He shook his head slowly. “They played us,” he said, bitterly. “They told us all the harsh truths about our planet we didn’t want to face, they offered us the way out, and then they kicked us in the teeth. The entire planet is going to think of us as the bad guys. Our own population, for daring to shoot down an alien craft; the rest of the Security Council, for not telling them about the crashed ship; the rest of the world, for depriving them of the redistribution of wealth and resources they so desperately need. They wanted to isolate America and they succeeded. It was brilliant.”
Jones came in the door, pale and sweating. “I have to visit the President in two hours to consult with him,” he said shortly. He didn’t look keen on the idea. It meant a flight in a military fighter and that was always uncomfortable for the passenger. “What the hell do I tell him?”
“They played us,” Alex repeated, and ran through his brief conclusions. “I cannot help but feel that the second set of demands is the important one. They want us to shut down our defences and allow the mothership to enter orbit peacefully.”
“So that we don’t blow it up and die like those little furry creatures from Return of the Jedi,” Santini added, dryly. “They must know that we’d be aware of the consequences if we took out the mothership.”
“They don’t think very highly of our space program,” Alex pointed out. He shrugged and returned to the topic on hand. Jones had heard too much about NASA’s flaws and how new hardware had to be created from scratch over the last two weeks. “They wouldn’t go to all this trouble unless they needed to force us to stand down.”
“Or unless they want to provoke a fight anyway,” Jones said. He nodded towards the television screen, where a dark-skinned announcer of barely legal age was declaiming rapidly on the Meaning Of It All. Alex suspected that most people watching the broadcast were watching her and barely listening to the words coming out of her lips. “The President wants options!”
“They lied to either the President or the United Nations,” Alex said. “The simplest solution – which is normally the correct one – is that they lied to the United Nations. Their claims were too grandiose to be completely true – hell, much of it was out of bad space movies where the Elder Aliens come down from the heavens and end war, poverty and a new age dawns over the planet. I think the evidence suggests that we are facing an invasion and the aliens are softening us up to make us easier to take.”
“They don’t need to bother,” Santini pointed out, dolefully. “All they have to do is hurl rocks until we bend over and spread our legs for them.”
“That would also damage the planet badly,” Alex said. “If they need to unload their people as quickly as possible, they’re not going to want to ruin Earth.”
“Perhaps we could threaten to ruin Earth,” Santini suggested. “We could threaten to detonate a nuke or two in Yellowstone and cause a massive volcanic eruption, or perhaps start a massive war with dirty nukes…”
“The President would refuse,” Jones said, tightly. For the first time, Alex realised that Jones was scared, almost out of his mind. The prospect of alien invasion was far more real to those who had studied the alien craft and bodies. “Even if we tried, the aliens would know that we were bluffing.”
“They wouldn’t have a choice but to call our bluff,” Alex agreed. He ticked off points on his fingers. “The first choice is to accept their terms, return the craft and stand down our defences. That probably puts off the invasion, perhaps until the aliens can think of more demands, perhaps permanently. The downside is that we will lose any chance of deciphering more of their technology and perhaps building our own weapons using their tech. The second choice is to refuse to return the craft, on the grounds that it crashed on our territory, but to offer to return the bodies.”
“I don’t think they’ll go for that,” Santini said. “The bodies aren’t important unless we manage to figure out something we can use as a biological weapon against them and poison them all. It’s the craft and its technology that is the real prize here.”
“The third option is that we refuse to return the craft until we have a full accounting from the aliens,” Alex continued. “We tell the world everything that happened, from the moment when the UFO crashed outside one of our most classified locations, to the President’s visit to the alien ship. The other United Nations Security Council members will back us up on that one. They all saw footage of the aliens before they landed in New York and no one – officially – knew what the aliens looked like until then. We refuse to stand down and render ourselves defenceless until we know for sure exactly what we are dealing with.”
“And then the aliens start hurling rocks,” Jones said, acidly. “It wouldn’t take many rocks to mess up our country, would it?”
“No,” Alex said. He felt helpless, stumbling through a long dark passage. The light at the end of the tunnel might just turn out to be an oncoming train. “I don’t know what else to suggest.”
“I have a suggestion,” Santini said, suddenly. “Nicolas and his men are in Antarctica, so have them move up the attack schedule and hit the alien base now. They can show the world that the aliens had a secret base on our planet long before we ever knew of their existence, which doesn’t suggest friendly motives, does it?”
Alex shook his head. “No,” he said, “but legally…it’s tricky. The aliens aren’t based in territory we claim – hell, we don’t have any claims, apart from the research stations. Launching an attack without very clear proof of hostile intent would set off a diplomatic crisis…and perhaps trigger a war with the aliens. We’ll look like the people who fired the first shot.”
“I cannot believe that we’re worried about a diplomatic crisis now,” Santini snapped. He nodded towards the television, where the reporter had been replaced by a diplomat from Germany, who was expressing his shock and outrage over the entire crisis and calling on the American Government to return the alien craft at once. “We already have a diplomatic crisis on our hands.”
