Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (2 page)

“But surely,” the Prenaust interrupted, “with your ability to control mood disorders you can modify the depression, or angst, or passivity?”

Genegineer waved her muzzle back and forth again. “Our most successful treatment for depression involves boosting the reproductive drive. We’re able to do this while simultaneously reducing the success of reproductive attempts, but if we reduce reproductive success sufficiently to keep the population from expanding we again run into failure anxiety.” Genegineer lifted her wings and shook them in frustration, “
Nothing
we’ve tried works! We
must
vent some of our population to another system and hope we figure it out before we’ve filled that one.”

Looking at the Habitat Minister, Prenaust said, “And how goes the construction of additional orbital habitat?”

He also shook his muzzle. “We’re not keeping up. All the easy sources of carbon and oxygen have already been used up. We’re still building habitat, but the population is expanding faster than we’re providing room for it.”

Finally, Prenaust turned to Explorer. “Tell them,” she said, waving at the other counselors, “what you’ve learned so far.”

Explorer turned to face the others, “We’ve sent two missions so far. I can confirm that we’ve been able to reproduce the interstellar wormhole technology of our ancestors. The first of our two missions went back to Ican to ask whether it or any of the other older systems have found a way to control their populations.” He waved his muzzle in negation, saying only, “They have not.” After a pause, his wings drooped a little and he continued, “We sent the second mission to Mato. That star did not have any oxygen bearing worlds.”

A rustle of unease went around the rest of the counselors. Prenaust’s old friend Jaelon, now the Minister of Logistics, said, “Are you thinking that we won’t be able to find an oxygen world?”

“No,” Explorer said, “we’ll find one. It’s just disappointing that there wasn’t one at Mato. We’re prepping a trip to Obi, but it’ll take a year or two to refurbish, repair and fuel the ship. In addition, we must train a crew for it, training’s
not
inconsequential.”

“Train a crew? Why not use the experienced crew from the other trips you’ve sent out so far?”

“It’s been almost impossible to get any of the crew from those trips to sign up for another trip.”

Logistic tilted his head curiously, “Why’s that?”

“Transition is incredibly painful.”

Logistic looked surprised, “Even in hibernation?”

Explorer shrugged, “The ones in hibernation feel
horrible
when they wake up.
And
not everyone survives.”

Habitat gave an alarmed look, “What if we can’t get anyone to leave this system for the next?!”

“It won’t be a problem,” Historian said. “Once crowding gets bad enough, they’ll
happily
suffer the agony and brave the death just to get away from the rest of us. It’s always been that way, and probably always will…”

***

Vaz had his arms crossed the over his chest and stared out the front windshield unhappily. “Why are we driving way up here?”

The car slowed, then turned left off the main road onto a little lane. Deciding she couldn’t put off telling Vaz where they were going any longer, Lisanne said, “You remember how you wanted to have more room around our house so that we could be safe?”

He turned toward her, puzzlement in his eyes. “Yeah?”

“You were going to do it by buying the houses around us in our neighborhood so you could put an electronic monitoring system on their grounds.”

Vaz shrugged irritably, “Yeah. We can afford it. Besides, I can use their basements for research space.”

Lisanne said, “Sure, but all those buildings… They’d provide hidden pathways between them where people coming after us could sneak in.” Lisanne hoped that was true. She didn’t really know much about defending your property and wondered whether the surrounding homes could serve as some kind of protective wall against invaders instead. It didn’t seem like that was possible to her, since they all had quite a bit of space between them.

“I’d put monitors to watch the areas between them,” Vaz said.

Their car was pulling up to a farmhouse. “But suppose,” Lisanne said, “we lived in a building on some open land where you could see a long ways in most directions.”

Giving her a surprised look, Vaz said, “Tear down the houses?”

“No,” Lisanne said patiently. “Like here,” she waved a hand around.

Vaz suddenly got rigid like he did when he was really uncomfortable, “You mean, if we
moved
?!”

Soothingly, Lisanne said, “Up here we wouldn’t really even
have
neighbors.” She paused a moment to let that sink in, then calmly continued, “You could go outside without running into anyone… The approaches to the house would be open and easy to monitor… It’d be peaceful…”

For a moment Vaz looked around at the open fields and Lisanne thought he might be drawn into her vision, but then he set his chin and turned his eyes back down to the floorboards, “But I wouldn’t have the surrounding homes’ basements to put research stuff into.”

Despite a flash of irritation, Lisanne had the car pull ahead. When it had she said, “But you’d have this huge barn,” she said waving at the enormous building. “It’d hold a couple of saucers. “She waved to the right at a cluster of smaller buildings, “Plus, you’d have all these outbuildings.”

Vaz looked up at the additional buildings, a little gleam coming in his eyes. Nonetheless, he said, “They block our line of sight for monitoring approaches just like the neighborhood buildings do.”

Lisanne shrugged, “So, tear them down and build underground. No one will object to that out here, but I think the city will complain if you tear down a bunch of homes in our neighborhood. It’s at least against the homeowners’ association rules.” She paused for a second, then brought out her ultimate weapon, “You might even have to present at some kind of city Council meeting about why you’re buying up all the houses around you.” She didn’t really think he’d have to do something like that, after all he could hire a lawyer to do it in his place, but Lisanne figured that talking in front of a group had to be Vaz’s worst nightmare. The very possibility that he might have to do it might let her get her way.

Vaz simply sat staring straight ahead at the barn. Lisanne wasn’t sure whether it was mulish sullenness, or deep thought. After a bit, she said, “Do you want to get out and look at the barn?” She’d thought about asking him if he wanted to look at the house, but knew he didn’t really care about where he slept and ate. What he cared about was where he’d be doing his beloved research.

