1
Unvasion
Guns and bombs, or spears and arrows, or rocks and clubs: all variations on the same theme, and all of them outdated. Why, historically, has one country, or tribe, or fiefdom sought to overthrow another? To control its population and its resources, of course. But if you embark on a Thirty Year’s War, or a Hundred Year’s War, or a World War, one side not only ends up destroying the opposing population and resources it desires to control but also inevitably impoverishing itself.
It’s just not a very cost-effective way to conquer.
Yet nation-states are still stuck in the same mindset. Destroy, overpower, obliterate. Everyone has seen one of a thousand variations on the cartoon of a single surviving soldier standing alone amidst total destruction and crying out, “I won!” Won what? Scorched earth?
Some aspects of society are finally growing more sophisticated where such enterprises are concerned. That doesn’t mean that some newcomers might not have more experience in such matters and be better at it.
Aliens, for example. With better credit scores.
IT ALL BEGAN when the L’treth indicated their desire to acquire a McDonald’s franchise.
Yes.
As an experienced executive assistant and qualified paralegal, Karen possessed an exhaustive assortment of expressions, but the one she flashed Noble when she entered his office was new to him. “I thought I’d come and tell you in person, Derrick. I wanted to come and tell you in person.” Her gaze flicked ever so briefly backward, in the direction of the outer office. “There are two aliens waiting to see you. They’re causing something of a stir.”
Noble had been a lawyer far too long to let anything, anything at all, unsettle him. Especially so early in the morning. “Do tell. Well, I guess you’d better send them in before the stir becomes a ruckus.” He glanced at a desk calendar and exhaled slowly. “I’m free ’til eleven. Hold the Harrington department store group half an hour if you have to.”
“Yes, sir.”
She disappeared momentarily. In her wake there eventually appeared a pair of L’treth. They studied the office with interest and, Noble chose to believe, approval. “Won’t you come in—gentlemen,” he added after a moment’s indecision. The L’treth were hard to sex. “Please, take a seat.”
The aliens were short, squat, horizontal of eye, and broad of nose and mouth. Frog-like, according to the popular media, but not intimidatingly so. Any superficial batrachian resemblance ended there. Their shimmering, silvery skin was smooth to the point of looking polished, their attire colorful and varied according to individual taste, and they were reassuringly bipedal. The fold of delicate, fluted flesh that crossed their otherwise bald heads weaved slowly back and forth like kelp off the California coast. The single hearing organ was no less offensive to the general aesthetic than were humankind’s dual, projecting, wrinkled ears. Only their limbs smacked of the truly exotic: a pair of supple three-foot long pseudopods that terminated in flexible, black-rimmed suckers. As the L’treth sat down they rested these, not on their hind limbs, but by draping them back over their shoulders and crossing them behind their short necks. Not only was this posture intriguing, to a human it was also demonstrably non-threatening: the equivalent of putting one’s hands behind one’s back.
“I am J’mard,” the slightly larger alien began, without further delay. The L’treth were known to have a horror of wasting time. “We understand that you are given to taking atypical assignments, Mr. Noble.” J’mard’s English was flawless. In consequence of their wondrous talent for aural mimicry, not to mention flexible larynxes, the L’treth easily mastered whatever Earthly language they chose to study. Conversely, a human could speak L’treth, but it required a good deal of effort. Even then, the experts had trouble with pronunciation and grammar.
“I like a challenge,” Noble admitted readily. “I’ve been a lawyer for a long time, and I’m easily bored.”
“I am N’delk,” declared the other. Reaching into a pouch made of some sumptuous metallic material slung at his short waist, he handed his host a thumbnail-sized cube. “Please to insert this into your computer. I assure you, it will do it no harm, nor will it plant anything intrusive. We do not injure those whose advice we seek.”
Noble hesitated only briefly before popping the cube into the less essential of the two machines on his desk. Something loaded instantly, and he was rewarded with a spray of diagrams and figures. Captions were rendered both in English and in the complex L’treth script. Noble recognized surveyor plats almost as soon as he did the familiar yellow arch.
