“You’ll feel better in a few minutes. It’s just the knockout gas.”
“Where am I?” Richard dared to open his eyes again. The room around him was obviously a small, well equipped, infirmary.
“Ah, Doctor Green,” boomed a rotund, balding man in a three-piece suit, who burst into the room.
“Torture is outlawed by the Geneva Convention. Please lower your voice.” Richard buried his face in his hands.
“Bad reaction. That gas can throw you for a loop. I guess you would like to know what’s going on.” The large man moved to stand in front of Richard.
“I suppose that I have been kidnapped. Why anyone would want to do such a thing is beyond me. My ex-wife will not pay a ransom to get me back, I can promise you that. Janis might be willing to pay you to keep me.” Richard’s voice began to take on its normal timbre; the university English accent emerging through the gas induced raspyness.
“Kidnapped? Well in a sense. Doctor Green, your country needs you.”
“I’m a British national. What in hell does the King want?”
The big man smiled. “All right, if you insist. The United States requires your services.”
“Go on.” The pounding in Richard’s head had reduced to a dull throb.
“In short. Your work on mating biological and electrical systems has become a matter of national security.”
“Oh, and I was wondering where I’d be getting my next research grant.”
“If what we are facing pans out, you will never have to worry about financing your research again.”
“Pardon me, was that meant to sound ominous?”
“Excuse me, Doctor Cooper, but he needs some quiet to get back on his feet.” The nurse pushed a glass into Richard’s hand.
Richard downed the glass’s contents.
“If you insist. Doctor Green, the briefing will be in half an hour. The nurse will bring you to the conference room.
In minutes the throb had receded from Richard’s head and his stomach settled.
“We should get you to the conference.” The nurse passed him another glass of water.
Richard looked down at himself. “Um…I believe some accommodation for the perfunctory nature of my arrival will have to be made.”
“Huh?”
“Clothes?”
The nurse smiled at him. “A wardrobe has been supplied for you, Doctor.”
“Please, Richard, and you are?” he asked with a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“You can call me, happily married or Lieutenant Malcowits, if you behave yourself.” The nurse smiled at him to remove the sting from her words. Moving to a cupboard she pulled out a Harris Tweed suit complete with underwear and shirt.
“Such is my lot. All the great beauties be either too young or taken, or in your case, both.” Richard accepted the clothes and glanced around the room.
“Thank you for the compliment. Now get dressed.”
“Um…there’s no screen.”
“Men!” The nurse turned her back and stared diligently into the far corner.
“Thank you.”
The clothes fit well, for off the rack, and when Richard examined himself he had to admit they presented him as a modern scholar, the man with the answers. He took a closer look at his green eyes.
“Ready?” asked the Nurse.
“My pupils are dilated.”
“That will pass in the next half hour or so. Are you a medical doctor?”
“Biologist, with a sub-specialty in computer engineering.”
“Oh. Strange mix. Are you ready to go?”
“Lead on MacDuff.” Richard gestured towards the door.
“Brits!” She led him down an institutional hallway and through a door into a conference room. The far wall consisted of a large screen and the room’s middle was dominated by a wooden table. Seven people sat around the table, four of them in military uniform. Richard counted the five stars on the shoulder epaulet of the closest man. He was older, but solidly built.
“Ah, Doctor Green, please come in and take a seat,” said Doctor Cooper, who sat at the head of the table.
“Thank you. Gentle um, err, persons.” Richard moved to one of the empty chairs.
“Now as I was saying. It seems pretty fishy.” Began the man dressed in a navel uniform.
“Admiral. Now that we are assembled, I think it’s time to recap, so we’re all on the same page,” said Doctor Cooper.
“You can say that again, Sugar. Oh, by the way, Hiya Richard,” drawled an older woman with blonde hair graying at the roots from across the table. She was dressed in a simple white blouse and black skirt.
“Hi, Nancy. Been a while.”
“Since that biotech conference in Atlanta. How’s Janis?” Nancy’s accent was pure southern belle.
“We split.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Doctors,” interrupted one of the military men.
“Sorry,” said Richard and Nancy in unison.
“Very well. If you will excuse the cliché, you are probably wondering why I have called you together.” Doctor Cooper stood at the head of the table.
“Would you get on with it, Malcome? We aren’t a senate comity you need to kiss ass to for funding,” interrupted the older general.
Malcome scowled. “As you wish. Frankly, this is a scenario straight out of a bad science-fiction movie. Gentlemen and lady, the aliens are coming.”
“Pardon me?” asked Richard.
“We received this transmission at twenty-two hundred hours yesterday.”
The screen behind Doctor Cooper lit up. A stunningly handsome, Caucasian man stood beside a beautiful, Amerindian woman. They appeared to be biologically perfect specimens. The man spoke.
“Governments of Earth. I am Tannal; I bear greetings from my race, the Darmuks. We have entered your solar system on a peaceful, diplomatic mission. We are anticipating entering your planet’s orbit on the date you call in the calendar of your currently dominant state, September seventh, twenty-thirty current era.
