money from somewhere.”

  “Or shuffled it from somewhere,” said Bowerman quietly.

  Michael just nodded.

  “Who could do that?”

  “Most easily?” Michael didn’t look up. He didn’t want to see Bowerman’s eyes, weighing, calculating, running ahead with different scenarios to see how each of them might fit. “I could. Ben Godwin or Helen Failia. After us, the department heads.”

  “But Dr. Failia is in charge of base finance, isn’t she?”

  Michael nodded again. Helen had kept that position for herself. She raised the money, she counted the money, she divvied the money up. It was no small task, but she would not delegate it. Occasionally, Michael suspected Helen did not want to admit she was not entirely in control of this city of ten thousand.

  Bowerman was silent for a long time. “All right. I’ll call down to Earth and start a trace on the incoming funds for, say, the year before the Discovery’s announcement. Will that do?” Now Michael looked up. Bowerman’s face was understanding but not pitying, which he also appreciated. “How quiet can you keep this?”

  “I’ll do my best,” he shrugged. “But I have to tell my boss.”

  “Who will have to tell the Venus work group?”

  Bowerman nodded one more time. “But trust me, they will not want to let this out until they’re sure. There’ve been a lot of speeches made about your Discovery, and nobody’s going to want to look like they bought vaporware. We’ll sell it as double-checking your facts. Just doing our job.” He smiled thinly. “Everybody knows we don’t trust your kind.”

  Michael gave a short laugh. “So they do.”

  “I’d recommend two other things.” Bowerman tapped the table gently with his spoon. “First you let the ask my boss, Sadiq Hourani, to order an audit of Venera’s books. If we go over it all, when we find nothing, no one will be able to accuse you of hiding anything. Also, if Angela and I do it, well…” He smiled again. “We can be obnoxious. We don’t live here and nobody likes us anyway.”

  “Good idea,” admitted Michael. “What’s the other thing?”

  “Let me get Angela checking around the team down there. See if anything suspicious is going on, let her talk to Hatch, and so on. See what the position is on the ground.”

  “Also good,” Michael paused. “I don’t suppose you can let me have what you’ve got on Dr. Hatch, can you?”

  Bowerman’s stirred his soup, considering. I might be able to leave a file unsecured here and there.”

  “Thanks.” Michael’s phone spot rang the two-tone reminder chime. Michael tapped it in acknowledgment, gratefully. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting my wife.”

  “Go.” Bowerman waved the spoon. “I’ll stop by tomorrow. Let you know what the preliminary view is.”

  “Thanks,” said Michael again. “I appreciate it.”

  Bowerman smiled his acknowledgment and returned his attention to his cooling soup.

  Michael didn’t hang around. He headed for the nearest stairwell and climbed back up toward the educational level. Jolynn was headmaster for grades one through six and they were going to have lunch in her office. She was having it brought in.

  He tried not to think. He tried to blank the conversation he’d just had out of his mind and concentrate on the outside world—the voices, the faces, the sights that he knew as well as any man from Mother Earth knew the rooms of his house or the streets of his city. He’d grown up here with tilt drills, suit drills, and evacuation drills. He’d always known that inside was safe, and outside was poison.

  But he’d never believed that the outside could touch him, not really.

  He’d been on Earth when his father died. For the first time, he was walking under a sky that rained water, not acid. He was breathing air that didn’t come from a processing plant and seeing the stars at night He was infatuated with Mother Earth.

  His mother’s v-mail came. Dad had had one of those accidents they warned you about. Venus had used one of her thousand tricks to kill him or take down his scarab. Same thing. There was nothing to bury, nothing to burn. Just a lifetime of memories ringing around his head and Mom asking him to come home.

  He went. But he swore not to stay. He went so he could attend the memorial service and help sort out the will and all the other red tape death generates. All his remaining energies he bent toward trying to convince Mom to come back to Earth. She’d been born there, after all, and she was getting old, despite the med trips. Since long-life was not something she wanted for herself, what was keeping her there, in a world that would kill her?

  Come down, come back, come home. This home. Our real home, where Michael was going back to and fully intended to stay.

  “You do what you have to, Michael,” she said. “And grant me the right to do the same.”

  “This is no place for a human being to live, Mom. Trapped in a bubble like this.”

  She’d sighed, with that annoying infinite patience she was capable of. “Some trap. The door’s open Michael. Go or stay, it’s all up to you.” She’d taken his hands then. “I love you, Son. If you want to live on Earth, then that’s what you should do.” She’d meant it too, every word.

