Not Alone

by Falconer, Craig A.

  After a successful second introduction, the impromptu interview began.

  “I know we live in the age of apologies,” Joe said, “where old men like us are expected to say sorry for every little thing we ever did as soon as the thought police decide to retroactively forbid it. But right now there is an overwhelming call for you to apologise. People are—”

  “People are idiots,” Richard interrupted. “And the more of them there are, the stupider they get. I did the right thing and I will never, ever, apologise for that.”

  There was a brief quiet. Joe didn’t have any notes to draw on, and he wanted to stay out of the way and let Richard talk rather than adopt his usual in-your-face interviewing style.

  “Actually…” Richard said.

  Joe held out his hand. “Go on.”

  Richard cleared his throat. He looked directly into the small webcam built into the bezel above his laptop’s screen. “Two of my staff have been dragged into this, and they deserve an apology. Raúl, Ben… I’m sorry. For those who don’t know, Raúl put his body on the line for me and Ben has been a model employee and true friend for a decade. I heard Ben’s comments yesterday and I can appreciate why he feels betrayed. But I hope he’s listening to this, because I want him to understand that keeping this from him was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The only shred of guilt I feel about any of this is that Ben Gold spent his life searching for something I was hiding the whole time. But Ben was and is a man of science. He wouldn’t have understood the apocalyptic politics at play here.”

  Joe stayed quiet.

  “I’m sorry that two good men were dragged into this and that is the only apology I’ll make. The right thing to do is rarely the popular thing to do, but that’s only true because the people don’t always know what’s good for them. They can’t see everything from their positions. The higher up you get, the clearer the view becomes.”

  “William Godfrey holds a high office,” Joe said, leading the conversation in that direction having skimmed through Godfrey’s latest comments upon opening his computer’s browser and seeing the slew of headlines.

  “And I can understand his anger,” Richard said. “I also know that Godfrey is making a deliberate effort to fill the huge international leadership vacuum caused by having someone like Slater represent our nation on the world stage. I actually have a great deal of respect for the Prime Minister; if we had a leader who looked out for our national interests like he looks out for theirs, we’d be doing okay.”

  “But I’m not asking you about his character,” Joe said, being more insistent than he had been so far. “I’m asking you about his comments. What do you make of his statement that your cover-up amounts to a crime against humanity?

  “Hyperbole,” Richard shrugged. “And fairly brazen hyperbole at that, given the imperial source of Godfrey’s inherited wealth. But the suggestion of any criminality on my part doesn’t hold up. No crime has been committed other than the theft of the folder and Dan McCarthy’s subsequent decision to publish stolen documents and indeed profit from their publication. I didn’t conceal any information intended for my staff or any other government employees, and I didn’t abuse my position. I made no personal gain from any of this. I acted in full accordance with my oaths. I did nothing wrong, Joe. What this boils down to is an honest man keeping a personal secret shared by a personal friend. To Godfrey’s point on taxpayer’s money I simply say that not once in almost thirty years did I misappropriate a single cent of the agency’s funds; I even paid for the desk and the safe myself. What I chose to do with the Kerguelen folder and its contents was none of the government’s business, and that is the simple fact of the matter.”

  “Hmm,” Joe said, again opting to let Richard continue his monologue with as little prompting as possible.

  Richard continued as though the “hmm” had been an accusation. “I was protecting the interests of this nation against those with the power to destroy it,” he boomed. “And by that I don’t mean the Chinese; I mean the spineless career politicians who would happily cede our national sovereignty for the sake of their own careers.”

  Joe rubbed his chin. “So you feel no remorse or regret?”

  “Remorse? No. Regret? Well, I certainly regret that Dan McCarthy found and published the letter; I certainly regret that the media enabled him so freely; and I certainly regret that our president was too weak and hormonal to grab the bull by the horns and seize the sphere either before or after the Argentines paraded it for the world’s cameras.”