A few seconds passed, then Vaz said, “Okay.” He opened the door of the car and got out.

***

Harlan Davis looked up at the real estate agent’s car as it bumped up his driveway. To no one in particular, he said, “God I hope this is good news.” He was barely making a profit farming the land he had. When the farm next door came up for sale after old man Grandy died, Harlan and his wife had decided they needed to either buy Grandy’s farm or sell their own. He wouldn’t need much more equipment to farm both parcels and the extra labor he’d need would be something he could hire seasonally. The problem was that the cost of land had gotten so high. He calculated he’d only make a small amount more profit after paying the mortgage on the new land. That was,
if
he could get them to take an offer which was substantially less than the Grandy estate was asking.

Harlan’s young daughter Reven, who’d been helping him, gave him a smile and pronounced herself certain that the sale would go through. Harlan gave her an uncertain pat on the shoulder and said, “Hope you’re right.” He started walking toward the vehicle as it pulled to a stop. Glancing toward the house he saw his wife Clarice come out the door.

The real estate agent, Kathy Roper, got out of the car and gave Harlan and amused look. “I’ve got some bad news and some good news,” she began, “I think you might like the good news though.”

“They accepted the offer?” Harlan said hopefully.

Kathy shook her head, “Sorry. No, they got an offer for the full price from a real estate developer in Raleigh. Then he got outbid by a private individual who’s actually paying the Grandy’s 10 percent more than they asked.”

Harlan’s heart sank. By his calculations the breakeven point for him had been about 92 percent of the asking price. If he paid more than that, he’d essentially be working harder to lose money, at least until the mortgage was paid off. Besides, he didn’t think the bank would loan him that much. Saying, “Son of a bitch!” he turned and looked off toward his fields, not wanting anyone to see his eyes.

Tentatively, Clarice said, “You said there was some good news?”

Roper said, somewhat uncertainly, “Well, yes,
I
think it’s good news. The new owners say they’d like someone to farm the land still. They say they don’t want it to lie fallow or become overgrown. I thought maybe you’d be interested in that?”

“I’m supposed to be some kind of hired hand then!” Harlan said, embarrassed to hear the rough emotional edge in his voice. He prided himself on having control of his emotions.

“Well, I’m not sure,” Roper said. “I had the impression you’d farm it pretty much how you liked, but Ms. Gettnor’s here in the car. She’s hoping to talk to you about how you might work it out, if you’re interested?”

Harlan turned and realized the car had a passenger who hadn’t gotten out as yet. He didn’t really want to talk to her, but Clarice was already saying, “Well sure, why don’t we all go inside and talk over some lemonade?”

Damn Clarice,
Harlan thought,
she’d be sociable with the
devil
himself.
He tried to remind himself that she negotiated better than he did, probably
because
she was sociable.

About 15 minutes later they were all gathered around the table in the Davis’ farmhouse. Clarice had poured them all some lemonade while Reven had passed out cookies. Clarice and this Ms. Gettnor, Lisanne she wanted to be called, were chattering on as happily as if they were old friends while Roper looked on approvingly. Harlan sat at his place at the head of the table saying little and trying not to scowl as dread filled him.
We’re going to get screwed,
he thought morosely. He started to wonder what they could sell their farm for and whether it would be enough to set themselves up on a bigger farm further from Raleigh.

“So, Lisanne, you’re not wanting to farm the land yourselves?” Clarice asked.

“Oh, no. We need a home with open fields around it for… various reasons. Our… current plan is to remodel the house and the barn. We’d get rid of the sheds.” She glanced at Harlan and Clarice, “Maybe you could use them?”

Harlan grunted, worrying that he was about to get gouged, “They’re not worth much.”

“Oh, we aren’t trying to sell them. We’d have to send them to the recyclers, but if you have use for them you’re welcome to them.” She paused as if she just had another thought, “They’ve got some farm equipment in them that we can’t use either. You’d be welcome to that as well.”

Harlan blinked. The woman must have no idea how much some of that equipment was worth. Getting it for free would be quite a coup.

To Harlan’s horror, Clarice put a hand on the woman’s wrist and said, “Oh,
no
Lisanne. That equipment would be worth a pretty penny. You don’t want to be
giving
it away.”

Lisanne shrugged, “We have no use for it. Just as well go to you. Hopefully it would contribute to our being good neighbors.”

Clarice stubbornly shook her head and gave her a sad look, “We
wouldn’t
be good neighbors anymore, once you realized how much you could have sold it for.”

Lisanne said, “Perhaps it could serve as an inducement in my nefarious plan to get you guys to farm our land?”

Trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice, Harlan said, “And how much are you going to charge us to farm your land?”

“Oh,” Lisanne said covering her mouth as if slightly embarrassed. “I was thinking I’d have to pay you to farm it.” She frowned, “Would you be willing to do it for free?”

Stunned, Harlan looked at the others gathered around the table as if expecting someone to start laughing. Then a suspicion formed, “Not if you’re intending to keep all the income from the crops!”

“Oh, no! You could have the income. All we want is for the fields immediately adjacent to the house to be… low? What I’m trying to say is that whatever you decided to grow in those fields shouldn’t be more than a couple of feet high?”

Harlan blinked.
Is she crazy?
he wondered. “So, what you’re suggesting is that we would farm the land, sell the crops, and keep the income. And…” he frowned in puzzlement as he tried to understand, “what you’d get out of the deal would be…?”

“A nice view out our windows, or something like that anyway. Maybe we’d object to some crops you might grow if we didn’t like the way they looked. I’m not sure, but we wouldn’t ask you to take them out right away, just not grow them the next year.”