“This shows a plot of land at the junction of Interstate 17 and New River Road in the central part of the American state of Arizona,” J’mard explained. “We think it would be an excellent location for a McDonald’s.”
N’delk’s hearing organ fluttered. “Humans would flock to it. We calculate that it would return an admirable profit.”
Noble studied the monitor for a while, then nodded. “I agree. Not really my specialty, but to my casual eyes it looks like a good site.” Turning away from the monitor, he met large, limpid gray eyes. “The first question that occurs to me is; what do the L’treth need with monetary profit? Or for that matter, Earthly currency of any kind?”
J’mard replied. “Since the time of First Contact, which was not so very long ago, many of us visiting your world have expressed a desire to work with your kind in the evolution of ventures of mutual interest. Your world has much to offer the L’treth, in the form of opportunities for mutual manufacturing, tourism, the acquisition of your wonderful handicrafts, and so on. In order to do this, those of us who are interested require access to quantities of the local medium of exchange.
“The best way for us to obtain such currency is to participate in your dominant free-enterprise form of commerce. This means entering into and participating in the local business community. Making investments. Dumping valued items easily obtainable elsewhere, such as gold or hard, clear carbon, would only weaken your economic system. Not only do we have no desire to do this, but it would be counter to what we seek to achieve. We hope to work within the framework of your existing economic system without causing it any harm.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” Noble admitted. “I can, of course, represent you in negotiations for the land, and for the acquisition of the franchise. Where will you get the currency to pay for them?”
Opening his own pouch, N’delk brought forth a sucker full of small metal needles. They glittered and danced in the light of Derrick Noble’s office. “We can offer access to certain technologies that your scientists and researchers are tracking, but have not yet perfected. Inserting one of these into a human body will kill any runaway cell development that is present. To prevent the development of dangerous economic jealousies, we intend to make this simultaneously available to more than a single company.”
Noble stared at the innocuous little needles that had suddenly assumed an importance all out of proportion to their appearance or size. “In other words, they are a cure for cancer.”
“Generally. They are not omnipotent.” N’delk was nothing if not earnest. “Do they constitute a suitable initial offering, or should we retire and attempt to bring forth an alternative?”
Noble’s brows were as gray as the eyes of the L’treth. They arched as he focused on the needles. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary. You will be amply compensated by several companies in return for the rights to exploit the properties of these … devices. So much so that I can’t help but wonder why you need a McDonald’s franchise.”
The aliens exchanged a glance and a murmur before N’delk replied. “As we have told you, we wish to participate in your commerce. Imposing from above is not participation.” He held out the needles. “There is a limit to how much technology we can offer that your kind would find useful.”
Among other skills he had acquired in thirty years of practicing law, Noble had learned how to make rapid decisions. Rising, he extended a hand. “Mr. J’mard, Mr. N’delk, I am delighted to inform you that you are now represented, at least in the state of Arizona in the country of the United States of America, by accredited legal counsel.”
THE L’TRETH WERE RIGHT. With its carefully chosen location, their new McDonald’s prospered. The parent corporation was equally pleased, as any company is when someone franchising its product expands its customer base. They were so pleased that when another pair of L’treth, desiring to emulate the local success of their pioneering brethren, applied for a franchise in North Carolina, it was immediately granted. Since franchise territories did not overlap, their human counterparts had no objection to the aliens’ success. After all, general sales contributed to the overall earnings of the national company, whose success in turn benefited all franchisees.
The L’treth were model operators, their restaurants clean and well-run. They were particularly appreciated by their teenage part-time help, who when back in school could boast of working for aliens off-hours or over the summer—even though the L’treth relied on their human managers and were rarely seen on site. The consequences, of course, were inevitable and easily foreseen. It was only a matter of time before a consortium of ten L’treth applied for several Burger King franchises in the Northeast.
