Chapter 18
“Rita, be a dear and bring us another bottle of Zhumir,” Humberto Alba asked his daughter-in-law, as she was walking by the living room entrance.
Esmerita Libertada Villacís Hirtz de Alba stopped and looked at him.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, ‘please’!” Humberto finished sarcastically.
Esmerita walked into the room, over to the liquor cabinet, pulled out a bottle, and brought it to the table of men talking, laughing and smoking their cigars.
As she was setting the bottle on the table, Humberto poured the last of the opened bottle already on the table into his glass, and he held out the empty bottle without saying anything. When Rita didn’t take the bottle, he turned to her, tilted his head and shook the bottle. The men at the table went quiet.
Esmerita grabbed the bottle from his hand and marched out of the room.
After she was no longer visible, the men burst out laughing.
Esmerita turned around, adjusted her grip on the bottle, and took three steps back towards the living room. But at that moment, her wristcomm both buzzed and sounded, and she realized she needed to go next door to her house, since the children would be getting dropped off by the transbus from their school. So she went to the front door and left the bottle on the table there as she walked out of her in-laws house.
“¡Maldito sea!” Esmerita hissed when she saw the bus starting to pull away.
“Oye! I’m right here!” she yelled as she started running after the bus. Her oldest child saw her running and said something to the transbus so it pulled over.
Esmerita ran up to the door of the transbus, placed her palm on the ID panel and looked at the camera, and then the door slid open. Each of the children, in turn, scanned their palms before they could exit from the seating section to the doorway.
Rafael got off first. “Mami! You caught the bus! You were very fast today.”
Then Manuela, “Mama, it’s so embarrassing when you do that! I told the bus to stop so the other kids wouldn’t see you running after us. You know we’ll be back around in 20 minutes, so can’t you just wait?”
Then Dolores jumped out and punched her sister in the arm. “Quit pushing me around on the bus, Manuela! I want to get out as much as you do!”
“I need to keep an eye on Rafi!” Manuela responded quickly, as she started walking to their house.
“Mama was right there! You saw her running up just as clearly as I did, so you didn’t need to push me out of the way since she could grab Rafi as soon as he stepped off the bus!” Dolores retorted.
“Enough!,” Esmerita jumped in. “Drop off your stuff and come over to Abuela and Abuelo’s house. Bring your homework, since we’ll likely be having dinner there.”
“Is Papi there?” asked Rafael.
“Yes, he’s been there for quite some time, Rafi.” his mother replied. “and he could use some time outside to clear his head, so tell him you need your practice time.”
“Yes!” the young boy said with enthusiasm and raced into their house as they got to the entrance.
“Who all else is there?”, Dolores asked with much less enthusiasm.
“Tio Paco, Señor Calderón, Señor Cueva and Assemblyman Serrano,” Esmerita answered.
“Oh! Why does Papi hang out with all those old guys?” Manuela complained. “He’s starting to act old like them. He is even starting to smell like them since he started smoking cigars.”
Esmerita smiled and said, “Well don’t tell your father that he stinks. But if you say something about the smell of his cigars, I certainly won’t stop you.”
The girls giggled and went to change out of their school clothes.
When they were ready, they walked along the back of the house with their mother to the back porch of their grandparents’ house. Rafael had already gone over and had been successful in getting his father into the small backyard to kick the soccer ball back and forth. Esmerita was quite happy to see this, since every time she saw her husband playing futbol, he seemed like the athletic young man she had been attracted to at the university, instead of the inactive and less interactive person she felt he had become.
They let themselves inside the house.
“Be careful, pequeña mariposa!” Guadalupe said to Dolores as they almost ran into each other. Guadalupe had a stack of plates, silverware and napkins she was taking to the dining table.
“I thought you had the day off today, Guadalupe?” asked Esmerita.
“I did,” she answered, “until about an hour ago when Señora Alba sent me a note asking me to come over.”
“But we were going to go to have Las Pyramids deliver dinner!” said Esmerita.
“Señora said that Señor Alba thought it would be in bad taste to serve his friends restaurant food. So, here I am!” explained the cook.
