Alien Affairs

Carrie spent several days following reports of squads of soldiers—and in sensitive places, CIA field operatives—meticulously searching each of the landing sites that NASA recorded. The three alien craft continued to approach the surface of the earth, and NASA faithfully logged them, but Carrie suspected that these landings were abductions rather than red herrings. Regardless, they served the same purpose, and air defenses all around the world scrambled jets whenever radar detected intrusions to no avail. Carrie occasionally chatted with Deshler—also to no avail.

A tent community sprouted on the lawn around the Washington Monument. Their demands were never very clear, but they seemed to blame the predicament, in a rotating fashion, on big corporations, global warming and Republicans. A blizzard swept down from the northern plains and they hurried home to their Section 8 apartments and homeless shelters. Carrie watched their antics with a mixture of wry amusement and disgust.

On a day when the sun reflected blindingly from the snow blanket that cleared the occupiers from the Mall, Director Turnbull summoned Carrie to her office. “When did you last talk to your boyfriend?” Turnbull asked as Carrie settled in the visitor’s chair.

“He’s not a boy—he’s not even a ‘he,’ and it was two days ago. He was doing an abduction in the Scottish Highlands and wanted to talk about the particular belligerence of the Scot they grabbed.”

“You better call him. Some olive pickers in Argentina captured one of his cronies. You’ll have to fly down there and negotiate.”

“Negotiate what?”

“Negotiate the little bastard’s release in exchange for the locations of the time release capsules,” Turnbull said as if explaining the obvious to a thickheaded child.

“By myself?”

“You can take your camp followers. Offer them Eddy as a pot sweetener.”

“How about Gibbs and Overton?”

“Take one of them. This isn’t a junket.”

“How did they manage to capture it?”

“Evidently it was just walking around the olive grove looking for a potential abductee. The pickers had all sorts of tarps for catching the olives so they threw one over its head and tackled it.”

“Who has it now?”

“The Argentine military. We told them we were sending a translator. Boy were they impressed. Get to Reagan Airport as fast as you and your group can. There will be a private jet waiting for you.”

Carrie left Turnbull’s office and took the elevator to her floor feeling excited and frightened. In the bullpen she said, “Anybody want to go to Argentina to see an alien?”

Jan declined due to pressing matters, but Paul, Eddy and Overton sprinted to the airport. While driving home to pack Carrie called Deshler. He was beside himself.

“I am surrounded by incompetents,” he declared. “How long will it take you to arrange Onath’s release?”

“Onath, huh? It will take about half a rotation of the planet to arrive where he is being held. After that I cannot guess. I will have no direct control over the people holding him. If I can get him released, what will you do for me?”

“Want to ride in a space ship?”

“No. I want to know where the canisters are hidden and how to disable them.”

“Carrie Player, you know that is too much to ask.”

“Onath is not worth that much?”

“His stupidity got him into this. It serves him right to spend the rest of his days in one of your zoos.”

“Deshler, what a hard hearted thing to say.”

“First my circulatory organ is big, now it is hard. You have a curious interest in the flow of my bodily fluids.”

“Think about my proposition. I will call when I meet with Onath. Going.”

“Going.”

At home Carrie started packing sweaters then remembered where she was going and pulled the sweaters out of her bag. With a good supply of summer clothes stuffed hastily into the suitcase, and a certain knowledge that something was forgotten, she wheeled the bag to the garage, threw it into the trunk and started toward the airport on icy roads. Carrie was the last to arrive and the Learjet took-off twenty minutes after she stowed her bag.

When the plane landed on the Argentinian air force base at Córdoba it was immediately surrounded by soldiers with automatic rifles. Eddy looked through a porthole and said, “What the hell kind of a greeting is this?”

Carrie said, “It’s a socialist greeting for aggressive capitalists.” She was tired and irritable after listening to Eddy snore for ten hours.

“They were expecting us, weren’t they?” Eddy asked.

“Sure. Come on, let’s meet the natives,” Carrie replied.

By the time the copilot lowered the stairs a Jeep had arrived and an officer descended from it. “Buenos días, senora. Soy coronel Hidalgo-Gallegos. Bienvenidos al Área Logística Córdoba.”

“Buenos días, coronel. ¿Por que hay fusileros alrededornos?”

“Son medidas de seguridad normal.”

Carrie grunted. He was probably telling the truth but she did not appreciate his normal security measures. “¿Por si a caso habla ingles?”

“Cierto, pero usted habla la lengua como nativa.”

“Gracias, pero mi equipo no habla español, ni palabra.”

“Entonces seguiremos in English.”

“Thank you, Colonel, my team appreciates it.”

“Then, senora, when do you intend to take this creature back to the United States?”

“We don’t intend to take it. We intend to repatriate it with its crew in exchange for information.”

The colonel shook his head. “This is not acceptable. It is an abomination. You must remove it from here soonest possible.”

“Colonel, are you not aware of what these aliens have done to our planet? Do you not want to find a solution to the problem?” Carrie said exasperated.

“Frankly, few of us believe the stories. God would not let such a thing happen. It is most likely a fabrication of your government to justify imperialism.”

While Carrie silently counted to ten, she recognized she was dealing with a socialist, militarist, Catholic ideologue with strong anti-Anglo Saxon inclinations. “Let me interview the prisoner and we will see what we can do. By the way, its name is Onath.”

“You are truly able to speak to this thing?” Hidalgo-Gallegos asked.

