Quiet Invasion (36 page)

“What do you want us to do, Mr. Bowerman?” asked Dr. Godwin. “Let the aliens sit and twiddle their thumbs for weeks until the S.G.s decide which end’s up?”

“That’s not my decision.” Philip planted one hand on the tabletop. “And it’s not yours.”

“Yes, it is ours,” said Dr. Godwin. “This is our home, not yours.”

Philip’s face tightened. “This involves all of humanity, not just Venus.”

“We owe it to all of humanity to give them an accurate picture,” said Dr. Lum quietly. “If it is proven the Discovery is a fraud, then we already screwed up once, and look what we started. We can’t risk doing that again.”

“I appreciate your scientific rigor—”

“It’s not science, it’s survival,” said Dr. Lum. “We are not talking about a few holes in the ground anymore. We are talking about living beings with who knows what capabilities and who knows what reasons for being here. Before we panic the entire range of humanity, we have to know what they can and cannot do and why they’re doing it.” Dr. Lum let his gaze sweep the entire gathering. “If we don’t have some answers when people ask ‘what do they want,’ we’re going to have an upheaval like nothing we’ve seen since the twentieth century.”

“One week,” said Dr. Failia. “Dr. Hatch said she can make contact within a week. We will then at least see how they react to our attempts to talk. We can take that to the U.N. It will be better than nothing.”

Philip shook his head. “It’s unacceptable. This is not your decision.”

“Unfortunately, it is,” said Dr. Failia. “We’re here and so are they. We have to decide what to do about that. Here it is.”

Philip said nothing. Vee didn’t miss the struggle on his face, though. He was going to try to contact his superiors again as soon as he left the meeting. The board certainly knew it. Despite his determination, however, he was also obviously aware he was a long, long way from any kind of backup.

“Dr. Hatch.” Dr. Failia turned to Vee. “I need an honest assessment. Do you believe you can initiate some kind of contact with…our neighbors in one week?”

“Yes,” said Vee without hesitation. “I’ll need Dr. Kenyon’s help, but we can do it.”

“Please proceed after the meeting then,” said Dr. Failia. Vee nodded.

“And for those of us who don’t agree with the one week holding period?” asked Robert coolly.

“All outgoing communications are being monitored,” said Dr. Lum. “Nothing will be released without authorization.”

“I see,” said Philip. He looked at Godwin. “It’s nice to see separatist principles being applied evenly as always. The U.N. tries to regulate your communication, you howl at the unfairness of it all. But you regulating the U.N.’s, that’s just fine.”

“You are not the U.N.,” said Dr. Godwin softly, but his satisfaction with the statement was unmistakable.

“I am a U.N. employee, just like every other Terran member at this table. What you are doing is not legal and not acceptable.” Philip stood and walked out the door.

“You’ll excuse us as well,” Terry also got up and left, followed by Robert.

As the door swished shut, Dr. Lum woke up the tabletop screen in front of him and touched a few command keys. Vee itched to know what they were, but there was no way to ask.

Dr. Failia sighed as if resigning herself to something unpleasant and focused on her remaining audience.

“Josh, if you could tell us what you know about the accident and what happened afterwards, please.”

Josh glanced around the table and then at the door. “For the record, I don’t agree at all with censoring communication. That said”—he sighed and folded his arms—“this is what I saw.”

They each talked in turn. Four versions of the same experience made a collage that mostly resolved into a single story. By the end of it, Vee had heard the experience repeated so many times it began to feel a little dreamlike. But all she had to do was think about the bodies on the airlock floor and it hit her all over again—the waiting, the fear, the cries of pain. Oh yeah, it was real.

And nothing would ever be the same again. Vee pictured the person hovering in front of her on golden wings and felt herself start to smile again.

She would find a way to talk to the ones with golden wings.

Then the universe would open up wide.

The door closed behind the U.N. investigative team as they left the meeting, cutting off both Veronica Hatch’s rapid-fire suggestions to Josh Kenyon and Troy Peachman’s continued awed murmurings to whoever would listen.

“Well that’s done,” said Helen, smoothing her scarf down. “I do hope our new neighbors appreciate what we’re going through for them.”