  So Michael had gone. He’d finished his degree, he’d found work, and within a year, he’d come back to Venus, found work again, met Jolynn, and gotten married.

  He’d never questioned what he’d done, but he’d never really understood it either. He’d never been able to point to any one thing and say, “That was it; that was why I left Earth.” He’d been lonely, it was true, and the vast global village of Earth with its snarl of republics could be confusing to someone who’d grown up with one set of people his entire life. But neither of those things was entirely the answer.

  On days like today, he still wondered. He did not regret, no, never that. His life was too sweet, too rich, for regret, but all the same, he did wonder.

  Jolynn’s office was at the end of a hall that the older kids called “grass row,” presumably because your ass was grass if you got sent there. The door was open just a little, and Michael stepped into the ordered chaos—shelves and racks of screen rolls, text pads, an insulated lunch box, two deactivated animatron cats, and a worse-for-wear rubber ducky left over from a disciplinary action involving some overimaginative first graders. In the middle of it all sat Jolynn with her rich brown-black hair and beautiful amber eyes, smiling her smile that always held her own special brand of terse amusement, and just waiting for him to bend down and kiss her.

  “Hello to you too,” she said when he pulled back “Sit and eat. Some of us are on a schedule.” She lifted the lid off the lunch box.

  About half an hour later, they had lunch reduced to salad containers, sandwich warm-wraps, and a couple of empty ice cream cups scattered on her desk. It wasn’t until then that he realized Jolynn was just looking at him.

  “What?’

  Her eyes sparkled, and he heard her unspoken accusation.

  “I am listening,” he said indignantly.

  Jolynn snorted. “Maybe.” She set her spoon down next to one of the toy cats. “Shall I tell you what’s wrong?”

  Michael leaned back and folded his hands. “Please do.” He’d known this was coming. He hadn’t wanted to talk during lunch. He’d just wanted to be here with Jolynn in her quiet, cluttered office, away from everything else. He knew she’d notice his silence, but he still hadn’t been able to get himself to make more than brief answers to her remarks about her day, their children’s upcoming tests, and the intramural soccer tournament.

  Jolynn bunched one of the warm-wraps into a ball and stuffed it into her empty ice cream cup. “What’s wrong is that Grandma Helen has left you out of the loop and you are not doing anything about it.”

  How does she know? How does she always know? “I don’t know that there’s any loop to be left out of.”

  “Of course you don’t. You’re not asking.”

  Michael sighed and tapped his spoon against the edge of the
desk. The plastic ticked sharply against the metal. “Jolynn, why did you come back?”

  “From where?” She stuck one of the ice cream cups inside the other.

  “College. On Earth.” He tossed the spoon into one of the empty salad containers. “You went, just like the rest of us. Why’d you come back here?”

  “Because I couldn’t resist the lure of all this glamour?” She waved both hands at her cluttered, windowless office and smiled. “I don’t know. I couldn’t get the hang of Earth, I suppose.” She paused, and her gaze focused on the wall, but Michael knew she was seeing her own thoughts. “I could have been a school administrator on Earth, anywhere I wanted, but I didn’t feel like it would mean anything. My roots were all up here, everybody I really knew, everybody who really knew me, and…I guess I was just more comfortable with edges to my world.”

  “Edges?” Her words nibbled at him, reaching toward meanings inside himself that he had been trying to tease out all morning.

  Jolynn nodded. “We’re all stuck together up here. Everybody’s got a place and something to work toward, and Grandma Helen’s at the top of it all. As long as she’s there, there’s somebody else to make sure the world’s all right. It’s not all on you.” She dropped the ice cream cups into the lunch box. “That’s kind of a scary thought. I came back because I want to be looked after.”

  Michael nodded in agreement. “But it’s there, isn’t it? I think every v-baby’s got it As long as Grandma Helen’s around, everything’s going to be okay.” He met Jolynn’s eyes, her beautiful warm eyes. “So, what do we do if something goes wrong with Grandma Helen?”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  So, he told her about Josh’s letter and his talk with Philip and how, on the face of it anyway, Helen herself was the logical first place to look, and how he didn’t want to believe that.

  Jolynn smiled in sympathy and took his hand. “You said it yourself. Us v-babies, we want Grandma Helen to take care of us. We don’t want to think about her not being there or being flawed. It’s as bad as the day you find out your own parents are just human beings.”