Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart Page 31

  “And this Baria happens to be an old friend of yours.”

  “Well, yes. I admit that her expertise may not be immediately relevant—”

  “Honestly,” the Prime Minister said, hand now over her eyes, “I don’t really care. By all means make this a girls’ night out. Never mind.” She drew her hand away and regarded them both. “You’re all in this for the long haul. But it’s readily apparent that neither of you has taken on board the principal lesson concerning speculation, the one I brought up a month ago. Alison, your team is incomplete. Marc, all your Space Program buddies are coming up with all kinds of theories about—well, about everything. But all they’re doing is pillaging Science Fiction novels. My point? Alison, get a hold of our Cultural Affairs people. I want a list of Canadian SF authors. I want a team of people in the business of imagining the impossible. This whole thing about scrambling for experts, all you scientists, and technicians and engineers—none of those skills necessarily come packaged with a powerful imagination, do they? Over and over again, we keep looking to the wrong people for answers. We need people who can get into the head of ET.”

  “Well,” Alison said, looking down at her coffee cup, “I think … yes. We can certainly add some writers to the team.”

  The Prime Minister was going through the pockets of her light coat. She came out with a clutch of creased papers—receipts, it seemed—on which notes were written. “Here, a quote from our missing Science Fiction author, Samantha August. From an interview that got tetchy. Listen. This is her. ‘The problem is, people without imaginations don’t know what they’re missing.’” Lisabet set down the wrinkled receipt and began pressing out the creases. “You need to think twice about that quote. Maybe three times. The key lies in the first part. The ‘problem’. In that interview, she was responding to a jack-ass fellow author who’d just dismissed all of Science Fiction. She told him she felt sorry for him, felt sorry that his imagination was so weak it could never leave mundane reality.”

  “Ouch,” said Marc Renard.

  “You can lead a horse to water, but if it’s too stupid to drink …”

  “She said that?”

  “No, Marc. I did. Just now.” The Prime Minister stood. “Both of you, go get your people and let’s get this briefing started.”

  Outside the trailer Marc touched Alison on the shoulder. “Did she just call us stupid?”

  Alison scowled. “Yep.”

  “Ouch again.”

  Alison eyed her trio of scientists who were waiting in a desultory clump a dozen meters away, Brandon attempting to light a pipe of all things, while the summer wind swirled all around, forcing him to spin like a slow top, lighter flaring again and again.

  “Wobble wobble wobble, then we all fall down,” Alison whispered.

  “Excuse me?” Marc asked. “I didn’t catch that.”

  Alison shook her head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Is the universe holographic? Probably. Get microscopic enough and you start seeing pixels. I don’t know about you, but that makes me laugh. Until I think about how easy it is to hack a program. Any program.”

  SAMANTHA AUGUST

  “This is why I hate briefings,” said the President of the United States. “Some egghead deciding what I need to know. Only I know what I need to know. And what I need to know right now is, do we do like the Russians? Roll across that damned border and just take what’s rightly ours to?” He pointed a finger at the Secretary of Defense. “Morgan, lay out those scenarios.”

  Morgan West cleared his throat and made to speak, but it was the Vice President who spoke first.

  “Raine, the Russians had to roll back. Every territory they annexed right after your election, when we announced we were standing down on our NATO commitments, they have since relinquished. Sure, they could march in, but not their tanks or APCs, not their helicopters, and of course not their guns—which were useless anyway. But they couldn’t take over anything. It’s pretty clear that ET will not abide foreign invasions.”

  “We’re not foreign!” Raine Kent snapped.

  “By International Law, we would indeed be invading a foreign country, even if it is Canada.”

  Raine Kent glared at her. “I wish I’d kept my first VP, you know that?”

  Diana Prentice lifted one eyebrow. “The devout Christian caught on camera with his dick up another man’s butt? Now, personally I couldn’t care less where he sticks his dick, but everyone was waiting for your first major firing, weren’t they?”

  “Morgan!”