“Well, that doesn’t sound fair,” Dolores said, looking at her mother.
“It isn’t, Dolores, but life isn’t always fair,” replied Esmerita.
Dolores turned to Guadalupe and said, “Can we help you?”
The cook stopped her movement around the table and looked at the young girl. “Oh, you have such a sweet heart, child. But if your grandmother saw that, she would kick me out immediately!”
Manuela joined in, “You know we can hear her coming. Let us set the table, and if she comes this way, we’ll just start playing with the napkins and tell her you forgot something and will be right back.”
Guadalupe looked around nervously, turned to Esmerita for guidance, and when Esmerita nodded, said “Thank you, sweethearts. But be quiet, please! I need this job.” And with that, the cook scampered back to the kitchen.
After the three of them finished setting the table, the girls went to the lower level to begin their homework. Esmerita stayed in the dining room, as she had no desire to go upstairs to where her father-in-law and his friends were gathered. She could hear their laughter even though they were up one level. She could have skipped that level and gone up to the balcony above to look out over the valley, but then she would probably run into her mother-in-law getting dressed and made-up for dinner. So she pulled out a pair of viewglasses from her pocket and watched a re-cast of the Kremenchuk launch.
“You can see from the extra security here that the European Union is taking no chance that the larger crowd gathered today will spill into the landing area, which, I guess we should call the launch area today, eh, Javier?” The broadcaster from Nou asked her co-host.
Esmerita preferred watching casts from Spain, and especially from this company since they let you frequently see the scene from the perspective of the reporter who was on-site. She didn’t like watching the casters’ faces with the action in the background. And she liked how they used female reporters more than half of the time, especially for news. Esmerita got upset just thinking about how the casters on Ecuavisa or Teleamazonas would cover this event.
“This would most definitely be seen as a launch site, today, Nina,” the co-host responded to his partner. “You can see that in addition to the crowd control presence on the ground, there are EU heliplanes above getting the birds eye view of events. But they probably aren’t too interested in the crowd down here, I’m guessing.”
“No,” Nina said as she looked up and let her focus zoom in on one of the hovering aircraft, “they aren’t. We’ve been told there is also a strong presence of EU Security forces in the air and monitoring air traffic for 1,000 kilometers surrounding Kremenchuk today. They have no interest in letting another event like the failed Russian attack even be attempted today.”
“The ESA communication center informed us that EU Security craft have volunteered to escort the colonists’ launch craft into orbit, but I’m guessing the aliens probably aren’t too worried. Let’s hope their protective instinct extends to the ship with the human colonists and isn’t just focused on themselves.”
Esmerita moved the cast ahead to the launch itself.
The male co-host was talking, “… with less than a minute until the actual launch, the nerves of many people are tingling about how this take-off will occur. No one got a great view of any of the landings, so …”
“Sorry to interrupt, Javier, but I see the launch craft moving now,” Nina said with excitement, zooming in on the craft itself, “and, yes, it’s definitely started up, even though I’m not seeing any dust or rocket flames. My goodness, the craft is moving quickly! I’m having a hard time keeping it in focus, so my apologies to my friends watching this cast.”
Esmerita thought this caster must not have done too many sports casts, as her view was not keeping the launch craft in sight let alone in focus.
“Javier, I recall you did a special on the impact of the launch craft industry a few years back. How does this compare to any of the launches you’ve seen?,” the caster asked her counterpart.
“It doesn’t compare at all, Nina. No flash, no fumes, no noise – at least from what I can see and hear from where we’re at,” Javier responded. “And from the look of the people around us, it appears everyone else is just as surprised as we are by the way that ship took off.”
Esmerita watched the cast for another minute and then slid the viewglasses back in her pocket. Nothing was different from what she had seen on the live cast from Nigeria she had watched earlier in the day. Nothing new to learn about the aliens or their technology. And that made her even more worried about what was going to happen. If humanity couldn’t understand, couldn’t predict, or couldn’t even explain what was happening, how could they possibly control what the aliens would be doing, Esmerita thought.
She was about to go downstairs to check on the girls when Raphael came running in from the back yard.
