Slowly, very tentatively, an idea began to form in his mind.
The intercom buzzed before he could start outlining his plan. “Director,” a female voice said, “Mr Sanderson has been summoned back to the White House.”
Toby felt his heartbeat start to speed up. The moment he stepped out of the secure building, the aliens would know that he was no longer under surveillance. And then…what would they do? His family’s dead heroes might have been calm in the face of danger, but they’d understood the dangers of Japanese kamikazes and German Panzers. Toby found it impossible to come to grips with the alien threat – if indeed it even was a threat.
“I’ll be on my way,” he said. His voice sounded weak, even to his ears. “Did they say why?”
“The aliens have completed their negotiations,” the female voice said. “They are prepared to tell us what we need to do to join the Galactic Federation.”
Toby looked over at Gillian, who looked just as nervous as Toby felt. “It’s starting,” he said. But what was it? “Pray for us.”
Chapter Nine
Washington DC
USA, Day 18
Jayne allowed herself a tired smile as she sat down in front of her laptop, using the tip of one finger to turn the machine on. It had been a gift from the BAN after she’d received the required number of points to qualify as a Senior Blogger, a person whose written words were read all over the world. Unfortunately, the position came with obligations as well as rewards – and one of them was keeping her finger on the pulse of blogger opinion. Peer review wasn’t the greatest system for monitoring public opinion, but in the words of Winston Churchill, it was so much better than all the others.
The BAN had devised a fairly simple system for monitoring the conduct of the bloggers who signed up to the BAN. Each blogger was required to make a political declaration, outlining their positions on any number of contemporary political issues, before defining themselves as left, right or centre. Their readers would in turn rate them, with the effect that several bloggers who called themselves centrists were actually rated as extreme left or right-wing posters. Bloggers were only human, of course, and they could make mistakes, but outright lying was not tolerated. A number of bloggers had been removed from the BAN after being caught out. Jayne still remembered the blogger who’d claimed to be an Army Ranger; in fact, he’d never served in the military and the closest he’d come to military service had been a few years in a radical militia in Kentucky. The irony was that even if he had told the truth, the BAN wouldn’t have ejected him. There was room for all political beliefs in the community.
Jayne rolled her eyes at some of the hopeful posters – bloggers who hoped to be invited into the BAN – before moving down to read one of her favourite blogs. The writer was rather extreme, but he was always funny to read. He’d kept most of his life hidden from his readers, even though he participated on the BAN’s online forums and community groups. People either read his blog or they didn’t. He had thousands of followers, so Jayne assumed it worked for him.
Greetings folks; its Arnie Pie here – no offence meant, whoever is producing the umpteenth season of The Simpsons. It’s been a radical week two weeks out here, hasn’t it? We learn that there actually IS life out there and guess what? It isn’t very impressed with us. That isn’t too hard to understand, is it? IMFFHO we vote for dumb-ass politicians who would sooner spend your tax dollars on pork instead of space programs that might actually get us off this rock. Find out who cut money to space programs, my dear readers, and start hounding the bastards. Remember, you voted for them.
But enough of such pleasant sarcasm – there are more important matters at hand. We have been told that there is a Galactic Federation out there and we may be invited to join. It’s an exciting prospect, isn’t it? Countless thousands have been thronging to Washington to demand that Congress starts immediate steps towards joining the Galactic Federation – and if that means cutting industry down to the bare bone and actually trying to cut back on consumption…well, that’s fine by them. After all, who really benefited from the economic crash we had in the last decade? Bankers, businessmen and fat pigs in Congress, eh? Fuck the lot of them, right?
Except…there is a slight problem. What do we really know about the Galactic Federation? You may have seen the video on YouTube of a kid asking one of the Snakes – pardon the racial slur, but we don’t even know what they’re called – what the Galactic Federation actually is? And what was the alien’s reply? The Galactic Federation is the Galactic Federation. A perfectly honest answer that actually answers nothing – and an answer like that suggests either stupidity or that someone has something to hide. I mean, consider it; what is the United States of America? The United States of America – perfectly true, but it’s not actually helpful. ROTFLMAO.
What do we really know about the Galactic Federation? Almost nothing – and all we think we know comes from the Snakes. And that raises another question; if the Galactic Federation consists of thousands of different races, why have we only seen one? What would it matter if we knew what the other races in the Federation even looked like? Your humble writer cannot think of any good reason to conceal even the features of other aliens in the Federation. And that raises a worrying question – do those races even exist?
We have been told that there are vast benefits from joining the Galactic Federation, but what are those benefits? Your humble servants in Congress – particularly the ones so fecklessly bent on wreaking the country that they will never be offered a chance to run for President – have been telling us all kinds of New Age dreams. There will be a redistribution of wealth – an idea human history tells us is a dumb idea – and countless other benefits. They have even been talking about a national healthcare system that won’t be a colossal drain on government finances. Except – what have the aliens themselves said?
