Quiet Invasion(165)

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.

Stillness settled slowly. Z’eth fell back beside D’han, who looked a little dazed now. “How is the distant family insane, Engineer? Tell us exactly.”

D’han’s gaze darted around the room, amazed to find all the ambassadors pinning him down with their attention. “The distant family says they are sending a force to New Home. They will cut the New People off from the resources of their world and force them to comply with the wishes of the distant family.”

“Well then.” Z’eth whistled and lifted her muzzle to the entire Meet. “It appears the New People have ended our debate for us. We cannot permit the insane to overrun the sane.”

As the whistles of agreement filled the chamber, D’seun’s soul swelled.

At last, he thought. At last. This world will be ours and the New People will be ours or they will be raw materials to serve us and our life.

At last.





Chapter Nineteen


CROWDS THRONGED IN THE corridors outside flight control. Children clung to their mother’s tunics or their father’s arms. Teenagers slumped against the walls, torn between looking tough and being uncertain. Whole families stood around and sorted through bags, trying to make sure everything precious had gotten packed.

Five thousand people—half the base—had decided to stay and sit out whatever the U.N. was going to put them through. A whole five thousand, and Helen was grateful for each person.

But according to the note in her desk that morning, Michael Lum was not one of them.

The crowds parted around her, saying hello or just looking guilty as they did. Helen still had to crane her neck, searching for a truly familiar face amid the crowd that suddenly all looked alike to her.

At last she spotted him. He stood patiently with his wife and their two children. He had one arm around Jolynn and one hand on his older son’s shoulder. Jolynn rested both of her hands on the shoulders of the younger boy and looked straight ahead with a kind of grim determination, as if she could make the line move by sheer willpower.

Helen’s name rippled through the crowd as she marched up to Michael and his family.

“Good morning, Michael,” she said. “Good morning, Jolynn. May I speak with your husband?”

“Certainly, Dr. Failia.” Jolynn shuffled backward a fraction of an inch. She and Michael exchanged a look Helen couldn’t read, and she felt an irrational stab of annoyance run through her.

Michael said nothing, just crossed to the other side of the corridor a half-step behind Helen. She had to pivot to face him. When she did, she saw his face was full of the gentle humor that had characterized him for so many years.

“I take it you got my resignation,” he said.

“I did.” She nodded once. “I do not accept it.”

“Helen.” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “You’re going to have to.”

A hundred emotions flooded through Helen—sorrow, betrayal, loneliness, desperation. She had no words, no words at all. He was a child of Venera. He was everything they had worked for.

“This is your home, Michael” was all she could think to say.

“And that is my family, Helen.” He stabbed a finger at Jolynn, who had her arms around Chord and Chase. “Whom I love. Now, you’ve got this great idea about saving the world from the madness of Earth and that’s fine, but you’re doing it by creating more madness.”

“I am trying to put an end to—”

“To what?” Michael threw up his hands. “Our stability? Our safety? How many lives is this glorious ending worth? We’ve got two dead already, Helen. I will not stand around and watch the body count rise.”

Helen felt her chest constrict until the pain ran down her arms. She could not lift a hand against his words, which struck her like blows. She could barely think Michael, Michael who had gone away and returned to become one of the people she trusted the most in all the worlds. How could he say this to her? How could he abandon Venera?

“Do you have any idea what’s about to happen?” she asked him coldly. “They are not just coming to end any independent research, any good science we might ever do; they are coming to decide what all of us are going to do with the rest of our lives.” She stepped up close to him, trying to fill his world with her words. He had to understand. He had to. “And what about the aliens? Do you really think the U.N. is going to let them build a new home here? The yewners are coming to rob us and them of the future, of our future.”