Ice Cream and Venom (11 page)

On Sunday, Gene had called Houston to make an announcement that they had been contacted by aliens. After some discussion they had decided to abandon their mission on Mars and take up the aliens' kind offer of returning to Earth aboard their superior starship. They expected to be there in a week. Gene had intended to retire after this mission in any case and for the 59-year-old "Hero of Skylab," everyone in the media agreed that career-wise, first contact with aliens was the perfect final jewel in his crown.

At 9:01 AM, the stock market crashed. Actually, all of them crashed, around the world. Investors sold off everything they could in a panic, not knowing what effect the aliens would have on the global economy, but naturally assuming the worst. In Rome, Pope John Paul II issued a bizarrely incoherent and clearly frightened rant about how the aliens were children of God as well, and that humans must treat them well. He was speaking ex cathedra, which meant that what he said was to be considered straight from God's Mouth into Catholic's Rule Book and could not be taken back. In the speech, he named the aliens "Intercapedo Canis," a name which only partially stuck.

Meanwhile, as it is tradition in times of duress, New York stockbrokers were hurling themselves out of skyscraper windows. President Bush (the first) issued a statement about how he soon intended to issue a statement.

One of the alien translators—whom the press took to calling "Goldie"—said on behalf of Great-to-the-6th Grandmother "Alice" that the aliens were looking forward to a long and mutually beneficial series of cultural exchanges with Earth.

By 5 PM, when the NYSE closed, open rioting ensued in the city, as it did in Hong Kong a few hours later. The president sent in the National Guard to contain the situation, which, as is also tradition when the National Guard is sent in, utterly failed. Thirty-six brokers died that day. At least fifteen of them had been intending to kill themselves as soon as they found a tall building anyway, however, so that mitigated the tragedy somewhat.

On the space ship, Beauchamp woke up for the first time, tried to escape, was recaptured effortlessly and then caught up with the others in Alice's study. Shortly after the meeting, at Beauchamp's suggestion Goldie contacted Earth on behalf of Alice to hold a kind of question-and-answer session. It was an agonizingly slow process, given forty-five minutes of light-speed lag time passed between a question being asked, Goldie translating it to Alice, Alice answering it, Goldie translating and repeating the answer, then the signal traveling back to Earth. Again, one can easily plot when responses arrived by looking at the hours when the stock markets surged and crashed.

During the interview it came out that the Intercapedo Canis (who the press was already calling "Tractus Canis") were essentially capitalists with a particular penchant for peace, femininity, and veganism. It also came out that they didn't believe in any sort of God or gods. Also, Blackie was introduced, and sang a little song in the Tractus Canis' native language about fruit for some reason that probably only made sense to the dogs.

Even before the interview was over, of course, the global stock market was rallying with heavy sales in industries that were suspected to be ones the aliens would be interested in—including fruit packing. At roughly the same time, the Pope II issued yet another bizarrely incoherent and clearly frightened rant about how the aliens were demons from hell and that he was again speaking ex cathedra. As he said this, he was shaking violently and kept randomly switching back and forth between three or four languages mid-sentence. This was the first time a pope had ever made two definitively mutually-exclusive statements on behalf of God—at least publicly. It led to an immediate schism between the Liberal and Conservative wings of the church.

That also was the night when Bob Clarkson started talking about killing the aliens.

It should be mentioned that at least half the world didn't believe the dogs when they said they were peace-loving extraterrestrial vegetarians who only came to our solar system for scented bath oils and Cocteau Twins CDs. Many people and governments felt this was simply a lie to distract humanity until it was too late. In the Islamic world, many felt the aliens would ally themselves with the Christian democracies and then enslave the rest of the world. (To be fair, it was a fair bet that President Bush and Queen Elizabeth II pretty much hoped this as well.) Having read 'War of the Worlds' and realizing they'd have no chance against alien super weapons, the president of Pakistan decided their only hope lay in grabbing as much territory as possible before the aliens arrived and ordered his nation's military to invade India (again. This had been done three times in the previous 42 years) and conquer it once and for all.

In the United States, President Bush gave a stirring speech that tied in the promise of the coming aliens with his own "Thousand points of light" motif. While it was a very good speech, well worth the two days it took for someone to write it for him, it completely failed to address the India/Pakistan situation. When a reporter asked him about it immediately afterwards, he gave no reply, which resulted in minor riots in all US cities with a substantial Indian population. It should be mentioned that the Pakistanis were really kicking ass, too. By noon they were a hundred miles into India, with millions of dead behind them.

