Vatican Ambassador (26 page)

“We brought one of the Eldred to the Moon,” she tells him, “Where he probably infected the members of the conference.”

Woah. This is big. This is major! I
did
see her there!

“So, then, this plague is your fault!” BC throws down the accusation. “I can’t believe it! You’re telling me you helped an alien race kill us all! That’s fucking brilliant! You guys are
really
smart!”

God save us from the scientists...

“Jeesh,” Krish reacts first, “How do you really feel?”

“We didn’t all agree that the Eldred should be allowed to travel here,” Dell says. Anita shoots a look at him, but Dell stands his ground.

“It’s Anita’s fault, if it’s anybody’s” Krish offers.

“What?” BC and Anita ask in unison.

“You’re in charge here. That makes it your fault. Plus, we did it
your
way,” Krish says to Anita “She knows it’s her fault,” Krish says, turning to BC. “That’s why she dragged your sorry ass into this.” Krish smiles at his Sherlock Holmes turn. “Shows just how desperate she is.”

Anita tries to explain and defend herself.

“The Eldred are new to us! We’ve been trying to get to know them better, but it hasn’t been easy. They’re a very secretive race, very closed to outsiders. They’re... aloof,” she says. “They keep us at arms length.”

“Yeah, even though they have such short, little blue arms,” Krish jokes. Everybody gives him a look.

“What? It was getting way too serious in here!” Krish protests in his own defense.

“Thanks to you!” Anita says.

“I wouldn’t get mad at
him
,” BC admonishes her; “You’re the one who’s got some explaining to do!”

I knew she was trouble! Even as a scientist, she’s trouble!

“Look. I thought bringing one of them here would
maybe
lead them to open up to us a bit more. They seemed very interested in seeing the peace conference,” Anita says.

“They have expressed an interest in what they call our ‘concept of religion’,” Dell says.

“We thought their interest, the way they warmed up to the idea of coming here to observe the peace conference… it made us think we were getting through to them,” Anita says.

“Who’s this ‘we’?” Krish asks her. “You got a mouse in your pocket?” He turns to BC, “They played

‘us’ for fools,” he says, pointing a thumb at Anita.

“The Eldred representative traveled to Lunar Prime with a delegation from the Project,” Dell explains. “It escaped our supervision for a brief period, about three hours. The Eldred was found unharmed, and nothing more was thought of it. Until people started getting sick and dying.”

These guys fucked up big time...

“Are you familiar with the Old Greek concepts of Hubris and Nemesis?” Krish asks BC. Dell intercedes.

“Krish thinks our pride, our ‘Hubris’, has lead to this plague, that The Eldred are our ‘Nemesis’,” Dell tells BC.

“It’s easy to second guess,” Anita protests. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty!”

“How did you let this happen?” BC asks her.

“We were too trusting.”

“Why do they want to kill us?” BC asks.

“We don’t know,” Anita admits.

“This doesn’t make sense!” BC argues.

“We know that,” Anita sighs.

“Did they give any indication...” BC tries.

Anita cuts in. “There was no sign of malice, no sign they meant us any harm. If you only met one of them...”

“What?” BC can’t believe it.

Meet one of them? One of these “maybe” murderers? I don’t think so!

Anita begins to protest.

“They’re so mellow! They’re the last beings you’d even think would do...”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” BC blasts back.

And you, Ms. Anita, if that’s really your name, would be exhibit “A” for
that
axiom…

“It doesn’t do any good for any of us to raise our voices,” Dell states calmly. His quiet settles the room.

“We’ve been going at this briefing for a while. Perhaps we should take a break, rest, and come at this fresh later on,” Dell suggests.

“Are you kidding?” BC protests. “We’ve finally gotten down to the heart of things, the reason why I came here! Don’t stop now!”

Dell shakes his head, but agrees to go on. “Right.”

“Yes, Dell, there’s no reason to stop,” Anita says. “We’ll be good.”

“So the Eldred are the bad guys?” BC asks for clarification.

“Bad guys?” Dell almost sneers.

“I always do better when I can clearly define things,” BC says. “Black and white, good versus evil, friend versus enemy, us versus them. And the ‘them’ are the Eldred, right?”

“Ouch,” Anita cringes. “And you’re the enemy of the English language, right Campion?”

