Quiet Invasion (8 page)

“Just too-too,” murmured Rosa. Vee slapped her shoulder.

A woman almost as tall and thin as Vee emerged from the office door, probably alerted to their arrival by the door. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties, but Vee knew she was using body-mod to keep middle age firmly at bay. Not even forty, Nikki had already waved her rights to children and signed up for long-life.

Nothing like knowing what you want.

A circle of blue glass shone in the middle of Nikki’s forehead, probably concealing a personal scanner and database to let her know just who she was dealing with.

“Vee!” Nikki cried happily.

“Nikki!” Vee exclaimed, embracing the woman with the expected level of fervor. “Love the third eye. You look great.”

“And you look”—Nikki pulled back just a little—“subdued.”

“Ah.” Vee held up one, long finger. “Someone’s actually vetting me for a science job today.”

Nikki’s smile grew conspiratorial. “This is about the Venus thing, isn’t it? I heard your name on the lists.”

“Well surely, nothing important can happen without my name on it,” announced Vee regally.

“Surely, dear, surely,” said Nikki, grasping Vee’s hand.

Rosa coughed.

“Oh, right. Nikki, breakfast? Clock’s ticking.”

“Of course, dear.” Nikki ushered them to a corner room shaped like a supposedly cosy undersea grotto. “I’ll have your waiter over three seconds ago.”

“There’s a relativity problem there, Nikki,” said Vee as she slid into her seat.

“What?” Nikki’s face went politely blank.

“Science joke. Never mind.” Vee smiled sunnily. “Have to get back into practice.”

“Of course. Good luck, Vee.” Nikki squeezed her shoulder and breezed away.

Rosa was looking at her. “What?” asked Vee.

Rosa picked up her napkin and made a great show of smoothing it across her lap. “It just never ceases to amaze me how fast you drop into the artiste persona.”

“Hey.” Vee stabbed the table with one finger. “That persona has kept us both living very comfortably. I wouldn’t complain.”

“Never,” said Rosa flatly. “Just commenting.” She called up the menu from the tabletop display and began examining it.

The cafe was tony enough to have real humans as servers, but, fortunately, not so over-the-top as to put them in any form of swimwear. Rosa and Vee ordered coffee, white tea, rolls, and fruit cups from a young man in the ultratraditional server’s black-and-white uniform.

When he left, Rosa jacked her briefcase into the table and unfolded the view screen.

“How’re we doing today?” Vee asked. If Rosa heard her, she gave no sign. She just skimmed the display and shuffled the icons.

“Your money’s good,” Rosa said at last. “The family trusts are percolating along nicely, and I think we’re going to be able to put Kitty through college without a problem.”

“Same as yesterday.”

“Same as yesterday,” agreed Rosa. “Want to see the latest on the Discovery?”

Vee shrugged, trying to be casual about it. “Might as well see what I’m getting into.” Inside, her stomach began to flutter and she wondered where breakfast was. Food might help settle her down, except all of a sudden she wasn’t hungry.

Rosa lit the back of the screen so Vee could follow along and called up her favorite news service.

The lead stories all came under the heading of
The Discovery on Venus
, as they had for the past month. Today was a pretty light news day. Only three new stories had been added since Vee checked it last night. Rosa touched the title
Venus Colonists Say No Help Needed
and the
Silent
option. The main menu vanished, and the text and video story unfolded in front of them.

Sources at Venera Base, home to the incredible discovery of what may be signs of alien life on Venus [long-range, color-enhanced picture of the spherical settlement with its airfoil tail floating through billowing clouds], are saying that the governing board strongly resents the formation of the new United Nations subcommittee on Venus. The governing board insists that the Venerans already in residence have sufficient expertise to deal with this most unexpected find.

While Dr. Helen Failia, founder of the base and head of Venera’s Board of Directors [video clip of a short, gray-haired woman with a severe face giving a lecture to a group of what looked like college students], still refuses comment, sources close to the board say that petitions have been filed to render the Discovery [dissolve to the now familiar glowing hatchway] proprietary to the funding universities and therefore outside the realm of government probes or restrictions.

Dr. Bennet Godwin [jump cut to a split picture with a still shot of an iron-gray-haired man with permanent windburn in one half, and a hardsuited figure standing on a yellowish-red cliff in the other half], also on Venera’s board, had this comment [the man’s picture flickered to life].

