The Legend That Was Earth (16 page)

Meanwhile, the news brought reports of more operations by security forces, and an apparent act of retaliation in Minnesota, where a stretch of roadway was blown up while a military convoy was passing over, causing over sixty fatalities. Globalist Coalition fighter-bombers were shown in action against "bandit" forces in South America, long portrayed as organized by drug and other criminal elements to disrupt lawful land transfers and development programs that threatened their business. Cade didn't believe it anymore. Another clip showed Hyadean military advisors training Brazilian counterinsurgency troops in the use of prom guns, which were apparently being introduced into the bush fighting with devastating results, along with other Hyadean innovations and methods. Cade recalled what Marie had said about the real motives behind the assassination of Lieutenant General Meakes. He wondered how long it would take for similar provisions to be introduced in the U.S.

He found he was beginning to see things in a new light. In one of their conversations he asked Marie what was going on behind it all, the big picture. What was it all intended to bring about? She told him he had already half figured it out. It was to serve the elite who controlled the Hyadean power structure. Did she mean by profiting from dumped products that had no value back among the Hyadean worlds, and the resale there of cheap Terran labor? Yes, he could see all that. Hadn't he been involved on the fringes of it himself?

But it went further than that, Marie told him. They were moving in to take over choice parts of Earth as their own private preserves. Huge tracts of places like western Brazil, eastern Peru—and now they were talking about South Africa—were being transformed into estates and palaces for the Hyadean ruling clique to escape to from the drabness and overdevelopment of their own worlds. And the properties came with willing managers and domestics that outperformed Hyadean AIs, and none of the political difficulties associated with hiring subservient labor back home.

A freshly sculpted planet, Cade recalled. Unique in its biological vigor and stunning geology among the planets the Hyadeans had spread to. So finally, he had gotten to the bottom of it.
That
was what was really going on.

"So what happens to the people who live there?" he asked Marie in one of their ongoing debates between games of bézique, rummy, napoleon, and taking in the news and a few movies.

"The old story," she replied. "Obviously, if you want to take over their land, they have to go. So you call them bandits and send in the gunships."

"I never realized."

"Most people don't. It's been a long time since there was any genuinely free reporting."

Cade thought about his conversation with Vrel and Krossig when they were out on the yacht. "I'm not sure it's all that different for the average Hyadean," he said. "They think they're here to protect Earth from itself and introduce it to the benefits of a superior system. This is supposed to be an outpost to protect us from the Querl. It's kind of crazy, isn't it?"

Marie snorted. "I don't recall hearing anything about us ever asking for protection. From what? We don't even know who the Querl are. What have you been able to make of them?"

"Supposedly, they're too unruly and ideologically misguided to make the Hyadean system work," Cade replied. "So one day they'll try and take what they need." He showed his hands and shrugged. "But I've even heard Hyadeans questioning that line."

"You amaze me. I didn't think they were capable of questioning anything."

"I'm beginning to think the Querl are something like their version of our bandits. They want to get away from the glorious Hyadean system."

"Which means they can't really be the big threat that we're told, can they?" Marie said. "So why do the Hyadeans need a military capability?"

Cade could see only one answer. "To keep their system together. They talk about orderliness, but the truth is it has to be held in place by force too. Just the same as ours have always had to be."

"My, you really have been doing some thinking. Is this really the same Roland?"

"Don't be patronizing. Or is it matronizing?"

"But seriously, the aim is to gain control of the U.S. as the focal point of global affairs. That's what the AANS nations are resisting, and why we support them."

"You think that terrorizing people over here is the right way?"

For the first time, Marie's manner became short. "That's pure propaganda. The people's own government has become the terrorists. We're trying to wake the people up!"

"But you'd take it to an open struggle, maybe eventually involving Terrans and Hyadeans directly."

Marie spread her hands. "Look at what's happening. You've got us on the verge of a civil war here, right now."

Cade looked hard at her, as if trying to gauge how serious she really was. "Training programs in the mountains and rhetoric are one thing," he said. "But can you really condone it: firing on American defense forces?"

