Quiet Invasion (55 page)

Stillness settled slowly. Z’eth fell back beside D’han, who looked a little dazed now. “How is the distant family insane, Engineer? Tell us exactly.”

D’han’s gaze darted around the room, amazed to find all the ambassadors pinning him down with their attention. “The distant family says they are sending a force to New Home. They will cut the New People off from the resources of their world and force them to comply with the wishes of the distant family.”

“Well then.” Z’eth whistled and lifted her muzzle to the entire Meet. “It appears the New People have ended our debate for us. We cannot permit the insane to overrun the sane.”

As the whistles of agreement filled the chamber, D’seun’s soul swelled.

At last,
he thought.
At last. This world will be ours and the New People will be ours or they will be raw materials to serve us and our life.

At last.

C
ROWDS THRONGED IN THE
corridors outside flight control. Children clung to their mother’s tunics or their father’s arms. Teenagers slumped against the walls, torn between looking tough and being uncertain. Whole families stood around and sorted through bags, trying to make sure everything precious had gotten packed.

Five thousand people—half the base—had decided to stay and sit out whatever the U.N. was going to put them through. A whole five thousand, and Helen was grateful for each person.

But according to the note in her desk that morning, Michael Lum was not one of them.

The crowds parted around her, saying hello or just looking guilty as they did. Helen still had to crane her neck, searching for a truly familiar face amid the crowd that suddenly all looked alike to her.

At last she spotted him. He stood patiently with his wife and their two children. He had one arm around Jolynn and one hand on his older son’s shoulder. Jolynn rested both of her hands on the shoulders of the younger boy and looked straight ahead with a kind of grim determination, as if she could make the line move by sheer willpower.

Helen’s name rippled through the crowd as she marched up to Michael and his family.

“Good morning, Michael,” she said. “Good morning, Jolynn. May I speak with your husband?”

“Certainly, Dr. Failia.” Jolynn shuffled backward a fraction of an inch. She and Michael exchanged a look Helen couldn’t read, and she felt an irrational stab of annoyance run through her.

Michael said nothing, just crossed to the other side of the corridor a half-step behind Helen. She had to pivot to face him. When she did, she saw his face was full of the gentle humor that had characterized him for so many years.

“I take it you got my resignation,” he said.

“I did.” She nodded once. “I do not accept it.”

“Helen.” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “You’re going to have to.”

A hundred emotions flooded through Helen—sorrow, betrayal, loneliness, desperation. She had no words, no words at all. He was a child of Venera. He was everything they had worked for.

“This is your home, Michael” was all she could think to say.

“And that is my family, Helen.” He stabbed a finger at Jolynn, who had her arms around Chord and Chase. “Whom I love. Now, you’ve got this great idea about saving the world from the madness of Earth and that’s fine, but you’re doing it by creating more madness.”

“I am trying to put an end to—”

“To what?” Michael threw up his hands. “Our stability? Our safety? How many lives is this glorious ending worth? We’ve got two dead already, Helen. I will not stand around and watch the body count rise.”

Helen felt her chest constrict until the pain ran down her arms. She could not lift a hand against his words, which struck her like blows. She could barely think Michael, Michael who had gone away and returned to become one of the people she trusted the most in all the worlds. How could he say this to her? How could he abandon Venera?

“Do you have any idea what’s about to happen?” she asked him coldly. “They are not just coming to end any independent research, any good science we might ever do; they are coming to decide what all of us are going to do with the rest of our lives.” She stepped up close to him, trying to fill his world with her words. He had to understand. He had to. “And what about the aliens? Do you really think the U.N. is going to let them build a new home here? The yewners are coming to rob us and them of the future, of our future.”

“Our future?” Michael’s voice cracked sharply on the second syllable. “Our future based on
what
? Murder? Deception? Wounded pride? Don’t you see what you’re doing?” He swept out his hand. “You are demanding that the people of Venera give up their lives, their freedom, their futures, their families so you can keep your pretty toy. At the very least, you are going to prison. You might manage to get killed if the U.N. troops decide to come in shooting, and if you don’t stop this disaster right now, you are taking five thousand people with you.”

