Xenophobia

by Peter Cawdron

  “It is not strange,” Alile replied. “Water that runs slow runs deep.”

  Bower wasn’t sure what Alile meant by that, and was going to ask her to elaborate when Elvis pulled up in the squad Hummer, pulling a truck with a tow rope.

  “We’ve got problems,” was all Bower overheard as the private spoke with Jameson.

  Bower felt she needed to be involved, even though there was nothing she could do and she’d probably only get in the way. All this was her fault, or so it seemed in her mind, and she wanted to fix things, only this was no broken leg she could set.

  “There were three trucks, none of them in working order. We salvaged what we could and dragged the best of them here, an old Deuce. Smithy reckons the transmission is gone, and there’s a crack in the engine block, but she says she can get her working again.”

  “How long?” Jameson asked.

  Elvis turned to Smithy as the young female private walked up beside them. “Three, four hours, if everything goes well.”

  “OK, so worst case, eight to ten hours. Looks like we’re going to be here for the night. We’re going to need to set up some defensive positions. Doc, you’re going to want to get your people into the village, behind the low stone walls. If we get into a firefight, keep your head down.”

  “Understood.”

  Bower felt an immense sense of gratitude for the soldiers. It was reassuring to see how calmly they dealt with the possibility of violence. Their confidence gave her comfort, and her mind boggled with the realization that her headstrong thoughtlessness could have seen her and Kowalski stranded.

  Several hours passed idly by.

  The odd villager moved between the huts, either hiding possessions or packing up cooking equipment. In the distance, most of the villagers were walking down a grassy slope with their meager possessions wrapped in bundles on their shoulders or balanced on their heads. The men herded cattle before them, kicking up the dry dust as they slapped the ground with sticks, the sound driving the cattle on.

  Elvis used the Hummer to pull the truck onto a dusty patch of ground normally covered in market stalls. He and Smithy worked on the engine, lifting the hood and crawling underneath the old truck as they sought to fix what looked like a classic American army truck from World War II. It couldn’t have been that old, Bower thought, although in Africa anything was possible. Certainly, Elvis didn’t look out of place standing next to the drab olive truck with its knobby tires and high wheel arches.

  Bower could hear Smithy and Elvis joking with each other as they worked on the truck.

  “Pass me a wrench,” said Smithy, her feet sticking out from beneath the vehicle.

  Elvis was too busy looking at himself in a cracked wing-mirror on the side of the truck. He was running his hands through his hair, slicking back his dark locks.

  “What the hell are you putting in your hair?” asked Smithy, her dusty face appearing from beneath the truck.

  “Brake oil.”

  “You fucking idiot,” Smithy laughed. “We need brakes. Don’t go bleeding them dry for your bloody hair.”

  Elvis laughed. “I can’t help it if I’m sexy and you’re hot.”

  “Dream on, loser,” Smithy replied as Elvis handed her the wrench. They both laughed.

  Elvis was humming a tune. Bower couldn’t quite make out the song as she walked past, but she was sure she knew the artist, and he hadn't been alive for decades.

  “Hey, baby.”

  Bower knew exactly what was going on. Elvis was fishing for a response, trying to bait her. He must have known she was not one to condone sexism, and ordinarily she would have jumped down his throat. On this day, however, the pressure of the moment elicited a different response, one tempered by her appreciation for how the soldiers were sticking their necks out for her and her team.

  “I am not,” she said with a deliberate, polite smile, “your baby.”

  The very word resonated only as a reference to newborns in her thinking.

  “Sure thing,” Elvis replied, a swagger in his motion. “Whatever you say, sweet lips.”

  Bower paused for a moment, looking down at her feet, trying to compose herself. She wasn’t sure whether to be angry or to laugh. She pointed her finger at him, shaking it softly and smiling as she turned and walked on, saying, “You’re outrageous.”

  It was the accent, his southern drawl. Bower just couldn’t take Elvis seriously.

