Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem

by Christopher Nuttall

  He’d seen the images of the two types of aliens who had died when their ship crashed – although there were several unanswered questions about why they had died – and had thought he was prepared to meet either of them. The aliens facing him now were a third type of alien, leaving him wondering how many different types of alien there were. How many different forms of intelligent life could evolve on a single planet?

  The aliens stood tall, taller than him, although not by much. They were painfully thin, with very skinny bodies and long, inhuman fingers. Their heads were featureless, apart from two massive black eyes and a tiny mouth, almost as if it were no longer needed. They looked remarkably fragile – the President half-feared that if he shook their hands, he would pull their arms right out of their sockets – yet they both had a quiet air of competence, and authority. It reminded him of something, but it took him a minute to place it; the aliens were born to their authority. He reminded himself that he was dealing with aliens. His impressions might be completely wrong, yet they refused to fade from his mind.

  He reached the bottom of the ramp and halted. The aliens seemed completely unmoving, as if they lacked nervous tics or involuntary movements. The President knew from his own military experience that remaining completely still was hard for anyone without proper training, yet the aliens seemed to remain still naturally. It was impossible to shake the air of…unreality that had settled over him, yet he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was looking at aliens. They were no hoax, no man dressed in an alien suit, but real aliens. It was almost like looking at a snake poised to strike.

  One of the aliens stepped forward quickly, almost jerkily. “Mr President,” he said. The voice was very…human, warm and welcoming. It didn’t suit the vaguely sinister body at all. “Thank you for accepting our invitation.”

  “Thank you for inviting me,” the President said, gravely. The sense of being completely out of his depth was only growing stronger. Normally, before he met another world leader, there would be briefings on protocols and discussions between junior staff – who could be disowned if necessary – before the world leaders actually met. “It was a remarkable trip.”

  The second alien stepped forward. “We speak for those on this vessel,” he said. The President decided to assume that they were both male until there was evidence that suggested otherwise. There were no breasts – or, for that matter, signs that either of them had a penis. “We wish to welcome you onboard.”

  “Thank you,” the President said, again. His mind was racing. What role did the aliens play in their society? Were they elected leaders, dictators, representatives…or what? He had to remind himself – again – that aliens might not play by human rules and that the rules he knew might not apply to the aliens.

  “We wish, also, to show you around our vessel to assist you in understand our nature,” the first alien said. The double act was confusing. Which one of them was the senior, or were they equals? What protocols did they use? In Japan, the senior man would often say nothing and allow the juniors to handle the negotiations. In the Middle East, nothing important would be done until the negotiators had chatted about trivia such as the weather and the health of their families. “We believe that you will find it interesting.”

  The President and Pepper exchanged glances, but there was really no choice. The aliens led them from compartment to compartment, showing hundreds of spacecraft webbed up within the bowels of the mothership, to strange machines that seemed to bear little resemblance to anything humanity had ever built. There were vast gardens that grew food for the aliens, massive chambers that housed hundreds of aliens and even what the President suspected was alien entertainment. The tour seemed focused on the military aspects of the ship more and more – they looked in at another hangar deck containing hundreds of tiny craft – and he started to understand. In their own quiet way, the aliens were making a very clear threat.

  He found himself beginning to lose track of how far they’d travelled, or even where they were within the ship. The sight of its exterior hull had suggested that it was massive, yet the interior was so confusing. They could not have found their way back to their craft if they’d fled the aliens, and even if they had, what then? They were completely at the mercy of the aliens. Will Smith had flown an alien ship out of the mothership and escaped, but he’d had the greatest ally of all – a patriotic scriptwriter.

  “This is the Medical Bay,” one of the aliens said. They were effectively identical, so similar that the President had lost track of which was which. They hadn’t even shared their names. “The medical science on this vessel is far superior to that on your planet.”

  It was another frustratingly vague comment. The aliens spoke only in generalities, never specifics. The President had asked probing questions, only to hear them deflected with vague answers, or a promise that all would be explained in time.

  “Using this equipment, we could prolong your life for many hundreds of years,” the alien added. “We could wipe out the diseases that affect your kind. We could ensure that the standard of living on your planet is vastly improved.”

  The President asked a sharp question. “How long have you been watching us?”

  “Long enough,” one of the aliens said. It was – again – a very vague answer. The President wasn’t blind to the underlying threat, either. Their advanced medical science could be used, just as easily, to create a biological weapon to wipe out all life on Earth. The President had read enough scenarios about what terrorists could do if they accomplished their aim of creating a real biological WMD and the aliens, with their technology, could spread it far further. “Your race is of interest to us.”

  The President leaned forward. “Why?”

