by Steve White
Gingerly, Langston took the small, unmoving shape, flinching involuntarily from the lifeless flesh. That flesh was brownish-gray, smooth . . . and it didn't feel like flesh. He wasn't sure why it didn't, for this was inarguably a formerly living animal. The mysterious preservative to which the President had alluded had left it limp and flexible. Overcoming his queasiness, Langston found he could feel the outline of its skeleton. But it didn't feel like a skeleton. Instead of four limbs branching from a spine, there were six, radiating from some bony something in the center . . . but the animal was nothing like a starfish. One of those limbs, he realized, was no limb at all, for it terminated in a tiny face. At least Langston assumed it must be a face, for it had eyes. Three of them.
Belatedly, he recalled the emphasis the President had laid on the words in this world.
A cold draft seemed to blow through the Oval Office. It didn't stop sweat from popping out all over Langston's body.
"I think," said the President gravely, "you're now ready to look at these and not automatically dismiss them as fakes." He slid a sheaf of photos across the desk. "You'll note," he commented as he put the preserved animal away, "that not all evolutionary pathways are as divergent from ours as this guy's—especially the ones that culminate in tool-using races. The way it's been explained to me, a bilaterally symmetrical vertebrate—that's us—is a better arrangement for an active animal than a radially symmetrical one like his. It helps to have a definite front end."
Langston wasn't listening. Nor was his mind processing everything he was seeing. The various beings in the photos were too foreign to his accustomed world to fully register. But they had a certain indefinable quality of reality which he could now recognize, having seen the animal from the plastic case. And they had another quality: a sheer, skin-crawling wrongness far beyond the adolescent imaginings of Hollywood special effects. Oddly, this was most true of the ones that came closest to the human form.
"Do I now have your undivided attention?" the President asked.
Langston looked up from the photos and managed to nod.
"Shortly after the end of World War II," the President began, "the United States government was contacted by a man—yes, man, human but of unknown origin. He called himself 'Mr. Inconnu,' thus demonstrating that his originality had limits. He brought incontrovertible proofs that he was for real, stuff that made it impossible to dismiss him as a nut-case. He also brought news the human race wasn't—and still isn't—ready to handle."
Langston found his voice. "You mean the fact that there really is, uh, life in outer space?"
"Not just that. The galaxy isn't merely inhabited; it is taken! There are mighty civilizations out there. They have all the prime real estate already nailed down. They have no interest in technologically backward, politically fragmented worlds except as pawns in the power-games they play. And at the time Mr. Inconnu arrived they were just about to uncover one more such world: ours.
"It was necessary—urgently so—to do two things. First of all, we had to bluff the aliens into thinking Earth had a central political authority and was technologically advanced enough to rate at least a certain perfunctory diplomatic courtesy. Secondly, we had to begin living up to the second half of that bluff, and bring Earth up to speed as quickly as it could possibly be done. Mr. Inconnu provided the means to commence the crash course."
"You mean . . . the kind of things you've shown me?" Langston gave a headshake of bewilderment. "But if, as you say, we've known about this technology since the late 1940s, then why isn't it commonly known? You yourself just said it's still beyond our horizons."
"It couldn't be released all at once. It is a sociological truism, worked out by cultures older than ours, that a society simply can't survive the abrupt, wholesale introduction of technology more than one level above its own. God knows there've been plenty of examples in our own post-Columbus history! Mr. Inconnu's stuff has had to be doled out gradually, to avoid causing cultural and social collapse. Although," the President added with a grim smile, "I sometimes think it hasn't been avoided by a whole hell of a lot! Have you ever read much classic science fiction?"
Langston shook his head emphatically. The stuff was just so politically incorrect.
"Those writers foresaw the things that lay within the potential of their early-to-mid twentieth-century world: nuclear weapons, spaceflight with chemical rockets, and so forth . . . including 'electronic brains.' But not one of them ever foresaw the culture of ubiquitous information access that arose by the end of the century: practically every middle-class person with a computer on his or her desk at work, and another one at home." The President paused significantly. "The transistor, you see, was one of the first of Mr. Inconnu's revelations to be released, in 1948. Once society had had enough time—barely—to absorb that, the silicon chip followed. Society managed to adjust. The side effects and by-products, such as the rise of an objectionable computer-geek subculture, weren't quite fatal. But the point is that if the technological progression had followed its normal course, we'd now be living in the future visualized by those Golden Age science-fiction writers: massive computers with lots of flashing lights and buzzers, and clunky Robbie-the-Robot type cybernetic devices, all using advanced vacuum tubes.
"At the same time, an analogous process was going on in molecular genetics. The same goes for any number of other fields. Materials technology, for example; none of those writers foresaw Kevlar. Nor did they foresee the laser. 'Death rays' were just a lucky guess."
Langston struggled to comprehend. "But . . . but who has been releasing these innovations? Who decides when they're to be revealed? And . . . what was that you said earlier about deceiving these aliens into thinking Earth had some kind of world government?"