  “She’s got your measure,” Smithy added, laughing.

  Elvis grinned.

  Jameson was sitting on a stone wall, his M4 rifle leaning beside him. With the sun sitting low on the horizon, his face was lit up in the soft warm hues of the coming sunset. Bower wandered over.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Nope.”

  She sat down beside him, looking out across the valley toward the tableland. Dry grasslands gave way to dense jungle leading up to the mountain plateau.

  “This wasn’t a good idea, was it?”

  “Nope.”

  Well, he was honest, she figured. What had she expected him to say? It was only after she’d asked that she realized how silly it must have sounded. Jameson was chewing on the end of a long blade of grass and seemed lost in thought.

  “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  “Nope,” Jameson replied, grinning.

  “Very funny.”

  He smiled. “You see the dirt track leading down through the jungle?”

  “Yeah,” Bower replied, struggling to make out sections of the road as it wound its way down from the highlands.

  “At least a dozen trucks have driven down there in the last couple of hours. Our friends are on the move, spreading out in force.”

  “That’s not good, is it?” As the words left her lips, she knew what was coming.

  “Nope.”

  “So what do you think will happen?”

  “Oh,” Jameson replied. “I think all hell is about to break loose. I’m just hoping we’re far enough away that we don’t get too much attention too soon.”

  Bower was silent. Jameson must have picked up on her concern.

  “Bosco got through to Af-Com. The task force is already steaming north, but there’s a destroyer bring up the rear, just off the coast of Madagascar. If we miss the flight from Lilongwe, they’ll dispatch a helo once they’re in range. We’ll get your people down to Kasungu and assess the situation from there.”

  “What about all this other stuff?”

  “What? The aliens?”

  “Yeah,” Bower replied, leaning back on her arms, enjoying the cool, evening wind that was beginning to cut through the stifling heat of the day.

  “I hardly believe it myself. Seems surreal. I try not to think about it too much. I need to focus on here and now. Once we get out of here, I guess there will be more time to think about that.”

  Bower nodded her head in silent agreement.

  “And you? What do you think?” Jameson asked. “Do you think they’re anything like the movies?”

  Bower laughed. “Oh, no. I’m not too sure what to think, but I doubt they’re anything like what we see in Hollywood. I just can’t imagine an intelligent alien species tracking a bazillion miles through space to blow up the White House, draw crop circles, and conduct anal probes on rednecks.”

  Jameson laughed. “Yeah, seems pretty silly doesn’t it? I wonder what they’ll make of our movies.”

  “They’ll think we have an overactive imagination.”

  “And we do,” Jameson replied.

  They sat there in silence for a few seconds before Bower said, “You and your men are surprisingly calm given the circumstances.”

  “You learn not to stew in the Rangers. Most people think the army is about combat, but the reality is, firefights last five to ten minutes, maybe half an hour but rarely any longer than that. Firefights are few and far between. More often than not, we’re marching or hiking, scouting or tracking. The glamour is pretty quickly replaced with boredom, excite
ment is the rare exception to mundane routines, so we learn to take it all in our stride.”

  Smithy climbed over the front of the radiator on the old truck. She had her baggy shirt off. Her breasts were prominent beneath her tank-top, but Elvis wasn’t distracted by the view. He shimmied underneath the truck, following her directions. The odd swear word drifted by. As the wind changed direction, Bower overheard Elvis saying, “A-huh, a-huh. I’ve got that bad boy. Y’all just leave this to The King.”

  Smithy said something in reply, but Bower didn’t catch it, something about king-dinga-ling. They were an unusual couple, thought Bower. Elvis was so muscular and imposing, while Smithy seemed fragile by comparison, but you’d never know that listening to their banter. They were clearly the best of friends.

  “Don’t you think he’s a little strange?” Bower asked.

  “What? Elvis?” Jameson replied, turning his head slightly to one side as he looked curiously at her.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, he’s got his quirks, but he’s a great soldier.”