  “After?” Joe asked, shocked that even Richard would suggest that Slater should have ordered a raid on mainland Argentina when the whole world was watching.

  “Give it a year and she’ll wish she had,” Richard said. His face then contorted, like a sudden thought had just reminded him of something. “But tell me something, Joe: in what world is it just that a traitor like Dan McCarthy can spend a week wining and dining in Italian mansions while a committed public servant like me is forced into hiding?”

  Joe said nothing.

  “Only in a world that needs clean-cut heroes and villains,” Richard answered. “Only in a world of 24-hour news and black-and-white politics. But the media’s narrative isn’t the real story here. I’m not the bad guy in Dan McCarthy’s story. Dan McCarthy is the unwitting instigator of a national tragedy, he just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “The media narrative has certainly painted you as the villain,” Joe prodded, goading Richard like a matador would a bull.

  “Exactly, but how can I be the villain here? What am I supposed to have gained from this? I didn’t ask Hans to tell me. I didn’t ask to bear this albatross. If anything, I’m a victim of the media’s mindless absolutism and the public’s readiness to jump on Dan McCarthy’s bandwagon.”

  “I understand that,” Joe said, “but what might stick in the throat of those who haven’t joined the McCarthy bandwagon, like many of my listeners, is that you repeatedly addressed the nation on this issue and lied through your teeth every single time.”

  “It’s easy to lie when you know you’re right,” Richard said coldly.

  “What?”

  “Right is more important than true, Joe. That’s the only thing my father ever taught me, and I thank him for it.”

  Joe didn’t know how to respond to that.

  “And that’s why, for the last few weeks, I haven’t been kept awake by guilt or shame,” Richard continued. “I’ve been kept awake only by the fear that Dan McCarthy and his martyr complex were going to lead us here, to the brink of desolation. And really, the sequence of events is painfully symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with this country today. It all started with a thief taking what wasn’t his, and our vapid media culture of celebrity-worship took it from there. Throw in the anti-authority feeling the media encourages and the anti-American sentiment of our so-called allies and it was a perfect storm. I kept this secret for almost thirty years but a lowlife thief stole the ball from my hands and the corporate media were only too happy to run with it. Welcome to modern America.”

  “Food for thought,” Joe chimed in. “And we’ll be back with more from Richard Walker after a short word from our sponsors.”

  Richard, though frustrated by the interruption, kept quiet. It was going well.

  * * *

  “And we’re back with Richard Walker,” Joe said only seconds later. He would add the commercial placements shortly before posting the show online.

  Richard gave a curt nod.

  “Now, we’ve already covered a lot of ground regarding you personally,” Joe said, “but I’d like to move on to the national and international implications of recent events. First of all, why did you do nothing to protect against the apparent alien threat?”

  “Don’t confuse doing nothing in public with doing nothing at all,” Richard said. “I continued to warn against active SETI in—”

  “Why?” Joe interrupted in an exaggeratedly high pitch. “They already know we’re here!” />
  Richard stared into his webcam and counted down from three in his head. “Never cut me off again,” he said quietly. “Is that clear?”

  Joe tried to hold Richard’s gaze; this was easier than it would have been in person, but still no mean feat.

  “Is that a yes?” Richard asked.

  Joe looked away from his own webcam and nodded.

  “Good. Cut all of this nonsense out before you upload the interview. Now, where was I…”

  “SETI,” Joe said feebly.

  “Right. I continued to warn against active SETI in case the aliens took our ability to communicate as a threat; as a sign of technological advancement beyond what they deemed a safe level. I considered that basic common sense.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t really address why you didn’t make any attempt to actively protect us against a hostile enemy.”

  “We don’t actually know that they’re hostile,” Richard said. “Godfrey was right about that. Hell, Kendrick was right about that. The plaques aren’t exactly decisive.”

  “Did you know exactly what was on the plaques before we saw the images? And do you know any more about the others?”