“I emphasize, we come in peace. We have been monitoring your radio transmissions for sixty of your years and now deem that you are ready, technologically and socially, for contact. As a sign of our good will we wish to transmit a cure for the condition you know as cancer. This has been designed by gleaning information from your electromagnetic transmissions and applying our science. It is a gift of goodwill. We hope that the governments of Earth will welcome us and use the time between now and our arrival to prepare your populace.
“I now surrender the balance of this transmission to my chief medical officer. She will instruct you in the nature of our gift.”
The Amerindian woman moved to center screen and began speaking.
“The technique involves mating a microprocessor to the biochemical triggering system of a biological form. Thus instructing the body to inhibit the division of cancerous cells through a series of micro-enzymatic transmissions carried through the blood stream and micro-electrical triggers set along the nervous system.”
Richard listened to the woman with rapt attention. He snapped his fingers and said, “Notes.” From somewhere a pad and pen appeared and he jotted down his thoughts. Diagrams filled the screen along with chemical formulas. Finally the transmission ended.
Richard sat silently staring at his scribblings.
“Generals, doctors, there you have it,” said Malcome.
“It’s a hoax,” snarled a grey-haired, hawk-faced man from the far side of the table. He was dressed in an outdated suit.
“As far as we can tell, Frank. It’s legit. The source of the transmission was six billion kilometers out. Just a little bit past Pluto. We redirected the orbital telescopes to take a p
eek. At maximum magnification we saw something. Right now it’s just a speck, but it is moving in system.”
“Cybernetics is balderdash. A cure for cancer, Ha,” said Frank.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Richard spoke quietly without lifting his eyes from his note pad.
“We’re all aware of your crazy theories,” snapped the older scientist.
“Doctor Peaterfield, ya’ll know Richard was brought here because he might have something to add. You may not like his theories, but mating biological and electrical systems is his field. Now, Richard, you tell us what y’all think.” Nancy smiled at her younger colleague. The smile deepened the lines beside her eyes, but added warmth to her features that hinted at a beauty that had once been breathtaking. That beauty had aged into handsome dignity.
“I’d have to examine this more thoroughly. A great deal of my own work does parallel what they sent. Only this…this is easily two, maybe three-hundred years in advance of anything we’re capable of. The enzymatic chains alone represent a level of bio-manufacturing that is terrifying in its implications.”
“So you’re saying this would work,” demanded one of the military men. He was muscular but was developing a gut. His black hair was fading to grey.
“I’m saying it might work, General. I’d have to test it. It would take months to get the equipment together. Some things are very odd though.”
“What?” Demanded Doctor Cooper.
“The computer chip they used. It’s several generations old, by our standards.”
“You read a serial number on it,” challenged Doctor Peaterfield.
“The circuit density. In simple terms, it’s similar to the ones they used in the Pentiums.”
“Maybe our ET’s wanted to be sure whatever this doodad is would be within our capacity to build,” said the plump general.
“Could be. This is amazing. If what I’m seeing here is correct, the things they could teach us.”
“Or use to destroy us,” said the admiral.
“Admiral, my daddy always said, ‘if y’all is hunting make the first shot count, so you don’t startle the prey.’ Why would they tell us they were coming if they meant us harm?” asked Nancy.
“Could be they want something,” observed the general.
“I agree with, General Flanders. They must want something! Why else come all this way?” said the admiral.
“Didn’t you boys ever watch Star Trek? ‘To boldly go’ Maybe they just wanted to say howdy to the neighbors,” countered Nancy.
Richard stared at his notes and scribbled a few more.
“I still say it’s a hoax. You’re fools to take it seriously,” snapped Doctor Peaterfield.
“Frank, get on the train, or get off the track. This is real. At least the President has decided to treat it as real.” Doctor Cooper picked up a pencil that sat on the table and tapped it against his note pad.
“It could be a hoax,” observed Richard.
“Doctor Green…” began Doctor Cooper but Richard raised a hand requesting to be heard.
“Why would a life form evolved on another planet look so much like us? Simply put, it is logical to assume that a quadruped would tend to evolve to a roughly humanoid shape, but such an exact match? Beyond that, who’s to say that quadrupeds are even common in the galaxy?”
“Or that there’s life out there at all,” added Doctor Peaterfield.
“Life is very probable. Space is big and there has been a lot of time for random chance to generate replicating organisms out of chemical soups. It’s just for their evolution to so parallel ours…” Richard shook his head.
“Y’all seem to be forgetting something. It was a transmission. Maybe they figured if they showed us their real faces we’d be afraid. I know I’d be worried about that if I were them. We go around killing folk over a silly thing like how many melanocytes we have in our skin. Maybe they made a graphic to keep us from being too edgy,” said Nancy.
“That makes sense, doctor,” commented the older, air force representative at the end of the table.
“I say we build up a space defense,” said the admiral.
“Y’all are acting like some red-neck from an old movie. They haven’t done nothing but be friendly,” challenged Nancy.
