Quiet Invasion

by Sarah Zettel

  “What? Why?” D’han fluttered. “Ambassador—”

  T’sha was already flying toward the door. “We have to help.”

  “But their own kind will surely respond.” P’tesk held out both forehands, pleading.

  T’sha hooked a forehand onto the threshold and turned to face him. “We cannot leave them there. The research D’seun has so kindly gathered indicates they cannot be exposed to air.” The research, based on raw materials he collected, which may not have been raw at the time.

  “But if we—” began P’tesk.

  “If we what?” demanded T’sha, swelling. “If we go they will find out we’re here. Surely. What if we let them die? We are that desperate for our secrecy? We are that uncertain about our claim to this world that we should fail to help life?”

  “No,” said Br’sei softly, more to P’tesk and D’han than to her. “We are not.” He inflated himself. “We have several constructors designed to deal with the New People if necessary. I’ll bring them.”

  Br’sei vanished into the corridor. T’sha winged after him, all but exploding into the open air. She pushed all thought, all suspicion of what had happened here before out of her mind. That was for later. For now, the New People needed her.

  “Scarab Five, Scarab Five.” The radio called from the main cabin. “Respond. Adrian? Kevin? Come on, answer me!”

  “Shit,” exclaimed Josh, and Vee heard him start popping the buckles on his safety straps. She started doing the same.

  “Maybe you should—” began Julia.

  “No.” Vee shoved the straps aside and made her way up the steeply tilted floor after Josh.

  Adrian lay on the floor in the main aisle, dazed. Kevin crouched beside him, little better.

  “What happened?” asked Vee, dropping to her knees next to them.

  Kevin swallowed hard. “It was an—”

  Josh just shoved his way past them to the radio.

  “Scarab Five, Scarab Five!” came a frantic voice out of the speaker.

  Josh slapped the Reply key. “We’re here, Venera. This is Josh Kenyon.”

  “What happened? Kevin said he saw the aliens?”

  What? Vee froze.

  “I’m not seeing anything except Scarab Fourteen,” said Josh. “They look hurt. Have you been able to raise them?”

  “No. We’ve got the rescue on standby. If they leave now, they’ll make it in three hours.”

  Josh’s lips moved in silent calculation, or maybe prayer. “Drop them down. Now.”

  “Have you got anybody who can get across to Fourteen and check out their situation?” asked the voice from Venera.

  Josh looked at the red lights glowing on the control panels, then back at Adrian and Kevin on the floor.

  “We’re damaged and have to do control,” he said reluctantly. “There’s no trained personnel to respond.”

  Vee stood. Now she could see out the window, and she saw Scarab Fourteen’s crippled body alone on the ragged plain, far too near a lava stream. “How much training does it take to shove someone in a suit and get them over here? How much does it take to look around?”

  “You’ll need to get in.” Adrian struggled to sit up. “I can get you in.”

  “You saw—” began Kevin.

  “I saw null.” Adrian grabbed a cabinet handle and hauled himself to his feet. “I saw null,” he repeated. “We need to get over to Fourteen. We need to stabilize Five.” He glowered down at Kevin.

  Pride resurfaced in Kevin’s eyes. “Don’t tell me my job.”

  “Somebody has to!” Adrian steadied himself against the wall. Fury shook him. “You’re not doing it!”

  Kevin shut his mouth and pulled back. He took a long, shaky breath, leaning a hand against the counter. “You’re right. Take Josh and Dr. Hatch and two of the others over to Fourteen. Give them any help you can. I’ll stabilize us so we can hold out until the rescue drops.” He glanced out the window at the still landscape. “If you saw null, I saw null.”

  “I’ll go get your volunteers.” Vee hurried back into the cabin.

  Her colleagues were as she left them, strapped in and arguing.

  “What is going on out there?” demanded Troy.

  “We’re in trouble, but we’re talking,” Vee told him. “Fourteen is in trouble and not talking. Terry, Troy, they need us to go over and help. We need to get into suits. Julia,” softer, lower, “Kevin’s kind of shaky. He’s going to need a pair of hands. Wait until we’re on our way to Fourteen; then come out and see what you can do.”

  “When were you elected?” snorted Troy.