“We welcome all serious research into any aspect of the world of Venus. That’s what Venera Base is here for. What we cannot welcome, or tolerate, is interference by nonscientists in what is a
scientific
inquiry [the face froze].”

Dr. Godwin later issued the following clarification of his statement [the face flickered to life again, but now much more rigid and controlled]. “When I said nonscientists, obviously I meant unauthorized or inexpert personnel. This discovery is of massive importance to all humanity, and its investigation must be conducted in the open with all available assistance and resources.”

“Who got you to add that disclaimer?” murmured Rosa, picking up her newly arrived cup of coffee and sipping it appreciatively. Vee swallowed some of the peach-flavored tea and poked at a strawberry in her fruit cup. The scent of fresh fruit and baked goods was failing to bring back her appetite in a rather spectacular fashion.

She read on.

When asked what he thought about Dr. Godwin’s comment, Edmund Waicek [dissolve to the same man who had sent Vee her interview invitation], spokesman for the newly formed U.N. Work Group on Venus, said only, “We are glad that Dr. Godwin and the rest of the members of Venera Base realize how important openness and cooperation are at this historic time. This discovery affects the whole of humanity. Humanity’s elected representatives need to assist in its uncovering and understanding.”

“Mmmph.” Rosa buttered a croissant and bit into it Vee drank a little more tea, trying to get her stomach to open up enough that she’d actually be able to get some food down. The only thing that little piece made clear was that there was animosity between Venera Base and the U.N. That did not bode well, and Venera was probably going to live to regret it. It also meant she was walking into a hornets’ nest, which made it even less likely that a controversial candidate would get the job.

“Eat, Vee,” ordered Rosa. “You’re not doing either of us any favors if you go in there on edge.”

Vee obediently munched on strawberries, kiwis, mango, and pineapple. But she couldn’t make herself face the rolls. Instead, she watched Rosa’s screen. The other two stories were public-reaction sensation videos. One showed a public meeting in good old free-speech Chicago. The other was an interview with a pair of bald, neutered, Universal Age synthesists explaining how this was the first step toward the human worlds being accepted into the Greater Galactic Consciousness. There were, of course, links to the thousands of papers, discussions, and wonder-sites that had mushroomed since the Discovery was announced.

There had been aliens on Venus, and Earth was alive with all the wonder that the idea brought. At first, a lot of people had been worried that there would be riots and panics, but, so far, no one had seen fit to go twentieth over the news.

Something on Rosa chimed. “Time to go,” she said, shutting down her briefcase. She picked up a danish and put it into Vee’s hand. “Eat.”

Vee gnawed the pastry without tasting it while Rosa authorized an account deduction on the table’s screen. As they left, the fishes on the wall called, “Good luck, Vee,” causing the other patrons to whisper and stare.

Vee made a mental note to tell Nikki never to do that again without permission and followed Rosa out the door.

Their appointment was in the J. K. McManus administration complex, which lay deep in the heart of U.N. City. It took Vee and Rosa twenty minutes, four glide-walks, and three ID scans before they reached the central atrium of the gleaming crystal-and-steel administration mall. Philodendrons, morning glories, and passion flowers twined around glass-encased fiber-optic bundles that stretched from floor to ceiling. Diplomats, administrators, lobbyists, and small herds of courier drones flowed in and out of transparent doors. They jammed the elevators and escalators running between the complex’s eight floors. The muted roar of their voices substituted for the rush of wind and waves on the deck.

Vee and Rosa presented themselves to a live human security team and were asked to write down their names and leave a thumbprint on an impression film registry. In return, they were presented with audio badges and directed to Room 3425. The badges would tell them if they took a wrong turn.

Rosa clipped the badge to her briefcase strap and stepped onto the nearest escalator. Vee followed obediently, brushing restlessly at her tunic and smoothing down her veil.

They want me here. They want me here. I’ve done good, solid work and it’s on record. I can do this. They believe I can do this, or they wouldn’t have invited me in.

Room 3425 was a conference room. Rosa presented her badge to the room door, which scanned it, and her, before sliding open. On the other side waited an oval table big enough for a dozen people. An e-window showed a view of a tropical park on the sun-drenched deck with parti-colored parrots preening themselves in lush green trees.

