Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Human history suggests that any contact between an advanced and a primitive society will end badly,” Howery said. “We need to make preparations before it is too late.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Washington DC, USA

  Day 27

  The Oval Office was supposed to be soundproofed, but the President could hear the chanting of the protesters outside the gates, demanding that the alien contact be as peaceable as humanity could make it. Thousands of protesters had made their way to Washington and the FBI was reporting that tens of thousands more were on their way, protesting against the military preparations to greet the aliens. He’d watched footage earlier of protest marches through Memphis – calling for the aliens to bring back Elvis, of all things – and other, similar protests in a dozen world capitals. The general mode on the streets seemed to be a demand for a peaceful solution and the President almost envied them, the young men and women who thought that they could change the world. They didn’t know about the UFO crash or about his flight to the alien mothership or – for that matter – the alien statement that they wanted the Earth. The protesters were being told all kinds of New Age bullshit about how the aliens would bring paradise to Earth, yet the President thought he detected a note of fear under the howling. A fear that the military-industrial complex would find a way to cheat humanity out of its glorious destiny among the stars, or, perhaps, a fear that the government would start a war. It didn’t matter that both beliefs were insane. All that mattered was that people believed it.

  “We do not have much time,” he said, shortly. Now that his entire Cabinet knew about the approaching alien mothership, he’d decided to brief them in on the crashed UFO and his later meeting with the aliens. It had prevented a nasty crisis when some of his handpicked Cabinet had attempted to propose reasonable solutions, unaware of the information that drove the President’s decision-making. “I have to meet the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in two days. What do we tell them?”

  “The truth,” Jones said. The little man was an old friend, someone who formed a bridge between the civil and military administrations. The President tended to trust his advice. “We don’t know if any of them have been contacted as well, so we lay all of our cards on the table and warn them that the aliens aren’t coming in peace. They’re not this new…Third World Alliance, Mr President. They know that we wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

  The President scowled. A day ago, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, in a joint statement, had announced the creation of an alliance between various developing nations to speak to the aliens in the name of humanity. The major nations hadn’t signed up to their alliance – the leaders of the alliance had been struggling to outdo each other in their condemnation of Western Imperialism – but the President was reminded of an old military saying. Quantity had a quality all of its own. It was an unwelcome truth that the United Nations couldn’t prevent any of the major nations and most of the minor nations from going their own way, yet the aliens had insisted on speaking to the UN and the Third World Alliance would control a significant number of seats. It could have unpleasant implications for the future.

  “If we tell them the truth, if we tell them about the crashed ship, they will demand that we share access to the ship,” Tom Cook said. The Secretary of Defence leaned forward. “The nation that first manages to unlock the secrets of interstellar travel will be the most powerful nation on Earth for a very long time. They will have no choice but to demand access, because their own futures would be at stake. If we refuse to grant that access, they may feel that they have to take decisive measures.”

  Jones frowned. “You mean they may launch an attack on the base?”

  “Impossible,” General Wachter said. “They must know that we would retaliate.”

  “They wouldn’t have to launch an attack,” the Secretary of State pointed out. “All they’d have to do is tell the aliens where the craft is hidden. We think that the aliens aren’t strong enough to just take the craft back, but we might well be wrong and the aliens might just be unable to locate it. We’d be left without the craft and a bloody nose.”

  “Assuming that they know where the craft is,” the President said. “Do they know where the craft is?”

  Richard Darby, the Director of Homeland Security, winced. “The Russians and Chinese have always placed a much greater focus on human intelligence – HUMIT –than we have, for various reasons. We had several very high-profile spies during the Cold War and afterwards; we even discovered a long-team Russian sleeper agent a couple of years ago. They may not know where the craft is hidden – we took precautions to prevent even vetted personnel from leaving the base or even learning their exact location – or they may know exactly where it is. They probably know our secret installations far better than the aliens do and might put two and two together if they realise that a base has come back online.”

  “We have been reactivating facilities all over the country,” Cook pointed out. The President nodded. The expense was already considerable, even though much of the groundwork had been laid before the alien mothership had been detected. “They may not be able to pick out the one housing the craft.”

  “With all due respect,” Darby said, “it might not be wise to bet the farm on it.”

  The President gazed around the table, his eyes silently quelling the argument. “What do you advise?”

  “A half-truth,” Cook said. “We tell them that you were contacted and taken to the alien ship. We show them the recordings as proof.”

  “They never mentioned the crashed ship,” Jones said, excitedly. “We could give them the raw footage and let them study it for themselves.”

  “They may not be impressed,” Janine Reynolds said. The NSA Director looked down at the table. “You would be astonished at how many utterly convincing faked photographs there are out there. We actually used to create faked photographs of terrorist leaders in Iraq to humiliate them in front of their followers. They might well conclude that everything the President shows them is a fake.”

