Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart

by Steven Erikson

  But examples pointing to salvation were not enough to diminish the global confusion and fear afflicting her species. Despite the fact the only things being victimized were, one and all, the worst vices of human nature. The rallying cry of freedom lost its clarion purity when it meant the freedom to kill, harm, and make others suffer.

  The door clicked open and in strode the Secretary General and her ever-present assistant, Agnes Livy. Dr. Adeleh Bagneri held an Iranian passport although most of her career as a surgeon had taken place in London before, in her latter years as a university lecturer, she had returned to Tehran. Her election to the post of Secretary General had followed a labyrinthine path, not least of which was the Islamic Republic of Iran’s astonishing nomination of a progressive Islamic woman to the prospective candidacy pool.

  Adeleh had poise and then some. Tall, straight-backed, her unbound hair the hue of iron, she had a gaze that could—and often did—make world leaders quail. She carried with her an ever-present Vape, defiant of admonishments and prohibitions and, if challenged, would ask which was preferable: this Vape or her usual Turkish cigarettes? Given those choices, most objections quickly died away.

  Then again, outside the sovereign territory of the United Nations Building, she might find the average American not so easy to brush off, especially here in Manhattan.

  D. K. Prentice had never been a smoker and disliked the smell of burning tobacco almost as much as she disliked the smell of weed, and yet she found herself secretly admiring the Secretary General’s bold defiance of propriety. This was not a woman to be bullied. Of course, many would retort that Adeleh’s insistence on using her Vape indoors was its own form of bullying. Diana had heard as much, more than once, but as these complaints came mostly from men rather than women, she suspected that more was at work with those complaints than the occasional cloud of vanilla-scented water vapor. And this suspicion in turn awakened her old feminist instincts when a woman’s behavior triggered male desires to put that woman in her place.

  In either case, the US Vice President admitted to some ambivalence regarding this new Secretary General. She had been a ferocious political force as the spokesperson of the United Nations, often speaking against US interests.

  Curious, then, how that adversarial history seemed to vanish the instant Adeleh smiled at Diana. “So glad you made yourself comfortable, Diana. The damned lift broke down, if you can believe it, but as Agnes pointed out in her usual droll manner, we’ve had so many ups and downs of late that a forty-minute pause in an overheating lift may have been just the thing. For us at least,” she added as she sat down opposite.

  Her assistant sat to the Secretary General’s right. Agnes Livy was Cardiff-born, her slave ancestors likely from West Africa according to the CIA dossier. While most slaves coming through the British Empire had been shunted through Bristol or Cardiff, only a small proportion had actually remained in those cities, and as the British were among the first to outlaw slavery, the trafficking had been relatively short-lived. As Adeleh on occasion had pointed out, Agnes was more British than the Royal Family, and certainly more Welsh than the Prince of Wales.

  “We’re still nowhere in the General Assembly,” the Secretary General resumed. “Even our President is at loggerheads with his V.P. and most of his advisors. Right now, the smaller committees are managing more practical solutions. As for the Security Council, well, how long is the unemployment line?” Smiling again with something like triumph glittering in her dark eyes, she lifted up her vape and moments later virtually disappeared behind a thick, billowing cloud of water vapor. That then vanished, still revealing her Cheshire cat smile.

  D. K. Prentice shrugged. “The Security Council continues to reassess the new landscape.”

  “Ah yes, the desert of their future. Now then, Diana, this notion of your president’s, to send up an astronaut in an effort to establish contact with the extraterrestrials, is very much being taken … shall we say … with umbrage, by the majority of other nations. More precisely, they’re affronted that the US presumes to speak for all of humanity … again.”

  “Again? I don’t understand, Madam—”

  “Oh you know, every damn movie about First Contact invariably puts America in the front line.” She tilted her head behind another cloud, pausing until it cleared before resuming. “Why is that, anyway?”

  “Well,” Diana drawled, “far be it for me to speak in defense of Hollywood, but you must bear in mind that for those film-makers, the ‘front line’ audience is American. I’m sure Russian First Contact, uh, films, would assert the same role for Russia and Russians.”

  “Couldn’t say,” Adeleh said breezily, “as I’ve never seen a Russian First Contact film. Are there any?”

  “I do seem to recall,” Diana said, “the Independence Day franchise of films expanded to include other parts of the world.”

  “As did Close Encounters, although only at the film’s start. Then it was Devil’s Mountain, Wyoming, and a line-up of white military types in sunglasses all ready to board the alien ship.”

  “Which, rather pointedly, were ignored.”

  “Yes, preferring Richard Dreyfuss and who could blame them?” The Secretary General now leaned forward. “And wasn’t there a Frenchman? Some sort of exo-linguist?”

  “That was the film-maker, Francois Truffault.”

  “Yes, but not in the film!”

  Diana frowned. “Madam, are we truly going to discuss old films today?”

  “Why not? I could use the break from reality. You?”

  After a moment, Diana smiled. “Well, you have a point there.”

  “I’m thinking Spielberg was uncannily prescient.”

  “Oh, was that where we were going with this?”

  Adeleh nodded, then leaned back and pulled on her oversized vape.

