Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) Read Free Page A

irritation, Lisanne had the car pull ahead. When it had she said, “But you’d have this huge barn,” she said waving at the enormous building. “It’d hold a couple of saucers. “She waved to the right at a cluster of smaller buildings, “Plus, you’d have all these outbuildings.”
    Vaz looked up at the additional buildings, a little gleam coming in his eyes. Nonetheless, he said, “They block our line of sight for monitoring approaches just like the neighborhood buildings do.”
    Lisanne shrugged, “So, tear them down and build underground. No one will object to that out here, but I think the city will complain if you tear down a bunch of homes in our neighborhood. It’s at least against the homeowners’ association rules.” She paused for a second, then brought out her ultimate weapon, “You might even have to present at some kind of city Council meeting about why you’re buying up all the houses around you.” She didn’t really think he’d have to do something like that, after all he could hire a lawyer to do it in his place, but Lisanne figured that talking in front of a group had to be Vaz’s worst nightmare. The very possibility that he might have to do it might let her get her way.
    Vaz simply sat staring straight ahead at the barn. Lisanne wasn’t sure whether it was mulish sullenness, or deep thought. After a bit, she said, “Do you want to get out and look at the barn?” She’d thought about asking him if he wanted to look at the house, but knew he didn’t really care about where he slept and ate. What he cared about was where he’d be doing his beloved research.
    A few seconds passed, then Vaz said, “Okay.” He opened the door of the car and got out.
     
    ***
     
    Harlan Davis looked up at the real estate agent’s car as it bumped up his driveway. To no one in particular, he said, “God I hope this is good news.” He was barely making a profit farming the land he had. When the farm next door came up for sale after old man Grandy died, Harlan and his wife had decided they needed to either buy Grandy’s farm or sell their own. He wouldn’t need much more equipment to farm both parcels and the extra labor he’d need would be something he could hire seasonally. The problem was that the cost of land had gotten so high. He calculated he’d only make a small amount more profit after paying the mortgage on the new land. That was, if he could get them to take an offer which was substantially less than the Grandy estate was asking.
    Harlan’s young daughter Reven, who’d been helping him, gave him a smile and pronounced herself certain that the sale would go through. Harlan gave her an uncertain pat on the shoulder and said, “Hope you’re right.” He started walking toward the vehicle as it pulled to a stop. Glancing toward the house he saw his wife Clarice come out the door.
    The real estate agent, Kathy Roper, got out of the car and gave Harlan and amused look. “I’ve got some bad news and some good news,” she began, “I think you might like the good news though.”
    “They accepted the offer?” Harlan said hopefully.
    Kathy shook her head, “Sorry. No, they got an offer for the full price from a real estate developer in Raleigh. Then he got outbid by a private individual who’s actually paying the Grandy’s 10 percent more than they asked.”
    Harlan’s heart sank. By his calculations the breakeven point for him had been about 92 percent of the asking price. If he paid more than that, he’d essentially be working harder to lose money, at least until the mortgage was paid off. Besides, he didn’t think the bank would loan him that much. Saying, “Son of a bitch!” he turned and looked off toward his fields, not wanting anyone to see his eyes.
    Tentatively, Clarice said, “You said there was some good news?”
    Roper said, somewhat uncertainly, “Well, yes, I think it’s good news. The new owners say they’d like someone to farm the land still. They say they