Thunder & Lightning

by Christopher Nuttall

  He’d studied, carefully, all the information the Oghaldzon had made available about themselves. There was, he’d already decided, much to admire about the aliens; they didn’t band into factions, they didn’t mistreat their own people, they even had a form of direct democracy for a government. Apart from the Rockrats, who were pretty much a special case out in the Belt, few human entities had practiced direct democracy; it just didn’t jibe too well with existing political interests. The official explanation was that sometimes the great unwashed couldn’t be expected to understand what was actually at stake, but Jones knew better; the lords and masters of humankind didn’t want to let their people actually make choices for themselves. Who knew? Their first choice might be to get rid of the leaders.

  If what the Oghaldzon said about themselves was true, they had no such problems. Jones wanted that to be real; he needed it. He could remember countless battles over money with the IAU and the other funding committees, people who had cared nothing for pure science, even though pure science had eventually led to the colonisation of the moon, the rest of the solar system, and had made life better and richer in any number of ways. What would have happened if humanity had left everything to the bean counters? The human race would have been still grubbing around in the dirt when the Oghaldzon arrived. What was the point of endless petty wars over tiny differences?

  His face tightened as he remembered Samra. She’d been a good director – it came as a shock to realise that he was thinking of her as one already dead – and she’d often been treated with suspicion, just for being a Muslim. The Wrecker War had left deep scars on the face of humanity…but it would never have happened with a united government and an endless dialogue of ideas. There would have been no delusion about "communism works, but it’s just never been done properly" – the Oghaldzon had apparently experimented with it from time to time, relearned the lesson about how it never worked, and terminated it. There was no need for a regime change; the Oghaldzon simply walked away and abandoned the experiment. What human regime had ever allowed its citizens to make such a choice?

  His craft carefully docked with the Oghaldzon ship. They’d altered the hatch slightly so it could mate with the Oghaldzon hatch, but he’d been warned that he might have to go EVA; there was no guarantee of compatibility between human systems and alien designs. All human ships used the same specifications, just to permit a hasty rescue if necessary, but the Oghaldzon had never signed those treaties. How could they have? Even if they did in future, there would be problems; they weren’t much larger than the average human, but they were certainly shaped differently.

  “The hatch seems to have mated,” the pilot said. She was a young girl; under other circumstances, he might have tried to chat her up. His nervousness had made that impossible. “I'm opening it now.”

  There was a pause. “I’m reading a breathable atmosphere,” she said. “Good luck, sir.”

  The heat struck him as soon as he pulled himself out of the ship; the heat, the moisture in the air, and the dim lighting. A pair of Oghaldzon stood, facing him; he realised that they had magnetic boots on their feet, or hooves. Were they hooves? Coming face to face with the aliens was disconcerting; he had the strangest feeling that the two Oghaldzon felt the same way about him. To them, humans had to look almost comical creatures; they were a far cry from the science-fiction humanoids that seemed to occupy almost every star system.

  “Come with us,” one said in an agonisingly flat voice. It took Jones a moment to realise that it was an automated speaker. He followed them down the corridor, as soon as his boots had started to generate magnetic fields of their own; there was very little to see in the ship. The proportions were all wrong, but otherwise it could have been any ship; he felt oddly disappointed. His escort paused in front of a large door and opened it, revealing a very dark room; the lights came on as he entered, revealing a handful of Oghaldzon sitting around the room. They sat like horses, part of his mind whispered; there were no chairs or tables, just a glowing hologram of the Earth in the centre of the room.

  “Welcome on board the Seeker for Truth,” one of the Oghaldzon said. The voice was still that same maddeningly flat tone. “I am Dataka-War Commander-Fleet.”

  There was a long pause. “I am Tony Jones, officially accredited ambassador from the moon,” Jones said. “I have been sent to discuss the future of the moon with you.”

  The Oghaldzon – Dataka – seemed to move slightly, its great domed head tilting, revealing a pair of eyes that looked almost useless. They reminded Jones of a hamster’s eyes, dark and beady, but at the same time almost dead. They’d said nothing about their biology, but there was speculation that they used sonar to see, more than their puny – vestigial? – eyes.

  “We understood,” Dataka said. “What do you want from us?”

  Jones took a breath. This wasn’t going as he had planned it; the Oghaldzon were obviously reluctant to commit themselves until they knew what was on the table. “The moon has declared independence from Earth,” he said, stating a fact. “We would like your recognition of our independence and agreement to maintain that independence against the Great Powers on Earth. We would also like to trade with you and the other human settlements in the solar system without your interference.”

  He had the odd sense that the alien had smiled. He didn’t know how; the alien mouth was as expressionless as a hippopotamus’s mouth. “An interesting request,” the alien said. “Are you willing to submit yourself to our authority?”

  Jones hesitated. “That would depend upon the terms of your authority,” he said, carefully. Bova’s guidelines only went so far. “We are unwilling to allow you to control our daily lives on the moon, but we will recognise your primacy in the remainder of the solar system and certain other matters. We do not want to trade one master for another when we have a nation to build.”

