Alien Caller (10 page)

Alice stared at
him, obviously wanting to ask more questions, but subsided as she
guessed that she would learn no more from him. Which gave David the
chance to ask the one question he most needed answered.

“Five years of
living among us, and no one knows. How is that possible?” Sure,
maybe they wouldn’t have told him, but someone should have told
someone.

“Easy. We are
all friends around here, we like the Leinians and we want them to
stay. These are good people round here, you know that. We look out
for one another, always. And we look out for our new neighbours. We
only tell those people we know, those we can trust, and a few like
yourself who stumble on to them. And we explain the consequences.
What will happen if they are found out. That they’ll leave. We
don’t want them to leave. This is no great government cover up. No
national secret. They are just good people. They're our
neighbours.”

She was telling
the truth. Years of being an investigator told him that. But it
made no sense. Especially if she was talking about as many people
as he suspected she might be. Someone always talked. But then
again, the locals were a very tight bunch. They didn’t mix so much.
They didn’t travel that much. Maybe? He had no answer and knew he
would get none. Not yet anyway. So he nodded as if he understood,
and let her carry on.

“So Mister army
man. After hearing the truth, I don’t suppose you’d like to tell us
what you are going to do? And I do mean ‘us’.” The way she
emphasized it, David guessed there were other’s listening to them.
And from the silence of the local wildlife, there were more people,
most likely alien people, outside. Probably waiting to come in.
Alice hadn’t come alone.

“The people
about to come in are no threat?” Yet he didn’t really doubt her.
Alice was often honest to a fault. Annoying, opinionated, and often
just plain ornery as the locals called her behind her back, but
always honest. He just wanted to hear it one more time. Alice
glanced at the door, and then back at him, a question in her eyes.
He nodded slightly, giving her permission to let them in. Better
meet the rest of the visitors he figured. Judge them for
himself.

Alice stood and
walked over to the door, letting three more of Cyrea’s people in.
One was clearly a doctor as he carried a medical bag and
immediately on entering he walked over to Cyrea to examine her with
a metallic box. David ignored him and was ignored in return. The
other two grabbed chairs facing him, almost as though it was an
interrogation. But their words, their tone was anything but
that.

“No Mr. Hill.
We don’t want to harm your people. Such a thing would be wrong. We
just want to continue studying them, in peace.” His tone was very
certain, his words direct, and David liked that.

“I'm Ayn Lar by the way, the
officer in charge of security for this expedition. Beside me is my
second Ayn Tylar, and Ayn Cyrea who you've been caring for is my
newest officer. She was sent here to help us remain hidden.”
The one who spoke
was a ginger furred alien, with greying fur around his beard and
shoulders. He was more solidly built than Cyrea, but possibly not
as tall. And to add to his words he carried himself and spoke like
the leader he claimed to be. He also spoke perfect Bostonian
English, as though he’d been raised in one of the more prestigious
suburbs and sent to the finest schools.

He wore a
costume that looked almost like a toga, though it was anything but
the traditional white. Rainbow coloured swirls adorned his chest,
while the background was a quite pleasing shade of lemon. Around
his waist he had a tool belt like Cyrea’s but with only a few
instruments dangling from it. None of them were in his hands. His
friend was dressed simply in jeans and a T-shirt, the pants being
modified with a denim sleeve to allow for the tail. On his shirt
front he bore a picture of a surfer crashing out, and David
realized he’d probably picked it up from one of the local stores.
Maybe he was simply trying to look more natural to David, or
perhaps he’d gone ‘native’. He like the others, also had a tool
belt. His was crammed full of strange devices, but again none of
them were in his hands.

He had aliens
in his home and they were probably armed! It should have been
ringing warning bells but it wasn’t. Whether they were armed or
not, he just didn’t feel threatened by them. Maybe that was the
effect of having Alice in the room. Maybe it was his straight
forward attitude. Or maybe David was learning to read them. Then
again if they could keep hunters out of a valley for years with no
explanation, maybe they could also influence him. It was something
he'd have to think on after this was over.

“As Alice has
told you, we really just want to understand you a little better, so
that we can become friends. But that is still to happen as your
people are not yet ready to meet us. Still, it may be sooner than
you think. Once your people have the antigrav drive, they will come
out into space to meet us. You are natural explorers. And your
technology is a mix but some of it is relatively advanced. All
that’s needed is a single major break-through or perhaps two. That
could be next year, or in a thousand years, depending on how your
technology progresses. Our best guess though is that it will be
within a century. As you might appreciate, that first meeting has
to be done well, for all our people.”

“I understand
that. But why is it so important now? Well before we have the
technology?” He had to ask, despite the fact that he could have
guessed the truth. He had a fair idea of what men would do when
they reached the stars. They would colonize, as they had since time
immemorial, and God help the natives. It was the human thing to do.
And he guessed they knew it too. That was why they'd come. Not to
see what people would do but to prepare for that day. They were
worried that a rogue world was going to launch itself upon them
without warning. Rather like when the UN sent in fact finding
missions into rogue states, looking for evidence of a threat to
others. In short the Earth was North Korea as far as they were
concerned.

“Because you’re
so close, and others know it. And they’re worried. There are other
people out there. Many who look nothing like us. Many with strange
ways of life and even stranger ways of thinking. People you will
have a hard time understanding. In fact our two species are more
alike than any other two species we have ever encountered. Not just
in form and biology, but even in the way we see the universe. But
your people will have to understand the others anyway, or learn to
deal with them if they are to be accepted. And despite your
people’s dreams, there are few free worlds for the taking.
Habitable planets are for the most part inhabited. That is the way
of evolution.”

