Quiet Invasion

by Sarah Zettel

  The delay ticked by, and the pink bag grew. Her manager’s face went white, then gray.

  “Vee, you don’t mean this—”

  The new pink bag was a full bubble outside the wall screen now. The stranger beside D’seun spoke.

  I am sorry you had to witness that, Engineer Vee. Br’sei does not speak for the People. I do. I am Ambassador Z’eth.

  Vee bit down hard on her lip. “I mean it Rosy,” she whispered, wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “Call Yan Su. She’ll confirm what I’m telling you about the aliens. Tell her about the virus. I’m doing my best, but…Please, call my family. Tell them they’ve got to get off Earth, go to Luna. Give them my account access, but you and they have to get out of there. I’ve got to go.” She cut the connection and it felt like her heart was torn in two.

  Ambassador, she typed with her cold, trembling fingers. This is Vee. The people of this world do not want the Terrans dead. Rosa would not stay on Earth. Rosa would get away. They couldn’t kill her family. Mother, Father, Gramma, Grampa, Kitty, Lois, Tom, Amber, Auden. Rosa; Nikki. Everybody.

  No, no, no, they would not die. She couldn’t let them. She had to think of something to say. She had to think of something. They—

  You are not an ambassador, replied Z’eth. You cannot say what your people want.

  “No, but tell her I can.” Vee jerked around. Helen and Ben hurried into the room with Josh on their heels.

  “Thank God.” Vee wiped at her cheeks and stepped away from the board, letting Helen take her place. She bumped against Josh, who just laid his hands on her shoulders. She leaned against his chest, drinking in his warmth.

  Helen’s hands shook as she lifted them to the command board.

  I am Ambassador Helen, Ambassador Z’eth. Good Luck. I am asking you to stop whatever plans you have for the people of Earth. Let us talk. Let us explain.

  Ambassador Z’eth swelled. Ambassador Helen, there is nothing to explain. We have your own words condemning the Terrans as insane. They seek to cut you off from the source of your life for no reason.

  Helen took a deep breath. The trembling in her hands stilled for a moment. Ambassador Z’eth, please, try to understand. We don’t think they’re crazy. We think they’re wrong, but there’s a difference with us.

  I understand that, but it is not only a question of what you think, replied Z’eth. This is now our home too. You promised this world to us, and we must protect ourselves.

  Josh’s hands tightened on Vee’s shoulders. Vee clenched her fists. She had to do something. She couldn’t just stand there shaking like a frightened child. She had to do something.

  There was nothing she could do. Nothing at all.

  Yes, read Helen’s new message. But not like this. There are six billion people on Earth, Ambassador. Most of them have nothing to do with this. Most of them don’t want a war. They just want to go about their business.

  Z’eth’s crest lifted. Then why are they permitting this? Why has there been no poll?

  “How fast can you explain representative democracy,” whispered Vee. She couldn’t help it. Josh just held her close. He understood. Oh, God, he understood.

  Ambassador, surely you do not believe there is only one right way to do things.

  Z’eth swelled even further. She was enormous. It looked as if she meant to fill the whole world. No right way can involve submitting to greed.

  “Damn you!” Helen’s fist thumped against the desk. She typed.

  We are not submitting. Listen, please, listen. Helen’s whole body was shaking now. Ben shoved a chair behind her, but she did not sit. Words spilled out of her fingers onto the screen.

  Once, our only world was Earth, but there were too many of us living there and we needed too much to support our lives. Earth was choking on us; it was dying. We moved out to fresh worlds to seek the space, the minerals, the power that we needed to live and keep our world of Earth alive.

  We spread to our Moon, and to a world we call Mars, as well as this world of Venus. Before we came to these places, there was no life at all here. We spread our life beyond the confines of our own planet for survival yes, but also because we found those other worlds beautiful and we wanted to know all of their wonders and secrets.

  It is true that even after all this time the colonies like ours still need Earth to live. But Earth also needs us. The people of Earth are trying to stay alive. Without the colonies the world will choke on itself again.