“What’s happened to you Michael?” Helen searched his face, looking for something she could understand. “The only way we’re going to lose is if they divide us. By leaving, you are going to let them walk in here and take whatever they want to, without understanding what’s really at stake, without caring—”

“You just don’t see it anymore, do you Helen?” His hand swept out, encompassing the corridor, the crowds, the whole of Venera. “You don’t care what anyone does or who they really are.” People were starting to murmur, starting to stare. Michael didn’t seem to notice. He stabbed a finger at her. “All you care about is your vision and your pride, and your pride is Venera!”

Helen’s fists clenched. This was not happening. Michael could not be leaving her. Not when she needed him.

“If you’ve got a problem with me, you take it up with me. But right now—”

“If I have a problem.” Michael barked out a short, sharp laugh. “That’s almost funny.”

Helen’s whole body trembled. “Why are you doing this?”

He met her gaze without hesitation. “Because I will not leave my family to help you start a war.” He shook his head. “You need fanatics to help you now, Helen. I’m sorry to say you’ve got them.”

Fear sent another spasm of pain through Helen’s chest. “I don’t need fanatics, Michael. I need you.”

“No, you don’t.” He shook his head sadly. “You want me because I’m a v-baby and I fit your picture of what Venera ought to be. You’ve lost your ability to see what it
is
.”

“No,” said Helen softly, firmly. “This is not about me. This is about Venera’s survival.” She gripped his arm, as if she could transmit understanding from her flesh to his. “This is about the U.N. This is about the People flying through the Venusian clouds, looking for New Home.”

This is about you abandoning your position and your responsibilities.

Helen met his gaze and held it. “If you won’t fight for your home, for your people, maybe you should go.” She released him and stepped back.

Even through her anger, she saw how the years of life and service weighed him down, pressing him into the deck and demanding he remain there. “I was going to stay, Helen, I really was, but I can’t.” He stretched both hands out to her, pleading. He was still so young, really. Younger than she’d been when she first flew through the clouds of Venus. He’d given his heart to so many things. He wanted to do right, but with so much to love, how could he see clearly what was most important?

“I can’t stand what’s going on here,” Michael was saying. “Grace was the last straw.”

“Grace…” Helen felt the blood drain from her face. “She’ll be punished on Earth.”

The look he gave her was pure, stunned disbelief. His hands came up as if he meant to strangle the air between them. But his fists closed on emptiness. “Earth,” he breathed. “Mother Earth can’t be trusted. Mother Earth is the villain. But Mother Earth gets to decide how to punish the woman who killed two of our own.” He looked back at Jolynn and his children and shook all the years of his service off. “Good-bye, Helen.”

Helen just stood there and stared. Michael reached his family just as the line began to move again. Michael picked up his bulging satchel. Jolynn wrapped an arm around his waist, almost as if she meant to pull him along if he faltered. He put his arm back around her shoulders and together they and their children walked onto the shuttle.

Helen’s balance rocked. Her knees buckled and she had to put one hand on the wall to steady herself.

“Dr. Failia?” said someone timidly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes.” She pulled herself upright. “I’m fine.”

She turned away from the crowds that were working so hard to get away from what was coming and started down the stairs to the Throne Room.

She did not have the luxury of time to mourn Michael’s leaving right now. No matter what else happened, Venera still needed taking care of. Venera needed her. Venera could not betray her. She would not give it away as she’d been forced to give away Venus.

Venera, at least, at last, was hers.

T
’SHA NESTLED AGAINST THE
central heart of her city. She felt the ticking and timing of its valves and sacs underneath her body. Above her swarmed clouds of flies so thick they blotted out the sight of the clouds, and she could barely hear the rustle of her own skin under their triumphant buzzing.

All around her Ca’aed was dying and the flies had come to celebrate. She could smell nothing anymore but the scents of the rot. There was nothing to hear except the flies, and the wordless mewlings and keenings as the pain became too great for its smaller voices.