  “And you will build a nation that we can respect,” Dataka said. It wasn’t a question; Jones wondered just what the alien was thinking behind that impenetrable expression. Were they really impressed, or were they just agreeing to gain time? He wanted to believe the former, but it was so easy to believe, too easy. “What manner of government will you follow when you have organised yourself?”

  Jones spoke for around twenty minutes, describing Bova’s grand plans and some of the more practical elements that they had already put in place, such as local autonomy and a federal lunar government to handle matters that affected the entire moon, such as defence and the price of Helium-3. They’d staged them as best as they could to appeal to the Oghaldzon, but he knew that there was a danger there; if the Oghaldzon wanted to supervise developments, Bova would refuse them and all hell would break loose. He was prepared to make compromises, but he would not permit the foundation of an Oghaldzon military base on the moon.

  “We would consider such a government acceptable, for the time being,” Dataka said finally. The clicking sound in the background grew louder; Jones realised that the Oghaldzon were talking to one another in their own language, discussing his proposition before making their decision. “What do you have to trade with us?”

  Jones explained, quickly; the moon’s main export was Helium-3 and lunar rock. The trading links to Earth weren’t as important as they had been twenty years ago, but being cut off from Earth had had a small economic effect on the moon. No one would starve – the moon could feed itself indefinitely – but the effects of semi-permanent unemployment would be…bad.

  “We would consider those worthwhile trade goods,” Dataka said finally. The deadpan delivery almost made Jones smile. The alien could not have known that he was almost playing for human laughs. “There are two conditions to the bargain.”

  Jones lifted an eyebrow. “What are those conditions?”

  “The first one is that you do not trade with any human settlement that has not accepted our authority,” Dataka said. Jones winced; Bova wouldn’t like that one at all. “The second one is that you allow us to send teachers to your scho
ols to attempt to begin the long process of integrating human and Oghaldzon society.”

  Jones nodded slowly. “I would have to consult with the government on the first issue,” he said. Bova would definitely not be happy, although there was really very little choice in the matter. “The second issue should be fine; after all, we do have to learn how to get along in this strange new world.”

  The Oghaldzon said nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Wasting Away Inside A Prison Camp

  The Mall, Washington, DC

  Someone was singing, loudly.

  “Wasting away again in Margaritaville, searching for my lost shaker of salt.

  “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame… but I know… it’s nobody’s fault.”

  “If he starts singing the March of Cambreadth again, I swear I’m going to kill him,” Carola said as she rolled over and sat up to glare in the direction of an incredibly fat man who had been dumped in the camp, along with two dogs. The dogs joined in the singing by howling along at the high notes; the Oghaldzon had been fascinated by the animals, although the dogs didn’t share the aliens’ curiosity. Whenever one of the aliens came over to them, they fled and hid. “Won’t someone just shut him up?”

  Someone picked up a loose shoe and tossed it in the direction of the singer, who yelped and fell silent. There was a small round of applause from the others in the camp, men and women alike; the singer and his dogs had been only remotely tolerated since the first night the aliens had put him in the camp. If the Oghaldzon hadn’t stamped so rapidly on serious violence in the camps, someone would have strangled the singer by now; like so many others, his mind had been snapped by the experience of first living through the tidal waves, and then falling into the hands of the aliens. Wilhelm would have found it much easier to sympathise with the singer if he had been a long way from them; as it was, he would have preferred to have slept longer.

  Carola stood up, a view that Wilhelm watched with interest. The dull awareness that every other person in the camp could see everything Carola had had faded slowly, as they had become more used to living in the alien camp. It wasn’t as if there was much to do; the aliens had sometimes pulled some of them out of the camp and asked them questions, but otherwise they had been more or less left to their own devices. The aliens fed them and watered them; Wilhelm had wondered, distinctly, if the Oghaldzon considered them pets.

  He watched as Carola walked over to the toilet area, joined by several other equally naked women; he turned his gaze away and stared over the horizon towards the clouds that billowed and hung in the distance. The weather had become completely unpredictable; they had had several days of sunlight, and then almost continuous rainfall, coming down as if it was trying to wash them all away. The aliens didn’t seem to notice the rain, but the humans did; so far, they’d had hot wet rain, hot muddy rain, cold rain, hailstorms, thunder and lightning, days of cold sunlight and days when being naked was a very good idea. It made him wonder what would happen if the sunlight kept beating down; the human race had invented a cure for cancer, but there was no way that they could gain access to human medical treatments without the aliens’ assistance, and it seemed as if they weren’t too concerned about the health of their captives.