And they haven’t. Their words consist of vague promises and grim warnings about a possible political, social and economical crash in the near future. But the media is choosing to portray the aliens as friendly allies, beings who will help us – but for what? Altruism, you think? Let’s be clear on this point. The NGOs in the Third World are supposed to be altruistic. Maybe many of the workers in the field are genuinely bent on helping the locals – I won’t diss people like that. But their offices are filled with people who insist on massive salaries, luxury treatment and produce entire rainforests worth of paperwork saying that we can beat poverty, famine and death – if only we make a massive commitment. They do well by doing good, don’t they? And that raises the question of just what the Snakes get out of helping us?
What? You can’t think of anything? Neither can your humble servant. We have been told that they will take us to the forbidden barn where we will all board our intergalactic vehicle and head off to new, perfect lives on Blisstonia - well known for its high levels of bliss. And yet…what have they offered to prove their case? And let’s face it. There is nothing to be found in alien speeches to back up the more extreme claims made by the Witnesses. They seem delighted to welcome our new overlords.
What have they actually done? They have provided us with fusion generators – already, there are calls to decommission every remaining fission reactor within the continental United States. Have we forgotten so quickly why we couldn’t give the House of Saud the thermonuclear spanking it deserved? We were dependent upon their control over oil to maintain our economies – and our oilmen in the style to which they had become accustomed. Should we be so quick to become dependent upon them?
At base, we know nothing about them. And that is worrying. What do they want from us?
The basic problem with any government-provided service is that it is, ultimately, beyond accountability. There are thousands of stories about ordinary hard-working Americans who have had their lives ruined through government incompetence and found that they are unable to gain any recompense for what they have suffered. And believe me, there are worse sins carried out against Third World c
itizens by the so-called disinterested partisans of international aid. They have wrecked local farms by moving in food supplies from the West. They have destroyed local industries by insisting that they source their requirements from politically-favoured industries in the donor countries. And they have carried out the most terrible abuses against the local population – rape, paedophilia, slavery – through ignorance or deliberate malice – and then they have tried to cover them up, hoping to save the tattered shred of decency that they hide behind.
Even if the Snakes have decent motives, should we be so quick to accept their promises of aid? We might find that we had become forever dependent upon them, or discover that we were at the mercy of planners thousands of light years away. How can we trust them when we cannot hold them to account?
Jayne shook her head. It was impossible to escape the sense that the writer had a few good points, and was then burying them under a paranoid fantasy. She knew that many of the charges against the government and the aid agencies were true – one of the many reasons that government agencies hated the BAN was that it put the people in contact with genuinely disinterested experts – but there was no way of knowing if they applied to the Snakes. And yet...it was hard to dismiss the core of his argument out of hand. The Snakes had promised little; their supporters had promised much.
Sighing, she clicked on the rebuttal from another blogger.
There is much to be ashamed of in humanity’s long history. We have never been very kind to our fellow humans and we have treated the environment very badly. How many different kinds of animal have been driven to the verge of extinction – or even over the edge – by humanity? We don't know. The blunt truth is that the Dodo is far from the only creature to exist only in museums. We tell ourselves that we are aware of the dangers of destroying countless other creatures, yet we do far too little to save them. Every year, rhinos are hunted for their horns, which can be ground down into a folk medicine to boost male stamina in the bedchamber. The fact that such treatments simply don’t work doesn't seem to stop the trade.
Nor can we excuse our treatment of our fellow humans. We allowed Saddam to rule Iraq for far too long. When we removed him from power, we did very little to protect the Iraqi people from the predicable chaos that emerged in the sudden power vacuum within Iraq. Our measures to remove dictators from Libya and a dozen other nations were half-hearted at best. We consider Saudi Arabia – a state that treats women and minorities worse than Iran, our sworn enemy – a friend and ally, despite the fact that the Saudis fuelled the terror network that eventually smashed the Twin Towers. The record of man’s inhumanity to man, stained in blood, is not one to be proud of.
Now consider yourself an alien looking down on Earth. Would you consider the human race civilised, or would you wonder what might happen if those barbarous savages, too stupid to realise that they’re fouling their own nest, advanced into space? And even if you were optimistic, would you be quick to give those barbarians the technology that would allow them to reach your worlds?
The Galactic Federation doubtless has considerable experience in dealing with new races. Their mere presence in space points to a mature political system, unaffected by wars and dogma that hold us back on Earth. The selfishness that dominates human politics has no place in a multiracial community that has access to the boundless wealth of space. What – exactly – do they have to fight about? There is enough living space to satisfy even Hitler.
