MARY SOON LEE

EX TERRA, EX ASTRIS

Holman put his hand on my arm just before we entered the U.N. security council
meeting. "Janna, remember, be polite."

I shrugged my arm free. "What do you think I'm going to do? Yell at the
council?"

The doors opened before Holman could answer, but he shot me a warning look
before taking his seat at the oval table. Judging by the ministers' crumpled
suits and the jungle of coffee mugs on the table, the security council hadn't
had much more sleep than Holman and I. This was the fifth time in forty-eight
hours that they had summoned us to testify. And each time they asked the same
questions: had we seen evidence of subterfuge or conspiracy in our dealings with
the aliens, were there any traps disguised within the Confederate contract?

"Dr. Holman, Dr. Suzorsky," said the Japanese minister, "Thank you for your
cooperation. General Dumar asked to review your testimony one final time."

I could feel my forced smile mutating into a grimace. Most of the council
members at least pretended to be considering the merits of the Confederate
contract, but Dumar had opposed it from the very start. The contract itself was
a straightforward document, offering humans membership in the Confederacy on two
conditions: that we guaranteed never to attack other species in the Confederacy,
and that we never pursued weapons research tailored against non-Terran species.
If we refused to sign, Earth would be flagged as a prohibited world and our
contact with other sentients would cease.

Dumar leaned toward me. "Dr. Suzorsky, you were the first linguist to discover
the aliens engaged in covert communication. Correct?"

"Yes." Dumar's statement was slanted, but essentially accurate. The first seven
alien species to visit Earth arrived speaking human languages flawlessly, but
disclosed almost nothing of their own languages or technology. When the seventh
set of alien visitors, the Eridanians, arrived, I had deduced some simple word
elements from their gestural vocabulary.

"And as soon as the aliens realized you understood them, they ceased this covert
communication. Correct?"

I nodded. The Eridanians had promptly switched to speaking Mandarin Chinese to
one another.

"Then you agree that the aliens' behavior is suspicious?"

I took a deep breath. "We don't know enough about the Eridanians to understand
their reluctance to share their language; perhaps their masons are cultural or
religious -- "

"How naive," sneered Dumar. Beside me I heard Holman groan softly, and I knew he
was dreading my reaction. Ever since he first hired me, Holman has tried to
convince me that diplomacy is an important quality in a xeno-linguist.

Dumar templed his hands on the table in front of him. "Even a child would have
more sense. You admit we don't understand the aliens, but you would have us
agree to this contract in blind trust, signing away our right to defend
ourselves."

I didn't shout. I didn't raise my voice. "How naive," I said, "to believe that
our defenses would be in any way adequate if the Confederacy chose to attack.
Even a child would have more sense."

Dumar's face turned beet-red. His teeth ground together audibly, and he said
something that can be roughly translated as Ignorant Little Girl.

"And you're a paranoid, megalomaniac fool." For good measure, I repeated myself
in French, rather more colorfully.

Dumar stood up to leave. Everyone started to speak at once.

Holman raised one hand, and said quietly, looking at Dumar, "Please, General,
sit down. It's late. We're all tired." Holman has the most expressive voice I've
ever heard, soft and deep and rich. As he spoke, the rest of the council fell
silent. "Tempers are frayed. I know that Janna regrets her rudeness. General,
your perspective on this situation is greatly valued. Please don't leave."

And Dumar sat down.

Holman kicked me under the table. Hard. I muttered something that approximated
to an apology, and the meeting dragged on until one in the morning.

When the meeting finally ended I left immediately, leaving Holman still talking
to the Chinese representative. I caught the shuttle from Brussels to London,
then a taxi to my house. As soon as I walked in the front door, Horatio, my
house computer, beeped at me. "Good evening, Janna. You have seven messages
waiting. Do you wish to hear them?"

"Later."

"Three of the messages are marked as urgent --"

"Are they from Holman?"

"Yes."

"Delete them." I kicked off my shoes and sank into the sofa by the bow window.
The last thing I needed was a lecture from Holman. I stared out the window.
Outside snow clung to every surface. In the morning the London traffic would
turn the snow to brown slush, but for now it was pristine. The rowan tree sagged
under the weight, each twig coated to stubby thickness.

I rubbed at the ache in my neck. "Horatio, turn up the heating to seventy
degrees."