China was the only country to address the Indian/Pakistan situation by saying they were putting their nuclear forces on alert. The US and the rapidly-disintegrating Soviet Union reluctantly put their forces on alert as well, while in Ireland and France small riots between Pro-Alien Liberal Catholics and Anti-Alien Conservative Catholics took place.

The stock market rallied higher than it had been at the start of business the previous day. Meanwhile Madeline Murray O'Hare gave a long, particularly angry and gloating speech about how, basically, she was right all along: There was no God, since the aliens had proved it.

Blackie stated on TV that they had not in fact proven the nonexistence of God and that it was theoretically impossible to prove a negative. God simply was not something they believed in, citing a lack of rational proof. O'Hare paid this no never mind and went on with her God-bashing rant, making scores of statements during the course of the day about how stupid theistic people are. Other luminaries ranging from Carl Sagan to The Amazing Randi issued similar statements, many of them quite vitriolic. The Dalai Lama attempted suicide (though this was later covered up) and Pope John Paul II actually did commit suicide, so badly shaken were his beliefs.

In Norfolk, Virginia, there were PeTA riots. Radical members burned hamburger joints and non-vegan grocery stores in an overwhelming outpouring of pent-up (and almost insane) aggression towards people with differing viewpoints. In San Francisco and New York and Los Angeles, lesbian gangs went around forcibly castrating anyone unlucky enough to wander into their area. Furries with a thing for dogs came out of the closet and started openly doing things to dogs in public that aren't seemly to describe here.

The NOW and various militant Pro-Choice groups drafted a statement and had it transmitted to the alien ship.

Around the world, people who felt their wrongfully-suppressed viewpoints to be been vindicated lashed out with what they felt was justified anger at those who they felt had wronged them. Conversely, those who felt their long-cherished beliefs disproved either fell into deep depression and possible suicide, or completely tossed aside their morals and fell into a few days of wanton excess.

An ex-television producer, now a thrice-divorced baggage handler working in a bus depot in Muncie, Indiana, got to brag to some of his creepy swinger friends about how "I'd predicted all of this years ago" on his old science fiction show. Somehow this got to the folks at Entertainment Tonight who put him on instead of the interview with Spielberg that had fallen apart at the last minute. The world was crazy, entirely mad. Despite the fact that the baggage handler was completely lying, and that his show had predicted no such thing, by the end of the day he had an iron-clad pay-or-play contract for five seasons of a new series.

First thing Thursday morning, India's surprisingly extensive nuclear arsenal fell on Pakistan and the country more-or-less ceased to exist. The stock markets around the world plummeted again while India drove its way back to the Pakistani border, being utterly brutal to any enemy forces which tried to surrender. Not a one of them was left alive. China invaded Pakistan from the north, using paratroopers. Soviet Forces in Afghanistan were quickly overrun by hundreds of thousands of Pakistani refugees flooding into the country. The Politbureau contemplated sending its own paratroopers into Pakistan as well, but lacked the available manpower and funds to do it. Somewhat isolated from the rest of the world, the Soviet economy had weathered the chaos of the past days a bit better than the western democracies. The Soviets were contemplating whether to use their nuclear weapons to hold on to that advantage when open riots broke out in Poland, East Germany, and Yugoslavia.

Syria threatened to invade Israel until Israel threatened to do to them what India had done to Pakistan—and Syria backed down. Meanwhile in the West, no one seemed to give a damn about the death of ten million people on the subcontinent. They were more concerned with the kinds of music the aliens liked (mostly New Wave and Post-punk). The American Democratic Party issued a statement that it had always been a party of pacifists, atheists, liberals, feminists, lesbians, abortionists, and vegans. This wasn't true, of course, it was merely intended as propaganda to take advantage of the maelstrom caused by the aliens. It was still truer than anyone wants to admit today, however.

Chinese and Soviet forces were openly fighting in Afghanistan and along the long Siberian border. The stock market rallied when the Aliens said they had medical technology that should make human life extension possible and that people should be able to expect lives in the range of 180 or so years, based on the tests they'd done on the Mars Probe Astronauts. An unfortunate side effect of this was an immediate collapse of the Life Insurance Industries around the world. Every American insurer issued an immediate freeze on all life policies and assets.