  Richard shook his head. “Hans told me everything he could remember, which wasn’t everything. Remember: he only saw these plaques for a few minutes. He told me what he could remember about the Messengers’ planet — New Kerguelen, as everyone is calling it. And again, though I don’t want to sound like I’m on the same side as Bigshot Billy, Kendrick was right that New Kerguelen might not be the Messengers’ home; it could be somewhere for us to colonise, perhaps in advance of Earth being struck by an extinction-level asteroid or something of that nature.”

  “Did Hans know when the craft arrived here?” Joe asked.

  “No. And as far as he knew, the craft’s material made it impossible for anyone to even guess how long it had been in the water. The longest we have is 220 years or so, but that’s assuming the craft landed in 1938, which is a big assumption to make. We might only have a few years, maybe even a few months or weeks.” Richard paused to shrug, almost nonchalantly. “Days, even.”

  “So why the hell didn’t you do something?” Joe demanded, suddenly riled up. “Whether it’s aliens or asteroids, why didn’t you say something?”

  Richard’s gaze intensified. He began to slowly rub his scar with his thumb, as he had when dismissing Dan’s initial leak.

  “I just meant…” Joe stumbled, intimidated by Richard’s intensity.

  “I know what you meant and I know what you said. You want to know why I didn’t talk?” Richard said.

  “Well…”

  “I didn’t talk about this for the same damn reason I didn’t talk in 1971. Two Vietcong and six inches of cheese wire,” Richard snapped, uttering those still-famous words for the first time in decades. “I kept quiet in Hanoi to protect my brothers from the freedom-hating savages in that godforsaken jungle and I kept quiet in Colorado Springs to protect my country from the freedom-hating globalists who would love nothing more than to see it fall. Is that good enough for you, Joe?”

  “What’s good enough for me might not resonate so clearly with people unfamiliar with the kind of globalist agenda you’re talking about,” Joe said, oddly soothed by Richard’s passionate reply. “Could you expand on that?”

  “It’s self-evident,” Richard scoffed. “They’re already queuing up to castrate our military. And mark my words: the liberals and the Europeans will call for a “unified response to this global crisis” as their pretext for the one-world government they’ve always wanted. That’s the endgame.”

  “Don’t you think it could be a positive thing that the world might unite to deal with this?” Joe asked, making a laudable effort to play devil’s advocate and sound like he didn’t already know that the answer — both Richard’s and the only correct one — was a categorical no.

  Richard shook his head solemnly with an expression to match. “The world’s people will be united in the worst way,” he said. “United like prisoners chained together and frogmarched along a sweltering highway. That’s our future if the globalists win and the Eurocrats succeed in using Disclosure to expand their toxic agenda of unification.”

  Joe nodded, abandoning the pretence of neutrality. “My regular viewers and listeners are familiar with these concerns, but would you care to explain to the masses who will be tuning in for the first time just why the notion of a one-world government poses such a grave threat?”

  “First of all, no one has to subscribe to any notion of a full-blown new world order to understand what’s dangerous about this,” Richard said, keen to dissociate himself from Joe’s usual conspiratorial lean. “A one-world government or any other kind of supranational institution with binding authority would be a terrible thing for everyone, but no one more so than us. Just look at the UN — we’re on the losing side of more votes than any other country but one. Luckily the UN doesn’t have any real power, but if we were to cede everything to a central power then it would only go one of two ways: either the global dictator would be from somewhere like Switzerland or Luxembourg and European socialist ideals would dominate, or China would buy support from enough smaller countries to install whoever they wanted. There is, quite literally, no way we can win. I know that you personally oppose the globalists, Joe, and I salute you for that. You were on the right track when you accused McCarthy of faking the leak to forward the globalist agenda, you just had it back to front; I covered up the truth to curtail that agenda. Like Hans, that was my sole motive.”

  Joe stayed quiet for a few seconds, and Richard didn’t fill the silence. “But why keep it in your office?” Joe asked suddenly. “I understand why you might not want to tell everyone, but surely something like this would have been safer in the hands of the CIA?”