  “When I was the one who got myself out of this cabin,” shot back Vee. “There’s lives on the line, Peachman. You want to leave Lindi Manzur to fry?” It was emotional blackmail and she knew it, but it worked. He shut up. “Come on.”

  Troy and Terry reached the changing compartment shortly after she did. Josh and Adrian were already there. They suited each other up in silence. Vee went through the motions, trying not to think about the broken hulk of a scarab she’d seen. She didn’t want to think about how thin its walls were, how they were all deep down inside a poisonous, pressurized crucible that was just waiting for them to screw up so it could burn them all to ashes.

  The airlock’s inner door closed and the pump started up, but instead of the normal, steady chug-chug-chug, it wheezed, snarled and sputtered, skipped beats and raced ahead as if to catch up.

  God, we might not even be able to get out of here, thought Vee. She felt her self-control slipping a little. Which was unusual. She tried to be objective and examine her feelings, but that didn’t work. She eyed her helmet icons until she got Josh’s channel.

  “Do you think they might still be all right?” she asked.

  “Same as us,” said Josh. “If their hull holds and they have at least one of the pumps and a cooler tank, they can hang on.”

  She licked her lips and asked the next question. “If there is a hull breach, how long do they have?”

  “They don’t.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Vee rested her helmet against the wall and listened to the asthmatic pump. She let herself wish long and hard that she hadn’t volunteered for this, just to get that feeling out of the way. Then she prayed long and hard that the hull on Scarab Five would hold tight, because if it didn’t, she’d just killed Julia by letting her be the one to stay behind. That feeling went away more slowly, even after she assured herself that Kevin would make Julia get into a hardsuit as soon as he thought of it, or that Julia, who was not stupid, just easily stressed, would think of it on her own.

  Finally, the outer hatch rolled open, giving Vee a chance to move away from her thoughts. She climbed out, right behind Adrian.

  The world outside was like a petrified ocean, with its waves and currents frozen into black stone. Through the ridges, glowing ribbons of lava crept down well-worn paths. She imagined it smelled hot, almost spicy, the kind of smell you could taste.

  “They’d get into suits, wouldn’t they?” asked Terry on the general channel, echoing Vee’s thoughts from the airlock.

  “If they could get to them, yeah,” said Adrian. “The scarabs have bulkheads that seal if there’s a hull breach, just like a ship.”

  Vee tried to clamp down on her imagination. Now was not the time to paint pictures of the future. Now was the time to slog forward, watch her footing and play it straight. Don’t look up. Be like a kid. If you don’t look at the scarab, it won’t change. It won’t get any worse because while you’re not looking at it, it isn’t there. Slog up the ridges, pick your way down the side, watch the ash piles that have collected in the hollows, notice how the charcoal veins look like the veins in the Discovery walls. Don’t look up.

  “No!”

  Adrian stumbled forward, trying for a loping run but only sliding and wobbling as he fought the ragged ground and the pressure. Ahead of him, the scarab’s side buckled sharply inward, as if it had been punched by an invisible fi
st. A thread-thin, black crack appeared.

  Vee’s throat closed up tight.

  “Veronica,” said Josh, tentatively.

  “What?” Vee tore her gaze off Adrian’s stumbling form. Josh pointed ahead and to the right. Vee followed the line of his arm, until she saw the edge of the ragged wall the volcano made.

  Something white floated next to it. Something shaped like an inverted teardrop or a hot-air balloon.

  Vee froze in her tracks, tilted on the side of a stone wave. The balloon flew in an absolutely straight line. Vee saw a glint of silver on its swelling sides, like lenses, maybe.

  “That’s not from Venera, is it?” asked Vee quietly.

  “No,” answered Josh.

  It was getting closer. Terry had seen it now. She also came to an abrupt halt with Troy right beside her.

  “Adrian!” called Josh. Adrian stopped, teetered, and almost fell, but he righted himself, and he saw it too.

  The thing flew like the wind. Silver scales covered its white skin. Bundles of red-brown cables held an enclosed gondola to the balloon. At first, Vee thought it was heading for them, but it wasn’t.

  It was heading for Scarab Fourteen.