  “Yes, Mister President. Well, the base-line all-things-being-as-they-once-were scenario is of course pretty much straightforward. We simply annex as much territory as we want. Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia—”

  “Those are provinces, right? Which one has the alien site?”

  “None, sir. That’s Saskatchewan. I was about to add Saskatchewan, since it has oil reserves.” He reached up to groom his infamous ‘confederate’ moustache. “But the first three comprise the major population centers, not counting Quebec—but Quebec is full of French people, so we wouldn’t want it anyway.”

  “Things are not as they once were,” Diana Prentice pointed out.

  “With the military option out of the picture,” Morgan resumed, pointedly ignoring the Vice President who was, to Raine Kent’s mind, fast becoming the odd one out in his inner sanctum of advisors, “we have devised a scenario we call Non-Confrontational Occupation, or NCO. In short, we simply walk across the border—”

  “Walk?” Raine barked the question.

  “Well, drive. In non-military vehicles. We cross the border and simply crowd out the Canadians at the site. There’s more of us—”

  Prentice snorted, but said nothing, which was a good thing since the President was one more outburst away from kicking her out of the room.

  “So how do they stop us?”

  “Mister President? Who?”

  “The Canadians!”

  “Well, I suppose if they formed a human chain on the border, but then we’d go overland, get around them. I mean, how long a line can they hope to make?”

  “Oh for fuck sake,” Raine Kent said. “Never mind, sorry I asked. Morgan, you head a military that can’t shoot. Making you kinda useless. Forget it. If the astronaut deal goes south, we’ve got a legal route. We buy out the rancher, own his land. Use a proxy, of course. Failing that, we sue.”

  At this point, the last person present in this meeting seemed to blink awake, and at a nod from the President, Raine Kent’s personal legal advisor, James Voilette, began speaking. “We purchase via the agricorp angle. The land is then owned by a US-owned corporation. Legally, not even the Canadian government can prevent us occupying that land, or doing with it whatever we please. When the ET complex opens its doors, in we go, take what we like, and then break everything else. It’s a quick in and out operation, conducted while the courts get bogged down in everything we can throw at them. With the job done, they can have it back, for a price.” He settled back in his chair again, seemed to begin drifting off.

  Diana Prentice cleared her throat. “Well now, has this purchase already gone through, then?”

  “No,” Voilette replied, blinking awake again. “But with the kind of money we can throw at the land-owner, consider it a done deal.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” the Vice President said. “Raine, the entire global economy is suffering run-away inflation. We’ve had so many successive financial crashes in the markets we barely notice them anymore. Every pay-check being cashed or deposited is an act conducted holding one’s breath with fingers crossed. We’re running on the fumes of faith right now.”

  “So we offer in gold bullion,” Voilette retorted, rolling his eyes at the President. “Everything is for sale, at the right price. It’s not like Canada isn’t all-in on the capitalist ethic, same as us. Unless it’s suddenly turned into a Communist state,” and he laughed.

  “It should be clear,” Diana said to
the lawyer, “even to you, that not everything is for sale, specifically all that ET has done to us and will do to us.”

  The man smirked. “My dear, once we get them at the table, we’ll eat them for breakfast.”

  Diana held up her hands and sat back. “I can’t wait to see this one play out. Who’s got the popcorn?”

  “Hah ha,” said the President. “What’s going on at the UN? I’m still waiting for your report.”

  “Chaos, of course. To be expected. In general, the various aid and assistance agency arms of the UN are now commanding more and more resources, although it seems where we fail, ET picks up the slack. No one is going hungry. No one is without shelter. The usual diseases, graft, and violence that normally accompany mass population movements just aren’t happening. Interestingly, in terms of resources distribution as controlled and managed by ET, we’re looking at a classic communist expression: to each according to his or her need.”

  “I knew it,” Raine Kent said, hands tightly curled into fists. “This was all about shutting me down. Here I was, poised to change the world, poised to fix things. And what do I get? Stalin from Space. That’s what I get.” He paused and then pointed at Voilette. “Hold on that. If the present deal falls through—the Canadian astronaut for access thing—if that falls through, we buy our way in. Agricorp. Soybeans, corn, farmer shit—”

  “The land is a ranch not a farm,” Diana pointed out.

