Alien Affairs

November 10

Carrie took a call daily from Georgia Turnbull inquiring whether she had spoken with the aliens. “Not a peep out of them. How are things going in California?”

“We’ve delivered twelve SM-3 missiles with tactical nuclear warheads to SpaceX at Vandenberg Air Force Base and their shop in Hawthorne is working around the clock to fabricate explosive bolt brackets to attach them to the capsule. SpaceX made the thing with a cowling that will cover them for takeoff and can be jettisoned later—it’s perfect. You know, of course, you are not in the need to know for any of this?”

“At least you know I won’t be flapping my jaws in the White House pressroom.”

“Call me as soon as that phone rings. How do you feel about it?”

“Scared shitless.”

“You’ll do fine.”

Carrie aimed the remote at the television and spent a few minutes with the sound muted watching coverage of a crowd in Times Square. Some carried signs but most wandered looking up occasionally as if expecting to see flying saucers descending on them. “Poor bastards,” she said aloud, “if they only knew.”

She left the office but did not go home. Instead she stopped at a sports bar near her house in Georgetown. Her DC uniform—black pantsuit—drew suspicious looks from some of the more disreputable looking patrons. She ordered chardonnay and glanced around at the flat screens. Most displayed sports but a couple had news feeds of the people milling in front of the White House.

The barmaid noticed where she was looking and said when she parked the wineglass in front of her, “What do they think they’re going to accomplish out there?”

Carrie said without thinking, “They just want to be with other human beings.”

“Yeah, maybe. What do you think they look like?”

Carrie could not help smiling. “I think they are going to look like the aliens we see in the tabloids, little guys with big heads and big black teardrop eyes.”

“Huh. Well, I suppose that image had to come from somewhere. I wonder if they’re gonna make contact this time or just fly around some more.”

“My gut tells me this time there will be contact.”

“I hope you’re wrong. The idea gives me the creeps. It’s good for business, though.” She moved on to take other drink orders.

Carrie felt her phone vibrate. When she looked at the caller ID in the display, it was gibberish. Her heart slammed against her diaphragm. She chugged half the wine, put a napkin on top of the glass and ran outside before the call could go to voicemail. On the sidewalk she tapped the icon and said the normal greeting of the alien language, “Come.”

It took forever for the signal to go and return from interplanetary space. “Come,” a voice said. “You are a very clever creature. Are there many like you now?”

“I am the only person on this planet who can talk to you.”

“How did you manage it?”

“We found your reading device.” She realized that her heart was still racing. “We know why you are coming.”

“It would have been better if you did not.”

“Not for us. We are prepared now to stop you.”

“And how ever could you do that?”

“And why would I be fool enough to tell you?”

“It does make us proud to see how bright our creation has become, but that spark is precisely the reason we must prevent you from getting any smarter.”

“What exactly are you afraid of?”

“We did so well at making you ingenious, but we failed completely at making you passive.”

“That is right, and that is why we are not going to let you destroy us.”

“We are not going to destroy anyone. Look at it this way, everyone will be free to fornicate without need of contraception.”

“Is that your idea of a joke?”

“Actually, I was being serious.”

“What would we have to do to convince you that destroying us is unnecessary?” In the back of her mind she found it surreal to be negotiating for the survival of the species.

“It would not be up to us to make that decision. We have been sent here with orders that must be obeyed.”

“Look, we know where you are. We have the means to intercept and destroy you.”

“You see, it is exactly that belligerence that is the problem.”

“You don’t leave us a choice. You engineered us to survive and that is what we intend to do.”

“I will be interested to see what you attempt, but alas, it will fail.”

“Do not be so sure. We have had seventy years to develop our defenses since you were here.”

“We too have had the equivalent of your seventy planetary revolutions to develop our defenses. There will not be an incident like the last time. Apparently those oafs did not know how to fly.”

“How do you know we did not shoot them down?”

“We know.”

“All right. Do not say I did not warn you.”

