"After fifty million years? What could be the motive?"
"I don't know. There are limits to physical investigation, n matter how patient. But I think it was a close thing back in the twenty-third. The aliens pulled out all the stops at the end, are it was barely enough. After the war, they were very weak-perhaps on the edge of extinction themselves. They were gone from the Solar System for millions of years. But make no mistake, Wil. They have not forgotten us."
"You expect another invasion."
"That's what I've always feared, but I'm beginning to feel otherwise. There are too few of them; their game is steal now. They aim to divide and destroy. Marta's murder was only the beginning."
"What?"
Chanson flashed a quick, angry smile. "The game is not so academic now, is it, my boy? Think on it: With that murder, they crippled us. Marta was the brains behind the Korolev plan.
"You claim they're here among us? I should think you high-techs can monitor things coming into the system."
"Certainly, though the others don't bother. One of the safest places for long-term storage is on cometary orbits. Such bobbles return every hundred thousand years or so. Only I seem to realize that a few more return than go out. At least half my time has been spent building a surveillance net. Over the megayears I intercepted three coming in with substantial hyperbolic excess. Two came out of stasis in the inner Solar System, surrounded by my forces. They came out shooting, Wil."
"Did they use the super Wachendon suppressor?"
"No. I think their surviving equipment is scarcely better than ours. With my superior position, I managed to destroy both of them."
Wil looked at the little man with new respect. Like all the high-techs, he was a monomaniac; anyone who pursued one objective for centuries would be. His conclusions had been ridiculed by most of the others, yet he stuck by them and had done his best to protect the others from a threat only he could see. If Chanson was right... Wil's mouth was suddenly dry. He could see where this was leading. "What about the third one, Juan?" he said quietly.
Again that angry smile. "That one was much more recent, much more clever. It did a lookabout before I was in position. I was outmaneuvered. By the time I got back to Earth, it was already here, claiming to be human-claiming to be Della Lu, long-lost spacer. Your partner is a monster, my boy."
Wil tried not to think about the firepower that floated over their heads. "Is there any solid evidence? Della Lu was a real person.
Chanson laughed. "They're weak now. Subterfuge may be all that's left them-and surely they have copies of GreenInc. Did you see this 'Della Lu' right after she arrived? It would be a joke to call that thing human. The claim she's so old that normal human attributes have faded is nonsense. I'm more than two thousand years old, and my behavior is perfectly normal."
"But she was alone all that time." Wil's words defended her, but he was remembering the encounter on the beach, Lu's insectile manner, her cold stare. "Surely a medical exam would settle this."
"Maybe. Maybe not. I have reason to think the exterminators are of nearly human structure. If their life sciences are as good as ours, they could rearrange their innards to human standards. As for subtle chemical tests-our ignorance of then and their technology is simply too great to risk accepting negative evidence as proof."
"Who else have you told?"
"Yel‚n. Philippe. You can be sure I'm making no public accusations. The Lu creature knows someone attacked her coming in, but I don't think she knows who. She may even think it was an automatic action. Even if she's alone, she is terribly dangerous, Wil. We can't afford to move against her until all the high-techs are willing to act together. I pray this will happen before she destroys the settlement.
"I don't know if Philippe believes me, but I think he'd act if the rest could be won over. As for Yel‚n, well... I already said she was the lesser of the Korolevs. She's done some passive testing and can't believe the enemy could make such a good counterfeit. She's totally unimpressed by Lu's erratic behavior. Basically, Yel‚n has no imagination.
"You may be the key, Wil. You see Lu every day. Sooner or later she is going to slip, and you will know that what I say is true. It is vitally important you prepare yourself for that moment. With luck, it will be something small, something you can pretend to ignore. If you can cover your knowledge, she may let you live.
"And if she lets you live, then maybe we can convince Yel‚n."
And if f she doesn't let me live, no doubt that will be evil evidence too. One way or another, Chanson had a use for him.
ELEVEN
Della Lu arrived in early afternoon. Wil stepped outside to watch her land. The autons supplied by Yel‚n and Della were faithfully keeping station several hundred meters above the house. He wondered what a battle between those two machines would be like, and whether he could survive it. Before, he'd been grateful for Lu's protection against Yel‚n. Now it worked both ways. Brierson kept his face placid as the spacer walked toward him.
"Hi, Wil." Even with his recollection of the early Della, it was hard now to believe that Chanson could be right. Lu wore a pink blouse and belled pants. Her hair was cut in bangs that swayed girlishly as she walked. Her smile seemed natural and spontaneous.
"Hi, Della." He grinned back with a smile he hoped seemed just as natural and spontaneous. She entered the house ahead of him.
"Yel‚n and I have a disagreement we'd like you to..." She stopped talking and her body tensed. She sidled around the living-room table, her eyes flicking across its surface. Abruptly something round and silver gleamed there. She picked it up. "Did you know you were bugged?"
"No!" Wil walked to the table. A spherical notch about a centimeter across had been cut from it. The notch was where Chanson had set his bug stomper.
She held up the silver sphere-an exact match for the notch -and said, "Sorry to nick your table. I wanted to bobble it first thing. Some bugs bite when they are discovered."
Wil looked at his face reflected perfect and tiny in the ball. It could contain anything. "How did you spot it?"
She shrugged. "It was too small for my auton to see. I've got some built-in enhancements." She tapped her head. "I'm a little more capable than an ordinary human. I can see into the UV and IR, for instance.... Most of the high-techs don't bother with such improvements, but they can be useful sometimes."
Hmm. Wil had lived several years with medical electronics jammed inside his skull; he hadn't liked it one bit.
Della walked across the room and sat on the arm of one of his easy chairs. She swung her feet onto the seat and braced her chin on her hands. The childlike mannerisms were a strange contrast to her words. "My auton says Juan Chanson was your last visitor. Did he get near the table?"
"Yes. That's where we were sitting."
"Hmm. It was a dumb trick, ran a high risk of detection. What did he want, anyway?"
Wil was ready for the question. His response was prompt but casual. "He rambled, as usual. He's discovered I speak Spanolnegro. I'm afraid I'll be his favorite audience from now on."
"I think there's more to it than that. I haven't been able to get an appointment for us to interview him. He won't say no, but he has endless excuses. Philippe Genet is the only other person who seems to be avoiding us. We should put these people at the top of our interview list."
She was doing a better job of proving Juan's case than Juan himself. "Let me think about it.... What was it you and Yel‚n wanted to know?"
"Oh, that. Yel‚n wants to keep Tammy bobbled for a century or so, till the low-techs are `firmly rooted.' "