President Bush unwisely issued a statement that if it came to nuclear war between the PRC and the USSR, then the US would be backing the Soviets. Meanwhile, in Rome, Pope John Paul III took office—just in time, he said in Latin, for the end of the world.

The stock markets went crazy again. State Farm insurance declared that the activities of the past six days had exhausted its financial resources and declared bankruptcy. The result was a massive spike in farm-related sales.

For no reason anyone could discern but which probably made sense to the people involved, South Korea and South Africa declared war on Australia. When the Aliens explained how their whole-body entertainment systems worked, everyone eagerly anticipated trying them out as they could apparently be adapted rapidly to existing films. Instead of just watching Star Wars or Gone With The Wind, you could be in the film, playing the part of any character or watching from the sidelines. Since this should work for books as well, Zondervan Books contacted the alien ship to see about licensing it for the Bible, which, despite the leftist explosion of the previous week, was still an undeniable bestseller.

The alien ship entered orbit. It was ungodly huge, big enough to make out salient details from the ground, even during daytime. In fact it was so huge that Bob Clarkson, standing in the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme could see it well enough to recognize the error of his ways.

"People of Earrrth. On behalf of Grrreat-Grrreat-Grrreat-Grrreat-Grrreat-Grrreat Grrrandmother Alice, I have been instrrructed to inforrrm you that on second thought, you arrre not the kinds of people we wish to associate with. We will not be interrracting with you afterrr all..."

Let's back up a moment and return to Thursday: Beauchamp and Gene were aboard the alien ship, happily playing with a score of little three-legged alien puppies. They were atop a small hill located roughly in the middle of the port cylinder of the ship. Several adult males guarded the perimeter to make sure none of the little ones got away. The ship stretched off for eleven miles forward and aft. It was an awe-inspiring site, so overwhelming in fact that the humans had psychologically adapted by simply refusing to notice its vastness.

"They sure are cute, aren't they?" Gene said, and in fact they were—adorable little puppies which, even though they were slightly bigger than their terrestrial analogues, acted pretty much exactly like you'd expect puppies to act. Beauchamp thought they were cute too, but he was considerably younger than Gene and still in the phase of life where he worried what people thought about him even if there was no one around. As such, he got embarrassed a lot.

"You don't need to say that out loud, Gene," he said.

Goldie and Blackie came up to the hill. Goldie growled something low to the guards, and they became imperceptibly tense. Blackie barked something and the guards became nervous, and then started to gather up the puppies.

"Recess is over, huh?" Gene said, "Here, let me help you." He picked up two of the young ones when an alarmed guard dog snatched them out of his hands, growling intimidatingly and startling the elder Astronaut.

"Uhm, guys? What's going on?" Beauchamp asked, sensing the tension in the air.

Without preamble, Goldie said, "We will not be staying at yourrr worrrld." The two men looked at each other nervously, then back at the alien.

"Why not?" Beauchamp asked.

"In light of new inforrrmation we have rrreceived you arrre considered a securrrity rrrisk."

"Can we ask why?" Gene said.

"No. Yes. I'm sorrrrrry. We have sent for Jim, we will explain when he gets herrre," Blackie said.

"They're gonna kill us," Beauchamp said, "Look at those teeth—obviously the whole vegetarian thing was a lie."

Sounding somewhat embarrassed, Blackie said, "We arrre not going to kill you, except perrrhaps in self-defense."

"Then what...?"

"I hold in my paw a message frrrom something called the 'National Orrrganization of Women'..." Goldie interrupted.

"Oh my," said Gene.

A few minutes later four guard dogs arrived, carrying Jim who'd been bound and gagged. They dumped him on the hilltop. Goldie flashed the guards a slightly bared tooth and an annoyed tail-gesture and the guards slinked away. Most of the dogs' emotions were conveyed by their tails and not their faces.

Gene was already moving forward to untie Jim when Goldie said simply, "You may untie him. I'm sorrry forrr that."

"Does anyone want to explain what the hell is going on?" Jim sputtered angrily the moment the gag was out of his mouth.

"Liberals," Gene said knowingly.

"Our hosts have decided not to go to Earth after all," Beauchamp said.

"Not entirrrely trrrue," Blackie said, "We'll drrrop you off on earrrth, but we will not be establishing trrrade norrr diplomatic rrrelations with yourrr species."