“Stop,” Ca’aed had said, how many hours ago? T’sha didn’t remember. Maybe it was only a few minutes since. She didn’t know. “There is nothing to be done. Stop.”

They had fought the disease with knives and shears. They had fought with monocellulars and antibodies and killer viruses. Its people had fought hand, wing and heart, and it had not been enough.

Now their city, exhausted and in agony, asked to be left alone.

T’sha had sent all the engineers to the quarantine shells, but she herself had descended into the exact center of the city, where she could touch the deepest part of its ancient, ravaged body.

Let the cancers take me too.
She sent the thought freely onto the wind.
Don’t leave me here alone with nothing but my failure.

“I remember when we grew the first park,” said Ca’aed. Its voice shook. It sounded old.

“Tell me.” T’sha nestled closer.

“I was so excited. I had spread out far enough that it was quite a flight sometimes for the people to get out to open air. So we were going to make a place just for gathering, just for dance and beauty in my heart. I think I drove the engineers to distraction. I insisted on testing every graft myself for its strength and vivacity.” Ca’aed stopped. “I don’t remember their names. The engineers. They were so patient, and I don’t remember them.”

“That part of you was probably removed,” said T’sha. “It’s not your fault.”

“Ah. Yes.”

The city fell quiet for a moment. Under her torso, T’sha felt one of the heart sacs collapse, and it did not swell again.

“Tell me about the New People,” said Ca’aed. “I want something different to think about.”

T’sha stirred her wings. “They are very different from us,” she began hesitantly. “They do not fly naturally. They spend long stretches of time doing this thing they call
sleep
, where they lie down in darkness and are still. At this time, their whole consciousness is changed from one state to another. It is part of their refreshment cycle.” She paused. “I admit I do not quite understand it.”

“It sounds frightening,” said Ca’aed.

“It is natural to them,” T’sha reminded the city. “They speak of sleep as if it were another place. They say ‘We go to sleep.’ I found it a little easier to think about it that way. It made it a journey they must undergo.”

Ca’aed thought about that. “Yes, that is a little easier.” The muscles under T’sha cramped and smoothed, and one of Ca’aed’s other voices gasped. “Tell me how they live on their world,” its main voice asked.

Vee’s pictures soared through T’sha’s memory. So strange, so different, but spoken of with such pride and delight. “They live on the crust of their world where the air is the thickest. It is so cold there, they have great pools of liquids filling the valleys that they call
lakes
and
oceans
. Vee lives in a city on the edge of one of these lakes. Their cities stay in one place,” she explained, “and the New People travel to them, as ambassadors do to the High Law Meet.”

A whole world of High Law Meets,
T’sha remembered thinking.
How grand that must be.
“She says her city is an ancient place, encompassing revered centers of science and learning. Its people are great engineers and merchants and have been so for centuries. She spoke of the lake it sits on and how it sparkles blue and silver in the sunlight, and how it has a wealth of legends that belong just to it.”

“Then they do love their cities?” asked Ca’aed.

“Yes, very much.” T’sha rubbed her muzzle back and forth against Ca’aed’s skin, as she could not dip her muzzle pressed so close to the city. “They write poems about them and tell each other stories of their greatness.” She paused again, remembering. “‘Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive, and coarse and strong and cunning.’ Vee told me that was written about her city.”

“I like that,” said Ca’aed. “And their cities love them?”

“No,” said T’sha as gently as possible. “Their cities are not such as they can return the love.”

“What a great thing it is,” murmured Ca’aed. “To be able to love even that which cannot return your love.”

T’sha had not thought of that before, but the idea felt comfortable inside her. “Yes, it is a great thing.”

“I heard Br’sei when he came.”

A cloud, thick with the smell of illness drifted across them. T’sha coughed. “I’m sorry, Ca’aed. I did not mean you to.”
I thought you too distracted. I should know better than to underestimate you, even now.