“You are a very plucky example of your species, but I am afraid I can see that it is a bluff. I have enjoyed talking with you and look forward to doing so again. Now, I have work to do. Going.”

“Going.” She disconnected and slumped against the wall.

Back at the bar she swilled the last half of her wine and asked for whiskey neat. A man two stools away said, “That was some strange language you were speaking. What is it?”

She had not even noticed him pass her on the sidewalk. For a moment she felt panicky, then she said, “It’s the language of the Dogon people of Mali.”

“Yeah? How’d you ever pick that up?”

“I’m a missionary and a nun.”

That quashed his interest.

Carrie finished her scotch and left. She went home and poured another glass of wine before she dialed the director. “I got a call.”

“Oh, God, how did it go?”

“We had a nice chat but didn’t get anywhere. He—it—said they were under orders and had no choice but to go through with it and he didn’t believe we could stop them. He did, however, leave the possibility of more conversation open.”

“They went to the trouble of replicating a cell site, they’ll call again and there must be a chink in their armor somewhere.”

“Maybe we do need some psych ops. I can’t think what more I could say to influence them.”

“Okay, I’ll get you some head shrinkers. Get a good night’s rest. You’ll need to be sharp for the next call.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. I’m so hyped I’ll never get to sleep.”

November 11

The next day Carrie found two odd looking characters interrogating her team when she arrived at the office. “Psych ops spooks,” she assumed.

Eddy said, “What’s it like to talk to an alien?”

“Pretty much like talking to any asshole.”

Paul introduced her to Lester Gibbs and Bill Overton. Gibbs said, “We’re trying to get some idea of the alien point of view from your staff here. After all, this isn’t exactly like overthrowing Kim Jung Un.”

“They are going to be able to help you more than me. I only speak the language. These three have read the transcripts of the aliens’ text.”

“We’ll keep quizzing them. I’ll let you know when we’re ready for you.”

It wasn’t even midmorning when the director called. “Drop what you’re doing. You have to brief the president on the call.”

“Crap. Couldn’t I just send him a summary?”

“No, he wants to talk to you. Meet me in the garage in fifteen.”

There is never a good time to drive in the capital. This day’s traffic flowed worse than usual due to the crowds inundating the streets around the White House. Carrie looked through the tinted window and said, “Do they expect to get Michael Rennie’s autograph?”

In the Oval Office, the president said, “Director Turnbull, Ms. Player, thank you for coming.” There was nodding and handshaking. “How does it feel to be the first person to ever talk to, uh, an alien life form?”

“Eerie.”

“I’ll bet. What did you talk about?”

Carrie tried not to roll her eyes at the inane question. “We talked about destroying the human race and what a bad idea it is.”

“Was it productive?”

“Not at all. The position of the aliens in the ships is that they are just following orders. The position of their leaders is that we’ve gotten too big for our britches.”

“Do you think you can talk to them again? Do they want to talk to me?”

“I expect to talk to him again but he didn’t express any interest in talking to anybody else.”

The president looked hurt. “Did you tell them about our Aegis Missile Defense?”

Carrie felt a little puzzled that he wasn’t on board with plan ‘B’ but didn’t react. “I made it clear that we had the means to destroy them. He wasn’t impressed.”

“Where do we go from, uh, here?”

Turnbull said, “We’ve got our best psych ops experts trying to find their Achilles heel.”

“Good idea.”

“Naturally, I’ll let you know when the next call happens. Now, we need to talk about something else. We need to move a substantial number of people of breeding age into Mount Weather and Cheyanne Mountain where they may be safe from an aerosol attack.”

“Weather Mountain is to protect the government.”

“Mr. President, this attack is not going to kill anybody. It is going to sterilize people. If Congress happened to get sterilized it would be a good thing and I doubt if you plan to have more kids.”

He looked unhappy with the idea. “How would we pick who goes underground and who doesn’t?”

Carrie was thinking, “That’s a no brainer, you have to be in the country legally, you can’t be on welfare, you can’t have a felony conviction, no Democrats, no Muslims...”