  The skies seemed to flicker again as a light fell down towards them, rapidly revealing itself as a cone-shaped alien SSTO, the bright light of its drive shining out in the sky. Wilhelm had never claimed to be a space expert, but he had considered becoming a Rockrat once and knew a little about the logistics of space transport, something that the aliens seemed to have overcome through their willingness to use fusion drives in the atmosphere. It had to have some advanced technology inside somewhere, he had realised; most human fusion drives were much larger, rather more like the drives that had guided the alien landing craft down to their final resting places. His gaze caught one of them, burnished gold in the sunlight, and he shivered. The aliens had designed them to serve as barracks and working offices for their people once they had landed and been stripped of all of their military gear. He had to admire their forethought; instead of trusting suspect human buildings, they’d brought their own along with them. The entire operation had been carefully planned.

  “Hi,” a droll voice said from behind him. He turned to see Carola, who was looking grim; the toilets in the camp were appalling. The aliens had, at first, only created one set of toilets for everyone, out in the open. The FEMA crew had rapidly altered that to a set of male and female toilets, but they were still less than clean. The aliens used fusion flames to get rid of the human waste, and there was certainly enough water for the entire population of the camp to have a shower each day, but it was still unpleasant. “Something on your mind?”

  Wilhelm leaned back into her bare breasts. “Just a little, yeah,” he said. “What about you?”

  Carola aimed a slap at him. “Not bloody likely,” she said. Her voice became mischievous. “Come on; we may as well eat before we embark upon the rigours of the day.”

  Wilhelm snorted and followed her though the camp to the eating area. The aliens didn’t seem to think in terms of human seating and other arrangements; the first few days, they had eaten sitting on the ground, as if it was nothing more than a picnic. A week or so after the aliens had put them in the camp, the FEMA teams had gotten it much better arranged; the eating area now had chairs and tables that had been scavenged from the ruined homes and shopping centres, along with some condiments and other long-lasting foods. There were people in the camp who would have killed for fresh meat – there was a rumour that there were cannibals out in the ruined cities, although no one knew where those rumours had originated – but the FEMA teams had banned the collection of meat from the cities. By now, all of it would have spoiled anyway; they’d saved the few hundred people in the camp, but they were determined not to throw their work away. There were only a couple of trained doctors in the camp; all of them were desperately short on equipment and the aliens didn’t seem to care.

  He picked at the bracelet he wore around his wrist and scowled. His best guess was that it served as a tracking device; certainly, everyone who had tried to escape the camp had failed. The alien guards, clicking as they patrolled the camp in strictly regular schedules, had seemed stupid and easy to outwit… until the first escapee had ended up being rounded up and tossed back into the camp. It was lucky that the aliens didn’t go in for either torture or collective punishment; he’d read that during the Wrecker War Americans had been captured, raped and murdered, or held prisoner for years. All attempts to remove the bracelet had failed; they just seemed impervious to anything he could bring to bear on it.

  “Come on,” Carola said, pulling him towards the simmering caldron. “You have to keep your strength up.”

  Wilhelm snorted as he took a plate of stew and something that the aliens had given them that was almost, but not completely, unlike bread. The… semi-bread – the aliens had never told them what it was called – tasted strange, almost like a kind of very thick spicy porridge. It acted like bread, but if it was left alone long enough, it would slowly – very slowly – flatten itself, like water in slow motion. The stew itself was made using algae-produced foodstuffs; it would have tasted dreadful without the spices and condiments that the cook had inserted into the mixture to make it just tolerable. He’d seen some people cover the blocks of foodstuff in Tabasco or catsup just to hide the taste.

  He took a bite and gazed around the camp; as depressing as the view was, it was better than looking at the food, and Carola got self-conscious if he stared at her for too long. There was little to be seen; the FEMA representatives had started to divide the camp into male, female and mixed sections for the couples. Although there had been some grumbling from the men, Wilhelm suspected that most people were privately grateful; being naked all the time left them vulnerable. The aliens had killed a handful of would-be rapists and the others had got the message, but it was still a very dangerous environment for unprotected women and
children. Some of the kids thought it was a hoot; others were terrified and could barely be seen in the morning. The only real giggle had come when one of the young girls had climbed on an alien back and pretended that it was a donkey ride; the startled alien had jumped up and almost bolted like a horse. The inmates had found it hilarious.

  “Here comes Mitchell,” Carola said as she glanced up. She covered her breasts automatically as Mitchell Sartin came up to them, his grey hair seemingly greyer than it had been a week ago. There were only a handful of FEMA people in the camp; the aliens let them carry out their work, but at the same time, they kept a close eye on them. “I think he wants something.”

  “I guess so,” Wilhelm agreed. “Hey!”

  Sartin grinned faintly at them as he took a seat. “You’re up early,” he said. “What’s the rush?”

  “We don’t have anything to do and we’re bored stiff,” Wilhelm snapped, not in the mood for levity. The FEMA people might have been the only ones keeping the prison camp’s population alive, but at the same time, they were working… and working for the aliens, at that. For the remainder of the population, there was only the ever-present boredom and board games. “What do you want?”

  “The aliens want to interview a couple,” Sartin said. His face was very pale. “I don’t know if that’s good news, or bad news, but I decided I’d go look for volunteers before something happened.”