Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart

by Steven Erikson

  Was she even prepared to enter into the tumult of her species again? Its fierce irrationality, its stew of opinions, convictions, agendas, contradictions, and outright deceptions? Had she lost her sensitivity to the disingenuous? Was she woefully unprepared for what was coming?

  Dire thoughts, when it was already too late. She’d committed to this and there was no going back.

  Now, as her vessel slid into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, sending a low shudder through the craft, she watched as the planet’s day side expanded to fill the view screen. Whatever camera provided the image revealed nothing of the plasma burning off the shielded hull.

  Velocity was self-evident, however, confirmed by a quick glance at her instruments. From below, of course, the track of her descent was unlikely to be visible. While the cloaking field was limited in that it could not close out the spectrum of the massive shedding of acceleration as the atmosphere thickened and gravity’s grasp tightened, she was on the sunlight side. In a night sky she would be visible, just another shooting star perhaps, but without the flare of disintegration.

  She’d laid in a course, calibrated to slip around flight paths for terrestrial planes, and leveled out a few times to bleed off more speed, banking into a spiral as she brought her craft lower and lower still. She’d once tried a HOTAS at a gaming convention and her controls were very similar to those, rising up from the arm-rests and feeling solid in her hands.

  External hull temperature had stayed steady even during the most ferocious stages of the descent, confirming this vessel’s atmosphere-capable specs. Now, at an altitude of forty thousand feet and dropping, Samantha engaged anti-gravity and the vessel, which had been more or less plunging like a brick—albeit one banking into a graceful spiral even as it plummeted—now became virtually weightless.

  Throughout all of this, the g-forces on the bridge remained at 1.0, inertia trapped between the outer hull and the energy shield’s envelope, and of the two, it was the latter that flexed, bulged and compressed in response to the rapid, tight descent.

  They were approaching the eastern seaboard of North America, and the city of New York. “All right, Athena,” said Samantha after drawing a deep breath, “let’s light ourselves up to radar at least. Don’t want some helicopter going crunch against our shields like a bug on a windshield.”

  “Interceptors will be scrambled,” Athena said. “Particularly given the size of our radar return. One might presume certain levels of alarm.”

  “It’s the old game, the Hollywood response,” Samantha said, watching the main viewer carefully as she slowed the vessel to a near halt, and then began a gradual vertical descent. “They can’t shoot but they’ll go through the motions because that’s how it’s done. Paint us up and lock on and then … twiddle the thumbs.” The UN Headquarters was highlighted in a blinking green glow to help her position the craft directly over its entrance and the concourse fronting it. “I’m thinking five hundred meters,” she said. “Then we drop the cloak.”

  “Drones have been dispatched and fighter craft are twenty kilometers out and closing.”

  “Hmm, that was fast. Okay. The drones that get too close, override them and steer them away, will you?”

  “Of course. Isn’t this exciting?”

  Adam spoke. “Personality deviation noted.”

  Samantha smiled, feeling like the driver of an SUV edging into a tight parking space … under the watchful eyes of three entire alien civilizations. “You’re not excited, Adam?”

  “Trepidation would be more apt, under the circumstances. We are at the crux of this Intervention.”

  “Tell me,” said Samantha, “is there still a chance you all decide to just up and leave and to hell with humanity and planet Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Crap.”

  “A very small one,” Adam went on. “Recall, our primary incentive was the preservation of your world’s biome. A more likely scenario would be to quarantine your species and gradually reduce its surface foot-print.”

  “Lock us up, you mean.”

  “If we conclude, following your address, that humanity is not prepared to alter its paradigm in any substantial way, we may have little choice.”

  “What about the Greys? Face it, Adam, you need our nasty side.”

  “We don’t. Nearby civilizations do. Assuming, of course, your species does not launch itself on a mission of conquest and enslavement.”

  “If we do that?”

  “We take your toys away. But frankly I do not expect this outcome. Your species is indeed capable of genuine compassion and gestures of supreme sacrifice. Yet xenophobia is of course possible. The First Contact events you initiate will have to be conducted with considerable care, on extended timelines.”

