by Steve Peek
Nancy wanted to know what so worried her mother as to make her sick. The answer was not surprising—Averill. Top of the list was Marie’s fear she was soon to become Averill’s next ex-wife. She saw the signs, Marie said. Maybe the first billboard on her highway of life should have warned her. The billboard that said, “Hey, he had an affair with you, didn’t he?”
She was also concerned about Averill’s mental health. He had been under a lot of strain the last few years, and she thought he might be cracking. When Nancy said she had not noticed anything unusual about his behavior, Marie’s face flushed and she snapped, “I guess he didn’t tell you about meeting with the Martians,” then told this story.
By 1973, Averill had been dreaming: dreams that weren’t so good. He often woke in the night crying or screaming. Up until a year ago, Averill had been much more active in his government role. As President Johnson’s personal representative in the peace talks with North Vietnam, Averill spent about a third of his time on Flying Tiger Airlines shuttling back and forth. This is not good for someone who is used to multitasking in the big leagues and created time for his mind to wander… and remember. Apparently, his sleeping mind liked to take him down memory lanes heavy in shadows.
Harriman’s nighttime terrors went on for weeks, escalating in frequency and severity. At first Marie woke him from the nightmares. When she did, Averill asked if he had said anything, and if so, what?
Marie knew her husband. One of the reasons he was high in the government was his talent for keeping his mouth shut. Everyone trusted him, even his political adversaries. That’s saying a lot in Washington, DC. Marie knew that if Averill thought he was talking in his sleep, he would ban himself to a guest bedroom and make sure the door was locked, so she did what a good wife does. She said no more about Averill’s nightmares, and when he woke himself up in the middle of the night, she feigned sleep. She also listened to everything he said. Some of it terrified her.
At first there was a lot of incomprehensible mumblings about Truman and Forrestal: stuff about little foreign men in big glasses wearing trench coats. He would often wake up crying after these episodes. Then came screams. Finally, nine days before Marie was admitted to the hospital, talking in his sleep, Harriman relived and revealed the meeting that changed the world.
The light Truman pointed out to his companions on the night of 8 July, 1952 grew larger. Within seconds it hovered silently twenty feet off the ground, fifty yards away. It appeared metallic, and areas seemed to be lit from the inside out. It had a translucence about it.
Truman and Harriman exited the car and positioned themselves with their backs to the Ford’s grill. The craft made no noise as it moved slowly toward them.
It was a flying disc about 30 feet in diameter. As it came to a stop, a portion of the perimeter hovered over the front of the Ford. It emitted something akin to a mild electrostatic field. The craft slowly descended until it stopped about ten feet above the ground.
The soft glow of the craft’s belly went dark. A second later, dozens of bright lights bathed the area below like a surgery table. A hatch slid open near the center of the vehicle’s bottom. A second later, something like a small freight elevator descended to six inches above the ground. Three members of the other team were on the lift.
Between four and five feet tall, they wore ill-fitting trench coats belted around their midsection, and fedora hats pulled low. Their feet were clad in gray, felt-like, loose-fitting boots that seemed freakishly wide across the toes. Exposed between the bottoms of their coats and the tops of the boots were frail-looking legs clad in a gray material similar to the boots.
They stepped off the platform and walked to face the Earthmen. They extended their right hands in the classic, modern-day greeting.
Averill wondered if they were the same three who visited his dreams. In other circumstances the humans might have thought the whole thing comic. The three visitors frozen in front of him with their fragile, long-fingered hands extended to shake hands were the opposite of sinister. Their size and dress made it hard to take them seriously. But one glance at the 30-foot flying disc hovering over their heads removed all humor.
The one whose hand Harriman eventually took raised its face to look at him. Its large, black eyes reflected light and made Harriman think they wore some kind of lenses.
As if acting on advice from a travel guide, each alien shook the hand of each Earthman then stepped back. Both men heard the same voice in their heads at once, “Shall we begin?”
The voice repeated the question. It was impossible to tell which of the three spoke. The narrow slits beneath what could have been small, unformed noses never changed from the slightly turned-down curve.
Truman spoke by way of introduction, agenda, and diplomatic well-wishing. He finished by saying he looked forward to reviewing the treaty.
The center alien reached in his coat and extracted an eight-inches-long tube about an inch in diameter. The visitor manipulated the tube so it telescoped outward to triple in length, and then unrolled a screen from inside. The alien again manipulated part of the tube, and the screen glowed with images that swam into clarity.
The thin screen was offered to Truman. The screen, which seconds before had unrolled from the tube, was rigid and weighed almost nothing.
After a few seconds, the voice inside of Harriman’s head announced, “Begin.” Harriman assumed Truman heard the voice as well, judging from the president’s reaction.
The screen provided a soft, pale, cream-colored background to symbols in a column down the left side of the sheet, and our own Latin-based alphabet on the right. The symbols were similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Nordic runes, Ogham, and geometric shapes.
Truman began to read the column in English. As he read, a voice similar to the earlier one announced the words in his head. Harriman heard the voice as he watched, noticing the page on the screen changed to the next page as Truman finished reading the last words on the page before.