  “Because you are there,” the alien said. They walked down another long corridor and into a massive room, housing hundreds of the warrior-aliens. They ignored the humans and their companions, running through something the President had no difficulty in recognising as a weapons drill. They had looked bad enough as dead bodies, but living…they looked formidable. They were far stronger than humans and seemed to move quicker.

  One of the aliens seemed to slip closer to the President. “They are preparing for all eventualities,” he said. “They expect everything and nothing.”

  “Everything and nothing?” The President asked. “Are you expecting a war?”

  “We expect everything,” the alien replied. They seemed to share a long glance. “Follow us.”

  The President glanced back at Pepper as she brought up the rear. Her eyes were wide and staring, glancing around from side to side as she tried to capture everything. The President felt a moment of sympathy for her; he could talk to the aliens, but she could do nothing, but record it all. He reached out and squeezed her hand gently, before winking at her. Whatever else happened, they’d have a record to show the folks back home, where it could be analysed carefully. Perhaps the aliens wouldn’t be so intimidating after all.

  They reached a small chamber, illuminated only by a soft green light. A single alien sat in the centre of the room, staring down at nothing. He looked up as they entered, dark eyes peering at the humans. The alien looked…old, somehow. The other two aliens gave off no sense of age, but this one seemed centuries old. The President remembered the comment about extending the human lifespan and wondered if the aliens had such tech for themselves. Why wouldn’t they attempt to develop life-extending tech that worked for them?

  “Welcome onboard our vessel,” the alien said. His voice was whispery, feather-light. One thin, utterly inhuman hand waved the President and Pepper to a chair. “I am Ethos. I speak for those onboard this ship. We wish to have converse with you, Mr President.”

  The sense of age only grew stronger as the President took the seat. The other two aliens had smooth skin, but Ethos – the President suspected that it was an assumed name, chosen deliberately for the impression it would make on the humans – was wrinkled. The massive dark eyes looked dimmer. They were, the Presiden
t realised, completely lidless. The aliens slept – if they slept at all – with their eyes open.

  “We must talk openly, you and I,” Ethos whispered. “We must discuss facts bluntly. We must share without fear. We must talk freely. No offence must be taken. We will be open with you. We ask that you do the same.”

  “I understand,” the President said. He risked a direct question. “What do you want?”

  The answer was immediate. “We want your planet.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Alien Mothership

  Day 11

  The words seemed to hang in the air.

  The President held himself together by sheer force of will. He’d been in diplomatic meetings where phases like ‘give us what we want or we’ll beat the hell out of you’ were replaced by soothing phases that still meant the same thing, yet the alien had defied human convention. Diplomacy existed so that the nations involved could save some face and avoid being pushed into a corner where they either had to submit completely or fight – and, the President considered, avoid having to do their duty to their people – and there were strong reasons for it. Were the aliens so strong, he wondered, that they could issue a simple demand and enforce compliance? They had to be entirely confident that they could crush any resistance and take Earth. Nothing else could explain their approach, the subtle intimidation and, finally, the clear statement of intent.

  He’d been briefed on the possibility, yet somehow he hadn’t quite believed it, even though the aliens had clearly been scouting out the human defences. Why would an advanced alien race want to conquer Earth? They had access to the boundless resources of interstellar space and technology to make planets like Mars and Venus habitable. They could have traded with Earth for whatever they needed – every nation on Earth would want access to their technology – but instead…it dawned on the President that the aliens might not trust the human race and want it kept firmly under control. The Solar System might not be big enough for both races after all.

  “Why?” He asked, finally. It wasn’t diplomatic, but the alien had made it clear that they would be moving beyond diplomacy. “Why do you want our planet?”

  Ethos seemed to lean back slightly. Unlike the other aliens, he moved with slow deliberate movements, rather than quick jerky motions. “We departed from our homeworld unaware that there was an intelligent race living on your world,” he said. His soft whispering voice couldn’t hide the impact of his words. “We loaded a microcosm of our society onboard this vessel, believing that we would arrive at a world we could inhabit and spread our race across the stars. The discovery of your race was an unpleasant surprise.”

  The President wasn’t sure if he believed him. The human race had been transmitting radio signals towards the stars for over a hundred years, which meant that anyone within a hundred light years of Earth would know that they were there…or would it? Some of the briefings had suggested that the radio waves would fade out against the background noise, or perhaps wouldn’t be recognised as the product of intelligent life. The President, who tried to avoid reality television and soap operas, tended to agree that most races wouldn’t consider them the product of intelligent minds. Even so, the aliens might well be lying, or…what?