The discussion quickly degraded into anarchy. Richard studied his notes, oblivious to the noise around him.
Finally Doctor Cooper shouted for silence. “People, we are all civilized individuals here. I’d like to hear all voices. Starting with yours Doctor Green, since you haven’t said anything yet that struck me as completely asinine.” Doctor Cooper scanned the other people around the table with a meaningful expression.
Richard cleared his throat then spoke. “I hope we will have an older brother that will guide us around a lot of mistakes we might otherwise make. I fear that we might have a Columbus landing on the Americas.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you Americans, while I respect many things about you, tend to be a people of extremes. Why must we accept these, what was it? Darmuks; as either friend or foe.”
“So you think we should prepare for an attack, just in case. A show of strength,” interrupted the admiral.
“No…no, I believe it would be prudent to appear to accept their friendly overture. In fact, to accept it until such time as we have reason to believe differently.”
“Y’all see then, Richard, they seem right friendly,” said Nancy.
“Appearances can be deceiving. If it were up to me, and I know it is not. However, if it were, I would quietly prepare some secret defenses. In the hope that we would never need them, but with the caution that we might. Have them in reserve. We have no idea of how advanced these beings are. Much more than a couple of centuries ahead of us and anything we do would be futile, but it would not hurt to have a rabbit or two hidden in the hat.”
“I like it,” said General Flanders. “We could retrofit some of the old I.C.B.M.s for orbital strike. Do it as a black-op, no need even to put it on the books. Add a couple of tugs to the fleet on the international space station, with assault laser capacity. Cover it up as research into photonic propulsion systems. The International Space Research Agency will love us for it. Hell, if we clear it with the boys in Moscow and Beijing, even put up that meteor defense missile platform the disaster boys have been screaming for.”
“A nuclear defense screen against asteroids is not one of the more effective methods,” interrupted Doctor Peaterfield.
“Doesn’t have to be, Frank. Just has to make sense that we’d do it for non-military purposes. Doctor Green, I think you might have something here. Look like the lamb, be the lion if somebody gets a taste for mutton.”
“I can live with that,” agreed the admiral.
“I think y’all have watched too many movies, but I can agree so long as we act all friendly like. Be right embarrassing, if they ever find out about this though,” added Nancy.
“Better red faced then dead,” said Doctor Cooper. “Okay gentle-people. I will want proposals for a detailed response to this situation by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow. Dismissed. Doctor Green, a moment please.”
Richard watched the other’s file from the room. Doctor Cooper moved to sit on the table beside him.
“Richard, may I call you Richard?” opened the older man.
“Of course.”
“Good, I’m Malcome. I don’t need to tell you that everything you just heard is top secret.”
“I rather assumed from the form of my indoctrination.”
Malcome smiled. “I wanted you here. When I asked Nancy who the best person for this kind of technology was, she only came up with one name. Yours. You impressed her with your talk at that biotech conference.”
“I respect her work in classical biology enormously.”
“As do I. Which is why she’s here. I’m also; frankly, glad to have another moderate on this committee.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are now an employee of the United States Government.”
“I…I…I’m quite flattered but my students. I’ve almost earned tenure.” Richard looked like a deer caught in headlights.
“You’ll continue at the university. I’ll make arrangements for a shell corporation to supply you with a grant. I need you to create, test, and reverse engineer this cancer cure. If it’s safe, we can use it to sell our friendly visitors to the world. If it’s not, that tells us something too.”
“I’ll need lab assistants.”
“Get me their names. They don’t need to know where the tech came from to do the work, but I want to check them out anyway.
“Of course. One thing though?”
“Yes?”
“When may I go home?”
Malcome let out a guffaw. “Don’t worry. According to all records you were taken to hospital for an emergency appendectomy. No one is expecting you anywhere for a week.”
“Betty?”
“Your daughter snuck off to a Green Peace protest against the Iranian fishing fleet. She won’t even know until you’re back home. She told your ex she was staying with you.”
“That’s my Betty. She’s supposed to be in school. So, what should I do now?”
“First, I take you to medical for some unpleasantness. I’m afraid I must insist on a DNA sample for identification purposes.” Malcome motioned towards the door.
Richard cringed then stood. “Highly undifferentiated cells to make a perpetual cell culture for future reference.”
“You know the procedure?” Malcome led the way into the hall then walked beside Richard as they spoke.
“I helped develop the procedure. I always knew working for the government would be a pain in the ass!”
Malcome chuckled. “Blame biology, we need the least differentiated cells we can find. Intestinal walls are it.”
“So once I’ve been adequately poked and prodded, what then?”
Malcome came to a stop in front of a door labeled medical. “Then I take you to your office and you review the pertinent sections of the alien’s message. There were other technical details they transmitted on a sub-band. I will require a list of the equipment you’ll need to examine this by tomorrow morning. Richard, the candy store is open for this one. Don’t short yourself.”
War of the Worlds 2030 Page 2