After a while, Truman looked at the alien who had handed him the screen and asked, in a normal speaking voice, “Would you like me to take this with me, or should we all wait while I read it?”
The three oversized heads conducted a series of slight, quick nods, and the voice in their heads said, “We will let you know the content.”
The alien touched the screen in Truman’s hands. The pages flicked on and off the screen. This time, an echoing buzz chased through Harriman’s head. He felt the beginning of a terrible headache, then it was over. He looked at the screen. The document had reset to the first page. Truman studied it a few seconds, then offered it to Harriman. Harriman began to read. As he reread the first column, he realized he knew what it said. Not just familiar with what it said, he knew what it said. And not just the first column: he thought about the section dealing with exclusivity and the correct page appeared on the screen with the exact paragraph positioned where his eyes focused.
After a moment, Truman asked to have a moment with Harriman.
The big heads synchronized the slight bobbing and the voice in their heads said, “Of course.” It unnerved Harriman not knowing which of the three spoke. He assumed it was the one who worked the screen.
Truman stopped himself as he turned and said, “No rudeness intended, but will you know what my colleagues and I are saying in private?”
This time a slight, single half-nod and the voice said, “We refrain.”
Truman and Harriman sat in the car, closed the doors, and rolled the windows up.
“Did they put the information from the screen into your head?” Truman asked Harriman.
Harriman affirmed that he had thorough knowledge of the treaty, as if he had been working with the document for months.
Truman and Harriman talked. Truman’s ideal scenario would be to return to Washington and dictate the treaty then review it with the Roswell illuminati. Truman’s biggest concern was if they did not agree to the treaty at this meeting there was the chance they could lose e
xclusivity.
Truman glossed over the presidential authority to sign treaties. With this treaty, if all parties stood good to their word, no one outside the circle of a very few would ever know.
“Well,” Truman said, “if we don’t sign now they can make the same deal with the Russians. Whoever signs with them will have the fifty-year exclusivity. Whoever doesn’t do the deal will be up shit creek in a shooting war. We wouldn’t push it, but you can bet your ass Stalin will.”
Averill said, “Harry. It will end the Cold War. Maybe not next year, but we will always have the upper hand. Besides, I don’t want another meeting with these creepy little guys. I say let’s do it.”
Truman agreed.
They exited the car and again stood in front of the aliens. Truman said that he would agree to the treaty.
The alien handed the screen back to the president. Now the screen swirled and eddied with unformed shapes and colors. The voice in the heads of the humans said, “Please agree.”
Truman started to reach for the pen in his pocket—a Waterman pen, the one he used to sign the Yalta Conference agreement—but realized there was no place to sign. Taking a leap of faith, he said, “I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, agree to the terms and conditions of this treaty henceforth known as The Treaty of Roswell 1952.”
An image began taking form, and in a fraction of a second he saw a moving picture of himself accepting the treaty. When he finished speaking, the scene shifted to the three head-bobbers and the voice up until now heard only in their heads emitted from the screen. Each phrase of agreeing to the treaty was first in English then followed by clicking sounds, then English, then clicks, until it ended.
“Thank you,” the alien said, reaching for the screen. Within seconds it was rerolled, telescoped, and slipped back into his pocket.
“We will communicate to you as to how and when we will begin to fill our part of the contract.” All three stuck out their hands to shake.
The visitors stepped back on the elevator floor and ascended into the belly of the disc. The hatch closed. The electrostatic field returned. The lights went out returning to the soft glow. The craft slowly drifted upward and back the way it came. One hundred yards out over the road, it accelerated away until it was the size of a dime, then just vanished.
The two humans stood silently until Harriman broke the silence, “It didn’t move.”
Truman looked at Harriman, wondering if the other’s mental state had been damaged by the affair, then said, “Averill, it sure as hell moved. Didn’t you see it streak away from us?”
“Yes, I saw it. I was talking about while we were under it. It didn’t move, not at all. It was perfectly steady, not like it was floating. How do they do that?” Harriman said, staring at the empty point in the sky where the ship vanished.
Truman laughed.
As they drove back to the airfield the conversation was quiet, reserved like boys waiting to go into the principal’s office. At one point Truman said he felt truly humbled and wished he could tell the world. At another, Averill admitted he had never been more frightened in his life, and Truman thought he saw the gleam of a tear in his eye. The more distance they put between them and the site of the meeting, the more comfortable and open they became. By the time they reached the airfield’s gates they were giddy as school boys who had been secretly promised things by the real Santa Claus.
Colonel Williams greeted them aboard the Liftmaster, tucked them into their seats, gave each a pillow and blanket, then took them home. Tired as they were, they could not sleep. The full implications of who they were dealing with sank in. They second-guessed their decision. Fears, real and imagined, danced in their minds, sounding oddly like the echoing voice in the head.
