The Invisible City

by Brian K. Lowe

  "For centuries we lived quiet lives, trading with those who came to trade, but seldom venturing away ourselves. We thought of ourselves as the parents—or perhaps the grandparents—of the children of the stars… and like any grandparents we occupied our time with our own pursuits.

  "After hundreds of years of not bothering anyone, and no one bothering us, we began to turn our weapons to other uses. By the time the Nuum came, we had nothing left to defend ourselves."

  "What did they want?" I asked.

  He snorted softly. "It didn't matter. I don't even know if they intended to conquer us all along, or if it was just so easy, they went ahead and did it. In either event, they took everything. And they've owned us for three hundred years.

  "Every generation they become more and more ingrown, less and less interested in what we're doing—and more and more like us, at the same time. This town, for example, they call it Vardan, after somebody's grandfather. But the grandchildren aren't taking very good care of it. Vardan is falling apart."

  I shrugged. "I'll admit I haven't seen very much, but it doesn't look run down to me. Your house is very nice."

  "Thanks, but you probably can't see it—" He broke off, chuckling suddenly at some private joke. It was odd to hear him laugh, because the sound came entirely from his mouth. It gave my heart a lift to know that something as simple as a man's laugh was still the same wherever I went. "Of course you can't see it," he went on more reasonably. He gave a jerk with his head in the direction of town. "It's over there. Where all the big towers are."

  I had to stand up to look, since the bushes were in the way, but even then I couldn't see where he was indicating. Frowning, I looked to him for confirmation. He was trying with little success to keep from laughing again.

  "You can't see it," he advised me when he had himself under control once more. "You can't see the city because part of it's invisible."

  "Invisible?"

  "Well, not really invisible, more like transparent. But from this distance it's the same thing. Once you get into town you can see a little better. And if you did, you'd see what I was talking about.

  "It's ironic," he went on. "We could help them a lot. But it's a capital offense to have access to any machines we can carry. They're afraid we'd make weapons."

  "Would you?"

  Bantos Han's narrowed eyes were his only reply.

  I reached slowly down to my holster and drew forth my Webley. Heavy as it was, I still wore it at all times in case Farren dropped by to see Hana, which he seemed to do every chance he got.

  "What would the Nuum do if they saw me with this?"

  Without touching it, he looked the revolver over carefully.

  "It's a machine; that's enough for them. They'd confiscate it and execute you. Is it a weapon?"

  I nodded and described to him how it worked, and what it could do…what it had already done once, in fact, since I'd been here. He said nothing in reply, and we sat, staring in the thing in my hand as though it were an odd creature we had found in the garden. After a while, I put it away.

  5. I See Wonders

  Within a few days, I had progressed sufficiently in my studies that my teachers thought it was safe for me to go outside and see some of the city.

  "Won't I stand out? I'm too tall to be one of you."

  Bantos Han frowned. "Don't they have tall people where you come from? Just because we're all shorter than you are, doesn't mean everybody is."

  "You'll be fine," Hana Wen assured me. "Just slouch a bit. Don't walk like a soldier. Relax."

  That, of course, was the hardest advice to take, but I pretended I was back in the trenches where no man stood tall unless he wanted a German sharpshooter to make him permanently a head shorter. The role was easier to assume than I thought.

  Since personal transportation was, naturally, forbidden, the four of us walked to the corner to await a trolley. I was pleasantly surprised to note that some things had improved over time—the open-air trolley arrived almost as we did. We boarded and sat down; if there was any mechanism for collecting fares, I could not see it.

  The ride was smooth and utterly soundless, and since my hosts had decided that conversation in the close quarters of public transportation was best avoided, lest any "accent" on my part be detected, I was free to watch the passing scenery. Amazingly, I quickly grew bored: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  Human beings required the same food, clothing, and shelter as in my day, and the shape of their shelter, the only aspect of this equation I could observe from the trolley, had not changed dramatically over the years. Perhaps also it was due to centuries of oppression that made each dwelling seem so like its neighbors, drably earth-toned single-story houses with rounded corners and windows. Most boasted only the most minimal of yards, with almost no plant life, let alone gardens. Bantos Han's house was plainly an exception in a land where exceptionality bred danger. Most humans seemed content to kneel before their conquerors and hope for the storm to blow over.

  As we approached the city proper, however, the view changed for the better. Soap bubbles in the shapes of buildings seemed to grow out of thin air, more solid the closer we came, but never more than ethereal, glinting like muted diamonds in the sun. The closer to the center of the city, the taller the buildings, so that the entire scene resembled a fairy giant's ice sculpture. I had never seen anything so beautiful.

  But as we passed inside the city limits, my gaze was wrenched from the skies and fixed upon the people—if people you could call them. A woman paraded down the street in broad daylight wearing nothing but flowers in her hair—I was so shocked that I could not tear my eyes from her swaying body, until I realized that she was not wearing flowers in her hair, they were her hair!

  Only a profound revelation could have drawn my eyes away, and one was not long in coming. A bull moose was parading down the avenue—on his hind legs.