  “So fucking pigs and cows! The point is: we’re getting in through that door. One way or another we’re getting our hands on that ET tech. Morgan! Pay attention, dammit. How’s the Army Corps of Engineers getting along with our own fancy hi-tech super-complexes?”

  “Going fast, Mister President. All four sites are ahead of schedule. By the time we’re done we’ll have more empty rooms than all those alien complexes combined.”

  Raine Kent stared at the man, even as D.K. Prentice slowly put her hands over her face.

  Good God All Mighty, Morgan West, you are one stupid man. But out loud, Raine Kent said, “Right. Carry on.”

  Most off-campus meetings, even unofficial ones, took place in one of Raine Kent’s many hotels. What had begun as political pressure from the President himself was now habit. Science Advisor Ben Mellyk sat with Kenneth Esterholm at the top-floor bar in the Grand Kent Plaza, a refurbished turn-of-the-century six-story building in DC. The CIA director was on his third bourbon.

  “I blame the FBI,” Esterholm muttered.

  Ben Mellyk glanced away. He’d heard this before. “Well, I suppose they can try to open an investigation into ET’s un-American activities, but I doubt it’d help. This isn’t a popularity contest. At least, it’s not looking like one.”

  Esterholm squinted across at Mellyk. “Listen, you’re a scientist. What the fuck are you doing in this administration? They don’t like science. They don’t even believe in science.”

  “Fortunately,” Ben replied, “science is indifferent to what you choose to believe or not believe. It’s a process, strictly evidence-based. It problem-solves, and, more often than we’d like to admit, it also problem-finds. You can block your ears, or put hands in front of your eyes. You can stick your head in the sand, or shout louder than anyone else. You can send death-threats or destroy someone’s life. None of that changes a thing. Evidence is evidence, consequences are consequences. Do this and that happens. We may have launched our very own Age of Denial, but it won’t change anything.”

  “Ha! Only now the aliens show up and start fixing things! Climate change? Why, it’s going away. Deforestation in the rainforest? Not anymore! Harvesting all the fish in the oceans? Uh-uh.”

  “If none of those things were both true and real,” Ben pointed out, “ET wouldn’t have to fix them.”

  Esterholm grimaced. “No one can be bothered thinking that one through and you know it. We’re in make-believe land. You didn’t answer my question. Why did you join this God-awful, seditious administration?”

  “Every president requires a science advisor.”

  “He pretty much ignores most of what you say.”

  “Nonetheless, someone at least has to try to peddle reason and rationality. I guess that’s me.”

  “Okay. Fine.” Esterholm finished his bourbon and signaled for another. Then he leaned forward. “I need some predictions from you. Some ideas on what’s coming next.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because we’re not all idiots. Because this country is chock-full of smart, grounded people. People who don’t shut down their brains. People who understand what it means to be American—in the proper traditional sense. A nation of tolerance, freedom for all—”

  “Save me the speech,” Ben said, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his eyes. “I’m the token Jew in an anti-Semitic administration that’s beloved by anti-Semitic Americans from sea to shining sea. Whatever we once were, we aren’t anymore.”

  “Wrong. We are, dammit. Sure, the loonies are running the nuthouse and all their fellow loonies are happy as peach, but it’s an aberration. We both know that. This is a backlash, one last gasp, one last desperate grasp at nostalgia.”

  “Well, I’d call it the logical result of endemic disenfranchisement. Poverty breeds anger. Stress breeds fear. We’ve been in decline, seeing plenty of both.”

  “No. Listen. Just because nobody can hurt anybody else doesn’t make the hate go away. Doesn’t even fix the parochialism and twisted nationalism that gives rise to white supremacists and neo-Nazi parties. But our President keeps feeding that hate, keeps pointing fingers. Now, I had this thought. It came to me one sleepless night, exploding in my brain, and I want you to hear it.”

