by Greg Curtis
It was slow work, painstaking in its detail, and many times she cursed as she sat there, applying paint in ever-thicker layers of colour and texture as she brought the wall to life. But it was also fun to watch, even to lie down on the heavy carpet beside her and study what she was drawing, and to study her. Maybe the latter was what he truly enjoyed. The way that she chewed at her lip a little as she worked, sighed and muttered and moaned constantly as she painted and repainted each and every spot, never completely satisfied with what she’d done. And she looked surprisingly cute in her painting get up. She was alien and yet so very human. But more importantly, if he was supportive and maybe brought her a cup of tea every so often as she worked, he’d get lucky. He’d got lucky a lot.
It still seemed strange to him that she was so artistic. It wasn’t something he would have expected of a technologically advanced people. But Cyrea told him it was normal among her people. For all their progress and scientific achievement, her people valued expression and beauty over technology and progress. The thing she liked about his house more than anything else was its simple, almost primitive nature. But he figured everyone valued what they didn't have. So she didn't want modern, machine finished, high tech stuff. She wanted hand crafted, flawed and natural.
So Cyrea could paint and draw something wicked like nearly everyone else of her people. Her chosen love though was a sort of rhythmic spoken poetry called Ca'flu. The painting of mental pictures with prose and tone and inflection. One day he might actually understand enough of her language to understand her work, but for the moment it was enough to simply sit and listen and enjoy the way the alien words simply flowed almost like music.
Religious, artistic, loving, she seemed determined to shatter his every preconception of what an alien should be, and he didn’t mind a bit.
It had been a good two weeks.
Cyrea hadn’t gone to work in all that time, requesting leave as she had claimed that she was in urgent need of a holiday, and her request had been granted, though suspiciously quickly in his view. He was half worried there was another bug in the place and that the scientists were still watching and enjoying. Certainly they were curious about the relationship. All aspects of it. Cyrea said it was normal though as all new couples got time off. A strange but not unwelcome custom.
Still it couldn't last. Today while he was heading into town, Cyrea was going back to the ship and her quarters, for only the second time since their fight. They both knew she was also heading into a debriefing. She dreaded it almost as much as he dreaded his next debriefing, which fortunately wasn’t due for another four or five months and he knew his would be thorough. Even retired agents got debriefed at regular intervals, just in case someone attempted to get at them. His chances of hiding his knowledge of the Leinians were next door to nil.
But there was no choice for either of them. Cyrea had washed her only set of clothes as many times as she could in the house, and she needed a new wardrobe. Also she intended to find out for certain whether they had got all the bugs, or whether there were more left to seek out and destroy. For all they knew they’d been watched day in day out for the last week and a half. After all, none of the scientists would have told them. And then she’d be learning whether her request for a relief on the recordings, something that could be done when a recording was made of an intensely personal or private event was publicly aired. If it had been, and he hoped for her sake that it had been granted, then the images would have been censored and restricted. But it was far from certain that it would be. Her people didn’t value privacy in the same way as human beings did.
David knew she would be interrogated, though not in the same way as he would be. Instead she would be given the third degree about their physical relationship rather than their information sharing. Leinians were by all accounts, remarkably open about everything. But while that might be good from a liberal perspective, it could sometimes be very bad from a personal one, especially when they had embarrassing footage of Cyrea and him making love. No secrets meant that footage was available for all to see. Literally every Leinian on Earth or the rest of space for that matter could view it. And they probably had. Even if Cyrea’s request had been granted, it had been seen.
To make matters worse for her and perhaps him, Cyrea had told him she would also be expected to undergo a medical, just in case they had found any unexpected side effects or discovered any new diseases. A very public medical. Those results too would be public knowledge, all in the interest of science naturally. They were both starting to seriously consider the scientists on her ship as perverts in disguise.
But at least he knew she wouldn’t suffer. When his turn came, it would not be so easy. He’d already been through it half a dozen times. Polygraphs, bright lights, leading questions and if he wasn’t lucky, extensive drug based psychoanalysis. He’d passed each time so far, mainly because he had nothing to report, but in four or five months’ time…, he was dreading it. Of course, many of the same techniques he had been taught to help him defeat enemy interrogations he could use to defeat them. It might be rough but with some preparation and maybe a few high tech devices if her people could spare some, it should be possible.