  A moment later, Agnes spoke. “The extraterrestrials in that film, Close Encounters, and in ET, both rejected the governmental authority seeking to impose its will on the situation, seeking, in effect, to control the outcome. And the audience of those films? Why, they cheered the rejection of that control.”

  Diana looked to each woman in turn, and then settled somewhat, crossing her legs and folding her hands on her lap. “Oh. I see.”

  “Whilst in the Independence Day films,” Agnes went on, “the authorities were simply ignored until they were destroyed. The course of the stories from that point onward led to a reassertion of central authority and, ultimately, governmental control. Only a couple decades between the two visions, and yet, how vast the change.”

  “History spoke to new needs in the audience, one supposes,” Diana said.

  Agnes nodded. “A retraction toward stability and security, evoked in the very words that founded the nation of the United States of America.” She paused then and half-smiled. “I did film studies at uni.”

  I know, Diana almost said. Instead, she glanced down at the teaset. “Tell me, Agnes, do you by any chance have some builder’s tea on hand?”

  “Excellent idea!” Adeleh said. “Do be Mum, Agnes darling? Let’s get rid of this posh crap. Diana, let’s take this afternoon to discuss our present irrelevance. Because, I now strongly suspect, that won’t last.”

  While Agnes briefly left the room to scrounge up some decent tea, Diana studied the Secretary General for a moment before saying, “Madam Secretary, in what manner do you think the United Nations will acquire newfound relevance?”

  “Why, as the central governing representative of our species, Diana. Oh don’t look at me like that. I well know that every nation is ruled by power-blocks desperate to defend their turf.”

  “Strictly speaking,” Diana pointed out, “the General Assembly is not precisely democratic. The means by which member state representatives are appointed will have to change—at least to satisfy our desire for true democratic representation. And that, of course, assumes that nations will obligingly relinquish their sovereign rights to oversee the lives of their citizens. Which, to be hone
st, seems unlikely.”

  “Yes indeed. And yet—” Adeleh sucked at her vape, frowned and began unscrewing it—“it appears, does it not, that ET is defining our future for us?” She drew out a small plastic bottle filled with amber liquid and set about refilling her vape.

  “As a surgeon surely you know that nicotine is bad for the heart,” said Diana as she watched.

  “But stress is even badder,” Adeleh replied, glancing up to smile. “Good thing Agnes wasn’t here to hear that, she’s a terror when it comes to grammar. Besides, I have a heart of stone, and a brain in dire need of jumpstarting. Such as that provided by nicotine. Now then,” she sat back and took an experimental pull. “There we go. Just think, with a tiny EFFE in this there won’t be any batteries to recharge—how the world is changing!”

  “ET appears to be indifferent to our governments.”

  “Oh I disagree!”

  At that moment Agnes returned with a tray bearing a ceramic tea pot and three mugs. “Staff room,” she said.

  “Lovely,” said Diana with a grateful smile.

  “I feel it necessary,” Agnes went on, “to point out that I sent an aide to find all of this. Accordingly, this tea may be steeped. In the meantime, I received a report confirming that the Chinese launch remains on schedule. Tomorrow morning, nine a.m. their time.” She glanced at her watch. “Which is coming up fast.”

  Adeleh sighed. “And of course they will occupy the abandoned Lunar bases, effectively laying claim to the technology to be found there, not to mention the infrastructure.” She paused and frowned. “One wonders what they will find there.”

  “It’s not likely they will be forthcoming on details,” Agnes added as she poured tea for the three of them.

  Diana felt her own tension rise a notch. “Needless to say, we’re not happy about this.”

  Adeleh’s thin brows lifted. “Security concerns? The old power brokering of who has what and who knows what and who hasn’t and who doesn’t? Well, I wonder if ET will indulge such antiquated posturing.”

  “I wish there was an answer to that,” Diana admitted, gratefully collecting up her mug. “So far, we’ve not had much in the way of direct responses to our individual in-camera decisions and gestures.” She met Adeleh’s eyes. “Presumably the same for you?”

  “Solemn silence, darling. This notion of secrecy, so human, certainly seems to feed ET’s own agenda, given the absence of disclosure. What are we to make of that?”

  Diana snorted. “Only the obvious. We can’t hope to win a game when the rules are being kept from us, can we? This is the ultimate power brokering going on here.”

  “Do you think? Rather,” the Secretary General amended, “do you believe that is the purpose behind ET’s coyness?”

  “Well, what else would it be?”

  “You are assuming ET thinks like us, and sees things the way we do. Consider the alternative: we are being given room to decide how to proceed, not nation by nation, but as a species.”

  Agnes said, “Consider all those First Contact films, Madam Vice President. Each scenario demanded, in terms of story and setting, a focal point for the ET’s attention upon us. National capitals, military installations, the functioning head of government and organized response. So much for the belligerent aliens. The nice ones? Oh, space programs, secret First Contact men-in-black teams—once again, one particular nation’s organized response. Both reaffirm our notions of authority, our structures of knowledge and control. Elite people on the inside, everyone else on the outside.”

