Quiet Invasion (54 page)

He barely knew Dr. Hatch. There were a thousand other people he would have rather had on the tip of his mind right now. But she was outside it. She didn’t have the visceral connection to Venera that almost everyone else here did. Even more important, she’d actually talked to the aliens. She was on the front lines of the whole mess, at least when it came to information, and information was what he needed if he were going to explode Helen’s inspirational speech.

He redirected his steps, up one level and around one of the inner corridor rings until he stood in front of Dr. Hatch’s guest quarters. The door scanned him and opened automatically.

You were expected,
he thought as he went inside.

Dr. Hatch sat cross-legged on her bed, doing something with her briefcase. She looked up as he came in but did not look surprised.

“That was quick,” she said, shutting the briefcase down. “Thank you for coming.”

Michael nodded and took a seat on the desk chair. “What did you want to talk about, Dr. Hatch?”

She met his gaze, and he knew what she saw. She saw fear and she saw anger. She probably even saw disbelief at the display he had just witnessed. How had it happened? How had it gotten so bad so fast?

“We need help with a little espionage,” said Dr. Hatch.

“We?”

She nodded. “Me and Dr. Kenyon.” Dr. Hatch leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “We’ve got to talk to the People, without your friends on the governing board knowing about it.”

“We do?” Michael’s eyebrows lifted.

Dr. Hatch frowned, hard. “Look, the People don’t know what they’re getting dragged into. They haven’t been told. It sounds like we’re asking them for more rescue help or maybe a technology exchange, not help dealing with an invasion. We’re playing games with them. It is not fair and it is not right.”

“What the aliens think is the least of our problems,” said Michael, remembering the crowd cheering Helen on. Helen didn’t know what was really going on. She hadn’t heard him the first time. That was the only answer. He could walk in there and show her again what Ben had done, what Grace had done, and then, and then…

And then what? She’d be alone in the Throne Room, with him, and what would he say to her then? How would he stop this, stop her? What if he said the wrong thing and she decided he was a traitor and should be put on the ship as well? Would she think to send Jolynn and the boys with him? Would he have to ask to be allowed to remain with his family?

Michael didn’t know if he could stand that.

I can’t believe I’m even thinking like this. Holy God, what’s happening to us?

“What the aliens think is the least of our problems, is it?” Dr. Hatch was asking as she raised her own eyebrows, in mockery of his own expression, Michael suspected. “This is all happening because of the People. Because the People came here. Because Helen and Ben think they have the People’s support for what they’re doing. Without the aliens—” she waved her hand—“poof! Nothing happens, except the exposure of a little well-perpetrated fraud.”

“So what do you want to tell them?” asked Michael. “Sit back while we sort this out?”

“Essentially.” Dr. Hatch dropped her hand back onto her knee. “They understand politics. If we tell them this is a political debate that needs to be resolved, I think they’ll give us the time.”

“This is a little more than a political debate.”
A little more? Who am I trying to kid?

“Let me talk to them,” said Dr. Hatch, low and earnest. “Let me get them to talk to you. Together we can at least try to pull them out of the equation. Without them, Failia and Godwin will have to deal with the U.N., because without the People, Venera cannot make a real stand.”

Michael chewed the inside of his lip and turned the idea over in his mind. Hatch and Kenyon. Josh he had known for years. He was steady, quiet, uncomplicated. He did his work and he went home. Dr. Hatch acted like a fool some days, but she was the one who spotted that the Discovery was fraudulent.

“It’s a good idea,” he said. “It’s worth a shot. But I’ve got to tell you”—he tugged on the end of his pony tail—“I’m not sure how much I can help you right now. I’m not sure about a whole lot of things.”

Veronica nodded, all the bluster and kidding gone from her face. “Just help me not get thrown out of here. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Michael searched her eyes for a moment. She meant it. She wanted to stay, and he wanted…

What do I want?