  “No Prime Directive for us,” muttered Samantha.

  “I have examined the fictional future in which that operates. Such a directive is, of course, nonsense.”

  “I figured you’d say something like that. But then, I agree. What could be more monstrous than doing nothing while a sentient species poisons its own world, plunges into genocidal wars, and eventually turns its world into a ball of ash? Or back to the stone age.”

  “The ‘Stone Age’ is not so bad,” Adam said. “But faunal extinction events and atmospheric toxification are. In general, a ‘stone age’ is self-sustaining, extremely stable if somewhat precarious, and of limited environmental impact. As I mentioned earlier, your ideal community operates best with less than one hundred individuals. This is very relevant not for the evidence or proof to be found ethnographically, but for your future social, political, and global re-organization.”

  “Hmm, curious.”

  “In any case, any return to hunter-gatherer subsistence will necessitate the rapid removal of ninety-six percent of the population. This can hardly be done peacefully, or without immense suffering, not to mention inadvertent environmental destruction.”

  At five hundred meters above the UN Building Samantha halted the craft, stabilized the anti-gravity and shut down the drives. She leaned back. “We’re here. Athena, if you’d be so kind, drop the cloak.”

  “I am so kind, Captain!”

  Samantha rested her head back on the padding, closed her eyes. “Now it begins.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Comicons and Science Fiction conventions are always fun. Besides, the days of the secluded writer are long gone. What’s ironic is that the modern age has forced the most introverted, shy, and anxious segment of the population into the limelight. Adapt or disappear, and for most of us, conventions are a safe place in which we can learn how to be public figures. And then there’s the blowhards? Did I mention the blowhards?”

  SAMANTHA AUGUST

  Transcript, panel discussion between SF Authors Jeanne Wolfson and Jack Rico, DragonCon, Atlanta, Georgia. T-minus fifteen minutes for context.

  WOLFSON: Well now, have we ever been in such demand as we are these days?

  (audience laughter)

  But every one of us, called upon by the media to comment on what’s been happening … well, we do a lot of shrugging. It’s one thing to project your imagination and envisage a future for humanity, out there among the stars, or in some post-apocalyptic Mad Max Earth, and then stick it all in a story or a novel. It’s quite another to try to figure out what’s coming next with this very real Contact Event—

  RICO: Is that what we’re calling it, Jeanne? The Contact Event? I’d call it something else. I’d call it Conquest. We’ve been taken down without a shot fired. We’re like sheep, milling in the stockade at the slaughter house. The air stinks of blood and raw meat and utter terror, but we keep telling each other that it’ll be okay. Well it won’t be okay! Let me state this plain: WE. ARE. ROYALLY. FUCKED.

  (uneasy laughter from audience)

  WOLFSON: If this is being royally fucked, Jack, I’ll take it any day over the alternative.

  RICO: Oh, bullcrap, Jeanne. I served in the US Marines and—
>
  WOLFSON: Uh-uh, stop! Enough of that shtick. Sorry. I did, too, and unlike you, I was in the mix. I fired a shot in anger. You never did, Jack. You got all revved up and ended up posted somewhere that never got touched. Look, I get it. It eats you up inside. I truly get it. But all this bluster from you, that’s just all it is. Out there, when it’s coming down for real … everything changes. Everything. Sure, maybe you can shut it off afterward, but never for very long—not unless you’re already so psycho that getting fucked in the head makes no real difference. Do you truly think PTSD is some made-up bullshit, Jack?

  RICO: No, of course not! I mean—

  WOLFSON: But you believe it would never have come down on you. Not Jack Rico, right? Look around out there! No one’s shooting at anyone! No one’s getting murdered, kidnapped, tortured, beheaded on live feed. No terrorists, no road-side bombs, no crime anywhere. Kids aren’t dying from ODs or getting abused. No women are being raped and have you noticed something else? The suicide rate for Vets is down to nil. Nil. What just happened? Does anyone know? Anyone got that figured out?

  (from audience: Have you, Jeanne?)