We must, I feel, understand and accept that the Galactics will be very careful when it comes to handling our world. They will not trust us to act in our own best interests – because humanity’s record of acting in its own best interests is non-existent. We are children under the gaze of mature adults, too wise to allow their anger to affect their judgement, but unwilling to evade the responsibility to pass judgement. They have promised us that they will help us mature, yet we must accept that this will be a slow process, one that will require the development of trust on both sides. And really – what do they have to gain by waging war on us?
Consider; what are the motives of humans at war? Land – there is an endless supply of land in space. They’re certainly advanced enough to terraform worlds like Mars and turn them into gardens. Given enough time, they could break down an entire solar system and create a Dyson Sphere. Slaves – what could human slaves do for them that machines couldn’t do better, without the threat of a slave rebellion? Breeders – we’re unlikely to be sexually compatible with them. And really; how many humans find a Snake sexually attractive? I ask again; what do they have to gain by waging war on Earth?
I think we will have to accept, right now, that they do know better than us. And I think that we should take this priceless opportunity to learn from a race that is far more politically and socially mature than our own. The concerns of those who fear losing control, or profit, or anything else should be dismissed. We will build a brave new world, one for humans mature enough to live in the Federation as equals. And if there are those who refuse to join us, let them isolate themselves. In the end, they will lose – and they will have no one to blame, but themselves.
***
The man who called himself Arnie Pie stretched and stood up from the computer monitor. It had been a long day on the internet, where posting a single article on the BAN could generate thousands of responses, ranging from thoughtful rebuttals to angry semi-coherent flames that were rapidly squashed by the site’s moderators. Arnie knew better than to allow himself to be dragged into a flame war – as a listed blogger, he was expected to show a high level of decorum – but there were times when the sheer level of stupidity on the internet drove him insane. Anyone could pose as an expert on the internet and false information was rife. And then flame wars broke out because trolls made it impossible for anyone to back down.
Shaking his head, he started towards the kitchen for a can of soda. It was nearly time for him to leave the computer for the night and go to work in the 7/11. He disliked the job intensely, but it had been the only one he’d been able to get, despite his qualifications and status as an accredited BAN blogger. Personally, he blamed Congress; instead of funding prioritising getting Americans back to work, they rewarded incompetence and bailed out banks that should have been allowed to fail. And hard-working Americans paid the price for their failures, while up on the Hill, Congress debated how to hand the nation over to a force from outer space.
He would have liked to believe the silken promises offered by the Galactics and their supporters, but he didn't dare. In the real world, no one did anything for nothing – and some took their payment in feel-good feelings. The thought that they had done something to help pleased people; the fact that giving money to a homeless druggie only helped the druggie to keep doping himself seemed to have escaped their notice. Even if the Galactics meant well, that didn't mean that they would actually do good.
The knock on the door was loud and firm. He scowled as he changed course and marched towards the door, mentally cataloguing anything incriminating that might be in sight. His apartment had been raided once before when the Washington PD had got the wrong address; they’d damaged his computers, confiscated anything that even looked significant...and refused to pay any compensation. They hadn't even admitted that they’d screwed up and raided the wrong apartment. And the mainstream media hadn't cared enough to send a reporter to make the whole thing public.
He peeked through the peephole and blinked in surprise. Instead of a pair of uniformed policemen, there was a single man standing outside the door. He was black, with dark stubble on his cheeks and a short, almost military haircut. The dark coat he wore concealed almost everything else. He looked official, maybe a Fed; Arnie wondered, grimly, what he might have done this time. It was well known that the Feds kept an eye on the BAN after the network had been used to distribute official papers proving that the government had been economical with the truth.
The door clicked as it opened. “Yes?”
“I’m Federal Agent Dav
enant,” the black man said, holding up a card. Arnie made a show of studying it, but in truth he wasn't sure precisely what a FBI card looked like. “I’m investigating a case at the moment; are you alone in the apartment?”
Somehow, he’d moved forward enough to block the door. “Yes,” Arnie said. “Do you have a warrant...”
He never completed the sentence. The man lunged forward and slammed the palm of his hand into Arnie’s neck. Arnie was barely aware of a crack before darkness loomed up and swallowed him whole. He was dead before his body hit the ground.
***
Moving with a speed that belied his bulk, Davenant swooped down on the body and dragged it into the apartment. Closing the door behind him, he carted the body over to the sofa and dumped it out of sight. The research had said that the blogger lived alone – there was no girlfriend at present – but there was no way to be entirely certain. Once the body was hidden from casual view, he went into the next room and looted a drawer of cash and a handful of small items that could be fenced easily. By the time the police found the body – it would start to smell soon enough – it would look like a robbery that had turned into a murder.
The Trojan Horse Page 9
