The New World

by Toby Neighbors

  The screen flickered and the alien lecture resumed. Daniel pulled the headset off and found Jason staring at him.

  “How did you know about that?” he asked.

  “I told you I saw it at the museum. Now I think it’s time for bed,” Daniel said. He dimmed the lights with his headset and settled down onto his sleeping mat. He had a few ideas that he was dying to discuss with Jason, but he could not risk the Tolligarkians discovering his plans. He would have to wait until they were through the transporter and back in Earth orbit. It would mean making things up as they went along, but he was flexible. He would make it work.

  Chapter 40

  Sleep was impossible for several hours. When Daniel finally did get tired enough to close his eyes, he forced himself to rest. Jason’s breathing was steady, and he knew that the soldier was trained to rest when he could. There was a buzzing in his mind that woke him. The sky ceiling was still dark; when the elevator doors opened a moment later, light flooded into the room.

  “Ah, you are still sleeping,” said Norixum as he floated into the dark room. “Supreme Commander Huxley’s schedule is very full, we must leave soon.”

  “Alright, we’re up,” Daniel said, rolling to his knees from his sleeping mat. “How much time do we have?”

  “Prepare yourselves as quickly as possible,” Norixum said.

  “Can you call up clean clothes and open the bathroom?” Jason asked.

  “Of course,” Norixum said.

  They washed their faces and changed clothes while Norixum waited. Daniel didn’t like being rushed, especially since he had decided what to do with the data chip. Once in the bathroom, he pointed to Jason, then pointed to his eyes and then to the door. Jason took the hint and moved over by the door to dress and keep an eye out for Norixum. If they were being observed even in the bathroom, then they were lost. He couldn’t keep the data chip in his pocket, and he was afraid to leave it on the shuttle. He had decided sometime during the night to hide it under his prosthetic eye. It would be uncomfortable, but the chip was small. Daniel looked into the shimmering screen that served as a mirror and pulled out his eye plate. He immediately felt the skin around the eye socket sag. He looked at the steel post that protruded from the gaping hole in his head. He careful slid the data chip in beside the post, then returned the eye plate. He still hated the way he looked, his good eye straining, his prosthetic eye lifeless and unmoving, but he had to admit it was coming in handy now. He could feel the foreign object in the eye socket, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable. He splashed water on his face and ran his fingers through his hair. It was time to meet his alien counterpart. He wished he had a razor.

  A few moments later they were descending in the elevator to the shuttle platform. Daniel and Jason were once again in their own clothes, which had been laundered somehow and seemed to look as good as new. Daniel was nervous; he was worried about being caught with the data chip, worried that their plot to rebuff Tolligark from colonizing Earth would be discovered. And, most of all, he worried about Lana. He knew that he would never see her again. He had decided in the night that he would be the one to move the space station into the flux field. It was only right, he was responsible—and besides, he had no family to return to. He hoped desperately that Coolique was right and that the data chip contained a formula for reversing the plague. He could not think of his parents. And he loathed the thought of returning to his life in the library before the plague. He had been president, lived in the White House, worked from the Oval Office. There would be no going back now. He had hoped to one day find Lana again, even if she didn’t want him anymore he needed to see her, to hear why she had left him the way she did. He knew her reasons for going, but not for disappearing without saying goodbye. He still blamed himself, but now as he stood on the threshold of what could only be considered saving mankind, he knew that he had done the right thing. Another person might not have had the courage or the will to do what was necessary. He did, and that was all that mattered right now.

  He focused his thoughts on Lana, let the pain of her disappearance out of its cage so that it flooded his soul with bitter regret. He was sure there would be aliens monitoring his every thought and he wanted them to find nothing more than his grief for Lana.

  The shuttle came to rest on a platform high into the city’s upper terrace of towers. Even though the capital city was full of incredibly tall skyscrapers, there were only a handful that soared to this height. Wind whipped around them as they walked, Norixum floating, toward the open door at the end of the platform. The air was cold and seemed thin. Daniel wondered if this was what it felt like at Lana’s Colorado retreat. He had no way of knowing that she had gone to Colorado, but his heart felt that it must be true. Whenever he saw her in his mind’s eye, it was at the cabin with the long porch built on the mountain, with wildflowers all around, from his dream.

  They walked through a long corridor that was lined with strange looking light fixtures. Daniel’s brain buzzed as though his head were a blender. He ignored it, ignored the nausea it caused him, and focused only on the pain in his heart. He kept the image of Lana in his mind, replayed the way she had looked sleeping on the sofa in his arms that first night, the way her eyes were filled with fear at the thought of hundreds of strangers flooding to the White House. He let the resentment of why he had chosen responsibility over love eat at him like acid.