  The balloon stopped, suddenly, as if it had hit a wall. From the bottom a flurry of…things emerged. They sparkled gold in the ashen light. Wings spread out from their oval torsos. Legs (arms?) hung under their bellies.

  One carried a fold of cloth, one an egg, one a box, another a blob of gray jelly. They were followed by three others with empty hands. They all flew over Scarab Fourteen. The first of them dropped the cloth. The three with empty hands grasped the cloth and pulled it over the scarab, as if they were fitting a sheet to a bed. The cloth was transparent, but the dim light reflected off an oily sheen on the edges where they held it.

  The creatures holding the cloth dropped to the ground. The cloth made a tent over the scarab. The one with the egg cracked it open. A gout of milky liquid poured over the cloth. It sluiced down the sides, becoming transparent as it did so. The creatures let go; the tent stayed where it was.

  The creature with the box shriveled and drew in its wings. It sank until it hovered just above ground level. Now Vee saw a complex series of markings, or maybe wires, running across its body. It pressed the box against the tent and its muzzle moved. Vee tried to set her suit controls to pick up outside sound, but she couldn’t get her gaze to stay steady enough to activate the commands.

  The one with the jelly blob joined the one by the box. It set its blob down. The blob had an eye and silver lines running through its body.

  The blob moved.

  It crawled into the box and emerged inside the tent. It lifted up into the air and became a jellyfish with tentacles hanging down, tipped with, what? Claws? Tools? It drifted unerringly toward Scarab Fourteen and slipped into the jagged, black crack in the hull.

  Vee wanted to speak but had no words adequate to the task. This was unreal. Surreal. She was frightened, bemused, unbelieving. She wanted to laugh her head off. Her heart fluttered high in her throat and she could hear her blood singing in her ears.

  One of the creatures (aliens? There are no aliens. The base is a fake. How can they be aliens?) was looking at her. It had two huge silver eyes, encased, she realized, behind something hard and clear, like a natural lens. But those were unmistakably eyes. She could distinguish the iris, pupil, and white. Huge eyes. Underneath its eyes, it had a wedge-shaped beak, like a bird’s beak, or maybe a dolphin’s.

  It was beautiful. It was incomprehensible. It was looking right at her and she could tell nothing, nothing about what it saw.

  Then, she realized it didn’t see her at all. It saw a suit, with a smooth plate where its face should be. Maybe it was just wondering what was in there.

  Voices were babbling. Voices she knew, but there were too many of them and she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She didn’t even really want to try.

  The creatures ferried more blobs out of their balloon. They put them up to the box to become jellyfish and enter the space under the tent and eventually the scarab. The creatures themselves flew all around the tent, angels, butterflies, prehistoric monsters glittering gold on a cloudy day. Except for the one that looked straight at her.

  Was it trying to divine something? Send a telepathic message? Judge her for salt content? What? What did aliens do?

  “Veronica, we’ve got to go, now!” It was Josh. He had his hand on her arm and he was trying to pull her away. But she wasn’t responding. She should respond. He was right. They needed to go, now, didn’t they? Did they?

  The side of the scarab tore like paper.

  “No!” screamed Adrian like it was the only word he had left.

  Two jellyfish floated out of the hole in the scarab’s side. Their tentacles wrapped around something roughly oblong that shimmered.

  It was Angela Cleary. Angela, who’d been helping Vee prove the Discovery was nothing but a fraud. Whom Vee had spent a whole week aboard the shuttle trying to get to know and failing without really realizing it. She’d respected that in a weird kind of way. Angela, who gave nothing away by accident. Angela, who had a sardonic grin and sharp eyes.

  “Can’t be. She’d be pulp. Less than pulp.” murmured Josh. He wasn’t pulling on Vee anymore.

  Angela wasn’t pulp. Something crystalline covered her, like the stuff that made the tent over the scarab or enclosed the alien’s silver eyes. The creatures flying over the tent cracked another egg. More milky liquid sluiced over the tent sides. The tent tore and fell away like cobwebs.

  The jellyfish turned away from the creatures and began flying toward the team from Scarab Five.

  “Get away, get away, get away,” chanted Terry, like a mantra. Out of the side of her faceplate, Vee saw someone stumble backward and turn to slog away.