“You know what I mean,” he says.

“Yes. It looks like the Eldred did it,” Anita confirms. “And that
is
why I brought you here.”

“You know, the Flaze or the Domo could have engineered it to look like the Eldred did it,” Krish ventures.

“Your pet theory, again?” Dell chides him.

“Why would they do that?” BC asks Krish.

“Why indeed,” Dell echoes BC’s query.

“I don’t know...” Krish muses. “Maybe so we’ll take the Eldred out for them?! Get us to do the job of getting the Eldred out of their way? Lead us into doing their dirty work? They could have several reasons,” Krish observes.

“Are the aliens at war with each other?” BC asks.

“No,” Dell says. “They tolerate each other. They marked out their borders and staked their territories and claimed their planets over a million years ago. It’s very static out there. We’re the newcomers to this part of space. And they tolerate us.”

“No. I don’t think they do,” BC rebukes Dell. “You know… this plague thing?”

“I stand corrected,” Dell admits. “They had
seemed
to tolerate us, I should say. We’ve never seen any outright hostility on the part of any of the alien races. Certainly not between them. There are always some tensions, but they seem to work things out. Their cooperation could teach humans a thing or two,” Dell thinks out loud.

“Well, again, except for our attempted genocide!” BC again brings the scientist back to the matter at hand.

“They do not fight wars,” Dell tells BC sternly. “Not internally within their own races. And not with most other races. We strike them as unusually violent in this regard. We kill each other very easily,” he admonishes BC.

“The Eldred were particularly appalled at our violence toward each other,” Anita chimes in. “They never said anything to us, but we could see them draw back away from any sign of human aggression.”

“They’re fascinated by our religions, but they visibly paled and even shook when they heard reports of violence between humans, and read the histories of our current and former wars,” Dell says.

“They may have decided we were too violent a race to continue to live,” Anita ponders aloud.

“What?” BC answers sarcastically. “Since you kill each other easily, you’ll kill us eventually, so we’ll pre-emptively kill you all now? Nice people.” He shakes his head.

Almost makes me want to laugh. If only there wasn’t so much at stake.

“It’s only a guess,” Anita says.

Time to turn this around...

“As I see it, we have two goals,” BC tells them. “We first need to cure this thing that’s killing us. Then we need to strike back at the Eldred so they can’t do it to us again!”

“Confirming their suspicions,” Krish says, “That they were right to fear us!”

“Wrong!” BC snaps at him. “They changed the rules when they fucked with us first!”

“Careful, BC. We don’t yet know the extent of the Eldred’s holdings,” Anita cautions. “We’ve been to several of their outposts in the area, and what they consider outposts looked to us like full fledged colonies. I always felt we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” BC admits.

“I mean, they’re big, BC. Really big,” she says, shaking her head. “We have no idea how many they are in number, but we know they outnumber us humans on a nearly infinite scale.” She closes her eyes and whispers, “It’s not a war we can win.”

“Why do we know so little?” BC demands of them.

“Because, we’ve only just begun to get to know them,” Anita protests.

“Yeah, too bad, then, that we’ll have to kill ‘em,” BC cracks. Nobody laughs. “You know, this could be a good thing,” BC says.

“How?”

“No way!”

“I don’t think so!”

“Okay, hear me out,” BC tells them. “If the public finds out we’re facing an alien enemy, maybe the human race can unite in the face of a common foe! Fighting aliens might make other humans seem, I don’t know, a lot less alien, I guess,” BC observes. “Maybe this is something that can unite the human race.”

“That’s an interesting yet twisted way to look at it,” Krish answers first.

“We could use the help,” BC says. “We haven’t been able to do it by ourselves.”

“There’s one more thing,” Dell says.

“Isn’t there always?” BC sighs.

“After the Eldred agent returned from his ‘disappearance’ he was strangely relaxed,” Dell tells him. “He had seemed tense up to that point, though it can be hard to read alien body language.”

“Actually, the Eldred act a lot like us,” Krish says. “Body language-wise, I mean.”

