Quiet Invasion

by Sarah Zettel

  “They’re going to be manhandled by the yewners soon enough,” he’d argued. “Let’s at least let them wait for it in comfort.”

  “Hello, Kevin. Hello, Derek.” Grace held up the pair of brown bottles she carried. “Brought you some beer.”

  “Thanks.” Kevin got up to the take the bottles from her. He’d changed over the past week. It was as if the fire had gone out inside him, leaving behind nothing but cold resignation. Grace thought she knew the cause. Whatever he thought about the Discovery and how it came to be, Kevin believed heart and soul that he deserved to be punished for what had happened to Scarab Fourteen.

  Grace turned her attention to Derek, who hadn’t moved since she came in.

  “Hello, Derek,” said Grace again, gently.

  Derek did not respond.

  Kevin eyed her uneasily, but she waved him away. “It’s all right, Kevin. I don’t blame him. He’s angry.” Grace sighed. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this, Kevin.”

  Kevin’s just slumped into his chair at the dining table. “It was my fault.”

  She nodded. “Among others. We were all in danger. There was so much to lose…at the time it seemed like a good idea.” If either of you knew how long, how hard I tried to find another way, you’d understand how desperate the situation really was. I tried everything else first. It was the only way. “I got so damn tired of being ignored.”

  “Ignored?” Derek looked up. Sudden, raw hatred filled his eyes. “That’s why you talked me into this? Because you didn’t want to be ignored?”

  And you just didn’t want to lose your job, you spoiled child. She didn’t say it. “Seems pretty stupid now that we’ve got real live aliens to talk to. No one’s going to give a damn that I spotted their traces first.”

  “Well that’s just too bad,” growled Derek.

  “Okay, Derek,” said Kevin wearily. “You can’t blame her for what you did.”

  “The hell I can’t!” Derek snapped. He stabbed a finger at Grace. “It was her idea! If she hadn’t—”

  Kevin stood up slowly. His brother matched him for height, but Kevin’s shoulders were far broader. He loomed over the smaller man. “You didn’t have to do one damn thing,” Kevin told him slowly. “She didn’t have a gun to your head. You did this, and I did this. We got caught, and Bailey Heathe got killed because of us!”

  “Because of you,” grated Derek. “Don’t try to bring that one down on me!”

  Grace stepped between them, putting her back to Kevin before he could react. “My lawyers will get you out of this,” she told Derek firmly. “You and your brother.”

  “They’d better.” Derek didn’t take his gaze off his brother, but he backed up a few paces. “Because we are not going to rot in a jail on Mother Earth alone, understand me?”

  “You will not go to jail.” Grace turned a little so she could see them both. “I’d better go. Kevin, try not to worry. It’ll all be okay.”

  Kevin looked from Derek to her. “I hope you’re right, Dr. Meyer.”

  Neither of them said good-bye. Grace walked out. Her stomach knotted up on her as she passed the guard stationed on the door and started down the busy residential corridor.

  They would not go to prison. Grace watched her own feet as she headed for the stairs. They would drink the beer she’d brought, tonight, or perhaps tomorrow. They’d drain all the bottles contained.

  Then, sometime within the next week, they’d die. By then they’d have eaten over a dozen meals and their buddies from the scarab crews would have brought them at least as many beers. The traces in their guts would make it appear that they had died of severe food poisoning. Her bottles would have long since been recycled and it would be next to impossible to say where the contagion had come from. The kitchens and food processors would have a bad week while they were turned upside down, but that couldn’t be helped.

  Organic chemistry was useful for so many things.

  No, Derek and Kevin would not go to jail. There was so much work to be done. No one would ignore her anymore; no one would tell her that her work might reflect badly on Venera as a whole. There was one person left who might connect Grace’s name to the fraud, but that one had so much to lose that she would not risk it. Grace was certain of that.

  Grace lifted her head as she started up the stairs and found she could meet the gazes of the people she passed quite easily.

