We don’t know what the iron bitch and the alien really said to one another, part of Toby’s mind added, silently. McGreevy had refused to carry a recorder into the chamber, pointing out that the aliens might consider it an unfriendly act. It was logical enough, even believable, but Toby suspected that it hadn’t been her only motive for refusing. The woman was simply too ambitious to be trusted.
“I think that we can find a suitable patch of land,” the President said. He looked around the small compartment. Despite all of its mystique, Air Force One was still only a jumbo jet, with the limited carrying capacity of its fellows. “And then we will have to see if their promises really come true.”
Toby scowled, thinking hard. The Native Americans hadn’t just lost because of smallpox; they’d lost because they could never duplicate the technology owned and used by the Europeans. Gunpowder had been a mystery to them until it had reached America and they’d never been able to develop their own industrial base. And then the Europeans had simply waged war from a playbook far more advanced than any known to the local civilisations.
“Yes, Mr President,” he agreed. He already knew who would be placed in charge of finding a suitable patch of ground. At least they’d have the opportunity to monitor the aliens as they set up their base. They needed data and what little data they had was patchy, almost impossible to fit into a greater picture. “I’m sure that we can find something suitable.”
Chapter Seven
Nevada
USA, Day 12
The heat slapped Jason in the face as he scrambled out of the air-conditioned aircraft and down towards the tarmac far below. He winced as his hands touched the railing; it felt hot enough to cook eggs, or burn exposed human flesh. The sun beat down on them from high above, mocking the puny humans making their way off the plane and heading towards a handful of buses waiting at one end of the runway. In the distance, the silvery towers of the alien base rose up against the skyline.
“Papers, please,” a policeman said. There were a number of armed policemen waiting at the buses, carefully checking the papers carried by the visitors. The alien base had already become a favoured destination for travellers – the curious, the worshipful and even the hostile – and the local police force had found itself overwhelmed as it struggled to try and keep the unwelcome guests from scrambling over the fence and slipping towards the alien base. “I need to check your papers.”
Jason produced his ID – his SETI card, the letter that had invited him to the base and the security card he’d been issued by a government minder – and waited for the policeman to check it, cursing the sun under his breath. The heat seemed to grow every stronger – sweat was trickling down his back – as he waited; it seemed like hours before the policeman finally returned his ID and motioned for him to enter the bus. It was cool inside, thankfully; he stumbled to a seat and collapsed in front of one of the windows. He’d never faced such heat in his life.
The bus lurched into life and started driving down a road towards the alien base. It had been constructed near a former USAF base for heavy-lift aircraft, allowing the Federal Government a high degree of control over the surrounding area. The airfield was separated from the alien base by a network of fences and armed guards, but hardly anyone came to visit the former base unless one of the alien shuttles came to land on the field. They reserved their attention for the aliens. Nearly a week since the aliens had made their speech at the UN, they were still a source of endless fascination to the inhabitants of Earth. Every alien base on the planet existed under the same state of friendly siege.
He winced as the bus neared the second layer of fencing. There was a much stronger police presence there, along with a number of pro-alien and anti-alien protesters. The policemen had separated the two sides when they started fighting, according to the driver, and left them sitting by the side of the road, their hands cuffed, until a police transport could arrive to take them away for processing. God alone knew what would happen to them after that; Jason had known a couple of arrested protesters while he’d been at college and all they’d received had been a caution. He looked away from one crying girl and up towards the alien base. They built remarkably quickly.
Inside the fence, the alien base rose towards the sky. Jason had seen videos of the aliens landing components on the ground and then assembling them into a single set of structures. They’d moved with remarkable speed; some commenters on the television had pointed out that only a military unit could move with such speed and skill. Their prefabricated structures looked oddly simplistic for a star-travelling society, although he did have to admit that the human race had no benchmark to measure the aliens against any other race. Perhaps simple designs were a constant among the Galactics.
The base was composed of large angular structures, reminding him of the Pentagon to some extent, although the exact number of sides seemed to vary. Their featureless metal walls seemed to glow of their own accord, although it could merely be a trick of the light. He caught sight of the bus’s reflection as it parked beside one of the larger buildings and waited for the aliens to open the doors. When the building finally opened up, Jason was among the first to scramble for the door. There was no way he was going to pass up on the opportunity to see an alien base from the inside.
Inside, the alien base was something of a disappointment, although it was clear that it hadn't been built with humans in mind. The proportions were odd to his eyes, casting a faint air of unreality over the entire scene; the lighting was bright, almost bright enough to hurt. It smelled strange to his nose, something almost familiar, but he couldn't place his finger on the precise scent. The aliens who had arrived to serve as silent escorts beckoned them forward whenever they started to fall behind, as if they were impatient to begin. Jason found himself struggling to contain mounting excitement as they were finally shown into what was clearly a lecture hall. It was large enough to hold almost two hundred humans.