"Hell, Roland. What kind of defense? They're mounting military assaults on American citizens already!"

* * *

The next day, John delivered a reply from Dee. Vrel was anxious to learn whatever it was that Cade wanted to convey. Not knowing where Cade was or his situation, he had arranged in his official capacity as observer to visit a U.S. military base near St. Louis and report on the activities of a Hyadean contingent sent there as technical advisers. That, of course, left the question of how Cade and Marie were to get to St. Louis, since with violent incidents escalating nationwide, all modes of travel were subject to routine checks and searches.

The answer came in the form of two nameless people who arrived the same evening to dye and restyle Cade's hair, stain a distinctive birthmark onto his forehead, and then photograph, fingerprint, and voiceprint him for a false set of ID documents, according to which he was now "Professor Wintner," described as a political scientist. Marie was similarly transformed into a social psychologist called "Dr. Armley." Cade doubted if it was mere coincidence that the professions fitted so well with Vrel's official work. The document forgers obviously knew their business, and came across as being intimately familiar with the official records systems. But those systems were interconnected, which meant that for the false IDs to work, appropriate data profiling the personas would need to be in there. Could it really be that thorough? Cade was intrigued.

"I said you'd be surprised how much support there is out there," Marie told him when he asked. "Sometimes the ones who work for government in the day are secretly our biggest allies. They
know
what goes on."

And they did work. Notification came via John that accommodation had been reserved for Professor Wintner and Dr. Armley at the St. Louis Hilton as guests of the Hyadean Office of Terran Cross-Cultural Exchange, which was the department that employed Vrel. They could book themselves a flight first-class, charged to a Hyadean account. It made a crazy kind of sense, Cade had to admit on reflection—the last place that Terran security would be looking for fugitives. Sometimes Hyadean logic managed to surprise him still. Being Hyadean, Vrel wouldn't be subject to the same scrutiny and restrictions as a Terran trying to make comparable arrangements.

They disposed of the guns and other possibly incriminating articles, and Cade handed over his own ID papers and personal effects for mailing to a collection address where he could pick them up later. A woman from the local network drove him and Marie to downtown Chattanooga, where they got a taxi to the airport. Although, as far as Cade knew, no civilian flights had been affected, much was being made of the dangers of terrorist missile attacks, with signs in the airport warning that passengers flew at their own risk. Cade read it as part of a campaign to promote fear.

With their official credentials and new identity documents, Cade and Marie cleared the airport check-in routine without incident. They departed an hour and fifteen minutes later on an early afternoon flight to St. Louis, changing at Atlanta.

ON ARRIVAL AT THE ST. LOUIS HILTON, Cade and Marie found themselves booked into a twentieth-floor suite consisting of a comfortably furnished and stocked lounge area in addition to two bedrooms—a typically prim Hyadean consideration, although it suited the circumstances. The desk clerk produced a package for collection by Professor Wintner that contained a phone—presumably with "clean" programmed-in identification and serial numbers—a number at which Vrel could be reached, and two thousand dollars in cash. Cade called Vrel as soon as they got to the suite. Vrel was relieved that they had made it, but was tied up in the city on business right now. He would join them at the hotel later.

"I see your lifestyle hasn't changed much, Roland," Marie commented. She had been wandering around, inspecting the contents of the mini-bar and refrigerator while he talked to Vrel. "Always the man with the right friends. It's a change from that camper on the farm." She didn't sound entirely approving.

"Well, suit yourself if you want to stake out a claim on the moral high ground," Cade replied. He picked up the wads of hundreds and fifties and ruffled it at her. "Wearing the same clothes for three days makes me feel kind of grubby. I don't know about you, but I'm going out to do a little shopping, and then freshen up for dinner. Are you coming along, or going to start preaching?" Marie thought about it, sighed, and decided preaching was out for the rest of the day. "So now you're sullying your image by dipping a finger in Hyadean wealth too," Cade said. "What's happening? Are you converting me, or am I corrupting you?"