  They entered a room that seemed to be made of solid, white light. The floors, walls, and ceiling were all identical and shining with a light that made Daniel’s eye hurt. He heard a strange beeping sound and a door opened at the other end of the room. They walked through and were surrounded by tall, furry beings that looked like Coolique. Daniel was surprised for an instant, but immediately focused all his thoughts on Lana. She was the only one who could save him from giving their plans away. The furry aliens’ breathing sounded like that of wounded animals, labored and with a deep throated growling.

  Daniel felt a sharp pain in his head, almost like a blunt instrument was forcing its way into his brain. He heard Jason cry out, and he bent over from the pain. The pain was moving deeper, so Daniel fought it. He visualized his brain pushing back on the intrusion and it worked. The pain intensified, but also moved back.

  “Fight it,” Daniel said to Jason between clenched teeth.

  “How?”

  “Visualize pushing it back and out of your head.”

  After another moment the pain ceased, although the buzzing continued unabated.

  “What was that?” Daniel said to Norixum.

  “It is only part of the supreme commander’s security procedures,” Norixum said calmly. “They must ensure that you mean the supreme commander no harm.”

  Jason’s face was pale, but he seemed okay. They continued on into another room where eight Tolligarkians surrounded Daniel. They were on floating devices, but not pillows. Their small platforms were built for utility, with weapons and instruments built in. They were security officers and they stood on their platforms, rather than sitting like Norixum.

  “They want to know what is in your head that isn’t biological,” Norixum said.

  “It’s a fake eye,” Daniel said, tapping it with his finger. It made an odd sound as he tapped it. “I lost that eye in an accident,” Daniel continued. “They put in this prosthetic eye just so I would look normal.”

  “I have told them,” Norixum explained, “it is part of your culture and they are checking with their supervisor to see if we are cleared to pass.”

  This was the moment of truth, Daniel thought, and quickly stuffed the thought down. He looked at Lana in his mind, remembered her eyes and the way they sparkled. He wondered if his own ruined eye would have turned her away from him. He did look different, older, less masculine in his opinion. He doubted whether that would have made a difference to Lana, she had seen what masculinity taken to its extreme could produce and had suffered for it. It hurt Daniel to think of what she had endured. He had seen one of her abductors hit by a str
ay bullet and had killed the other man himself. Still, he felt no better for knowing that the animals who had hurt her so deeply had got their just desserts. Death didn’t feel extreme enough, a part of him longed to hurt them back. But he couldn’t, they were beyond his reach now.

  “We may proceed,” Norixum said as the guards parted before them.

  They walked into what seemed like a large waiting room. The walls were covered in lavish carvings from large wooden panels. There were chairs with no backs all around the room and most were occupied by various aliens. Norixum led them through the room to a smaller waiting area. They waited for a few moments and then the door opened. Another Tolligarkian who looked almost identical to Norixum, floating on a cushion exactly like Norixum’s, ushered them in.

  Supreme Commander Huxley sat on top of a large desk made of what appeared to be stainless steel. He was surrounded by glowing screens and charts, all showing starships and planetary systems. He did not look up when they entered but continued to stare down at the desktop; at least he seemed to, his eyes being hidden behind what Daniel now knew to be neuro wave amplifiers. Once the aide had closed the door behind them, the buzzing in Daniel’s head ceased. He caught a glance from Jason that told him he had noticed the change, too. The supreme commander wanted no one inside his own head, it appeared, which Daniel thought was prudent. It was obvious that the Tolligarkians were not as telepathically powerful as some of the races they had conquered, and it would be a risk to allow them to access his thoughts. Daniel could not tell who was reading his mind or what they were receiving from him, only that the buzzing sensation meant they were doing something. He wondered if it was the same for the Tolligarkians.

  When the supreme commander spoke, his voice was the same as Norixum’s: deep, pleasant, but slightly clipped, as if the last fraction of each word were lost.

  “These are the leaders from the planet Earth?” the supreme commander asked.

  “Yes,” Daniel said. “My name is Daniel Brickman. I’m the President of the United States of America.”

  “I see,” said the alien, who was still looking down at the desk. “I am sorry for our intrusion into your world; I have heard that an unfortunate accident has depleted your population.”

  Daniel’s anger flared like a match being struck in a dark cave, but he tamped it down. He knew the truth, the plague was no accident, and the Tolligarkians really didn’t care that he knew it. Their excuse was pathetic, as if it wasn’t really worth the effort to try and cover up their genocide. Daniel focused his anger into a positive channel and used it to motivate himself to do what he must.

  “That is true, commander, I had hoped that you might help us with that.”

  “I’m afraid we cannot,” said Huxley, finally looking up from the desk. “We do not know enough about your race yet, and interstellar bacterium can be deadly and hard to deal with, in any case.”

  “That is unfortunate,” Daniel said.

