Quiet Invasion (21 page)

“As you see fit, Engineer.” D’seun settled onto a pair of perches, letting his wings furl and his body deflate.

But from Br’sei’s hesitation, T’sha knew that this was not always D’seun’s sentiment.

She said nothing about it. She followed in Br’sei’s wake as he introduced her to the ten other members of the Seventh Team. She greeted those she knew by name and skimmed their reports. Wind acidity, speed, current direction, how the world was layered, the location of the living mountains and how frequently they erupted. Maps of seeding plans. Diagrams for new bases, equipment lists, and promises. All the concerns of a preliminary research base, but the scale was staggering.

To spread life to a whole world. To turn this desert into a vibrant garden and watch the People take possession, raise that life, and use it to spread their own life, all their lives, even further. A myriad of ideas sang inside her, swelling her up as surely as an indrawn breath.

In that moment, floating there in the still air of the analysis chamber with all the possibilities of this empty world swirling inside her, T’sha had to fight to remember there were other issues here.

“What kind of attention are we currently paying to the New People?”

D’seun looked disappointed, as if he expected the marvel of this new world to overwhelm her strange obsession with the other people. “We have mapped and timed their satellite flyovers. We arrange not to be where they are looking.” A standard tactic. Stealth was important during a race to claim a resource. “If they’ve seen the portal, they have not made any change in routine to investigate it.”

“At the moment, they are spending most of their time on one area of the crust,” Br’sei volunteered. “They seem to have found something of great interest down there.”

T’sha cocked her muzzle toward Br’sei. “Something they can use to spread their life?”

“We don’t know…” said D’seun irritably, “yet.”

“They are beginning to spread their machines further out across the crust,” Br’sei went on, sending a disapproving ripple across D’seun’s wings. “Our speculation is they are looking for more of whatever it is they’ve found.”

T’sha gripped a perch with one of her posthands so she could keep facing Br’sei. “But have you determined whether or not they’ve started to make legitimate use of any resource?”

Br’sei’s gaze slid uneasily over her shoulder toward D’seun. She felt the tension in the air around her and heard the small rustle of skin and bone as the other engineers shrank or swelled nervously. “They aren’t mining, if that’s what you mean. Unless you’ve determined there’s another legitimate use of the crust.”

T’sha’s wings rippled. What had passed between Br’sei and D’seun? She felt a kind of urgency flowing from the engineer, but without words she could make no sense of it. “They might be planting. They might be building homes.”

“Homes?” repeated D’seun sharply. “Don’t be ridiculous. They live in the clouds.”

Slowly, T’sha turned to face him where he swelled on his perches. “My point is this,” she said deliberately as she pulled herself tight. “We don’t know what they’re doing. If it is legitimate use, we might have to change our working plan for seeding New Home.”

“You could go and ask them, I suppose,” said D’seun, his voice full of bland sarcasm.

“I wish that I could,” said T’sha smoothly. “But the High Law Meet authorized me only to observe, and I have no doubt you will be all too happy to report me should I overfly my commission.”

They eyed each other, swelling and deflating minutely in their uneasiness, very aware that they were arguing in front of subordinates in defiance of good manners and good sense. T’sha mourned for that one fleeting moment when they were joined in admiration of this new place. It had been a false promise of easier times.

Finally, D’seun settled on one size. Some of the belligerence vented from his body. “I’ll be most interested to see your plan for a more thorough observation and study.”

Perhaps he just hopes to keep me out of the way,
thought T’sha and then she realized that was unworthy. D’seun wanted what she wanted, the birth of New Home. At the moment she was obstructing that.

She swallowed her bitter thought. “I would be willing,” she said. “May I make a call for two or three volunteers?” She looked at Br’sei. He dipped his muzzle minutely in answer. He’d be willing to help.

“Certainly,” said D’seun. “We will grow a chamber for you.”

And perhaps this will give me a way to calm my own fears. Perhaps the New People are doing nothing legitimate. Perhaps we may take this world without taint of greed. I would like that. I would very much like that.

But the memory of the tension surrounding the engineers touched her again. No, the question was not whether something was wrong here, but what that wrong was and how far it had gone.