The room had three occupants. Edmund Waicek sat at the conference table looking like he’d just stepped out of the story clip Vee viewed at breakfast. Next to him sat a tiny Asian woman in a pale-gold suit-dress. Her face was heavily lined, and her opaque red veil lay over pure-white hair. Behind them stood a slender, dark man who could have been from any of a hundred cities in the Middle East or North Africa. He wore a loose, white robe and a long orange-and-red-striped vest. A plain black cap covered his neatly trimmed hair. He turned from his contemplation of the parrots as the door opened and gave Vee a look that managed to be both amused and critical.

Mr. Waicek was on his feet and crossing the room toward Vee before Vee had a chance to step over the threshold.

“Dr. Hatch, thank you for coming.” He shook Vee’s hand with a nicely judged amount of firmness. “I’m Edmund Waicek.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Waicek,” said Vee, extricating her hand.

“Call me Edmund,” he said, as Vee guessed he would.

“Edmund,” she repeated. “This is Rosa Cristobal.”

“Delighted to meet you, Ms. Cristobal. Allow me to introduce you both to Ms. Yan Su. She is the Venus work group’s resource coordinator.”

“Pleased to meet you both.” Ms. Yan’s voice was light and slightly hesitant, giving the impression that English was not her first language. Underneath that, though, lay a feeling of strength and the awareness of it. “You will forgive me if I ask your field of specialty, Ms. Cristobal. The nature of your relationship with Dr. Hatch is not exactly clear.”

Rosa gave a brief laugh. “No, it is not, even to me, some days. Primarily, I am Dr. Hatch’s manager. I coordinate her projects and her contracts. Demand for her skills is very high, as I’m sure you know, but you would be amazed at the number of people who try to pay less than those skills are worth.”

“And this is Mr. Sadiq Hourani, whose province is security,” interjected Edmund smoothly.

Weird way of putting it.
Mr. Hourani gave them a small bow. Vee noticed that his eyebrows were still raised and his expression was still amused.

Rosa laid her briefcase on the conference table and sat next to Ms. Yan. “First of all, let me say that we are extremely excited to be considered for this project.” She jacked her case into the table, which lit up the clear-blue data displays in front of each of the participants.

“As we are to have you here,” beamed Edmund. “We have reviewed Dr. Hatch’s credentials in both the engineering and information fields and found them very impressive. Very impressive indeed.”

“Thank you.” Vee inclined her head modestly.

Edmund’s smile grew fatherly. Vee kept her face still. “Our questions here will be of a more personal nature,” he went on.

“What? Rosa didn’t get you my gene screens?” Vee’s flippancy was reflexive, and she regretted it even before Rosa’s toe prodded her shin.

Ms. Yan laughed dryly. “No. Health issues, if there are any, will be addressed later. These are more questions of political outlook, approach, and general attitude toward—”

“Political outlook?” interrupted Vee.

“Yes,” said Ms. Yan. “I wish this mission were purely a question of research and exploration, but it is not.”

A spark of suspicion lit up inside Vee. She tried to squash it but was only partially successful. She’d grown up in the remnants of the old United States. Her grandfather had talked almost daily about the Disarmament, when U.N. troops went house to house confiscating guns and arresting the owners who would not peacefully hand them over, and worse. Personally, Vee thought her grandfather was nuts for romanticizing the freedom to shoot your neighbors, but his distrust and distaste for the “yewners” had taken root in some deep places, and she hadn’t managed to shake it yet.

“Of course,” Rosa was saying smoothly. “An effective team is more than just a collection of skills. Personalities have to mesh smoothly, and there must be a unified outlook.”

“Exactly.” Edmund’s chest swelled, and Vee knew they were in for a speech.

Apparently, Ms. Yan knew it too because she quickly asked, “Have you ever been to Venera before, Dr. Hatch?”

“Once, about eight years ago.” Vee did not miss the dirty look Edmund shot Ms. Yan, but she suppressed her smile of amusement. “As part of my Planets project.” Vee’s initial fame and the basis of her fortune was made by her creation of the first experiential holoscenic. It was a tour of the solar system, set to the music of Hoist’s
The Planets
. She had taken people inside the clouds of Venus, the oceans of liquid ice on Europa, the storms of Jupiter, and the revolt in Bradbury, Mars, for the movement “Mars, Bringer of War.”