  I’m not sure but I’m glad you asked. I’m glad someone’s actually asking. For me, the nightmares are gone. The shakes are gone. Getting a cold every three weeks and just feeling shitty all the time. Gone. Weight loss. Gone. I’ve stopped drinking. Off the Ludes. I actually feel alive again.

  RICO: Nano infiltration. You’re being medicated.

  WOLFSON: Maybe. I’ve had my blood tested. Results inconclusive.

  RICO: They self-destruct, self-dissolve outside the body.

  WOLFSON: You know this how?

  RICO: It just makes sense. When you want to control people’s thoughts you hide your tracks. So they can never be sure, and no one else can, either.

  WOLFSON: Ah, so some of us are being thought-controlled through invisible nanotechnology. But some of us aren’t? Well, lucky you then, Jack. All I know is, every day I thank God that it’s all ended.

  RICO: No offense, but God’s got nothing to do with it.

  WOLFSON: What makes you so sure? No, don’t give me that look. ET is not God. They are not gods. They’re mortal. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be hiding the way they are. We’re a dangerous species—

  RICO: Not anymore! We can’t fight back and that’s the problem. That’s what I’ve been saying all along. We’ve been conquered.

  WOLFSON: To what end, Jack? Any highly advanced civilization has no need of slaves. No mines of Rura Penthe either. Food? They apparently can make all they want. And if all that’s not enough, they chased away the Greys.

  RICO: And where is God in all this?

  WOLFSON: You say nowhere, I say everywhere. Nothing about what has happened, is happening, challenges my faith.

  RICO: Still in His image?

  WOLFSON: My faith in God is not predicated upon Him looking like me or me looking like Him. I find both notions suspiciously narcissistic. Back to the point, Jack. For conquering aliens they’re going about it rather strangely. Why stop us killing each other? Wouldn’t it be better to get us killing more of each other? Look, you wrote novels about aliens invading and eating us. Well, not all of us. Just liberals and socialists and other mewling, useless people. Red-blooded Republicans were too gnarly, apparently. But even that premise was predicated on scarcity and a biological imperative to eat and keep eating. I think what we’re being shown here, all around us, is an invitation to post-scarcity.

  RICO: We’re not ready for it.

  WOLFSON: On that we’re agreed. Finally.

  (audience applauds)

  Which begs the question, how do we get ready for it? Look at us, we were all trapped in run-away consumption. Even as the world’s resources dwindled, we just got faster shoveling it all into our mouths. We got fat. We lived in houses full of useless plastic junk. We bought things we didn’t need. We fed our entertainment-maw with endless piles of brain-candy. We got online and couldn’t figure out how to get back off. Now, imagine a galaxy out there where anything and everything is available for the taking. No need to work, no nine-to-five treadmill, no money and with that, no poverty, or hunger, or illness. Some people think it’ll turn into one mass orgy—

  (audience cheers)

  You wish! But if I had to guess, it will be the opposite. All that freedom is taking all the wind from our sails.

  RICO: That’s what I’m thinking, too, Jeanne. That’s exactly what I’m fearing. Our incentive is gone. Poof! Vanished.

  WOLFSON: But I don’t think it’s permanent.

  RICO: Why not?

  WOLFSON: Because they showed us the Greys. They did that for a reason. They gave us a target.

  RICO: I don’t see it. You said it yourself: they chased them away! How exactly are we supposed to tear off across the galaxy hunting those bastards down?

  WOLFSON: I don’t—

  [Moderator interjects: Excuse me—there’s a live feed coming in—anyone else seeing this? A UFO has just appeared, hanging over the UN Building in New York! Brian—can we get it up on the big screen? Hold on people, give us a second … There!]

  RICO: What the fuck? Is that a—

  “… a large, winged craft, angular and somewhat frighteningly predatory—at least to my eyes,” the reporter added, with a strained smile toward the camera. “You can see what must be the command center, or perhaps the pilot station, much like the head of a raptor at the end of a neck-like projection. It’s all just … just massive.”