  He was dressed in a dark brown suit, not too unlike what I might have worn in his position—except that I was a human being. Head and shoulders above the crowd, he held a small device up to his ear…and then he spoke into it! He must have felt my eyes upon him, for he stared at me most queerly as he passed.

  I stared in turn at his retreating head and antlers, remembering Bantos Han's story about visitors from other worlds. I had assumed at the time they would all look like men, as did the Nuum. Suddenly my sense of my own naiveté washed over me like a cold bath. It was followed by a colder drenching of pure dread. What else was walking these streets?

  My companions seeming perfectly at ease with our surroundings, I forced myself to relax. If I lost my new-found mental control and broadcast my fear of these everyday sights, I would like find myself in a latter-day Bedlam before lunch time.

  The sudden thought of food cheered me, reminding me as it did of our destination. After much discussion, my adopted family had decided that a communal meal would allow me ample opportunity to observe the manners and customs of my new world, while at the same time giving me the camouflage of hiding in plain sight. We were to eat breakfast at a small but well-known restaurant, in the city where I might see a variety of sights, but away from the best sections, where the Nuum tended to congregate. There was nothing to be gained by courting trouble.

  The Hans' wisdom proved true. Nothing is more universal than the human (or alien!) need to eat, and in every society, it seemed, the communal meal was a cultural staple. The restaurant sat on a corner, above a market whose windows advertised foodstuffs of a dozen planets. I stared at them, overcome by the sheer number of colors—never before had I been so acutely aware that earthly food comes mostly in shades of green and red—until Hori Han took my arm.

  "Don't worry, you'll find plenty of food you recognize upstairs."

  She lead up a short flight of stairs to a dining room that could have easily come from London or New York. As I have noted, the necessities do not change: tables, chairs, silverware all looked familiar. The walls were not hung with cur
tains; the walls themselves, being transparent, had somehow been tinted so that the sun was tempered and gave enough light to see while causing no discomfort to the diners. The diners themselves, I was happy to see, were nearly all earthmen. There was not a moose nor a walking hedgehog to be seen. The room was quiet, though nearly full, with most conversation being carried out on a telepathic level. The only sounds were those rare words that must be said to be understood.

  The only exception, I was charmed to see, was an infant whose burblings and occasional cries appeared to be accepted in good grace by all. Apparently I was not the only one for whom telepathy was a learned activity. I smiled; it gave new meaning to the term "born yesterday."

  As we reached our table, I automatically stood behind Hori Han's chair, holding it for her, expecting Bantos Han to do the same for his wife. Instead, the other three seated themselves, turning as one to stare at me, standing up alone like a lighthouse in the middle of the desert. Quickly I sat down before anyone could take curious notice.

  "It's a custom where I come from to hold a chair for a lady," I whispered in response to their furrowed brows and puzzled looks. They exchanged glances, shrugged, and turned to their menus. Again I nearly betrayed myself; I couldn't find the menu, but Hana, alert for just such an eventuality, put her hand on mine, in the process subtly activating a button I had taken to be a table decoration, but which actually caused the menu to appear in the air before me. Rather than commit any further errors, I graciously allowed her to choose my breakfast for me.

  Despite her earlier assurances, I didn't see a single dish I recognized, although the fruit juice was similar to an orange-pineapple mix, and the meat dishes were more than palatable.

  I have said I was struck by the quiet, mostly telepathic conversation; at our table we were even more so, to give me the chance to watch the people, but all at once even that low hum of sound faded almost completely away. Hori Han looked up at something over my left shoulder, and her face froze. I risked a look myself.

  Sitting down, three tables away, was a Nuum.

  He was a study in indifference. When everyone at each of the adjacent tables decided, almost simultaneously, to leave his breakfast unfinished, pay his bill, and leave, the Nuum paid no attention. When every waiter in the restaurant bringing in food changed course and carefully lined up, out of his sight, awaiting his order, he did not notice. And despite my open staring for several moments, he was oblivious to my presence.

  No sooner had he made a choice than one of the waiters swooped in to serve him another diner's meal. He accepted this as his due, albeit with some small look of annoyance—whether because the food was late, or too prompt to allow for complaint I could not say.

  The remainder of the waiters swiftly and quietly rerouted their dishes to their original destinations. My companions' were among them; mine was not. I had the distinction, it seemed, of having given up my meal to my superior. I hid my anger with difficulty.

  My breakfast arrived late and without apology. Gradually the conversation increased, but never to its previous level. My frequent glances showed the Nuum eating steadily and mechanically, as if my breakfast were only the most palatable of an array of distasteful choices. My anger began to be overtaken by my offense at his rejection of my taste.

  We both looked up when the baby began to cry. Its mother picked it up immediately, her eyes darting to the outworlder, but the baby was not satisfied. If anything, its cries grew more insistent. The mother fumbled at her blouse, and I realized with some consternation that she planned to try to nurse right there in the restaurant in front of a room full of strangers. Fortunately for my outraged morality, she was too nervous to work the fastenings.

  Fortunate for me, but not for her or the baby.

  The Nuum lifted a single finger, and a waiter appeared at once. He nodded at the mother and child, muttering something unintelligible, and the waiter blanched. He walked unsteadily toward the mother, but she had already seen the by-play. She bolted out of her seat, baby clutched desperately to her bosom, and ran from the room, leaving her companions and belongings behind.