The director broke her train of thought. “I don’t care. Set some criteria like age and having no children, take applications, have a lottery, charge a million dollars. The point is, we need a breeding population out of the free atmosphere and we need it now. We’re not even sure that we can filter their agent from the air but we have to assume we can.”

“Uh, this is going to make me look bad. It has to be done in secret. Why don’t you handle it?”

“Fine, but I don’t want to hear any bitching about who I choose.”

Now the president looked offended. “Okay, I’ll make sure you have access to those facilities.”

“Thank you. I’m sure you’re busy.”

In the car, Carrie said, “You haven’t told him about SpaceX.”

“No, I don’t want him fucking it up.”

It was afternoon before Carrie made it back to her office. Lester Gibbs said, “We’ve put a tap on your phone so we can record your conversations with the alien. Of course you will have to translate before we can analyze it. If somebody had thought of this before, we’d have something to work with.”

“Shit. Now I’ve got to get another phone for my non-alien calls.”

“What’s the big deal? The NSA is listening to you anyway.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“We think you should initiate another call so we can start gathering some data.”

“But I don’t know their number.”

“Oh, for Christ sake. Your phone does have caller ID, doesn’t it. Find the incoming number and click send.”

“Oh, yeah. That just seems weird. Why should I say I’m calling?”

“Make it a fucking social call. Ask about their world and their culture. That might give us some clue as how to get in their big ugly heads.”

The idea left Carrie feeling like a teenager trying to get a guy’s attention. It made her shudder. “All right, but I need privacy.”

“Well, shit, we couldn’t understand you anyway.”

In her office with the door closed, she opened ‘Recent Calls,’ scrolled to the one where the numbers were alien script and waited. It took all her strength to tap the screen. After many seconds she heard the line go live. “Come.”

“Come,” she said, “do you have time to talk?”

“Yes, are you still intending to destroy us?”

“Only if you still intend to destroy us.”

“It cannot be helped. Why does it seem to you a bad thing to stop breeding?”

“Does your society not feel the need for posterity?”

“Yes, we do, but you should understand that your species was intended to be temporary from its creation.”

“You forgot to build that into our collective psyche.”

“It is said that we bestowed you with a multitude of flaws.”

“Thanks a lot.” She heard an incomprehensible sound. It occurred to her it was laughter. “Have you done this before?”

“Yes, it was done with reptilian creatures and an aquatic species. The water beings were so successful, it was considered to let them survive, but the fundamental wrongness of that could never be overlooked.”

“Certainly not. What is your world like?”

“Ah,” the alien paused, perhaps wistfully, “our home planet is overcrowded and depleted of resources, however, many refuse to leave it. Our second world is perhaps a little less populated than your own. It is still being reformed to better suit our biology.”

“What do you breathe? Do you breathe? You must if you have a word for it.”

Again laughter. “Yes, we breathe the eighth element as you do. I am told that your world’s atmosphere is breathable but foul smelling.”

Carrie’s memory flashed to stories of Roswell workers burning their clothes after recovering the bodies and she hoped she never had to come face to face with them. Momentarily she felt at a loss for something to ask.

The alien said, “Since you’ve run out of questions, I must return to my duties. Going.”

“Going.” The line went dead. She rose and went to the common area where everyone looked at her expectantly. She felt a little dazed.

When she didn’t speak, Overton said, “We’ll get an audio file emailed to you immediately so you can translate it. How do you think it went?”

“How the hell do I know? They’re still determined to neuter us. It seems like they think we should be accepting of the idea.”

Overton recoiled from her tone. “Okay, get us something to work with. After that, try to reconstruct your first conversation as best you can.”

Carrie returned to her office and downloaded email. The audio file from the wiretap group arrived, so she donned a headset with a mike and translated into a new audio file, which she replayed before sending it to Gibbs and Overton. After that, she requisitioned a new cell phone for terrestrial use and went home.