The Triple Goddess (131 page)

Even the
apparatchiks
of a repressive regime must see the wisdom of “engaging in meaningful dialogue” with a people who were so technologically superior to them. For if all nations were to work together, perhaps some way or means might be discovered whereby these vengeful
vol-au-vents
, these minatory marbles, these rumbustious rocks—to wit, the meteorites—might be diverted to a region of barren and unpopulated stars where they might harmlessly vent their spleens. Perhaps some reverse magnetism could be generated that would be powerful enough to slow them down, then stall them; maybe even send them back whence they came. However far-fetched the concept, in order to leave no stone unturned…as it were…no tactical method was unworthy of consideration and investigation, and even the most outlandish idea should not be discounted.

Guesswork might play a part. Good luck would be OK too.

The Blenders, having observed Human behaviour since inception of the race, were the sole dissenters. They were most doubtful that Water-Sky would be received cordially, let alone its crew treated as potential saviours. As steeped as Mankind was in blood, as innumerable were its misdeeds, Lightyear had not found a scrap of evidence of contrition amongst Earth’s factions of willingness to, if not ask forgiveness for their foolish ways, re-clothe themselves in their rightful minds—per the words of the American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier—and begin a programme of constructive atonement.

Even if they did, the Blenders said, it was likely too late. Despite the countless Acts of God that had been visited upon it…of earthquake, wind, and fire; tsunami, flood, and volcanic eruption; despite the decimations of the population by plagues and pandemics like the Black Death, and Bird Flu; and despite the ever-accelerating global warming, the result of unabated pollution, that was responsible for so radically altering climates, seasons, and and life-forms…the rulers of the Human Race, in failing to evince any awareness of the cause-and-effect relationship between Humanity’s actions and such calamities, would not be willing to listen to any placatory party that might, as Whittier wrote,

Breathe through the heats of our desire

Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,

O still, small voice of calm!

Nothing, Lightyear’s representatives maintained, could shake Mankind’s faith in itself and its capacity, even enthusiasm, for reckless behaviour. The Central State government, those from Lightyear maintained, fearful of the inimical motives of a force from outer space, and disbelieving the visitors’ representations of peace and offers of assistance in dealing with a peril of which it had no knowledge, would treat the Blenders as invaders to be quelled or expelled without giving them a hearing. The sudden arrival of aliens would spark the sort of panic that had been written about and depicted in many a science fiction story and film.

Maybe in the past things might have been different, when a degree of democracy still existed on Earth; but Central’s authoritarian measures had revoked every citizen liberty and electoral freedom. Earth’s rulers would do everything to resist what they perceived as an attempt by a
force majeure
to challenge their supremacy and control.

Nonetheless, after giving weighty consideration to what the Blenders had to say, the Executive Committee decided that Water-Sky must reveal itself on Earth, so that the Blenders on behalf of all other civilizations might introduce themselves and apprise Mankind of their mutual plight.

Chapter Twelve

And so it was that Water-Sky arose from the bed of the Pacific Ocean, like Venus Anadyomene surrounded by dolphins. But none of those who witnessed it remarked upon the Botticellian beauty of the scene, and rushed off for canvas and easel, brushes and paint box with which to record the event. Nobody was moved to express the vision poetically, or burst into song, or fall down on his or her knees in wonder.

At first the sight of Water-Sky’s great shell, and receipt of its broadcast transmissions of peace and goodwill to all Mankind, were met with disbelief by Central’s ever-vigilant security patrols. There was nothing in the instruction manuals about how to deal with such a situation. Appeals for direction to Central’s Chief of Defence, Donald Silicant 3823A, were met only with the suggestion by his Department that naval aircraft and ships should circle whatever it was that they were seeing for a few hours, in case the giant structure might turn out to be a mirage, and disappear as suddenly as it had shown itself, so that it could be written up as a Marine Misnomer and buried in the Defence archives as an appendix to the Extraterrestrial Anomalies reports.

Silicant 3823A’s wishful thinking having had no effect, Central’s headquarters was soon frantic with activity, as the As, Bs, and Cs leaked a mixture of anger, fright, sweat, and worse at news of the incursion, and the challenge it must be assumed to pose to their authority. They were at a loss to understand how Earth’s supposedly impenetrable security shields had been breached. Silicant himself, who was found drunk and sitting on the toilet in an
A
s-only bathroom, was given a sobriety pill and four hours to put an explanation together that would exonerate him from dereliction of duty, before he was ordered to take another pill, of cyanide; and his Deputy, Eleanor Short-Planck 9577B was given a shot of nootropics, or smart drugs, to boost her intelligence by enhancing her brain’s neurochemical supply of neurotransmitters, enzymes, and hormones, and promoted as a probationary A Class to take over from Silicant as Chief of Defence.

Water-Sky’s Captain remained under orders from the Executive Committee to confine his station’s activity to broadcasting the same message over and over, and to await whatever response might be forthcoming. In addition, he was to instruct his teams of specialists, now that the station was above water, to use the time by combining in the fission chambers certain of the star Lightyear’s mineral compositional elements, which they had brought with them, with those present on Earth, and recording the levels of impedance affecting masses of various sizes moving at different speeds. The scientists also availed themselves of the opportunity to take additional gravitational readings, measure atmospheric pressures and densities, and conduct further analysis of chemicals and gases.

The purpose of these experiments was to see whether it might be possible to form any new compounds that held promise as a defensive material, to be used as either a solid or elastic barrier; or generate a combustion powerful enough to launch a planetary body into hyperspace out of harm’s way.