“Slow down there, Mr. Speedy!” Esmerita told her son as he started to run past her to the stairs. “Where is your father?”
Rafael skid to a stop. “He went home. He was all sweaty and stinky and said he needed to put on a clean shirt.”
Esmerita thought to herself, “How nice of him to want to look good for his parents friends. So why can’t he take the same interest in his looks at our house?”
“Can we go upstairs to see Grandpa?”, Rafael asked, growing impatient standing in one spot.
His mother offered “Your sisters are downstairs. Don’t you want to go down and play with them?”
“I see them all the time. I think Abuelo Berto’s friends are funny,” Rafael countered and turned his body towards the upstairs while looking back at his mother.
She sighed, “OK.”
And up the stairs he bounded.
By the time she caught up, Rafael was in the living room sitting on his grandfather’s knee.
“What are you feeding this child, Rita? Sugar cubes? He can’t stop moving!” Humberto said as he tickled his grandson.
“No, Humberto, that’s his normal self. You know we don’t feed the children need any extra sugar in their diets,” Esmerita replied.
“Well, a little bit can’t hurt,” Humberto replied as he pulled a wrapped candy square from his pocket and held it out to his grandson.
Rafael looked at this mother for a sign of what to do. As Esmerita started to shake her head ‘No’, Humberto said sternly, “Take it, boy!”
That made Rafael jump and slide off his grandfather’s knee. Esmerita could tell this wasn’t going in a positive direction, and started saying, “Humberto, I don’t think it’s a good idea to…”
“Oh, stop it, Rita. Here, boy,” Humberto said as he grabbed his grandson’s hand and shoved the candy into it.
As Rafael looked at the candy in his extended hand, his chin began to tremble, but he didn’t say anything. In fact, the whole room had gone quiet.
“Well, don’t just stand there. Eat it!” Humberto yelled at his grandson.
Rafael opened the candy wrapper with shaking hands and put the candy into his mouth, but still said nothing. Then, after a couple of chews, he looked up at his mother with a tear starting to drop from one eye, and ran out of the room.
“Why did you insist on that, Humberto?” Esmerita said with a strained voice. “He doesn’t like conflict, and you’re telling him things contrary to what Gabriel and I have told him.”
“Conflict?”, Humberto shouted. “There is no conflict involved. He should listen to his grandfather!”
Esmerita wanted to argue, but she wanted to check on Rafael even more, so she swirled around and went in search of her son.
She found him downstairs, back in the dining room, being comforted by Guadalupe. “Now, mi pequeño dragón, you know your grandfather loves you. He is just being grumpy to show off to his friends,” the maid said as she hugged the boy tight to her chest.
Esmerita accidentally bumped a chair as she leaned against the table, which made both Guadalupe and Rafael look up. “Oh, please forgive me, Señora Villacis! I didn’t know you were there!” she said.
“That’s quite alright, Guadalupe. It’s good that Rafi knows someone in this house loves him,” Esmerita said, and she motioned for her son to come over. Rafael ran to his mother to get her hug as well.
“Excuse me, Señora, but I need to get to the food. Dinner is almost ready,” Guadalupe said and she slipped out of the room.
“Let’s go find your sisters, Rafi. We’ll wash up and have some real food to eat when we get back up here,” Esmerita said.
They found the girls in the lower level, Manuela deep in reading the instructions from a textbook, and Dolores typing away on her tablet, probably comming with her friends. When she heard her mother and brother come in, she quickly typed a final word, tapped a couple of spots on the screen, and looked up with a smile as she made sure to lay down the tablet with a homework assignment clearly visible.
“How are Maria and Yarina doing?” Esmerita asked her daughter.
“Um, fine, I guess. Why do you ask?” Dolores said, trying to sound innocent.
“Well, weren’t you just talking to them?” her mother asked.
Manuela giggled without looking up from her own tablet.
Dolores knew she wasn’t going to get away with her ruse. “Oh, Mama, how can a person study with what’s going on in the world? Who even knows if they’ll have school tomorrow?”
“Now who is saying school will be cancelled tomorrow,?” Esmerita asked.