On the table beside me was a game I'd been given by the Tsiliit, the eighth
alien race to visit Earth and the first to share their language. I lifted up the
alien game, watching the short rods change color as they touched one another.
Unlike the other sentients, the Tsiliit had arrived without knowing human
languages. For three weeks Holman and I had taught them English as they taught
us an alien language. Under the security council's orders, I had studied the
recordings of that visit, searching for signs of duplicity. But all I had seen
was the Tsiliits' eagerness, their curiosity, and my own face captured in the
cube's recording, grinning back at them.

Through the window I watched a large snowflake drift down to land on the sill,
and for the first time I regretted my outburst. Not that I hadn't meant every
word I'd said to Dumar, but I shouldn't have risked antagonizing the rest of the
council. It was less than two years since the Tsiliits' visit, and already human
technology had leapt ahead based on the information we'd exchanged. If the U.N.
signed the contract, other species might be equally forthcoming. If.

I set the Tsiliit game back down on the table, and fetched the stack of
paper-mail, still too wound up to sleep.

I opened the first letter: an ad for a credit card. The second was my bank
statement. The third envelope was heavy. I pulled out a square of stiff
cardboard, and stopped midway. Someone had glued on a photo of me standing
beside the Tsiliit. Overlaid across the edge of the photo, its muzzle against
the image of my head, was a cut-out picture of a rifle.

"Horatio." My voice shook. "Horatio, switch on the security system."

I turned over the cardboard. A Humans First pamphlet was taped to the back,
proclaiming that the contract was a delaying tactic while the aliens prepared to
invade. The department sent out monthly warnings about Isolationist extremists,
and I'd seen snippets of the protest marches on the news-cube. But I'd never
taken any of it seriously.

I pushed the cardboard away and started opening the rest of my mail.
Systematically I unfolded the sheets of paper and stacked them on the table, but
I didn't take in a word they said. I thought about calling the police, but it
was probably just some teenage kid playing a prank. The department received
hate-mail from time to time, and it had never amounted to any more than
threatening letters.

Yet the house seemed very empty. Part of me wanted to call Holman. We have our
ups and downs, but he'd come over if I explained. He'd be reassuring and
considerate ... and also smug. I could picture his self-satisfied expression,
his wide dimpled grin. The grin of someone perfectly ready to offer support but
who never needed such support himself. Unbearable.

So I couldn't call Holman, and I didn't want to stay in the house alone. That
left Billy's pub. I changed into a black pantsuit, and caught a taxi to Billy's.

It was after three A.M. when I arrived. The poker game was still going, though
that was the only sign of life. Billy had abandoned his station behind the bar
to join in the game with Lara and Marcos.

Billy waved me over. "Been auditioning for a horror movie, Janna? Or are those
bags under your eyes a new fashion?"

"I thought I'd coordinate with your decor," I said. "Rather the worse for wear."

"Don't mind Billy," said Lara. "He's grouchy because he's lost eight hands in a
row."

Her blonde ponytail swung sideways as she patted the seat beside her. Lara
dresses like a hooker and plays like a card-sharp. I'd stake a year's pay that
she knows eight dozen ways to cheat, and another year's pay that she's never
used any of them at Billy's.

I took the seat between Lara and Marcos. "What's the game?"

"Jacks to open, nothing wild except red-eyed aliens," said Marcos.

It was nothing, the kind of comment you hear all the time at Billy's, but I
thought of the cardboard letter, and I couldn't stop myself from shivering.

"You okay, kiddo?" asked Lara.

"Fine." I picked up my cards, and took a deep breath. As ever the pub smelled of
cigarettes, the walls yellowed by years of smoke, familiar, comforting. I pushed
a coin forward. "Ten ecus."

Billy let me snatch a few hours sleep in one of the login booths before I went
back to work. When I got up, cranky and bleary-eyed, he even offered me a
squashed object that might once have been a croissant. I chewed on the
maybe-croissant while I sat at the bar, watching the news-cube. The U.N.
delegation had announced that they would be meeting the aliens next Thursday.

The BBC reporters scrupulously refrained from speculation on whether or not the
delegation would sign the contract, but they showed clips of world leaders. The
German chancellor blustered about independence, and not kowtowing to the aliens.
The Egyptian president stressed the need for a larger military budget. Only the
Chinese leader publicly advocated signing, but I hoped the others would agree
once they were off-camera if only out of fear that the aliens would otherwise
renege on their agreement and blast humanity out of existence.

I refused to think about the alternative, a world turned inward, walled into a
solar system that no one else would ever visit.

At ten o'clock I sneaked into my office without being caught by Holman. Before
tackling anything else, I emailed an apology to the French general, and a brief
note about last night's threatening letter to our security chief.