  “But don’t you think the whole Elvis routine is a bit ... immature.”

  Jameson laughed. “A bit, I guess. We’re all children at heart, Doc.”

  Bower didn’t have an answer for that. She didn’t agree, but she didn’t want to say something that might offend Jameson.

  “When did you grow up, Doc?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, there’s no line of demarcation. There’s no border to cross, and yet, here we are, all grown up, or at least we like to think we are.

  “These guys are kids. Look at them. Most of them can’t even go into a bar, and yet they’re old enough to die for their country. Take Smithy. She’s barely nineteen and looks like she’d get blown over in a storm, but she’s as tough as nails. She’d never been outside of Iowa before, let alone seen the waves of the ocean. And here she is, on the other side of the world, surrounded by global political forces and tribal tensions that make no sense to the daughter of a garage mechanic, but she’s got a job to do and so she gets on with it.

  “And as for Elvis. Sure, he’s a little silly at times and plays the whole rock star thing a bit too much, but in battle, there’s no one else I’d rather have by my side. He’s one cool cat under fire.”

  Jameson paused, pulling the chewed blade of grass from his mouth and tossing it away.

  Bower figured he’d asked a good question and it was only polite to provide an answer so she said, “For me, my childhood ended on my eighth Christmas. Girls are normally quite quiet and subdued, but not me. I was a terror.”

  “I find that hard to believe, Doc.”

  “Why? Because I’m a woman?”

  “Because you seem quite sweet.”

  Bower laughed.

  “Oh, appearances are deceiving. I didn’t end up in central Africa by collecting Girl Guide patches.”

  “You’ve got me there,” Jameson replied.

  “Honestly, I don’t know how my parents put up with me. They should have had me on Ritalin or something.

  “I was a klutz, always breaking things. Never on purpose, of course, but I’d walk into a store with my school bag on my back and my mother would cry, ‘Watch out.’ I’d turn, trying to avoid god-knows-what, and I’d miss whatever it was my mother feared I was about to destroy only to have my backpack collect a shelf on the other side of the isle, one lined with ornaments. Mom would yell at me, and I’d turn again, trying to see what had happened, only to take out the shelf I’d missed at first.”

  Jameson was laughing as she spoke.

  “I just had no idea what was going on around me.”

  Jameson added, “The phrase, bull in a china shop, springs to mind.”

  “Yep. That was me. But I remember that eighth Christmas like it was yesterday. I was so excited about Santa Claus coming and dropping off presents, my presents. I’d sat on his knee at the mall. I’d told him everything I wanted. And when Christmas Eve came around, I was manic, in a good kinda way. I set out a glass of milk and a couple of cookies for Santa, just in case he got peckish on his rounds. My Mom sent me to bed quite late. I should have gone out like a light, but there I was, lying in bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. I don’t know how long I lay there, but it felt like an eternity in the darkness, waiting for the sound of reindeer on the roof.

  “I saw some movement in the hall outside my room, just the fleeting shadow of feet shuffling past in the soft light. Everyone was in bed, or at least I thought they were all in bed, so this had to be him, this had to be Santa sneaking into my house. And I was going to meet him. I was going to go out and say hello, and then tell all my friends about it the next day.

  “Well, it’s no surprise of course, but when I crept out into the hallway I saw my Mom and Dad quietly stacking presents under the Christmas tree in the living room. The glass of milk was half empty, and one of the cookies had a bite out of it. I walked forward in a daze. Mom must have seen me out of the corner of her eye. She turned. My Dad turned. They didn’t have to say anything. I knew. I ran back to my room sobbing, crying.

  “My Mom tried to explain to me that Santa was just a story parents told their kids to make them feel happy. I asked her why she would lie to me like that. It was cruel. I felt terrible, not happy. She never really answered my question, not to my satisfaction. I cried myself to sleep that night. And that was it, my childhood was over. Oh, I still played with other kids, but the dream had been shattered.”

