“Be seated,” the President said, as the CIA and NSA directors entered, followed by two more officials Jürgen didn't know personally. “We have received a communication from the Russians. They know that something happened in orbit.”
Jürgen wasn't surprised. Whatever Mr. Stuart and his men used to keep their shuttles undetected by purely human technology – and he had some theories about how that technology worked – it hadn't managed to hide the brief and violent battle in orbit. NSA’s network of satellites had picked up the energy flashes, as had a number of civilian systems and – apparently – the Russians. There was no point, Jürgen suspected, in trying to cover the whole affair up. After all, there was nothing so conspicuous as a man ducking for cover.
“I received a very tart note from the Russians earlier this morning,” the President continued. “They out-and-out accused us of violating several treaties, including the one forbidding the deployment of nuclear weapons to orbit. Reading between the lines, they don't have the faintest idea of what actually happened, but they think we do.”
“The emergency alert,” Jürgen said.
“Yes,” the President said. “They know we called an alert before the fireworks started in orbit and they don't believe in coincidences.”
CIA nodded. “They won’t be the only ones, Mr. President,” he said. “There isn't another government in the world who knows about Mr. Stuart and his band of ... lunar settlers. They will all be demanding answers.”
It was funny, Jürgen reflected, how CIA could make settling the moon sound like a crime worthy of good old-fashioned hanging. But then, the CIA had been thoroughly embarrassed by the near-complete extermination of the Taliban leadership. They hadn't been responsible for it. If they had, the news would probably have leaked right now. No more than the DHS, the CIA needed a success to secure their position in the world.
“There will be others putting the pieces together,” one of the unnamed men said. “I’ve had several calls from various independent reporters, the ones willing to take chances on something ... a little out of the ordinary. So far, there’s nothing from the mainstream media, but I wouldn't expect that to last. There’s just too many sources of information for them to assume that someone is trying to hoax them into making an embarrassing mistake.”
“Not to mention the Russians threatening to lodge protests at the UN,” the President muttered. “So ... what do we tell them?”
“The truth?” NSA suggested. He smirked. “Let them lodge their complaints with Mr. Stuart?”
CIA eyed him, nastily. “There are two problems with that,” he said. “Either they would believe us or they wouldn’t. If the latter, they would assume that we were covering up something and take the whole affair public. If the former, they would believe that a group of Americans has taken over the moon and declared themselves an independent nation. They’d start panicking, then they’d start blaming us for the whole affair.”
NSA looked back at him. “How – exactly – can Washington be blamed for Mr. Stuart’s actions?”
“He’s American – or he was American,” CIA said. “Whatever, the Russians will have good reason to blame us. And if they decide that he’s acting completely without restraint, Mr. President, they are likely to do something drastic.”
“But if we lie to them,” the President said, “eventually the truth will come out and we’ll look dishonest.”
He snorted. “And what is to stop Mr. Stuart announcing himself to the world?”
“Nothing,” Jürgen said, simply. “They were planning a public announcement soon enough in any case.”
“And what,” the President said, “will happen when the news gets out?”
There would be panic, Jürgen knew. Maybe not over Heinlein Colony, but over the existence of aliens, aliens who had come alarmingly close to bombarding Earth. Hell, there was definite proof – now – that aliens had abducted humans from the planet and turned them into cyborg soldiers. There would be colossal panic right around the globe. And then ... who knew what would happen then? How would humanity cope with the thought of no longer being alone in the universe?
He recalled the files Kevin Stuart had given him to read. They were immensely detailed, too detailed for him to believe them a hoax. There were upwards of ten thousand intelligent races known to exist – at least, known to the starship’s designer – and most of them were far more advanced than humanity. At best, Earth was a tiny primitive tribe in a jungle, utterly unaware of the surrounding world. The shock of discovering just how badly humanity was outmatched would shake the world to its core.
He'd read some of the scenarios devised over the years concerning alien contact. The writers had been more than a little paranoid, pointing to the prospect of humans adopting alien religions or abandoning homebuilt tech and becoming entirely dependent on alien technology. Or there would be humans who would embrace xenophobia and attack everything alien, to the point they accidentally started a war, a war humanity couldn't hope to win. Even the most optimistic scenarios had been thoroughly ominous. The very foundations of human society were about to shake and shake badly.
The President cleared his throat. “I will speak with Mr. Stuart later today,” he said. “However, we need a contingency plan to release the information as soon as possible.”
CIA leaned forward. “I agree that we should level with the Russians and the rest of the world governments,” he said. “Or at least the ones we can trust to keep a secret. However, I do not believe we should tell the general public just yet.”
The President lifted his eyebrows. “You propose to keep it a secret indefinitely?”