  The jellyfish kept coming with Angela, encased in glass, supported between them. They drifted forward until they were about two meters away. Then, very gently, they sank down and laid Angela on the ground. Their tentacles released her and they rose, drifting back toward the scarab.

  “Holy God and Mother Creation, what’ve they done?” Josh moved forward. Vee looked up at the alien, her alien, who hadn’t moved. Then, slowly, as if she had to remember how, Vee walked up beside Josh and looked down at the glass coffin.

  Angela lay inside, whole, and perfect. Her eyes were closed and her arms lay straight along her sides.

  “I think she’s breathing,” said Josh softly.

  Vee bent closer. Yes. You could see it. Barely. Angela’s chest didn’t so much rise and fall as flutter like Vee’s heart. But she was alive under there.

  Alive and without a suit on Venus, and there sure as hell weren’t air tanks on that glass case. Vee’s mind fastened on these details and jolted her body into action.

  “Help me!” She grabbed Angela’s feet.

  Josh grabbed Angela’s shoulders. They heaved Angela up as if they were lifting a log and staggered back toward Scarab Five. Fighting pressure and the awkwardness of the suit, Vee could glance up only once. The jellyfish reemerged from Scarab Fourteen, carrying another glass-encased figure in their tentacles.

  “Peachman, get back here! I need help!” shouted Terry.

  “I’m there. I’m there.” Troy waddled more than walked over the ridges. His suit was scored. Had he fallen in his hurry to get away from the aliens? “I’m sorry. Christ in the green, I’m sorry.”

  Maybe we should have brought Julia after all.

  “Kevin, are you watching this?” came Josh’s voice over the intercom. “Get that door open!”

  “Done!” shouted Kevin. “God, god, is she really alive?”

  “I think so.” Josh’s voice was breathy with hope and uncertainty.

  I hope so, thought Vee, because it means they saved her. It means they’re…what? Friendly? Doesn’t cover it. Human?

  Obviously her brain could take only so much of this.

  The airlock door was open. They laid Ang
ela on the floor.

  “Take her up!” ordered Josh.

  “Can’t,” came back Kevin’s reply. “The pump is almost dead. We can’t risk running it more than once. You’re going to have to get them all in here. Get moving!”

  Vee stared at Josh. “This is going to sound dumb,” she said, her voice too high and tight. “Will she be all right alone?”

  “I hope so,” said Josh. Obviously, that was the phrase of the day.

  Vee slogged back toward Scarab Fourteen, wishing desperately that she could run. All she could manage was a fast walk. Sweat poured down her face. Her face plate blinked yellow warnings at her to drink and take a salt tablet. She ignored them.

  Terry and Troy were hoisting Lindi Manzur off the ground when Vee and Josh reached them. The jellyfish were arriving with another woman in a pilot’s coverall. Must be Charlotte. Charlotte…what was her last name?

  Why is this bugging me now?

  Adrian, all on his own, hoisted Charlotte into his arms and staggered across the broken landscape.

  It was ridiculous. It was macabre. But they did it three more times, hefting colleagues and strangers like bricks and laying them neatly down on the airlock floor, trying to make efficient use of space but trying not to think too much because it would slow them down.

  They headed back one more time. The jellyfish had another form in their tentacles. But this one was shaped wrong. It was all curves. It didn’t have enough straight lines for a human body. The jellies stopped about three meters away this time. When Vee registered what she saw, she had to choke back her bile while part of her mind said, “Ah, that’s why they call it ‘pulped.’”

  The jellies did not put this one down. They carried it back past the gold creatures and vanished into the bottom of the balloon.

  “Who was that? Why’d they do that?” asked Terry. “Sorry, sorry, I know you don’t know…I—”

  “It’s okay,” said Vee. “Really.”

  There were no more, what? Deliveries? The aliens flew back into their balloon, except the one still one. Vee wondered what it was waiting for. It stared at her with its huge eyes, as if memorizing every detail of Vee’s form, as Vee was memorizing its, with the sharply angled wings and the thick, but amazingly flexible neck, the broad body, the crimson and ivory mane that streamed down its neck and the dark lines on golden skin.