Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart

by Steven Erikson

  But that was poets. None of them had this man’s ferocious energy.

  In answer to Lisabet’s question, he said, “Yet another example of a brilliant Canadian Science Fiction writer virtually no one in this country knows about, outside of the aficionados of the genre. Never reviewed by the Globe, or the National Post. So, who is she, madam Prime Minister? Smart, opinionated, a feminist, a humanist. Frankly, I’m not surprised the ETs selected her.”

  “Is that what they did?” Lisabet Carboneau asked. “Just … picked her from a hat?”

  “I doubt it was that random,” Sawyer replied. “If there is a thematic continuity when looking at Sam’s stories and novels, it is compassion and a full comprehension of the human condition. Good writers don’t blink. They don’t shy away from hard truths.”

  “So she’s a liberal.”

  Sawyer frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “Not the political party. Small ‘l’ liberal. Not a friend of capitalism or corporate interests, a believer in social welfare. An environmentalist.”

  “More a believer in the dignity of humanity, madam Prime Minister. And that is the context we need for thinking about this. ET chose well.”

  “There’s not a single CEO or banker who’d agree with you.”

  At this, the author bridled and Alison steeled herself, thinking, uh oh, here we go.

  “Madam Prime Minister,” Sawyer’s tone was now hard, “it is long past time we took those old divisions to the dumpster. Every single aspect of this intervention to date has made very clear—undeniably so—that our traditional economic platform will not continue. In fact, the very notion of progress has been severed from capitalism. We will advance, but that advancement is no longer dependent on entrepreneurial largesse, or market forces of competition and innovation. We will now advance because it is the right thing to do.” He paused but only for a single breath. “Proper governance at this moment is no longer chained to maintaining the status quo. No longer pressured by special interests. The old games are dead. Their very language is dead. And you continue to wonder why every world leader is descending into utter obscurity? Liberal? Conservative? Who the hell cares anymore?”

  This last statement was loud enough to still the murmur from the rooms adjacent to the office.

  Lisabet Carboneau had slowly leaned back during that speech. Now there was a look of near disbelief on her face. “Excuse me, have you just berated me?”

  “We have to step into the new paradigm and we have to do it now.”

  Alison found herself silently cheering the man on. He was unapologetic, and how awesome was that?

  “I see,” Lisabet replied after a moment. “Please describe this new paradigm, Mister Sawyer. Not in terms of what’s no longer relevant, but in terms of what will be relevant.”

  “That is about to be spelled out for us in no uncertain terms,” Sawyer replied.

  “Can you predict something? Anything? Offer me, since you clearly have an opinion on such matters—offer me a vision of what a leader of a country is to say now, or, rather, tomorrow. Not just say, but do—what am I to do? How do I lead? Give me my new language, Mister Sawyer.”

  The writer sighed. “A language without obfuscation, Madam Prime Minister. Devoid of the usual bullshit, the platitudes, the evasive generalities that journalists don’t even challenge anymore. When was the last time a politician said anything of real substance? Said things and made promises that weren’t backtracked on? Nobody keeps their word, unless it’s a rhetoric of fear and hate, and even then it’s mostly a red flag to the wingnuts out there to go charging off beating the crap out of people with the wrong skin color or the wrong religion—”

  “Listen—don’t throw me in with that … that man.”

  “I’m not. I’m telling you how your average citizen sees politicians these days. We listen and we don’t buy it. Why? Because you refuse to tell us hard truths. You refuse to tell us we need to change our ways of living, pay more taxes, stop using cars, shut down the oil fields and the clear-cutting. We needed a drastic cut on carbon emissions—did you bite that bullet? Not really. Nobody did, barring a few small countries in Europe. The gas pipelines continue to be built, despite the opposition.”

  “People who try saying those things don’t get elected.”

  “And there you strike at the very heart of the problem, madam Prime Minister. The people in charge are contemptuous of the people who put them there.”

