Silla turned toward him slowly, crossed her legs in a subtle but decidedly sultry fashion, moved a lock of hair from the side of her face, and looked him in the eye. “Is that a challenge?” she whispered.
Kilmer stared at the vision in front of him. “No, Agent Silla, it is nothing of the kind. I retract my statement.” He turned away from her. “Now please stop doing… whatever it is you’re doing.”
Silla acknowledged the win with a gracious smile, and Kilmer tried to push the image she had painted out of his mind.
A few minutes later, Nielsen stood up to address the gathering. “Thank you, everyone, for being on time.”
Kilmer leaned back in the chair and folded his arms. He brought the entire room into view, seeing not only Nielsen, but all the expressions and movements around the table. His breathing slowed, as it always did in such situations, and he narrowed his eyes slightly in concentration. All else faded away as he turned his attention to what was about to unfold.
~ 36 ~
Art Capella was headed to the White House. The report that he and Silla were about to share with Nielsen had been updated as recently as thirty minutes ago. The results were preliminary, but important enough to share.
Almost everyone who was in the loop was focused on ET-1. That was the name given to the spacecraft that had attacked the Moon and was now making its way to Station Zero. One of Agent Silla’s teams, however, was tasked with collecting and analyzing data associated with distal activity, with “distal” loosely defined as anything happening farther away from Earth than where ET-1 was located at any given time. This team continued to track the other three spacecraft, which were now collectively referred to as the reserves.
ET-1 was estimated to be 110 yards long, roughly the length of the International Space Station, the longest spacecraft that humans had ever put into space. The reserves were at least five times larger than that. They had moved on a few occasions, but always seemed to revert to a location approximately 600 million miles from Earth.
The update for Nielsen was focused entirely on the recent behavior of the three reserves.
Art reached for his cell phone as he drove. He was tempted—and not for the first time that week—to call his ex-wife. He had never figured out what he would say to her if she answered. Would he tell her what was happening? Would he ask her to move in with family in rural Wisconsin for a while, just as a precaution? Neither of those was an option from a legal or professional standpoint. Maybe he could just apologize for how he’d screwed things up between them, and then leave her wondering why he’d suddenly become a more decent human being.
Art put his cell phone away, as he always did. And he felt terrible, as he always did. He thought about the life he had created for himself—or rather, the life he had destroyed. Estranged, not only from his wife, but also from his two children. He had convinced himself that it was the price you had to pay if you wanted to devote yourself to fighting for the greater good—to do the work of heroes. You had to be willing to lose everything else.
Art wasn’t sure he believed that anymore. There were no heroes left. More likely, there had never been any heroes to begin with. In all his years, Art had certainly never met one. Everyone thought they were doing God’s work, but when you put it all together, you ended up with something only the devil could be proud of.
Art almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Humans didn’t need an alien race to come over and screw everything up for them. They could manage that perfectly well on their own.
But at the end of the day, Art’s cynicism, although profound, was of little significance. He would still do his job—not because it was all he had left, or because he was damn good at it, both of which were true. He would do it because he knew that if there was any chance of salvation for Arthur Capella, it was based entirely on his willingness to continue sacrificing everything in the hope that he might one day end up doing some actual good.
~ 37 ~
Heirs of Herodotus by D. Kilmer.
Excerpt from Chapter 1.
Society cannot afford to forget the lessons of the past—nor to learn the wrong lessons. But there is a third danger—and it is the greatest threat of all, if only because it is the least well recognized. Humanity can no longer afford to have only a handful of its citizens and leaders understand the lessons of history. We cannot count on a select few to be the caretakers of knowledge. The elite guardians of wisdom will be rendered useless if the masses are incapable of understanding their language, unable to appreciate their concerns, or uninterested even in considering their advice. This danger is not new, but it is always magnified during those times when a population is empowered at a faster rate than it is educated. And it is worst in societies where the value of any idea is measured only after it is filtered through the lens of politics, partisanship, or ideology.
Of the diabolically complicated Schleswig-Holstein affair—as pertained to Denmark and Prussia in the mid-19th century—Lord Palmerston is said to have remarked: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead, a German professor, who has gone mad, and I, who have forgotten all about it.”
We can no longer rely only on princes, professors, and lords to understand the affairs of the world. The professors and Palmerstons of the world must educate—and hence enable—the rest. And they must do it soon. The time will come when the masses no longer listen to their advice—when expertise is unrecognizable because the gulf between those who know and those who don’t is too wide to bridge. That day is almost upon us.
~ 38 ~
Silla had rushed off to see Art and Nielsen as soon as the 8 a.m. meeting adjourned, but Kilmer found Joana waiting for him when he exited the conference room.
“So, how would you like to spend the next twenty-five minutes?” she asked.
“I just need a place to sit. Anywhere is fine.”
“Sure. We can put you close to the Oval Office. That will make it easy to grab you for the 9:30.”