  “I don’t think ET likes that,” Adeleh said. She waved a hand. “Oh I know, I have no proof of my suspicions. Only what my gut tells me. Look, Security has always existed to protect national interests, the defending of sovereign rights, the protection of a nation’s citizens and their way of life and all the rights their native land deems acceptable. And of course secrecy has been Security’s first weapon of control, in both peace and war-time. But look at us now—you could lay bare all your secrets and what could anyone else do about them?”

  Diana only just managed to keep from flinching.

  As if in response to an unspoken accusation, Adeleh said, “No, I’m not naïve, darling. We’ve been long enough in this murky world to know that more often than not, the keeping of secrets by governments and its intelligence agencies has as much to do with unethical or even unconstitutional violation of citizen rights, both home and abroad, all committed in the name of patriotism, as it does its officially sanctioned function. Furthermore, we both know that Security as an institution behaves in the same manner as any entrenched bureaucracy: it will defend itself and will employ secrecy to maintain its power, regardless of ethics or even legality.”

  “You are describing human nature,” said Diana.

  “Am I?”

  “Insofar as historical legacy is concerned, yes, absolutely. How have we ever done anything differently? Complex society demands it.”

  “Does it truly? Or has that immovable assumption been drilled so deeply into our psyches that we only believe it’s inevitable, intrinsic to human nature?”

  Diana set her mug down and then threw up her hands. “How can we even answer that?”

  “That is just my point, Diana,” said the Secretary General. “There lies our immediate task. Determining, individually and collectively, what has to be over what we think has to be. We are being invited to seek a new definition of human nature, no more, no less, and surely you can see that this determination now poses the greatest challenge our species has ever faced.”

  Diana Prentice sat back in her chair. “Good God,” she muttered. “Where to start?”

  “We start here,” Adeleh said. “With my first formal speech in the General Assembly. In seven days’ time.”

  Diana’s eyes narrowed on the Secretary General. “Have you had this conversation with other heads of state? Other representatives?”

  Adeleh smiled. “We know how important certain things are. You and the United States, Diana, are the first. My next six days will be crowded ones.”

  “Well, I don’t envy you.”

  “Of course you don’t but you know, maybe one day soon, you will.”

  The smile was there for a moment, broad as ever, and then gone behind a white cloud.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “I haven’t made my mind up regarding global conspiracies. But it strikes me that the most successful conspiracy is the one in which the majority of its participants aren’t even aware they’re part of the conspiracy. That may sound contradictory, until you look at one of the most obvious global conspiracies still going strong: monetarism.”

  SAMANTHA AUGUST

  “Eleven women have been selected to accompany the mission, Leader.” Liu Zhou paused only briefly and then continued, “Of course this necessitated the removal of nine marines in Captain Shen’s command.”

  “Yes,” murmured the Leader from where he sat on the leather sofa, eyes on the bank of television monitors, “the captain made his protests most fervent, but I remain resolved. There is no time to waste and the invitation could not be clearer.” He glanced up to fix his Science Advisor with an unblinking regard. “Highly intelligent, skilled, talented, fertile women of child-bearing age. And suitably attractive, yes?” He sniffed. “One would think our marines delighted at the prospect.”

  “Leader, this initial team—our colonial batch—includes the finest scientists and technicians available to our glorious homeland. I believe the marines consider their chances to be limited.”

  “Ha! Well, perhaps they have a point. Still, the laws of attraction are mysterious.” He then waved the hand that held the remote control. “No matter. Captain Shen understands his duty, and well comprehends the Mission’s new protocols. In any case, it now seems obvious that the marines have little to fear. Empty chambers, echoing corridors.”

  “Initial exploration of Luna Site 71 will remain their responsibility,” Liu Zhou affirmed. “Some risks remain. Even deployment and m
ovement in lunar gravity is an unknown complication. In any case, Captain Shen’s concerns are perhaps not as trivial as they may seem. The Science Team has brought to me its considered observation that these women, being such late additions to the mission, lack even the most basic training and familiarization with shipboard and mission responsibilities.”

  “I know, I know, old friend. All of your objections have been noted. But I desire this mission to be a most emphatic announcement of our intention not only to occupy Site 71, but to establish the beginning of a permanent settlement of that base. The first human child born on Luna will be Chinese.”

  “And the medical risks of fetal development in low gravity, not to mention the risk of radiation?”

  “We shall see, won’t we? Oh, I know how cruel I sound, and while you may be thinking it callous of me to gamble with the life of children, I do not believe the gamble to be as great as you believe.” He gestured at the screens. “Our silent benefactors have displayed their value for human life, all over the world. Do you think they would not do the same with our first off-planet human colonists?”

  Liu Zhou fought off a chill. “Leader, you are reliant upon the mercy of an unknown alien species.”

  “I am.” He began shutting down monitors until only one remained alight, showing a fixed-station live-feed from the launch site. “Now, do sit down with me, so that we may witness the boldest adventure humanity has ever taken.”

  As much as Liu Zhou felt he should have been in attendance at mission control at the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, politics had demanded his presence here at Party Central Command. Of course, if things went wrong, his arrest and incarceration could more easily be achieved away from public view. But surely such days were behind them now?