“No.” Ben scrubbed his scalp. “Never. Not until the yewners threatened to take us over. Helen, I just wanted Venera to be free.”
For the first time in his entire life, Michael saw Helen look her age. She stepped slowly and carefully around the table and stopped when she reached Michael’s side. She laid her hand on his forearm, and he felt the dryness of her skin, and the deep grooves in her palm.
Grandma Helen looked up at him with her dark eyes. “It doesn’t matter Michael,” she told him. “We’ve already taken the first steps and we can’t turn around,” She squeezed his arm, and continued past him toward the door. Ben flushed even darker with triumph.
No, no. I will not let it go like this. Michael had control of his voice again. “First steps?” he demanded of her back. “And we’re standing on, what? Fraud? Murder? Grace Meyer murdered Derek and Kevin to keep them from tagging her as one of their bosses. Are you going to say that doesn’t matter?” He strode forward until he was beside her, at least partly in her line of sight. “They were Venerans, Helen. They were born here. They expected you to look out for them.” His hands flailed helplessly in the air. “Are you going to let them down?”
That stopped her. She stood there, just on the edge of the door’s sensor range. Michael’s heart hammered hard in his chest. She had to listen to that. She had to.
“Give Grace to the yewners,” she said. “They can take her down to Mother Earth for prosecution.”
“Helen!” Michael cried. No other word would come.
“No, Michael,” she said softly. “It’s too late. The U.N. wants to take the world away from us. We are not going to let them.”
She stepped forward. The door swished open. She walked through the empty staging area and out into the crowded hallway beyond, with Ben right at her heels.
There was nothing Michael could do but follow along.
By the time he got to the corridor, the noise was deafening. People lined the sides of the staircase three deep. Applause, cheers, and cries of “Welcome home!” showered down on Helen from all sides.
As Michael and Ben trailed behind, Helen descended the stairs. She shook hands, clasped arms, waved, looking for all the world like a politician or like royalty. She had been both in her time, without the titles, but with the jobs, and she was milking that experience now for all it was worth.
Helen turned off the staircase when they reached the Mall. The entire place was jammed. Parents held their children on their shoulders. People whistled through their teeth and waved as Helen worked her way through, laughing and trying to shush the crowd, shouting she had something to say.
A space cleared in front of them. Someone shoved a table forward. Ben saw what was coming and held Helen’s hand while she stepped up on a chair and then up onto the table, turning it into an impromptu dais with himself and Michael flanking her like an honor guard.
Now, Helen’s arm-waving could be seen, and silence spread out from around her like a wave. She looked small up there, but pride gave her stature. Pride and confidence. Helen knew exactly what she was doing, or at least she thought she did. Michael glanced at the public screens and there was Helen. Someone had been on the ball and gotten the cameras going.
“You have already heard that I cut the line on the C.A.C.,” said Helen, loud enough to be heard over the ambient noise of the gathering. “Now I want you to hear why.”
Yes, tell us why, Grandma Helen, thought Michael as he felt his neck muscles tense.
“I did it because they were about to remove from us the one right we have always had. The right to conduct our lives, our work, as we see fit. They intend to tell us what to think about the new race of people who have come to our world. Our world, not their world. They have not spoken with these new people. They have not listened to them. But we have. We know that they are scientists and explorers, just as we are. They are looking to make new homes for their people, to carry out their work and live their lives, just like we were when we created Venera forty years ago. Their world is in crisis, and they want only to alleviate that crisis.
“This is what we heard. This is what we told the C.A.C. How did they respond?” Helen spread her hands as if amazed at the wonder of it all. “They told us we knew nothing. We didn’t count. Our research, our expertise, our collective experience meant nothing, nothing at all, because we were not politicians.” She stressed the word politicians like most people stressed the word bastard.
“The politicians from Mother Earth, on the other hand, have determined that our new neighbors are dangerous, despite the fact that those neighbors have done nothing but watch us until lives were in danger. Then they intervened and saved all those who could be saved.