“Some of those
worlds are inhabited by people much more advanced than yours. Some
are even more advanced than our own. There are five people with
interstellar societies. Societies with rules. There are many rules
out there. Rules your people will have to learn. And comply
with.”

Despite the
softness of his voice, there was a firmness in his tone. He was
utterly serious about those rules, and David believed him. Besides,
what he said made sense. Despite the dreams of his people, most
scientists had always suspected that the best worlds would be
inhabited, and that some of those would be by more advanced races.
Humanity would not arrive there as the first explorer. Only as
another race on the scene.

“Conquest and
war are forbidden by even more advanced races than ours, though we
too support that law. And the punishments would be dire. No race in
the last thousand years has even attempted to take another world by
force and with good reason. Nor are they allowed to colonize worlds
where even primitive people live. They are protected, much as your
people have been and will continue to be. If you want new worlds,
your people will have to build them, as do ours. Your people will
also have to learn how to live with others, something your history
shows you’re not too good at.” What an understatement, David
thought.

“We are aware
of that.” He felt he had to say something to defend his people,
despite knowing in his heart that many things humans had done were
indefensible. And he knew that better than most.

“No. You’re
not. Your people say they are. Voyager One and Two and the SETI
programme and so many other research vessels all suggest that you
dream of meeting other peoples. But the truth is something else.
Your people claim tolerance and peace, but your lives and history
show the exact opposite. In truth a tiny change in skin colour or
religious belief seems to breed intense hatred and fear, and
irrational prejudice. The truth is that any stranger to your people
is often considered an enemy. And you have no idea of just how
alien things are out there. Evolution does not follow a single
plan. It chases millions of them. An infinite variety of plans.
Until the day your people set eyes upon them, meet them, and talk
with them, you will have no idea. I suspect you also will have no
way of predicting how you will react. Neither will we.”

“But we do
try.”

“Yes, we know,
but you will have to do better than try Mr. Hill. You will have to
become everything that your people believe they can be. Civilized,
peaceful, respectful of the rights of others and willing to obey
the rules set out for all of us. For any transgressions will be
punished. Punished severely.”

“By you?” Yet
even as he asked he knew the answer. It was in his sad, tired
eyes.

“By all of us.
This sector is ruled by what you might call an Interstellar Council
and every advanced race in this sector has a seat on it, including
our own. All of us support its edicts. Consider us the equivalent
of members of your United Nations. We all have a say, and we all
have a role in keeping the peace. We take it seriously.” David had
no doubt of that either. He just wondered what the punishments
would be. Trade sanctions, visa restrictions, war. He couldn’t
begin to guess. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. Yet he had to
ask.

“Would you...?”
It was all he was able to get out before his throat closed down of
its own accord as he realised he was potentially talking about the
end of the world. Fortunately his visitor seemed to understand.

“No Mr. Hill.
We would not destroy your people or your planet. We would not even
harm them, or at least not willingly. But we will meet any threat,
and counter it. And as your people are so fond of saying, we would
take away your means of making war. More than that I cannot and
will not say.” There was a tone of finality in his words and David
didn’t want to try and interrogate him further on the point.
Especially when he thought about the phrase, ‘take away your means
of making war’. Just as the world had apparently done in the Gulf
Wars.

Iraq might not
have been invaded or conquered, at least in the first two wars, but
the cost to the offending nation was still horrendous. Its
infrastructure had been destroyed, its people left abandoned,
social structures were left in chaos, and hundreds of thousands
were dead. In the second Iraq war of course, it had been even
worse. Everything had gone to hell for the people as social chaos
had erupted and tribalism had taken over.

That could not
be permitted to happen to Earth. Yet stopping it was something
completely beyond his control, or in fact anyone else’s. And if his
visitor was right, it could happen sooner rather than later. The
moment that the Earth had space travel at its fingertips,
exploration would begin. Soon after would come the problems as
humans fought first with each other over territory and resources,
and then with anyone else they might find.

It was a story
as old as humanity itself; colonization often by force,
exploitation of native populations and their lands, conquest,
cultural domination and war. Throw into that the agendas of at
least half a dozen major religions as they fought for new converts
in strange lands and against each other, criminals escaping
justice, piracy, theft and organized crime targeting space as a new
frontier, some old fashioned terrorism, and you had a sure fire
recipe for a disaster of galactic proportions.

Worse would
follow if and when they first went out there, humanity was met by
an advanced alien presence which dictated to them their rules of
behaviour. Politicians might seem to agree readily, but behind the
scenes the militaries of many governments would be plotting
furiously. Plotting ways to steal their technology, to take control
of off world resources and sooner or later to build a defence force
capable of repelling aliens and allow their countries to rule. And
while these attempts would all be by individual countries rather
than the Earth as a whole, everyone would suffer for them.

These things
David knew in his heart were all inevitable. And if the authorities
found out that these people were here already, that trouble would
start early. The government would act. Agencies would act. There
would be secret political manoeuvrings, military action, and covert
attacks. The longer that they could be put off by never telling
anyone that aliens were already here, the better. And he knew he
had to play his part. It was the only way he could protect his
country. And his neighbours who would quickly find themselves on
the endangered species list. Even the ones who knew nothing.