Not Alone

by Falconer, Craig A.

  “We’re all on the same side here,” Billy continued, “so don’t do that. But as to your point: this doesn’t change anything. Talking about “crosshairs” is especially ridiculous since that shape isn’t even culturally universal among humans. And as Penny said: the dashed line is like an arrow without a point. But if it was an arrow, which way would it be pointing? Which direction of travel are they trying to indicate? It could be an invitation for us to leave for all we know… after all, they did show us their planet. And why would they do that if they wanted to destroy us? Why would they tell us anything if they were going to destroy us? Why drop the spheres? Why scatter them? We don’t know any of the answers, and that’s the point. All of this is projection. Our cultural psychology is a psychology of war and conquest and scarcity and power, so we’re projecting that onto them. Seriously: listening to the guy in your studio for the last few minutes has told me more about him than the Messengers.”

  Sarah Curtis didn’t say anything for a few seconds. The exobiologist tried to reply combatively, but his mic was down. “So what’s your reading of these messages, Mr Kendrick?” Sarah asked, as instructed by her producer.

  “Well, the first plaque tells us one of two things. The easy assumption, which even I just made in passing, is that the planet on the left is their home planet. But it might not be. It might be a habitable planet for us. A refuge, if you will.”

  The exobiologist tried again to interrupt, shouting something about “such a leap!” before Sarah Curtis spoke over him and told Billy to continue his point.

  “And the second plaque,” Billy said, “certainly seems to suggest a 280-year timescale. For what, we don’t know. At this stage it’s guesswork. If you’re asking for my guess, which is the best I can give you, I have two. One, they are coming back 280 years after they left the spheres. In this scenario, they gave us notice — not warning — so we could adjust to the idea of coming face to face with extraterrestrial beings. That’s one.”

  “But why are there crosshairs—”

  “That’s one,” Billy repeated, raising his voice over Sarah’s interruption. “And my second guess… well first of all, everyone seems to be forgetting that there were four plaques, not two. What we don’t have here is context. I don’t want to rehash old movie plots,” he smiled, breaking his otherwise serious demeanour for the briefest of moments, “but maybe one or both of the other plaques told us how to travel the stars? Maybe it would have taken us 280 years to reach the highlighted exoplanet? I don’t know, I’m just saying maybe. But however you frame it, my guess is as good as yours. My maybe is just as strong as anyone else’s.”

  “Bear with me for a second, Mr Kendrick,” Sarah said. The cameras stayed on Billy. “I’m hearing now that the Russian President has been the first major leader to react, and that he has used a phrase which translates roughly to “eviction notice”. We’ll have more on these comments as news comes in. Your thoughts, Mr Kendrick?”

  Billy paused. It was a different kind of hesitation now; instinctive rather than for effect. “My guess is as good as his, too” he said.

  “But less important,” Sarah replied. “With respect, you’re not in charge of the largest country in the world. But in any event, we’ll have to leave it there for now, Mr Kendrick. Thanks for joining us.”

  “Don’t buy what they’re selling,” Billy said directly to millions of Blitz News viewers. “The media, the politicians, the arms companies, they sell fear. Don’t buy—”

  The feed cut out.

  “Uh, we seem to be having some technical difficulties with the feed from Myrtle Beach. We’ll return if and when we can,” Sarah said, the look on her face filling in the blanks.

  Clark was still standing behind the couch, alternating between hands-on-his-head despair and arms-folded confusion. “What do you think?” he asked.

  Dan didn’t know; he didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t know what to think. Billy’s optimism wasn’t as infectious in this instance as it normally was, and Dan couldn’t see past the “eviction notice” idea now that it had been posited. It was like looking at a cloud: he hadn’t seen the shape a few minutes earlier, but now that someone had pointed it out, he couldn’t see anything else. It made sense in a generic sci-fi kind of way that the Messengers could be a peaceful race who needed a planet for its resources but sought to minimise the suffering of its technologically inferior native population.