The fad, if that was what it could be called, spread rapidly. Within a year, L’treth could be found owning and operating fast food restaurants, commercial websites, flower shops (they were especially fond of flowers, it developed), shoe stores, candy outlets, dry cleaners, car washes, and all manner of businesses not only in the US, but throughout the world. Naturally, the French held out longest against this new kind of foreign ownership, but when the L’treth began operating within the borders of the EEC, there was nothing the French could legally do to keep them out.
What was the point, anyway? The aliens brought with them injections of fresh capital, created new jobs, and were model operators who invariably (but not always) deferred to the recommendations of their human managers. L’treth-owned businesses contributed to regional charities, sponsored youth football teams, and were assiduous boosters of local chambers-of-commerce. True, they looked funny, but so did those guys from Kalamazoo who operated the biggest chain of auto-parts stores in the eastern US. Really, people were fond of saying, what was the difference between off-shore ownership based in Budapest and off-world ownership based on L’treth?
That’s why the bombing caught everyone by surprise.
It happened in Sydney, of all places. Hardly the city one would pick as a hotbed of economic terrorism. The target was one of a chain of L’treth-owned pharmacies. The bombers called in the details of their plan to a local radio station, in order to give customers and staff of the intended target plenty of time to get out. The warning ended with a clarion cry: “People of Earth—Rise Up Against Your Alien Masters!”
It had a nice, defiant ring to it, but to most people it smacked of anarchy and idiocy. The L’treth were masters of nothing. If anything, they had gone out of their way to be good corporate citizens, in many instances far better than the humans whose financial participation they had supplanted. They had proven on numerous occasions that they could not be bribed, and they were exemplary custodians of the environment.
So what if the L’treth owned a majority share of Gazprom, or Apple, or Shell? Who cared if they made money off Hyundai or BHP? Their profits were inevitably reinvested, to the benefit of the companies they controlled and the employees who worked for them. They were working entirely within the local economic system, without harming it in any way.
Those who complained about nebulous, indefinable “alien influences” were demoted. The L’treth did not even have to fire anyone. Employees who grew too noisy found themselves transferred to remote locations. A few, defiant to the end, quit and moved to the deep woods. Their fellow humans thought them eccentric and harmless, as they always had those of iconoclastic bent.
The L’treth bought car manufacturers and food processors, information distributors and entertainment enterprises. Every purchase was scrupulously studied for antitrust violations, or for violations of local ordinances in whatever country the transaction was taking place. Where competition continued to exist, no one could find grounds for complaint. In point of fact, the L’treth encouraged competition: it was good for business.
Twenty years later, Noble was honored by a surprise visit from J’mard. Through dint of hard work and clever investment, the alien was now the local equivalent of a minor billionaire. Noble welcomed him readily—his association with the L’treth had seen him included very early on in the chain of spiraling profitability.
“What can I do for you, my friend?”
“Nothing, Derrick.” J’mard chose one of the new chairs, plush and expensive, and struggled to raise his closer-to-the-ground-than-human backside up onto it. “I just thought to pay you a friendly visit.”
“You’re always welcome in my office or my home. You know that.” The lawyer proffered an open box of fine Cuban cigars. J’mard took one, neatly bit off the end, chewed, swallowed, and took another bite, content.
Noble closed the box and set it back on his desk. His walking cane rested on the other side, but he disdained it. He was feeling good this morning. “Can I help you make an acquisition, J’mard? Anything new on the agenda?” Not that he needed the money, not anymore. At his age, it was the challenge inherent in the work that continued to excite Noble.
The alien munched daintily on the fragrant, finely rolled tobacco and gestured with one sucker-tipped limb. “I wish you could, Derrick, but there doesn’t seem to be much left to buy.”
The lawyer chuckled. “You don’t own everything, you know. You’ve done well, but you don’t control everything.”
“Enough. The rest will fall into place more slowly, but fall it will.”
Noble blinked. “I’m not sure I follow you, J’mard.”
“Why, the rest of the invasion, of course. You inevitably reach a point where things slow down, but they still proceed. They are proceeding nicely. Well ahead of schedule, really.” He ventured the broad L’treth equivalent of a smile. For some reason, today Noble did not find it engaging.
