Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences (12 page)

I will destroy them,
he told me. Not a question.

Yes
.
But then I changed my mind.
No. Bring them back. Broken is fine, but if you can, bring them. We will take them apart and see what they have become.

They will be broken. Anchise cannot control his anger. This troubles me because these are slaves. We should feel nothing for them, but I understand his feeling; they have caused us much uneasiness. I bang my fist on the table. This species was so easy to defeat. How has it become so difficult and so complicated when at first it was so very easy?

I don’t want to think it, but it just sort of pops into my head.
I like what they’ve done to the place
. That’s wrong on so many levels, but I have to admit that their downtown is more attractive than the old one of concrete and cramped spaces and stone and metal buildings.

There are lots of bushes and trees that I don’t recognize, all shades of blue or green. Aqua and turquoise. We pass a tall aqua tree with leaves as big as dinner plates, and it’s amazing. Totally amazing. It’s like being on another world.

I say, “It’s kind of beautiful.” I know I should hate anything that belongs to them, that comes from them. But, this power we have, a gift, comes from them.

As soon as I say
beautiful,
Michael gives me a look like I’ve just said something Benedict Arnold or Brutus would say.

“I wish we could burn it all down,” Lindsey says.

“Sure,” I say guiltily. “Me too, but —”

“But you’re right,” Lauren says. “It is kind of beautiful. They won’t be cutting down rain forests. They aren’t going to have machines that fill the air with pollution.”

“I can’t believe you,” Lindsey says. “Are you listening to yourself?”

“I’m just saying that from an ecological standpoint, the world’s in better hands.”

“You sound like you’re glad they’re here,” Lindsey says.

“Not me,” Lauren says. “Maybe Mother Earth is.”

“Not me, either,” I say. “I’d send them all back where they came from. All we’re saying is the green is nice.”

“I hate it,” Lindsey says.

“I hate it, too,” Catlin says bitterly. “They think they can do anything they want to us. They think it’s their world. I’d destroy it all.”

Lindsey nods. “That’s right, girl. Destroy it all. Destroy them.”

It’s not that I don’t feel the same way. I’ll think of my parents and feel it. I’ll think of my friends, my dog. Sometimes I feel nothing but hate. But if I don’t fight that feeling, I start to hate myself, too. I survived. I survived because some part of me is a little like them.

“It’s starting to get light,” I say. “We should hurry. We need to be there before dawn.”

We’re all tired, but we force ourselves to keep going. We try to keep to cover. We see the ships again; they’re off to our right making a pass back toward Lord Vert’s mansion. We see them two more times, farther and farther off to the right.

We get beyond downtown and cross the University of Texas campus. North of that is a narrow little park and a neighborhood with spacious, older homes. Comfortable but not pretentious. We’re almost to the end of the park when we run into the alien.

As we get closer to him, I feel dizzy. I stumble. My mind becomes fuzzy. I can’t see as well. This alien is a little larger than most of them, but not as large as a Handler.

Good evening,
he thinks, slurring the word
evening
. He’s not speaking out loud, but I feel his voice unable to enunciate, and I realize he’s drunk.
How unexpected
.

He sounds amused. I look at the others to see if they are feeling what I’m feeling, but I can’t tell. No one moves.

Four slaves out on an errand
.

Is he making us drunk on purpose or are we susceptible to his drunkenness? I’ve never seen a drunk alien before. Then I think,
Four slaves?
I look around. Catlin’s gone.

“You’re right,” I say, “for Lord Vert. We’re delivering a message for the lord.”

The alien smiles.
Lord Vert? Wonderful. I must remember that. Lord Vert. Not wise to tell anyone who might let it get back to him. Don’t have to worry about me, humans. Not likely he and I will ever cross paths. No, not likely at all
.

Michael moves to the alien’s right, but he stumbles as he does. I’m pretty sure then that the alien is somehow making us drunk on purpose; I can feel him pushing his own drunkenness onto us, almost like it’s a cloud he’s emitting.

I’m impressed. I was told this planet had no hearing. You certainly do hear, don’t you?

I can’t see Catlin, but I feel her on the other side of the alien. He turns and waves his arm, and she reappears.
Impressive
.

He looks around at each of us.
You have nothing to fear from me. I am here illegally. I have no interest in runaway slaves, and if I draw attention to myself, I will end up, well, let’s just say in a place I would very much prefer to avoid
.

“What do you mean, here illegally?” I say.

I’m a trader
.

“In slaves?” Michael says.

I feel myself moving one way and the other. It’s like we’re on a ship. The ground is not steady.

I trade in just about everything but slaves. On a new colony there are many opportunities. I have my own ship and I pay the right people and I’m able to make deals now, in the early days
.

“You’re a smuggler?”

The alien smiles.
I prefer
trader.
Give my best to Lord Vert when you see him
.

As soon as the alien is about fifteen feet away, I start feeling less dizzy. He stops at the end of the block.
This may be of little help to you, but I never cared much for slavery. We plan to settle here, but that is not inevitable. New worlds are always being made available to us. It’s a big universe. If we don’t like what we see, some of us might keep going. That’s why the company can’t let you live. Don’t ever think they’ve given up on killing you
.