T’sha deflated and looked longingly at the silent walls. Already, she missed Ca’aed.

I
AM ACTUALLY DOING
this. I am going to touch evidence of other life, of another world.

Raw excitement had stretched Josh Kenyon’s mouth into a smile that felt like it was going to become permanent. He lay in the swaddling cradle that would serve as his crash-couch for Scarab Five’s drop to the Discovery. It would also be his bed for the next two weeks. All around him, he heard soft rustles and mutters as his fellow passengers wriggled in their straps trying to get comfortable. All of them were from the U.N. team—Julia Lott, the archeologist, Terry Wray, the media rep, Troy Peachman, who called himself a “comparative culturalist” and was apparently there to look for any sociological insights and implications, and, of course, Veronica Hatch.

They were all nervous and fussy, very much a bunch of impatient tourists. But that was all right. Seeing the Discovery was worth anything—working his way up as a junior grade maintenance man, begging Vee for a slot on the team, even getting into Grandma Helen’s bad books, which he had, quite thoroughly.

The morning after the reception, Dr. Failia had called him into the Throne Room, a place he’d been to only a couple of times before. While he’d stood awkwardly in front of her desk, she’d reviewed something on its screen that seemed to absorb her whole attention. At last, he realized she wasn’t going to invite him to sit down. So he sat without invitation and got ready to wait.

She kept him there in silence for another good five minutes before she finally looked up to acknowledge his presence.

“Thank you for coming, Josh,” she said, with only the barest hint of politeness in her voice. “I wanted to inform you personally that Dr. Veronica Hatch of the U.N. investigative team has requested your presence to help her examine the Discovery’s laser.” Dr. Failia’s voice was calm but tinged with something unpleasant—suspicion, maybe, or disapproval. Josh sat there with a stiff smile on his face, torn between elation and feeling like a guilty child.

“Since you’ll have far more experience with EVA’s than any other member of that team, I’m counting on you to take the position of team leader, to show the others around the Discovery and make sure they do minimum damage to the site.”

“But, Dr. Failia…” Josh spread his hands. Despite the cold look she gave him, Josh forced himself to continue. “Kevin Cusmanos has a thousand times more experience than I do. Shouldn’t he be going out with the team?”

“That was the initial plan.” Dr. Failia’s eyes grew hard. “But we want as few people down there as possible. Every new bootprint runs the risk of damaging something priceless. Since you’re going, you get to baby-sit and Kevin gets to do what he is specifically trained for—supervising the scarab and the essential mechanical support system for the team.”

Josh swallowed. “Yes, of course.”

“Thank you, Josh,” she said without warmth. “I appreciate your help.”

Did she know I talked Vee into this? Or was she just peeved that one of the yewners monkeyed with her plan?
Josh shook his head at the ceiling. He had no way of knowing. The whole interview had left him confused. The times he had talked with Dr. Failia before, she had been businesslike but friendly, quick with a small joke or useful observation. He’d never seen her so forbidding.

It doesn’t matter. You’re here. You can worry about the rest of your life later.

The low ceiling over him held a view screen that was controlled from down in the pilot’s seat. Right now, it showed an image of the hangar seen through the scarab’s main window and surmounted by the back of Adrian Makepeace’s head and shoulders.

“Please make sure the status lights over your couches are all on the green,” Adrian was saying. “We have no flight insurance. Anybody who doesn’t have a green, just holler, and we’ll make sure there’s nothing else to holler about. Any non-greens?”

“Going once, going twice…” added Kevin Cusmanos.

Josh reflexively checked the four indicator lights at the bottom of his screen. All of them shone bright green, indicating he was properly strapped in.

“They’re enjoying themselves, aren’t they?” murmured Julia from the couch next to Vee’s.

“I don’t think they get many tourists out here,” said Vee. Josh heard her squirm and couldn’t blame her. The couches took getting used to. He also decided not to correct their impressions of what the pilots thought of them. He’d spoken out loud that once to Vee at the reception, and she still got an angry gleam in her eye when she had to talk to Grandma Helen.

“Not many tourists?” muttered Julia. “Not too many people interested in a dive into Hell? Imagine.”