He wanted to talk to Helen. He wanted her to see what she was doing, to herself, to Venera, to everybody and everything. But he didn’t know if she would hear him anymore or if she ever had. He saw the flush in her face as she addressed the crowd, as she finally made Venera truly her own. How could he reach past that? How could he make her hear?

God, God, God, what am I going to do? Jolynn, Chord, Chase—I can’t risk them. If I can’t make her hear, what do I do?

The image of Jolynn’s golden-brown eyes flashed in front of his mind’s eye, and he knew. There was one thing that might still reach Helen, and if it didn’t work, well, the
Queen Isabella
would be right there.

The engineers had grown a debating chamber for the Law Meet, but there had not been time to grow a very big one. The pink-and-cream shell was barely big enough to hold all the ambassadors who hovered in the air, finding still pockets between the currents of the distracted wind.

Eighteen ambassadors had been assigned to New Home. Each of the twelve specialties was represented, along with six seniors to act as administrators. D’seun knew only a handful of them, but that did not matter. He held Z’eth’s vote. The rest would follow along with them as soon as the formal debate was over with.

D’seun hovered near a speaker box improvised from some of Br’sei’s lacelike cortices and a frame of stiffened ligaments shielded by nothing more than sail skin. Through the light gaps in the shell’s side, he could see the joyous activity of the newly arrived engineers. Surveying expeditions were being set to ride the major latitudes. All the living highlands needed to be located and tested. The winds had to be gauged and mapped, along with as many of the cross-currents as possible. The wind seed that had sprouted needed to be analyzed in terms of growth and evolution so it could be determined what could be best layered on top of it.

So much work, so many minds and souls needed. So many complications, but soon those would be lessened. While all his colleagues listened, the speaker box pulled the record of Z’eth’s last conversation with the New Person, Ambassador Helen, and repeated it smoothly. Hearing it again, it sounded no better.

“There are those with whom we disagree about our rights to this world, and consequently yours.” The box used its own soft, unimpressive voice to repeat Ambassador Helen’s words, as it had no reference for how she really sounded. “They might attempt to cut off our supply routes from the other worlds. We may be forced to ask for a great deal of assistance in maintaining ourselves here.”

The final words died away and D’seun expanded himself, body and wings. No matter what promises he was certain of, he was an ambassador with a case to present.

But before he could begin, Ambassador T’taik rattled her wings. She was from the Calm Northerns, like T’sha, and had the red-and-white crest and burnished bronze skin to prove it.

“Ambassadors, I ask you to keep in mind two things,” T’taik said. “The first is that this engineer, Vee, has made no promises or exchanges for representational power among her people. She is just an engineer, trained in the use of tools, not of words. This Ambassador Helen is basing all she knows of us on potentially inaccurate information. This may have led to a poor choice of words. Second”—she raised her hands—“T’sha was in a similar position. Despite her title and power to promise, she is only very new at our work and if may be she misrepresented herself. Ambiguity can be seen for example—”

D’seun ruffled his crest and broke across her words. “You are too hard on our colleague, Ambassador. Her words made the situation abundantly clear. The New People are obviously composed of several different families. The ones who are our neighbors and offer us community are one group, and they are, probably, sane. But these others, this distant family, are not sane. They are greedy and seek to stop the spread not only of life, but of their own offshoots.”

T’taik swelled at his words. “Ambassador D’seun, you have been so ready to condemn someone as greedy or insane during this undertaking, I wonder at it.”

D’seun shifted his weight on the perches. “I have. I have been overzealous in my desire to claim this world as New Home. I admit this. If the Meet wishes to poll the members about my fitness to give opinion on this issue, I will not argue the question.”

It was a good strategy, and one that D’seun could be confident of winning. The ambassadors debated it briefly and the question was soon called. The consensus was that D’seun recognized his overzealousness and would not be denied a voice and vote in future.

“It must be acknowledged, however,” said Ambassador D’tran, “that an engineer, someone responsible for building and creating, must know what uses the resources of the world she lives on are being put to. If the New People have a legitimate claim here, why did she not say so? T’sha did make that point clear in her previous conversations.” T’sha’s last conversation with Engineer Vee had also been played for the Law Meet.

