Quiet Invasion (31 page)

The screen showed a three-dimensional rendering of the little cup of a valley outside. A fat, multitreaded drone rolled down the lava corridor. It’s main features—a tank and a hose.

“Experimental emergency drone,” Vee told Angela. “Number ED-445. The idea was it’d be able to carry coolant down to a scarab in trouble. But it could do this too.”

The drone extended its hose and planted it against the ground, as if it was nuzzling the stone. In the next second, a huge white cloud rose up around the nozzle and the hose started sinking into the rock, like a drill into cement.

“What’s it spraying?” asked Angela.

“Water,” Vee told her, and just nodded at the look of skepticism that appeared on Angela’s face a moment later. “I checked with Josh on this. He ran a lab-level simulation. The rock outside has no water in it, which makes it stronger than normal terran rock, which is how you can get these massive continents thrusting out of the crust. But, power-spray that rock with water, and it weakens. Add in the fact that the water reacts with the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere, turning the air around the stone into a corrosive, then the rock crumbles.” The hose on the screen had already buried itself eight or nine centimeters into the ground. “They could have hollowed out the whole thing with one or two of these. And they do have one or two.” She entered another command, and the image skipped forward. “The metal in the ladder rungs and the laser is your basic iron. You could either bring it down from the base, or you could sort it out of the waste rock from the digging.”

This section of the simulation showed a “scoop-and-chute” drone next to a pile of dust and rubble. Its shovel-tipped waldo shoved into the pile and came up with a sample of dirt. The sample ran through the chemically sensitive filters in the drone’s body, and everything except what was needed got shaken out of its belly.

“What about the delicate work?” asked Angela, without taking her gaze off the screen. “Shaping the ceramics? Making the lenses in the lasers?”

“A lot of that could be done with lasers,” said Vee. She skipped the simulation ahead to a neat row of three separate measurement drones, each of which had its array of small lasers and waldos, so delicate they looked more like insect pincers than human hands. “Take your pick. These are just the three most likely.”

Angela folded her arms and hung her head down. “You know, there are days I hate my job.”

Vee shut the simulation off. “It’s a fraud.”
Why are you, of all people, missing the point here?
“I don’t care what was about to happen to their precious base; they don’t get to perpetrate a fraud.”

Angela just shook her head. “So you’re enjoying this?”

Vee threw up her hands. “Why does everybody think I’m doing this to get my ya-yas?”

“Because I saw the playback of you at the Dublin gallery opening when you called the arts minister a bribe-taking nationalist pig, in front of every major news service in the stream,” replied Angela evenly.

“Oh.” Vee cocked her head from side to side. “That was probably not my best day for P.R.” She’d frequently wished she really had been drunk, which was the cover story Rosa worked so hard to put out for months afterward. “My only excuse is I was right then too.”

“Yes,” Angela admitted. “But you have this tendency to be right in public, loudly. It’s not reassuring.”

A powerful image of Rosa leaning against the rail in U.N. City flashed in front of Vee’s mind. “Be careful what you pretend to be,” Vee muttered.

Angela nodded. “You hear that one a lot in my business.” She slapped her hands down on her thighs. “I’m going to need a copy of your drone file so Philip can confirm the inventory.” She straightened up. “And I need you to be ready to testify to the truth of your findings and that you created this without help or interference.”

“Of course.” A few more commands and Vee shot a copy of the simulations out to Angela’s contact code. “It’s got to be Derek Cusmanos then, doesn’t it? He’s the one who has access to all the drones.”

“That would be the logical conclusion based on what you’ve seen so far,” said Angela.

Vee glanced at her and knew she was not going to get any more of an answer than that. They were investigating her accusations inside Venera, but Angela had wanted Vee to remain independent of any kind of suggestion. “If we can show we arrived at this from separate angles,” Angela had said, “it’ll be even more convincing when we have to go public with it.”

“Well, glad I could help,” said Vee.

“I’m sure.” Angela headed out the door, leaving Vee sitting alone with her simulated evidence.

