Quiet Invasion (12 page)

And here was T’sha, doing her best to keep them all from what looked like the nearest safe course. She had quizzed the team supervisors from the other candidate worlds extensively. The seeds had not taken hold on any other of the ten worlds. Only Number Seven could readily support life.

But life might already have a claim on Number Seven. In spite of all, T’sha could not let that fact blow past. She had to see for herself that D’seun’s team was not ignoring a legitimate claim on the part of the New People. Now, according to Z’eth, she was going to get her chance.

Is this right, what I do? Life of my mother and life of my father, it has to be, because it is too late for me to do otherwise.

She shut her doubts off behind calculations about how many promises she could deliver before she was called to hear the vote. She lifted herself to the corridor mouth and joined the swarm of ambassadors and assistants propelling themselves deep into the Meet.

In the end, she was able to deliver four of the eight notes, staying long enough to give and accept polite thanks with each ambassador and discuss general pleasantries and the work being done on Gaith. She had to use her headset to leave message for the rest. The Law Meet was calling them all to hear the results of the latest poll.

When T’sha arrived, the spherical voting chamber already brimmed with her colleagues. There were no perches left. She would have to float in the stillness and try to keep from bumping rudely into anyone else.

“Good luck, T’sha,” murmured tiny, tight Ambassador Br’ve as she drifted above him.

“Good luck,” added Ambassador T’fron, whose bird tattoos were still fresh on his skin.

Their wishes warmed her, but not as much as the security of Z’eth’s promise.

T’sha found a clear spot in which to hover near the ceiling. Because the High Law Meet was currently on the dayside, the family trees, which were written in hot paints, glowed brightly against the white and purple walls. Each showed the connections and the promises of connection between the First Thousand. T’sha scanned the trees for her family’s names and found them, unchanging and immutable. She was their daughter. Her ancestors had birthed cities. She would save them, but not at the cost of their people’s souls.

She looked down between the crests and tattooed wings and spotted D’seun’s distinctive and overmarked back. He was practically touching the polling box. T’sha wondered whom he had made promises to and if he had anyone as powerful as Z’eth sponsoring his cause. If he’d managed to bring in H’tair or Sh’vaid on his side, the vote might not be as set as Z’eth believed. The mood of the meeting tightened rapidly around her. The announcement would come soon. Her bones shifted. Soon. Soon.

The polling box had been grown in the image of a person without wings or eyes. Its neural net ran straight into the floor of the voting chamber and was watched over by the High Law Meet itself. It would not be moved, and it looked with favor on no one. It was solid and impartial.

The box lifted its muzzle and spoke in a voice that rippled strongly through the chamber.

“The poll has been taken, recognized, and counted. Does any ambassador wish to register doubt as to the validity of the count contained in this box?”

No one spoke. T’sha tried to breathe evenly and hold her bones still.

“No doubt has been registered,” said the box. “A poll has been taken of the ambassadors to the High Law Meet on the following questions. First, should candidate world Seven be designated New Home? If this is decided positively, the second question is, should the current investigative team whose names are listed in the record continue under the leadership of Ambassador D’seun Te’eff Kan K’edch D’ai Gathad to establish the life base necessary for the growth of a canopy and the establishment of life ways for the People, with such expansion and promises as this project shall require?”

T’sha’s wings rippled. Her skin felt alert, open to every sensation from the brash of her own crest to the gentle waft of a whisper on the other side of the chamber.

“Is there any ambassador within the touch of these words who has not been polled on these questions?” asked the box. Silence, waiting, and tension strained her bones as if they were mooring ligaments in a high wind.

“No ambassador indicates not having been polled,” said the box. “Then, the consensus of the High Law Meet is as follows. On the first question, the consensus is yes, candidate world Seven is New Home.”

The rumble and ripple of hundreds of voices filled the chamber. T’sha remained still and silent. That was never the real question. The vote had to be yes. D’seun was right about that much. His peremptory poll of Ca’aed had confirmed that all the families agreed with the choice.