  “We are constrained, Mister Sawyer. We can’t stray too far from the path, the path that keeps the majority of people comfortable and not too unduly inconvenienced. In the meantime, external forces put upon us leaders immense pressure to keep the machine running.”

  “And now all of that is breaking down,” Sawyer replied. “Stand before your citizens, madam Prime Minister, and speak honestly. Help us articulate our fears and worries, our uncertainty. Don’t bull-shit. Make it clear that not one government or nation on this planet has a handle on this. The oil bubble popped—not from its internal pressure but from an external force. And that force is offering us an alternative.” He leaned forward. “We need to re-define civilization. That ship suspended over the UN Building in New York, it’s telling us we’re not long for being stuck in Earth’s gravity well. We are expanding into our solar system, madam Prime Minister, at the very least. Traditional forms of government are on the way out.”

  “Well, that’s just terrific. So who maintains infrastructure? Who keeps everything running? Transportation, resource extraction and processing and distribution? Civilization is not about to lose its complexity, is it? The bureaucracy exists for a reason, and that reason is the administration of a country full of people. And of course it goes beyond that—we need to continue dealing with other countries on the global market, the redistribution of resources that represent the fundamental business of surviving in the Twenty-First Century.”

  “That global market is already beginning to dissolve, Madam Prime Minister. Self-sufficiency will preclude the usual give and take. Post-scarcity. The pressure is off, but we as a species have existed under that burden since the very first city sprang up nine or ten thousand years ago. We don’t know any other way to live.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  Sawyer held up his hands. “Entering an age of freedom such as we’ve never known. Madam Prime Minister, tell us that. Every other world leader is either panicking or frozen in the head-lights. Be the first to tell us what’s coming—not the specifics, since we don’t yet know those—not for another, well, fifteen minutes. Besides, leave that for the analysts and pundits. What I’m talking about here is holding up the mirror and telling us what we’re seeing.”

  Alison Pinborough let out a long, slow breath, watching as something came over the Prime Minister’s face, a transformation.

  “A mirror,” she said quietly. “Yes. I get it. I can do that.” She hesitated. “I think.”

  “You can,” Robert Sawyer said with conviction.

  The Prime Minister raised one eyebrow as she regarded the author. “You up to collaborating on a speech?”

  “No,” he replied. “But I will write it.”

  Cojones. Utter cojones. Alison thought she might be in love.

  Adeleh Bagneri had the office door closed against the chaos in the rooms beyond. Her personal cell sat on the desk, speaker on, while Agnes sat opposite.

  The well-modulated voice of Samantha August continued speaking after a brief pause. “Sorry, we just had some electronic warfare thrown at us. Blocked, of course. Throwing sticks at a tank, but that’s humans for you, isn’t it?”

  “You keep saying ‘we’ but earlier you said you were alone.”

  “I am. Well, biologically. My lovely unnamed flying lawsuit has an onboard AI. I’ve named her Athena. She’s the one maintaining the sanctity of our air-space, making sure no one does something stupid and gets hurt. She’s also interfaced with the Blanket Presence, but the full maintenance of that is coming from another AI, on
another ship. We’re all set on our end. How about you?”

  “We’ll manage,” Adeleh said, lighting another cigarette and ignoring the scowl from Agnes.

  “Was that a lighter I heard?” Samantha asked. “You’re my kind of woman, Madam Secretary General.”

  “Party of two for the Pariah Section, please.”

  Samantha laughed. It was a nice laugh, low and sexy. A nice voice, too. Good thing, that.

  “So how do you come down from that ship?” Adeleh asked. “I’d like to say an energy-matter transfer, but I can’t because that’s impossible. I’ll come down the way I was originally taken. I will be phase-shifted—which is what makes me disappear—and then enveloped in a double-sleeved anti-gravity bubble of sorts. If you’re not shielded from anti-gravity it disassembles your body. Actually, ‘anti-gravity’ only describes the effect of the field. I think it refracts gravity rather than cancelling it. Anyway. Then I’ll be nudged downward. It all happens quickly, but people will see what looks like a column of white light. Accordingly, you need to ensure that the base of the building’s steps is completely clear. Give me fifteen meters or so. We could add an audible signal but I don’t want people to panic.”

