Quiet Invasion(121)

Kevin looked from Derek to her. “I hope you’re right, Dr. Meyer.”

Neither of them said good-bye. Grace walked out. Her stomach knotted up on her as she passed the guard stationed on the door and started down the busy residential corridor.

They would not go to prison. Grace watched her own feet as she headed for the stairs. They would drink the beer she’d brought, tonight, or perhaps tomorrow. They’d drain all the bottles contained.

Then, sometime within the next week, they’d die. By then they’d have eaten over a dozen meals and their buddies from the scarab crews would have brought them at least as many beers. The traces in their guts would make it appear that they had died of severe food poisoning. Her bottles would have long since been recycled and it would be next to impossible to say where the contagion had come from. The kitchens and food processors would have a bad week while they were turned upside down, but that couldn’t be helped.

Organic chemistry was useful for so many things.

No, Derek and Kevin would not go to jail. There was so much work to be done. No one would ignore her anymore; no one would tell her that her work might reflect badly on Venera as a whole. There was one person left who might connect Grace’s name to the fraud, but that one had so much to lose that she would not risk it. Grace was certain of that.

Grace lifted her head as she started up the stairs and found she could meet the gazes of the people she passed quite easily.

There was important work to do. She had to be free to do it.





Chapter Thirteen


BEN PACED HIS OFFICE, trying to be patient. He had one of the few private spaces on the administrative level. The dampeners in the walls meant he couldn’t hear the continual buzz and bustle going on outside. Sometimes he dropped them. He liked being around people. He did not like being shut up and alone, but there were things for which he needed privacy.

Like the transmission he was waiting for.

The office did have a real window, allowing him to see the cloudscape with its continual whorls and ripples and flashes of lightning. So different from Mars or the Moon. Those were static worlds. What motion there was, humans brought. Venus though…Venus was alive in its own right. It still had a beating heart under its volcanoes, and it still shifted and shrugged its crust, even without plate tectonics.

He could have spent his life studying this place. He could have given himself up to the world the way Helen had if there hadn’t been other considerations.

He glanced back at his gently humming desk. Anyone running a systems sweep would think he was busy processing satellite data with the new criteria of observing the aliens (Holy God, those aliens!) and their artifacts. What he was actually doing was looking for a transmission signature. When his scanner found it, the transmission would be routed straight to the desk without having to go through Venera’s usual exchanges and checks.

It wasn’t something he liked to do very often. Michael and Michael’s people were very good at what they did. Trying to get around their security measures was a chancy business at best.

Venera was alive with activity, speculation, and wonder. Everybody wanted their chance to go meet the neighbors. Michael was going to have to forcibly restrain Grace before long. They tried to tell her the board’s consensus was that there should be only a limited contact team. Just for now, of course, until a good understanding had been established with the People.

Ben shook his head. They couldn’t tell her the real reason only one scarab was being kept down there. He’d guessed at that reason and had told Helen his guess in private. Her silence had been enough to tell him he’d guessed correctly.

The Venerans needed to talk to the aliens. They needed as much information as they could get. Every bit of information they controlled was an edge on the C.A.C. But if anybody made a damning mistake, they needed to be able to say to the U.N., “It was your people who did that, not ours.”

For the first time in a long time, he’d agreed absolutely with Helen’s strategy.

His desk chimed. Ben was beside it in two long strides. The screen cleared and Frezia Cheney looked out at him.

“Paul.” It had been so long since he’d used that name on a regular basis that it felt as if she were talking to some stranger. “Your word’s been spread. Much to the chagrin of the yewners, may I add.” Mischief sparkled in her eyes for a moment and then faded away.

“I hate to have to say this, but no one else is even close to ready for a succession attempt, distractions or paradigm shifts notwithstanding. They’re going to have to let the chance pass. We’re feeling the loss of Fuller here. There’s no unifying voice anymore. There’s no one person to talk to.” She paused and shook her head. “The demo at the shipyard hasn’t even managed to unite the Lunars.”