  There was important work to do. She had to be free to do it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BEN PACED HIS OFFICE, trying to be patient. He had one of the few private spaces on the administrative level. The dampeners in the walls meant he couldn’t hear the continual buzz and bustle going on outside. Sometimes he dropped them. He liked being around people. He did not like being shut up and alone, but there were things for which he needed privacy.

  Like the transmission he was waiting for.

  The office did have a real window, allowing him to see the cloudscape with its continual whorls and ripples and flashes of lightning. So different from Mars or the Moon. Those were static worlds. What motion there was, humans brought. Venus though…Venus was alive in its own right. It still had a beating heart under its volcanoes, and it still shifted and shrugged its crust, even without plate tectonics.

  He could have spent his life studying this place. He could have given himself up to the world the way Helen had if there hadn’t been other considerations.

  He glanced back at his gently humming desk. Anyone running a systems sweep would think he was busy processing satellite data with the new criteria of observing the aliens (Holy God, those aliens!) and their artifacts. What he was actually doing was looking for a transmission signature. When his scanner found it, the transmission would be routed straight to the desk without having to go through Venera’s usual exchanges and checks.

  It wasn’t something he liked to do very often. Michael and Michael’s people were very good at what they did. Trying to get around their security measures was a chancy business at best.

  Venera was alive with activity, speculation, and wonder. Everybody wanted their chance to go meet the neighbors. Michael was going to have to forcibly restrain Grace before long. They tried to tell her the board’s consensus was that there should be only a limited contact team. Just for now, of course, until a good understanding had been established with the People.

  Ben shook his head. They couldn’t tell her the real reason only one scarab was being kept down there. He’d guessed at that reason and had told Helen his guess in private. Her silence had been enough to tell him he’d guessed correctly.

  The Venerans needed to talk to the aliens. They needed as much information as they could get. Every bit of information they controlled was an edge on the C.A.C. But if anybody made a damning mistake, they needed to be able to say to the U.N., “It was your people who did that, not ours.”

  For the first time in a long time, he’d agreed absolutely with Helen’s strategy.

  His desk chimed. Ben was beside it in two long strides. The screen cleared and Frezia Cheney looked out at him.

  “Paul.” It had been so long since he’d used that name on a regular basis that it felt as if she were talking to some stranger. “Your word’s been spread. Much to the chagrin of the yewners, may I add.” Mischief sparkled in her eyes for a moment and then faded away.

  “I hate to have to say this, but no one else is even close to ready for a succession attempt, distractions or paradigm shifts notwithstanding. They’re going to have to let the chance pass. We’re feeling the loss of Fuller here. There’s no unifying voice anymore. There’s no one person to talk to.” She paused and shook her head. “The demo at the shipyard hasn’t even managed to unite the Lunars.”

  Ben grimaced. That “demo” had been a stupid idea. When he’d caught a whiff of what was being planned, he—or Paul, rather—had protested to everyone he could and had been ignored.

  But apparently he was not being ignored anymore. “I think uniting us is up to you, Pau
l. The only way the wave is going to rise is if Venera takes the place of Bradbury and makes the break. With an example to follow, the squabblers will be able to shut up and drive, if you see what I mean.” Her mouth twisted into an ironic smile, but her eyes still gleamed. “It’s not that men make history; history makes men. If you can show us the way, we can still free the worlds.”

  The message faded out Ben, moving more on reflex than any conscious thought, wiped the file and the record of receipt. Then he released a search agent into the system to see if there were any ghosts or records he’d forgotten and wipe them too.

  The only way this is going to work is if Venera takes the place of Bradbury and makes the break. Ben sat back and ran one hand across his scalp. If you can show us the way it can still happen.

  If you can show us the way.

  Alone? Venera alone? Without help, without friends; at least, without friends who had declared themselves. Once they broke, they could maybe count on Bradbury and probably Giant Leap.

