Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (28 page)

The president of the People’s Republic of China revealed today that it used its massive radio telescope to send a welcoming message of peace to the aliens, a message that he claimed had been translated into twenty-three languages. He did not respond to questions about why he believes the aliens would understand any of the languages of Earth, but he is presumably following the widespread belief that the aliens have likely been studying Earth and our audio/video transmissions for some time.

Shortly after the above revelation by the PRC, a number of other national polities revealed that they’ve sent their own messages to the aliens. A brief review of those messages reveals that they range from saccharine-sweet to aggressively bellicose.

It is hard to know what the aliens might make of all these intentional broadcasts or even their incidental reception of entertainment broadcasts or message traffic from our planet. In view of the fact that the aliens’ radio emissions are digitally encoded in their own particular brand of trinary computer code and so far remain completely incomprehensible to any of the thousands, or perhaps millions, of people trying to decipher them— unless some secretive government agency has decoded them but not revealed their contents to the rest of us—it seems ominously unlikely that the aliens are particularly interested in communicating with us.

President Miles eyes narrowed, “He said what?!”

General Cooper repeated himself, “That they’ve come here because they’ve completely overpopulated their home solar system. They plan to move billions of their people to our system.”

She shook her head, “And he knows this how?”

Cooper shrugged, “He claims to have decoded their transmissions.”

“I thought the NSA said they couldn’t be translated for lack of a Rosetta Stone?”

“As I understand it, he’s using their verbal commands to their computers and the resultant actions by those computers as a form of Rosetta Stone for verbs. He also says he’s intercepted some encyclopedic data files containing images and, having deciphered their imaging protocol, he’s used those images to translate nouns.”

The president stared at him for a few moments, then said, “Have him explain that to some of our and NSA people so they can back check him.”

Cooper slowly shook his head, his dismay evident. “I don’t think we can. While Tiona and I were asking him about this she confronted him with the fact that the aliens were talking about exterminating the human race and he suddenly clammed up. He doesn’t answer questions. Hell, he doesn’t even seem to notice that anyone’s in the room with him. It’s like he’s catatonic… Or something like that—I don’t think catatonic’s the right word, but I don’t know much about abnormal psych.”

Miles drew her head back in disbelief, “You’re
not
asking me to make decisions—decisions that would affect everyone on this planet—based on statements made by a man that you’re
also
telling me is having a mental breakdown?!” Looking at Cooper’s expression she frowned unbelievingly and said, “Are you?”

Cooper took a deep breath, “The man’s bizarre, no doubt, but he’s a bona fide genius. I think you’ve got to at least know what he said and factor that into your decision-making…” The president didn’t tell him to stop, so Cooper continued, “He says this race of aliens has done this many times. They overpopulate an entire solar system, kind of like humans have done the Earth, except on steroids. Then they put huge chunks of their population into hibernation and move them to another system, like they plan to do to ours.

“They
like
worlds like Earth with oxygen atmospheres, but they use almost all of the other bodies in a solar system as well. He says they’ll float cities up in the dense atmosphere of Venus, at an altitude where the temperature’s reasonable. I’ve looked it up, and that strategy’s actually been proposed by people here on Earth. They’ll dig in underground on Mars. They’ll also dig in underground on our Moon and in the big moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Smaller moons and asteroids they’ll form into hollow worlds where they’ll live weightlessly. They don’t need to ‘terraform’ worlds other than to provide sources of oxygen which they’ll get out of the carbon dioxide on Venus and out of oxide rocks on Mars and most of the moons. Instead, they use DNA manipulation to modify their bodies and their crops so they can thrive on worlds that they modify minimally.”

Looking aghast, the president leaned back in her chair, “I
can’t
take this on faith! You’ve
got
to find a way to confirm it. NSA’s got to check out his translation program and tell us they think it actually
translates
… I’ve got to know these aren’t all just a bunch of delusions!”

Cooper raised his hands in a gesture of hopelessness, “I agree. Absolutely. But we’ve got to have the man come out of whatever state he’s in so he can let them access the program and tell them how it works.”

“Have them break into his computers and find the program for themselves! I’ll authorize it on a Presidential order. We’ve got a genuine state of emergency here.”

Cooper slowly shook his head, “Not a good idea. Remember the NSA guys couldn’t even break into his computer when he was being
held captive
in Korea
.” Cooper shook his head, “If they try it now and he’s functional enough to recognize what’s going on, it might destroy
any
chance we have of getting some answers.”

“Can Tiona try to get permission to access this translation program?”

“I’ll ask her to try… every day until she gets it.”

“Meanwhile,” Miles said with a sigh, “in case he’s right, we need to figure out
how
to fight. I’m putting you in charge of that because my impression is that Stoddard’s a little bit of a loose cannon. I’m not telling you to fire him, after all he’s been studying these kinds of problems for quite a while, but I want
you
to be the boss.”

***

Washington DC — Some are blaming the Secretary of State for sending Kurt Shapiro, a very junior member of the State Department as our first emissary to the aliens rather than going himself. However, it is difficult to fathom what a more senior negotiator might have achieved, as evidently no communication whatsoever was achieved with the aliens prior to the attack on the saucer that killed Mr. Shapiro.

Bitter wrangling has broken out in Congress over the proposed nature of our response to the aliens. Conservative hawks, pointing out that the aliens have actually already fired the first shot, argue for an all-out attack aimed at obliteration. Liberal doves, fearing the aliens advanced technology, argue that any aggressiveness could incite a devastating response from the aliens, up to and including obliteration of the human race.