"Is it the craziness going on back on Earth?" Jim asked, rubbing his rope-burned wrists. They'd all been following the news and they'd all been in equal parts appalled and embarrassed by the insanity that had broken out in the previous few days. "Is it the wars?" he asked.

"It is not the warrrs. Such panic is common when a new species makes firrrst contact with otherrr species. In fact, if anything, yourrr species is morrre rrrestrained than most." Goldie said.

Blackie concurred, "When I was a pup on one of ourrr sisterrr ships, we made contact with a new species of sapients, who immediately blew theirrr own worrrld up, rrrather than admit they werrre not alone in the univerrrse."

"Then what is it?"

"It is something called 'The National Orrrganization of Women.' Am I to underrrstand that yourrr people rrregularrrly murrrderrr yourrr unborrrn offsprrring," Goldie asked. There were a lot of distended 'rrr's in that sentence and it took most of them a moment to figure out exactly what had been said. Gene had already concluded what was going on, though.

"Yes, sadly," he said, "We're baby-killers."

"I feel sick," said Blackie, "I need to sit down," and then he practically fell over.

"What the hell...? What the hell are you talking about?" Jim half-yelled, "What's going on here?"

"You kill yourrr unborrrn young," Goldie said. His words were measured, but his pupils were narrowed to points, his tail was flat against his body, and his teeth were bared the moment he was done talking.
'He's furious
,' Beauchamp realized,
'vegetarians or no, we have to be very careful here
.'

"That's ridiculous!" Jim half-laughed, half-sneered, "We don't do any such thing. Abortion is a legal right in most countries. So if the mother decides she doesn't want a kid she terminates the pregnancy, what's the big deal?"

Goldie lunged and was on Jim in half an instant, mauling him. Blackie was screaming, "Do not prrresume to tell our motherrrs how to go about being female! Do not prrresume to tell our motherrrs how to go about being female!" over and over, like a mantra. Beauchamp immediately dropped to his knees and flopped over in a prostrate position, trying to make himself as submissive and non-threatening as possible.

"Please stop," he said calmly but loudly. Gene looked confused for a moment, then realized what Beauchamp was doing, and likewise prostrated himself. He reached forward to touch Blackie on the hand. Blackie, still chanting, was startled and flipped over. He bit Gene hard on the outstretched hand.

Wincing against the pain, Gene willed down the urge to scream and simply said, "Goldie is killing our friend. Please make him stop, Blackie." Intelligence returned to Blackie's eyes at once. He released Gene, stood and barked for the guards. They arrived quickly and hauled everyone off.

"Let me get this straight," Jim said in the infirmary, where dog surgeons were fixing their wounds (and had conveniently blocked off their pain receptors). "The world is blowing itself to hell, but you don't care and were still willing to be friends with us. But now that you find out some of our people practice abortion, you don't want anything to do with us?"

"Yes," said Blackie, wincing in revulsion at the word 'abortion.'

"I'm so sorrry about attacking you," Goldie said. "I don't know what came overrr me, I was just so appalled..."

"Would you care to explain that?" Jim said, ignoring Goldie.

"Competition is a basic fact of life in the univerrrse. Evolution itself is competition between species, between naturrre and sapience, and so on. In morrre evolved creaturrres, this competition frrrequently takes the forrrm of warrrs, many of them senseless. Mass panic is itself a forrrm of evolution. If a crrrowd panics it is morrre likely to die and hence not pass on the genes of its more jitterrry memberrrs to the next generrration. Individuals in the crrrowd who do not panic are morrre likely to surrrvive and prrrocrrreate. Thus the averrrage of inelligence within the species goes up a bit, do you see?"

"Yes. Nature red in tooth and claw," Beauchamp said.

"Exactly. This is naturrre and cannot be changed. To attempt to do so is foolishness. What is going on in yourrr worrrld rrright now is what happens when any new species is contacted for the firrrst time, to a greater or lesser extent. If yourrr species is insufficiently stupid, it will surrrvive this trrransition. If it is insufficiently intelligent, it will not. It is lamentable, but unavoidable."

"Ok, so you don't care about that, so why does abor—" Gene noticed the pained expressions on the tails of all the dogs, and quickly censored himself—"so why does the other thing bother you so much?" The dogs were silent for a while, as if too repulsed to speak. Finally, Goldie, having recovered somewhat, cleared his throat.