Ben smiled faintly at her attempted joke, but Michael’s face remained serious.

“There’s one more thing,” he said quietly.

There was no question as to what he meant. Helen wished there could be. She sighed. “Your people have them?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to ask the yewners to be there for the questioning?” asked Ben in as mild a voice as he owned.

That would be your first priority, Ben, wouldn’t it?
“No.” Helen shook her head. “I would prefer we handle this ourselves for as long as we can.” She’d gone down with Michael to arrest Derek. She remembered the hurt on his face, the bewildered betrayal, as if he didn’t understand what all the
fuss
was about.

“But you’re still going to send them back to Mother Earth for trial?” Ben’s face was flushed, but his eyes were cold.

“What else are we supposed to do? No”—Helen held up her hand—“I don’t want to hear it. We are sending them back to Earth, eventually.” She rested her fingertips briefly on the table.
I do not want to do this. Please understand, Ben, even with all they are about to bring down on us, I do not want to do this.

She straightened up. “I don’t want them paraded through the halls. We’ll go down.”

“You don’t have to do this, Helen,” Michael told her as he stood at her side. “I can bring you a report.”

He’d said the same thing during the arrest. He was a good boy, Michael. His attempts to shelter her were well meaning. This was even a fairly decent out. No one would question it or think that there was another way to do this.

No one but Helen herself. “No. We all let this happen and we’re all going to be made to pay for it, one way or another. Look at this as the first installment.”

Remember the others,
Helen told herself as she led the board out into the corridor and toward the elevator bundle.
Remember what is real. Our neighbors have saved more than a scarab crew, simply by being there. They have saved us from the worst this fraud accusation could bring.

It was a strange thought to be having at this moment, but it kept her going as they descended to the administration level and walked in single file into the back of Michael’s security area. Murmured conversations started up as they passed, and Helen imagined the waves of whispering spreading out like ripples in a pool. Whispering about how the entire governing board marched in to see the Cusmanos brothers and endless speculations about what they talked about, spreading and merging to join with the speculation about what really happened to the scarab crews.

She’d have to make an announcement soon. But first they had to try to find out who else needed to be held. Michael was certain the Cusmanoses had not acted alone, and Helen trusted him.

Venera’s brig was the only cramped place on the base. Little cells, little questioning rooms, all decked with big cameras, it was exactly the opposite of the free spaces. Not torturous, no, but disquieting, especially for long-term residents.

The brig had actually been an afterthought. Helen, for all her careful planning, had not envisioned the need for such a place in her original design. But scientists and academics were human, with their share of the human fallibilities, and house arrest did not suffice for everyone.

Two of Michael’s security team brought the brothers into the interrogation room, where the governing board waited for them. Derek, troubled but defiant, and Kevin, hollow-eyed and tired, sat at the end of the table as far from the board as they could get. Derek slumped his shoulders and looked anywhere in the room except at the faces of his accusers. Kevin sat up straight but bowed his head, studying the smooth, wired plastic surface of the table.

Anger grabbed hold of Helen, but she’d been ready for it. What she was less prepared for was the sorrow. Kevin and Derek’s parents had been old-fashioned Christians, and she’d been to both their sons’ baptisms. She’d written Kevin the recommendation that got him into M.F.I.T., and she’d been there when Ben told Derek he’d won the competitive exams that turned him into the one-man survey department.

Beth and Rick Cusmanos had both retired and moved back to Mother Earth. Helen remembered her own mixed feelings at the bon voyage party. But the sons had both stayed. Stayed to do this to Venera.

Belatedly, she realized Beth and Rick did not yet know what their sons had done, and sorrow struck her again.

“I have your statements in your files.” Michael lit up one of the table screens, all business. Whatever he felt watching the men who were his friends, he kept hidden. He just shuffled the icons until he had access to their fact files. “Is there anything you want to add at this time?”

Derek’s eyes slid sideways to look at Kevin. Kevin did not look up. “Can you cut us a deal?” asked Derek, a little belligerently, a little hopefully.

Michael’s gaze flickered from Derek to Kevin. “I can make sure the court knows you cooperated fully.”

“But you can’t deal?” pressed Derek.