He walks off shaking his head and thinking
Lord Vert
.

We walk in a different direction. Silent. We know he’s right. They won’t give up.

Before we’ve gone far, the sun slips above the horizon. The air lightens and I feel exposed. I’m walking next to Lindsey, who looks exhausted, and I hear her thinking of herself in the third person, which is bizarre.
Lindsey does not even camp. Lindsey does not do desert. Lindsey’s white skin does not get exposed to the aging rays of a frickin’ desert sun
.

“Stay out of my head,” she says when she notices me reading her.

“Sorry.”

We cross 38th Street on Speedway. I think we’re in Hyde Park and I think Speedway is a main road, but I don’t know if Avenue B is to the right or left of us. I choose the wrong direction because we hit Avenue F, then G. We’re all exhausted, and this mistake seems larger than itself, like a sign of failures to come. We turn around and go back, all aware that we’re out in the open, that we would be easy to spot.

Then I see a light come on in a house and my emotions swing the other way. For a second an irrational hope spikes in me: others survived. But then I realize it’s not people in that house or in any of the other houses. The alien settlers have moved in.

We get onto Avenue B and go north. This time we make the right choice. Lauren sees the house at the end of the next block. Another light comes on in a house we’re passing, and we make a run for it. It’s a flat-out sprint. Michael beats us to the door. He’s fast. He’s always said he’s fast, but I didn’t realize how fast.

This house is like a lot of houses in the neighborhood. Older. Small. Nothing has been changed yet. The houses haven’t even been painted green.

I bang on the door, louder than I mean to.

“Easy, dude,” Michael says.

But I don’t want to be easy. I bang again. They’re in our houses. They’re in our homes. They aren’t our houses. We have no homes.

I feel Addyen. She doesn’t come to the door physically, but her mind scans us. Her surprise quickly becomes fear, a fear that fills her house.

Addyen,
Lauren thinks.
Let us in
.

I was very foolish
.

You told me you wanted to help,
Lauren thinks.
We need your help now
.

I was foolish
.

They were going to kill us
.

You shouldn’t have come here
.

We’re here,
I interrupt.
Someone is going to see us if you don’t open the door
.

A second later she opens the shield that’s around the house. I think it’s like what Lord Vert made but much weaker.

Inside, Addyen has already painted the rooms various shades of green. The furniture looks like it was in the house before, even the books in the bookcases. Maybe they’ll replace these later, but now it looks like she’s stolen the life of whoever lived in the house.

I do not know you,
she thinks to Catlin.

“I’m Catlin.”

She’s bothered by Catlin. I feel that. She pushes her way into Catlin’s mind. At first Catlin blocks her, but Addyen does something and Catlin can’t keep her out. She blushes, and Addyen looks away.

I’m sorry,
she thinks.

Lauren looks at Catlin, who is careful not to look back.

Although Addyen is anxious, the initial spike of fear has eased.
You must be hungry. I will make you some food
.

I don’t think I’m hungry when she says this, but when Addyen puts out the food, all of us go at it as if we haven’t eaten in days. Well, all of us except Lindsey.

“Just eat,” Lauren tells her. “You don’t know when we’ll get the chance to eat again.”

“Mind your own business,” Lindsey says, but she does eat a little then.

“This is great,” Michael says to Addyen.

Addyen, who has been quiet until now, asks what happened at the mansion. We tell her.

“They’re all dead,” Catlin says. “No one could survive that.”

Addyen says what they always say:
I’m sorry for your loss
.

“Don’t say that,” I say.

But I am
.

“You’re killing us.”

“She’s not killing us,” Lauren says, putting her hand on my arm.

“Her kind.”

“But not her.”

What has happened is wrong,
Addyen thinks.
You are connected to the One. You should not be killed, and you should not be treated like product. There are many in the Republic who would feel as I do. It would cause many, many problems for the developers of this planet
.

“Like what?”

Many problems. If we had known before, we would not have come. We settle only where the lead species is primitive
.

“But you came,” I say. “You’re here. So what now?”

Addyen says she doesn’t know, but I think she does. She says we must stay in the house. Her husband is landing in an hour and he will know what to do.
He is a good man. He will help you
.

I consider telling her that we want to escape to the west, but I don’t. I’m worried about her husband. Maybe he won’t feel as sympathetic to escaped slaves. Maybe he won’t want us here.

About thirty minutes later, Addyen says she needs to meet her husband.

“How can we trust you?” I say.

I will not report you. I must meet him. I have said I would. If I don’t, he will worry. Perhaps he will ask someone to check on me
.

I’m worried. We all are, but in the end it seems better to let her go. Will she come back with her husband or with Handlers ready to end us with an apology? We all sit around waiting for the answer to that. We don’t talk much.

About two hours pass before Addyen and her fat husband come through the doorway. He does not look pleased to see us. He turns to Addyen.
What have you done? Lord Vertenomous has declared this product runaways
.

“We aren’t anyone’s product,” Michael says.

You see,
Addyen’s husband thinks, as if Michael has just confirmed a point he’s been trying to make.
You see what happens? They get ideas
.