”Yes, sir…”
”Well, then, maybe it’s something our weapons people wouldn’t mind getting a look at.” He decided to go ahead and let Meeters in on it if he picked up the clues.
”Maybe it’s something we’ve had a shot at before and didn’t get. Something you probably heard rumors about, but couldn’t get confirmed. Maybe you thought those rumors were bullshit, well, they weren’t.”
Meeters looked baffled. “I’m not following you, sir,” he said.
”Last time we saw something like this was six months ago, in New York,” Mavis said.
Meeters looked blank; then his jaw dropped. “Oh, my God,” he said, suddenly understanding. “I thought.. yes, I heard rumors, but I thought it was a hoax or a cover-up.”
”No,” Mavis said. “It’s real.”
”But, sir-aliens? A spaceship?”
Mavis nodded. “An entire fucking fleet of spaceships, actually. At least, in New York.”
”Then… excuse me, sir, but what do we hope to accomplish this time, when they’re in Siberia? What’s the point of blaming it all on the Russians?”
”The point is to keep the Russians busy, let ‘em know we’re watching them-and to keep our own people from figuring out what’s going on and spreading it all over the news. We don’t want anyone to know about these creatures-it’d cause panic if too much got out.”
”But these… Doesn’t the public…” Meeters paused, not sure where to begin; the whole issue was too large, so large that he couldn’t quite believe the military had a right to keep the public ignorant.
”Listen, Meeters,” Mavis said, “I don’t know how much you heard about the operation in New York, so let me tell you a few things. These aren’t cuddly little E.T. s come to invite us to join the Galactic Brotherhood. They’re a bunch of vicious bastards. We don’t know for sure why they come here, what they want, or how they’ll react to anything we do, but we do know that they have technology that makes us look like a bunch of aborigines. If we go ahead and tell everyone yes, we’ve been visited by monsters from outer space, and yes, they are monsters, then we can guess some of the reactions we’ll get from the public; we’ll have panics and new religions popping up and crazies blaming it on the CIA and people screaming at us for covering up and others saving it’s all a hoax. Right now we can’t even prove it’s not a hoax-those things cover their tracks. All that would be bad enough, but what worries us is how they would react.”
”They?”
”The aliens.”
”Oh.”
”Because, Meeters, we see three possible outcomes if word gets out that we have these nasty visitors dropping in.” He held up one hand and ticked off fingers.
”First, they might not care-they might go on just as they always have. That’s arguably the best case all around, though since they do kill people it’s not ideal.”
He raised a second finger.
”Second, they might just pack up and leave. That means no more killings, but it also means we have no chance of learning any more about them, or about whatever else might be out there waiting for us. We don’t like that much. But it still beats the third option.”
He raised his third finger.
”Third, they might invade. They might just decide that the cat’s out of the bag and there’s no more point in subtlety. And if they do, Meeters, we’re dead meat.”
Meeters frowned. “Sir, the way I heard it,” Meeters said, “we won in New York.”
”More of a draw, at best,” Mavis said judiciously. “We didn’t capture anything, and we didn’t beat them, but they’re gone. They went away-but they left because they were done with their visit, not because we really hurt them. And that was on our own territory, with everything in our favor. Those things play rough.”
”So it’s because of that third possibility that we’re keeping quiet?”
”That, and other considerations.”
”But what if they decide to invade anyway? Shouldn’t we be doing something…?”
”We are, Meeters.” Mavis sat down again. “That’s what this whole operation is about. We’re trying to get our hands on some of their technology, to see if we can’t take a few jumps forward so that if they do decide to take over, we stand a fighting chance.”
”You said they cover their tracks.”
”Sure they do. But they’re not infallible. We didn’t capture anything in New York or in the other visits we know about-and yes, there have been others-but this time it’s not a whole fleet. It looks like a solo, and one that’s run into trouble.” He pointed in the general direction of the situation room. “ That landing in Siberia didn’t look planned, Meeters. We might be looking at a shipwreck rather than an invasion, so this could be the best chance we’ll ever have. We want whatever we can get that’s out there. In fact, we’re sending a team in after it, General Philips and a bunch of his boys.”
Mavis stood again. “And that’s what the cover story is about Meeters,” he said. “If the Russians scream about an intrusion on their territory, we’ll just say we were responding to a terrorist threat. Our pal Ridgely just set that up for us, and Komarinets fell right into it by claiming his bosses didn’t know anything.” He grimaced. “If we get what we’re after, great; if we don’t, and the Russians don’t, because those things get their ship flying again and get away and cover their tracks as well as usual, we’ll live with that, too. If Philips and his team get killed or captured, well, it’s an embarrassment, but they were an embarrassment anyway, and legally that whole department doesn’t even exist, it’s all black budget-we could even claim they’re freelance. The important thing here is that we don’t want to wind up with those alien toys in Russian hands, and not in ours.”
That said, he stared at Meeters, awaiting a reaction.
Meeters stared back, unable to think of a reply; finally he simply said, “Yessir.”
The helicopter pilot called back, “General Philips? We’ll be on the ground in five minutes.”
”Good,” Philips replied. “Radio ahead, tell Lynch to have the men ready.”
Schaefer snorted. “Lynch,” he said. “Good name, Wouldn’t want to let any nasty little details like the law get in the way.”
Philips turned on him angrily. “Damn it, Schaefer,” he said. “I wouldn’t have hauled your ass down here if I didn’t think we needed you, and nobody else.”
Schaefer glared silently at him. He was tempted to ask whether they’d ever considered asking Rasche-after all, Rasche had pulled his own weight last summer, same as he always did, and Rasche might still be naive enough, or altruistic enough, or something enough, to have cooperated with Philips without this much hassle.
He didn’t mention Rasche, though, because he didn’t want to give the general any ideas. Rasche had his own life out there in Oregon, and Schaefer wasn’t about to do anything that could screw it up.
”I’ve got a good team put together,” Philips said, “but they’ve never seen actual combat with those things.”
”What about all those boys you had on Third Avenue last summer?” Schaefer asked. “Whatever happened to them-they all take early retirement or get hit by the last round of ‘Reduction in Force’?”
Philips shook his head. “Firing a few rounds at a spaceship isn’t what I had in mind as actual combat. You know something about those creatures, Schaefer. You have a feel for the way they think. My men don’t.”
”Teach ‘em.”
”We’re trying.”
”So what are you doing to prepare ‘em?” Schaefer asked. “Screening old Godzilla movies?”
”Damn it,” Philips shouted, “we’re hauling you down here to teach ‘em!”
”But why should I?”
Philips gritted his teeth and glowered silently at Schaefer for a moment. Schaefer glared back.