Helen felt her jaw clench.
How can you talk like this? Don’t you realize what you almost did? If there hadn’t been something real out there, you would have killed Venera!

Michael shook his head. “I’m not an officer of the courts, no, but I am recognized as a police officer. It gives me some weight.”

Derek snorted, and Kevin glowered at him. “No,” Derek said. “It’s not enough. The shit’s too deep to be shoveled out with a good report card.”

“Derek.” Ben leaned forward. “Don’t do this to yourselves. Don’t do this to your friends. You’ve been caught. It’s all over. There’s no one to protect anymore.”

Derek said nothing.

Helen swallowed her anger. She stood and walked around the edge of the table. “Kevin?” she said, standing next to him.

Kevin sat silently. Helen let the silence stretch. Then, she said. “You’re a good man, Kevin Cusmanos. You have done so much good work for us.” She meant it, every word. A thousand memories flashed through her head of Kevin, in and out of the scarabs, his attention to detail, his care and diligence in training his people and caring for his equipment. “You’re just trying to help your brother, I’m sure of that.” More memories—the two of them in the playground, Derek always tearing along behind his older, bulkier brother. Kevin at Derek’s promotion ceremony, his chest puffed all the way out. Derek looked so…lost really when Kevin boarded the ship for Earth and his degrees, and Kevin shaking him by the shoulder and telling him to cheer up.

Helen laid her hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to be this bad. We might not even have to send you down there if we can show we know all of what happened.”

Slowly, sadly, Kevin shook his head. “There is no way the yewners are going to let you hang on to us. Too many people are going to look stupid as soon as word gets out. There’s nothing you can do, Helen.”

Regret deep and profound poured through her. That was it then. She touched his shoulder. “There’s nothing you’ll let me do.”

“You’re probably right,” he said to the tabletop.

“Kevin.”

Kevin finally looked up, right into her eyes. Over his shoulder, she saw Derek’s face go white.
He’s going to tell us.
Hope leaped up inside her.
He’s not going to let us down.

But the moment passed, and Kevin’s gaze dropped back to the tabletop. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I, Kevin.” She squeezed his shoulder and turned away. “For both of you.”

Phil stepped into Angela’s cubicle in the infirmary. She was still unconscious. Her face was mottled red and white. The muffling headphones the doctors had strapped over her damaged ears plastered her short hair against her burned scalp. Tubes and patches covered her pale arms lying on top of the rough monitor blanket.

“You’re looking good, Ms. Cleary.” He sat in the stiff chair beside her bed. Why was there no hospital in existence that had comfortable visitor’s chairs? She really did look better. When they’d first let him in to see her, every limb was swollen with bruises and blisters. Her face was a single massive, doughy contusion. He’d seen worse but not on his partner.

They told him she’d been awake briefly, but now what she needed was sleep. She needed to sleep away the pain and the fear and the utter strangeness of what had happened to her. The Veneran doctors were minimalists who did not approve of speed-healing techniques. They repaired the blood vessels and nerves, alleviated the adenoma, and treated the worst of the burns. Other than that, they were leaving her body to take care of itself.

“Well, you’ve been saying you needed a vacation anyway,” said Phil, looking more at the floor than at Angela. She’d been nearly dead when they brought her back. He’d thought it was all over. He’d thought she was gone. He’d been terrified. They’d worked together since he’d joined the U.N. security team. In some ways he was closer to her than to his own wife.

But she wasn’t dead. She’d been saved. By strangers. Aliens. It was almost too much. Phil found he didn’t really want to think about it. It was a lot easier to concentrate on what was going on inside Venera’s walls.

“I haven’t written the report for the boss yet,” he went on. “The Venerans are screening outgoing transmissions. Somehow I don’t think our encrypted stuff is going to get through. I’m going to start looking for holes.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “But I don’t think I’m going to find any. The guy is very good.” He glanced at her. The blanket rose and fell with her rhythmic breathing.

She’s getting better. She’s going to stay alive.
“I wonder how long it’s going to take Stykos and Wray to file free-speech lawsuits.” He sucked on his cheek thoughtfully. “Actually, the Venerans will probably offer them exclusive coverage of the aliens if they keep their mouths shut until the Venerans are ready.”