“That explains quite a few things about the Skidians. But not why we’re standing here and having a pleasant wee chat,” Bruce replied, trying to rationalise the information being explained to him but also getting a sense of where the discussion might be going.
Isn’t it obvious? the Transcendent asked.
“Not to me it isn’t, mate.”
We have an urgent requirement to repopulate our old home planet, the Transcendent explained, as though talking to a backward child.
“I gathered that,” Bruce retorted. “But what I’m not clear on is the part you want me to play in the process and, let me tell you, I’m not all sure I want to help you out at all.” Bruce knew he was not in a strong negotiating position but he had a few moral qualms about helping the Transcendent track down a supply of spare bodies for them to download into if they got into spot of bother. “It’s not really an ethical approach,” he added as he thought it through a little further. “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, to facilitate you or one of your mates taking over a body already inhabited by someone else.”
It’s not like that at all; we only use a small part of the spare brain capacity when we decant back in. The fleshies won’t even know we are there. Besides, we will actually enhance the fleshie brain function and remember, this is our ultimate fall-back position and if we have to employ it, having one of us on board will probably be the least of the fleshies’ worries, the transcendent added, trying to justify the process. If we have to go to these lengths in order to protect ourselves it means both our species are at risk.
“What’s a fleshie?” It sounded like a rather derogatory term to Bruce rather than a term of endearment.
A flesh-and-blood body. You understand this is a last resort, the ultimate back-up, and if we feel we need to invoke the plan then the fleshie civilisations themselves will be at risk from any crisis that results in us triggering the plan.
“OK, so I get it. Not sure I agree, but I get your plan and I can see some merit in it, even though I find it personally objectionable. But I’m still not clear on what it is you want me to do.”
But isn’t it obvious? the Transcendent asked again in exasperation. Surely this fleshie was not that stupid!
“No, it bloody well isn’t.”
We want you to gather up a replacement stock of fleshies to repopulate Skid as quickly as possible.
“You what?” Bruce exclaimed, completely taken aback. This was a bit unexpected – they wanted him to supply the next lot of bodies, not work with them in some kind of advisory capacity, which was what he had started to think they wanted. Although the way the conversation was going, he should have guessed. “You’ve got to be fucken joking; you want me to build some kind of an ark, don’t you?” Bruce paused as he realised there had been many previous Skidian missions to Earth. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Boy, have you got some explaining to do!”
The Transcendent was a little stunned at this; it had never imagined it could or would be interrogated in this way by a mere fleshie. The only fleshies the Transcendent had ever dealt with had been completely overwhelmed by its presence. But not this one. It was a unique situation, in fact, which almost perversely served to justify the decision to deal with this particular fleshie in this time of need.
Bruce grunted. “How long ago did you transcend and when did you get your first shipments of warm bodies?”
Some 3,000 years ago by your measurements.
“Which explains a lot!” Bruce let out a long sigh and wondered whether he could ever share that snippet of information with anyone. The Transcendent had just debunked the origins and teachings of all the main religions on Earth. Here was the source of the prophets, and the star the three wise men followed, visitors from the heavens, angels and gods, and all the rest of the creation myths and legends that were the genesis of all the main world religions. “And do you have a name for the representative who arranged the last vessel?” Bruce asked, just to make sure.
The last few times we harvested fleshies from your planet we were still physical ourselves. In our native tongue the members of our society who were entrusted with gathering up the fleshies were Moses and the pilots of the shuttles taking them into space and loaded them on the colony liners, until we developed reliable wormhole technology that could reach this far, were called Noah’s. Our physical form was bipedal, and we are of a similar size to your species and share many characteristics with the higher reptile species.
Bruce laughed so loudly he wondered if he could be heard back on Earth. The Transcendent stared at him and wondered what was so funny. This process was critical to their survival; this was about species continuation and was no joking matter.
Thirteen
Wisneski sensed the strategy being hastily constructed on the fly by General Smith, Dr Roach and whoever else was involved in this conspiracy could and probably would unravel with disturbing swiftness. He was convinced the plan they were putting together, which wasn’t much of a plan anyway, would come to grief in an extremely short space of time, despite anything they wanted to think or believe.
Unlike his masters, he sensed the technology they wanted to obtain wasn’t Bruce’s to provide, and the Skidians were uninterested in handing any of it over to anybody. Giving away the technology just wasn’t on their radar.
He was concerned that these men, who were entrusted with the leadership of the nation and keeping the population safe and protecting their best interests, had underestimated the capabilities of the Skidians to such an extent. They were so convinced they possessed a God-given entitlement to take any steps they thought they could get away with in the pursuit of their version of what was good for the nation, they never stopped to question their actions and whether they made any sense. Hopefully they could keep a lid on the situation when it went tits up, otherwise who knew what the outcome might be. He had visions of a self-inflicted apocalypse accompanied by a complete breakdown in law and order. The end of the world as he knew it.
