Damocles (6 page)

The center wall of blockades parted. Whoever held the tall barricades stepped to either side of the center, and three figures stepped forward, dressed alike in rough fabric tunics that wrapped around squat, broad forms. Over her heartbeat, Meg could hear Cho cataloging the physical features into his data pack under his breath, comments about humanoid features and stunted bone structure, approximating the height at one and half meters. She also heard Prader swear to herself and Jefferson’s breath catch. Wagner was silent.

“Now, Captain. Play the audio.”

The first question posed to him by the ranking trio of generals left Loul speechless.

“Is it safe to assume by now you know the reason you’re here?” It was so hard to wrap his mind around the fact that he was here and that there was a spaceship right outside the door that it hadn’t occurred to him to question
why
he’d been brought to the site. They seemed to be waiting for an answer.

“Not really.” It was a better answer than the first one that popped into his head, which was something like “Because it’s freaking awesome and everyone should see this!”

“I’m surprised by that, Mr. Pell.” The general on the left, General Ada, one of the two male generals of the trio, pushed his hands together on the table at which the trio sat across from Loul. “From what I’ve been led to believe, you saw this coming several years ago. As a matter of fact, your report even mentioned the likelihood of this event occurring in this hemisphere after the setting of the Zobos twins.”

“My report?” Loul forgot he was already sitting down and tried to drop lower in his chair. “My report for the Telemetry Administration? Six years ago? That was destroyed.”

The generals shared a look and Ada spoke again. “No, Mr. Pell. It was classified.”

“I had to recant the whole thing. I got called by administrators and told to drop my research immediately.” The memory of that humiliation, of all the wasted years regretting his work, kicked Loul’s mouth into gear. “I was threatened with psychological evaluation if I didn’t take back everything I’d said. My career went into the pipes after that report and I’ve been trying to live it down ever since. They told me I was irresponsible and delusional and—”

“You were right.” Ada pulled out a folder. “I’ll be perfectly candid with you, Pell. Your report became classified the minute you turned it in. It is required reading for an entire department of Telemetry and Defense.”

“And you just let me founder there in Weather? You didn’t tell me? Let me be part of the research? The extra-atmosphere satellite closed down before I even got a chance to—”

“The EAS is not closed.” The central general spoke, his name tag obscured by a thick burlap strip signifying something military Loul didn’t know. “As per yours and other recommendations of like-minded scientists, the satellite was recommissioned for outer space listening and tracking. Many people in the
administration fought the redesign but your report was one of the more convincing arguments.”

“And you just left me in Weather?” Loul couldn’t seem to get past that fact. “You just let me sit there and think you thought I was crazy? You didn’t think I could help further the research? You didn’t think I would have some input in developing more effective procedures?”

The third general, General Famma, the only woman in the trio, held up her hand to silence him. “The question is now, Mr. Pell, which would you rather have? An apology or the chance to be on the team to assess the threat level of this extraterrestrial invasion?”

That snapped him back to reality. The humiliation, the recanting, the dismal pay all disappeared in light of the chance to be on the team with first contact to a non-Didet life-form. “I’m in. What do you need from me?”

“We’ll keep you informed.”

And just like that, he was out again. Military escorts lifted him from the chair and moved him out of the staging area, behind the barricades where he could only glimpse the edges of the strange shuttle that had been perched on the ruins of the Roana Temple for almost an entire day. He’d already missed two shifts of work and at least one hand of Circle at the social center. He could only imagine what theories Po was coming up with to explain his absence. He’d give almost anything to get a message to his friends, anything but the chance to be here in person.

He busied himself for the next several hours moving along the barricade, trying to peer over the shoulders of the military archivists who filmed the uneventful scene before them. Cameras and audio recorders cranked along at full speed, capturing the ship from every quiet angle, no sign of any activity within the strangely shaped vessel. Finally, one of the archivist teams took
pity on him and let him take a seat beside them on a pop-up bench holding the monitor for a high-perch camera.