  “What, in the hands of a hundred infiltrators and a dozen whistleblowers?” Richard jibed, laughing freely. “It would have been safer tied to a streetlight!”

  “It could have been in a vault,” Joe said. “Or underground. Anywhere but your office. Hell, let’s forget about where you kept the folder. Why did you keep it at all? Why not just burn the letter and everything else? If you had done that instead, no one would be talking about any of this.”

  Richard didn’t reply immediately. It pleased him greatly that Joe was now angry at him for hiding the truth poorly rather than hiding it at all. “I know,” Richard said, almost sorrowfully. “But it’s the same reason Hans intended to pass the burden to Wilhelm and ended up passing it to me: this wasn’t the kind of secret that could safely die with its last keeper. I had to keep everything. And you can attack my distrust of digital security all you want, but I couldn’t risk the chance of system administrators and the like seeing it. Just look at the NSA. My safe worked for longer than their computers.”

  “So what do you suggest now?” Joe asked after a reflective pause. “Since you don’t want a global response and you don’t trust the government…”

  “I don’t know,” Richard said, going out of his way to sound humble. “If anyone can be bothered to look, public records will show them that I’ve been trying to convince career politicians of the need for real investment in asteroid-killing technologies for almost three decades. Fine men like Ben Gold and most of the good people at NASA have been pushing for investment in distant exploration, lunar colonies and manned missions to Mars, but no one listened. And do you know why?”

  “Tell us,” Joe said sycophantically.

  “Because our politics is broken. We are where we are because generations of politicians have been more concerned with image than policy. I’ve said this before, but it’s all because our elected leaders can only see four years ahead. If they have to mortgage our nation’s future to see them through those four years, so what? That’s the next idiot’s problem, not theirs. And this is the world they’ve made.” Richard stopped to shake his head. “People like Slater…” he sighed, neglecting to finish the thought. “And they wonder why I didn’t
tell them? Because really, what does it say about how far our country has slipped that successive governments could be kept in the dark by a bitter old fool like me? I didn’t tell them because I couldn’t tell them; not without them letting slip. And that’s before even thinking about the infiltrators and whistleblowers round every corner.”

  Joe remained diplomatically silent.

  “I’ve been in a horrible position for too long, Joe, and I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy. Never knowing when the sphere might be found, or whether it already had been… it was no way to live. Presidents have it easy in comparison, and I’m sure the public’s fear and their need for some kind of comforting familiarity will buy Slater another term. But sadly the office of President will mean nothing by then.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Joe asked.

  “The aliens are the least of our worries,” Richard said grimly. “The globalist cat is out of the bag, and it won’t go back in. Plato said it best: “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: when he first appears he is a protector.” And that’s where we’re going.”

  “Where?”

  “Tyranny. Globalist hell. First they’ll call for nuclear disarmament and a pooling of resources. I’ve already heard media whispers about evacuation projects and defensive space stations. I pushed for these things when we could pay for them; when we were strong. But now the globalists want to divert our military spending towards their dystopian agenda and our self-serving politicians are ready to jump onboard. The propaganda machine is already in action.”

  “Interesting points,” Joe said, partly out of further sycophancy and partly because he detested globalism almost as much as Richard did.

  “They are,” Richard agreed. “We absolutely must not co-fund any global evacuation projects and we must not even entertain the notion of assisting in building any kind of defensive station. We do it ourselves or we don’t do it at all, simple as that. The globalists’ ideal first step would be a new security force funded by national contributions, based on each state’s average military spending over the last five years. Pro rata, they’ll call it. They’ve been talking about this kind of thing at their secret meetings in Strasbourg for years, even without knowing about the aliens. They want to do this because pooling military might would suit everyone apart from us, for reasons so obvious I don’t even have to mention them. You see, it’s not enough for the globalists to remove our well-earned national security advantage; they want to leverage it. They want to turn it against us.”