  They fear that because of you they will lose us. They are trying to prevent that. But we need them and they need us. If we took the colonies from them, they might die. If you take Earth from us, we will die. You will kill us all. Is that spreading life?

  Vee’s breath caught in her throat. They’d have to listen to that. That was their own language. They’d have to understand that.

  Ambassador Z’eth glided closer to the screen, filling the world and blocking out options.

  It is you who do not yet understand. You will no longer be forced to depend on your insane family to survive. This is our world now, and we will help you and make sure you live.

  The implications of Z’eth’s words reached inside Vee and squeezed her heart.

  “Jesus God,” whispered Josh. His arms trembled even as he pulled her closer. “We’re going to be another experiment for them. They’re going to use us….”

  Movement in the corner of the screen caught Vee’s eye. A familiar shape, beating its wings so fast she could barely see its markings, but she knew its color and its crest.

  “T’sha!” Vee broke away from Josh and thrust her hands onto the keyboard.

  T’sha! They’re trying to kill Earth! Her family’s names ran through her mind, blocking out everything else. There’s six billion people down there! They—

  The message line went dead.

  The screen went blank.

  Vee lifted her trembling hands off the keys. “What happened?” she whispered as she backed slowly away. “What happened!”

  Ben came up to Helen’s right side and touched a few keys. When he turned, his face was paper white. “It’s the satellites. They’re down. The U.N.’s started their attack.”

  “NO!” screamed Vee.

  Beside her, Helen’s mouth opened soundlessly and she clutched Ben’s arm. In the next moment, Helen Failia slid to the floor.

  While T’sha watched, the message faded from the New People’s display. The tool foundered in the air and began to sink, gathering momentum as it fell.

  D’seun did not move to stop it. Neither did Z’eth. T’sha darted down and grasped the cold, clumsy thing without thinking. It burned all her palms, and she shrieked, but she kept hold of it. Br’sei swooped after her and grasped one of the thing’s extensions, pulling it toward a construction shelf where it could rest.

  “A malfunction, apparently?” said Z’eth overhead.

  Her hands stung, but T’sha ignored them. She rose to meet Z’eth’s gaze.

  “Ambassador, did you not see their plea? We cannot do this thing.”

  “Why not?” asked Z’eth, her crest lifting as if she were genuinely surprised. “We have declared them insane. This world is ours, and we have every right to protect it from insanity. There is nothing wrong here, Ambassador.”

  T’sha stretched out hands and wings to Z’eth “Please, Ambassador, this cannot be done. It is wrong, wrong.”

  Z’eth rose over her, her voice sad, but stolid. “I have given my promise, T’sha. What can you give me to change that? This is too much; there are too many ties. I cannot just break my words because you wish things were other than they are.”

  T’sha shrank. She had nothing, nothing except Ca’aed’s last words, and Z’eth would not accept those. “You must stop this. You know it is wrong. D’seun is insane!”

  Z’eth’s muzzle lifted. “That doesn’t matter!”

  No, you did not say that. You could not possibly have said that. But D’seun hovered behind Z’eth, swelled to his fullest extent, pride
and triumph filling the world. “How can what is right not matter?”

  Z’eth flew so close to T’sha that she could not even see D’seun. “Because D’seun is also right! We need this world, and we need it now. Not fifty years from now, not twenty. We are dying T’sha. Your own city, T’sha, how does it do?”

  A moan burst free from her. “Ca’aed is dead.”

  For a moment they were all silent and still. T’sha’s wings folded over her eyes, and she wished she were dead with her city. She had failed. She was nothing. The New People would die as Ca’aed had died.

  Her wings fell away from her eyes and she looked up at Z’eth hovering in front of her.

  “I am sorry.” Z’eth brushed her muzzle against T’sha’s. T’sha could barely feel it, her skin was so contracted. “But if we do not create our life here, in just a few years, all the cities will be dead. What good will sanity and right be then?”

