“Have they harmed us?” Billy asked, almost shouting. Silence greeted his question. “Exactly.”
“Have they helped us?” Jan Gellar chimed in. “Beyond scattering a set of ambiguous messages that could easily be some kind of trojan horse, what have they ever done for us?”
“Billy,” Timo said, rejoining the conversation in an effort to calm his longterm friend. “If you take a step back, I think you might—”
“You do not poke a sleeping bear!” Billy yelled towards the screen which relayed Timo’s satellite feed.
Timo reacted to the unexpectedly combative tone with wide eyes and closed lips.
“We are chimps to these aliens,” Billy said. “Think about that. Think what we would do if a troop of chimps began sharpening sticks to attack each other with; we would ooh and aah and take notes. But if those same chimps began sharpening those same sticks and throwing them at us, would we not take those sticks away?” Mixing his animal metaphors under the pressure of the moment, Billy repeated his previous point for emphasis: “You do not poke a sleeping bear.”
“No,” Godfrey replied, “you don’t. But nor do you absentmindedly sleep in a campsite full of bears and hope for the best. We as leaders have a responsibility to protect our citizens, Billy. That is why we will fortify. That is why we will build The Shield.”
Billy took a deep breath. “There’s a point I didn’t want to make,” he said, “but since military threats are the only ones you seem to care about, here it is: if by some million-to-one shot they are hostile, we don’t have a chance. Nuclear weapons, laser weapons, whatever we can come up with… it wouldn’t be a patch on their arsenal. How do you defend against a magnetic pulse? Let me tell you, Mr Godfrey: you don’t. That’s why we don’t want to annoy them. That’s why we don’t want to throw the first stone.”
“Two quick points, if I may?” Godfrey said to de Clerk. She encouraged him to hurry up with a wave of her hand. Godfrey turned back to Billy. “Your argument is like telling people not to eat healthily to prevent heart disease because there’s nothing they could do about a sudden aneurysm,” he said. “And more to the point, who says our weapons can’t defend against them? Nazi bombs destroyed the craft in Toplitz, after all, and that was in 1945. Okay, so you’re talking about defending against their strikes rather than destroying their vessels, but give us some time and we’ll see who’s defences aren’t good enough. When the existing knowledge of governments in Europe, Russia, China and the United states are pooled… and when all of our backs are against the same wall in an atmosphere of open collaboration… you don’t think we can defend ourselves? You have less faith in humanity than I do, Mr Kendrick. Far less.”
There was no studio audience to applaud Godfrey’s words, but everyone on his side of the argument nodded in agreement.
“We’re almost out of time,” Marian de Clerk said, sounding more relieved than frustrated. “We’ll go to one last question, which was sent in by Lucy Lindgaard in Hartford. It’s for William Godfrey and reads as follows: “Who would represent Earth in the case of a real-time contact scenario?”
“He’s going to say himself,” Joe said. “Who else?”
de Clerk ignored Joe for timekeeping’s sake. “Prime Minister?”
“Well it definitely won’t be a bureaucrat from Luxembourg or Malaysia,” he said. “The world wants a leader, not a pencil-pusher.”
“So are you nominating yourself?” de Clerk asked.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. All I’m saying is that two-way contact is a matter for the Security Council, not the Office for Outer Space Affairs or anyone else. Because with the greatest of respect to the work they do, this is serious.”
de Clerk nodded, satisfied enough that he hadn’t totally dodged the question. “Okay,” she said, “let’s have a final word from everyone, starting with Timo.”
“My money’s here to help,” Timo said, more humbly than the words suggested.
de Clerk then looked to Godfrey, who sat at the far end of the curved desk. “Our only objective is securing the future for you and your children,” he said to the viewers at home.
Next came Jack Neal. He hesitated under the pressure. “We, uh, President Slater feels exactly the same way.”
Jan Gellar, who had spoken fewer words than anyone else, took the opportunity to shill The Daily Chat, promising “one-stop coverage of the UN discussions” over the next few days.
“Joe?” de Clerk said.
Joe Crabbe silently shook his head in undisguised disgust at the way the panel had unfolded.
“And for the final word, Billy Kendrick.”
Billy took his time, almost defiantly, and gazed at Godfrey. “Why poke a sleeping bear?” he asked.
With producers screaming the time in her earpiece, Marian de Clerk cut Godfrey off before he could answer. “Tune in next week for another exciting edition of Focus 20/20,” she said, quietly wondering what the world would be discussing by then.
As the camera panned out and the credits rolled, the final shot showed Joe Crabbe appearing to console Billy Kendrick. Billy pushed Joe’s hand away from his shoulder and stood up to leave.
“I guess that’s that,” Emma said from the couch in Birchwood. She and Clark turned to Dan, as they often did, to see how he would react.
“I want to watch Independence Day,” he said.
Clark glanced briefly at Emma and then back to Dan. “Why?”
