Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart Page 30

  Alison glanced over at Mary Sparrow. The Minister for Parks and Recreation had one shoulder against the side port, her gaze fixed downward, as if tracking from memory the rugged contours of the Frenchman River Valley that dominated the national park.

  A park that was now part of a new forcefield corridor, angling southward to merge with its sister arm that came down from central Alberta. The bison that had been re-introduced to the Grasslands Park were now free to resume their ancient migration routes, all the way down to Kansas. And without maintenance, that herd was bound to grow in size.

  There were no wolves in the Grasslands, only coyotes. But Mary had predicted that would soon change. Predators were always opportunistic, and if left alone and left free to roam, they would find their niche. The old balance would be restored.

  So much was changing. Humanity’s entire relationship with the natural world had been upended. Will Camden’s latest report on the status of the country’s natural resources had made that brutally apparent.

  “The flaw was in the very words we used, Prime Minister. Seeing the land as a resource, which by the very meaning of that word meant it was ours to use, and, eventually, to use up. Land and sea, trees, fish, minerals, the soil itself.” The man had looked broken, exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed and lost. “It all existed to be converted into wealth. Of course we need to eat. Drink clean water. We need material goods for our shelters, our ease of living. Energy to heat our homes. Plastics and refrigeration to preserve and transport our food—”

  Mary Sparrow had cut in then. “But you mistook all of that for ownership. It was never that, Will. It was stewardship at best. The way ahead was always the same and it flies in the face of the capitalist approach. You must balance need with capacity, to ensure the health of both.”

  But Will was not interested in fighting a battle already lost. “It’s even simpler than that, Mary. It was always a war between short-term and long-term thinking. There you have it. Reduced to its basic, unassailable core. Capitalism is always geared to the short-term vision. Profit now. Suck it dry, then move on, reinvesting what you earned so you can rinse and repeat. And every move included a step up the ladder, a bigger house, more toys, more privileges. The short-term is all about a single life: the living, grown-up generation. What came before doesn’t matter. What comes next is for your children to deal with.”

  The Prime Minister then spoke. “My predecessor went all-in on the oil industry and spent his terms removing every roadblock in its path. I got in on a vote that rejected that, and as soon as I arrived the sheer weight of that singular momentum damn near crushed me.”

  Mary’s gaze was level. “You buckled on the pipelines, Madam. Broke an election promise. Got called out.”

  “Thank you, Mary,” Lisabet said drily. “I am well aware of my promises. In any case, it’s now a moot point, isn’t it?”

  “Except for your plummeting popularity.”

  Hell of a way to end a briefing, but Alison couldn’t help but admire Mary’s huevos. Some situations couldn’t be salvaged. This was the harsh lesson now being delivered to every politician and world leader. Language was losing its power to evade reality, but this was a death-blow that could only be delivered by an outside agency—something beyond the reach of human obfuscation and the variability of opinion or interpretation.

  No wonder the species was in crisis.

  “We’re coming up on the Swift Current site now,” the pilot informed them all via a speaker in the cabin of the modified Chinook.

  Accompanying the Prime Minister and her advisors was Alison’s own Science Team. She’d made calls, needing as many minds on this new situation as possible. The construction of the massive complex on the broken prairie southeast of the town of Swift Current was not unique: similar sites were springing up all over the world. But it was the only one in Canada, and, incidentally, the closest one to what many still considered to be the dominant world power: the United States of America.

  The neighbors to the south were all over Lisabet Carboneau, Alison knew. The Americans wanted in, even if that meant ignoring a country’s borders. If not for the utter denial of violence, the situation would be volatile. As it was, bluster had all the power of a fart in the whoosh of a Chinook’s rotor blades. That said, would ET reject the incursion of determined Yanks? Did sovereign borders matter at all to these extraterrestrials?

  They began their descent and up ahead, now visible through the main forward canopy, was a thick ring of arc-lights, tungsten-amber, revealing ATCO trailers in orderly rows and beyond them, a disorganized sprawl of uninvited guests dwelling in myriad tents and campers. Tire tracks made chaotic patterns across what had once been land owned by the—she glanced down at her notes—the Bowan family. The Swift Current River ran through the holding, amusingly misnamed given its turgid, modest presence.