  “We studied your race carefully, using scout ships to move between this ship and your world at speeds beyond your comprehension,” Ethos continued. “We observed your people at war and peace, absorbed your popular culture and studied your art, science and literature to understand what made your race tick. You are very different from us and yet there are odd similarities. You have sparks of greatness and yet they are pulled down by the mundane nature of your culture. Your…most advanced societies seem driven more by the need to maintain the status quo than to reach for further greatness; your less advanced societies are feeding on themselves, tearing themselves apart rather than claiming the heritage of any intelligent race.”

  The President said nothing. “Your race is in serious trouble,” the alien continued. “You are caught in a sociological trap that you cannot easily escape. The resources on your world are running out, or used as tools to further distort your society, while you lack the technology or the mass mindset to reach for the infinite resources of outer space. You have the technical ability to settle the Moon and mine asteroids for resources, yet you have chosen to turn your backs on space – and the danger that might come out of it. If an asteroid were to impact your planet, you would be unable to stop or deflect it before it struck, exterminating most of your population in a single blast. Your race knows nothing of it, yet you are standing at the edge of extinction.

  “It grows worse. You allow deadly memes to propagate throughout your society, killing any hope for a better future. Your world is infested with people who hate for the sake of hating, religions that preach hatred for all other religions, people who fear and hate the technology that might get you out of the trap and seek a return to a simpler life that only existed in their imaginations. The rich are concerned with hoarding what they have, and preserving it from legal thieves rather than using it to create more wealth, while the poor are determined to strip the rich of their wealth. Your political systems are becoming increasingly snarled up, rendering you even less able to tackle these problems, while the fear and hate and violence grows ever stronger. Your race is on the verge of destroying itself.”

  The President took a breath. “I will not deny that we have problems,” he said, remembering the fights he’d had with Congress over the reform program and the endless frustrations of trying to change a nation that didn’t seem to want to be changed. “I will not deny that there are…significant inequalities on our planet.”

  “And yet your ability to tackle them is limited,” Ethos said. There was no tone of condemnation in his voice, but that almost made it worse. “Your race is tearing itself apart while endless wealth and safety awaits, if only you made the investment that would open the vistas of space to you. Instead, you decay, leaving us with a problem. We need your world to survive.”

  The President lifted an eyebrow. “This ship was not designed for permanent occupancy,” Ethos explained. “The awakening proceeds on schedule, which means that we will eventually exhaust the resources on this ship. We need to transfer as much of our population to Earth as we can before the ship finally collapses on us and sentences us to death. Your culture seems to spend most of its time denying reality. Ours – based in the cold hard realities of deep space – does not allow us that luxury. There is very little time.”

  “I see,” the President said. “And you want to settle on Earth?”

  “Yes,” Ethos said. “There is no other choice. This ship is incapable of reaching another star system before it collapses. The other worlds in your system would require a massive terraforming process before they could be made habitable, which wouldn’t be completed before we run out of time. We require access to your world.”

  The President gathered himself. “You bring advanced technology from another world,” he said. “We could trade technology for land quite easily. How many of you are there?”

  Ethos ignored the question. “You misunderstand,” he said. “Your race is historically unkind to immigrants, even those who bring gifts and skills you desperately need. You have enough problems dealing with immigrants from your own race and develop racist feelings when they have different skin colours, or cultures, from your own. If such tiny differences make such an impression, what will happen when your people are confronted by a race of immigrants who cannot interbreed, or do not share even the same basic requirements for life, or are so…alien as to be beyond understanding? I could not leave my people to the mercy of yours.”

  The alien had a point, the President knew. Anti-immigration behaviour had been sweeping the American south for years – but that was different, surely – and Europe had been having its own problems, with yearly riots in major cities. It was yet another problem he had sought to reform, yet the levels of entrenched resistance to any change had sh
ocked even him. Even the expansion of Mexican drug cabals and violence to America’s border hadn’t forced rapid change.

  And yet…he remembered one of the briefings, comparing the alien visitors to the Europeans who’d visited America, centuries ago. They had been more advanced than the natives and had rapidly taken their land, forcing the Native Americans further and further back until they were confined to a handful of reservations. There were plenty who beat their breasts over what their distant ancestors had done, but it made no difference to reality. The Indian culture, such as it was now, existed only on sufferance. Was that what the aliens had in mind for Earth?

  “If we are to integrate into your planet, it must be on our terms,” Ethos said flatly. “We could not risk losing control over our destiny for the sake of your people’s fear and stupidity. We could overwhelm your defences with ease, yet some of us believe that it would be better to make your people an offer first.”

  The alien leaned forward. “We are coming to your world,” he said. “There is no way you can prevent us from landing. We will settle your world and integrate your people with ours. We care nothing for your borders or the political structures you have created. We do not wish, however, to crush your people if it can be avoided. We intend, therefore, to make you – the President of the most powerful nation on Earth – an offer.”