“Well, no one said that, but Yarina heard one of the teachers talking about not coming in tomorrow because she was scared about the aliens coming here and lining people up to ship off to the other planet and she didn’t want to be where everyone else was because they would come where there are a lot of people,” Dolores said as she took in a big breath.
“They are most certainly not coming here tomorrow, Dolores. Your friend is just trying to scare you, and probably doesn’t want to go to school tomorrow since she doesn’t have her homework done either,” Esmerita said. “Now wash your hands and come upstairs to eat. It’s time for dinner.”
Manuela put down her own tablet. “But why not here, Mama?”
Esmerita paused only briefly before responding, “Because there are many bigger cities for them to choose from.” It wasn’t the usual comforting answer she expected to give, but it seemed like the honest answer to give at the moment.
“Like where?,” her eldest child asked.
Esmerita went over to her daughter and held her hands. “The people going want to go, Manuela. The nearest alien ship is over 5000 kilometers away. Would you like to leave with the others?”
“No,” the girl said.
“Then there is nothing to worry about. That ship is far away. We are here. And you need to wash your hands so we can eat,” Esmerita said, then kissed her daughter on the forehead and pulled her up from the chair she was sitting in.
Esmerita had a small frown as the girls went off to clean up. “They shouldn’t be so worried about something happening so far away,” she thought to herself.
She got to the top of the stairs, as everyone else was converging on the room. Señora and Señor Alba along with his friends coming down from the living room, the children from the bathroom, and Gabriel from the back porch entrance. Señor Alba sat at the end of the table with Señora at the first seat on the right side, and his friends sitting on the left side. Señora Alba motioned for her son to sit next to her, which Gabriel did. The children sat at the far end of the table, leaving a space next to Gabriel for Esmerita.
Guadalupe brought out a tray with bowls of sancocho and set one bowl in front of each adult. The children were each given a mug of soup.
“It seems our glasses have gone dry,” Humberto said to no one in particular, but loud enough for everyone to hear. Tio Paco snickered, but it sounded like he was trying to clear his nose.
Guadalupe got the hint. “I will get the bottle from upstairs, Señor.”
“Oh, don’t bother, Lupe,” Humberto said. “That bottle is quite empty. But perhaps there is an extra one in the kitchen pantry?”
“I will look, Señor,” the cook said as she took the tray back to the kitchen.
The men were all smiles as they started eating their soup. Ximena was not as happy about the situation. “How much have you had, Humberto?” she asked her husband.
“Just my fair share,” he replied, and then a bit more sharply, “but what does it matter to you? I’m not driving you anywhere tonight, and we’re enjoying our company in our own private home.”
Ximena shook her head, looked down at her soup, and began eating.
Humberto and his friends started shoveling into their own bowls, not realizing how hungry all that drinking had made them.
By the time Guadalupe came back with the main dish, the men had finished their soup and were back to discussing the events of the day.
“I tell you, Humberto, this is one time our influence in Buenos Aires should be put to full force,” Jose Calderón said to his host. “We all saw how weak the response was in Brazil this past week. They just pulled all of the police out of the area and used the army to corral their own citizens. We need to tell the Argentines to deal with the alien ship, so other countries have a template to follow and the aliens will finally realize they can’t stand up to us.”
“You saw what happened to the Russians, Jose. How do you expect the Argentine army to do any better?,” asked Juan Cueva.
Jose responded, “Oh, the Russians are like a college boy in a whorehouse.”
Esmerita glared at Señor Calderón and motioned with her head to children.
Jose ignored her and continued, “They come in strutting their muscles and throwing their missiles at any opening they think they see.”
Tio Paco snort-snickered again.
“You have to be more nuanced. Instead of sending in a dozen planes which can be shot down one at a time, you send at them hundreds of missiles all at once, along with some heavy tank artillery. And return the favor of what they are doing underground. Get the Chileans to use their drilling equipment to dig a tunnel underneath the ship and place the bomb there, instead of dropping it from the sky,” Jose finished.
Guadalupe finished setting the food around the table, and pulled a full bottle of Zhumir from her apron pocket.