He was only too aware how easily public unrest could quickly get out of hand and beyond the control of the combined ability of law enforcement departments and the military. News of aliens landing or an asteroid heading for Earth would do it.
Somehow, sometime very soon, the whole process they had put in place to try and prevent any information about how the asteroid had been mysteriously deflected from its head-on course with Earth would leak to the press and the public. Secret information had a habit of getting out into the public domain. Then the existence of a race of aliens and their spaceship which had facilitated the course change would also leak, and the whole attempt to keep this news to themselves for personal gain, would blow up in their faces. America would be discredited again, and even fewer people on the planet would trust the government, a number which included an increasing section of their own public, particularly the progressively disenfranchised mostly white middle class who were finding the American dream fast turning into a violent American nightmare.
The general, Dr Roach and their cronies were so insulated from the real world they imagined they were able to control the worldwide access of astronomers to their telescopes and the huge volumes of data flowing into their computer networks and then into the scientific media and then quickly beyond. Killer asteroids passing close to Earth were big news. Killer asteroids with some rather odd characteristics were even bigger news.
Eventually some astronomer or commentator would put two and two together, identify the asteroid had somehow changed course and now appeared to have sprouted some kind of industrial complex on its surface.
Then there were the so-called terrorist actions exploding out of nowhere on continental United States. Already eyewitness accounts were questioning the heavy-handed response of the authorities and were wondering why none of the usual suspects had claimed responsibility for the attacks. In fact, not even ISIS, serial claimants of all terrorist actions, had tried to get some publicity out of the attack. It was almost unheard
of for any assault to be made without someone claiming responsibility. It would have been a simple thing, as part of the cover-up, to create a fictional perpetrator for this latest atrocity, but the general and the others were too focused on the main prize to deal with such details. Eventually the truth about the attacks would leak out as well.
The plans, such as they were, and the various dependencies they relied upon were largely poorly thought out and overly complicated. Wisneski could see no good coming out of any half-baked plan to get control of the patrol ship. It was clear to him, if not the general, that Sue Harwood did not have anything like the capability to influence the Skidians and get aboard she claimed she had. This didn’t prevent them from deluding themselves she held the key to access. The general had convinced himself and everyone else who mattered Sue Harwood could either get on the space patrol ship herself or could convince Bruce Harwood to provide access. That Bruce and Sue were clearly estranged was not part of any of his calculations, and he completely ignored any contrary comment.
The current thinking was that the fall-back plan would be to render Bruce Harwood powerless so the aliens would have to deal with Sue. In Wisneski’s view this did not take into account the aliens had shown little interest in dealing with humanity except on their terms, for some mysterious reason known only to themselves. Harwood was clearly under their protection and invulnerable unless they wanted to start lobbing tactical nukes in his direction. Even then there was no guarantee of successfully interdicting him or the Skidians. Besides, a space patrol ship capable of interplanetary travel would more than likely survive an attack from a nuclear weapon. Nuking the Harwood farm was hopefully not on the menu.
Wisneski thought the plans had been completely compromised when Bruce had evaded capture and Myfair had mysteriously disappeared moments before a hit squad had been sent to secure and interrogate him. Now Sue had stopped cooperating altogether.
He shook his head at the futility of it all and understood clearly for the first time how so many blunders were made in government just because someone had a bright idea that suited the current ideology. Decision-makers were prey to anyone who had the most plausible story, and they all got on the bandwagon when they had decided on a cause of action. It didn’t matter that the evidence was flimsy or based on a presumption which was incorrect, people took a position mostly just because it suited their ideology and wider world view. This situation was a great example of how world events careered out of control and snowballed until no one dared try and stop the bus until it ended up in all-out conflict.
Instead of realising that the technological wealth they were not even able to define was really out of their reach and would remain unattainable until the Skidians decided to feed it to them, the whole lot of them – military and business leaders, politicians, all of them – were bewitched by the perceived opportunities the alien technology represented, and they had no intention of sharing it with anyone.
Collectively they had talked themselves into believing the technology the Skidians possessed was theirs for the taking, like a bunch of nineteenth-century robber barons. They had a sense of entitlement which justified their right to plunder, whenever they wanted, and few sovereign governments, including their own, had been able to put a brake on their ambition.
But they had hit a road block. One solitary man, it appeared, now stood between them and riches beyond their ability to grasp, and they had yet to comprehend that the United States industrial military complex, had unexpectedly met its match.
For the first time in more than seventy-five years the United States of America was not the single most powerful entity on the face of the planet. This was a state of affairs which was clearly going to take some getting used to, especially for men on the street, most of whom had known nothing else in their lifetimes. After all, the sun had long set on the British Empire, and it had all but ceased to exist from the midpoint of the Second World War, but the British themselves had mostly failed to notice this.