“Mr. Stuart’s people have been hellishly effective against the Taliban,” CIA pointed out, carefully. “And most of the involved governments don’t have the slightest idea of what happened in Afghanistan. But if we reveal the truth, the Pakistani Government – among others – will tremble, perhaps fall. And they’re not the only ones.”
He took a breath. “Fusion power and super batteries, Mr. President, offer the chance to break the oil dependency once and for all. If that news leaks, we will see a sudden upsurge in trouble from the Middle East. Nations like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, nations dependent on oil revenue, will do whatever it takes to delay the introduction of fusion power. They will stroke the fires of anti-nuclear feeling, throw money at political candidates who will pledge to delay the introduction of fusion indefinitely and probably finance terrorist attacks aimed at Mr. Stuart and his people.”
The President smiled. “And your real concern?”
CIA smiled back, humourlessly. “Right now, we have a chance to exterminate the senior terrorist leadership all over the world,” he said. “I would prefer not to risk giving them warning of what we could do.”
The President looked at Jürgen. “Is that a valid point?”
Jürgen swallowed, nervously. He would have preferred not to take sides in a dispute between two people who were both immensely senior to him, but he had no choice.
“I do not believe the terrorists could escape the bugs,” he said, carefully. “And if they go underground, Mr. President, their ability to strike at us will be minimised anyway.”
“True,” the President agreed. He gave CIA a droll look. “Sorry.”
CIA shrugged, seemingly unbothered.
Craig Henderson leaned forward. “Mr. President?”
The President nodded, inviting him to speak.
“There will be panic, Mr. President, whatever we do,” he said. There was no doubt whatsoever in his tone. “I would suggest placing the military and police on full alert before making the broadcast.”
“We will,” the President said, grimly. “And how will your friend react to all of this?”
“People like him, Mr. President, believe in getting the matter over and done with as quickly as possible,” Henderson said. “He wouldn't pussyfoot around, but just tell the world and then let everyone work through their panic.”
He shrugged. “Bu
t we do have some encouraging news,” he added. “We did turn back the alien attack on Earth.”
“You mean Mr. Stuart and his friends turned back the assault,” CIA said. There was a sardonic tone to his voice. “The government isn't going to look very good, no matter what we do.”
“Then we may as well make it look as though we are cooperating with them,” the President said. “We can spin that to our advantage, if necessary. Congress will probably accept it, provided they don’t interfere with our affairs. And we can let the foreign affairs take care of themselves.”
On that note, the meeting ended.
***
Gunter fell asleep over the laptop and only woke up, several hours later, when one of his cell phones started to shrill loudly. Pulling himself upright, he reached for the phone just in time to miss the call. Cursing under his breath, he put the phone down and yawned; moments later, the phone vibrated. Someone – he didn't save numbers in the phone, knowing it could be confiscated - had sent him a text message.
He frowned. It read WHITE HOUSE MEDIA STATEMENT, 1800HRS. GLOBAL BCAST. BE THERE.
Frowning, Gunter glanced at his watch. It was 1600 and he'd slept for over five hours. The laptop had placed itself on standby, conserving power. Unsurprisingly, he discovered when he moved the mouse, a couple of hundred more messages had arrived while he'd been sleeping. One of them insisted that the United States Government – or the Russians or Chinese – had been testing secret weapons in orbit. Another, a press release from a well-known researcher, stated that the whole event was nothing more than a series of zero-point energy releases. Gunter couldn't understand the technobabble the researcher had included, but it looked far too much like someone was trying to squash all opposition through scientific-sounding gibberish.
Shaking his head, he stood up and pulled off his clothes, then headed for the shower. There was just time, by his watch, to shower, shave and then call a taxi to take him to the White House. As an independent reporter, he might have some problems getting in, but if it was a global broadcast there would be little point in impeding him. There would be no exclusive scoop for anyone. It was irritating, yet it couldn't be helped. Besides, if there were any exclusives coming from the White House, they’d be given to the reporters who kissed up to the administration.
Or spend all of their time writing paeans to the President, he thought, as he turned on the tap and water cascaded down over his body. But how could I compromise my independence so badly?
Chapter Eighteen
Shadow Warrior, Earth Orbit
“Smile,” Mariko said. “You're on television.”
“The President is on television,” Steve muttered. The President was welcome to it, as far as Steve was concerned. If he had to face a horde of reporters shouting inane questions, he might just have started screaming at them or ordering the Secret Service to turn their guns on the mob. He was all in favour of grace under pressure, but there were limits. “And he’s trying to spin this in his favour.”