His report had been immediately classified. The idea rang through Loul’s head like a bell. It had been so long since he’d read the report but he still remembered many of the details. He’d come up with variations of approach and containment, possibilities of attack from the alien visitors, military tactics to subdue weaponry the likes of which Didet had never seen. Sitting here now, however, listening to the pops and clicks of cameras and weapons carousels wheeling about the silent ship, he wondered if he had overlooked the possibility that maybe the real aggressors were actually on the ground, surrounding him. And while part of his report had touched on the possibility of benign contact, he doubted the military would focus their attention on that scenario.

With no work partner of his own, the archivists let Loul help out monitoring the screen and readings. The atmosphere within the barrier screens was one of hurry-up-and-wait, everyone on high alert to watch nothing happening. Still, none of them wanted to close their eyes for even a moment, each work partner afraid they would be on break when whatever was going to happen happened. When Loul did settle back to drop out for a moment, his eyelids flickered with tension, his mind unwilling to shut off for the three or four minutes necessary to refresh. He popped back up with a start, his imagination using the few quiet moments to create all sorts of scenarios that weren’t happening. He could see people starting up from their own rests with the same surprised then disappointed expressions.

He overheard snippets of discussions around him. Maybe the occupants of the ship hadn’t survived the landing? Maybe the ship was only a probe or maybe even a decoy distracting them from an invasion set to occur elsewhere? Maybe the occupants of
the ship had already exited and had slipped through their security barriers with their stealth technology. Mamu, the archivist sitting next to him, passed around another of his seemingly endless supply of candy rings.

“So you’re some kind of expert?”

Loul took a green ring and popped it in his mouth. “Hardly.” The archivists had been nice enough to let him join them on the bench but had been slow to warm up to him, eyeing him with suspicious detachment. “I work in Weather. I wrote a paper on the ramifications of alien contact six years ago. I didn’t think anyone had actually read it, much less acted on it.”

“Yeah?” Mamu relaxed a bit at that. “So you’re not one of those wads waving their badges around, telling everyone how to behave? Hiding behind the artillery lines and recording their deathless wisdom for the archives?”

Loul laughed. He’d seen the men and women Mamu was talking about, presumably from the Science Administration. Badge waving seemed to be their number one activity. As for their contributions to the audio record of the event, Loul hadn’t heard anything worth listening to. “I’m no expert. I just had some ideas, you know?”

“And is this what you imagined it to be?”

He stared at the shuttle, the black streaks scarring the hull, probably from atmospheric burn. “I guess, yeah. There are all kinds of arguments about shapes and mechanics the ships would use, whether they would use some sort of propulsion engine or actually be able to teleport themselves without a vessel.” He heard Mamu laugh at that. “Hey, it’s all been theory up to this point. When you’re dealing with an advanced race, you can’t make assumptions.”

“What makes you think they’re advanced?”

“Well, they just landed from outer space. I think that’s a clue.”

Before Mamu could comment, a flurry of activity rippled back from the barricade. The door of the shuttle cracked open, the seal breaking with a hiss quiet enough that only the most sensitive recording equipment tipped off the crowd. The soldiers holding the barrier bars tightened their stance as cameras and pom-guns wheeled into position to cover every inch of whatever was emerging from the vessel.

Loul pressed in tight against Mamu and his work partner to watch the video display of the high-mounted camera. The Red Sun fell low on the horizon, warm light pouring between the barricades and the ship. He wondered if the occupants had waited until the harshest of the lights would not be shining directly into their eyes. If they had eyes. The ship’s door swung out and metal steps lowered to the ground. This was really happening. Contact with extraterrestrial life was happening right now.

Loul’s first thought was “shit, they’re tall.” Then, “shit, they’re real.” Then, “shit, they’re really tall.” Again he felt a deep and juvenile longing to have Po and Hark here with him so they could celebrate this unbelievable sight. Also so he could throw it in Po’s face that Loul’s belief of what space travelers would look like was more accurate than Po’s. Po had always held out the belief that alien life would be reptilian and very small due to the demands of space travel. Loul had held that gravitational and environmental conditions would be different on different worlds and space travelers could well be twice the size of an average Dideto. Squinting at the forms in the monitors, he wouldn’t say they were twice the size, but they were certainly a head or two taller than even himself.