“What invasion?” The elderly lawyer frowned. “You’re not referring to that hostile takeover of United Biscuits your British subsidiary attempted last month, are you?”
J’mard’s expression rippled. Much like humans, the L’treth possessed an elaborate language of facial expressions. “The subjugation of your world, of course. It is a scenario we have repeated, with consistent success, on a number of worlds. It is always the easiest way to go about it. What is the point of blowing up cities and annihilating populations? What is to be gained, when the radioactive dust has settled?” He bit off another piece of cigar. “Highly counterproductive.”
“You don’t control anything but companies,” Noble pointed out, feeling suddenly uneasy. “Anytime humans wanted, they could rise up and kick you out. I don’t mean to be brusque with an old friend, but that’s the truth.”
The hearing organ fluttered like a tangoing jellyfish. “I’m glad you think of me as a friend. I think of you that way too, Derrick. No one will rise up who has a good job and is afraid of losing it. What is the difference in who one works for, be it L’treth or human? A boss is a boss. And we are good bosses. Everyone prospers under us. We simply like to be in control.”
“But you’re not,” Noble protested. This was not the discussion he’d anticipated having when J’mard’s arrival had been announced. He had thought they would talk about golf.
J’mard admired the marvelous view beyond the office windows. “Do you know how much money we gave to the Republican Party last year? Both to the party, and to individuals running for office? To the Democrats? To the New Tsarists in Russia and the Liberals in Britain? To the resurrected Falun Gong in China? It is standard procedure among human businesses, of course, to contribute to a great many causes, social as well as political. We control what we need to control, and that control is getting stronger every day. There is no shame in it, and no harm. Humans do not care who runs their governments and businesses, so long as they are well run. And as you know, the L’treth are very efficient.”
“You could be exposed any day.” Noble wondered why he was arguing. It was the lawyer in him, he decided. The old debater. “Anyone with determination and knowledge could expose you. I could expose you.”
“Could you, Derrick? You know that we own fifty-five percent of the company that operates this law firm.”
His jaw dropped. “No. No, I didn’t know that.”
“Shadow corporation operating from the Caymans,” the alien explained blithely. “Please, old friend, do not look so alarmed. We have no intention of firing you. Besides, we own large stakes in many newspaper and magazine and television and internet groups. You would find it a hard time getting your message out. If you succeeded, our media people would act to quickly marginalize it.”
“People would respond. Enough would see through the obfuscation, and understand, and rise up. Humans are devoted to their independence.”
J’mard made a sound indicative of quiet disagreement. “Humans love their jobs, and their vacation time, and their professional sports, and their television and films and tabloid newspapers. When they have these, independence is reduced to a philosophical abstract that holds little meaning for the human on the street.” He fought to edge himself further back into the chair. “We really must play some golf again. A fascinating game, though because of our short stature we are somewhat at a disadvantage compared to you, its inventors.” Pseudopods waved. “But we are excellent putters, are we not?” Giving up on the chair, he slid back to the floor. Noble could do nothing but stare at him.
“Bombs and death-rays—who needs them? Come with me to Florida this weekend, Derrick. N’delk will be there, and we can play through the new Woods-designed course at Sarasota. You’ll like it. It’s owned by the Malaysian branch of one of our newest companies.” Having mastered, like so many other aspects of human society, the culture of the handshake, he extended a forelimb at the end of which there was no hand.
Not really knowing what else to do, not really seeing an alternative, Noble took it. “I don’t care what you say or how you attempt to rationalize it, it all comes down to semantics. No matter what you do, no matter what you try, you’ll never conquer us.”
“Conquer you?” The squat, stocky alien looked up at him out of soft gray eyes. “Why should we want to try and conquer you? Humans are tough, skilled, highly adaptable fighters. We recognized that right away. In a fight, you would be hard to defeat. Even with the kind of advanced technology we have shared with you, a war would be difficult to win.” Had J’mard possessed eyelids, Noble was certain he would have winked.
“Besides, why would we want to damage that which we already own?”