"The answer to all your questions is the same. You see, this had to be kept secret. If it had gotten out, the result would have been global panic and hysteria that would have blown the whole deception. So a secret agency known as the Prometheus Project, answerable only to the President, was formed for the purposes of interfacing with the aliens and conducting a double security operation: keeping the truth about Earth from the aliens, and keeping the truth about the aliens' existence—and our relationship with them, including the agency's own existence—from the human race. It also controls the dissemination of extraterrestrial technology.
"It's been a staggering job—all the more so because the overriding imperative of secrecy has made the personnel problem almost intractable. Nevertheless, recruiting for the Prometheus Project commenced immediately and proceeded on a continuing basis . . ."
Part One:
1963
Chapter One
I still remember my first glimpse of Mr. Inconnu. It's easy to remember, because it was also my last one.
It was while I was in training. I was hastening between Quonset huts, to the mess hall. It was raining. It's always raining in the Alaska panhandle, except in the winter when it's snowing. And this was spring, shortly after the Good Friday earthquake of 1964. We hadn't gotten the direct impact, for the epicenter was five hundred miles to the northwest, at the northern end of Prince William Sound. But the tsunamis had swept to the far reaches of the Pacific, with twenty-foot waves as far as California. We had been mostly shielded by Chichagoff and Admiralty Islands, but we'd gotten some messy aftereffects. And now the rain was worse than usual. So I wasn't able to get a really good view of the group of men emerging from the HQ Quonset, including the elderly guy—or at least he seemed elderly, although for some reason it was hard to be sure. His hair, which I could see before he pulled the hood of his parka up over it, was gray, shading to white at the temples. His left side was turned to me, and even in these conditions I could see he had one hell of a facial scar. Then he turned toward me, and for a very small fraction of a second our eyes met.
Then he was gone. That was all there was to it. I'm certain I wouldn't have noticed him at all, except that something about him seemed oddly familiar.
Afterwards,
I described him to my roommate Dan Buckley, who'd been at the facility longer than I had and fancied himself the ultimate repository of insider knowledge. Even while condescending to enlighten my ignorance, he couldn't entirely conceal his surprise at the glimpse I'd gotten.
"Hardly anybody ever sees him," Dan explained. "The only people he has direct contact with are the higher-ups. I guess he's up here for consultation or something." Evidently feeling he had somehow lost ground by revealing that he was impressed, Dan leaned close and spoke in his wisdom-imparting voice. "They say he's got direct, automatic access to the President."
"I suppose he'd have to, considering . . ." As I replied absently, most of my mind was contemplating the fact that I'd seen the man who was the ultimate reason all of us were there, up the Lynn Canal Inlet from Juneau, not quite halfway to Skagway. And now that I knew who he was, I remembered the one slide, made from a poor-quality photo, that I'd seen of him. Of course, he looked older now, as was only to be expected. But the scar was still a dead giveaway.
But I'm getting ahead of my story. All this was, of course, after I'd been recruited for the Prometheus Project. I remember the day that began, too. In fact, I'd remember that day even if I'd never been recruited. It was the day no one of my generation can ever forget.
* * *
Those of the younger generations (God, have I actually lived long enough to hear myself using a phrase like that?) find it very difficult to believe that not so very long ago Washington, DC, was like some sleepy, comfortably down-at-heels southern state capital.
It's true, though. At least as recently as the early1960s you could just drive your car into the Capitol parking lot, and if you could find a space that was neither reserved nor already taken—which was often possible—you could simply park and walk into the Capitol building. No metal detectors. No Delta Force wannabes waiting to swoop down on you. And as for the White House, you just strolled along the street—it was a street then—to the East Wing and got in line. I swear it's true.
And it wasn't just the big-deal government buildings. Washington had at least its share of large hotels, of course, but even those had character. And the city was full of smaller places with dark wood-paneled bars that had aged well, their walls covered to practically the last square inch with framed, faded, autographed photos of politicians who'd gotten soused there. Those places had even more character. So did the sidewalk cafes that lent a delightful suggestion of Paris or Rome in the days before the freaks took over the sidewalks. The whole city oozed character. It was a great town. Really. May I be sentenced to live in today's DC if I lie.
I was there in November of 1963. It was a little over a year after I'd parted company with the Army. (No, I don't want to talk about it.) My new career had taken me out of town, and I liked this particular job because it brought me back to Washington, where I was based. I loved Washington—especially in the autumn. Forget those famous cherry blossoms in the spring. Autumn was best.
Not that I had all that much time to appreciate it. I was there on business. Business took me to a certain bar in Georgetown—an area recently made fashionable by the Kennedy administration types, but still recognizable. The bar was a little place on one of the side streets off M Street, not far from the footbridge across the canal. I was to meet George Stafford there.
As I approached the place, I became aware that something was not quite right. People were hurrying into the bar in abnormal numbers for early afternoon—people who didn't look like regulars. I immediately realized I shouldn't go in. Even if the meeting hadn't been blown, any out-of-the ordinary event at the venue meant it would be, or at least should be. Either way, it was time for me to take a leisurely stroll along the Potomac riverfront.
But a zillion generations of monkey ancestors told me to follow the crowd, out of sheer curiosity to see what all the fuss was about.