I skimmed my email, paused when I spotted a message from Lars Svendsen, the man
due to captain the fourth ship to Mars. For a moment I forgot all about work and
the Confederate contract: when I was growing up I was transfixed by the return
to the Moon -- the fragile lunar landers, flimsy metal foil envelopes on squat
legs; the astronauts swaddled in their bulky suits; Earth rising above the lunar
landscape.

Captain Lars Svendsen, astronaut and future Mars colonist. I read his message:
he wanted to meet me tomorrow to discuss a possible project if I could fit him
in at such short notice. Of course I could. I was busy rearranging my schedule
when someone knocked at the door. "Come in."

"Janna." Holman stood in the doorway, one hand clamped rigidly round the handle.
"I've just been informed that you received a death threat last night. Why the
hell didn't you call me immediately?"

The coldness in his voice told me to abandon the idea of a flippant reply. "I
didn't consider it a significant danger."

"Then in the future kindly leave such judgments to someone with more
experience."

"Fine. If it happens again, I'll phone the police. Is that satisfactory? Or do
you want to escort me home every night?"

The corner of Holman's mouth quirked. "That offer has a certain appeal." He let
go of the door handle, the line of his shoulders relaxing. "But if you'd prefer
another companion, the department will pay for a bodyguard. I don't want you at
home alone. Please."

I stared at him: he really was concerned. I hadn't thought about it before, but
I was the only person Holman ever treated in this big-brother fashion. With the
rest of his department he was friendly but more remote. With the women he dated
he was suavely insincere. "I don't need a bodyguard. If you insist, I'll go and
stay with a friend for a few days."

"Good."

And he left without even mentioning my ran-in with General Dumar.

My English aunt was out of town, and I didn't want to stay with anyone from the
department. In the end I went to a hotel. I didn't like the thought of going
back to my house, even briefly, so all I had with me was a toothbrush and a
backup change of clothes that I kept at the office.

After a shower, I turned on the hotel cube. Lines of men strode down Pall Mall,
waving black flags bearing the Isolationist symbol: a silver alien skull with
two gaping red eye sockets, one above the other. I switched to the next channel.
The same scene, but this time on the streets of Washington DC. A hollow drumbeat
sounded, and the men marched in step.

I turned off the cube and got into the bed. I was so tired my joints ached, but
it took me a long time to fall asleep, and I dreamed of skulls and blood and the
hollow beat of a drum.

The next morning Svendsen arrived at my office a quarter of an hour early. He
was a short man in his fifties, with large hands which he waved around
energetically as he apologized for being early.

"I'm delighted to meet you." I gestured at a chair. "Sit down. Can I get you a
drink?"

"Yes. No." He sat down in the chair, stood up again.

"Dr. Suzorsky, would you mind if we took a walk outside while we chat; I have
only been to London twice before, never for long."

"Call me Janna. A walk is fine."

So we went outside into a clear, cold February morning. We walked through
Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. I grew up in the States, and I relish
the long layered history of London. Buildings that date back to the Middle Ages
standing toe-to-toe with glass skyscrapers. We walked past street vendors
bundled up in overcoats and scarves. Half of them might have stepped out of
Dickens, selling hot roast chestnuts, the smell quite wonderful. But others were
selling odd little toys modeled after Tsiliit artifacts.

"What was it you wanted to speak to me about?"

"I want you to invent Martian."

I stared at him. "Martian?"

"Yes, we want a common language for Mars, a language of our own."

"Why? Why not English, or Esperanto, or Chinese? Or simply using
machine-translation--"

"No, this is not the same. To hear each other's voices, to hear how each word is
said, this is better than listening to a translation." His big hands carved up
the air as he spoke, emphasizing each point. "Originally we agreed to learn
Spanish, but when I suggested a separate language, one not tied to any
particular community, a language for Mars, there was much enthusiasm. Will you
do this? Will you make us a language?"

I'd dabbled at creating artificial languages when I was a graduate student. Most
of the linguists I knew had experimented with their own artificial language, and
to be given the chance to design a language that would really be spoken-- "I'd
love to. I'll have to check with Dr. Holman, but I'm confident he'll approve the
project." Holman was always eager to promote the department, and a project like
this was bound to attract media attention.

Svendsen beamed. "Excellent. And if it is possible we would like more than the
language alone."

"Such as?"

"Everything." He laughed, a round cheery sound. "Well, not everything. But
stories and poetry, and school books for children, all in our new language. I
thought machine-translation could be used for this."