Was it right that he should be making such plans? He had to wonder about that. He had to wonder if he'd been turned. If a pretty face had undermined his sense of duty. And yet despite all his doubts he had to admit that the Leinians had given him no cause for concern. They'd done exactly what they said they would and nothing that they'd promised not to. They'd been true to their goals. Perhaps they deserved his trust. Perhaps they needed his protection. His neighbours certainly did.
It was what happened if he failed that worried him more. He couldn’t avoid the interrogation. Not without drawing extensive suspicion and then bringing the agents to him. And there was no guarantee that even with all the preparation in the world and maybe some Leinian technology if he was willing to risk it, that he would pass. So failure had to be considered an option. But what then?
His preference was to carry a bug on him, so that the Leinians would have the most advanced warning he could give them. It might be treason but he wasn’t about to let them be exposed without knowing and perhaps even attacked by his people. That would be a far greater crime. But after that he knew, they would leave. Cyrea would leave. And he would be alone again. Something he feared even more than the endless interrogation he would undergo afterwards. And if his fate was questionable, what about the fates of all the others who knew of them? His neighbours, his friends? What would happen to them afterwards?
Redwood Falls would be decimated.
And then the world. If what the Leinians had told him was true, and he had no reason to doubt them, if they left the Earth would lose. If there was violence it would lose more. He did not want to be responsible for that.
He put the troubling thought out of his head and concentrated on driving. It was a sunny day and he was out in an open topped four wheel drive pick-up driving among some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. This was not the time or the place for such dark thoughts.
*****************
The supermarket proved to be more of a challenge than he’d expected. Shopping for two was a whole new experience after years of living alone. For once he realized he wouldn’t be able to rip round the supermarket shelves in five minutes or less. That was his usual definition of a successful shop.
Cyrea liked a different diet to him, less meat and much more fibre and cereal despite her canines. Dairy was wonderful, especially cheese and she was absolutely crazy about vegetables and fruit despite her formidable dental array. Maybe he should do more than just think about putting in a vegetable garden. But he figured he could adapt and it would be good for him. After all, her diet was exactly what every doctor in the world had been preaching for the last few decades. The problem wasn’t that he had a rough idea of what she liked; it was just that he needed more detail. Much more.
Modern supermarkets had so many choices, he
slowly realized as he stared at the endless shelves stacked to overflowing with food. Yoghurt in at least fifty different flavours, hundreds of different breads and cereals, tinned fruits by the score and so on. He really wanted to get things she’d like, but how to be sure? In a compromise born of desperation, he ended up buying practically everything. Five types of cereal, dozens of different fruit and vegetables, tins of every imaginable food group, every dairy product he could lay his hands on, and so forth. In short order the trolley was starting to look top heavy and he began thinking about getting a second. But then maybe he’d need a new larder as well.
Finally as he pulled the overloaded trolley through the checkout he had the feeling that he’d done the best he could. There should be enough in there for her to enjoy at least something new every day, and most of the rest could be shelved for winter or thrown in the freezer. The cupboards might be overflowing, but with winter coming, well in six more months or so, it would be good to have plenty of food on hand. Just in case the roads became completely impassable as they too often did.
The checkout girl, a local girl he had seen around town a few times before, looked at him and his trolley with the beginnings of a smile on her face. A smile that said she had some idea of why he was buying what he was and he suddenly felt self-conscious.
Quickly he looked around at the other customers, making a mental note of those who were staring back at him and their expressions. The trolley itself was piled high with groceries making it ungainly and difficult to wheel, while the coming bill was something he didn’t want to think about and likely to be some form of record both for him and the store. But more interesting and embarrassing to him was the number of people who were smiling or smirking when they saw him.
Redwood Falls was a small town, with just over two thousand permanent residents and a single supermarket which wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for the tourists. They surely doubled or tripled their numbers in summer and winter as they came for the lakes, the hunting and the skiing. Yet five or six of the customers that day wore a knowing grin. Five or six out of the twenty people he could see, who potentially knew that he was shacked up with Cyrea and having to restock on everything because of it. That translated to maybe five or six hundred people who knew about the Leinians in the town itself, and of course a gossip network more efficient then the internet. Many of them he guessed had also seen the video.
Unfortunately it wasn’t a complete surprise. The locals in what had to be one of the craziest things he'd ever heard of for a secret expedition, visited the ship whenever they wanted. They met with their friends on board it, made plans for helping them with the research, and even enjoyed concerts there. These people had no security at all.