“And the last thing we need is to trigger a war while we still have room to negotiate,” Alex said, carefully. He looked away from the television and down at the table. “They may be bluffing, sir. There’s no reason why they would go to all this trouble unless they feared our ability to resist. We can make a counter-offer in front of the entire world and see how the aliens respond to that.”
“They’re not concerned about public opinion,” Santini said. “Why should they care?”
“We’re facing an invasion,” Alex reminded him. “We have to show that we’ve done all we can to avert it – and to prepare to fight it, if it does come down to war. If we stand down the defences now, we will be in a weaker position when we finally have to fight, even if we get a chance to fight. We have to convince our own people that we’re not only doing everything we can, but that the aliens are being unreasonable and deliberately provoking a war.”
“I’ll take your advice to the President,” Jones said. He sounded tired and worn down. “He’ll make the final call about what we say in response. Keep working on possible options if it does come down to war.”
Alex sighed as Jones left the room. There were no more possible options until new hardware could be designed and built, and even producing test models would take longer than they had before the mothership entered orbit. It was bitterly frustrating; without NASA’s dead hand, they could produce all kinds of experimental craft, yet none of them could match the known capabilities of the alien craft. In the future, those secrets would be uncovered – knowing that it was possible to do something was half the battle – but would it be in time? The human race’s ability to wage war against the aliens was very limited. The aliens had to know that…
“They have to come within range of our weapons if they want to settle the planet,” he mused, as Santini got up and left as well. “They have to be afraid of what we could do to them, or they wouldn’t bother playing political games.”
He looked over at the display, a live fee
d sent through a secure landline direct from NORAD. The defences looked ready, yet he was chillingly aware of how flimsy they actually were against any advanced opponent. The Russians could have launched a full nuclear strike and would probably have landed enough nukes on American soil to put an end to America’s existence as a coherent nation. The aliens would probably be untroubled by half of the American defences and laughing their collective ass off at the remainder.
“Ben said you were depressed,” a voice said, from behind him. “You look as if you’ve just had a nasty shock.”
“The entire world has just had a nasty shock,” Alex said, as Jane settled down next to him. The Doctor looked tired herself. She’d been concentrating on trying to unlock more secrets from the alien biology without cutting into or dissecting the bodies, not an easy task. “The aliens have blown the secret wide open.”
“And everyone is now scared to death,” Jane agreed. Her eyes followed yet another television star explaining – again – what had happened, as if the entire country hadn’t already seen the scene in New York. The schools and colleges had been closed to allow their pupils to watch the alien landing. The vast majority of employees had been given the day off; drills and endless exercises in military bases had been halted to allow the soldiers to watch television. The only people who wouldn’t have seen it live were people in essential positions. “What happens now?”
Alex shrugged. He didn’t feel like discussing it.
“The President comes to a decision and then we know what we’re facing,” he said, tightly. His face twisted into a bitter grimace. “We might be at war by this time tomorrow.” He struck a dramatic tone, aping an actor from one of his favourite television shows. “Ladies and gentlemen, Planet Earth is at war.”
“It might not come down to that,” Jane said, reassuringly. “They don’t want a wrecked planet any more than we do.”
“They want to take our planet,” Alex reminded her. “The human population might be surplus to requirements. What happens if they just decide to exterminate us?”
“Then we die,” Jane said, practically. “Now shut up and watch television. You’re depressing me.”
“Yes, mother,” Alex said, dryly.
“Crowds have already been gathering outside the White House and a dozen other sites in Washington,” the announcer said. The television showed thousands of people standing outside the White House, looking towards the building and waiting. It wasn't a violent protest, or even a peaceful – if noisy – demonstration. It was more like a vigil, praying for peace and clarity. “The President has not yet responded to the alien claims, but sources inside the Pentagon confirm that the United States is ready and able to repel an alien attack.”
The camera panned over the crowd. “These people have come to offer their strength to the President and to pray that he will make the right decision, whatever it may be,” the voiceover continued. “The entire world is hanging on his words. Whatever is going on inside the White House today may decide the fate of the entire world.”
“What a melodramatic asshole,” Alex said, shaking his head.
“He has a point,” Jane pointed out. Her voice was soft, but Alex could hear the undertone of fear, the fear he shared. “Whatever choice the President makes will determine the future of humanity itself.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Washington DC, USA
Day 36
“As yet, there has been no response from the White House to the alien demands,” Shelia Hetman said. Standing close enough to the blonde bimbo to hear her every word, Abigail rolled her eyes, silently thanking God that the network executives didn’t consider her photogenic. There was something about staring at a camera that killed off the brain cells. “With two days remaining before the alien deadline runs out, massive crowds of demonstrators have arrived in Washington to demand that the alien craft shot down by the USAF is returned at once.”