  “What can I promise you to change your words? What can you be seen to accept that is worth the lives of the New People?”

  D’seun rose from behind Z’eth, a great cloud lifting up from the horizon. “Ca’aed is dead, T’sha,” he announced, as if he savored the words. “Your people must be indentured so their children will be adopted by what cities still live. You have nothing left.”

  T’sha looked at him and hated what she saw. Greed and in sanity and the terrible power of both. But he was right. He was right and she could not dismiss his words. What did she have to promise Z’eth? Nothing. Z’eth had given a promise to D’suen, and T’sha had nothing with which to counter that promise. She had Ca’aed’s last words and her own wings and that was all….

  Her own wings. T’sha jerked her muzzle up to stare at Z’eth.

  Her own wings. No one had made such a promise in centuries, but it was still legal. It could still be made and accepted and it was the richest offer, the final promise of all.

  T’sha swelled to her full size. “My life, Ambassador Z’eth.”

  “What?” Z’eth pulled her muzzle back.

  “My life,” T’sha repeated. “I give it to you as promissory. If you do not kill the distant family, my life is yours. Not your city’s. Yours.”

  Z’eth’s whole body tensed. “That’s a very old-fashioned idea, Ambassador.”

  “It’s still legal.” Life of my mother and my father….Oh my sisters, my brother, forgive me, forgive me. “And it’s all I have left.”

  “T’sha.” D’seun thrust his muzzle at her. “Why are you doing this?”

  T’sha rounded on him. “Because there is nothing else I can do, D’seun! No matter what the New People said for themselves, no matter what you heard, or saw, you wanted them gone. You have blocked me at every turn, and raw materials and soul are all I have left!” She shrank in on herself and sank down until her belly touched the thickening air and she could fall no further. Memories of Ca’aed and all its beauties filled her. If Z’eth agreed she’d never have a home again, never fly anywhere without orders. Gone, everything would be gone.

  But she had to make this work. The New People were not insane. Vee was not insane. “My life, Ambassador Z’eth. You will have a promise such as no ambassador has had in two hundred years.”

  Z’eth hesitated. “The teachers do not favor such promises.”

  T’sha swelled yet again. Every tendon, every pore strained to the fullest. “My city is dead. Yours is dying. I can promise nothing to it. We have only each other.”

  “No!” cried D’seun, flapping his wings as if he meant to strike T’sha. “Ambassador Z’eth, I hold your promise. You will follow my vote about the disposition of the New People.”

  “The New People on this world,” Z’eth told him. “On this world only, and you have already argued they are sane.” She turned her back on him and swelled her body until her size matched T’sha’s. “If we do this, we must truly do this. I cannot turn around in a year, or two, or ten and set you free again. This will be a legal, binding promise. You will be enslaved to me, and I will use you as such.”

  T’sha glanced over Z’eth’s wing and she saw Br’sei there, hunched in and shrunken. His skin was torn. Something had happened, and she could not ask him what. She had meant to repay him for all he had done to help her, but if this worked, she would never be able even to make a promise of her own again. All that she had, all that she was would be Z’eth’s until her soul flew away free, to go to sleep with Ca’aed’s perhaps.

  T’sha dipped her muzzle.

  “Done,” said Z’eth.

  “Ambassador!” shouted D’seun.

  “It is done,” said Z’eth calmly. “And it is not done.” She faced D’seun. “Do you wish to protest, Ambassador? How many promises do I hold for you, D’seun? What shall I call in first?”

  T’sha swelled, even as she felt her future slide off her skin like wisps of cloud. No husbands, no wives, no children of her own.

  Nothing left at all, except six billion of the New People who were free to prove what they truly were.

  “It will be worth it,” she said to Br’sei, knowing they would be her last free words. “It will.”

  A voice nibbled at the edge of Helen’s hearing and tugged at the comfortable blanket of darkness. She did not want to hear and she did not want to wake up. There was nothing to wake up to.

