Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart

by Steven Erikson

  Liu Zhou shrugged. “When it is clear, even to a regime as corrupt and incompetent as the Americans’, that the impudent exploitation by aliens of Helium 3 and other resources on our moon is something no one on Earth has the wherewithal to do anything about, its decision to stick its head in the sand is not perhaps so surprising.”

  The planned Chinese occupation of Luna had not been a naïve stratagem, and indeed had included a strong military component. Given the American and Russian lack of will in this effrontery, the Chinese people would have taken the lead in ousting the intruders, site by site, room by room if necessary.

  Room by room. The notion still chilled the Science Advisor. Orbital seismic mapping had indicated the moon’s subsurface to be rife with tunnels and occupation nodes.

  But now, it seemed, the interlopers were gone, and this new presence, so vast and so powerful, had begun its own reshaping of the moon, and against these new strangers, weapons were useless.

  “Tell me,” Xin Pang said, slowing his pedaling and leaning back, now folding his hands on his belly. “Have you faith in these newcomers?”

  “Faith, Leader?”

  “Faith. They present a certain calm, it seems to me, at the core.”

  “Leader, have you read the reports on the activities in space? The blinding of Venus, the moons of Mars, and the swarm of asteroids and comets now being individually powered and converging on the Inner System? This seems anything but calm.”

  “We cannot agree, then,” Xin Pang replied. “There is order at work. Deliberation. It has the feel of a Chinese plan. Extensive, methodical, inexorable. I feel a certain … kinship, with this unknown newcomer.”

  Liu Zhou hesitated, knowing his next statement was slightly out of his area of responsibility, but economics were always relevant when it came to scientific ambition. He cleared his throat and said, “I understand that the export of armaments has ceased, Leader.”

  Xin Pang shrugged, now picking up the pace again on the pedals. “We will adjust.”

  In other words, you’ll get your funding. Liu Zhou was relieved. “Leader, one other thing I must bring to you, and it is, perhaps, wondrous news.”

  The Leader’s smile was wry. “That would be pleasant.”

  “A file has appeared, at Shanghai’s 2nd Bureau of Mechanic-Electrical Industry, and elsewhere. We conclude that it originated from the newcomer.”

  “A file, and it contains what? One presumes all caution was employed in opening it.”

  “Of course. Leader, the file contains the schematics for constructing an emission-free, eternally-renewable power source. An engine that can be constructed at any scale one desires.”

  Xin Pang stopped pedaling so fast he was almost thrown from the seat. He twisted to face Liu Zhou, blinking rapidly for a moment. “I begin to comprehend the intricacies of their plan.”

  “Leader?”

  “Initiate the conversion process immediately. All factories, all power plants.” He held up a hand and an aide appeared as if from nowhere. “I want the Deputy of Energy here at once. We must ready ourselves to shut down our coal production, and all nuclear energy production.” He paused, hand still raised. “But continue the solar projects.” The aide rushed off. Xin Pang regarded Liu Zhou. “We must be poised to act, old friend. No hesitation. We are being guided and we will not resist.”

  “Understood, Leader.”

  “I think not quite, but enough for now. Inform the Lunar Occupation Committee that the present suspension of activities does not include ground-based preparations for Project 937. If anything, they are to make haste. We will still colonize the Moon first among all humans, if such is permitted us. We will occupy the bases and the plants and the settlement nodes. Leave the Americans and Russians to their willful inactivity. Now,” he concluded, resuming his pedaling, “you may go.”

  “The Rus, yes,” said Konstantine Milnikov. “I know that nonsense. Swedish Vikings as the original founders of the Russian state. In Kiev, was it? Thus justifying the conceit that Aryans were born to rule and Slavs were born to be ruled. They say Russian history is the history of oppression. That my people have been on their knees for so long they know no other way to live.” The President of the Russian Federation paused, eyeing the man standing opposite him.