  Emma was still holding Dan’s hand and leaning on his shoulder, but he didn’t see any point in sugarcoating his words. Still facing the TV, he answered Clark: “I think the Russian idea makes more sense than anything Billy said.”

  “Would 280 years really be enough, though?” Emma asked. “To build something that could take us to another star?”

  “The Nazis found the craft in 1938,” Dan said, “then a war pretty much shut the world down until 1945. But the Soviet Union still managed to put a man in space just sixteen years later, and we put a man on the moon eight years after that. Apollo 11 was in 1969. Look at everything that’s new since then, with computers and the internet and everything else. It’s a totally different world. But look at space: we’ve done pretty much nothing. We only did it in the ’60s because it was a competition, and two different countries managed to break all kinds of barriers even with all the waste that comes with having two teams doing the same thing.”

  If Dan sounded angry, it was because he was. Emma knew the anger wasn’t meant for her.

  He went on: “If we had known back then that we had to get off this planet — and I mean literally had to — we would already have colonies on the moon and Mars. And if we had 280 years from 1938 to build a starship, we could do it. Seriously… remember that Space vs War thing I wrote? When I was researching it, I read that governments around the world spend six billion dollars per day defending themselves from each other. Imagine if that was pooled and spent on building lunar bases or habitable space stations or orbital launch platforms or whatever.”

  Clark nodded, equal parts rueful and powerless.

  “And even if the plaque wasn’t meant to be an eviction notice,” Dan said, “the Messengers could have been trying to warn us about some big disaster or something. But thanks to Hans fucking Kloster and Richard fucking Walker we’ve wasted decades doing nothing.”

  “Right on cue,” Emma sighed as Dan’s face suddenly appeared on Blitz News.

  Dan recognised the setting: it was his Focus 20/20 appearance from what felt like a lifetime ago. Already fulfilling Billy Kendrick’s prophesy of selling fear, Blitz News replayed the quote Dan regretted most, unedited beyond a sharp cut at the end:

  “Think about it: sharks can rip you apart, but you can avoid them by staying out of the ocean. But with hostile aliens there would be nowhere to hide. You can’t outrun the sky.”

  No one said anything.

  Dan had teased Clark with a variation of this quote at Timo’s lakeside villa when they were watching Jaws. Somehow, it didn’t seem quite so funny now.

  MONDAY

  D plus 9

  10 Downing Street

  London, England

  Monday’s newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic reacted predictably to the newly apparent alien threat.

  Britain’s leading tabloid ran with “45 Seconds To Wipeout?”, an article which postulated that the hostile Messengers could strike Earth with an AWMD at just 45 seconds warning. This headline, as well as the “Alien Weapon of Mass Destruction” acronym, unironically called back to the buildup to the 2003 Iraq war, when Coalition cheerleaders claimed that Iraq’s supposedly extensive arsenal of WMDs could be deployed within 45 minutes. This new article had even less factual basis than had the infamously sexed up Dodgy Dossier more than a decade earlier, but fear sold newspapers just as successfully now as it had then. The front-page picture was a satellite image of Earth with red crosshairs superimposed over it and an alien-looking hand holding some kind of ray gun.

  Jan Gellar, putting the final touches on
The Daily Chat, decided to keep things more simple with a text-only front page containing just two words: “ALIEN QAEDA”.

  Details of the exoplanet revealed on the first plaque filled the inside of the newspapers and featured heavily in overnight news broadcasts. While the absence of any indication of its location relative to Earth made quick and decisive identification impossible, the alien planet’s relative size and distance to its star gave experts and enthusiasts something to go on, at least. The number of planets shown in the alien solar system was of little help given that exoplanets weren’t typically detected in neat batches.

