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.

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