Josh rolled his eyes up to try to get a glimpse of the women. He could see Veronica’s feet, and Julia’s. He could also see part of Julia’s hand, which clutched the side of her couch so hard the fabric bunched up in her grip.

“Are you going to be all right?” asked Vee.

“Eventually, yes,” Julia sighed. Josh watched her deliberately relax her hand. “This is just like being at the top of the thrill vid, you know? I hate this part.”

“It gets easier,” volunteered Josh. “Wait until you’ve done a dozen or so.”

Josh spoke with more confidence than he felt. Most of his work had to do with atmospheric particle scattering, which could be done from the comforts of Venera Base and its optics lab. He could count his trips down to the surface on the fingers of one hand.

“A dozen or so,” murmured Julia. “There’s something to look forward to.”

“It’s the adventure of a lifetime,” intoned Troy Peachman from his couch on Josh’s right. “You should be alive to every facet of the experience.”

“Alive is what I’m hoping for.”

“We could record you,” suggested Terry Wray helpfully. She had the couch to Julia’s left. “That way you could work on your reactions each drop until you’ve got the keeper. Something suitably calm, yet awestruck.”

“Next time,” answered Julia. “I want a run-through first.”

“Always a good idea,” said Terry. “I can’t tell you how many disasters I’ve had to shoot that missed all the dramatic impact just because the victims wouldn’t take a minute to get their responses right.”

“Well then,” came Adrian’s voice through the intercom, reminding them all that the speakers were open on both ends. “Let’s see if we can get it right.”

“Wing deployed and green at twenty percent inflation. Drop conditions green. Scarab status is go,” said Kevin.

“Ready when you are, Control.”

“Ready, Scarab Five,” said yet another voice, this one from the hangar control. “Opening doors.”

“See you on the up-trip,” said Kevin.

Josh thought he heard Troy breathe something about “falling into history” but hoped he was wrong.

The view screen’s feed switched down to a camera in the scarab’s belly. The desk rolled past underneath them, fast and faster, until it shot away, leaving a swirl of impenetrable gray cloud.

The scarab fell. As always, Josh’s stomach lurched and his body strained against the straps. His heart flipped over, a purely reflexive reaction. There was nothing he could do about it but lie there, keep his eyes on the screen, and concentrate on controlling his breathing.

On our way. They won’t call us back now. We’re really going to do this!
The smile on his face stretched even wider.

Layers of cloud pressed against the camera. Adrian’s voice, again for the sake of the tourists, droned through the intercom.

“Wing position optimized,” said Adrian calmly. “Everybody okay up there? Just relax and let the couch take care of you. We’re at forty-eight kilometers and looking good.”

All at once, the clouds parted. Below them spread the surface of Venus, as red and wrinkled as anything Mars had to offer. It was getting closer at a rate that made Josh’s heart flip over again.

“Inflating wing,” rumbled Kevin. “Wing inflation at fifty percent.”

Outside, the ground’s approach slowed to a more leisurely pace. Features began to resolve themselves. Some wrinkles became riverbeds cut by ancient lava. Others became delicate ripples in the ground, like furrows plowed by a drunken farmer. The colors on the ground divided into rust red, burnt orange, and sulfur yellow with streamers of coal black drifting through them.

“Beautiful,” breathed Troy, and this time Josh had to agree with him.

“Fifteen kilometers from touchdown and everything green and go,” said Adrian. “You’re not getting the most interesting landscape, but it’s tough to make a good landing anywhere interesting.”

“Julia, have you opened your eyes yet?” asked Veronica.

“No,” Julia said, her voice pitched only slightly higher than normal. “I’ll wait until we get to the ground.”

“Suit yourself.” Vee shrugged in her straps. “The colors are amazing.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Three kilometers,” said Adrian. “If you squint to the upper right of your screens, you’ll see beacon A-34, which means we’re right on target.”

Beneath them, the largest furrows spread apart. Smaller furrows following the same drunken path appeared between them. The whole plain became a huge, wrinkled, color-splashed bedsheet, bent at the edges, as if viewed through a fish-eye lens. The high-pressure atmosphere played all kinds of interesting tricks with the light.