Cyrea had told him as much, and he’d somehow put it out of his mind as impossible before forgetting it, though it was anything but forgettable. Not for the first time he wondered just how he’d been fooled so badly and for so long. It was embarrassing for him. A trained investigator who’d completely missed such a huge event, while perhaps a quarter of the town he lived in knew about the greatest discovery in human history. They not only knew about it, they treated it as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
He also had to wonder how they’d managed to keep their presence on Earth secret for so long. Six hundred people and no-one had talked? It made no sense, except of course that it hadn’t started out that way. At first it had just been a few, and slowly that number had grown, year by year. Each year the risk of exposure was surely becoming more precariously balanced than the last until now it had to be standing on a knife edge.
And to add to that they were having other problems. Cyrea's craft had crash landed. It could have been in the middle of a city. They'd had a computer melt down, and for a time even a school kid could have hacked into their system. Even their cloak had failed and if it wasn't for the fact that they'd somehow buried their ship when they'd arrived, satellites could have spotted it.
Despite their fears he wasn’t the danger they faced.
In their favour though, they'd chosen their landing site well. Redwood Falls was a remote town and the people were very often uninterested in much of the outside world just as the rest of the world paid them no mind. And of course the Leinians had come with gifts, major gifts such as advanced healthcare and reducing the pollution all around. The locals knew that the Leinians would leave if they were exposed and they didn’t want that to happen. So the people were very careful to keep their secrets. In fact he was beginning to think that they were the security system the Leinians simply didn’t seem to have.
Yet perhaps the most important of their security techniques was in choosing who they told, telling only those they thought they could trust, and then swearing them to secrecy. Actually the locals did that for themselves, the Leinians did no such thing. They just asked.
Fortunately they'd bought those people they'd brought on board. Though the Leinians didn't seem to think of it that way. But there was so much to gain by having them here as well as so much to lose if they left. Everyone knew that if and when they left they would take their gifts with them. That was a powerful incentive for silence.
It wasn't just miracle cures, it was a complete healthcare system. A free one. One which would not just stay the nasty grip of cancer and disease, but actually make people younger. Life expectancy would rise astronomically for the locals as long as the Leinians stayed.
There was wealth too. The Leinians were purchasing some things, and they were using gold that they manufactured to do it. That was a huge thing in a destitute community. As were the jobs they were providing. Redwood Falls had lost a lot since the mines had closed and then forestry had died. It had become a town that people left. A town where the only industry was tourism. And even that was suffering because of the pollution.
Though the Leinians didn't seem to understand it they had effectively bought the town.
Because of that the locals in the know had formed themselves into a little community, Alice funnily enough was their unofficial leader and they regulated themselves far more carefully than the Leinians ever could. They made it their business to know about everyone who lived or moved in to the region.
They also controlled tourist activities as through their connections at the town hall they restricted the access of tourists to sensitive areas, as well as organising the tours which were always guided by one of the locals in the know. They even controlled the local paper, making sure certain stories never saw the light of day.
The Leinians just thought they had a security system; the locals actually had the real thing.
Of course there was a reason for that. One thing he was beginning to understand about the Leinians and their surprising ability to remain a secret was that they walked the talk. They did what they said they would do, always, and that was a powerful weapon in their arsenal.
Most people wouldn’t have any real desire to spill whatever secrets of the government that they might know to anyone under normal circumstances. Most people were decent, responsible and law abiding. But in return for keeping their secrets people needed to have trust in their government. Unfortunately trust was severely lacking in the country. And so the NSA, the CIA, the DOD and most other government agencies couldn’t rely on people to do the right thing. So instead they chose the harder path and used suspicion, coercion and threats, thereby completely destroying any trust the government might otherwise have had.
Any hint that someone knew something they shouldn’t and the agencies came down hard on them. Even the innocent were required to sign all sorts of documents in relation to non-disclosure. And that was followed up with threats of severe legal action if there was a breach and of course spies to make sure people didn’t do anything so stupid. It was effective, but still it would have been better if instead they could simply have trusted the people, and in turn been trusted by them.
While it was the way things were done – after all, he’d helped to cover up secrets the same way -
he knew it often just made things worse. When the people believed the DOD were lying to them and suspected that they were involved in all sorts of illegal and immoral activities, they lost what remained of their trust. And if you didn’t trust someone or something to have your back, why should you keep its secrets? The Leinians kept faith with the locals and the locals kept faith with them. That was a major asset in the world of secrets.
It was a policy he also planned on following. Now that he was no longer an agent.