  “And,” Jameson asked, “You think Elvis is still living in a childhood dream?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Don’t lose your childlike innocence, Doc. Even us grown-ups should have something to hold on to.”

  Bower smiled at the irony of hearing this from an army Ranger. She went to say something, but Bosco had walked over.

  “Reception here is lousy,” he said. “But there are patches where the signal leaks through. You wanna hear what they’re talking about now?”

  Bower would have preferred to continue talking with Jameson, but curiosity swamped her like a wave at the beach.

  A hiss and crackle broke from the radio as Bosco sat next to Jameson. On the radio, a man was talking, but his words sounded hollow, as though he were speaking from inside a cave.

  “Home Secretary Morris Miles has reassured the British public that there will be transparency into interactions with the alien spacecraft.

  “We are crossing live to the United Nations where NASA scientists will address the UN General Assembly, explaining the events of the past few months as the craft approached Earth before settling in its current position beyond the moon ... Dr. Stephen Dupree, Director of Advanced Research with NASA's AMES Institute.”

  “... you, please be seated.”

  Bower wanted to ask if the radio could be turned up louder, but the prospect of interrupting the signal kept her quiet. Bosco fiddled with the aerial, twisting it slightly trying to pick up the channel with more clarity.

  “... will try to avoid too much technical detail, but there is a need for ...”

  The static got worse, and Jameson batted at the air in front of Bosco, signaling for him to stop playing with the radio. Bosco returned the aerial to its original position and the three of them leaned forward, straining to catch each word.

  “... official designation was originally the Morrison comet, after the amateur astronomer, Bruce Morrison from Darwin, Australia, who first detected what we now believe is a vessel of interstellar origin. Morrison located what he thought was a comet beyond the orbit of Sedna almost nine months ago, at a distance of three light days from Earth.

  “The comet’s motion was slightly off the ecliptic, the plane on which the majority of the planets orbit the sun, but that is not unusual for an object originating in the Oort cloud. Morrison was on the opposite side of our solar system, on the far side of the sun. The comet was moving considerably faster than Sedna, but at that distance it was impossible to tell the angle on
which it was moving, making it impossible to determine anything other than its relative speed.

  “Roughly seven months ago, the object changed course, aligning with the ecliptic, and it became clear Morrison was not a naturally-occurring object like a comet or an asteroid. There was some speculation that the comet may have collided with another celestial object, but as Morrison appeared to remain intact this possibility was quickly discounted. Because the object’s position lay within 10 degrees of the sun, as viewed from Earth, ground-based observations were largely obscured by the glare of the sun.”

  A disembodied voice requested clarification.

  “Please explain further.”

  “Morrison approached the sun from outside our solar system, moving against the sun’s direction of travel around the Milky Way. Morrison was observed traveling in a parabolic arc toward the sun. Its motion was obscured by the sun for most of its approach, with its relative motion against the backdrop of the stars opposing that of Earth’s orbit. Observations by the Keck Observatory in Hawaii revealed the object was emitting gamma radiation, something that further aroused NASA’s attention, initiating the blackout.”

  The formal voice requested more clarification.

  “Please explain the term, blackout.”

  Dupree continued.

  “Blackout is a NASA protocol for containing speculation in the event of close contact with an extra-terrestrial intelligence. The intent is to avoid panic and confusion. By limiting the dissemination of information, a blackout is designed to ensure a coordinated, measured response rather than a half-cocked reaction. A blackout is intended to avoid unwarranted speculation.”

  “In hindsight, was a blackout appropriate?” the deeply resonant voice asked.

  “No, sir,” Dupree replied, his voice barely audible in the static. There was a pause for a second, and Bower wondered what was running through the mind of the man thousands of miles away in what seemed like another world. “The intention was to provide us with some breathing space so as to formulate an appropriate response, but too many people got burned."