Vee had tried to understand. She tried to imagine what it was to have your life shut down, to have to move to a strange new world with such things in it as Earth at its craziest could surround you with. She felt sad, she felt sorry, she wished there was something she could do, but they did not get to lie about this. They did
not
get to lie about life on another world. The hope of finding that human beings weren’t alone was such an old, precarious hope. To one day discover that there was somebody else out there who asked the same questions and dreamed the same dreams. Every time she thought about somebody playing on that venerable dream…again,
again
, rage shot through her veins.

This was supposed to be real. This was supposed to be her one real thing, to make up for the tantrums and the farces and the pretty veneer she had made out of her life.

And what did they do this for? For money, again, like the worst of the Universal Age frauds. Was it really all that different? Was she the only one here who didn’t see that it wasn’t different at all?

Except, maybe it was. This one was built for love and worry, not just greed. This was done to fill, not to drain. Maybe it was different. But that just made it sad, in addition to making it wrong.

Vee sighed, closed her case, and stowed it. She looked at the hatchway and decided she didn’t want to face the rest of the team. She’d munch on some leftovers later. Her stomach was all in knots. Instead she curled up in the couch, hugging her knees. In the silence, she mourned the loss of a dream, again.

“P
RESSURE GOOD, OPENING AIRLOCK.”

Adrian brought his band down on the key that opened the inner hatch. The clank of the portal opening was followed fast by the thumping of multiple pairs of stiff, heavy boots and the clunking of armored limbs as they accidentally bumped into walls and other people in a confined space.

“Another day, another dollar,” said Kevin, rubbing the back of his neck.

“So they tell me.” Adrian got to his feet and arched his back in a prolonged stretch. The team had gotten good enough at managing their suits that he no longer had to hover around them each time they returned. The snapping of catches and various, wordless, relieved noises drifted up the central corridor. He knew how they felt. He was really looking forward to the end of this run. Terry Wray in particular was becoming a bigger pain in the ass all the time, despite her good looks. For the past week she’d been running back and forth, asking them both for the story of how the base was found over and over, until finally Kevin said to her, “Ms. Wray, you’re sounding less like a media face and more like a lawyer all the time.”

“What an interesting choice of words, Mr. Cusmanos,” she had replied mildly.

After that, Kevin’s normal good humor had started to fade, and Adrian had found himself engaging in the unhealthy and unproductive hobby of marking time until the run was over.

The radio beeped. “This is Venera Base calling Scarab Five and Scarab Fourteen,” said a woman’s voice. Adrian blinked at the speaker grill. That wasn’t Tori at flight control. That was Grandma Helen.

Kevin touched the Reply key. “This is Scarab Five. Receiving you, Venera Base.”

“This is a recall notice. Five and Fourteen, you are to return to base immediately.”

“What? Why?” The questions were out before Adrian remembered whom he was talking to.

“You’ll hear all about it when you get back up here.” Dr. Failia sounded grim. “Get your people back and get in the air.” A soft popping underscored her voice.

Adrian looked at his boss. Kevin sat there, a coffee cup held in both hands. His fingers tightened convulsively, denting and redenting the plastic, making the popping noise. Kevin stared at the radio, but Adrian felt positive he didn’t see it.

“We’re on our way up, Dr. Failia,” said Adrian, not taking his attention off Kevin.

“Good. Venera Base out.”

Kevin still just stood there, crushing the cup and letting it go again. Adrian’s confusion quickly bled away into cold concern.

“What’s going on?” asked Adrian softly.

Kevin shook himself and tossed the cup into the garbage. “We’ll find out when we get back up, won’t we?” He looked at the floor, the chair, the window, but not at Adrian. “You’d better tell the passengers.” Kevin settled himself back in the pilot’s chair.

That was no answer, but what could Adrian do? “Right, okay.”

As he sidled and shuffled his way down the scarab’s narrow central corridor, he realized that the sounds of a team getting out of their suits had silenced. He was not surprised to see them, all in their various stages of unsuiting, standing still and staring at him.

Adrian sighed. “I take it you all heard that? We need you in your couches, please, so we can get in the air.”

“Can we get any kind of information here?” asked Peachman.

“There’s nothing I can tell you.” Adrian spread his hands. “I’m sure there’ll be a full briefing when we’re back on base. If you’ll just fasten yourselves in, please.”