  “Indeed, but we are committed to seeing your race return to a healthy state, as I am sure Ambassador Norixum has conveyed.”

  “He has, but I am concerned that your occupation of our planet occurred without our consent.”

  “That was an unfortunate logistical error,” said the commander. “But I’m sure you can understand that the complexity of our Federation is sometimes a bit more than we can manage.”

  “If you are having trouble managing your existing structures, why then are you continuing to expand?”

  “I’m afraid the decision to colonize your world was made before my time,” said the alien, who was now pacing his desk. His attention seemed to be on the screens and charts that hung on the walls of his office.

  “Then you will understand if we decline?” Daniel asked.

  “That would be unfortunate,” said the commander, still not looking at Daniel. “While we do not condone the action that lead to our presence in your system, we have committed a tremendous amount of resources to include Earth in the Federation of Free People. It would be unwise to simply withdraw now. As I am sure you know, we are in a desperate struggle with the Plauggid Empire. To leave you unprotected would be immoral.”

  “But that would be our decision. Surely you would not argue that Earth is exclusively the domain of its native inhabitants.”

  “No, we would not argue that point. But many would say you have been poor stewards of the world that sustains you. In fact, we have learned that planets and moons cannot sustain life beyond a certain point without being harmed by that life. That is why we have provided alternative living solutions for so many of the worlds in our federation, from developing dead worlds to resuscitating planets on the brink of environmental disaster.”

  “Norixum has told us of worlds that have been lost.”

  “That is fact,” the commander said. “We have come too late for many worlds. But that is not the case with Earth. What we offer you is protection, a way to save your planet and benefit from our technology. From where I stand there is no downside to joining the Free People.”

  “Perhaps not,” Daniel said. “But surely you can understand that we need time to make a decision. Our people must be informed, and a consensus must be reached before we invite your federation to take control of our world.”

  “I would venture that you are not in control of your world now.” The supreme commander turned to face Daniel. “Time is what we do not have. Every moment that you waffle in indecision, Free People die. I’m afraid we are coming to Earth, Daniel Brickman. You can choose to benefit from this or not. It is no longer an issue of permission.”

  “I see,” said Daniel. “Well, then, you have made your position clear. I shall return to Earth to inform my people.”

  “That is well,” said the supreme commander, bowing slightly. “I take care of my people,” he continued. “There is a place for you here in the capital city as Earth’s representative.”

  “I understand,” Daniel said, his conscience squirming.

  “May you have splendid journey,” said Huxley.

  Daniel bowed slightly, although he didn’t know why. Then he turned and followed Norixum from the room. When they reached the shuttle, the intracranial buzzing that had resumed immediately as they left Huxley’s office diminished considerably. Daniel had been focused on Earth as they left the Federation Building. He could see Earth like a bright jewel in the black void of space. It was so amazing, so beautiful, but so fragile. He resolved to protect it, to do what was best for his planet and for his people. Slowly, a plan began to form in his mind, simmering and growing just behind his thoughts of home.

  Chapter 41

  “I was able to retrieve the data reader you requested,” said Norixum.

  Daniel looked at the little alien as Norixum handed him the device. He felt sorry for the ambassador and wondered if the alien really believed in the party line of the Federation, or if he simply chose to see it as a means to an end. Daniel couldn’t say he liked the little alien, but neither did he want to see any creature suffer. But there was no avoiding it; Coolique had said the eye coverings were surgically implanted.

  As their ship rose through the stratosphere of Tolligark, the small alien rattled on about how to use the reader. Daniel sincerely hoped that Jason was listening. He would be the one operating the device once he returned to Earth. He also hoped the soldier wouldn’t argue that Daniel had to be the one to move the space station into the flux field.

  On the view screen the sky changed from a pink haze to a dark sky filled with starships. Daniel was again in awe as they traveled past the other vessels. He couldn’t begin to imagine the number of beings on so many ships. What was their life like, he wondered? Were they happy under Federation control, or merely convinced that there was nothing they could do about it? Then a qualm rose up in Daniel, as he considered whether or not he was becoming a terrorist. He had always wondered why people couldn’t accept the inevitable and instead spent their lives to make the point that they would never give in to the inevitable.
He had hated the newsfeeds of bomb blasts and hijackings that occurred around the world. Now he was the one plotting in secret, planning to strike a blow against the Federation. Was he now the one refusing to see the inevitable? As he watched the other starships float by in the vacuum of space, he wondered if what he was planning would be enough. And would he have the chance to see if his plan worked? Would he be trapped somewhere in-between worlds, or worse, in another dimension? More than likely he would be arrested and imprisoned in some nightmarish alien penal colony or executed for treason. Fear was beginning to rise like an ocean tide, numbing the anger and resolve he felt.