  But then came the problem, the old, old problem. Mother Earth still controlled the shipping between planets. The tacit threat had always been that if any colony tried to become self-governing, Earth would simply stop transports to and from the colony, isolating the world. No food, no spare parts, no replacement personnel, nothing. Even Bradbury with its mixed industry had felt the pinch after a while. How much worse would it be for Venera? Venera manufactured nothing but research reports. They could not survive alone.

  But Venera wouldn’t be alone. Ben straightened up, one muscle at a time. Venera had neighbors. Neighbors who could fly from world to world as easily as a yewner bureaucrat could fly from republic to republic. More easily.

  What if the Venerans set up one of their portals between Venus and Mars? Between Luna and Venus? The colonists could move between the worlds without any interference from Mother Earth. Earth’s transport and communications monopolies would be shattered. The one sure control they held over the colonies would be gone.

  If Venera could make a deal with the aliens. If it were Venera that spoke, not the U.N.

  If it were Venera that spoke.

  Venera, meaning Helen. Ben stared out at the clouds. Helen would never abandon the U.N. To do so would mean abandoning Yan Su, who had stood by her for so long.

  No. He corrected his thoughts. Helen would never betray the U.N. unless the U.N. betrayed her, betrayed Venera, first.

  If that happened, all bets were off. Helen would do anything she had to so that Venera would survive and be free to do its work with its people free to live their lives. She’d even make a deal with aliens.

  An idea formed in his mind, one slow thought trickling into his consciousness at a time.

  There was a way. He held it in his hands. He stood a very good chance of pushing Helen over the edge. All he had to do was lie to the U.N. about what she knew and when she knew it.

  Ben leaned back in the chair as far as it would let him and scrubbed his face with both hands.

  All he had to do was be the one who really betrayed Helen.

  He’d been on Luna when he met Helen. He’d successfully left the name Paul Mabrey behind and found work as a geologist for Dorson Mines, Inc. As such, he supervised more databases than humans, analyzing rock and soil samples and looking for useful deposits. It was a job. It bought food and shelter and paid the taxes so he could breathe and drink, but it meant nothing.

  He’d been in one of the public caverns. He’d just bought coffee and fry cakes for breakfast. He’d been sitting on a hard little chair, staring at the walls and thinking how much he missed the Bradbury gardens. The Lunars had covered their gray rock with vines. Morning glories and wild grapes made a living wallpaper and warred with the rambler roses and raspberries in providing color and scent. Pretty, but not the gardens. Empty, second-rate. Cheap. Like his job. Like him.

  “Dr. Godwin?”

  He looked up. A woman stood by his table, plainly dressed in a blue blouse and matching trousers. Her graying hair was bundled into a knot and pinned in place with wooden pins. Her eyes sparkled and her entire attitude said she knew why she was alive.

  “Yes?” said Ben, wracking his brain to see if he should know her.

  “I’m Helen Failia. I’ve been looking for you. I need a geologist who knows comparative planetology and volcanology.” She dropped into a spare chair without asking. “For Venera Base on Venus.”

  “Oh?” was all Ben could think to say. Venera was half-built, half-occupied, and some said half-baked. It was a pure-research colony, the first in decades. No one believed it could last. The science currents predicted its death year after year. But somehow, Venera never quite laid down.

  “Our staff is thinning out. We need to get some fresh blood in. Someone who can dig hard into the work.” Which told him why her staff was thinning out. She didn’t have the money to pay them what the mining companies could. Which also explained why she was willing to recruit someone who only had a few, very obscure papers to his credit. Papers he’d spent the past three or so Terran years carefully salting through the stream. Helen, he would learn, always had an eye open for a good bargain. “I’ve read your credentials. Your postdoctoral work is brilliant. You’ve got an eye for the unusual, and you don’t mind hard work. Which is perfect for Venus.” She didn’t just smile; she beamed. Ben couldn’t help thinking of Ted Fuller. On a good day, when things were going well, Ted radiated the same light.

