by Ira Tabankin
When Stalin finally picked up his phone, Truman spoke, “Comrade Chairman, I’m sorry to disturb you, I wouldn’t unless this was a very urgent issue.”
Stalin sat up in shock, seeing Truman sitting in his private office, “President Truman, how in the devil’s name did you get into my office? What sorcery is this? What do you want? I am calling my security troops.”
“Chairman Stalin, I’m sorry for the rude interruption, there is something very urgent we need to discuss…”
Stalin walked around his desk to where Truman was sitting, he waved his arm through the image of the President, “What trick is this? How did you perform such magic? How can I trust you if you have a way to enter any of our offices, you are nothing more than a spy, and you know how I deal with spies. Get out of my office and never use this magic again, if you do, my tanks will roll across Germany and France before you’ll be able to respond.”
“Comrade Chairman, please give me a minute to explain. This isn’t a trick, nor is this something we Americans developed. I need to show you something, err, someone who brought me this technology so we could meet together without having to literally meet face to face which the world and our own governments would wonder about.”
Stalin turned to the two ministers who’d been in his office with him, “Leave and do not mention this to anyone.” After the ministers left, both wondering how the American president had appeared and yet not really appeared in the Chairman’s office.
“Mr. Chairman, before I introduce the being which provided this device, I have to explain he did so, so we can discuss saving your Motherland, America, and the entire world. He claims we’re all facing a very serious risk. One he came to warn us about and assist us in preparing for.”
“I don’t need anyone’s help in saving the Motherland, I saved her from the fascists in the Great Patriotic War where we lost twenty million, I don’t need your help or anyone’s help. Remember, I have the bomb too, and I’m not afraid to use it. I will use it against anyone that threatens us, and that includes America, Mr. President.”
Kalteck realized the discussion was going downhill, he spoke without his image being projected to Moscow, “Gospodin predsedatel’, izvinite, no vy nikogda ne stalkivalis’ s situatsiyey, o kotoroy ya vas preduprezhdal. Pozhaluysta, dayte prezidentu vremya, chtoby ob”yasnit’. YA obeshchayu vam, chto v interesakh Rodiny slushat’” (Mr. Chairman, I’m sorry, but you've never faced a situation like the one I came to warn you about. Please give the President a moment to explain. I promise you it is in the Motherland’s best interest to listen.)
A very surprised Stalin responded, “Kto ty? Gde ty nauchilsya govorit’ po-russki bez aktsenta?” (Who are you? Where did you learn to speak Russian without an accent?)
Kalteck nodded and responded in English, “I know you understand English, I think it is better if we hold this discussion in that language so the President can follow without the use of a translator whom I believe you’ll agree shouldn’t be brought into this discussion. Who I am and how I learned your language will be answered very soon. However, first I would like to ask you a simple question, do you know of the explosion over Siberia in 1908?”
“Of course, I do, every Russian knows of it. A large meteor exploded over the forest, why do you ask such a silly question?”
“What if I told you that explosion wasn’t a meteor but a ship from another planet that exploded? Would you believe me?”
“Ha! You Americans and your childish stories. Is this one of your pulp fiction stories, alien invaders coming to kill us. I needed a good laugh today, but you are wasting my time.”
Kalteck stepped forward into the image beam so Stalin could see him, “Hello Mr. Chairman, my name is Kalteck. I am one of those aliens you just joked about.”
Stalin stood up so quickly in surprise, he knocked his chair over. He stared at the image in front of him. he whispered, “d’yavol.”
“I can assure you I am not the devil or a demon. I am not too different from you humans, only I come from another planet. There are millions of planets in the universe, and many have different life forms on them. Did you humans really believe you were alone in the vastness of the universe? I came here to both warn and help you. A darkness is coming. When it arrives, it will destroy your people and absorb your planet. My people have been fighting the enemy for over two thousand of your years.”
Both Truman and Stalin stared at Kalteck who continued, “I have a suggestion how to prepare you to meet the coming threat, but first I think you should understand a little of my history and why we did what we did and why you must change your ways, or you will suffer the same fate as my people. If the two of you go to war today, you will destroy this lovely blue planet. Not only will you destroy your planet, but you will also weaken yourselves so badly that when my enemy arrives, they will quickly break the truce they have with my people and absorb you. You won’t be able to stop them from crushing you, my estimate is they will defeat you in at most a couple of hours…”
Stalin stood up and yelled, “Nyet! No! It is impossible. We have thousands of tanks and fighters; we will defeat anyone who dares attack us.”
“Mr. Chairman, you didn’t even know one of our ships exploded over your country. Our ships fly over the Earth all the time, and you don’t know it. The few times you have sent your toy fighters up to chase us, we left you in our wake if we had wanted to destroy you, we easily could have. If you need a demonstration of our weapons, look at what happened when one of President Truman’s ground vehicles fired on my life pod. My pod has minimal weapons, my pod quickly destroyed the weapon, it left behind a smoking hole three hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet deep. It did so in a flash before the American military standing near the vehicle knew it had happened.