To the Blenders’ great disappointment every result came back negative, and all that happened was that a very unpleasant smell came from the cylinder valves, not dissimilar to that being exuded by the As, Bs, and Cs. It took the conditioning filters—Lightyear had a similar mix of air to that of Earth, but with a much higher proportion of oxygen to nitrogen and carbon dioxide, plus particles of something akin to vanilla—several hours to remove the fumes so that Water-Sky’s occupants could again breathe through their noses.

The reasons for failure were depressingly clear. Although it was known that the atmosphere on Earth, thousands of years ago when it was pristine, would have been sufficiently pure to be of use, it had long been too contaminated, the waters were too polluted, and the rock deposits were too depleted of essential minerals for any formula to be therapeutic.

At Central’s headquarters the A, B, and C Class executives, having restored order amongst themselves, and had the Zs do the same to the working of the Saniflush systems in the washrooms, caucused swiftly. Filled with Imodium and indignation, they vied with each other in the rhetorical vehemence of their expressions of resolve to have no truck with any so-called ambassadors who might emerge from the spaceship to try and gull the leadership with overtures of friendship and common interest.

For Central’s hierarchy was convinced that the Blenders were not a people at all, but the mutant offspring of DNA that had been introduced into the latest generation of computers; which, having gained access to State’s secret governmental databases and moved offshore, had massed against them with the intent of wresting control of the world away from the As, Bs, and Cs, and either destroying them, or taking them home as slaves or trophies to put in their zoos.

Central’s supreme command ground its teeth as the preposterous transport continued to sit upon the briny like a discarded child’s toy. This was a lot more ominous than the old days of UFO sightings, and quaint cabalistic crop circles around the countryside: it was a declaration of war. Any alien body that was guilty of usurping Central’s authority by sneaking a fortress-like vehicle into the Pacific Ocean, thereby posing a threat and hazard to aircraft and shipping, and damaging the fibre-optic cables on the ocean floor, was inviting the severest of retributive actions.

Having imposed a one-hundred mile off-limits siege zone around Water-Sky, so as to empty it of oil tankers, fishing trawlers, and its own pleasure craft, Central sent the Pacific Arm of the Neptune Naval Force, which was equipped with every latest type of military weapon, into the area with orders to commence a full-scale assault upon the superb carapace. As soon as the fleet was in position it did so; but to the shock of those at HQ and to the awe of General Sherman Schockenauer 9990A…who, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prided himself on being shock-and-awe-proof…a dozen submarine-launched Shark torpedoes with homing devices detoured around the target, splayed into the ocean and eventually petered out and sank to sleep with the lesser fish for lack of anything to sink their teeth into.

Over the next several hours failure followed failure: ammunition from the guns of battleships, destroyers, and cruisers rebounded off Water-Sky’s skin without even denting or scratching it. Mines skirted around it without making the contact necessary to detonate themselves. The engines of Air Force bombers and helicopters lost power on approach, and their controls went haywire, so that they had to head back to base without firing their air-to-surface rockets and rocket-propelled grenades.

When the Army aimed ballistic missiles at the smug station from its Indonesian base, they converged upon and collided with each other in mid air and exploded, showering the ships with fragments of metal.

Powerful lasers, beamed at the shiny shell and reflecting off it, came close to inflicting terminal sunburn on the off-duty Central officers at a luxuriously-appointed nearby atoll resort, Shakei-Tabout. Some of them, incensed and waving their inadequately SPF’d arms, were on the beach in their swimming trunks and swimsuits, or less, jumping up and down with rage, unable to make contact with or return to Headquarters owing to digital-wave communications interference, and the malfunctioning of their Smogcutter air-booster backpacks that would have got them to the ships.

Even when a nuclear bomb was dropped on Water-Sky it exploded but caused no damage, except to initiate a tsunami that proved surprisingly weak, barely discombobulating the warships before it subsided. The apparently defective nuclear device, which had been made at a factory in the former Iran, created no mushroom cloud, and the recorders registered no evidence of beta and neutron-induced gamma radiation, or residual fallout.

The Blenders, who were green of mind but not of body like the stereotypical Martian, except when they were in the mood to be so in their choice of clothes, had no difficulty in diverting or neutralizing the weaponry that was deployed against Water-Sky; in fact there was nothing to be done, for its automatic systems and temper defended and protected it against everything that was brought to bear. The only effect of the attacks was to make the denizens of Lightyear concerned that, like a swarm of bees, the meteorites might become further enraged by such unpacific activity in that supposedly Pacific region, and increase their doom-laden pace.

Although the radar stations registered no sign that this was the case, expressions of relief within Water-Sky were few and muted.

While the station continued to sit, giant and invulnerable, and Central’s military strategists scratched their heads, unable to decide what to do next, the airwaves went dead and their computer screens blank, as Water-Sky complied with the order, relayed from the Alliance’s Executive Committee on Lightyear, to cease transmission while its representatives deliberated what, if anything, might be done next.

The As, Bs, and Cs were divided as to what the interruption in the broadcast of propaganda might mean: whether it was the lull before the storm of a retaliatory action, or a token of willingness on the part of the invaders to parley or surrender. But no white flag was raised from the spaceship; it did not sink back into the ocean, or take off, nor did any portal open in its side from which the chastened Blenders, acknowledging the futility of proceeding against such dedicated opposition, might file with their heads, or whatever it was they had on their shoulders, if they had shoulders—perhaps, as Othello told Desdemona, they were such men whose heads did grow beneath them—hanging to surrender.

If they did, Central’s torturers and interrogators, under the able leadership of Doris Dungeness 2984B, would soon be ready to entertain them in the mobile chamber of horrors that they were, even as they spoke, setting up in the sauna block on Shakei-Tabout, sharpening the kitchen and dining utensils, and collecting together the sport-fishing harpoons and hooks, and connecting extension cords to as many assembled electrical appliances as current could be supplied to by the generators without overloading the system. There could be a lot of fish to fry.