  Ben shrugged. “Okay, go ahead.”

  “I get it that ET showed up and stopped the world—the whole planet, I mean. I get that. But I can’t help thinking that the cluster-fuck going on here in America, that was the tipping point. That was ET sitting up and saying ‘fuck me, those idiots in the good old US of A are going to take down everything.’ So they acted now. They acted now because of us.”

  Ben collected up his glass of scotch, considering the notion.

  Esterholm went on. “Look, I know it’s what other countries complain the most about us Yanks. We’re so in our own heads, so convinced we’re King Shit of Turd Mountain, and we obsess about ourselves, pretty much exclusively. Center of the Universe. Birthplace of freedom, capitalism—”

  “Neither of which is true,” Ben pointed out.

  “I know, but we took them and ran with them like nobody else.”

  Nodding, Ben sipped at his drink. “Agreed.”

  “So, what if it wasn’t the Russians trying to invade Europe. Or the Chinese buying up the whole damned world. What if it wasn’t Climate Change either? What if it was this President, this administration, the whole crumbling mess of what’s happened to this country? I mean, what did we get almost from day one? Race riots. Hate crimes everywhere. Attacks on women. Finger-pointing and mobs with pitchforks. And then the brain-drain, all those dark-skinned geniuses bolting for Canada or India or wherever. We were spiraling down, Ben, and it was going to start getting very ugly.”

  “And ET stopped it all in its tracks.”

  “Exactly. Our gleeful slide into anarchy, nipped in the bud.”

  “Maybe. Still, what is it you want from me?”

  “Those complexes, the landing-pads or training centers or whatever they are. The fact that we didn’t get one—”

  “Lots of countries didn’t get one. Russia didn’t. China didn’t. India didn’t. Britain didn’t.”

  “Countries with genuine space programs.”

  “Well, yes, that’s a point.”

  “It’s more than just a point. It’s a big neon arrow, Ben. Other people are being invited into the space-race.”

  Ben snorted and collected up his glasses. “Race? Against alien star-spanning technology? Hate to break it to you, Kenneth, but if you’re right we’ve already lost that race.”

  “My poin
t is, they get first crack at that shit. Like it or not, Ben, us front-runners in space exploration haven’t done much to be truly inclusive, have we? I mean the occasional guest astronaut looks good, but when it comes to technology and expertise, we don’t give it away, do we?”

  “A curious position, Kenneth. The truth is, NASA is very open to sharing its programs when it can. The same can certainly be said for ESA, and for a time there even the Russians weren’t above selling their heavy lifters to whoever could cough up the money to buy one. Do recall, however, that NASA is constrained by its budget, and that comes from the Feds, and no administration is excited about spending the money of its own citizens to help some other country’s nascent space ambitions. Finally, there are the NASA contracts with private aerospace companies. Philosophically, that’s much more palatable, especially when it puts Americans to work.”

  Kenneth sighed, drank down some of his fourth bourbon, and then nodded. “Okay, fair enough. But I don’t think that alters my basic position here. It’s a kind of leveling of the playing field. Or a means of opening the door to space for everyone on this planet, not just the richest, most advanced nations.”

  Ben pocketed his glasses. “Kenneth, I think that you may well be right. It does seem to reflect the ethics of ET given what’s already happened. Playing no favorites. Not immediately contacting only the most powerful nations. Instead, contacting everyone … and no one.”

  “Right. It’s the damned strangest first contact, isn’t it? I mean, where the hell are they?”

  “If I were in their shoes,” Ben said, “I would not for one moment consider making a physical appearance on the surface of our world.”

  “Ah, now that’s interesting. Why not?”

  “It’s hard to focus hate on an enemy that stays unknown and, possibly, unknowable. Right now, resistance to ET is floundering. We remain reactionary. If we had a target we could think about taking the initiative. As it is, that notion isn’t even being considered. No, it makes sense. If I’m ET, I would not offer myself up as a target for an entire world’s outrage. I’d stay away.”