  One viewpoint which gained great traction overnight was that the planet shown on the plaque could well be Gliese 667 Cc, an exoplanet located almost 24 light years away near the tail of the constellation Scorpius. This exoplanet, confirmed as recently as 2011 and scoring a remarkably high 0.85 on the Earth Similarity Index, uncannily corresponded to the measurements on the plaque.

  Some voices urged against jumping to conclusions, with a group of Italian scientists stating that at least two other exoplanets were even better matches than Gliese 667 Cc. But neither of those were as famous as Gliese 667 Cc and neither had been the first suggested as the alien’s home, so media outlets around the world paid little attention.

  To the disappointment of everyone who enjoyed irony, Kolpin-6b — the candidate planet whose existence had been confirmed by Ben Gold at the IDA — did not correspond with the data on the plaque.

  Since the name “Gliese 667 Cc” was such an awkward mouthful, optimistic social media users quickly christened the planet “New Kerguelen”. The new name caught on immediately. Experts invited to talk on news networks discussed potential problems with flares from New Kerguelen’s sun — which was one of three in a triple-star system — but the planet lay within its system’s Goldilocks Zone where temperatures allowed for liquid water on its surface. Even among those who argued against the likelihood of the planet on the plaque being Gliese 667 Cc, New Kerguelen became the generally used term when referring to whichever planet it was.

  The day’s real news developments were still to come, though, beginning with Prime Minister William Godfrey’s address to a vast crowd of reporters.

  “I want to begin by making a point that might sound counterintuitive,” Godfrey said, solemn but not quite grave. “And that is this: we are safer today than we were yesterday.”

  He allowed a few seconds for the words to sink in.

  “What you don’t know will hurt you,” he continued. “But what you do know might not. Despite what the media are telling you, this is not the end of the world. This is a challenge; a challenge to which we will rise.”

  Some of the reporters eyed each other uneasily. A few mumbled, unconvinced by his confidence.

  “But before I discuss that any further, I want to make clear that I understand as well as anyone that this is no longer about William Godfrey and Valerie Slater. Personal differences cannot and will not get in the way of the kind of concerted response our respective electorates not only need but deserve. I hope to be able to sit down with President Slater soon, along with everyone else, to work out exactly where we go from here. But as for Richard Walker…”

  The room fell completely silent.

  Godfrey’s expression stiffened. “Richard Walker’s sustained effort to conceal this truth from the world constitutes nothing less than a crime against humanity. Entirely knowingly, he may have left us with insufficient time to properly defend ourselves… and all for the sake of his Jurassic notions of power and glory. You all know that I have two daughters, and their futures were not Richard Walker’s to cast aside. He’ll pay for this. One way or another, he will pay.”

  Though the veins in Godfrey’s neck bulged and his gaze looked like something from the poster for a revenge movie, every single word and gesture in his speech had been thoroughly vetted by his own invisible team of Jack Neals and Emma Fords; of spin doctors and social media gurus. As Emma knew and often explained, nothing William Godfrey said or did was ever an accident.

  Godfrey was as careful with his words as anyone, and his next point involved what he considered a crucial lexical distinction. “But in the meantime, we must be proactive in our response to this potential threat. This is no longer an international issue. This is a global issue. This is not between China and the United States, or Argentina and the United Kingdom, or Russia and whoever else. This affects everyone: rich and poor, young and old, left and right. Whether you live in a penthouse or an igloo, this affects you. We share the same planet and we share the same sky.”

  He scanned the room, making eye contact with reporters in every area. Every one of them paid rapt, near religious attention.

  “Whatever differences we may have as individuals and as nations, those differences are dwarfed by our commonalities. We may have fought in the past for control of this portion or that of this planet we all share, but that is the core point in all of this: we share this planet, so a threat to this planet is a threat to us all. I won’t be so bold as to speak for other governments, but I’m confident that our collective response to this potential threat will be concerted, swift, and effective.”

  Some of the reporters were nodding now.