  Flares marked out the landing area and they could see a small crowd awaiting their arrival. There were television crews present.

  “Damn,” Alison said. “Word must have leaked out. Sorry, Madam Prime Minister.”

  Lisabet shrugged. “Word always leaks out these days, Alison. The game of secrecy seems well and truly dead. We’re all full of holes and going down fast.”

  That was a shocking admission, and Alison said nothing. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mary Sparrow’s round face crease into a sad smile for a moment.

  The helicopter settled with barely a nudge on the flattened short-grass prairie. As the rotors began winding down, Canada’s Prime Minister withdrew a compact to check her face, scowled, and then nodded to an aide to open the side door.

  Marc Renard had looked down on the Earth from the ISS. He had floated from a tether in a bulky suit amidst the ferocious indifference of vacuum. He had flinched from the over-curious ‘fireflies’ that were probably drones of some sort, courtesy of the Greys. Drones that could (and did) destroy human space-craft when the mood took them. His journey into space had been both humbling and frightening. The sheer vulnerability of his home planet and its dominant species was daunting, wounding, against the vast reaches of the solar system and its unwelcome predators.

  Of course, one needed perspective. The first European settlers to the Americas had done much the same as the Greys. Exploited, dominated, occupied, enslaved, and murdered. He wasn’t sure if the distinction between aliens doing all of that to humans and humans doing it to each other was a flattering one for yours truly.

  As he watched the big white helicopter settle onto the flare-lit ground, one hand up to protect his eyes from grit as he leaned against the wind stirred up by the blades, he found himself thinking about First Contact. The theme had been explored countless times in Science Fiction novels and short stories. It had played out on cinema screens and on television. Mostly, it was the aliens initiating the contact, for good or ill. Only in the Star Trek franchise was the opposite commonplace, and the United Federation of Planets had the Prime Directive guiding it. Because, the argument went, being reasonable when in possession of overwhelming technical superiority was a difficult thing. The temptation to set things right was always there, the road to hell and all that.

  Behind him, as he stood in the cluster of technicians and politicos awaiting the appearance of the Prime Minister, rose the massive edifice announcing ET’s arrival on Terran soil. A sprawling collection of mysterious buildings, spanning a footprint that dwarfed the average petrochemical plant.

  Drone shots revealed the landing-pad in the heart of the complex. That image had regular people close to panic. And now that the forcefield was forming a column to the heavens, the inevitable descent of the visitors looked to be unstoppable.

  He was aware of the alternate theory. Less a landing-pad than a launch-pad. Less a fortress inside its protective bubble than a training center awaiting the influx of human space cadets. Nice thoughts, but Marc remained skeptical. Occupation that could not be opposed was just as—if not more—likely.

  Processing plants. Mechanized slaughter-house
s for the production of some alien version of Soylent Green. The de-constitution of humanity, one screaming victim at a time.

  By nature Marc Renard was an optimistic man. He’d clung to it even after the revelations and encounters with the Greys, though at times he’d mulled on the notion that the Greys saw the Earth as a holding pen, or a hunting ground. Humanity would prevail, eventually, forcing open the bars of the cage. They would, come hell or high water, take back their native solar system.

  In the basement lab of the old museum in Swift Current, a grizzled provincial archaeologist had, over beers and scotch, offered up an alternate future, by citing the past. “Ghost Dance. The return of the buffalo and the resurrection of the Plains Indian nations. The driving out of the white man and all his ills. Belief and faith, buddy, the dream of liberty. And how did that turn out?” Then he had leaned forward. “This entire town is sitting on an archaic burial ground. When they built the school the backhoe buckets were full of bones. Human bones. But the old lady running this museum wasn’t interested in Indian bones. She was into taxidermy, and I guess stuffed Indians on display was a bit over the line even for her. Anyway, she got rid of them. And everything was hushed up. My point? Saskatchewan has a weird history, Mister Astronaut. Regina was originally called Pile of Bones. Bison bones in that instance. Mountains of them.” He drunkenly waved a hand. “The land is all about wiping clean what used to be, then pretending it never existed. That ET place south of here? I see a sky full of ashes, day after day, coming out of the smokestacks. That’s what I see.”