"It can, though it won't be quite the same. Translations always lose some of the
semantics, the flavor of the original." Some of my joy in the morning deflated
at the obvious disappointment in his face. "We'll do the best we can. On the
plus side, an artificial language will be relatively easy to learn. We can avoid
the irregularities of natural languages."

We headed back toward the department. Svendsen clapped me in a bear-hug when he
said goodbye, and for a second I felt like a little girl being hugged by Father
Christmas.

I told Holman about Svendsen's request that afternoon. He agreed immediately,
and then leaned back in his chair. "You did stay at a friend's house last
night?"

"Yes." It was the simplest answer.

"And you'll stay with them again tonight?"

"Yes, Daddy."

He frowned. "Janna, I'm serious. The Isolationists are determined to prevent the
signing of the contract. They're crazy enough to try anything." He paused. "If
you need to go back to your house for any reason, I'll arrange for someone to
accompany you. I could go there with you after work if you like."

Somehow or another he talked his way into it, and drove me home directly after
work.

"Good evening," said Horatio as I opened the door. There was a pile of mail on
the doormat. I stepped over the pile, not quite ready to face it.

"You have five messages waiting. I ordered fresh milk --"

"Horatio: off."

Holman picked up the mail as he stepped inside after me. "Would you like me to
sort through this 'while you pack?"

"Thanks."

I ran upstairs, packed my suitcase. When I came back down Holman had arranged
the letters into neat stacks.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he said. He pointed at the stacks. "Bills, junk
mail, a San Francisco postcard from someone with an illegible signature."

I took the postcard from him. "It's from my sister."

Holman shifted his feet, cleared his throat. "Do you have plans for this
evening? We could have a working dinner, and discuss etymologies for artificial
languages."

I hesitated. I liked Holman, though I'd probably have denied it if he asked.
Once I'd even slept with him, but I'd recovered my wits in the morning: Holman's
trail was littered with temporary liaisons and I didn't wish to add to the
collection.

"Just dinner," said Holman. "I promise not to even mention my spare bedroom with
the jacuzzi and the view of Hyde Park."

I thought of the empty hotel room. "All right. Just dinner."

Over the following days the threatening letter receded to the back of my mind. I
worked late each evening, intent on Martian. My desk piled up with printouts. I
talked to Nadia about optimal phoneme sets, to Jeff about machine-translation to
convert existing texts to the language we were creating. When Holman had time,
he wrote additional software to aid in the language design.

I'd been doing my best to ignore the news, still uneasy whenever I saw pictures
of the Isolationists. But when it came to the day that the U.N. delegation was
due to meet the Confederate representatives, I couldn't concentrate on work. I
kept glancing at the clock. Finally I went to the department lounge to watch the
news. The room was already full, everyone crushed in around the news-cube.

Holman arrived a few minutes later, and squashed in beside me. The broadcast
showed the U.N. delegates taking their places in the new assembly chamber, their
suits dappled with colored light from the huge stained-glass dome above. The
four aliens entered and stood motionless as the Chinese leader walked down to
meet them, the contract rolled up in his hand.

Bowing his head, he presented the contract to one of the aliens. The circle of
the alien's mouth irised open and shut as it unwrapped the contract. On the
bottom of the page were the seventeen signatures of the U.N. security council.

Everyone in the department cheered and whooped and hugged the people around
them. Holman held onto me a little longer than necessary. "Have I ever
mentioned," he hissed into my ear, "that I have a jacuzzi with a view of Hyde
Park?"

"Too often," I said, stepping back.

"Does that mean you won't celebrate with me tonight?"

"Not if you were planning on an evening just for two."

"Of course not." He gave me a wide dimpled grin, feigning innocence. "Ptolemy,
my cat, is an excellent chaperone."

"Despite that assurance, I think I'll decline."

That evening I stopped work early for the first time in a week, but I celebrated
at Billy's pub rather than Holman's apartment. The next day I checked out of the
hotel and moved back home, refusing Holman's offer of a bodyguard.

Earth had a flurry of alien guests in the weeks following the signing of the
contract. After a failed bomb attempt by the Isolationists, security for the
guests tripled. No one was quite sure how the Confederacy would react if the
Isolationists succeeded in injuring one of the aliens. But it seemed possible
that they would interpret it as a breach of the contract.

Early in April Svendsen phoned. "The Aki have asked me to meet with them on
Wednesday," he said over the phone. "Apparently they are curious about the Mars
colony. Would you consider accompanying me? This will be my first meeting with
aliens; perhaps I might make some foolish blunder by myself."