He smiled as he took one of the seats and waited patiently. The Galactics had offered to give information sessions to humans – and Jason, as the Discoverer, had found it easy to get a place. He felt as if he didn't belong among the gathering of political leaders, businessmen and even a handful of religious representatives, but it hardly mattered. How could he have refused the chance to actually ask questions of beings who had seen what awaited the human race in space?
***
An hour later, he was feeling much less optimistic. The Galactics – they all seemed to be the same race, almost indistinguishable from one another – had opened with a brief session that repeated what they’d said at the UN, and then followed up with a series of blandishments that were long on optimism and short on detail. They seemed happy to answer some questions in great detail, but other subjects seemed to draw imprecise answers – or even a simple refusal to answer at all. It galled him as much as it puzzled him; they’d been promised answers, yet all they’d been given were bland statements that were devoid of any actual content.
Impatiently, he raised his hand. The alien standing in front of them – wearing a black unmarked tunic and a hood that almost seemed to cover the alien face, but not the bright red eyes – looked at him, inviting him to speak. SETI had primed him with any number of questions about the universe, yet so far he hadn't had an opportunity to ask any of them. And now that he did, he wasn't sure if he wanted to ask after all. The answers might not be forthcoming, or he might not want to know...
“You’ve told us that there are many forms of intelligent life among the stars,” he said, without preamble. SETI had picked up on one thing about the Galactics that really didn't make sense. For a multiracial society – in the truest possible sense – they seemed to all share the same racial origin. “Why haven’t you introduced us to other forms of intelligent life?”
There was a pause as the alien appeared to consider. Jason had once attended a political rally where the candidate had made the mistake of too-obviously depending upon prompts from his political manager, w
aiting in the wings and using a concealed earpiece to advise his master. The alien seemed to be doing the same, although it was impossible to tell for sure. They might be simply checking and rechecking the translation. There had been a number of confusing utterances made by the aliens that had been blamed on translator error.
“Your race is unprepared to encounter more than one other form of intelligent life at present,” the alien said, finally. They hadn't been given any names, or any other way of telling the aliens apart, something that bugged Jason and everyone else. “You must understand that while there are many races that are humanoid, there are many others which have almost nothing in common with your race. We were chosen to meet with you as we share a superficial similarity in form, but no biological similarity that might open the risk of a disease passing from an alien race to your own.”
Jason frowned. He’d read The War of the Worlds in grade school and he’d been disappointed by the ending. SETI, however, believed quite firmly that germs and viruses from another ecosystem would not be able to make the jump from alien into human – or vice versa. The idea that the aliens might be so close to humanity as to allow cross-contamination seemed implausible – but then, alien life itself seemed implausible. And SETI had never really had any data to prove or disprove its theories.
“That is a valid concern,” he acknowledged, after a moment. “However, you have been reluctant to tell us anything about the other members of the Federation. What kind of beings are they and when can we hope to meet them?”
There was a second pause. “All such information is being restricted until your race develops the political and social maturity to handle such information,” the alien said. The voice was as inhuman as ever, but Jason was sure that he detected a note of...irritation behind the cold dispassionate tone. “We do not wish to cause political turmoil on your world that might upset the schedule for your entry into the Federation.”
One of the other visitors, a famous writer of military science-fiction, interrupted before Jason could say anything else. “And you don’t want to tell us anything we could use against you,” he said. “After all, we might not join the Federation.”
The alien looked at him, bright red eyes pulsing with an unreadable emotion. “That is a concern,” he admitted. “Your race’s xenophobia may lead you to challenge the Federation itself.”
“Now see here,” the writer said. “That’s the bit I don’t get. How can you possibly feel threatened by us?”
“When one race joins the Federation, it alters the pattern of Federation affairs – even if the race in question is harmless,” the alien said. “Over the years, the Federation has never been threatened by another race, but we have learned to embrace change brought to us by new arrivals. And yet your race has a level of xenophobia beyond anything displayed by any other known race. We fear what you might do if introduced into our society.”
“Interesting,” the writer said. “Does that mean that the Federation doesn't fight wars?”
This time, there was a very long pause. “The Federation has not fought a war in generations,” the alien said. “We do not need to fight when the benefits of cooperation are so clear to almost every race. There is an unlimited bounty of resources out among the stars, enough for everyone. Your race worries us because you may prove dangerous to others.”
The subject changed rapidly. “As you are aware, we have already started distributing fusion generators to your nations,” the alien said. “These generators produce enough power to handle all of your projected energy requirements for the next four decades before they will need to be refuelled. By then, we expect that you will have made the switch to a fusion-based economy and started cleaning up your homeworld...”