A few minutes later, they were back in the West Wing. They passed by the Oval Office and Joana peeked into a room to see if it was occupied. She gave Kilmer a smile. Success. They entered.
A minute later he was seated at an enormous table that took up most of the space in what he recognized as the Cabinet Room. He had seen the room on TV; journalists were occasionally invited inside when the president wanted a meeting to be publicized. Kilmer hesitated, but then decided to take the middle seat on the long side of the table—near the windows overlooking the Rose Garden. This was where the president always sat during those meetings. Hey, why not, right?
Okay, now think.
Kilmer had been impressed with what he’d seen in the meeting—an open and honest discussion, with good arguments made. But there were a few problems. Many of the analogies left out important details, and when the historical record was seen in its entirety, it told a slightly different story. It was also unclear why the aliens would announce their intentions if they planned to launch a devastating attack as their next step. If logic was at all relevant here, this should not be the endgame. There would have to be additional moves and countermoves before the aliens took that kind of action. That was good news. It reduced the need to launch a nuclear weapon that, as General Allen had warned, could be perceived by the aliens as an attack. Based on everything he knew so far, Kilmer believed that a show of force should not be the next step.
But it’s what we don’t know that should worry us.
He thought back to his conversation with VP Nielsen and President Whitman the night before—only a few hours ago, really. There had been far too many ideas, assumptions, and questions floating around in his mind, and in that room. It was the same during the 8 a.m. meeting. He needed to separate the signal from the noise. Kilmer took out a pen and found the piece of paper Trina had handed him earlier.
What does it all boil down to?
He started to write, cross out, reframe, reorganize, circle,
connect, and scribble, his pace quickening as things started to fall into place. Ten minutes later, he had something. It wasn’t exactly Churchill’s Key—it didn’t reveal the nature of alien self-interest or what was driving them—but it was, quite possibly, the key to the key.
And yet, it was the one thing no one else seemed bothered by at all.
~ 39 ~
Nielsen, Art, and Silla were seated in the vice president’s office.
“The lunar attack definitely got our attention,” Art explained. “And we started to focus all our efforts on figuring out what ET-1 might do next. That is, until Agent Silla asked us to consider another possibility: What if ET-1 wasn’t trying to get our attention? What if they just wanted us to stop paying attention to everything else?”
Nielsen leaned back. “You mean, a distraction. Like an Operation Bodyguard. What we did in World War II.”
Silla responded. “Exactly. Let’s get Hitler to focus on Pas-de-Calais while the real landing is planned for Normandy. We don’t have eyes everywhere in space, so we can’t always track the reserves. When they move, we usually just wait for them to return, some hours or days later, to what seems like home base for them—600 million miles away. But this time when they disappeared, we decided not to wait. It took a lot of resources, but we found them. It turns out the reserves are only 3 million miles away now—and they’re no longer hanging together. They seem to be approaching Earth from three completely different directions, as we might expect if they were planning to land at locations that are maximally distant from one another.”
Nielsen considered that for a moment. “Like a three-dimensional pincer movement.”
Art weighed in. “Whether they are in an attack formation, we can’t be sure. It’s one of many hypotheses. Of course, it’s the possibility that concerns us most.”
“If they are planning to attack—or to land—what locations might they be targeting? Is it possible to know?”
Art looked to Silla, who explained. “It’s a multivariate problem. Even if we assume that they plan to make a direct, line-of-sight approach to Earth, their point of contact will vary as the Earth rotates—their target depends on the time of day that they make their move. We also need to consider Earth’s movement through space. If the reserves don’t reposition as the Earth travels in its orbit, their angles of approach start to converge. Imagine just two spacecraft, one hovering above the North Pole and the other above the South Pole. Their expected points of contact are maximally distant at that moment. But suppose the Earth moves away and the spacecraft remain stationary. The farther away the Earth moves, the closer the expected points of contact get to one another—again assuming a linear trajectory.”
“So, if they want to stay positioned, relative to Earth, exactly as they are right now, they have to move as well.”
“That’s right. But they are in perfect position—at this time—for what you described as a pincer movement.”
Nielsen exhaled audibly, and then looked at his watch. “What else do I need to know?” he asked.
“Just that we’ll continue to monitor things,” Art replied. “There’s too little data to detect patterns. We’re looking at one snapshot in time and making lots of assumptions. But we wanted you to have this information ASAP.”
~ 40 ~
President Whitman, VP Nielsen, Chief of Staff Perez, General Allen, and Secretary Strauss were already assembled when Kilmer entered the room for the 9:30 meeting. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken in the scene—his first time in the Oval Office—and tried hard to stay calm. But Kilmer wasn’t thinking about the room, or its history, or the people who had occupied it over the years. He was thinking only about Churchill’s Key.
After Perez and Strauss introduced themselves to Kilmer, they all took their seats, Whitman and Nielsen on armchairs and the others on couches. Kilmer noticed a large carafe and some cups on the coffee table but decided not to be the first to help himself.