“On the second question,” the box went on, “the consensus is that Ambassador D’seun Te’eff Kan K’edch D’ai Gathad shall continue as the leader of the investigative team, that the current team will continue in the task of creating a life base with such expansions as are required for that task, provided that one of those expansions shall be the addition of Ambassador T’sha So Br’ei Taith Kan Ca’aed for the purpose of observing and studying the life currently named the New People. She shall ensure that these New People have no legitimate claim to New Home world that might counteract the validity of the consensus on the first question.”

There it was. She could now go to New Home herself and make sure the New People had no legitimate claim on the world. T’sha’s relief was so complete, she almost didn’t feel the congratulations erupting around her. When she was able to focus outward, she found herself in a storm of good-luck wishes and a hundred questions. She answered all she could, as fast as she could, while mentally cataloging the messages and calls she’d have to make as soon as the chamber opened again.

It might have been a moment or a lifetime later when D’seun rose to meet her.

“An interesting addendum, Ambassador T’sha,” he said flatly and coolly. “You have been working toward this for some time, I take it.”

T’sha met D’seun’s gaze and spoke her words straight to him. “Surely, you could not have been unaware of what I was doing. I was hardly secretive.”

D’seun’s bones contracted under his tattoos, and T’sha felt a swirl of exasperation. She shrank herself a little to match him. “D’seun, there is no reason for us to be enemies on this. We both want the same thing. We both want to make New Home a reality. If that is to happen, we cannot discount the New People.”

“We cannot let their presence override everything we must do, either.” He thrust his muzzle forward. “You question and delay, you counter and debate everything! Every time we try to warn people what happened to Gaith, there you are, assuring us all that it isn’t so very bad, that we must just wait until its disease is understood, that we have the resources to understand.” His words tumbled harshly over her. “There is no more time. There is no way to understand. We must leave.”

T’sha deliberately deflated and sank, resisting the urge to fly right under him to make her point. “I am only one voice, D’seun. All the rest of the Senior Committee for New Home are your supporters. There will be very little I can do.”

D’seun dropped himself so he could look into her eyes. “Do not flutter helplessness at me, T’sha. What ‘little’ you can do, you will do.”

“Is there some promise you would give my families to have me do otherwise, D’seun?” asked T’sha bluntly. “How much will you give for me to disregard our new neighbors? Is there enough to make that right?”

D’seun did not answer.

“No, there is not,” said T’sha. “We are together in this, D’seun, until the task is over.”

“Until the task is over,” D’seun said softly. “Until then.”

D’seun rose from the world portal into the candidate world, now New Home. Its clean winds brushed the transfer’s disorientation off him. A quick turn about showed him P’tesk and T’oth waiting on the downwind side of the portal’s ring. D’seun flew quickly toward them.

“Good luck, Ambassador D’seun.” P’tesk raised his hands. “Is there news?”

D’seun touched his engineers’ hands. “Engineer P’tesk, Engineer T’oth. There is news, but not all of it is good. Let us return to the test base, and then I can tell our people all at once.”

As often as he had done it, it was strange to D’seun to fly over the naked crust without even a scrap of canopy to cover it. He could barely taste the life base they had seeded the winds with. He imagined sometimes that this was not a newly emerging world, but a prophecy as to what Home might become—lifeless stone and ash sculpted by sterile winds.

So it will be if T’sha has her way.

Their base was little more than a few shells tethered together with half a dozen infant cortex boxes to nurture the necessary functions. Not comfortable or companionable, but it served its function, as they all did.

“Team Seven,” D’seun called through his headset, “this is Ambassador D’seun. We are gathering in the analysis chamber. I have word of the latest vote from the High Law Meet.”

Like the rest of the base, the analysis chamber was strictly functional. The undecorated walls showed the shell’s natural pearl and purple colors. Separate caretaker units, all holding their specialized cortex boxes, had been grown into the shell. That and a few perches were all there was to the room.

D’seun, T’odi, and P’tesk arrived to find T’stad and Kr’ath already waiting for them. They all wished each other luck as the others filtered in. D’seun’s gaze swept the assembly—his assembly, his team who had worked so hard to prove the worth of their world. He laid claim to them all, and if that was greedy of him, so be it. After so much work and so many promises, he had earned the right to be a little greedy.