“Ah, gracias, Lupe,” Humberto said as he opened the bottle. “Perhaps while the Chileans are down there, they can slip some whiskey into those alien pipes and we’ll get them so drunk they won’t even know we’re knocking at their door.”
All of the men, including Gabriel, laughed out loud at that comment.
Esmerita spoke up when the laughter died down. “I think the aliens would be able to counter any military options we might try. They were able to envelope a nuclear missile and have it disappear without any trace.”
Humberto waved his hand dismissively at his daughter-in-law. “So now you are an expert on military matters and alien technology, Rita? Please let those who know the subject deal with the solution.”
Esmerita’s cheeks became flushed. “Who on Earth is an expert in alien technology? It certainly doesn’t look to be any of the top five governments on this planet!”, she said sharply and looked to her husband for support. Gabriel tilted his head down, looking embarrassed.
Humberto ignored her and turned to his friend that hadn’t yet joined in on this topic. “Alberto, you sit on the National Assembly Military Affairs Committee. How far fetched is Jose’s wild idea?”
Assemblyman Serano replied, “Well, we have discussed plans not too far from that. The Brazilian government hasn’t been very responsive to our outreach, however.”
Esmerita looked over at her daughters, who were both looking at their mother. She shook her head with pursed lips.
The conversation continued for some time, focused on recent government discussions and preparations. The National Assembly had been pulled into special session the prior week.
When it was time for dessert and coffee, the men were talking about additional plans they felt their friend should take back to the National Assembly.
Tio Paco finally had his own thoughts to offer. He had been enjoying the bottle of spirits the most of the group that evening. “Well, it’s time to bring back the national draft. We need to be teaching these boys how to shoot. You want to protect your property, you need to learn how to use a gun.”
The older men around the table were nodding.
Tio Paco looked at his grand-nephew. “You’d like to shoot a gun, wouldn’t you, Rafi?”
Rafael looked up from his dessert with big eyes, again unsure how to respond to a question from the elder generation. He looked to his mother for support.
“Not everyone has a desire to shoot things, Tio,” Esmerita replied.
“Let the boy speak for himself,” Humberto interjected. “I already had my first rifle by the time I was his age.”
“He’s only seven years old, Humberto,” Esmerita responded. “He’s still learning to read and how to dribble a football. You think putting a gun into the hands of someone who can’t even balance it to aim properly is a good idea? Why not train Manuela? She is strong enough and certainly has a better sense of right from wrong.”
“Put a gun into a girl’s hands? Ha!,” Humberto laughed. “She should have a spatula in her hands and be learning from Guadalupe how to be a good cook for her future husband. Lord knows she is not going to learn how to cook from you.”
“Why do you put everyone in a box, Humberto? It’s thinking like yours of how things should never change that got us to this point where aliens are showing up on our own planet, telling us how much we’ve messed up,” Esmerita countered. “Go back one-hundred years and make a few small changes in our habits, and we’d be living in the type of clean and safe world poets dream about. Heavens, go back just fifty years and follow through on all those commitments from the Rio Summit and we’d be well on our way to a self-healing planet. But if people don’t want to change, you’ll be shipped off to a planet where you can figure out how to cook your own guinea pig, or whatever animals they have there.”
“I don’t know all of the silliness you tell your children, Rita, but there are a lot of things they need to learn,” Humberto said, his volume rising like Esmerita’s had. “To begin with, they can learn respect for their elders, learn to be humble guests, and learn their place and role in society. And I’ll add you need to learn your place, as well!”
“Good Lord, Humberto!,” Esmerita laughed loudly. “I think I’ve heard it all, but you always surprise me. Well, let me surprise you. I agree with you on one of your points. I’ve not been a humble guest here, and that is a good lesson to teach. So, if I can’t appreciate my hosts, it’s time for me to leave.”
Esmerita then pushed her chair back from the table, turned to face her children, and continued “And here’s another important lesson I want to share with you. You need to take care of yourselves and watch out for what is best for you, since it isn’t often you find people that will look out for you like you deserve. It’s time for us to go home, children.” And having said that, she headed straight to the door.
Rafael was the first to push back from the table and run after his mother. Dolores and Manuela looked at each other and then quickly followed.