Dan walked to get the disc from its case and met Clark’s eyes only when he held it in his hand. “Because I haven’t seen it in ages,” he said, “and the humans win.”
MONDAY
D plus 19
United Nations Headquarters
Manhattan, New York
A Jordanian TV reporter stood directly in front of the UN building at 3pm in New York, ready to give a live recap of the day’s event for his 10pm viewers at home. With little information leaking out from the discussions inside, it had been a day full of excitement but devoid of detail.
The Jordanian and his colleagues from around the globe waited patiently as they might have outside a courthouse during a high-profile trial. Every report ended with a call for viewers to stay tuned to ensure they didn’t miss anything.
There was a real buzz in the air, one that hadn’t been felt since the bygone days when enigmatic leaders of nations blacklisted by the United States had made rare visits to New York from the likes of Havana and Tehran.
Dan McCarthy, as keen an observer as anyone, couldn’t help but think back to some of the old sci-fi novels from the 1950s which always had the aliens appearing outside the United Nations. Since then, the UN had been ignored and proven toothless so many times that it seemed unlikely any intelligent race would lend it any credence. The problem, as Dan saw it, was that the Security Council’s veto system meant that the UN had never held any sway over the powerful nations.
But today was different. Today, the powerful nations, recognising the unique magnitude of the situation, had decided to operate within the UN system. Without question, today was the most relevant that the United Nations had felt for a generation.
The Security Council meeting during which the real decisions would be made wasn’t scheduled until Tuesday afternoon. The usual nations expressed their disquiet with the Security Council’s makeup; primarily India and Brazil. Still in an awkward position given the circumstances of the spheres’ initial discovery, Germany said nothing. Japan, meanwhile, knew that several of its technologies would be crucial to The Shield and thus its voice would be heard.
Godfrey had already addressed the perceived unfairness of certain countries being more equal than others, insisting that the Security Council was essentially going to decide where and how future decisions would be made, and that all countries would be welcome to contribute ideas and funding to future projects. And in any case, he said, there was an all important precedent: it had been agreed at the UN, decades earlier, that any replies to messages received from alien civilisat
ions should go through the Security Council. And so it went.
In international terms, Security Council resolutions were as binding as anything got. But in a more realistic and basic sense, the combined will of the permanent members would be done, regardless of formalities. With the United States on the same page as its old challenger in Russia and its new one in China — not to mention William Godfrey making the most of his quite baffling global popularity to unite everyone behind the cause — there were no real obstacles to productive discussions.
What no one considered, even for a second, was that nothing would be agreed during these discussions. This was due in no small part to Godfrey’s near-guarantee of a tangible response, which had created an even greater sense of urgency among governments than already existed.
The global population had expressed their collective demand for a reaction in the mass marches on every inhabited continent, and stalemate was not an acceptable outcome. National leaders knew this only too well and understood the implications for any national government blamed for an impasse.
Some of Godfrey’s comments over the previous week had gone further still and revealed quite specific elements of what could be expected. Godfrey told his public in simple terms that he understood that something had to be done and wouldn’t return from New York until the ink was dry on an international commitment to fund and develop The Shield, a name which he himself had popularised.
One pertinent point which Godfrey strived to make clear late on Sunday evening, realising that he hadn’t been clear enough on Focus 20/20, was that the defensive station he had been talking about was not The Shield but rather a mere part of it.
“The Shield will be an ongoing project,” he said, “the development of which will outlive everyone who sees it begin. The orbital station we hope to launch this year, built around the Chinese core module, will be the first and most important part. This is, if you will, our own proof of concept. The initial launch will prove the doubters wrong once and for all by showing them that humanity can indeed unite to defend itself.”
Prior to these comments, Godfrey had already explained that the first defensive station would be modular — like the International Space Station before it — and so would be assembled in stages, in orbit, over a period of several years.
Privately, Godfrey and his fellow decision makers were cautiously optimistic that the first launch would provide enough of a spectacle to placate their protection-craving citizens. When concerned parents screamed “what are you doing to protect my children?”, as they had been all week, Godfrey and his counterparts needed a concrete response.
They needed an agreement; they needed construction sites; they needed an ambitious but achievable series of launch dates.
In short, they needed something they could point to and say: “This. We’re doing this.”
* * *
The afternoon’s main drama came shortly after 5pm when the building emptied and unconfirmed reports began to circulate that a former Soviet republic — its identity unknown beyond the clarification that it wasn’t Russia — had called for financial reparations from the United States.
The fact that NASA’s top brass didn’t know about Hans Kloster’s secret didn’t mean that Kloster hadn’t quietly applied his first-hand knowledge of secret alien technology during the “crippling space race,” the argument went; a period in which Kloster played an understated but not unimportant role.