Jason sighed and settled back in his chair. At least they’d learned something about the aliens, if only that they were clearly reluctant to share certain kinds of data with Earth. And that puzzled him. He could have understood the aliens refusing to share designs for weapons – they would have made humanity much more dangerous – but surely information on the Federation’s member races couldn't be harmful. The human race had had nearly two weeks to get used to the concept that they were surrounded by thousands of other intelligent races. They surely could handle seeing visual depictions of other aliens; what were they - Cthulhu?
“I have another question,” the science-fiction writer said. “How is the Federation actually governed?”
The alien seemed to hesitate again, before answering. “The Federation is organised along democratic lines, with each race being given a vote in the government,” he said. “Our government is run by consensus, with all proposed laws requiring a majority vote to pass into law. Each race has internal autonomy within the Federation, but is expected to respect other races while in space...”
Jason jumped in, quickly. “So there’s no shared sense of ethics...?”
Oddly, the alien didn't seem to mind the question. “You must understand that different races have different ways of living,” he said. “We have races that have one intelligent sex and one unintelligent sex. Those races do not have any concept of equality between the sexes – and why should they? Other races are telepathic, capable of operating a perfect democracy; they have little need for the complex governments designed by less capable societies. There are races that breed in manners that would sicken you – and races that regard the human interest in sexual acts as barbaric. Any attempt to force a united code of conduct on the Federation would result in disaster.”
He looked around the room. “As I was saying, the importance of fusion power...”
***
Joseph Buckley had never hidden the fact that he’d served in the United States Navy during the early stages of the War on Terror, although he’d never seen anything reassembling real action. Indeed, he’d been discharged from the Navy in 2010 and had turned his service experience into a series of best-selling science-fiction novels. He’d invented his own science – a system involving a network of concentrated gravity streams, allowing transit from star to star – but he’d based the fictional space navies on his own experience in the USN. The critics had loved them and he’d become moderately wealthy. He’d even had a film planned out that had become stuck in development hell.
He’d been surprised when his application to visit one of the alien bases had been accepted so quickly. A series of telephone calls to various other writers he knew had revealed that the aliens seemed to be biased in favour of fantasy and fantasy-SF writers, and against those who took the care to develop universes in line with understandable scientific concepts. His puzzlement had deepened until he’d realised that a woman who wrote trashy romantic fiction about a young teenage girl who rode a giant unicorn from star to star would be unlikely to discover anything that might actually provide a clue to how the Galactics science actually worked. Writers with strong military or scientific backgrounds had been barred; writers who made up their own crap had been prioritised. One didn't have to be Fox Mulder to get a sense that something was badly wrong.
After the alien presentation was finally finished – the only thing saving it from terminal boredom had been the presence of the alien himself – Joseph remained behind after the aliens escorted most of the humans out of the room, saying that he had to go to the washroom. The aliens accepted it, leaving him alone for long enough to allow him to take an unsupervised look around the chamber. In a bad novel or TV series, he would have discovered the secret plans at once. Instead, he found almost nothing. The chamber seemed to be little more than a movie set.
Puzzled, he slipped out of the door, purposefully choosing to head in the wrong direction from the tour group. Silently researching excuses in his head, he walked down the metal corridor, noting the strange proportions as he passed a handful of sealed doors. An attempt to open them resulted in nothing, apart from a sore hand. The alien locks seemed unbreakable – at least without revealing his presence. He was on the verge of giving up when he discovered a door that was half-ope
n and slipped through it before he had a chance to think. The door slid closed behind him and he swore under his breath. There was no way to retreat back to the relative safety of the tour group.
He paused – and realised, for the first time, that the slightly unpleasant scent that seemed to accompany the aliens was noticeably stronger. The lighting, too, was different, seeming to blaze down on his bald skull. Nervously, wishing he’d been able to carry his handgun into the alien base, he kept walking down and paused at the corner, peering around into a vast chamber. Two aliens stood in front of him, their backs turned, studying a set of images that flickered in and out of existence in front of them. Some of the images seemed to be human television channels, others appeared to be jumpy, as if they were carried by an amateur cameraman. One of the aliens seemed to twist in a manner that reminded him of his grandfather’s pet snake, his sinuous neck snaking outwards towards a single set of displays. They showed a handful of humans within what looked like an operating facility...
Joseph must have gasped, for both aliens spun around with startling speed. It was already too late to retreat. He was still inching backwards when something stuck him in the back and he crashed down to the cold metal floor. The smell grew stronger as a third alien loomed over him, picked his paralysed body up with apparently effortless ease, and carried him down another corridor. His mind, already spinning under the influence of whatever they’d shot him with, started to blur; he spun in and out of awareness. A whole series of flickering images seemed to flash across his mind; an alien, looking down at him; something being extended towards his neck; a brief sense of almost intolerable pain...
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