Alien Tongues

by M. L. Janes

  "It would be unfair of me to let Barbara shoulder the reply to your point," he said, not yet looking directly at Séamus. "Let me say that Project Star, as we unoriginally refer to it, has almost unimaginable layers of global, political complexity. Keeping thirteen major nations in line when executing it is virtually impossible." He paused, then seemed to have another thought. "FitzGerald, I have little doubt that you, since hearing about the details from Wilkie, have suspected this whole thing to be a hoax. Am I right?"

  Séamus shrugged. "I'm not sure what I think. To me it's a bit like the Roman Catholic faith. I go along with it because better minds than mine have thought about it for two thousand years. But do I believe that a wafer than a priest puts on my tongue is the actual flesh of Christ? I mean, that's what they tell us. It's not just a symbol of God's flesh, it's the real thing in disguise. They call it transubstantiation when the priest changes it from wafer into disguised flesh. Over a billion Catholics are supposed to believe that, or they might just as well be Anglicans or Protestants. So what do we do? We just say, yeah, OK, ours is not to reason why." Séamus paused. "Is the New Testament a hoax? Not for me to even think about."

  Lawrence's silence during this speech seemed respectful. "Well, I believe it is my job to call Project Star a hoax if I have reason to think it is. Some scientists approach you with a story that some intelligent life somewhere billions of miles from here has contacted them, what is it normal to think? I remained skeptical for as long as I possibly could. Despite all the verification of the Consortium done by our scientists, I suspected they had all been fooled.

  "Then another signal was received by our own people from the same direction. It contained a copy of the first and last portions of The Call. The period between the time that the Consortium said they received the first signal and this one was exactly one year. And I mean exactly one Earth Year, a complete orbit around the Sun, to the nearest nanosecond. I'm no scientist, but the most skeptical scientists we have turned white when they checked the evidence. There is no practical possibility of a coincidence. The signals were unquestionably sent by someone that was addressing intelligent life specifically on Planet Earth, and was capable of calculating our solar orbit as least as precisely as we can. The degree of change in direction strongly suggests that the source is outside of our galaxy, and thus millions of years old."

  Their first course had arrived and they were already eating. Wilkie's universe of mad science had finally invaded the upper echelons of British society. This was how it must feel like, Séamus thought, when world war breaks out. The unthinkable becomes a practical reality and we all start to set about it as if we had just moved to a new job or house.

  "Project Star cannot be buried anymore," Barbara was saying. "I suppose it's like the Catholic faith. No matter how extraordinary the idea, there are now just too many believers ready to fight for it."

  "Anyway. FitzGerald, a profound apology is in order," Lawrence told him with steady gaze. "No one at this table was to blame but, if it wasn't for your devotion to duty, we would have lost a priceless asset for those believers – the Asian girls. Attempts to reproduce them have failed, partly because some countries have become less cooperative and partly because the necessary capabilities have proven rarer than expected. Stott said there was something about the personality balance of those girls – he called it a kind of dynamic tension – which was also vital. We need them to defend against what's inevitably going to come out of the Consortium."

  "I suspect you know already about Wilkie," Barbara continued, sipping her wine. Séamus nodded. "We're sure he managed to get enough material out to complete some kind of translation. Did you ever hear of a novel called Moon Uprising?"

  "Read it. Four times."

  He could see them both pause in their eating for a short fraction of a second, glancing at him directly to note his expression. "Are you in contact with Wilkie?" Barbara asked, then gave a small smile. "Sorry, silly question."

  "But a useful one," Séamus replied. "Because it makes it easier for me to explain my priorities. Whatever I decide to do now will depend solely upon its effect upon the girls' welfare. Principal," he addressed his one-time lover, "You'll understand that, when you gave me the assignment to make sure they were most productive, the only way I could execute that was to reassure them of their permanent safety, as far as I could deliver it, with respect to this project."

  "That's well understood, Séamus," Barbara said.

  "And we are to take it that you won't stand down from that assignment?" Lawrence asked.

  "Sir Terrance," Séamus said, "It's not a question of standing down from an assignment. I gave the girls my word about their permanent safety. As Principal explained to me, this endeavor is greater than all of us. It was necessary to make such a commitment, and because it is a commitment I am obliged to fulfil it."

  "Interesting." Lawrence dabbed his mouth with his napkin as his plate was removed.

  "We will guarantee the girls' safety," Barbara added. He was tempted to ask, like last time? But what was the point of being antagonistic? As Lawrence had perfectly illustrated, such a guarantee meant only 'as long as we can maintain consensus.' So, by its nature, a multi-government guarantee was no guarantee at all. It was little more than an expression of current sentiment, wrapped in Newspeak. Unlike 'trust and verify,' it was not an explicit oxymoron, but it was almost as self-contradictory.

  Practical people, these civil servants, no matter which country they hailed from. Sometimes they represented democracies, sometimes limited groups of rich and powerful families. But always they had to shift with the consensus of power. Not too fast of course, so as to appear flakey of whimsical. There needed to be some thread of logic to connect every turn. Above all, there had to be abstract principles and procedural rules. Set the principles high and abstract enough, and hopefully you never had to question them. We, the People, because there are enough of our own people. The Rule of Law, provided we can always make the laws. A Harmonious Society, because we don't hear much dissent. A Great Society, because we can control our borders and the sharing of our good fortune.