Manuela stopped when they got to the door and whispered to her sister “We left our backpacks downstairs!”
Dolores said “I’ll get them” and ran to the stairs.
This gave Gabriel time to come out of the dining room and catch his daughter by the door.
“What has gotten into your mother?” he asked his eldest child. “Did one of you get in trouble today, and now she is all bothered?”
“What?”, Manuela said with genuine surprise and disbelief in her voice.
“Then why was she acting like that?” Gabriel said.
“Papi, didn’t you see how rude Grandfather was being?” Manuela said.
“He was just being himself,” her father replied.
“He was drunk, Papa!”
“Well, he’s allowed to let off some steam every now and then, Manuela. You can’t judge him for that.”
Dolores arrived back at the top of the stairs, gave her sister her backpack, and pushed by her father to get to the door.
“Dolores, wait!” Gabriel called after his middle child. She didn’t turn around.
“Papi, you stink!”, Manuela said and she marched out the door to follow the other three.
The four of them walked across the conjoined back yards in silence, with Esmerita continually clenching and unclenching her fists. She opened the door to their house, ushered the children in, then followed behind them and slammed the door. All three of the children jumped, with Rafael looking particularly worried.
“Come on, you two,” Manuela said. “Let’s get ready for bed.”
Unusually, Rafael did not complain and quickly ran to his room.
Esmerita looked at her eldest daughter and simply said, “Thank you.” Then she went off to her own room.
“I’ve had enough. That’s it. I’m done with him. In fact, I’m done with all of them!” Esmerita said to herself, as she paced around her room. “But enough of words. It’s time for action!”, and she pulled up the table console on the desk and began sliding, typing and talking to the screen that appeared.
“First, I’ll make sure I can act as I want,” Esmerita said, and began opening up the financial portals for their family accounts. She handled the daily finances and knew exactly where the money was kept and how it was being used.
“He’ll be lucky to even be aware anything has changed,” she said to herself, as she cashed in two-thirds of their remaining investments. She had sold a significant share already over the past two weeks, as the markets had been declining with the shock and uncertainty after the arrival of the alien ships. She then made arrangements to place funds available for transfer to a “quiet spend” account that would allow for anonymous purchases.
It was 11:00 pm by the time this was all complete, and she was starting to calm down a bit from the day’s events when the news alert popped up on both her console and her commwatch.
“Aliens Announce Future Plans. 72 New Collection Sites Around The Globe.”
She read the news article with her hand covering her mouth.
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing. Tuesday, 8 May 2091
Communication has been sent from the alien command craft today indicating their plans to expand the number of colonists collection sites from the nine currently in place to a total of eighty-one spread around the globe.
While not all sites have been announced, the Chinese government has indicated they have volunteered to locate sites at the following six locations on mainland Chinese soil: Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzen, Wuhan, and Beijing.
The aliens have indicated they will be sending outreach craft from the current sites to start the new locations, and this will be a progressive activity occurring over the next six months. They have also indicated they are willing to consider other sites suggested by other nations interested in hosting colonists collection centers of their own.
Liao Si, a spokesperson for the Chinese government has said, “We welcome this chance to expand on the endless opportunity afforded to those choosing to start a new life on the new planet, and look forward to other options to partner with our alien partners to provide for improved opportunities for all humans, regardless of where they will live.”
“Humberto,” Esmerita whispered to herself, “I’m afraid you won’t be able to find nearly enough missiles and tanks for your plan now.”
Esmerita then made her first purchase from the “quiet account”. A transvan would be pulling up to 428 Seville Street tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 pm, after the kids returned home from school. That would give her time to pull together the necessary things for herself and each of the children. They would be traveling relatively light, since she wasn’t exactly sure where they would end up. She would offer Gabriel the chance to come with them, of course, but she was pretty sure he would be hesitant. And since he still hadn’t come home, she felt even stronger about where his loyalties were focused.
Esmerita knew she needed some rest, and gratefully flopped into bed to try and sleep for a few hours. At least Dolores would be happy about one thing. She wouldn’t have to worry about homework for a while.