Whitman started immediately. “Gentlemen, I had an opportunity to observe the meeting. Thank you, Zack, for running things. Strauss, can I assume that you are still in favor of a show of force?”
“I am, Madam President. Only as a means of signaling our capabilities.”
Whitman turned to General Allen. “And Casey, am I correct in surmising that you are against the proposal?”
General Allen nodded. “As things stand, that is correct. Unless there is new information to consider, I am not in favor of the proposal.”
“Okay. Before I ask Professor Kilmer to weigh in as well, I’d like Zack to update us on some new information that Triad has just relayed. Zack, please tell everyone what you told me a few minutes ago.”
As Nielsen shared Silla’s analysis with the group, Strauss nodded along. He had an expression of unjoyful satisfaction on his face, as if he’d hoped for better news but was unsurprised that the report only reinforced the need to follow his advice.
Two minutes into Nielsen’s report, Kilmer decided to pour himself a cup of coffee. He knew this might constitute a violation of White House etiquette, but it didn’t look like an invitation was coming anytime soon. He was relieved when Perez followed suit, although the first cup the chief of staff filled was for the president. Whitman smiled at Kilmer, as though he had behaved no worse—nor any better—than expected.
Strauss took over as soon as Nielsen had finished. “Madam President, I think this only underscores the need to execute an unambiguous show of force. If the aliens are getting into attack formation, it’s now or never.”
Whitman looked to the others.
Perez weighed in. “How do we know this is an attack formation, and not merely an attempt at reconnaissance? How do we know they’re not simply imaging the planet, or analyzing our atmosphere, or some such thing?”
“We can’t know,” responded Allen. “The formation is consistent with a certain type of attack, but we would have said the same thing if the three spacecraft were approaching side by side. That, too, is an attack formation—just a different kind.”
“Are you saying this doesn’t concern you at all?” Strauss asked General Allen.
“It absolutely concerns me. But it does not make a show of force any less risky than before. The aliens are just as likely to misinterpret our actions as an attempted attack. We might still trigger a war.”
Perez contemplated Allen’s point. “A show of force is still just as risky, but the new information appears to make it more important than before. All else equal, our inaction seems more dangerous now than it did earlier.”
“Precisely,” said Strauss.
Whitman turned to Kilmer. “Professor, I’d like to hear from you as well. What are your thoughts?”
“Of course, Madam President. If you don’t mind, let me first address the narrower question that has just been raised. Does this new information change anything? I agree that it increases the risk of inaction—if we assume the aliens are getting into attack formation and if we assume it’s because they plan to attack imminently.”
Strauss looked mildly pleased—the professor appeared to be on his side.
“In other words,” Kilmer continued, “there are two conditions that must be met before we conclude that there is now a greater risk of inaction. But I’d like to suggest—strongly—that at least one of the conditions is not met.”
Strauss looked slightly frustrated, but curious.
Kilmer went on. “I won’t pretend to know what a proper attack formation looks like in an inter-galactic war—or on Earth, for that matter—but let’s just assume that the aliens are poised for an attack. The reason that doesn’t raise my level of concern is that I don’t believe that their next action, even if we fail to act, will be to attack.”
He explained how presumptive it would be for the aliens to conclude that “no action” meant humans were weak or vulnerable, and why it made little sense for ET-1 to give fair warning if the goal was to annihilate Earth as the very next step. “Where I come out, u
ltimately, is that a show of force is probably too risky, and that it provides no obvious benefit,” he concluded. “If they can destroy us and intend to do so, they’re not acting like it. And if they have the capability to annihilate us in a first strike, a show of force will not help us anyway. I concede that a show of force might be helpful in deterring an invasion or occupation, if that’s what they’re planning, but I don’t think we have to make that call yet.”
Whitman looked to the others. To her surprise, Strauss didn’t jump in to offer an immediate rebuttal.
Perez was the first to speak. “Professor Kilmer, your analysis is quite helpful. But something puzzles me. You’ve just given a somewhat optimistic assessment of the situation, but when I spoke to President Whitman briefly this morning—after she had chatted with you overnight—I walked away with the impression that the situation was more serious than we imagined. I’m trying to reconcile these two impressions.”
Kilmer nodded. And then, without a warning, he stood up, coffee in hand, and started to pace. The looks of bemusement, especially from General Allen and Salvo Perez, suggested that his behavior was, at the very least, unexpected.
“You’re right,” Kilmer noted. “My sense is that the situation is not so desperate at the current moment—at least not in ways that we can control. But I think we’re not worried enough about how things will play out if we survive in the short term.”
Strauss jumped in. “I’m sorry, Professor, but if they are not planning to attack, as you seem to think, why is the situation worse after we avoid war?”
“To put it simply, Secretary Strauss, it’s because as hard as it is for us to predict what happens tomorrow, it is much more difficult to imagine what will happen a year or a decade from now. We don’t know whether they have three reserve spacecraft or three million. We don’t know whether they are here to learn, to profit, to colonize, to feast, or to do something else entirely. We don’t know when or why their intentions might change.
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