“If you fire on my ship, the area where the attack originated from would be a smoking hole in the ground. The enemy or my people could orbit your planet and drop huge rocks on it. Those will crush your cities, cause massive tidal waves, and cause unrepairable damage to your atmosphere. We could also use antimatter weapons which will rip apart the mantel of your planet, should I continue?”
Stalin leered at Kalteck, “But you crashed, your craft exploded on impact, you are not supermen, your equipment fails and breaks. We will find a way to defeat you just as we defeated the fascists.”
“My ship was attacked by three of my enemy’s ships. Your weapons wouldn’t have reached my hull, my enemy has weapons and systems similar to mine, we can burn through each other’s shields. Let me tell you our history so you can understand how close you are to us and why the Earth is special to us. Not only special, but it was supposed to be off-limits until a few hundred of your years ago, when the enemy decided they wanted to resign from our core treaty, and the war began again. They have allies as we do. This time, when the war resumes, it will spread across the known universe. It will leave no race untouched because neither of us will stop until we’ve finally defeated and crushed our enemy.”
Truman nodded, “Please tell us your history so we can learn from your mistakes. Speaking for America, we want your assistance.”
Stalin nodded, “Da, yes, Russia, too, wants to hear your story. We will decide after hearing it if we believe you. We reserve judgment until we have determined the truth of what you tell us.”
Stalin had already decided if America was going to accept the alien’s help, he too would have to accept it or Russia would fall behind America, which would enable Truman to conquer Russia. Stalin didn’t trust Truman or any western leader, and he trusted the alien even less. He made a mental note to order the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, Committee for State Security) and GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet/Russian military,) to determine where the Americans were keeping the alien and kidnap him while also stealing all of his technology.
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“My story begins many thousands of your years ago. To give you an example, the earliest recorded information of a flying object through E
arth’s skies was in your year 1400 BC, that was one of our ships. Yes, we’ve had space flight for over 3,500 of your years.”
Truman was now shocked. He thought that any race that advanced could easily destroy America. He was now very worried about the future. He’d also remembered asking his science advisors about life in space and they told Truman that if advanced life existed in outer space, it would most likely be peaceful. He laughed to himself, peaceful my ass, I wish they could be here to hear the truth.
“We once lived on the fourth planet in this solar system, the one you call Mars. Our planet was once very much like Earth, cooler but lush with our own plants. We had huge oceans and lakes. One of our major differences was we were one people, we had one language, one history, we were one body of people working together.
We worked for a common goal, to better ourselves and to learn the mysteriousness of space. Ever since our earliest people looked up, they wondered what the lights in the sky were. They worked to understand how a bird flew so they could. They worked to understand how to escape our planet, so they could understand what was out there. They conquered space flight and met other races, which surprised our ancestors who once thought like you, we were alone.
“Slowly some within our ruling council decided they should have certain rights the rest of the people didn’t require, after all, they were the ruling council. They began to see themselves as our rulers and not our representatives sent to our capital to work out common issues. Slowly there became a breach. One very powerful, what you would call minister decided he should rule. Many did not accept the concept of a single ruler. A civil war was fought. A terrible war, one with many nuclear and weapons much more powerful than mere nuclear weapons were used. At the end of the war, our planet was heavily damaged. We decided to split into two societies, each centered close to our poles. The north where my people are from maintained a small, simple government, while those in the southern region were ruled by an emperor who ruled with an iron fist.
“We went on as two societies, neither trusting the other, but we lived in peace for three hundred years as we rebuilt our planet from the damage the civil war caused. Those of us in the north didn’t understand that those in the south never stopped planning to conquer us. One dark night, on our most holy and special holiday, you wouldn’t understand our religion, so a special holiday is good enough, the south struck us.
“This time, antimatter weapons were used. Antimatter is the opposite of matter. When antimatter matter comes into contact with matter, there is an enormous explosion. The matter is converted to energy, the conversion releases levels of energy you can’t yet understand. Many thousands of times larger than your largest atomic weapons. There’s no defense against antimatter weapons used on a planet. Our cities were destroyed, our farms disappeared in flashes of light brighter than the surface of the star at the center of the solar system.
“We didn’t stop at destroying our planet, oh no, we took our war into space. We used to have a large mining planetoid between our home planet and the gas giant you call Jupiter. I see the look on your faces. Yes, what you call the asteroid belt was once our mining planetoid. Large antimatter weapons destroyed it and the millions who lived and worked there. Our planetoid was broken apart by the antimatter weapons.