  “Helen, come on, Helen, you can’t leave it like this. Helen…”

  Can’t leave it like this? Can’t leave what like this? She’d have to wake up to find out. Helen strained for a moment, but, gradually, her eyelids fluttered open.

  At the sight of Ben’s frantic face, memory flooded back, the New People, the threat to Earth, to them all….

  “What’s—” she croaked.

  “It’s okay, Helen.” Ben smoothed her hand. “You’re in the infirmary. It’s going to be okay.”

  Another voice. “The New People have given in. They’re not going to kill Earth.” Veronica Hatch, that’s who that was. “They sent up a balloon to tell us so.”

  Helen coughed. “Get to the shuttles. Tell Michael, tell the yewners.” She squeezed Ben’s hand as if to drain his strength into her. “Tell them we give in too. Get them back here.”

  “No, Helen, it’s all right,” whispered Ben anxiously. “The New People relented. There’s no need—”

  “Do it.” Her head fell back against something soft that had been placed there.

  Don’t you see? she wanted to tell him. We were wrong. We were seeing only in terms of ourselves, our futures, our pasts. We didn’t see in terms of worlds, in terms of time and all the lives that are connected to ours. We thought, I thought, Venera was all there was, all I was. I was wrong, I was so wrong, and Michael was right. We have to make peace now. We have to remember how much more there is to us than just what we’ve done here.

  “He’ll do it,” said Veronica firmly. “Trust me.”

  I do, Helen closed her eyes. It would be all right. She’d get better. There was work to do, for Venera, for herself, and for all the human beings for whom this would now be a point of new beginning as they reached out to the People, came to understand them, taught the People about the breadth of humanity so both sides could truly understand their neighbors.

  It all began now.

  Epilogue

  YAN SU’S APARTMENT WAS two stories above the main deck of U.N. city. Her small balcony faced west and let in the magnificent colors of the sunset over the waters. Standing by its rail, she could even see Venus shining peacefully in the darkening sky. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see any sign of the chaos going on up there.

  When she had received Rosa Cristobal’s call telling her about what the aliens had decided, she had stood frozen in place for several long seconds. Then she called the Secretaries-General. They in turn had put every single satellite on high alert to try to detect whatever missile the aliens would hurl at Earth to launch the virus, carefully ignoring the fact that the aliens could probably just make it appear anywhere they pleased. The
y spread the word to every major disease-control center on the planet. Every doctor who could be reached by the long arms of government bureaucracy was awake and on alert.

  They waited, Su waited, in the darkness of her own apartment, frightened both by the magnitude of what was happening, and her own inability to do anything at all about it

  Then nothing happened.

  Su looked down from the stars. Below her balcony, she could see a familiar figure crossing the deck.

  She gripped the wrought-iron railing and watched Sadiq Hourani present himself to the door of her building for identification and admittance. The swish of the door was lost under the roar of the ocean waves, but she did see him enter.

  Be here any moment.

  She felt strangely calm. She had a fair idea what had brought him to her door this late at night without calling ahead, but somehow she could not get herself to fear it.

  Perhaps I believe I deserve whatever comes.

  She walked back into her living room. The room was comfortable, even a little luxurious with its thick, Persian carpet, the carved tables, and vases of fresh flowers. The balcony’s etched glass doors glided shut behind her. As they did, the front door chimed, and its panel showed her Sadiq waiting in the hallway with his endless patience.

  Su took a deep breath. “Door. Open.”

  The door did as it was told, and Sadiq walked into the foyer. He looked tired, she thought, and a little sad.

  Well, they had been friends for a long time, and this had to be something of a disappointment for him.

  “Good evening, Su,” he said, walking forward. “I’m sorry for calling so late—”

  “There’s no need for you to apologize to me.” She waved his words away. “Won’t you sit down?” Su gestured toward one of her low, faux leather sofas. “I don’t see why we should stand on ceremony after all this time. Can I send for some coffee?” It was astonishing how easily she fell into the hostess role. Then again, she’d had a great deal of practice at play acting.