  “Depends on the sound,” Adeleh replied. “Personally, I think the mother alien’s scream would be awesome, but that’s just me. No, it’s fine. Don’t bother. We’ve issued a press announcement. The NYPD and our own security staff have been informed and the latter will provide you with an escort into the building. We’re already managing the area in front of the building with a thirty meter space cleared.”

  “Okay,” said Samantha. “Then I’ll head down in five minutes. Athena can manage things from up here. Let your engineers and technicians know that all external feeds will be managed remotely, and so long as the camera-operators and sound-people don’t try shutting things down or doing anything weird, it should be clear sailing.”

  “Ms. August,” said Adeleh, “when you’re done with your speech, will you be fielding questions?”

  “I’m not sure. Should I?”

  “Well, if your speech constitutes a dictating of terms, probably not.”

  “Hmm, as in ‘terms of surrender’?”

  “You’re suggesting that negotiating is now on the table?”

  “Ah, right. Good point. Look, I am going to explain, as neutrally as possible, what is happening. I will also enunciate, as I understand them, the motivations for this intervention. I think, therefore, that yes, I should take questions at the end.”

  Adeleh sighed and nodded across to Agnes. “We’re glad to hear that, Ms. August.”

  “Just ‘Sam’ will do.”

  “And for me, Adeleh.”

  “I read your bio and I like everything about you, Adeleh. That’s why I figured this might work, if I called you direct.”

  “You’d still be on hold if you’d tried the normal channels.”

  “Ha! Okay, I’m ready for my arrival. Are you?”

  “Just a second, Sam.” Adeleh leaned forward. “Agnes, take point. Let’s begin our trip down to the ground floor—I want to meet her at the entrance—is everything ready for that?”

  “It is.” Agnes rose, headed for the door.

  “Sam,” said Adeleh, “there are some reporters down there. They’ll pounce on you, of course.”

  “Yeah. No problem. I may be a few minutes outside the entrance then, but not for too long. Better get going, Adeleh.”

  “On my way.”

  The best feed was from CNBC, close to the now-cordoned-off area fronting the UN Building. There were other feeds that Joey Sink flipped through every now and then across his multiple monitors, including scores of handheld recordings, the shaky kind that occasionally panned the pavement or people’s feet, or wheeled drunkenly toward a tilted skyline or the enormous craft overhead. Most of these were betraying nervous hands and the chatter was an incessant murmur, reminding Joey of a gymnasium full of school kids. The NBC reporter, some woman named Cherrie, was talking about the latest word from officials in the UN. Samantha August was coming down from the ship, any moment now.

  Joey had frantically googled the SF writer, only to find the servers had crashed immediately following the revelation of her identity. He vaguely recalled a head-to-head battle royal with Atwood at a convention a few years back (which had later been revealed as staged, some kind of in-joke between the two women, and they’d played it up like pros, exchanging devastating, eviscerating put-downs that had the entire audience of mostly Canadians gasping in shock).

  He knew of at least one SF television series based on her stuff. The one photograph attached to that series showed a rather striking red-haired woman, clear-eyed and probably intimidating as hell in person. And that had jostled his memory to realize that he indeed knew her, from her vlog.

  Oh yeah, she’d been under siege before. She’d had opinions.

  There was a whole sub-population who probably hated her on sight, he suspected. For being a woman, for being unafraid, for being white even. At least, he assumed she was unafraid. Her vlog was still up and running as far as he knew. He’d seen clips, every now and then and besides, that picture showed a woman who didn’t seem the type to twitch like a rabbit. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, she wasn’t even American.