"I'm sure you wouldn't, but I'll come if you like."

"The meeting is to be in London. It will be no more than a few hours of your
time. So you will come?"

"Yes."

"Excellent."

Wednesday was a cool spring day. The crocuses were open in the parks, the air
sweet with blossom. Svendsen wasn't one to waste such fine weather. The pair of
Aki agreed to a walk by the Thames, and the four of us set off, surrounded by a
phalanx of U.N. soldiers.

The Aki came from a planet with a gravity three-fifths that of Earth. They used
walker-skeletons to assist their movements, and the skeletons made a constant
low-pitched hum as we walked by the river. Svendsen and the two Aki talked
incessantly, one speaking faster than the other i followed along behind them,
content to listen, watching how Svendsen punctuated his sentences with sweeping
gestures.

The group paused opposite the Houses of Parliament. The late afternoon sunlight
brushed the old buildings to a golden-brown. The U.N. soldiers stood in a
protective semicircle backed by a broad wall overlooking the liver.

I sat on the wall, and glanced down at the river that gave birth to London over
two millennia ago, when the Romans chose it as a suitable crossing point of the
River Thames in 43 AD. I smiled at the contrast between that image and Svendsen,
future Martian colonist, standing here talking to the Aki.

A tiny glowing red dot crept along the stone sidewalk. I blinked, swiveled round
to see something sparkle high-up in the Houses of Parliament. Odd. I can't
describe it any other way. A mixture of detachment and incongruous elation as I
saw the red dot track over the stone, angling toward the nearest Aki. I jumped
up, yelling something, pushed the Aki down. I heard the sound of a bone
snapping, and that detached part of my mind noted that the Aki exoskeleton is
fragile, adapted to a lower gravity. And then there was a sharp heat spreading
down from my lower back.

Holman was there when I first woke up. He grinned like a little boy when I
opened my eyes. That's the first and best thing that I remember from the next
few days. I'd prefer to forget the reporters who squeezed into the hospital ward
to snap pictures of my backside cocooned in bioplaster, all the hate-mail from
Isolationists, and, almost as bad, the letters of praise from well-meaning
strangers. If I'd had more time to consider what I was doing, I would probably
have ducked out of the way.

On the fourth day Holman told me that the assassin's body had been found in
Geneva, a boy in his teens who'd joined the Isolationists two years ago. His
fingerprints matched those on the old-fashioned laser-rifle found earlier. The
police declared the case closed with uncharacteristic haste. But one of the U.N.
investigators told Holman privately that they suspected alien involvement.

I thought about that a lot as I lay in bed. I had plenty of time to think, and
it wasn't a comfortable experience. General Dumar had been correct up to a
point. I had been naive, assuming the aliens were trustworthy because that was
what I wanted to believe. I thought about Holman, remembering the one night I
made love to him, wondering what it would be like to stay together, wondering
whether we could ever return to being friends if a relationship didn't work out,
and whether it was worth that risk. I thought about Lars Svendsen, and the way I
had immediately leapt at the chance to invent a language, without considering
whether that was really what he needed.

I asked Holman to buy me a Latin grammar, and I wrote on the frontispiece, "To
Lars, a richer language than I could give you, with stories and speeches and
poetry, and a history that won't end as long as someone speaks it. Good luck."

I like to think of the colonists on Mars, reading Virgil and Cicero and Pliny.
It's a curious thought, the colonists speaking a long-dead language on a
long-dead world as they carve out a new history.

Through my work I have had the chance to speak with alien visitors. But it's
people like the colonists who will one day go and seek them out. Yes, alien
contact does carry risks, but I think it's better than solitary confinement in
our solar system, only able to guess at the universe beyond our doorstep.

They discharged me from hospital at the end of April, and three nights later I
took Holman to Billy's pub. It's only so long before you get bored of a jacuzzi
and a view of Hyde Park. My bottom was still sore, but life is short. I didn't
want to miss out on the poker.

"Lost a fight?" asked Billy, staring at my padded backside.

"And you're looking as ugly as ever too," I told him, gingerly sitting down.

Big Al started dealing. "Stud poker. One-eyed jacks are wild."

With one long red fingernail, Lara flicked up the edge of her hole card just
enough to see it. "Shit. I fold."

I breathed in slowly, taking, it all in, Holman and Billy, Big Al and Marcos and
Chen. Lara dressed to kill. The worn green baize, the smell of cigarettes. As
classically perfect as strawberries at Wimbledon. I sighed with contentment.