  As he listened to their case, Séamus could not stop himself from admiring Barbara Coates and Terry Lawrence. He freely admitted, it was such people who kept balance in the world. And the same was true of James Wilkie and Alice Turner, and would surely still be true of his own father, had he lived. Maybe their brainpower allowed them to look over the world from a higher perspective, allowing the small details to fade and the bigger picture to emerge. The big picture was always shifting, always frustratingly amorphous, yet if you were clever enough you could discern enough patterns to help guide the world, politically and scientifically, into the next month and, if you were really lucky, into the next year. We could absorb world wars, nuclear crises, epidemics, and even ridiculous wars of adventure, and keep moving towards something better and more hopeful.

  So it was a supreme irony that the next critical step in Human Kind's relationship with the rest of the Universe was left to Séamus, Crissy, Jenny, Phyllis and Tina. Five people who had shown abstract principles and procedural rules to be quite alien (he enjoyed the play on words) to their way of thinking. They were people who could measure value only by individual relationships. In abstract principle, the girls' resort to crime was tragic. Yet instead of buckling as the freaks they had already been labeled, the girls had thrived like daisies in a meadow. They had stayed strong because they never recognized any form of failure. Instead of seeing themselves as victims of misfortune, they strove instead for human goals that were beyond the world's pecking order: independence, sisterhood, motherhood and love. And if we are to interpret the words of a civilization one million times as advanced as ourselves, who is to say these are not the cardinal virtues needed?

  "You and the girls may choose to be based in any of the thirteen coalition counties," Barbara was telling him. "Whatever makes you all feel safer. We, of course, would prefer you to remain in Britain, and you know we h
ave several other facilities to choose from. In any event, I remain responsible for your mission, which remains unchanged."

  There was a huge gap in the discussion which had been deftly skirted around, so Séamus had no choice but to voice it bluntly. He addressed the pair of them, eyes switching searchingly between them. "Is there anything you can give me to reassure the girls that they will be safer than last time? I know some Principal lost their job, but they were hardly the one making the decision. Is that decision-maker still in the loop or not?"

  Barbara looked to Lawrence who said, "We simply can't say anything on that. You'll understand if I tell you there was a lot of high-level trading around that one. The best I can say is that the trading price has now risen high enough that no one's going to want to pay it. There's nothing we can imagine would buy off those who want to keep the girls alive. And I can assure you that, if such a price were ever reached, there is no way you would be able to keep them safe anyway."

  "And which of us is safer than that?" added Barbara. "And I hate to add it, but which of our own family members is safer than that? So don't think your girls are any less safe than my Allison."

  Séamus recalled that Allison would have just recently left home for university. Suddenly Barbara Coates was not just his boss, or ex-boss, or the Principal whose level of guilt he would probably never know. He looked at her face and saw lines he normally never noticed.

  When he woke eighteen hours later, that same face was this time peering down at him. From that angle, the lines were more visible. When we're young, Séamus thought, we never think about those future lines – there are so many more pressing problems. When the lines start coming, it's far too late.

  "How do you feel?" She asked.

  "Confused."

  "I think today, things will get clearer."

  "That wasn't my point."

  The light was too bright and Séamus closed his eyes again. He hadn't been referring to the decision he was going to have to make that day, but that too, was a confusion.

  "You want something to drink?" She asked.

  "Is a cup of tea possible?"

  His eyes fluttered open to watch her move across the room, stand for a while on the other side, eventually returning with a cup. It was good tea, and especially good when you wake up with a mouth so dry.

  "Are you going to try and persuade me this morning?" he asked her.

  Barbara shook her head. "We did enough of that yesterday. Now I think we need to leave your mind to soak it all in. You remember what you were taught in training about saturation point, don't you? There comes a point where further attempts at the same kind of persuasion start to backfire."

  "Which means you need to raise it up a notch."

  She laughed. "A bit early for that." Now her expression was somewhere between a smile and a frown. "You really are the best, Séamus. I didn't want to tell you that but, well, now I feel it has to be acknowledged."

  He stretched to get more comfortable. "You know, Barbara, when I hear that, I feel this bizarre conflict of emotions. On the one hand, I'm so grateful for the compliment. On the other hand, I don't even believe I really measure up, and it makes me fear the moment I am going to massively disappoint everyone."

  "My Séimi." Barbara Coates brought her face close to his. "It's very cute the way you think like that. Almost everyone I know has too high an opinion about their own abilities. But then I wonder. Is Séamus FitzGerald ever going to be happy? Will he go from being a cute, sad young man into being a tragic, sad old man?"

  "If the answer is yes, I'm relieved," he told her. "It means I've survived long enough to be some kind of old man."

  She grinned and grabbed his unshaven chin. "I'm sorry, Séamus, I'm going to have to leave you here now. Remember to make a decision, okay? And the right one, please."

  "One question," he said as he saw her head for the door. "What do you think Moon Uprising is essentially about?"