Though the media were grateful to have something new to talk about, these reports were never verified. Those inside were aware that the request was indeed made and that Russia did not ask for such talk to cease but rather ordered its unnamed neighbour to stop wasting everyone’s time.
Aside from this, the only information leaking from inside was that the general mood among smaller nations was unusually hostile towards the United States. In the words of one ageing Irish reporter on the street: “The mood hasn’t been quite like this since my first visit to this building in 1982, a year when Richard Walker was still serving in Congress and the United States was being non-bindingly outvoted 134 to 1 over its continued investment in apartheid South Africa.”
Not even sworn enemies believed that the US political establishment had been involved in a grand cover-up, but even staunch allies were angry that a former senator and presidential candidate had been able to pull the wool over the eyes of so many for so long.
In the evening, Japanese state scientists revealed that they would “share with the world, free from conditions,” their conceptually proven ultraviolet laser which had been designed to safely eliminate small pieces of space junk. The laser was capable of firing tens of thousands of pulses per second and certain elements of the technology could quite feasibly be scaled up to deal with larger threats, the team said.
It was universally understood that the term “larger threats” was a catch-all term used to include hostile visitors as well as roaming asteroids without having to say so explicitly.
This inclination to tiptoe around words like “hostile” and even “aliens” had been seen throughout the day from representatives of many countries. William Godfrey, who had made a habit of using both terms liberally, was politely asked by several other European leaders to stop doing so. Repetition of the terms was causing “undue fear,” they said, which could prove disastrous if no agreement was reached. Keen to play the statesman, Godfrey agreed without complaint.
What Godfrey’s concerned counterparts didn’t know was that tomorrow’s decisions were already made.
TUESDAY
D plus 20
United Nations Headquarters
Manhattan, New York
With several billion expectant citizens watching from their homes around the world, the UN Secretary General made a short formal announcement at 5pm on Tuesday.
Within seconds, and for the rest of the evening, news networks in every country dissected the statement with the same attention they had devoted to the announcements concerning the sphere and plaques a week earlier.
ACN’s reporter on the ground in New York fought to maintain his sought-after position directly in front of the building’s main entrance. “To recap what we just learned,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the bustling crowd, “the first stage of The Shield will indeed launch from China in four short months. We also now have a name for the station: Defensive Station 1, or DS-1 for short. The ongoing Shield project will be overseen by a new supranational entity which has been christened the Global Shield Commission. Details are thin on the ground right now as to the GSC’s precise mandate, but we know that Great Britain’s William Godfrey has been installed as the Commission’s first Chairman by way of a unanimous vote and that he has resigned from his position as prime minister with immediate effect. Confirmed GSC members so far include India, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway and Argentina. The wording we’ve seen suggests that the Security Council’s five permanent members will form a kind of “inner circle” within the GSC, but we will await clarification before relaying that as fact.”
The announcement of the new Shield Commission, and particularly William Godfrey’s appointment as its inaugural Chairman, was broadly welcomed by the swathe of reporters.
Godfrey had played the last few weeks entirely by ear after jumping on Dan McCarthy’s initial IDA leak in a desperate bid to save his own career. Events transpired in such a way that Godfrey soon found himself on a platform he had never anticipated, and before long his platform became more of a pedestal. Countless British commentators noted the great irony in the fact that a figure as domestically divisive as Godfrey would now lead a Commission which could be considered nothing but the epitome of international unity.
The ACN reporter continued: “One of my colleagues has been reporting comments from a French source which suggest that the GSC’s founding members see DS-1 as something of a test run for a fleet of nuclear-armed defensive satellites which may soon watch over major population centres from geostationary orbits, aroun
d eighty times further away from Earth than DS-1.”
“What do you a mean by a test run?” the ACN anchor asked from her studio.
The reporter pressed his finger against his earpiece to make out the words. “All of this is very new,” he said. “Russia and Europe have been engaged in space-related cooperation with both China and the US for a long time, but the US and China have done nothing together. Nuclear cooperation, if there is any truth in these reports, is something else altogether.”
“It certainly is.”
“Yes, and I think it’s worth emphasising something again: the very fact that our leaders even met to discuss these issues is a sign of just how urgent the need for a concerted response was. And the fact that they’ve actually managed to reach a meaningful agreement… well, this is certainly going to ease some minds, that’s for sure.”
“And what’s the mood on the street? Excitement?”
“I would call it relief rather than excitement,” the reporter said. “There’s definitely a lot more optimism than there was an hour ago. Because while this might only be one step on a long road to planetary security, it’s a big first step, and it’s a step in the right direction.”
On either side of the ACN reporter, correspondents from hundreds of countries gave similar accounts in dozens of languages.
Within the hour, they would have a new statement to mull over when William Godfrey released his own detailed reflection on the day’s events. Godfrey described DS-1 as “the first cog in our impenetrable Shield” and promised that construction of the next stages would be the international community’s top priority from that moment on.
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