  “That would be an insult to the Office of the President,” Wachter said, stiffly. “No one would tell a lie on such a scale.”

  “The Big Lie is always easier to believe than the small petty lies,” Janine pointed out. “It helps if people want to believe that the altered image is actually their favourite actress in the nude, or a terrorist leader kissing another man, or…hell, a flying saucer hovering in the sky. They may believe the President wouldn’t lie about something like this, but they may not believe the aliens, or what the aliens told the President.”

  “And there are already accusations that we knew about the aliens for a long time before SETI picked up the signal,” Darby said. “The World News Network ran an expose claiming that we were making military preparations long before the aliens were actually picked up, although they didn’t release anything about the crashed ship. They left the exact question of how we knew as an open issue…”

  “We can just say that we picked up the mothership on advanced optical sensors mounted on classified satellites,” Janine said. “Everyone knows that the NSA orbits quite a few classified satellites each year. We even got the first images of the alien mothership from one of them. It would even be relatively true.”

  The President tapped the table. “Very well,” he said. “We will tell them about our contact, but not about the crashed ship, or what we’ve discovered from it. Tony, where do we stand on security at Area 52?”

  Jones took a moment to gather his thoughts. He was a civilian and military affairs meant little to him, yet he had been given considerable power to direct military operations – a power, the President reflected, that was always given to civilian politicians. It looked different; he had to admit, when he was sitting in the Oval Office, facing decisions that were daunting in their scope. Obama, Bush and Clinton had had it easy, although he couldn’t understand how Clinton had found time to have oral sex in the Oval Office. There w
as just too much to do.

  “We have two companies of soldiers from Camp Pendleton on exercises at an abandoned base ten kilometres from Area 52,” Jones said. The President silently identified them as Marines. “They have transports that could get them to Area 52 within fifteen to twenty minutes, where they will reinforce the soldiers on duty at the base. We’ve armed them with MANPAD weapons as well as their standard equipment, but if the aliens come calling I don’t know if they’ll be able to stand them off in time for help to arrive.

  “There’s nothing visible on the surface at all apart from a handful of dusty buildings and a chain-link fence, with no locals around for dozens of kilometres,” he added. “Colonel Fields suggested pushing out the security perimeter and detaining anyone who wandered into the area, but I decided that would call unwanted attention to the base, particularly as we would have no legal grounds to detain them. The base itself is secure and anyone who attempts to break through the fence will be arrested.

  “The nearby communities have received agents who will inform us if something changes,” he concluded. “We had some panic when a Russian dance team drove through Nevada, but it turned out that they actually were dancers showing off their skills to the children from various schools. There shouldn’t be anything to alert unwanted visitors.”

  The President nodded. “Good work,” he said. Colonel Fields was an old lush – that was why he’d been effectively exiled to Area 52 in the first place – but he was shaping up nicely. Besides, Ben Santini was watching over his shoulders. He looked down at the image of the alien mothership. “I take it that there have been no new developments?”

  “We can’t get decent images for some reason,” Janine said. The NSA had taken over the orbital telescopes and pointed them all at the alien ship. “We can tell you quite a bit about the craft – we think that it could probably hold a billion humans if they were packed in like sardines – but nothing specific. We’re still picking up hints that the aliens are watching us by sending other craft into our atmosphere, yet the telescopes are not seeing them being launched from the mothership. NASA thinks that the ship is being propelled forward by a drive field – a nice term for something they admit they cannot even begin to duplicate – and that the field is causing our optical difficulties. We don’t know for sure.

  “That said, the team at Area 52 were right,” she added. “If that ship were to explode while it was in orbit, the results would be devastating. Earth would become uninhabitable.”

  The President nodded. On his desk was a proposal to reopen and expand the bomb shelter network – such as it was – that had been created during the Cold War. The planners wanted to spend billions of dollars on trying to protect humanity from alien attack by creating hardened shelters, yet the President had no illusions. No amount of bomb shelters could protect the majority of the human race. Thousands of citizens weren't waiting for the government to do something about it and were busy purchasing or building their own, along with guns, food and other supplies. There were reports of shortages of all essential items right across the country. There had been panic-buying riots in every city in the United States as people fought desperately for items they desperately needed – or thought they did. The National Guard had been called out to a dozen cities.

  But none of it would matter if the aliens were bent on human conquest, or extermination. The President had met the aliens and talked with them. He’d had a long career in politics after he’d left the army and he was a fair judge of people. The aliens, he was sure, had meant what they’d said. It was easy to believe – to allow himself to believe – that he’d misread the aliens, who weren't human after all, but he doubted it. They had meant what they’d said and that meant that they intended to invade the Earth. The protesters outside knew nothing about it.

  Lucky protesters, he thought, sourly.

