“We don’t know,” the CIA Director said. “One; they mean everything they said to us and they’re monitoring us to ensure that they know what we’re doing with their gifts. Two; they’re hostile and they want to monitor us to ensure that we don’t catch on to what they’re doing before it is too late.”
Toby shuddered. “They’re spying on us, covertly,” he said. “That doesn’t suggest friendly intent.”
“It would seem so,” the CIA Director agreed. “At the very least, they don’t trust us — we’re naked before them, almost defenceless, and they’re still spying on us.”
The thought was almost impossible to grasp, despite his fears over the true intentions of the Galactic Federation. But then — the aliens had been very careful in what they’d said to the human race. Very little of it was actually useful and they’d presented almost no technological data. The fusion plants they’d provided for the United States were sealed units, with human scientists barred from studying them. A handful of other gadgets had yielded little more information.
On one hand, it was easy to understand a certain caution in dealing with the human race. The Galactics had pointed out many issues that suggested a certain insanity surrounding the human race, everything from fouling the environment to cheerfully committing mass murder and even genocide over trifling issues such as religion. Who knew how the human race would behave if given access to the stars? Even a society that had renounced war might be concerned by the possibility.
But, on the other hand, there was a sense of… shiftiness surrounding the Galactics and how they dealt with the human race. They had been careful to withhold details, even details that could be of no conceivable military use, from their human questioners. No one even knew how many of them there were, or…
“All right,” he said. “What do we do about it?”
“That is the question,” the CIA Director said. “Can we take this to the President?”
The NSA Director had a different question. “Do we dare take it to the President?”
Toby opened his mouth to argue, and then saw his point. There might be other bugs within the White House, ones that might be lying dormant, recording everything they heard before transmitting it up to the alien starships. If Toby — having lost his bug — sought a private meeting with the President, any other bugs would certainly be ordered to listen in to the conversation… who knew just what the aliens were capable of doing?
And the President, the most powerful man on Earth, would certainly be a target for alien surveillance…
“We can’t,” he said, bitterly. The unanswered questions made it difficult, almost impossible, to think of a viable counter-strategy. And even if they did… there were still seventeen starships in orbit around the Earth. The Galactics — if they came with hostile intentions — could certainly bombard the planet back to the Stone Age. But given their technology, what could they possibly want with Earth in the first place? All the reasons human nations had attacked other nations were meaningless to the Galactics. If they were so scared of competition, why hadn’t they simply nudged an asteroid or two in towards Earth?
Slowly, very tentatively, an idea began to form in his mind.
The intercom buzzed before he could start outlining his plan. “Director,” a female voice said, “Mr Sanderson has been summoned back to the White House.”
Toby felt his heartbeat start to speed up. The moment he stepped out of the secure building, the aliens would know that he was no longer under surveillance. And then… what would they do? His family’s dead heroes might have been calm in the face of danger, but they’d understood the dangers of Japanese kamikazes and German Panzers. Toby found it impossible to come to grips with the alien threat — if indeed it even was a threat.
“I’ll be on my way,” he said. His voice sounded weak, even to his ears. “Did they say why?”
“The aliens have completed their negotiations,” the female voice said. “They are prepared to tell us what we need to do to join the Galactic Federation.”
Toby looked over at Gillian, who looked just as nervous as Toby felt. “It’s starting,” he said. But what was it? “Pray for us.”
Chapter Nine
Washington DC
USA, Day 18
Jayne allowed herself a tired smile as she sat down in front of her laptop, using the tip of one finger to turn the machine on. It had been a gift from the BAN after she’d received the required number of points to qualify as a Senior Blogger, a person whose written words were read all over the world. Unfortunately, the position came with obligations as well as rewards — and one of them was keeping her finger on the pulse of blogger opinion. Peer review wasn’t the greatest system for monitoring public opinion, but in the words of Winston Churchill, it was so much better than all the others.
The BAN had devised a fairly simple system for monitoring the conduct of the bloggers who signed up to the BAN. Each blogger was required to make a political declaration, outlining their positions on any number of contemporary political issues, before defining themselves as left, right or centre. Their readers would in turn rate them, with the effect that several bloggers who called themselves centrists were actually rated as extreme left or right-wing posters. Bloggers were only human, of course, and they could make mistakes, but outright lying was not tolerated. A number of bloggers had been removed from the BAN after being caught out. Jayne still remembered the blogger who’d claimed to be an Army Ranger; in fact, he’d never served in the military and the closest he’d come to military service had been a few years in a radical militia in Kentucky. The irony was that even if he had told the truth, the BAN wouldn’t have ejected him. There was room for all political beliefs in the community.
Jayne rolled her eyes at some of the hopeful posters — bloggers who hoped to be invited into the BAN — before moving down to read one of her favourite blogs. The writer was rather extreme, but he was always funny to read. He’d kept most of his life hidden from his readers, even though he participated on the BAN’s online forums and community groups. People either read his blog or they didn’t. He had thousands of followers, so Jayne assumed it worked for him.
Greetings folks; its Arnie Pie here — no offence meant, whoever is producing the umpteenth season of The Simpsons. It’s been a radical week two weeks out here, hasn’t it? We learn that there actually IS life out there and guess what? It isn’t very impressed with us. That isn’t too hard to understand, is it? IMFFHO we vote for dumb-ass politicians who would sooner spend your tax dollars on pork instead of space programs that might actually get us off this rock. Find out who cut money to space programs, my dear readers, and start hounding the bastards. Remember, you voted for them.
But enough of such pleasant sarcasm — there are more important matters at hand. We have been told that there is a Galactic Federation out there and we may be invited to join. It’s an exciting prospect, isn’t it? Countless thousands have been thronging to Washington to demand that Congress starts immediate steps towards joining the Galactic Federation — and if that means cutting industry down to the bare bone and actually trying to cut back on consumption… well, that’s fine by them. After all, who really benefited from the economic crash we had in the last decade? Bankers, businessmen and fat pigs in Congress, eh? Fuck the lot of them, right?