"No other species kills its unborrrn," he said rather solemnly.

"You're kidding me," Jim said. Goldie was on him again in an instant, not attacking, but his paws holding the man's shoulders down, his lips pulled back and teeth out, "Say the wrrrong worrrd again, Jim!" he screamed in his face, "I darrre you!"

Blackie, who again looked rather sick, motioned for the guards and they politely removed Goldie.

"We arrre in contact with a lot of species," he said, "How many is a prrroprrrietarrry secrrret, but I can tell you that therrre are hundrrreds of sapient species in this galaxy, and we have had trrrade with nearrrly all of them and have had contact with most of the rrrest. Among all of them, therrre is an inherrrent drive to be frrruitful and multiply. Among all of them, it is a grrreat crrrime to take the life of the unborn. What you people do is... is..."

The translator seemed at a loss for words, swooned a bit, and sat down before continuing. "...I cannot call it a 'sin' as we do not believe in gods or any kind of divinely-inspired non-rrrational morrral code, but... what you people do is..." he paused for a moment, "It is a crrrime against sapience. It is a crrrime against life itself. We cannot tolerrrate this."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute," Jim said, "you people have told us you're atheists, feminists, vegetarians, all that leftist stuff. How can you be all those things and not embrace a simple liberal value like abortion? This is a non-issue!"

"Just because an alliance has been made between feminists, atheists, vegetarrrians and," here Blackie visibly shuddered, "aborrrtionists on your worrrld does not mean such an alliance is univerrrsal. On the Kap worrrlds, for instance, a belief in God is considerrred a liberrral value. No conserrrvative Kap would believe in such a thing, only the leftists. The Fonaza have non-sentient females, so feminism has no meaning therrre. The Kap, again, are vegetables themselves, so obviously vegetarrrianism is not considerrred a conserrrvative value among them. The point remains that among all known rrraces, what you people do is unthinkable."

"There must be other races you haven't contacted yet" Jim said.

"Bah. They arrre all Atomic-age cavemen such as yourrrselves. Besides, even if therrre happen to be two murrrderers in a village who don't know each other, that doesn't make murrrder an acceptable value."

"I feel as you do," Gene said, sounding grim and sad. "I have ever since it became legal in my country and I apologize on behalf of my people."

"Thank you, Gene," Blackie said, "It doesn't change anything, but it makes me feel betterrr about you perrrsonally."

"Wait a minute," Jim said, "Who are you to judge us? Where do you get off telling us what our species' women can and can't do with their bodies?"

Blackie looked tired. "Even if therrre was some inherrrent association between liberrralism, feminism, vegetarrrianism, pacifism, homosexual liberrration, and... and... the otherrr thing—and therrre isn't—one is not compelled to accept an entirrre agenda if one only accepts a single point."

"That makes no sense," Jim said.

"Doesn't it? Gene, Beauchamp, you two arrre of the Chrrristian rrreligion, yes?" They both nodded. "Do you believe in evolution?"

"No," said Gene.

"Well of course," said Beauchamp.

"Therrre you have it," Blackie said.

"Blackie," Gene said. "Not all of our people agree with this whole practice. I beg you to reconsider—if our people have sinned against nature, help us to see the error of our ways and help us change it."

"You don't seem to underrrstand, Gene. Aside from yourrr one species, it is a physical, psychological inability forrr a sentient to murrrder its own unborrrn offspring. There is just inherrrently something wrrrong with you."

"Ok, so we're sick. Help us to be well. Be our doctors. Teach us to be better people."

"If yourrr own God couldn't compel you to be betterrr people, what chance do we have?"

"Just consider it, please?"

"Forrr you, Gene, I will discuss it with Alice." Blackie turned to leave.

"Wait, not related to that, Blackie, what will you do with us?"

"Drrrop you off on earrrth, then leave, neverrr to rrreturn to yourrr worrrld."

"Take me with you?" Beauchamp asked.

"Perrrhaps."

To her credit, Grandmother Alice did actually consider what Gene suggested, though it deeply violated Dog custom for her to even contemplate interfering in the internal workings of a world. However, the next night the Democratic party issued their statement about what it had always stood for and that pissed her off. Alice couldn't quite comprehend how these monkey-things could not only commit such a crime but be proud of it as well. She decided it was for the best to have nothing more to do with them and instructed her children to that effect.