“We do not know for certain that Ambassador T’sha’s words were completely clear,” replied T’taik. “The New People are not cortices. We cannot read their imprinting to be certain the information has been properly received.”

They are listening to her,
D’seun felt his bones tighten with worry.
How could they be listening to this?

“It may be that you are both right.”

D’seun turned gratefully to Ambassador Z’eth. A stray breeze blew past, carrying the touch of Z’eth’s words on it as she spoke.

“It may be that this New Person, Engineer Vee, did not properly understand what she was being asked and so improperly transmitted and translated that information for her ambassador. It may also be that she is in fear of a family of her people that are insane. Which of us could clearly speak of such a thing to strangers, whose motivations we do not know?”

Z’eth beat her wings twice, lifting herself up over the center of the Meet. “So my first belief is that we need much more time to speak with Ambassador Helen, Engineer Vee, and any other New People who present themselves.”

No, no, there is no more time!

“However,” Z’eth went on, “if the distant family of the New People is found to be insane, we need to ask what should be done about them.”

“Clearly, they need to be prevented from interfering with the New People and New Home,” said T’taik. “Their means of transport should be fairly easy to identify and disable.”

T’sha must have sent T’taik to speak in her place. That was the only answer. What promise lay there? He had not had time to research this all as thoroughly as he should have. If they listened to this now….

“I say that’s not enough, Ambassador T’taik.” Ambassador P’eath, who, like D’seun, was a refugee from the Southern Roughs, inflated her body fully. “When has any insane being been allowed to exist as more than raw materials to build a sane future from?”

T’taik dipped her muzzle. “That is the way it has been, yes. But we have it from Engineer Vee that the New People do not have the same views of how to deal with insanity.”

“They would allow insanity to live? To grow in its own way and risk smothering sanity?” P’eath extended her wings. Relief lifted D’seun’s body. “With respect, T’taik, it sounds as if our neighbors may be slightly insane themselves.”

“Is difference insanity?” inquired T’taik mildly, letting her crest rise as if in surprise. “If it is, we are in great trouble, because the Equatorials and the Northerns will be at each other’s throats in the civil courts again.”

A general whistle of assent, and some clacking muzzles in chagrin and amusement. Disquiet filled the pockets between D’seun’s bones. He looked to Z’eth, who made no move to silence the words. What was she waiting for? Why was she permitting this to continue? She had promised! He had agreed to give her everything he had. He should put an end to this right now, call for a vote and end this display….

The chamber portal opened. All the ambassadors fanned their wings, turning themselves to see what this interruption was.

It was Engineer D’han, shrunk so small he was almost cringing as he floated through the threshold.

“Ambassador, forgive me, but…Ambassadors,” he stammered, beating his wings and bobbing his head, looking for a friendly face. “We have a translation of one of the last trans port-to-base transmissions from the New People….”

Several crests ruffled quizzically. “The New People exchange patterned radiation, as I have told you,” D’seun reminded them. “Most of it heads off into the vacuum, but some of it passes between their base and their transports on the surface. We have been monitoring and translating it since they first began, although it is still slow going because it is so tangled with their command languages. The practice greatly improved our speed of communication when we were finally able to speak to them.”

“Thank you, Ambassador.” Z’eth dipped her muzzle to him and then she dropped herself to D’han’s level. “What do they say in this translation you have made?”

D’han seemed to have pulled himself together. His size normalized and his sentences smoothed out. “They say the distant family is insane.”

The chamber erupted; Questions and exclamations buffeted D’seun, but even so he swelled in triumph. Now the debate was over. Now they could move.

Z’eth rose up high, spreading her wings and swelling her torso to its fullest extent. “Ambassadors! Ambassadors, please!”

Did you know?
D’seun gazed up at Z’eth in awe and admiration.
Did you time this entrance?
She might have. It was well within her skills to delay a message just a little so it might be used to bind the Law Meet together whether they were promised to her or not.