Inside, the sense of wrongness grew. People were clustered at the bar—but they weren't drinking, to speak of. And they were strangely quiet. They were all staring at the TV above the rows of bottles. The voices from the TV had the unmistakable tone of news announcers trying to fill a silence.
I shouldered my way through the oddly passive crowd. I got to the bar just in time to see the latest of the cruelly interminable reruns of the motorcade in Dallas, focusing on one open-topped car and on the famous chestnut-haired head which suddenly slammed forward with the impact of a bullet.
You have to understand. We didn't know any of the stuff that came out about him later. Like the fact that he was the kind of guy who, at the time his wife was undergoing a difficult and possibly life-threatening childbirth, was off cruising the Med with a boatload of bimbos. The kind of guy who cheerfully signed his name to a book Daddy had had ghost-written, and afterwards cheerfully accepted the Pulitzer prize Daddy bought for the book. In fact, he hardly ever did anything in his life for any reason except to please Daddy. And Daddy was, with the possible exception of Meyer Lansky, the most successful organized criminal in American history . . . besides being a Nazi sympathizer, unlike most crooks, who at least are refreshingly apolitical. A good match for Mommy, whose religious bigotry would have been considered a bit much in the sixteenth century.
No, we didn't know any of that at the time. All we knew was that he was young and vivid and stood out like a flame among the bald, boring old farts who in our experience—I was twenty-seven then—made up the political establishment. Call us na•ve if you want. I can't stop you. I can't even disagree with you. All I can say is that he meant something to us, as though something new had come into our world with him. And now that something had been snuffed out.
That was why, for decades afterwards, in the teeth of all the evidence, people went on believing in various conspiracy theories, the more far-fetched the better. We couldn't accept the fact—and it is a fact—that the assassination had been the stupid, pointless act of one lone, pathetic little loser. That truth was unacceptable because it somehow diminished us. Surely the obliteration of what had meant so much to us—defined us, in a way—had to mean something, because we meant something. Didn't we?
In my case, it didn't help that I'd been in the Army's Special Forces before . . . never mind. He had always been kind of a special patron of ours. He'd reviewed us once, and passed within a few feet of me.
Anyway, I don't remember much of the rest of that day, or the next few.
At some point, though, I ended up at Matt Kane's, not far from the Fourteenth Street sleaze strip, late at night.
That place was another great thing about the old Washington. If you walked in through the storefront-like entrance, it was just a medium-seedy Irish neighborhood tavern. You had to know the side door, off to the right, that led through a slightly alarming-looking corridor to the "Bit of Ireland" bar in the back. The business about the whole thing having been brought over from the Auld Sod brick by brick was probably bullshit. But it was full of banners and Gaelic road signs and all the rest, and it hosted the best Irish bands to cross the Atlantic.
Tonight, though, the usual liveliness was gone. And I was ignoring the justly famous beer list. I had ordered another Irish on the rocks when I became aware that the barstool beside me had acquired an occupant.
"Better go easy on that stuff, Bob," said George Stafford.
"You missed the meeting in Georgetown," I stated. Even on that day, I'd retained enough presence of mind to check out the crowd. He hadn't been there.
"I know. I was unavoidably detained. There was a lot going on that day."
"Golly, George, thanks for telling me that. What would I do without you? I never would have known if you hadn't—"
"Cut the goddamned sarcasm!" Stafford kept his voice low with an effort. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. "It just happens that the present situation is especially difficult for the people I work for."
"About whose identity I've never been entirely clear." I was pleased with myself for being able to navigate through that sentence. In fact, the accomplishment
seemed to call for a drink. I suited the action to the thought.
"You don't need to be 'clear' on it. All you need to know is that I represent people who sometimes need certain services on an ad hoc basis, with no questions asked. The very fact that you've never shown an interest in their identity is one of the main reasons you've gotten their business."
"Point taken. Okay, what do you—sorry, I mean the people you represent—need this time?"
Actually, I had a pretty good idea, if only in general terms. Stafford was something in the government, I knew that much. I didn't know what agency he worked for, but it clearly wasn't the FBI or the CIA or anything like that. Those wouldn't have had any need for the services of a freelancer like myself—they had their own people. No, his agency just had occasional, obviously somewhat irregular contacts with some superspooky outfit or other . . . and it didn't want to use its own people to make those contacts. Instead, it used intermediaries—independent contractors like yours truly, who had no idea who they were ultimately working for, and could be disavowed and forgotten like a bad smell if such became necessary or convenient. (The English language hadn't yet become debased enough for a term like "plausible deniability," but that was the idea.) Which was fine with me. The money was good, and since I was expendable, they had no reason to be concerned about my background. A marriage made in heaven, you might say.
"The matter concerning which we were supposed to meet in Georgetown has been canceled indefinitely. But now there's something else we need you for—something related to the situation that has arisen over the last few days." I patiently endured Stafford's circumlocution, knowing his inability to communicate without it. "There's somebody coming to Washington. Several people, actually. But you only need to worry about one of them. She'll be arriving at National Airport tomorrow." He passed me a typed itinerary. "You're to meet her and bring her to the address in here." He slid a sealed envelope along the bar. "Don't open it until you've actually picked her up."