  That had been Marc’s first night, lodged in a local hotel, meeting up with the Parks Canada people (including the archaeologist) just to get some idea of what had been going on at the Bowan ranch.

  Now, having come out here and seen it for himself, he wanted to tell that archaeologist something. Probably meaningless, but enough to make him almost hopeful.

  No smokestacks.

  “There’s your astronaut,” Alison Pinborough said once she had followed the Prime Minister out from the now-silent helicopter.

  Lisabet nodded. She gestured Mary Sparrow closer. “Get in the faces of those cameras, Mary.”

  “And say what?”

  “We’re just here to see this for ourselves.”

  “Oh, like Bush and New Orleans after Katrina?”

  “Well,” Lisabet said with a steely gaze, “thank you for that. But for those reporters, try being a little more circumspect.”

  “I’ll talk about bison.”

  “Bison?”

  “The Grasslands herd, Madam Prime Minister. It’s gone south. Time for feeding in the heart of Great Plains.”

  “Sure,” Lisabet said evenly, “try that.”

  Gently grasping Alison by the upper arm, the Prime Minister guided her forward. “God help me,” she muttered, “that woman is pushing all my buttons right now.”

  “Yes, she does seem to be enjoying herself.”

  “Not you, too?”

  “Not at all, Madam Prime Minister. I’m sorry if that came out wrong. I’m not very political, I’m afraid.”

  Marc Renard was approaching them. Everyone else behind him had been waved back, at least for the moment. Spotlights affixed to cameras tracked them all.

  “Mary probably leaked it,” Lisabet then said. “I don’t blame her, but still, it ticks me off because now all the networks will be showing is clips of me doing nothing, again.”

  “None of us can do anything, Madam Prime Minister,” Alison pointed out.

  “The Americans have rented a Kepler rocket and are heading up to meet ET. Me, I’m letting them have Renard. And the deal? They get to check out this complex and if the doors ever open, they’re in there first.”

  “First?”

  “First.”

  Fuck me, Alison thought as they reached the handsome astronaut with the photogenic grin, which he wasn’t wearing now.

  Marc Renard hesitated and then half-bowed before the Prime Minister. “Madam Prime Minister, welcome to the Bowan Complex.”

  “Nix that name right now.”

  “What? I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  “And if this turns out to be some sort of detention camp? Canning facility for prime human cut? Nix it now, Marc.”

  The astronaut paled slightly. “It was an informal name, a local one, I mean. Heard it in Swift Current.”

  “Fine,” Lisabet snapped. “But we don’t call it that, do we? No, we call it something else. Think up a name. Generic, neutral.”

  “Right, of course, Madam Prime Minister. Uhm, welcome to Site X.”

  The sheer disappointment in Lisabet Carboneau’s face was a thing to behold, and luckily she was angled so that her back was to the cameras. Still, it was all Alison could do to keep a straight face, praying that at least one unofficial phone had captured the image.

  “Something amusing you, Alison?”

  “No, Madam Prime Minister. Marc, nice to see you again. How went the book tour?”

  Marc blinked. “You’re joking, right? When the news about the Greys got out, well, my credibility went into the toilet. Tour cancelled. That’s what stranded me in Saskatoon, before the call came to come down here. If lynch-mobs could do anything but just glare…”

  “Hmm,” Alison said, “sorry I asked.”

  “Into the trailer,” Lisabet said, “now. No, just the three of us.”

  Alison and Marc followed the Prime Minister to the largest of the ATCO trailers. Glancing back, Alison saw Mary Sparrow standing abandoned by the reporters. Presumably, the bison story hadn’t fired any sense of wonder. Still, what was a wonder was that a thin strip of plastic yellow tape was still holding back the journalists. Only in Canada.