  “We’d better not destroy it then,” he said. He’d read reports on the teams working to retarget the ICBMs so that they could be launched against targets in orbit, but Janine was right. Quite apart from the moral issues – there were a billion aliens on that craft – it would be the most self-defeating victory in history. There would no longer be history on Earth. “I have a more pleasant duty to perform now, so if there’s no other business?”

  On that note, the meeting ended.

  ***

  Karen had never been to the White House, or even to Washington, before she’d detected the alien craft and deciphered the message. It had seemed absurd to even think that she would go, unless she went with a school trip or a tourist group. The invitation to meet with the President had been a surprise – the media hadn’t been happy at how she’d fled their press conference – but it hadn’t taken her long to decide to accept, along with her family. They were now quartered in one of Washington’s more expensive hotels, courtesy of the Secret Service, and being shown around the city by a tour guide. Karen herself had been invited directly to the White House.

  There’d been a quick briefing on protocol, but she’d been too nervous to take it in and she’d just kept nodding. The President wasn't a king or a dictator; he wasn't someone who would lop off her head for daring to ask questions or for some minor breech in protocol. The President’s Personnel Secretary – a long-legged blonde who kept smiling at her in a faintly disturbing manner – escorted her through the building and provided a running commentary on each of the portraits and artworks lining the walls, before escorting her in to the Oval Office itself. Karen had seen pictures, of course, from when she was very young, but they all paled compared to the room itself. History had been made in the Oval Office. The ghosts of former Presidents seemed to look down on their successor, watching in silent judgement and perhaps shaking their heads in dismay. The United States had evolved since its foundation and some of the former Presidents would have found it a very alien place.

  The President himself was a surprisingly handsome man in person, even though he had to be in his late forties. Karen tried to figure out how old he was and failed, although she knew that he’d been an adult during the Iraq War. The media might refer to him as the ugliest President ever to sit in the Oval Office, yet up close he had a rugged charisma that seemed to transcend his appearance. She reminded herself of what Daisy had told her - that the President was a consummate politician who would try to present himself to her in the best possible light - yet she was awed by his presence. He shook her hand firmly and she almost forgot to let go of it.

  “Please, sit down,” he said, waving her to the sofa. He didn’t go back behind his desk, but took the comfortable chair facing her. “I will be greeting you formally later this evening” – Karen winced at the reminder she would have to face the press, if only a handful of reporters, again – “but I wanted to meet you in person first and extend my congratulations.”

  Karen almost melted. The President of the United States was congratulating her! “Thank you, sir…ah, Mr President,” she said. She felt herself flushing and wanted to flee, but somehow held her ground. “It was sheer luck.”

  “Perhaps,” the President said. His face didn’t change at all. “Ninety-nine percent of great events and decisions happen because of luck. You also cracked the alien message and that wasn't luck.”

  “It wasn't meant to be hard to decipher,” Karen said. She’d made that point to Daisy, but she didn’t know if the President knew. Why should the President take an interest in SETI – apart from the obvious? A week ago, no one had known that aliens existed and Daisy – Director Fairchild – had been struggling to gain enough funding to continue operations. Now, everyone and his dog wanted to offer SETI money and Daisy was already looking at expanding the array network, perhaps even bringing the Square Kilometre Array online before the intended date of 2020. “Mr President, that message was intended to be easy to crack.”

  The President’s eyes seemed to narrow as she stumbled through an explanation, painfully aware that she was talking to the President as if he were an ignorant child, even though Daisy
had warned her that most politicians knew nothing and desired to know less. He didn’t interrupt her, or ask questions; he just listened. Karen knew that Daisy and the other Senior Astronomers at SETI had placed their faith in a peaceful contact, yet there was something vaguely sinister about the whole affair. There was something that didn’t quite add up.

  “I see,” the President said, finally. There was something…odd in his tone. Karen remembered skimming through a brief biography on the President and noting that he wasn't fond of dissembling. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  His words hung in her mind even after her parents arrived in the White House for a brief photo opportunity and a handful of questions from selected reporters. It was easier than facing a mass of reporters again – it helped that they couldn’t decide if they should be taking pictures of her, or the President, or both – yet her brain refused to let it go. What had the President meant?

  ***

  They met later in the Oval Office.

  Karen had been warned, in no uncertain terms, that the President only had a few moments to speak with her – he was a very busy man – but he showed no sign of urgency as they talked briefly about her life and SETI. She recognised the tactic as one designed to put her at her ease and encourage her to talk freely, yet she had to admire the President’s skill. He didn’t give any hints of falsehood or deceit, even though she knew that all politicians developed such skills as a matter of course.

  “You had…issues with the signal,” the President said. “Would you care to tell me about them?”

  “They spoke to us in English, then other languages,” Karen said. She wanted to explain all her concerns, but time pressed and she kept it simple. “They couldn’t have picked all that up from radio transmissions alone.”

  The President said nothing, encouraging her to continue with a single raised eyebrow.