Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences (13 page)

Michael stands. “We get ideas? You know what? We’re your equals. If you fought fair, you’d see we’re more than your equals.”

Addyen’s husband acts like he hasn’t heard Michael. I have to admit that Michael sounds like a kid on a playground.

Addyen’s husband thinks to her,
They will get us terminated
.

“What’s he talking about?” Lauren asks Addyen.

Addyen is silent, so her husband tells us.
Runaways will be terminated. It is the law. Anyone who helps runaways faces the same penalty. If they find you here, we will die, too. You have to leave at once
.

None of us move. I’m sorry to have put Addyen in this position, but I’m not sorry enough to leave. It’s light out there. Aliens are all around.

“I guess you better make sure no one finds us then,” Lindsey says.

“Yeah,” Michael says, “’cause we’re not leaving.”

I think Addyen’s husband considers killing us.

Let’s all calm down,
Addyen interupts.
Bathamous is not going to inform on anyone or force anyone to leave. I will make us drinks, and we will find a solution
.

None of us really believes the part about a solution, but we pretend we do.

Bathamous follows Addyen into the kitchen.

We listen to them. Though Addyen knows we can hear, she underestimates our ability.

They cannot allow them to live now,
Bathamous argues.
They will lose profits
.

We can get word out. There will be outrage
.

But it will come later. It will come after the product has been destroyed. What good will it do then? What good will it do them or us?

It’s wrong,
she thinks.
It’s wrong to slaughter them. They are not product
.

They are savages. They slaughtered each other. I’ve been reading about them on the voyage. They have been destroying each other and the green and blue of their world for a long time. They would have destroyed themselves without us. Or if they managed to survive each other, their machines would have conquered them. The One has not chosen them
.

They are not product,
Addyen thinks stubbornly.

When they come back to the living room, I say, “What would happen to us if you can convince your leaders we aren’t product? What would happen if we can stay alive long enough?”

You can’t,
Bathamous thinks.
Your pictures are in the minds of every person here in Lord Vertenomous’s capital. A million Sanginians disembarked here this morning
.

“But if we could,” I say. “Stay alive. If we could, what would happen to us?”

Perhaps,
Addyen thinks,
there would be land set aside for you. A small bit of land for you to survive and live out your time. One of your islands. Something remote
.

That is a dream,
Bathamous thinks.

“Like a reservation?” Lauren says.

Addyen doesn’t reply, but we know the answer. And I know that whatever the high-minded among their species wish for us, we cannot survive colonization. They might regret what has happened here, but most will shrug and say it was inevitable, just as Addyen’s husband is doing now.

Addyen passes around the drink. It tastes like motor oil, but we all try to take a few sips. When Addyen goes to make more for her husband and herself, Bathamous thinks,
You are not product. I am sorry you will all be killed, but there is no other way. It has gone too far
.

Like all Sans, he’s polite.

We go out into the backyard to get away from Addyen and her husband. The yard has a fence around it, so we hope we’ll be unnoticed. We’re all shaken by his pronouncement. Lindsey says she wishes she had a cigarette.

“You smoke?” Michael says.

“You think it might kill me? I had to quit when they invaded and I ran out of cigarettes. I don’t know which was worse.”

“So what do we do now?” Lauren says, looking at me.

They’re all looking at me.

“We can’t stay here. We can’t trust Bathamous. We can’t even, you know, tie him up or something. He’d make it a fight. We can’t risk that.”

“I say we go to New York City,” Lindsey says. “That’s the one place we might have a chance to fight.”

“It’s a long way,” Michael says.

“Do you want to hide or fight?”

She’s appealing to Michael’s macho side.

“How would we get there?” Lauren says.

“Same way we’d get anywhere,” Lindsey says.

We all kind of smile at this. We have no way to get anywhere, so I guess we could say we were going to the North Pole and it wouldn’t be all that less likely.

“There are rebels out West,” I say.

“We don’t know that.”

“I do,” Catlin says. She’s been standing off to the side a little. She comes and stands next to me. “I know they attacked and killed a patrol. They’re out there. I feel they’re out there.”

“I feel it, too.” I remember my dream. I try not to think of the threatening presence that was in the square with them. I try just to believe in the rebels. “They’re in Taos or near Taos,” I say.

She nods.

“Okay,” Lindsey says. “They’re out there. You’re probably right, but there are probably rebels in other places, too. There will be rebels in New York, and we’ll be able to find them.”

“Let’s vote, then,” I say.

“Vote?” she says. “I know how it will go. The girls will side with you and Michael will side with me.”

“It’s not about you or him,” Michael says. “It’s about what we should do to stay alive.”

“Fine,” she says. “Let’s vote.”

She’s wrong about the vote. Michael doesn’t vote with her. She smiles. “Fine,” she says. “That’s just great.” She walks back toward the house just as Bathamous and Addyen come out. She pushes past them.

