Alien Affairs

January 1955

Ashly was startled when he heard the door open and looked to see a woman enter the, now frigid, language lab. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Ashly or Gray?” she asked.

“That depends.”

“This should explain.” She offered him an envelope.

It was a memo from Allen Dulles. “You’re to work with us?”

“That’s right. I’m to confirm your information.”

Ashly’s immediate reaction was anger. “Who doesn’t believe us, Dulles or Eisenhower?”

“The director is having a hard time accepting the religious implication of what you are telling him.”

“I thought he didn’t trust women with sensitive information.” Ashly reread the memo to assimilate her name. “Miss Oberlin.”

“Allen is a very complex man when it comes to dealing with women.”

Ashly looked at the memo once more. “You’re the Reverend Margaret Oberlin?”

“That’s right. I’m an ordained minister. That’s partly why Allen chose me to confirm your information. He assumes I am incapable of lying.”

“And I’m not.”

“You have to admit, it’s a rather big assertion.”

Ashly crossed his arms. “So I’m to teach you a new language. What language skills do you have?”

“I’m a scholar of ancient languages. I read ancient Greek, Latin of course, Hebrew and Aramaic. Don’t you have any heat in here?”

“Comfort is the least of what we’re lacking. Do you take dictation?”

“No.”

Ashly sighed and said, “All right, we’ll start with the alphabet.”

By spring Margaret had sufficient grasp of the alien language to confirm the gist of what Ashly and Gray had told Eisenhower. During that time, while Ashly tutored Reverend Oberlin, Gray had added to their knowledge the method of exterminating the human race.

“Dear God, that’s disturbing,” Oberlin said. “We must take this to Allen.”

Gray asked, “Are you on a first name basis with the director?” He thought she might have blushed.

“Yes, Allen and I go back a long way.”

“Anyway, you’re quite right. We mustn’t sit on this.”

Since the weather was mild, Dulles went to the language lab when Margaret told him they had news. It was the first time he had seen the place. “This place is a shit hole. How can you work here?”

“We do the best with what we are given,” Ashly said with sarcasm.

“So, what have you found?”

Margaret said, “First, let me assure you that every word Miles and Bert have told you is true to the extent that it is written in the document on the reading machine that purports to be the aliens’ mission plan.”

“That still doesn’t make it true.”

“Allen, I am as appalled by it as you are, but it makes no sense that it should be false if we were never intended to see it.”

Dulles looked like he bit into something sour. “So, what is new?”

Ashly said, “Sir, we have found how they intend to get rid of us.”

“Atom bombs?”

“No, sir, sterilization.”

“Huh?”

“They plan to broadcast an aerosol containing a chemical that will sterilize all human beings.”

Dulles fell silent processing the information. He looked worried. “That’s as preposterous as having made us.”

“Apparently when they made us they bred into us a vulnerability to the agent.”

“If that were true it should have made everybody sterile when the saucer blew up.”

“Apparently they weren’t carrying it.”

“Oh, right. Well, I’ve got to take this to the president.”

“There’s more,” Margaret said. “We now know how long it takes them to get here, presuming they’re coming from their home planet.”

“How do you know that?”

“Our code breaker worked that out. Bertie was able to decipher their method of keeping time and translate that to the rate of acceleration of their spaceships,” Ashly said. “It was quite a job since their time keeping is based on the oscillation of cesium atoms.”

Dulles looked impatient. “So how long until they get here?”

“From Tau Ceti it will take them fifty-seven years, so if they leave as soon as they receive word of the crash, they could be here by 2016.”

“See? There’s nothing to worry about. The Russians will probably have vaporized us long before then.”

Margaret said, “Allen, don’t be cynical. You and Foster aren’t going to let that happen.”

“All right, then, keep me posted on anything new. Ike will be glad to hear it’s not going to happen during his term.” Dulles abruptly left the shabby lab and decided to walk to the White House. Eisenhower gave him a minute of his time.

“So, you believe it now?” the president asked.

“No, I refuse to deny the existence of God, but I accept that these aliens said it. Just because they can travel in outer space doesn’t mean they know everything.”

“We can’t deny that they were here. We have to take some defensive action. How is von Braun doing?”

“He says he’s making progress but every second rocket he builds blows up on the launch pad. That’s not why I came here, though. The alien team made another discovery. They know how they plan to wipe us out and when.”

“When?”

“Yes, you’ll be glad to hear it’s not until 2016 and they plan to sterilize us.”

“What?”

“They plan to spray something into the atmosphere that makes us all sterile.”

“So, the human race will slowly die off until there is just one person left alive. That’s wicked.”

“To their way of thinking it’s humane. They don’t actually kill anyone or harm other species.”

“Jesus Christ. Well, we won’t be here to worry about it.”

“There’s something else to think about.”

“What’s that?”

“If they intended to do it in 1947, they must have had the stuff with them. Where is it?”

“You’re sure it’s not at Wright Patterson?”

“Fairly. If it’s going to contaminate the entire atmosphere there has to be a lot of it.”

“There’s no telling about their technology. You better tell Wright Patterson to recheck their inventory and take a close look at anything they don’t fully understand.”

“Check, but there is another possibility.”

“Such as?”

“They could have planted it somewhere and intend to detonate it remotely.”

“Shit. If that’s the case the signal could get here any time.”

“Exactly.”