  Ben drank his bitter, cooling coffee, trying to sort out his thoughts. This was definitely not what he’d been expecting to hear this morning. He’d been expecting another day of trying to convince himself he’d made the right decision, that this life really was better than the one he’d abandoned, or would be very soon.

  “Venus is open territory,” said Helen, leaning on her elbows. “You can’t throw a stone without hitting something new. You’ll have complete freedom to direct the research. Anything you want to look at, it’s yours.”

  Risky. It had the chance to bring him to public attention, and public attention could be the end of the line for someone hiding behind an alias.

  He looked at the coffee in his cup. He looked at the vines covering the gray walls. He looked at the people around the table—miners, students, engineers, all buzzing about in their separate lives like bees and meaning about as much to him. He looked back at Helen, and in her dark eyes, he suddenly saw some hope. Hope of a real life, a better life, one with meaning and purpose to replace the purpose that had been ripped from him by the yewners and their troops.

  “I’d have to hear about the base,” he said slowly. “The facilities, the package you’re offering, and so on.”

  “Of course.” Helen picked up his coffee cup, sniffed its contents, and made a face. “But first you have to get some real coffee. On me. Come on.”

  He’d followed her without question. Into the Lunar coffee bar, down to Earth, out to Venus. He’d followed her for twenty years through funding fights, mission fights, personnel fights, and charter fights.

  Ben swiveled his chair and watched the clouds outside the window. They swirled and flowed together like his thoughts. They had predictable currents, he knew, and if you worked long enough, you could map their movements and understand how each little particle fit into the greater flow.

  He’d never even tried to tell Helen about what had really happened to him all those years ago. Helen would not have understood that what they were doing on Mars was real, even more real than the research, or building Venera into a sustainable colony that would outlive both of them. What really mattered was shaking off Earth’s grip. What mattered was freedom. Right now, Mother Earth could tell them to do anything, anything, and they’d have to do it. They had no choice. Mother Earth owned them, their lives, and their homes. Helen never saw it that way. Helen thought she called the shots. Helen thought she was in control.

  She wasn’t. Mother Earth was bigger, more forceful, and more determined than even Helen Failia.

  Ben turn
ed back around to face his desk again and started typing.

  Helen had to be shown the truth.

  “Good luck, Ambassador D’seun,” said K’est as D’seun glided through its windward gate. “Ambassador Z’eth is in the public park. She asks that you meet her there.”

  “Thank you, K’est.” D’seun flew swiftly toward the park. He struggled to keep his senses open to the dying city—the bare bones, the air rich with forced nutrients, yes, but also filled with desperation. A thin veneer of life was all that lay between K’est and true death, and all the citizens knew it.

  This is what I fight for, he told himself. We must prevent any more living deaths like these.

  D’seun’s first impression of the public park was that it was bigger than his whole birth village had ever been. Bone, shell, ligament, vine, and tapestry outlined a roughly spherical labyrinth of arches, corridors, and pass-throughs. Flight became a dance, here. Wind became song, and the voice of the city guided him through it all.

  “What am I interrupting here?” asked D’seun as he gave himself up to the drafts of the wind-guides and let them carry him through a corridor of story tapestries.

  “Ambassador Z’eth has called a hiring fair,” replied K’est.

  D’seun dipped his muzzle. Such things had been rare once, but with the massive numbers of refugees and indentures that circled the world, the ones who held the promises were gathering more and more frequently to review the skills they held promise to, and to exchange those skills and the persons to better serve the cities and the free citizens.

  Conversations touched D’seun at every turn, about medicines, about refugee projections, and the health of the canopy. Adults and children, both free and with the hatchmark of indenture between their eyes, passed him on every side. Tentacled constructors and spindly, broad-eyed clerkers trailed in their wakes.

  Finally, the wind-guides opened out into a pearlescent chamber that could have easily held two or three hundred adult females. The voices of a quartet rang pleasantly off its walls. Here and there, clusters of ambassadors and speakers hovered, deep in conversation with each other. The archivers hovered in their own clusters, off to the side, waiting until they were needed.