“Where is Engineer Br’sei?” D’seun asked.

The others glanced around the chamber, as if just now noticing Br’sei was gone.

“Engineer Br’sei?” he asked his headset.

After a brief pause, Engineer Br’sei’s voice came back. “I’m at Living Highland 45, Ambassador. I’ll listen in over the headset. I have to check the stability of the base seeding here. I think we may be running into some trouble from the high salt content of these lavas.”

“Then listen closely.” D’seun raised his voice to speak to the entire assembly. “The ambassadors to the High Law Meet have voted. This world, our world, is declared New Home!”

All around him, voices trilled high, fluting notes of jubilation. D’seun let them enjoy. They had all worked so hard. Thousands of dodec-hours of observation and analysis. Millions of adjustments in proportion and organization on the most basic levels. Sometimes it felt as though each molecule had been hand reared. But they had made their promise to the whole of the People, and they had kept it. Life could be made to thrive here in these alien winds.

“That is not all the news, however,” D’seun said, cutting through their celebration. He waited until the last echoes of their chaotic song died away. “Something new has happened on Home.”

All their attention was on him, and he told them about Gaith. For the first time there was no danger of interference from T’sha, and he could tell what had really happened. An entire village had died an indescribable death in such pain as life should never know. It had happened in a few hours. A life the villagers thought they knew, a life they had grown and cherished for thousands of years, had gone insane. Insane as it was, it would turn on other life until nothing was left but a mantle of death surrounding the entire world.

When he was finished, not one of them remained their normal size. They all huddled close to their perches and close to each other, small and tight, as if they could draw their skin in far enough to shut his words out.

“I know the dangers of haste,” he said at last. “I was taught, as you all were, that haste is equal to greed as a bringer of death. But this time, to be cautious is to die. This new rot will not wait for us to make our careful plans.”

Soft whistles of agreement filled the room. D’seun let himself swell, just a tiny bit. “There are those who do not understand this, however. There are those among the ambassadors who insist that we wait. For what? I ask. Until our cities all fall? No, they reply. Until we are sure Of the New People.”

Silence. The New People. No one liked the mention of them. The New People might be poison, and everyone here felt that in every pore.

Time to remove that poison.
“We are all concerned about the New People. We have watched them as closely as we are able. You have labored with great care to understand their transmissions to each other and their commands to their tools. You have spoken to me in a straightforward fashion, as dedicated engineers should, about the fragility of life and the resources of community and the claim of life upon its own home. But I must ask you other questions now.”

D’seun focused his attention completely on P’tesk. “P’tesk, have we found any new life here? Any life we did not ourselves spread?”

“No, Ambassador,” said P’tesk. “Except for our life base, the winds are clean. The living highlands do not really measure up to that name—none of the ones we’ve observed anyway.”

“T’vosh.” D’seun switched his focus to the youngest engineer. “Have we seen signs of mining or sifting for the hard elements?”

“No, Ambassador,” T’vosh answered quickly. “And among the transmissions, we have heard no plans for such.”

“No plans that we understand.”

The last was spoken by Tr’es. D’seun did not let himself swell in frustration. It was a good point. Besides, Tr’es’s birth city was Ca’aed, as was T’sha’s. She would have to be handled carefully in the time to come.

“None that we understand, yes.” D’seun dipped his muzzle. “Our understanding is far from perfect. Our ability to separate image and message and tool command is not complete, although we have made great strides. The New People may be making plans for legitimate use of this world.” His gaze swept the assembly. “But they have not done it yet. When has a mere plan, an unfulfilled intent, ever been grounds to withhold a resource?” He let them think about that for a minute. “Most importantly”—he spread his wings wide—“nothing has prevented them from detecting the life base. Nothing has prevented them from finding us. They have made no move to challenge our claims or to contact us as one family contacts another when there is a dispute over resources.”
Let those words sink through their pores; let their minds turn that over.
“There is nothing, nothing, in the laws of life and balance which prevents us from moving forward and laying legitimate claim to this empty, pure world.”