Abigail let her eyes wander away from Shelia as she continued to blether on, prattling about how brave the protesters were to have come all the way to Washington. It wasn’t as if they were Chinese or Iranian pro-democracy protesters, who faced beatings, rapes and jail sentences when the authorities cracked down on them. The racket the protesters were making was shockingly loud – the sound of thousands of humans shouting together was terrifying – and she could barely hear herself think. The wonders of modern technology ensured that Shelia’s words could be heard though the network, even though it seemed as if they would be drowned out by the crowd. It would, Abigail decided, have been a great improvement.
The silent vigil had been driven away by the hordes of protesters, who had materialised seemingly out of nowhere. Every organisation in the nation who believed that there was nothing like a massive public protest were rallying the faithful and sending them to Washington to protest…well, everything. The vast majority of protesters were protesting the shot down alien craft, but quite a few of them seemed to be protesting other causes as well. The old rent-a-mob network was working overtime, despite police attempts to shut down public transport and even websites that were urging people to make their feelings known by going to Washington and protesting in front of the White House. There were thousands upon thousands of protesters in the area, a sea of young boys and girls, screaming their protest into the air. It had started as a cacophonous racket of hundreds of different demands, but it had slowly merged into one.
“Return the craft,” they bellowed. “No nukes! Return the craft! No nukes!”
Abigail wasn't even sure where the ‘no nukes’ bit came from. WNN was already planning a special report on the origin of the riots, but she’d done a little research and suspected that the answer lay in the Internet – and how hundreds of mailing lists had been used to spread the word, along with email spam and other methods. The message was mutating as it spread wider and wider, like a demented game of Chinese Whispers. The protesters screaming their heads off probably believed that the aliens had come to remove all the nuclear weapons from Earth and wanted the government to surrender them at once without a fight. There were even more outrageous beliefs out on the net, with some people believing that the aliens intended to eat the entire human race to them having built the pyramids and other mysterious structures from the past.
She scowled over towards the south as she heard new sounds. Someone had been organising a counter-demonstration and had somehow managed to recruit several thousand people to their cause. There were thousands of police on the ground, trying to keep the two groups firmly separate, but the entire city had been paralysed by the protests. She’d heard that everyone who had a place to live outside the city or enough money to live away from his or her work had left Washington within a day of the debacle at the United Nations. The entire country seemed to be in the grip of an economic crisis caused by the alien demand, and the millions of people trying to flee the cities.
“The leader of the protesters has declared that he and his fellow believers will not vacate Washington until the President returns the alien craft and resigns from office,” Shelia continued, drawing Abigail’s attention back to her fellow reporter. “He is with me now.”
The protest leader looked surprisingly normal, although he wore nothing to identify himself. That probably meant that he was well known to the police and Abigail was rather surprised that WNN hadn’t found something to identify him. It was possible that he’d only agreed to be interviewed on the condition that his name wasn't mentioned on air, even though that would have surprised her. In her experience, most protesters loved having their names shouted to the skies, often in connection with words such as ‘police brutality’ and ‘arrested on a false charge.’ They believed that the correct way to get noticed was to make as much noise as possible. It annoyed many citizens, but various attempts to ban such protests had floundered on the principle of freedom of speech.
“We’re going to remain here until that war criminal in the White House faces justice,” he proclaimed, taking the mike from
Shelia and speaking directly into it. “The people of the United States will not stand for the White House and the hordes of corrupt politicians hoarding alien technology for their own use and denying it to people who desperately need it. We knew that they were selfish bastards” – the broadcast was going out live, Abigail knew, and that wouldn’t even be bleeped out – “and now this proves it. In order to keep their power, they’ve brought us to the brink of war with an all-powerful alien race!”
Shelia reached for the microphone, but the protest leader wasn't through speaking. “I call on every citizen of the United States to take to the streets and demand that the government return their craft,” he thundered. “There’s no point in talking to the corrupt bastards in Congress or the Senate, there’s no point in trying to do it peacefully – get out there and get on the streets. Make your voice heard!”
He passed back the microphone and vanished into the crowd, probably wisely. The Police might have tried to arrest him for inciting a riot. Abigail watched him vanish within the teeming mass and wondered if he’d ever get out; there were so many people that she’d be surprised if some hadn’t been trampled, or knocked to the ground in the confusion and crushed. Many of the protesters were teenagers, but some were older people or children. They wouldn’t stand a chance if it turned violent.
Shelia recovered herself, somehow. “That was the leader of the protests here in Washington, making a statement to the world,” she said, finally. She wasn't good at improvising on the fly, Abigail thought with a tiny glimmer of malice. She normally worked with a script, but now that the entire country was either out in the streets or clamouring for news, it was all hands on deck at WNN. The news business was a cutthroat one where only the fastest to the scoop survived. “I am joined now by a well-known science-fiction writer who will proceed to give us her opinion on the current situation. Jules, do you believe that we should return the craft?”
Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem Page 26