They wore space suits, again something Loul silently applauded himself for predicting, and he wondered how much of their size was suit and how much body. Or was it possible that the bodies and the suits were interrelated, a sort of biomechanical
composition that made space travel possible? He could hear his own pulse pounding beneath his jawbone as he resisted the urge to push the barricades out of the way and see these creatures with his own eyes.

They moved silently, slowly. Their impossibly long legs bent with the gracefulness of the waterbirds that staked out the lake behind his parents’ house. That’s what they put Loul in mind of—tall, silver waterbirds. They even moved in the same chevron formation. Gray shaded visors covered their faces, and Loul’s mind nearly melted running through the possible facial formations hidden beneath them. Were they birdlike? Reptilian? Despite the elongation of their bodies, they had a human appearance. Maybe they could take on any shape they encountered?

Several steps away from the ship the team of five stopped, standing perfectly still. With no view of their faces, it was impossible to tell if their stance was aggressive or passive. With every inch of their bodies encased in the gray suits, Loul couldn’t even be certain they were alive and not some sort of humanoid machine. They stood still for several long moments, the crowd behind the barricade rippling with excitement and activity, radios squawking as archivists and consultants jockeyed for the best position. Finally Loul saw the three ranking generals lining up behind the central barricade and felt a pulse of pride shoot through his gut. They were following the protocol he himself had recommended all those years ago—that if alien contact occurred, to face it with ranking officials unarmed, surrounded by military in a nonaggressive stance. He had explained that by showing the invaders weaponless leaders, they would be silently giving a message of fearlessness.

It had made sense at the time, but at the time there hadn’t been a chevron of aliens—aliens!—standing on the slab of the Roana Temple encased in what might be impenetrable space
suits. What if he was wrong? What if the barricades parted and the aliens unleashed some sort of weapon? What if this was just a ploy to lower the barricades and begin an assault that couldn’t be stopped? What if he, Loul Pell, went down in the last days of Didet history as the man who suggested the very actions that enslaved the human race?

Then the strangest thing happened. Considering he was standing in the midst of a makeshift military compound at the edge of the Ketter Sea hidden behind media-blocking webbing and staring at aliens who had just disembarked from a spaceship parked on the ruins of the Roana Temple, his parameters for strange had broadened greatly in the past day. And this was still strange. The leader of the alien band, the tallest of the tall creatures before them, slowly lifted its long arms, twisting them so that one hand wrapped around the other wrist. Then, with no other motion, voices could be heard. Three distinct sentences:

“What can I do to assist you?”

“Hi! Welcome back!”

“What did I tell you about that pie?”

That third one made barriers drop and radios fall silent. All around the barricade, people rose up, leaning over each other for a better look, an unfiltered and unprotected look at the assembly before them. Then the voices repeated themselves.

“What can I do to assist you?”

“Hi! Welcome back!”

“What did I tell you about that pie?”

Loul heard someone behind him mutter something about killing someone if this turned out to be a prank. A cluster of people whispered behind the ranking trio who, Loul had to give them credit, kept up a solid noncommittal front. All around him, he could hear the name “Baga” being whispered, followed quickly by “stunt” and “gone too far.”

Everyone on the continent recognized that stupid pie phrase from Baga Baga, the trickster radio host who was always pranking people into admitting cheating on their wives or stealing from their bosses. He had two catch phrases: “Dig a hole” and “What did I tell you about that pie?” His show played everywhere, and every kid above the age of six hung on his every move. His last stunt, spray-painting the dome of the Eastern Bank to look like a nipple, had gotten him house arrest and an enormous fine. It had also boosted his ratings and made him an even bigger star among his fans. But this? Staging a stunt this big? Did Baga have that much clout?