  The man paused and put one hand up to the speaker in his ear. “Just a moment, please. Oh. No wonder it looked kind of familiar! Well! I’m now feeling somewhat foolish, to be honest.” He paused, clearly frustrated, and lifted his gaze again to study the enormous craft. The camera held on him a moment longer, and then the image pulled back and lifted skyward to take in the motionless craft.

  There was an inarticulate sound from the reporter, who then said, “Yes, from the television series—”

  Ronald Carpenter had been forewarned by a phone call from Hamish. He and his wife, Emily, had driven over to visit the doctor, to be there when the event happened. The house had recovered from Hamish’s indifference. Now it was tidy, almost sterile in its meticulous maintenance, and the man himself looked relaxed, if somewhat slovenly.

  When CNN cut to the scene in New York, Ronald had thrown himself back into the easy chair. “Whoah! Holy shit!”

  “Ronald!” Emily snapped. “Language!”

  “I’ve seen that ship before,” Hamish said, his hands entwined together between his knees as he leaned forward to study the drone-fed image.

  “Of course you have!” Ronald said. “Only it’s huge. Much bigger that what we saw in the movies, and on TV.”

  “Listen,” Emily cut in. “They’re saying it’s a hoax. Some kind of holographic projection.”

  “They’re wrong,” Hamish said.

  “We know that,” Ronald pointed out. “No, it’s going to take a while to sink in. Nobody has the technology to project anything that big. And it’s throwing a shadow, and there’s birds turning to avoid it. In fact, look at those gulls. They’re circling it.”

  “ET could,” Emily said. “Fake it, I mean.”

  “Sure, but why would they? Right? I mean, we’ve all been waiting for actual contact. We’ve been waiting for the alien to actually show up. Granted, not in that!” He laughed in delight, unable to sit still.

  “Of course,” said Hamish, “it’s not the aliens, is it? No. It’s my wife.”

  Ronald looked across at the man, saw a pale visage, trembling hands. “Hey, she’s all right. It’ll be all right. She knows what she’s doing.”

  Hamish pointed at the screen. “What do you make of this, though? What do you infer from her … choice?”

  Ronald abruptly rose and began pacing. “Right. Let’s see. She picked a Klingon Bird of Prey. From Science Fiction’s most famous franchise. Not random, obviously. She’s thrown it out there, risking the world’s bi
ggest lawsuit.” He hesitated, and then nodded. “Okay. We’re being invited into one of our own invented futures. A future that offers us a beacon of hope. Pointedly non-dystopic. Like she’s making a promise. But … it’s not … it’s from one of the fictional alien species in that invented future.”

  “Not the Enterprise, you mean,” said Emily. She was knitting, the needles frantically dipping and waving.

  “Exactly. Of us, but not of us. She picked it because anything we’d not recognize would have us all panicking. Scenes of Independence Day and all that. She’s saying, relax, there’s no silent count-down to obliteration. This thing is over the UN Building. Not the White House. So, we know why, because we know it’s Sam, and Sam is going to speak in the UN. To the world. We know that, but so far no one else does.”

  “You should make some calls, love,” said Emily.

  “I’m not supposed to steal her thunder,” said Ronald. “You said, Hamish, that what we know we have to keep to ourselves.”

  “So leave Sam out of it,” Emily said with her usual air of infinite patience. “Just talk about the rest. Your interpretation of the meaning behind it. That ship.”

  “As a theory.”

  “Yes, as a theory.”

  “All right. That I can do.”

  “That reporter is an idiot,” Emily said. “Try CBC.”

  Hamish collected up the remote and switched channels.

  “That’s from the online MMO, right down to the last detail,” King Con said. “It’s a dead ringer, only like twice as big! Imagine the engine room! I mean, you could fit a beer distillery in it!”

  Joey Sink barely heard his buddy blathering on. He was staring at the live feed, watching the drones circling the huge spaceship along with the damned gulls. In the foreground, in the news room, some retired Air Force officer with a lantern jaw was saying something about energy fields and repulsion technology, while a plug of a man who was some physicist from NASA sat saying nothing but with a silly grin on his face.