  The Nuum resumed his meal. All around me others did the same. I pushed my plate away. My appetite was gone.

  I went to bed that night worried that I would not sleep, electrified as I was with anticipation and trepidation. I had been a soldier, and a good one, but now I was operating as a spy, and like a spy I could expect no mercy if I were unmasked. But it was not my well-founded fears that interrupted my slumbers.

  It had been a long while since I had spent time with a woman—before I left for France, in fact. Not that the French girls were uninterested; by the standards with which I had grown up they were downright forward. Most of the men in my company had taken advantage of French hospitality while waiting their orders to the front, and I might have as well, given the possibility that I would not return, but a veteran sergeant had made me a gift of a few well-chosen words about the hazards of "dippin' in the same well" as so many others, and I had abstained.

  But my abstinence had been born out of common sense, not principled morality. That night my chamber door slid quietly open and a figure slipped inside. I was already familiar enough with her thoughts to recognize Hana. She stood at the foot of my bed, her breath audible to my straining ears. Her robe slid to the floor; there was nothing underneath.

  Withal the details are private, I said words that night which I had never spoken before; nor had she, I believe, ever heard them.

  I was doubly reluctant to leave my bed the next morning; not only was I was loathe to leave Hana's side, but to add insult to injury, I needed to be out of Bantos Han's house before dawn.

  So with some red hair dye Hori had obtained, and a pair of red coveralls whose origin I did not question, I magically transformed from slave to master. An early morning departure had seemed wisest; although none of the neighbors would dare remark openly upon the sight of a Nuum departing the Hans' residence at any hour, still the rumors would fly and I was loathe to harm their reputations.

  I regarded myself in the mirror, clad in unconventional scarlet from my head (literally) to my toes.

  "I'm ready," I said to my reflection.

  I was never more wrong in my life.

  6. The New World

  My adventure began, however, innocuously enough. Following explicit instructions, I took automated transportation into the city center. Its visibility, or lack thereof, did not present a problem because the sun had not come up; the city was lit up just as one would expect any large urban center would be.

  I found myself in the local "business park" where Bantos Han had his office. Once there I was able to loiter with impunity, since no one would dare to question one of the Masters as to his doings. Only about the Nuum themselves did I need to worry, and Bantos Han had assured me that they paid as little attention to each other as any passing pedestrians on the streets of Los Angeles or London.

  “They’ve been here for three hundred years, and they’re spread all over the world,” he had said. “You can’t expect them all to know each other.”

  As I had expected, the pre-dawn streets were quite deserted, populated only by those whose toil required them to be up and about. I mused about the universal nature of their jobs, for though I could not very well ask them what they were doing, the work of the trash collector, the street sweeper, and even the delivery man is the same no matter where he may be found. If they noticed me, I failed to concern them.

  I used the time to myself to conduct some investigations. The architecture and construction of the buildings, for example, were completely foreign to me. Since no one was about to remark upon it, I was able to pay the kind of close attention that would have attracted stares in broad daylight. These office complexes (as I correctly assumed them to be) were tall, perhaps ten stories on the average, but quite narrow to my eye. Their surfaces were slick and cool to the touch. Every building boasted windows by the hundreds; some seemed to be made of nothing else. At first
I wondered how glass could hold their weight, but when I touched a ground-floor window I found it was not glass, but rather the same material of the walls, rendered transparent. This discovery awed me considerably, and I am sure had the streets not been deserted my stupefaction would have made me a magnet of unwanted curiosity.

  Just then, the sun, which had been betraying its coming by the graying of the eastern sky, hove into view at the end of the street. For a few moments the entire city was transformed into a fairy land of sparkling diamonds, the sunlight catching glassy corners and cornices that dazzled and delighted.

  My breath caught at the sight of ten thousand points of sunlight catching and refracting off the walls and windows, a galaxy of stars that by some modern magic did not blind, but only enchanted.

  Then, as if by more magic, the street sweepers and the drivers—and the buildings!—faded away to be replaced almost in the same instant by throngs of office workers. Suddenly I was in the middle of a vast open space among crowds of people—and others!

  Although I had realized that there were to be many astonishing, mind-wrenching sights to behold, I was nonetheless unprepared for them. This part of town seemed to court the alien trade more aggressively than that where the Hans had lead me before, and glad I was that I was backed up against a solid wall, else I might have run.

  Another moose—or the same—in a brown suit of overlapping leathery plates; a black woman who might have caused no tremor walking down Broadway, save that she was over seven feet tall, with ten-inch fingers, and gaunt almost to the point of transparency; a three-foot high cross between an iguana and a parakeet…

  It was all at once too much. I wrenched myself away from the sight, colliding with oncoming pedestrians. For a moment I was carried along with them on the sidewalk. Suddenly the shoving stopped and an island of calm surrounded me. All the people were edging away from me, trying to escape without attracting my notice, making small motions and noises of excuse. Waves of embarrassment, fear, and longing, the latter tinged with envy, wafted toward me as they moved out of my way, out of the way of their master.