His father opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, a reminder that they all served — or had served — the United States of America. Toby, who had heard his father’s rants about businessmen who refused to feature the pledge at their annual meetings, echoed their words, even though he wasn’t sure how much it meant. Doing the right thing for the country required careful consideration of what the country actually needed, rather than knee-jerk reflexes from both sides of the political divide. There were men in his father’s clannish network that would happily ban abortion and yet refuse to teach children about sex, ensuring that the number of teenage pregnancies continued to rise. Toby had never been impressed with either side of the argument.
“Very well, Toby,” his father said, finally. Toby thought that the old man had been pleased to see him, but it wasn’t in his nature to slaughter the fatted calf and welcome his lost son home — at least not at once. “You wanted this meeting. Here we are, waiting on you.”
Toby nodded, slowly. He knew five of the men; old friends of his father, dangerous men with a sense of honour, the sense that separated warriors from the barbarians warriors fought to keep away from the civilians. The other four were strangers. It was a good thing, in a way; if he was taken and interrogated, he wouldn’t be able to betray all of them to the aliens — or to the FBI. The Federal Government disliked what it chose to call right-wing militias and devoted a vast amount of effort to tracking them down and maintaining surveillance over potential targets. And the aliens would presumably have access to all of their files…
“Before we begin, there is something I need to make clear,” he said. He was nervous, but his voice sounded steady. It helped that he had known most of them since childhood; Blake Coleman, a massive black man, wasn’t too intimidating to the kid he’d bounced on his knee or carried on his shoulders across a river. The sudden childhood memory almost made his voice catch. “The information I will impart to you is — at least partly — covered by any number of regulations governing national security. The Federal Government has chosen to assert that civilian possession of this information will threaten national security. If you listen to me, you may face legal action; if anyone wants to leave now, please do so.”
“Respectfully suggest,” one of the strangers grunted, “that you quit insulting us and get to the point.”
Toby nodded. “It has been just under three weeks since the starships arrived in Earth orbit,” he said. “They have already turned the world upside down, but until now we didn’t know the terms for Earth’s provisional membership in the Galactic Federation. We do know now — and they are disquieting. The aliens say they come in peace, and that they mean us well, but the evidence doesn’t back up their claims. Among other things, they have been telling different things to different people.”
He scowled. It had taken a covert international effort — sharing information from Britain, France, Russia and even China — to put together a picture of what the aliens were telling the different nations. The aliens had visited almost every nation in the world, even the ones that were abominations on the face of the planet. They condemned human nations that were built around a religious ideal — one that served as an excuse for oppressing their own people — and yet they hadn’t hesitated to visit Saudi Arabia and Iran. Their presence in the Middle East had worried the CIA, even the analysts who hadn’t known about some of the more suspicious alien actions. The arrival of fusion power threatened the Middle East oil states and a number of Islamic terrorist groups had issued threats against the aliens. No one knew what the Snakes would do if one of their people was shot, or kidnapped, but no one wanted to find out.
“Their terms are alarmingly simple. First, they want a global government that the Galactic Federation can actually treat as speaking for the majority of the planet. The UN just won’t cut it. They want us all to sign up to a global supranational government, one that will have a great deal of authority and the clout to ensure that its mandates are followed by the individual nation-states. Any state that refuses to join and contribute to the global government will be frozen out of any trade and technological deals with the Galactic Federation.”
“Hell,” Coleman said. “Why don’t they just call it the Global Community and have done with it?”
Toby smiled, recognising the reference. “Second, they want us to largely disarm. States are to cut their military forces back by at least ninety percent — and all nuclear weapons are to be dismantled. The global government — whatever form it takes — will handle Earth’s security and the Galactic Federation will provide whatever support is required to ensure that the states that don’t join the global government are unable to threaten the new status quo.
“Third… they want us to work on fixing our own mess. The global government will have a very powerful oversight role over businesses and industrial production sites. They will have the clout to close polluting businesses without facing centuries of legal battles in the courts. Among other things, most of the weapons industry across the world will be dismantled and the world will switch to a wholly fusion-powered lifestyle. Further, they will control the banks and work on fixing the debt mess that caused the economic crisis in the last decade…”
“It sounds,” Coleman observed, “as if they wish to take control of the entire world.”
Toby nodded. “From what we’ve been told,” he said, “the Galactic Federation is actually a three-tier structure. First, you have races like us; races that have to be helped into space. Second, you have races like the Snakes; races that made it into space on their own. And finally, you have races that have actually helped another race into space. The Snakes have confided in a handful of their more persistent questioners that they desperately want the status that comes with helping another race into the Federation and that’s why they’re so determined to help us, even if we don’t want to be helped.”
“How very human of them,” the Colonel observed. “Do you believe them?”
Toby hesitated, and then shook his head. “No,” he said, flatly. “There are too many holes and inconsistencies in their story. And then there’s the other evidence.”
He ran through a brief outline of the nanotech bugs the NSA had discovered, and then went on to a different — even more alarming — matter. “There have been a number of deaths recently,” he added. “Nine people who have publicly questioned the Galactic Federation’s motive in visiting our world have wound up dead over the last four days. Six of them were killed in what looks to be muggings or robberies gone bad; one of the women was apparently knifed to death by a would-be rapist and one is dead of a heart attack.”
“I’m not sure that proves anything,” Coleman pointed out, mildly. “A shit of a lot more than nine people drop dead every day from unnatural causes.”
“True,” Toby agreed, “and so far the police appear to agree with you. But I spoke to a friend at the FBI and he pulled up the case notes — and there are a lot of odd things they have in common. Apart from the fact that all of the dead were alien sceptics, the forensic teams found no traces of DNA evidence that might lead to the murderers — even the attempted rape scene was clean.”