“I see you’re confused. Yes, our weapons could have destroyed entire planets. Let me continue. Not content with using antimatter, we decided to get revenge for the south destroying our mining colony, so we used some of the large chunks of the broken planet as weapons. We boosted them and sent them to our enemy’s land. We struck in a blind rage, and we paid the price. The hundreds of large rocks ripped our planet apart. Our antimatter weapons ripped holes in our atmosphere, the rocks cracked open the planet’s crust. Our worst mistake was we had hit our planet with so many explosions and rocks we’d changed her pitch and orbit we had sealed our own fate. We killed our planet. We didn’t know that our enemy was tapping the core for minerals we’d cut them off from. We had embargoed trade with them, so they turned to our planet’s core.
“Yes, it is possible to kill a planet. Before we completely killed ours, we visited yours. We decided that Earth would be our back up plan.”
Chapter 4
Both Truman and Stalin yelled, “What do you mean we’re your backup plan?”
“We seeded the Earth. We brought plants and animals that could support us if we’d destroyed our own planet. We were going to move to Earth. Who do you think sent the meteor that killed off the animals you call dinosaurs?”
Truman was shocked, his hands began to shake, “You sent the meteor to kill the dinosaurs? Why?”
“We needed to remove them so we could reshape your planet so it could support us. Didn’t you ever wonder why there was a sudden burst of life in the history of the Earth? Why your massive continent split apart and drifted into the ones you’re now living on? Our scientists implemented a plan to reshape your planet, and since you’re enjoying our efforts, I assume you agreed with our design.”
Stalin yelled, “And us? Did you create us? If you did, why? What were your plans for us?”
Kalteck smiled, his sharp teeth gleamed in the light of the projector, “You were bred to be our slaves and soldiers. Your ancestors fought over everything, we took notice of their warlike abilities and how quickly they learned from each defeat and victory. At critical times we assisted early humans to fulfill our goals. We made sure only the smartest survived. We needed early man to learn how to farm so you could feed yourselves, we needed you to learn math and how to construct buildings and weapons. We taught you how to hunt and farm. In a manner of speaking, we became your ancestor’s gods.
“We secretly dropped hints of new technologies and supported your people’s advancement, never too quickly less you destroy our future planet. We stayed on our master plan. Look back on your own history. There were periods of rapid discoveries, do you think those things just happened by chance?”
Truman asked, “If you showed yourself to us before, why are there no records of such events?”
Laughing, Kalteck responded, “Did you never study the cave drawings or stories of gods coming down from space? Have you ever wondered why your gods visited your people thousands of years ago and then stopped? Have you ever wondered why there were certain jumps in your technology? Like it came from out of nowhere? We’ve been keeping an eye on you since you began walking upright.”
Truman asked, “Did you create us? Are you the God spoken about in our Bible?”
“We did not create you. The creator of all created you as he did all life. We simply set you on the path that would meet our goals. We did help remove some threats to you. We judged the Neanderthal race and deemed it not intelligent enough to meet our goals but thought it would become a threat to you, so we created a sterilization disease that caused them to die out. You should thank us. Had we not removed them, they would have destroyed you.”
Kalteck noticed both leaders were silent and pondering what he’d told them. “I believe a short break is in order. I suggest we meet again in say three of your hours. I think the two of you need to digest what I’ve just told you.”
Truman and Stalin quickly agreed. Kalteck said, “Please do not discuss this with any of your advisors. Do not think I don’t have the means to know if you do. I won’t be pleased if you break the secrecy of our discussions.” His image faded as the projector turned off. He turned to face Truman, “I will take my leave so you can digest my comments.”
“Where will you go?”
“To my pod. I will return to space for a while. I don’t feel safe here until we reach an agreement. I will return in time for our discussions to continue. Please remember, do not attempt to shoot my pod down, if you do, it will destroy this area.”
“May I watch you leave? I’ve never seen an object fly into space.”
“Yes, there isn’t much to see. My pod will simply rise vertically until it is in space. I want to make some communications with my people,
it is much easier to do so in space than on this backward planet.”
Truman followed Kalteck outside, where the glowing pod stood waiting for its master. A moment later, the pod glowed bright blue and hummed, then it silently rose and accelerated into the sky until it disappeared from sight. Truman wondered how powerful these aliens were and what the threat he spoke about was. He wondered if almost everything he knew was a lie, and human history had been designed by Martians. If it hadn’t been so serious, he would have laughed. Writers said Earth would be invaded by Martians, too bad they didn’t realize how right they were.
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Stalin called his Defense Minister to join him, “I want to share a secret with you. You are not permitted to speak of it with anyone. After I tell you, I want you to figure out a way to defend the Motherland against this new threat.”
“I understand and will obey.”
“Excellent…” Before Stalin could say a word, his office was bathed in a brilliant blue light which blinded both the Minister and Stalin. A small image of Kalteck appeared in front of Stalin, “I told you not to share my presence with anyone. You were about to break your word; can you be trusted?”