"I don't know. But you're right. I just want to feel clean clothes again," she said.

* * *

By the time they sat down in the hotel restaurant, they were chattering and swapping banalities almost like old times. Despite the public exposure—or maybe as a consequence of surviving it without incident—Cade felt more secure than he had for days. Inwardly, a part of him was waiting for Marie to get around to politics or principles, because she always had—it was usual. Less usual was his realization that the anticipation wasn't bothering him. In fact, he found he wanted to talk more about such things. The irony was that Marie, for her part, seemed to be heeding his preferences for once by avoiding them. It was Cade, finally, who brought the subject up.

"What's happened to the fanatic I remember of old? If this goes on, you'll have me thinking we might actually get through dinner without stepping into quicksands."

"This has been such a change. I didn't want to spoil it." Marie pushed some salad into a wad with her fork and looked up. "Was I always a fanatic?"

"I used to think so," Cade affirmed candidly. "Now, I don't know. Julia asked about it a lot lately—but I guess we know why now." He chewed thoughtfully for a while. "What makes people do a job like that?... Live a life of deception. Could you?"

"Some people would say our whole lives are nothing else," Marie said, seemingly not to make any particular point.

"Greed, hatred, and deception," Cade intoned.

"What about them?"

"Those are what the Buddhists say are the root of all of life's evils."

"What's this, a new Roland? How long have you been into stuff like that?"

"I'm not, really."

"Yes, I
had
noticed."

"It was something that Mike Blair was on about once. Do you remember him—Mike Blair, the scientist?"

"I only met him a couple of times, I think. Hair with bits of gray in? Wears glasses?"

Cade nodded. "That's him—except the hair's probably a bit grayer now. He's been getting into Eastern philosophy as well as science. It seems our religions are making a big impression with some of the Hyadeans. They don't have deep philosophical views about things. They just look at what the basic facts are saying and leave it right there. Mike says it has something to do with why they're flying starships and we're not. I didn't really follow it."

Marie stopped eating for a moment to frown dubiously. "In that case, why should they care about deeper philosophies? What do they need one for?"

"Because they live their lives stressed out on treadmills tied to getting better ratings on this `entitlement' system of theirs, which I don't understand either."

"Right. Like taking a day out fishing in a boat off California."

"I told you, a few like Vrel are different.... Well, they're changing. To them, a view of life that values other things beyond just status and material success is a revelation—literally. They've never heard of anything like it. Krossig—he's another Hyadean, who works with Vrel in LA, being moved to Australia—says it's catching on among the kids back home. They talk about Earth as the home of a deeper spirituality: ways of getting in touch with reality that the Hyadeans had once, but lost."

Marie pulled a face. "I guess I'm a little more cynical with regard to human spirituality. I've been too much in touch with conventional reality these last few years." She eyed him for a moment before spearing more of her salad. "Isn't this a bit out of your line, Roland? Are you changing or something, or did I just never see it?"

Cade shrugged in a way that said surprises happen all the time. "I see a lot of aliens."

Marie studied him curiously. "I don't think you realize what an unusual insight it's giving you into alien psychology," she said. "I'll admit, I've tended to see them as all alike—and not all that nice."

"I do an unusual job," Cade replied.

* * *

Vrel arrived later in the evening and joined Cade and Marie in their suite. To show off his expanding repertoire of acquired Terran tastes, he started off by refreshing himself after the day with a cool beer, and then settled down to follow it with black, unsweetened coffee. Marie's manner was guarded to begin with, in the presence of possibly the first alien she had spent any time with at close quarters, but she loosened up as time went on.

Vrel was anxious to make it clear that Dee hadn't known Rebecca was a setup. Even with his exposure to Terrans, he didn't seem to grasp that the possibility that she might have had never crossed Cade's mind. His concern seemed to imply that a Hyadean in Dee's position might have sold Cade out knowingly if it gained points somehow in the game-plan calculus that they lived by, and hence by their norms some defense of Dee should be necessary. Cade didn't really follow but accepted it as well meant. It was beyond Marie's experience or comprehension.