  They stood in the countryside, away from the groomed gardens, away from everything. The grey winter had given way to the brown spring, and soon the green of summer would arrive. But not yet. At least the sun was out, almost warm. Milnikov turned from his guest and fixed his gaze once more on the four horses gathered round the heaps of fresh hay at the far end of the paddock. A foal was not long in coming for the mare. He loved this place, the open land, the untouched forest of aspen, alder, birch, and spruce forming a skeletal line beyond the grazing fields, and at their backs, beyond the ranch-house, the rolling steppes. The black-flies were out, but not yet the mosquitoes. “Tell me again,” he said.

  His guest, Anatoli Petrov, had been a cosmonaut. He had spent time on the ISS, cheek by jowl with Americans, Canadians, and one miserable Frenchman. More importantly, to Konstantine’s thinking, Anatoli had known the privilege of looking down upon the Earth. Konstantine envied that.

  Anatoli had been a pilot, was a physicist, linguist, and now head of the Russian Space Program. The man looked fit, with something of the Cossack in the tilt of his eyes. His head was shaved and spotted after decades in the sun. His eyes were the palest grey, like old bones bleaching on the steppes. Women found him irresistible. Despite this, Konstantine liked the man.

  “President,” Anatoli began, “a number of proposals have been presented on the potential of terraforming Venus. Given the sunshade now being employed by the Alien Threat, we believe that we will be witness to a method described by an Englishman named Paul Birch, which involves a rapid cooling of the planet through sunshades, the impact of ice-rich asteroids, a polar soletta to effect a twenty-four hour day/night cycle, and the sequestering of carbon dioxide.” The cosmonaut paused, and then smiled. “Birch’s proposal is a five-year plan.”

  Konstantine swung round, brows lifting. “Oh,” he laughed, “how delightful! And at the end of the five years, a habitable planet?”

  “Domed settlements that are initially suspended high in the atmosphere, riding an ocean of carbon dioxide, and thereafter slowly settling to the surface as the CO2 is gradually captured.”

  “Ingenious.”

  “Yes, elegant,” Anatoli agreed. “You could say, quintessentially English.”

  Konstantine scowled. “After my last conversation with their Prime Minister, ‘elegant’ is not a word I would use. The pompous ass.” He shook his head. “I will never understand English voters, again and again choosing a privileged … oh, what would he be called?”

  “Twat?”

  “Yes! Precisely. Perhaps, however, the common Englisher is, shall we say, used to being ruled by privileged twats, hmm?”

  Anatoli grunted. “Return to Downton Abbey.”

  “Yes! Ghastly. If Russia did a version of that show, it would end with all their heads on pitchforks.”

  Smiling, Anatoli said nothing, waiting as the President did some thinking.

  “And now, Mars, too,” Konstantine finally said, sighing. “And the Moon. Surely they cannot be thinking of terraforming the Moon!”

  “Not immediately,” Anatoli agreed. “And we have confirmed that the Moon’s present occupants have departed.”

  “You are certain?”

  “We have an old satellite, sir, still orbiting the Moon. It’s small with a limited sensor package, not enough to incite yet another unfortunate accident. The exodus was caught in a series of still-shots.”

  “Exodus—where to?”

  “Uncertain, sir. It is theorized that the ships, being so modest, will rendezvous with a mother ship, likely at their Phobos Station.”

  Konstantine’s expression soured. “Phobos,” he muttered. There had been two ‘unfortunate accidents’ on the Russian missions to Phobo
s. “Do we know if they were chased away from there as well?”

  “Unknown, sir. Personally, I view it as likely.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “I believe the Greys fled our newcomers. I believe they want nothing to do with them. I believe they are hopelessly outclassed.”

  “Sometimes,” Konstantine sighed, “I do regret our financial collapse. Had the Soviet Union remained strong, by this time all of humanity would have laid claim to the inner solar system, out to Mars at very least, with us even now venturing out to the Jovians. More to the point, we would have been in a better position to confront the Greys.”

  “That is certainly possible, sir,” said Anatoli. “Competition was healthy, despite the tensions, and the public revelation of the Greys would have changed the world. Perhaps even united us all.”