He snorted. The President’s logic, when he'd called, had been unarguable. Too much had been seen for any sort of cover-up to work, the President had pointed out, and it was better to release the information while they could still control it to some extent. Steve would have preferred to wait until they had a working constitution and a legal code, but events had moved out of his control. They'd just have to grin and bear it.
“The planet was defended,” the President said. Mentioning the alien attack had worked a miracle. The reporters had been struck dumb. “And humanity is reaching out towards the stars.”
Steve rolled his eyes as the President came to the end of his speech. It wasn't a bad one, as political speeches went, but it glossed over quite a few details. For a start, the President had implied that Heinlein Colony was an independent nation, yet he hadn't quite come out and said it outright. And then he’d hinted the US Government had access to alien technology without suggesting that it didn't have complete control over alien technology. And he’d finished by promising that more information would be revealed soon.
“It could have been worse,” Kevin said, mildly. “Can I upload the data packet now?”
Steve nodded. In the time between the President’s decision to go public and the actual broadcast, Kevin had worked frantically to put together a data packet for the internet, starting with a brief overview of the whole story and ending with a statement about their plans for the future. Unlike the President’s broadcast, the data packet made it clear that Heinlein Colony was an independent state, as were the planned future colonies on Mars, Titan and the asteroid belt. He’d also included a great many photographs of Heinlein Colony and a number of other lunar sights, as well as selected data from the alien files.
“Make it so,” he ordered.
Kevin rolled his eyes, then sent the command through the interface. “It should be interesting to watch,” he said. “I rather doubt that most people will believe it at first, even with the President vouching for us.”
Steve shrugged. The politics in the US had grown poisonous long before the current President had taken office. Republicans wouldn't believe a word that came out of a Democratic President’s mouth and vice versa. Hell, most people assumed automatically that politicians lied whenever they started to speak. It was hard, given the number of scandals that had washed through Washington one day only to be forgotten the next, to fault anyone for believing that politicians were out for themselves, first and foremost, and to hell with the rest of the country.
“That isn't our problem,” he said, as he stood up. “Keep an eye on it; let me know if something happens that requires immediate attention. I’m going to work.”
Kevin lifted an eyebrow. “You are?”
“We need a constitution,” Steve reminded him. “And a legal code. It’s time I started writing them both.”
“Let me read it before you start uploading it,” Kevin called after him. “And make sure Mongo and a few others read it too.”
Steve nodded as he stepped into his office and closed the hatch. It had once belonged to the Subhorde Commander, although Steve had no idea what the alien actually did in his office when he was so rabidly anti-intellectual. If there had been Horde females on the ship, he would have wondered if he’d used it for private sessions, but there had been none. Females, according to the files, were restricted to the very largest ships.
He sat down at his grandfather’s old desk – he’d had it shipped up from the ranch – and activated the interface. Downloading hundreds of actual and theoretical constitutions hadn't been difficult, but he found himself returning time and time again to the Founding Fathers greatest piece of work. It had a simplicity that most later versions lacked. Pulling up Keith Glass’s recommendations, he read through them and then reached for a sheet of paper. He had been taught by his mother, while she was homeschooling her children, that something written down physically would last longer in his mind than something typed. Besides, it felt right to use pen and ink for the first draft.
It was a more complex task than he’d realised, somewhat akin to editing his writings, but on a far greater scale. The sheer weight of history – future history – pressed down on him. He wrote out the first section, then crossed it out completely and wrote out something different, asking himself if each and every human right had to be guaranteed by law. And yet, if the rights known to exist at the time were included specifically, would that automatically exclude any rights still to be discovered?
Carefully, he outlined the structure of government. Keith Glass had pointed out that small government was best – Steve was hardly going to disagree with that sentiment – but there was also a need for a unified government. Very well; instead of a handful of large states, there would be hundreds of small cantons. The Solar Union – as Glass had termed it, after a government in one of his books – would not be an entirely coherent entity. It would be more like the Culture than Star Trek’s Federation.
We’ll have to see how it works
in practice, he noted, as he finished writing out the government design and sent it to Kevin and Glass for comments. It would have the advantage of allowing the local governments to remain in touch with their populations, but it would also take time for them to come to any decisions. In the meantime, the overall government would be responsible for defence and foreign affairs. We might have to modify the system later if it doesn’t work properly.
The Bill of Rights was simpler than outlining the government, he decided. Anything that took place between consenting adults in private, whatever its nature, could not be considered a crime. There would be a right to bear arms, but there would also be a responsibility to use them carefully. Everyone, no matter the offence, would have the right to a jury trial and/or the right to insist on being tested under a lie detector. There would be total freedom of religion for individuals, but religion could not be used as an excuse for criminal or terrorist acts. Extremists of all stripes would very rapidly find themselves removed from society permanently.
A Learning Experience Page 18