“Por supuesto.” Carrie accepted his hand to climb into the Jeep. A second and third car arrived to carry her team and their bags, and they drove over the tarmac. The sun was devilishly hot and Carrie wished she had rethought her DC-power black pantsuit. The base seemed surprisingly small to her. They drove between some hangars to the gate of a quadrangular courtyard. Guards saluted the colonel and allowed them to pass. In the courtyard the driver parked by a closed door and two more guards.

“You are prepared for the unpleasantness of this, are you not?” Hidalgo-Gallegos asked as he helped Carrie from the backseat.

“You mean the smell?”

“Yes, we gave it a bath but it did nothing for it.”

The two following vehicles parked beside them. Eddy said, “You got that right. They stink like hell.”

Carrie said, “They say the same about us. Let’s get on with it.”

The colonel led them past the guards, through the steel door and into a waiting room. It looked like a typical backwater police station—plastic chairs, a closed security door and a thick Lexan window with a pass-through. A large angry looking man approached the window from within. Carrie noted his armband with the letters ‘PM’ and the fact that he had plugs of cotton in his nose. Hidalgo-Gallegos gestured to the door and the military policeman immediately opened it. The colonel waved for his guests to enter. Looking reluctant, he followed. Inside the man with cotton in his nose offered a box of the stuff to colonel who took it, tore off a piece and offered it to Carrie.

She was aware of a pungent odor in the room, but she declined. Eddy was less stoic and Paul and Overton accepted as well. The policeman led them through another massive door and into a row of cells. Hidalgo-Gallegos said, “We had to move the other prisoners. It was inhuman to leave them here.”

Carrie found that she was holding her breath and she was extremely nervous. Fear knotted her insides and she felt sweat in her armpits and on her upper lip. The alien sat on the cement bench of the last cell on the block. It remained unresponsive to its visitors.

“It does not eat anything we give it. It will only take some water and it hardly moves,” Hidalgo-Gallegos said.

Carrie said through the bars, “Come, Onath. Would you like to speak to Deshler?”

The alien turned its bulbous head, fixed her with its impenetrable black eyes and said, “So, you are the one who makes Deshler act like an adolescent.”

Carrie laughed which seemed to startle the alien. “Deshler and I have a special sort of relationship. Would you like to speak to him?”

“Yes, if I may.”

Carrie dialed her phone, activated the speaker and handed it through the bars. The alien crossed the small space and took it from her. She heard Deshler say, “Come, Carrie Player.” Onath answered and turned away from the watching humans.

“Remarkable,” said Hidalgo-Gallegos, “you can talk to them on your telephone?”

“Colonel, the CIA can do almost anything. Please keep that in mind as we continue these negotiations.”

She heard Eddy stifle a laugh as the Argentine bristled and Paul and Overton hid smiles behind their hands.

Onath reached through the bars to give Carrie the phone causing all the others to recoil slightly. “Deshler would like to speak to you,” it said.

“Come, Deshler, Onath seems well but he is not eating.”

“It serves him right. Will his captors return him to us?”

“Certainly, in exchange for the coordinates of all the canisters you concealed and instructions for disarming them.”

“Why don’t we just deliver a supply of rations for Onath and you can keep him?”

“Deshler, stop being a fool. You must take him back and you know it.”

There was silence for a time. “Carrie Player, would you release him for the knowledge of containable fusion?”

That knocked Carrie off balance for a second, then she realized the absurdity of it. “Deshler, dammit, what good is cold fusion to a race with two generations left to live?”

“What if I include the calculations for all allowable orbits of electrons? You would find it most useful in heavier elements, carbon most notably, and with fissionable elements you could discover how we stopped your nuclear explosions.”

“Same objection, Deshler. Not enough time left to use it. It is location of canisters or nothing.”

Deshler sighed. “Allow me to confer with Onath’s shipmates to see if they want him back enough to compromise their mission. You will, of course, listen to our private conversation.”

“Do you want to speak to Onath again?”

“No. Going.”

“Going.” She terminated the call.

The colonel said, “Please tell us what in God’s name is going on.”

Carrie smiled at his discomfort. “Colonel, we know that the aliens have hidden containers of the virus that has made us all sterile. Yes, it’s true. Even your machismo is not immune to it. If we don’t find those canisters your pinche huevos are going to shrink to the size of quails’ eggs.”

He looked doubtful. “What does that have to do with you taking this stinking creature back to Washington?”

“Onath is not going to Washington. Right now the other aliens don’t know where he is. He’s staying right here until we have those canisters, then we give him back.”

“How long will this take?” Hidalgo-Gallegos asked angrily.

Carrie drew a deep breath and gagged on the stink. “At the moment his friends don’t seem to think he is worth giving up the locations of their devices.”

“Then let us get the information out of this one.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Hidalgo-Gallegos stood straighter and swelled his chest inside his tight fitting khaki shirt. “We can make it talk if you can understand it.”

“Don’t be preposterous,” Carrie said.

Overton coughed. “Uh, maybe we should take a break and get some fresh air. Carrie, can we have a word in private?”

Carrie snapped her head toward him with a fair approximation of a Turnbull scowl. “Yes, but just a minute.” She said to Onath, “What can we get you to eat?”

Onath’s face remained, as always, completely impassive. Only the small movement of its mouth accompanied speech. “If you have some vegetable protein that would be sufficient.”

To Hidalgo-Gallegos she said, “Please find Onath some tofu and show us to our quarters while we wait for his shipmates to decide.”

“Tofu?” he said like he had a mouthful of it. “Argentinian food is the finest in the world, and this creature wants tofu!”

“You can’t account for alien taste, but the rest of us will be very glad to partake of your hospitality.”