  “But let me remind everyone of one crucial point: we don’t know that they’re hostile. It might appear that way, but we don’t know. There’s an old saying: “trust in God, but tie up your camels.” Right now, that saying is apt.”

  Some of the nods turned into looks of mild confusion.

  “We’re going to be resolute and proactive in dealing with this,” Godfrey assured the crowd, “but that doesn’t mean our reaction will prove necessary. It may well not, and we must continue to live our lives on the assumption that it won’t.”

  Godfrey focused for a few seconds on one reporter in particular, a heavyweight correspondent he’d sparred with many times in the past, before scanning the room again.

  “At the risk of sounding clichéd, the only thing worth fearing right now is fear itself. Panic of any kind is as dangerous as it is contagious. But last night — here, at least — was encouragingly peaceful. Long may that continue. Parliament will convene today to discuss the implementation of extraordinary measures to impose tough sentences on anyone who participates in looting or predatory disorder of any kind. Every possible step will also be taken to mitigate the economic impact of recent events on hardworking families, especially as relates to things like price-gouging and the hoarding of essential goods.”

  He turned his notes over to the last few points, more for effect than anything else.

  “I urge everyone hearing these words to go to work and school this morning safe in the knowledge that our world and our universe is the same as it was last week. Today, we’re just better prepared to live in it. Keep calm and carry on, everyone. We’ll take care of the rest.”

  Godfrey headed for the door with a troop of security guards as the army of reporters fought to be heard over each other. A few words rose above the rest — words like “timeframe” and “shield” and “China” and “international consensus” — but Godfrey stopped at the door to answer the only question he’d heard in full.

  “With or without consensus,” he said firmly. “We will fortify.”

  D plus 10

  Stevenson Farm

  Eastview, Colorado

  At 3am in Colorado — around an hour after William Godfrey ended his commanding speech with a vow to fortify — Richard Walker adjusted his tie in the mirror and began his usual routine of wrinkle-busting facial exercises.

  He walked into the kitchen, waking Rooster with the sudden brightness of the light, and picked up his phone.

  “Crabbe?” he said, responding to the half-awake groan on the other end of the line. “It’s me. I want to do an interview.”

  “You lousy son of a bitch,” Joe snapped.

  “If you don’t want the exclusive…”

  Joe hesitated. “Video chat, or just audio?”


  “Video,” Richard said. “Right now. Oh, and Joe?”

  “What?”

  “We’re old friends, so I’m sure you know better than to trace my location or otherwise cooperate with this ridiculous witch-hunt. How are the grandkids, by the way? Still with your daughter in Denver?”

  “Five minutes,” Joe said gruffly. He hung up.

  * * *

  “Welcome to this very special video edition of Crabbe Shoot Radio,” Joe crooned into his webcam in his well-practised presenter’s voice. He wore large headphones and a hastily thrown-on blue jumper.

  Richard, meanwhile, looked ready for an important meeting.

  “You will not believe who I’ve secured as a guest for today’s show,” Joe continued, “so I’ll go ahead and let him introduce himself.”

  “They all know who I am,” Richard said dryly. “Start again.”

  Richard’s recalcitrance caught Joe off-guard, exactly as intended. “Uh, okay.”

  The recording wasn’t going out live, but Richard didn’t expect Joe to be foolish enough to present any of his comments out of context. That was part of the reason Richard chose Crabbe Shoot as the outlet for his first public comment since the Kloster letter came out eleven days earlier. More importantly, though, Joe’s regular audience of several hundred thousand listeners were the demographic Richard deemed most likely to give him a fair hearing; after all, Joe’s whole shtick revolved around his ability to sensationalise perceived threats to American sovereignty.

  Joe Crabbe’s personal position was complicated. He had been a vocal critic of Dan McCarthy, but he was also the kind of unwavering patriot that William Godfrey predicted would be more affronted by the cover-up than anyone. Richard knew this but felt sure he could win Joe round by explaining his reasons for hiding the truth.