“That’s absurd,” one of the strangers said. “A rape — even a failed rape — always leaves evidence.”
“I know,” Toby said. “My view of the situation is that all nine of them — with the possible exception of the heart attack victim — were killed by professional assassins. I have been reluctant to draw this matter to the attention of the FBI; I think we must assume that all government databases have been compromised by the aliens. And I don’t think that the deaths prove that the aliens have good motives. They’re the only ones who benefit from the deaths.”
The Colonel held up a hand. “This is all very interesting,” he said, “but let’s go back to the matter at hand. I can’t see the President accepting the terms the aliens are offering…”
Toby scowled. “The President may not have much choice,” he said. “The Galactic Federation has told us that if we refuse to join the global government on their terms, we will be frozen out of all agreements — and tech transfers — with the Federation. You have to understand what that would mean for American businesses. Every overpaid lobbyist in Washington is currently banging down doors and making it clear to their tame Congressmen that if the government refuses to accept the alien terms, they can forget about having any more contributions to their campaign funds.”
He shook his head. “And that doesn’t include a hundred other lobbies,” he added. “The environmental lobby is demanding that we close down all of the remaining nuclear plants and switch to fusion — which the aliens provide — at once. They have millions of supporters who will back the candidates who agree to the Federation’s terms. And then there are the millions of people who have seen their lives ruined by the depression while the government flounders and Wall Street’s big bankers walk away with huge payments and untroubled lives. Those people had lost their hope; the aliens returned it. The foreign aid lobby looks towards the resources that could be put to use eliminating poverty across the world, the peace lobby thinks how wonderful a world we would have without a military… everyone who just knows that the world would be a better place if we all agreed to just get along has signed up to support the Galactic Federation.
“Some… friends of mine in Washington have been tracking the visitors to alien bases. We know of political leaders who have agreed to support the aliens; protesters and political lobbies… the aliens are building up a power base on Earth. And they’re doing it everywhere; there are now alien bases in almost every major country and they’ve even been buying human buildings and refurbishing them for their use in the capitals. I think they’ve even been quietly manipulating the stock market and placing orders for components with human firms, just to ensure that they have an incredibly strong bargaining position.”
The Colonel frowned. “I remember when people were paranoid about the Japanese buying up everything,” he said. “That didn’t last forever.”
“This is different,” Toby said. “The worst-case scenario is that the aliens have been quietly muscling their way towards controlling interests in everything from heavy industry to the media. Some of their allies are known stockbrokers with years of experience, or political lobbyists who have plenty of skills and no scruples. And one thing keeps echoing through my mind.
“They want us to get rid of the army — every human army on Earth. And that makes no sense; surely, if they were telling the truth, human armies would wither away soon enough without encouragement. Even if we kept a million men under arms, what possible threat would it pose to the Galactic Federation? One asteroid on our heads and it’s bye-bye Earth.”
“They want to invade,” the Colonel said, flatly. “You don’t destroy an army unless you fear that it will be in a position to oppose you.”
“And the only way the army could oppose the aliens is if the aliens came down to Earth,” Toby finished. “And I am telling you, right now, that the odds are seventy-thirty in favour of the aliens getting what they want, or claim to want. The United States will sign the treaty forming a global government and we will lose ninety percent of our armed forces — and all the nukes will be gone.”
The Colonel nodded, slowly. “And you want us to do what about it?”
Toby gathered himself, meeting his father’s eyes. “They have access to all of our databases,” he said. “I have a few allies working on options, but without the President’s authority there are limits to what we can do — and they’re keeping a very close eye on the President. The NSA sent a team through the White House and there are at least seven tiny bugs monitoring the President. And if we remove them, they’ll know that we found them. And then God knows what will happen.
“I need — the country needs — someone off the grid,” he added. The irony was almost killing him. He’d called his father a nut more than once, a man convinced that the government was permanently on the verge of grabbing all the guns — just before returning the vast majority of the country’s population to debt-peonage. And he wasn’t even the craziest of the bunch. There was a guy who believed that driving licences were illegal and unconstitutional, as if the Constitution recognised a driver’s right to get others killed through bad driving. “We need to prepare for the worst.”
“Invasion,” the Colonel said.
“More like a slow takeover,” Toby said. “Each step will be presented as logical and reasonable; each step will be rewarded… but each reward will make us more dependent upon them. And one day we will wake up and discover that we’re nothing more than slaves.”
One of the strangers leaned forward. “But slavery is uneconomical for pretty much anything apart from sexual favours,” he said. “Why would they want us ugly bastards as slaves?”
Toby had wondered about that himself. If the aliens had merely wanted the Earth, exterminating the human races wouldn’t pose any problems for their advanced technology. A handful of abductions would give them the knowledge required to tailor a virus to humanity’s DNA, which could then be dropped on the planet with a suitably long gestation period. And then the entire human race would drop dead and the aliens would land, once the bodies had decayed and the stench became tolerable. No; the only answer that made sense was that the aliens wanted slaves — and that suggested that they were interested in securing humanity’s industrial base. But it was primitive compared to theirs… why would they want it?
“I wish I knew,” he admitted. He looked up at his father. “I won’t mince words; there is a very real danger that they might have followed me here. I may have just put your lives in terrible danger. And yet we have no reason to think that they might know about you. Your country needs someone capable of resisting them when they take over…”
“Or someone capable of taking the fight to them now,” the Colonel said.
”Someone expendable,” Bob Packman said. The former CIA officer met Toby’s eyes. “And someone completely deniable… right?”
Toby didn’t attempt to lie to them. “Yes,” he said. “If something goes badly wrong and the whole plan is blown, the government will swear — largely truthfully — that it knew nothing about you. We cannot risk tapping much in the way of available resources from the government or the CIA or anyone who might be watched by the aliens…”
“I understand,” the Colonel said. He looked, just for a moment, as if he were proud of Toby. Toby tried hard to conceal just how much that meant to him. “I will speak to some of my friends and start putting a second network together. You go back to Washington and keep us informed.”
“Yes, sir,” Toby said. “And thank you for everything.”