“We’d always observed this tension in them, as a race, ever since we first met them,” Anita says. “We thought it was just the way they were. But after he came back from disappearing, the Eldred who had come with us to Lunar Prime was almost... jeesh, almost carefree. It was weird,” she says. She looks from Krish to Dell, then back at BC. “So. That pretty much does it,” she tells him. “Now you know everything we know.” She smiles.

“So…” she says, turning to BC. “Do you want to head out to the asteroid base tonight, or wait until tomorrow morning?”

What?

“To the asteroid base?” BC manages to say, though stunned. “You mean we’re going out to...”

“Well, yeah, it’s the next logical step,” Anita says, cutting him off. “You really should meet the old man. I told him I thought you were the right person to help us. He’s big on having the right person with the right set of skills on the right project at the right time for whatever project we’re working on, it’s one of his

‘things’. I told him you have the skills we need right now. He wants to meet you.”

“Thanks,” BC tells her. “I think. But I am tired. And if I’m meeting the ‘old man’ I’d like to be at my best. How about we go tomorrow morning?”

“That’s fine. Krish, can you show Campion to his room? I want to go over something with Dell here.”

“Sure,” Krish agrees. “Campion?”

BC gets up to follow Krish, who’s already on his way out the door of the conference room.

“I’ll give you a wake up call with enough time to eat and get ready before we fly out,” Anita tells him as he leaves the room.

“Thanks,” BC says.

BC follows Krish to his room, a nondescript stateroom with a bed, desk and chair and refresher. When he’s left alone, BC lies down on the bed and lets the incredible tale he has just been told sink in.
Wow... what a mindful!

We are not alone... matter of fact, we’ve got lots of company.

Who are the Eldred? The Flaze? The Domo?

How lucid is the ‘old man’?

BC’s head is spinning as he tries to fall asleep.

The Domo are vampires?

The Flaze flew the UFOs?

The Eldred are trying to kill us?

BC wakes to a ringing com.

Didn’t even feel like I fell asleep... but I must have.

“I’m awake!” he answers the com.

“Good, because this is your wake up call,” Anita’s voice rings out from a hidden speaker.

“Right,” BC says.

“We’re leaving for the asteroid base in one hour. Please be ready,” she says, and the com clicks off. BC

gets up and gets freshened up best he can.

A change of clothes and a shower would be better. Like to be able to check my messages, too.
See some news; find out how bad this thing is spreading now. There’s no outside contact here.
And now we’ll just, what, bip out to the asteroids? We’re moving pretty quickly.
The room alarm rings in an hour. BC opens the door on Anita, waiting for him.

“Ready?” she asks him.

“I guess,” BC says. “I would have liked to have gotten a shower in.”

“Fussy, fussy,” she chides him. “You’ll be fine.” She makes a show of smelling him. “You don’t stink too bad, Campion,” she says with a laugh. “The ship is waiting for us at the lock, the same place we came in. Come on.”

BC follows Anita through the base to the airlock. She opens the door and then steps aside so BC can step through first.

“Go ahead,” she says. “Time for your universe to expand!”

BC chuckles in spite of himself and steps though the airlock into another ‘flasher’.
It’s a different ship than the one we came over on yesterday. Looks bigger, at least inside. I
wonder what the outside looks like? Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.
BC looks down the long, empty corridor in both directions as Anita cycles the airlock closed behind them.

“Big ship?” he asks Anita.

“What?” She says, figures out what he said, “Oh. Yeah, big ship. Bigger than the last one we were on, anyway.” She gestures up the corridor to their right. “Let’s head to the bridge.”

“Is this gonna be a long trip?” BC asks her.

“Nah, the bridge isn’t that far,” Anita says. Before BC can protest she laughs, “A joke! The trip won’t take long, either. We’ll travel up off the elliptic, turn on the Transpace drive, and be there almost instantaneously! The longest part of the trip is flying far enough away from a planet’s gravity well, up to where we have to be in order to make the jump safely, and then flying from the transit point on the other end down to the asteroid base. The Transpace event is surprisingly fast. Whole flight takes about an hour.”

“Just an hour? Wow!” BC is impressed.

“Some of our interstellar trips are even faster,” Anita tells him. “We can transit from almost anywhere, but don’t dare to do so into the asteroids. So we’ll take a little while to fly in to the base. It’s in a busy neighborhood. The safe point is a lot further out than it is for most of the planets we visit.”