“Surely, there must be something—” began Peachman, half to Adrian, half to his teammates, looking for their support.

“I’m sorry,” said Adrian. He was. He didn’t know what was going on either, and he wanted to. Probably more than any of them did. Recalls did not happen unless something bad did.

Hatch’s expression caught his eye. She was looking at him, speculatively, as if she were trying to guess what was going on inside his head. Kenyon, on the other hand, was watching Hatch as if he were worried about what she’d do next.

But she didn’t do anything except bend over and start snapping the catches on her boots. Wray bent over next to her and murmured something Adrian couldn’t hear. He heard the reply, though.

“I’m sure you’ll get to interview everybody soon enough. Now, shouldn’t we do what we’re told?” Dr. Hatch gave one of her brainless smiles and started stripping out of the stiff, white, undersuit that covered her everyday clothes.

Tourists.
Adrian left them to it and headed back to the pilot’s compartment. For a moment, he didn’t see Kevin, because Kevin was almost doubled over in his chair, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his fingers twined through his thick hair.

“Kevin?”

Kevin straightened up instantly at the sound of his name, but he couldn’t wipe the pallor from his face.

“What is it?” Adrian sank into his own chair. “What’s happened?”

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know any more than you do.” He swiveled his chair around to face the primary controls. “Let’s get the preflights done, okay?”

Adrian didn’t move. “Look, if we’re headed back into trouble, I want to know.”

Kevin poked at a few keys, getting readiness displays up on the screens. “You’re not headed into anything.”

“But you are?”

“Did I say I was?” Kevin scowled at the control panel. “Quit pushing, Adrian. Just do your job.”

“You helped, didn’t you?”

They both jumped. Hatch stood in the entranceway, her face serious, her eyes probing.

“Dr. Hatch, please, get into your couch,” said Kevin. “We’re under a recall and we’ve got to leave now.”

“But you did help?” she said.

Kevin reared out of his chair. “What the hell do you care? You and your tourist friends were right, and you showed us all up. Fine. Take the headline and be happy. But if you want to gloat, do it on Mother Earth with your art buddies. This is my ship. For the next five hours I’m still in charge and I’m telling you to get in that cabin and out of my way!”

She didn’t move. She stayed right where she was, as if she meant to stare Kevin down.

“I am sorry,” she said finally. Then, she turned away and climbed through the door into the starboard couch bay.

Kevin sat back down, shaking.

“What was she talking about?” demanded Adrian.

“Don’t start,” said Kevin.

“Come on, Kevin—”

“Wo!” he roared. Adrian reeled back He’d heard Kevin yell before, at incompetence, at carelessness, but not like this, not this empty, lost rage.

“I’m sorry,” Kevin whispered. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” agreed Adrian.

They ran through the preflights mechanically, with no comments or bantering. Adrian kept his eyes on his instruments. He didn’t want to look at his boss. He didn’t want to see what was eating the other man. Something sure was. Something huge.

Finally, Kevin turned the radio on Venera Base. “Venera Base, this is Scarab Five.”

“We have you, Scarab Five,” came back Tori’s voice. “Conditions are go for your launch.”

“Good to hear, Venera.” Kevin’s response was flat, automatic. “That lightning cleared up?”

“Clear as crystal,” answered Tori. “For Venus anyway.”

“Thank you, Venera.” He switched the radio over to the next channel. “Scarab Fourteen, this is Scarab Five. Are you go for launch?”

“Ready whenever you are, Scarab Five,” Charlotte Murray, Scarab Fourteen’s pilot, told them. “You got any idea what this is about?”

For a moment, Adrian thought Kevin was going to be sick. “None, Charlotte. Listen, we’re good to go here too. How about you follow us up?”

“Okay by me,” said Charlotte. “Let’s do the drill. Scarab Five, are you go?”

“We are go, Scarab Fourteen.” Kevin gave Adrian the nod.

“Engaging wing.” Adrian thumbed the button on the wheel stem that raised the wing. The roof camera showed the rack lift and spread, stretching the skin wide. The indicator light shone green and Adrian slid the inflation control up to Full. The wing inflated slowly. Scarab Five shifted uneasily until it finally lost contact with the ground and began its gentle rise toward the clouds.