  Once inside, Lisabet found a carafe of coffee awaiting them. She poured three cups full. “Marc, you’re going up again.”

  “Kepler said yes?”

  “They did. They have a prototype they want to try out.”

  “Oh great, a prototype.”

  Lisabet slammed the carafe down, making the cups on the small table jump. Spilled coffee pooled on the white linoleum. The Prime Minister set her hands down on the table and leaned slightly forward, hair covering her face as she seemed to study the brown puddles. Into the silence that followed the loud crack of the aluminum carafe, Lisabet then said, “This is not ideal. None of this is ideal. The only thing preventing a complete occupation of our country right now is that our friends to the south have no idea what ET would do if it was attempted.” She straightened and went to the tiny sink where she collected up a dishcloth to wipe up the spilled coffee. “It’s a miracle that not one ethnic group anywhere in the world has made a move to occupy land once lost, or claimed as their own. But it’s coming.” She completed cleaning the table’s surface and then refilled their cups. “Carson tells me there have been rumblings among the sovereign tribes, especially in British Columbia.”

  Alison wanted to sit down, but couldn’t, not while the Prime Minister remained on her feet. Carson Johans was the Minister of Native Affairs. The modern world had so many elephants in the room there was nowhere left to stand, and in Canada (and in the USA) the biggest one was all about stolen land. Entire nations of immigrants. Still squatting on that land, and when it came right down to it, all the deeds and legislative acts and laws passed by and enforced by European-style governments really had no legitimate claim to the New World. As Mary Sparrow once said, ‘The legitimizer cannot claim legitimacy by legitimizing its own legitimacy by saying it’s legit,’ a quote that had won her by-election in Nunavut by a landslide.

  In Canada there had never been a conquest, only occupation. Colonization, and then waves of pressure crushing all in its path. South of the border there’d been a lot more killing involved, where might made right in the self-satisfying monologue that was Manifest Destiny. But the principles remained the same more or less. A long history of broken promises and false assurances.

  Had ET’s arrival just kicked open the door?

 
Trampled by elephants. Just our luck.

  “Madam Prime Minister,” Marc Renard ventured, “if ET wants to talk it will be at a time and location of their choosing, not ours. This handshake mission will probably fail and make us look very foolish.”

  “You don’t want to go?”

  “Of course I don’t want to go!” Marc snapped. “Sorry. My apologies. Listen, we keep pretending we’re in charge here. We keep acting like we’re the ones making all the decisions, the choices, the calls for action. But isn’t it obvious yet? We don’t get to decide anything.”

  After a long moment, Lisabet sat down. “Both of you, sit.” Once they’d done so, she continued. “This is now about positioning. The ball’s got to drop. Sooner or later, we’ll find ourselves in the next stage of whatever this is. Yes, Marc, you’re right. It’s ET who has the next move. But these complexes. They must represent the foundation stones for whatever that next move is. That’s why—” she nodded to Alison “—I want you and your team here. As for you, Marc, you’re heading back into space. No handshake would be rude.”

  Marc’s brows lifted. “We’re relying on ET’s good manners? Madam Prime Minister, was this land purchased from the Bowan family? No. Have they been compensated? No. Those forcefields all over the planet—did we ask for them? Hell, even the end to all violence—fine, plenty of people wanted that, from the abused wife to the victims of half a dozen ongoing civil wars. But still, there was no warning. No ‘excuse me, we’re going to stop all this killing, all right?’ ET is doing whatever it wants.”

  “Fine,” the Prime Minister snapped. “I get it. We are only able to react, not initiate. So it falls to us to try and figure out what’s coming next. Alison, that team of yours. I haven’t had time to read their CV’s. Names, specialties.”

  “Uhm, right. Well, the big guy with the reddish beard, that’s Brandon Roth. Astrophysicist from Laval. The red-haired woman who got sick at lift-off, that’s Jenny Cox, specializing in Quantum field expression, energy transference and, uh, something about contingency theory? Last one is Baria Khan, exobiologist, wrote a book on extremophiles. Her main area of interest is in Eukaryotic environments and the origin of life on Earth.”