Responses from around the world vary as widely, but the majority seem to be advocating a peaceful approach. Because, at this early stage in the development of thruster technology, the United States through GSI has almost the only true space going craft, other countries are mostly limited to advocating for or against aggressive responses.

It is thought, however, that some countries may be attempting to dismantle various construction lifters or commercial thruster-based aircraft, repurposing the thruster technology contained in those craft for use in their own spaceships. This is, of course, is forbidden by GSI’s patents and contracts. It must be noted that GSI has intentionally constructed their thrusters in ways that make them difficult to reverse engineer or repurpose. In fact, when others have attempted to repurpose thrusters in the past, the electronics which power the thruster discs have had an alarming tendency to fail catastrophically. When this happens GSI not only refuses to honor their warranties, but refuses to sell the offending entity
any
more thrusters. However, in a time of emergency…

Tiona had her car lower itself down to street level before entering the park. She still felt uncomfortably ostentatious showing up at an outdoor event by dropping in with a flying car. She also felt a little bit awkward going to any kind of an event while the aliens were approaching. However, after spending a couple of weeks thinking about little else but the aliens, she thought that maybe a little break would help. When Carolyn’s invitation to watch the Fourth of July fireworks arrived, it seemed like a dose of the girl’s bubbly personality might be just what she needed.

Tiona’s AI helped her pick her way through the halfheartedly cheering crowd to Carolyn’s location at the edge of the lake. She had the impression that many of the people were trying to act enthusiastic despite their concerns about the impending arrival of the aliens. When she got close enough to actually see Carolyn and her friends they seemed to be in much better spirits than the rest of the crowd, something Tiona thought she should have expected, knowing Carolyn. They proved to be standing in the water, something that didn’t seem like a bad idea on a hot summer evening.

Then Tiona saw Nolan. A flood of emotions roiled over her; ranging from guilt that she hadn’t called him for a serious talk, to irritation that he was still hanging out with Carolyn. Though, cognitively, she was honest enough to wonder why he wouldn’t; certainly Tiona wasn’t hanging out with him herself. What other outlets did he have, after all?

Emotionally, however, she couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

She’d stopped, wondering whether it had been a good idea to come, when Nolan saw her. Instead of diffidently awaiting her approach like he had the other times they’d met around Carolyn, this time he strode her way. He had to high step and lean into the thigh high water, but he did it with determination.

When he arrived and threw his arms around Tiona, she remembered how Carolyn had been the one to approach and greet her at the festival on the Eno. Something had changed. Nolan didn’t have a hangdog look about him during this approach. Holding her tightly, he said, “Are you okay?”

“Um, sure…”
Ok with what?
Tiona wondered.
Our relationship?

“
You
shouldn’t have been out there getting shot at!
I
should be doing that crap! If that shot had hit
you
…” his voice broke and he paused for a moment to get it back in control, “it would’ve been a catastrophe! And not just for me; for… for the whole damned world!” Releasing his hug, he leaned back to look into her eyes.

Looking into his serious gaze, Tiona suddenly thought,
He’s so damn good looking! No wonder Carolyn likes having him around.
And having him look at me this way with his eyes glistening…
Her mind jumped back to their conversation, where she’d kind of lost track,
catastrophe,
she remembered. “I’m far from indispensable…”

“The hell you aren’t!” Nolan interrupted hotly. “And it’s
not
just how much you matter to me,” he said in a voice crackling with emotion. “The whole world needs you. They may not know just
how
important you are to them… but they should!”

How much I matter to him?
Tiona thought. She looked into his eyes again and saw something there. A longing. “But… what about…” she didn’t finish her sentence, but her eyes strayed to Carolyn momentarily. Carolyn was talking animatedly to one of the other guys standing in the lake. She was either uninterested in Tiona’s conversation with Nolan, or was at least doing a good job of appearing indifferent to it.

Nolan saw where her eyes had gone, and turned to look hard at her. “Tiona, I won’t try to pretend that Carolyn’s not attractive, or that I don’t enjoy being around her… but I
love
you.”

Tiona tore her eyes away from his and looked out into the dimming sky, “If that’s true…why are you still hanging around her?”

“Because
you
won’t answer my calls. You don’t respond to my messages. Carolyn lets me know if you’re going out with her so I can try to run into you… because
she
knows how important you are to me.” He shrugged, “Besides, if you
never
let me back into your life… Ah, I’d like to think I could be with her, but I know in my heart she wouldn’t be a good match for me in the long run. I sure as hell wouldn’t be a good match for her, but for now she’s kind enough to keep me… entertained.”

Tiona looked down at the ground, “But you’ve slept with her.” She said it as if she knew that to be a fact, though she didn’t.

Nolan said sadly, “Yeah, I’ve slept with her.” Tiona’s heart skipped a beat at this bald faced admission, but then he continued, “She’s been at my house when I woke up a few times. But I imagine you want to know if I’ve had
sex
with her. If I have, I don’t remember it.”

Tiona gaped at him, “You’re going to try to tell me that you don’t remember sleeping with a girl like that?” Her eyes shot to the beautiful Carolyn, standing in the water in her tiny bikini, laughing with her bouquet of friends.

“I don’t actually think I did,” Nolan said desolately, “but I can’t be sure since I was so drunk I don’t remember a lot of things from those two nights.” He looked hard into her eyes again, “The last thing I
ever
want to do is lie to you.”