We must leave,
Addyen thinks.
Bathamous must register
.

“Register?” I say.

He must register. It’s the law. All new arrivals must register
.

“Why didn’t he do it when he got off the ship?” Lauren asks.

It is for the city. You register in your city. You get a ship, some other supplies. All residents must register
.

“You get a ship?” I say to Bathamous.

He nods.
Once I’m registered
.

I try to read Bathamous, but I can’t. I also can’t think of another way we can get out West.

“All right,” I say. “Get your ship. Let us borrow it. You can get rid of us, and we can get away.”

“No,” Michael says. “We can’t trust him.”

“We need a ship,” I say.

“He won’t get us a ship,” Michael says.

I will get you a ship,
Bathamous thinks.
Then I will be rid of you
.

“Okay,” Michael says looking at me, “but Addyen stays.”

No,
Bathamous thinks.

“She stays,” Michael says again.

Bathamous looks like he is going to turn Michael off. I’ve seen that look in Handlers. The others notice too. We spread out around him, not physically but with our minds. It’s like at the wall, almost like we’re holding hands again, like we’re linked somehow with our minds. We do this without thinking. I can feel Bathamous’s surprise. Anytime we surprise the aliens, I’m encouraged.

Please, Bathamous,
Addyen thinks.
You go
.

No,
Bathamous thinks.
Enough. They are above themselves
.

Please
.

She doesn’t like this, any of it. Not her husband thinking of killing us and not us trying to dictate what she will and won’t do. But she tries to make peace.

Her husband sends her a message. It’s sudden and very quick. It’s like a passing shadow. I can’t see the solid part, so I don’t have a chance to hear it.

All right,
he thinks to us,
I will get you your ship, but you will leave
.

“As soon as it’s dark,” I say.

PERSONAL LOG:

My wife is resting. After not seeing each other for so long, it is disappointing to argue so soon. We have hardly had time to come together and we are pushing each other away.

The lack of product in the house began the bad feeling. I had promised her sixty and she sees only five and all nonhearing. I promised her that I would bring more slaves in, but she is not satisfied by promises. She has never been in a primitive colony before. She didn’t realize how many things she would not have. Already she complains about the lack of nobles with whom to form a society.

Everything depends on good scouting. None of this is my fault. It is the fault of the company and my father’s sources, who did not investigate this world the way they should have. Will he take blame? I know better.

The reports on the destruction of product are good but not perfect. Besides my own five runaways, the other houses admit imperfect kills. Still, even accounting for false reports, there can be no more than forty or fifty escaped slaves. If they can be exterminated quickly, all will be well. Sanginians will come and most will not care that there is no hearing product. Most will just see a planet with much green and blue and many fair places to live. They will see opportunity. Yes, it will take the company longer to turn a profit. But I must keep my perspective; in the long run everything will work out.

I was about to write my father and update him and ask again, though I loathed doing it, for hearing product from his nearest colony, when a Handler interrupted me. He had news about the runaways. I ordered him in and he brought with him a short, fat merchant. He was, at least, a citizen of the Republic. I do not like to talk to those who are not. Even so, this meeting seemed a waste of my time. Why did he not simply send a report?

This is Bathamous. He is the husband of your cook. He has seen the runaways.

I was angry.

You have killed them?

He knew why I asked this, because if he saw them and didn’t kill them, then both he and his wife would be in violation. Their lives mine, citizens or not.

I could not.

Why is that?

They joined.

Impossible.

Still, it is true.

They are primitives.

Savages,
he agreed.
They would have killed me and my wife. They would have tried. I have skills but Addyen is only a cook. With them joined, I could not be sure of the outcome.

I want to discount this information. I have chosen my Handlers carefully so that we may join when necessary, but it is never easy and it is never comfortable. We cannot stay joined long. We are among the strongest in the empire and it is difficult for us. So I wanted to tell this merchant he was lying or mistaken.

But it is known that species who evolve rapidly, as these have done, whose talents have been ready for many generations, waiting for a spark, sometimes have one special skill. Never has it been one such as joining, and I feel uneasy and angry that it might be possible. I reason that even if true, they are primitives and their joinings are surely primitive. It is more likely this fat merchant exaggerated to save his life.

Where are they?
I demanded.

At my house, lord. I made the excuse of registration and came right here. Please, Lord, do not let them harm her. They hold her prisoner.

He lied. He came here, and thought he could lie to me. I broke open his mind to see the truth. I heard him screaming as I did, and I watched him fall to the floor.

I am sorry for your loss.

He believed they joined,
Anchise interrupted.

He was mistaken.

Of course, lord.

Kill my cook when you kill the product.

It is the law. Though they are citizens, they have hidden runaways. They have no protection and I have no patience.

Take another,
I added.