President Truman was late for work on July 9th. All morning meetings rescheduled, the president dictated the treaty from memory to a stenographer from General Twining’s staff. Harriman recalled the treaty word-for-word to a second stenographer in another office. It turned out to be shorter work than expected. The stenographers and their shorthand notes were whisked back to the Armed Forces Security Agency’s cryptology department and placed in front of typewriters. Each typed version was proofed against its original and corrected. When the two manuscripts were compared, they were for all intents and purposes word-for-word.
The Roswell illuminati gathered at the AFSA the evening of July 10 and were read the treaty. Essentially, the party of the first part, the government of the United States of America, agreed to abide by the terms and conditions herein with the party of the second part, a confederation composed of more than one group of sentient beings: the organization’s name translated to English as: Husbands of Commerce Utility. While the treaty was with HCU, the treaty contained a clause that disputes would be arbitrated by a third party named Fathers of Deployment. Again, these are the English translations, and if anyone of the Roswell Secret club had questions, they held their tongue. The names really didn’t matter.
The unbelievable point was that Harry S. Truman from Missouri had made an agreement with intelligent creatures not of this world who promised to provide us certain information and services in exchange for the ability to study Earth people.
The treaty turned out to be remarkably simple.
At specific intervals we would hail the HCU using a specific, ultra-high-frequency radio channel (at this time in history only the military used UHF communication. It was later changed to ELF, extremely low frequency, and eventually to secured digital-satellite-coded transmissions). The call to HCU would initiate question-and-answer sessions where the HCU provided answers to questions of a scientific nature as well as offering the basics of new technology. The promise in the treated stated that while the HCU would not necessarily answer all questions or aid in the development of all technologies, it guaranteed the United States of America would remain the technologically superior nation on Earth.
In addition to helping with weapons development, the HCU provided information to guarantee America’s global dominance in medicine, computers, space travel, and communications.
The treaty clearly spelled-out the HCU would not provide us with any equipment or machines, only information that would put us on and keep us on the fast track to making our own advances.
What did they receive? Not much. The United States would immediately stop using the Project Rainbow beam projectors and do everything in its power to stop nuclear testing on Earth. The HUC could conduct DNA studies on human beings and other animals. The studies would be secret, and no living humans would be seriously injured. The purpose of the study was to understand human DNA in order to advance medicine, eradicate diseases, and prepare humans for a broader role with our universal neighbors.
Truman didn’t know it yet, but he had been dead right about trading for beads: they were the Dutch colonist, we were the Lenape Indians, and our planet was the Manhattan island.
Norfolk, VA July 7th
“Let loose the dogs. Exodus 11:3-6.” Jim Sees typed “OK,” hit send, and stared at the words on the screen—terrified.
Jim closed the Internet connection, restarted his browser. When his homepage opened, he went to Excite.com and opened a never-before-used e-mail account. The inbox contained a single e-mail sent seconds earlier from Bruno Hauptmann 0747. It said, “White panel van for sale. $1500.”
Jim stood. He had fifteen minutes to prepare. He turned off the computer and vanished into his kitchen.
At 4:50 AM he went into the basement to fetch the girl and Sister Fran. The girl sat on a well-worn Hello Kitty pillow near the edge of a hooked rug. The pillow was very important: so was the bag of marbles. Swaying slightly back and forth, she floated her index finger over the nine marbles on the rug then hovered over one until she completed humming a note. As each note faded, she pointed to another marble and hummed a different note.
Sister Fran leaned forward in a chair reading an old People magazine, the backs of her forearms resting on her thighs
. Her head lifted, peering over her reading glasses, when Jim entered.
She closed the magazine and stood.
Jim looked around the room as if he saw the pine-paneled walls for the first time and at the same time was saying good-bye to a place of comfort. “We need to be upstairs in five minutes.”
Sister Fran spoke to the girl in hardly more than a whisper, put the marbles back, and handed the bag to her. The girl stood holding her Hello Kitty pillow. Sister Fran handed her the bag of marbles then followed her up the stairs. In the kitchen, the two held hands and watched out the kitchen window for their ride.
When Sister Fran and the girl arrived this morning around 3 o’clock, they were not what Jim expected. The nun wore jeans and a plaid shirt with the tail out. Her short, gray hair was little more than a military crop. She was a large woman: not fat, big. Sister Fran was about 5’ 10” and weighed in the neighborhood of 180 pounds. She moved with a gliding grace more like a tai chi master than a sixty-seven-year-old nun. Sister Fran had been the girl’s primary teacher for the last eight years.
The girl, Melanie, was obviously autistic or something, and looked as if she suffered a mild case of Down’s syndrome.
Jim watched a black SUV roll slowly down the alley. Its darkened windows gave no hint of its occupants. This was definitely not their ride. Shit! he thought. It’s going bad already.
The SUV stopped. The passenger door opened and closed and a teenage boy ran into the backdoor of a house across the alley. Relief washed over Jim as the SUV pulled away and his stomach slowly unknotted. Jim realized the dualism of his situation. He hated the nerve-racking uncertainty, yet realized this frightening experience made him feel alive for the first time in years.
A white Ford panel van turned into the alley then pulled into his short driveway.