  He noted King Con’s request blinking away. Joey sighed, and then answered. “Bro, you’re on.”

  “Samantha August, man. She’s beaming down!”

  “Yeah, we all got that.”

  “Ever heard of Majestic 12, Joey?”

  “The secret cult in the government that controls everything about UFOs and alien technology and all that other shit. Yeah. Probably killed Kennedy, or so goes the theory. What about it?”

  “The bath tub’s cracked, Joey. It’s all leaking out. Reverse-engineered shit. Nazi scientists, a whole cupboard full of tech way more advanced than what’s given to the public. The thinking goes that someone deep on the inside decided to whistle-blow. That, or ET hacked the bastards. Thing is, Joey, there’s hints about a war in space, and maybe the fact that our planet’s been quarantined since the late Forties. So, the big question: whose side is our ET on? And more importantly, just how tough are they?”

  “Okay, Mister King of Conspiracy, we can—oh wow!”

  On the live feeds a solid white beam of light had just speared down from the suspended spaceship.

  A moment later it vanished, and there stood Samantha August. She was dressed pretty damned sharp, like some university dean, maybe, or some Wall Street head-hunter. From nearby microphones and cell phones held out came the sudden cries of reporters calling out to her from behind a roped cordon manned by the NYPD.

  Samantha August turned, smiled, and gestured ‘wait a moment’ while she pulled out a pack of Canadian cigarettes and lit up.

  “What the fuck,” Joey muttered. “Biggest moment in the history of the world and she takes a smoke break?”

  King Con was laughing hysterically, but managed to say, “Huevos or what!”

  Joey watched as the woman walked toward the CNBC cameraman and Cherrie.

  “What happened after you were abducted, Ms. August? Were you tortured? Experimented on? Are you here under duress? Do they control your brain?”

  “Well-treated,” she replied calmly. “No torture, no experiments, no brain control that I’m aware of—in other words, my healthy skepticism remains.” She paused, sending out a stream of smoke that whipped away on the wind (was it always windy in NYC?), and then said, “I’m not here to deliver a sales pitch. I’m here to give you as many details on this Intervention Event as I possess. And I will be doing that to as many people as possible, all over the world.” She looked into the camera lens. “So stay tuned. I’ll be starting in about fifteen minutes.”

  Joey watched as she backed off, finished her cigarette and then stood around looking for a trash receptacle. But they’d all been removed.

  A female cop stepped over and collected it. The two spoke, and then Saman
tha laughed. With a wave toward the strangely silent crowd, she headed up the steps.

  A couple of women escorted by security stood to receive her. Joey had done enough research to recognize the UN’s Secretary General, Adeleh Bagneri. British-educated Iranian surgeon. He didn’t know the other woman.

  There were handshakes, a few words, and then the group turned and made its way toward the building’s entrance.

  “That’s it?” Joey wondered.

  “Said all she needed to,” King Con replied.

  “Cherrie didn’t ask the one question I wanted to know the answer to,” Joey observed, leaning back (but only slightly).

  “Which is?”

  “Why her?”

  “Oh c’mon Joey,” King Con chided. “SciFi writer. You know. Books. Reading. Ideas. Imagination. Brains. And a whole effin’ vlogger career of no-bullshit take-that-you-assholes—”

  “Language!”

  “Right, sorry bud! Anyway. She’s tough and smart. That’s what I’m saying. A whole career thinking and writing about other worlds, about aliens and people and people and aliens. About our future, man. And it’s not all doom and gloom, her stuff. None of that boring dystopic grimdark we’re-all-ffu—fudged crap, right?”

  “You really can’t help it, can you, bro? Oh, look at that, all the networks have switched over—we’re in that main assembly hall or whatever it’s called.” Joey sat up. He pulled loose a can of Red Bull from a ten-pack on the wing of his desk, popped it. “Boys and girls, take a selfie or something. Record where you were the day this all went down. Remember it. Because, like it or not, folks, today … everything changes.”