At least the end of the British Empire had come as a result of some noble enterprise, as they stood alone against the Nazi fascist regime. The US was in the process of being humiliated by some hick farmer from the bottom of the world whose only claim to fame was he had been kidnapped by aliens!
Wisneski reflected ruefully that the gradual decline in US influence was more than circumstance and bad luck. It was also a failure of vision and strategy, and poor decision-making and being on the wrong side in two nasty wars where they backed the wrong horse. Or no horse at all.
The more he considered it, Wisneski could clearly see the action designed to bring the aliens to heel was doomed to failure. America would be embarrassed again and lose what little credibility it retained on the world stage. The ability to project power the way that it had been done in the last seventy-five years had relied on the other side having limited resources to fight back. The situation had all changed now.
Smiling grimly, Wisneski looked around the meeting room from his position set back from the big table by the door, the most junior person in the room. Was he really the only person here who truly understood the realities of the situation? The Skidians were never going to play ball with the US Government, or any other government. It was not a matter of forcing them to negotiate, to get them to the negotiation table, where they could be worn down or pressured and bullied into submission. Neither the Skidians nor Bruce showed any interest in succumbing to the traditional, time-honoured diplomatic methods the United States employed to get its way. They were not even on the same playing field.
On one hand, Wisneski found it quite exciting to be this close to the centre of power for the nation. Here he was in a room dominated by senior politicians, the Chiefs of Staff and a few key bankers and industrialists. On the other hand, despite the self-belief of these men and women, this was not the real centre of action in the world any longer. This group and others like it around the planet were in many respects being rendered superfluous. There was a new sheriff in town if he, if they, wanted to assert themselves. Though, whether they wanted to or not was a moot point; just by being there they had changed the whole dynamic of world power. Wisneski grinned at the idea of Bruce Harwood being some kind of supreme leader.
One event that was going to have much more of an impact once it became public knowledge, was the discovery of an asteroid orbiting the planet with some kind of alien industrial unit attached to it. For most of the population, just knowing they were not alone in the universe any longer would have a huge impact on their collective psyche, and nobody had thought through the implications of this yet. Would it change the way we interact with each other, Wisneski wondered? Would it encourage people to take a good look at themselves and lead to a review of how they transacted with others? It would not really do to have a bunch of aliens discover a planet full of squabbling natives who were effectively bullied into submission by their elected or unelected governments.
“Wisneski! Wisneski, stop daydreaming, man, and pay attention.” General Smith brought him back to reality. “You are to travel to this godforsaken country and get this Harwood person on side, do you hear? You have our authority to use any means at your disposal to make this happen.”
“I’ll need a clear set of orders, sir,” Wisneski replied. “Written ones, sir,” he added. He wanted everything in writing, for what it was worth; he did not want to be the fall guy when everything turned to custard.
“Orders, Wisneski? Isn’t my word and that of the Chiefs good enough for you, let alone that of the Vice President of the United States of America?”
There would be nothing in writing; this whole escapade was all deniable. There would be recordings, of course, but they would be of little use defending himself in some future investigation.
“Yes, sir!”
“Well, don’t just stand there, get yourself on a plane as quickly as possible. We’ll send specific instructions once you are in flight.”
Wisneski turned to go. I’ll believe that when I
see it, he thought.
He was interrupted in midstride by a chilling parting shot from General Smith. “There’s a lot at stake here, Wisneski. The future of our nation, indeed the entire Western world, is going to be decided in the next little while. Bear this in mind.” The general paused for effect and repeated a phrase first used as America lurched into another disastrous and ill-fated war. “And you are either for us or against us. You would do well to remember that.”
The statement sent a chill up his spine; he didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to see what was going to happen next. Whatever the complete plan this group of men had, whatever fantasy world they had created for themselves, no good was going to come of it.
He believed they would be more successful focusing their energy on trying to obtain benefits for the greater good of all mankind, not just the one per cent who owned or controlled most of the wealth of the nation and, by default, that of the so-called the Western economies and democracies. But this was never going to happen.
“Yessir,” Wisneski replied, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.
He made a conscious decision – he’d throw in his lot with Bruce and the Skidians. He was convinced they would need a competent Security advisor at some stage. Bruce, at least, seemed to have some kind of vision regarding the future, or so it seemed to Wisneski. It had not occurred to him that perhaps Bruce wanted nothing more than to settle down on the farm, and the Skidians had had no tangible plan at all.
Wisneski left the room and a security detail hustled him down to a waiting SUV and then to the local air force base where he was virtually frogmarched aboard a waiting plane, almost as if they wanted to make sure he was aboard in case, if left to his own devices, he decided to change his mind. It occurred to him that maybe the agents were also there to toss him out the door over the sea, but they left him at the top of the stairs once he had bowed his head and entered the plane.
The Lifeboat Page 30