  “Yes, just so. Oh well, what’s done is done.” Konstantine hesitated, and then faced Anatoli squarely. “Do you realize, for the first time in the history of the Motherland, we need not live in fear of our neighbors? No, not even China.”

  “I do, sir. I have.”

  Konstantine studied the cosmonaut. “Ah, I think I see. You are thinking of our many acts of aggression, which each time found justification as acts of self-defense.”

  “And before that,” Anatoli said, “we acted in the name of Communism, in our zeal to spread the rejection of unfettered Capitalism.”

  “Mostly to get under the skin of the Americans,” Konstantine muttered. “My father’s time. I’m sure it was fun, if only slightly terrifying.”

  “And now, sir, we must suspend our fear.”

  “Yes. The Alien Threat. And yet, we stand here now, finally unafraid of our fellow human beings. What an extraordinary thing!”

  “Until the first citizen refuses to pay his taxes, or do his duty.”

  “If only Russians could be as obedient as the Chinese, eh? What has gifted them such powers of co-operation? Of such collective patience?”

  Anatoli shrugged. “Seven thousand years of uninterrupted civilization, perhaps.”

  The President grunted. “Even their Mongol conquerors in the end succumbed to the civilization they’d believed under their heels. In that, no different from the Rus. You may be right, Anatoli Petrov. Well, no matter. We can be sure the Chinese will now accelerate their plans for the Moon.”

  “Yes. If they are permitted.”

  “So,” Konstantine said, turning back to look at the horses, “when that first citizen refuses to pay his taxes, what will I do?” His attention on the horses, he did not see the cosmonaut’s brows rise.

  “I do not know, sir, and I do not envy you on that day.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Konstantine murmured. “How does one rule a nation when the threat of violence becomes an empty one? How does one maintain the borders, police its citizens, impose law and order? This is what the Westerners never understood about us. We toil in silence, we drink hard, and we survive. In the glory and comfort of family, we survive. Yet, beneath it all …”

  Anatoli nodded. There was no need to finish the thought. Russians understood this in a language without words, burned upon their souls. The Nazis had discovered it the hard way.

  “If chaos comes,” Konstantine continued, “will the Aliens do anything to stop it?”

  “If chaos comes,” Anatoli said, “it will come first in the West. Or perhaps in the Islamic states. It will come somewhere else first, sir. And we will watch, and wait, and then decide. It is what we do.”

  “When we are at our best, yes, it is what we do. But recall the debacle of Afghanistan. Chechnya. Now the Ukraine. Our days of being bold and belligerent have passed. What people will, will be.”

  “Perhaps,” Anatoli ventured, “the ghost of Karl Marx at last begins to smile.”

  “Or,” Konstantine retorted, “it is Ayn Rand’s ghost who’s now smiling.”

  Anatoli, well-versed in the writings of both, shook his head. “I doubt it. That woman made internal misery an act of defiance, and then had the nerve to call it a philosophy. Her arrogance was bluster. That and nothing more.”

  “The Americans love her.”

  “There has always been a hint of anarchy in the heart of Americans,” Anatoli said. “But I don’t think the Aliens desire anarchy. Consider this first loss we must now all adjust to: we have lost the right to be bastards to each other.” He halted then, wondering if he had gone too far.

  Instead, Konstantine turned and drew closer, one hand settling on Anatoli’s broad shoulder. “Let’s saddle up and ride out, Anatoli Petrov, onto the steppes again, like warriors of old. Would you like that?”

  “Sir, I would. I have been practicing hard, with horses, of late.”

  “Indeed? Inspired by your old Cossack blood?”

  Anatoli shook his head. “No, oddly enough. The trail of my inspiration is a crooked one.”

  “How so?”

  “Star Trek. Captain Kirk, a cosmonaut I would follow anywhere.” Konstantine’s laugh was surprised and genuine, and then he frowned. “But what has that to do with horses?”

  “William Shatner, sir. A superb equestrian.”

  “Ah, I see. Well then, let us ride out onto the steppes like Hollywood actors!”