  "Power," she replied without hesitation. "The curious consensus of the privileged which is needed to exercise power. And the way, no matter how much our media gripes and moans about the injustice of it all, we always come back to a version of that system. The media then tell us how much more equitable we were in some prior golden age, which of course is a lot of rot."

  Séamus watched her leave. Then he realized his eyes were still too tired. He shut them again and found himself drifting back to sleep.

  14. The Consortium

  Kevin Grant stood in front of a roomful of about thirty men and ten women. He looked forward to the day when there would be equal numbers.

  "Colleagues, I don't need to describe to you the amazing things we have accomplished and continue to do. Real evil is on the retreat, thanks to us, and the politically corrupt world around us has started to listen instead of persecute us. But we're the type of people who have low tolerance for self-congratulation. While politicians and civil servants slap each other's backs, pin medals on each other and waste half their time trumpeting their mediocrity, we know we never have enough time to fight the evil that is out there. Despite all our efforts, there will remain far too little freedom, and not enough security for our children. So in the midst of our success I am putting to you a new idea to drive us forward even faster."

  Thoroughly at ease in talking to the group, Grant paced among his audience, scrutinizing their faces. Their ages ranged from under thirty to over seventy. They were all major leaders, like himself, and were wholly independent in their thinking. He knew they all shared the same concept of evil, and the same organizational principles. He knew they were all impatient for more results. But he knew there could be many different views on his proposal. From enthusiastic acceptance to possible shock at his crazy-talk.

  It was a room purpose-designed for such meetings, but also decorated to follow the traditional themes of the rest of his mansion. It felt business-like, but comfortable and warm. He disliked the trappings of the mainstream corporate world. He rarely used charts, but felt it was necessary this time as he presented details of the Consortium.

  "At first sight, the Consortium could hardly look more different from the Syndicate. They are hugely cash-rich but have little organization. We have incredible organization but we don't hold any central funds. They're self-professed computer nerds and we're brick-and-mortar folk. Their founding goals were to explore Outer Space and ours were to clean up the mess of our Inner Space. Their people are in hiding and ours are in plain sight.

  "But digging a bit deeper, we have a great deal in common. We both hate the politicians who get rich at our expense, and who incite their people to war to make profits for their inner circle. We both know poverty is the source of most evil, so you can't remove most evil without a plan for poverty. And we both know that, by fairly managing the world's most precious resources, we can change things.

  "Earlier this year, four people joined our Syndicate after escaping from their governments. The Consortium badly needs these people to help them unlock technology secrets you and I can never begin to imagine. Of course, according to our principles, these four must freely choose to work with the Consortium, but I feel it won't be difficult to create the right incentive for them. The question is, what kind of deal does it make sense for us to make with the Consortium? Take a pile of cash and say 'bye'? Or should we create a joint venture going forward?

  "The Consortium got a wake-up call earlier this year – these naive young people discovered just how dirty the politicians could play. They now realize that, even if they have the key to the future in their hands, that doesn't mean squat if they can't protect themselves. So they've been asking about protection, and that's a service we excel at. Again, we could just charge a fee. But imagine how well our relationship could work if we made this an equity deal. Their gain is our gain, their loss is our loss. We could both be much bigger than we ever dreamed, because we bring together two entirely complimentary capabilities. To be crude about it, their brains and our brawn."

  Grant paused
, inviting comments. He preferred not to lecture, and wanted to generate an active dialogue where he could gauge his colleagues' thoughts.

  "In terms of what we'd be contributing to them," an older man said, "I guess they'd get bodyguards and minders, passports and visas, protected containers, personal research. Do they feel hunted right now?"

  "That's part of it," Grant replied. "The other part is that they're going to need more and more scientists in many different fields. And they need first to make sure these scientists are clean, and then to make sure they're safely on board."

  "How did this Consortium manage to piss off so many governments?" a middle-aged woman asked. "I mean, if they have so much star power and money, couldn't they do their science legally?"

  It was time to explain The Call. It was a difficult task with such an audience, but Grant knew how their minds worked. He told them how he had learned about it, his disbelief, the governments' cover-up and attack on the facility, the additional intelligence since then. He patiently addressed each skeptical question. Finally, a man in his fifties spoke up.

  "As Kevin says, this ain't so crazy if we accept that, sometimes, the extraordinary does happen. A tribe of Indians lives on an island for as long as anyone can remember. One of them says one day they've seen a ship full of white-skinned men anchored in the bay. It's not a matter of if it's going to happen, it's simply a matter of when."

  "I've got a better analogy," said a younger man. "Your tribe learns how to make glass, then lenses, then telescopes. Finally, one of them looks up to discover that the small birds they've been watching for forty years are jumbo jets."

  "I think what we're saying," a woman of about forty remarked, "is that we're not the kind of folk who advocate radical change and then can't imagine it actually ever happening. We have spent our lives wanting to make the world's elites more accountable. With all their monopoly over science, seems like they concluded The Call is for real. Yet in their corrupt incompetence, they blew it and the key to the lock just landed in our laps. I for one am not going to vote for handing it back to anyone. Maybe this is the one really big break we've been waiting for. God knows we've done enough of the hard slog."