  Anatoli laughed, and they headed toward the stables. After a moment, the cosmonaut sobered and said, “Sir, in the time ahead, I think Russia will do just fine.”

  “So do I, but I expect our reasons differ for our optimism. What are yours, then?”

  “You, sir.”

  “Ah. Then yes, our reasons do differ.”

  “Sir, I apologize for my comment about being bastards to each other.”

  “No need. You are correct. But it leads me to wonder, if we cannot be bastards to each other, what can we be?”

  “Ideologies differ, and in that context arguments rarely if ever persuade. And yet, when we have words and only words left, what choice remains, except compromise, conciliation and, perhaps, co-operation?”

  “What a world awaits us.”

  “It has been said before,” Anatoli began as they moved into the shade of the stables and a dozen figures were stirred into motion by the President’s sudden arrival, grooms and aides and body-guards quickly resuming their posts—the scurrying about startled Anatoli for a moment.

  “What has, Anatoli Petrov? What has been said before?”

  “Oh, ah, that the Earth when seen from space shows no borders.”

  “Hmm, yes, a different perspective, then.”

  “One that must be second nature for the Aliens, making our distinctions here on the surface seem if not quaint, then irrelevant.”

  “Good point,” the President of the Russian Federation said. He paused in thought, and then nodded. “A good point and, I think, an important one. Come!” he added as two horses were brought up. “Let’s ride, Captain Kirk!”

  The body-guards exchanged curious glances at that, but wisely said nothing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Skepticism is habit-forming and many will see that as a healthy virtue. Thus, I risk intense approbation when I say that sometimes the habit of skepticism can be so ingrained that it becomes willful denial attached to an air of smug superiority, signifying the worst flaw a person can possess: a closed mind.”

  SAMANTHA AUGUST

  “Aliens mining on the moon?” President Raine Kent’s face was red and getting redder, and the two men seated opposite him in the Oval Office were both sweating. “Our fucking moon? And this—this was above my security clearance? I’m the goddamned president!”

  Security Advisor Daniel Prester glanced across at Ben Mellyk, but found no help there. The poor man looked to be melting down, his clothes damp and rumpled, his brow glistening. “Mister President, of course this is not above your security clearance. You have not been in office long and—”

  “And didn’t I get a clear answer from you the last time? ‘No, Mister President, there is no alien conspiracy! Sure, there may be some weird ruins on
Mars but that’s all dead and probably millions of years old!’” He leaned forward. “But the moon? Greys? Fucking X-File Greys with those giant eyes and light-bulb heads? You lied to me!”

  “We are not and have never been in contact with the Greys,” Mellyk said. “Hence, no conspiracy. The brutal truth is, Mister President, we do not possess the technical prowess to do anything about the Greys mining on our moon.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  Mellyk seemed at a sudden loss.

  From a chair close to the wall to the right of the president’s desk, Vice-President D. K. Prentice cleared her throat. “Raine, space has been a low priority for a long, long time. The budgets are always being cut, usually in favor of defense contracts, military prototypes, and classified interdiction projects now being led by Homeland Security. The simple fact is, the United States Government has not been prioritizing space exploration since the early Seventies.”

  “Why the hell not?” the President demanded again.

  The Vice President smiled and said, “Tax cuts. Administration after administration, selling the American people on tax cuts. Space exploration isn’t the only area where we have suffered. Infrastructure is the most obvious victim of reduced budgets. There are parts of our country that look like the Third World—if one can even use that phrase anymore. We both know that all that austerity crap was just that. It’s not like money just disappeared, went up in smoke, is it? No, it’s all out there, more now than ever before. It’s just now mostly in the hands of the few, the very few, and we can’t touch them, or that money.”

  Raine Kent stared at her for a moment, and then rubbed at his face with both hands. “So,” he said with a sigh, “when did we find out about the bug-eyed bastards stealing shit from our moon?”

  Mellyk cleared his throat. “Well, there were suspicions with the landings, and the close fly-overs. Vehicle tracks, odd shadows, towers and pipes …” His words trailed off as the President slowly stood, fists planted on the desk.