Trust (13 page)

        He shook his head. `We don’t have rankings as such in our society, there isn’t any need. I was trained to do my job and I did it to the best of my abilities, as did the pilots, the technicians and the maintenance staff.’ `So who’s fault was it that your ship got damaged?’ `No-one’s fault. It was a freak accident.’ `Shouldn’t you have been prepared for freak accidents if you were all so highly trained and effective?’

        I was conscious that both Rob and Siobhan were glaring at me but I wasn’t interested in anything they felt or had to say. I wasn’t particularly interested in what the alien had to say either.

        I just found myself feeling particularly territorial and awkward. `It was a freak accident,’ he repeated quietly.

        I didn’t believe him. How could they have been so advanced and yet have left themselves so exposed? Surely they must have had contingency plans and safety measures to prevent such accidents from happening? Or perhaps I was just being overly critical for no better reason that I didn’t like this alien. Or any alien for that matter. More to the point, it wasn’t that I didn’t like them, it was just that I couldn’t be bothered with them. I resented the fact that to everyone else I knew, these uninvited guests had suddenly become the be-all and end-all at the expense of absolutely everything else. `Do you like what you do?’ I wondered. Now I was the one asking the incessant stream of questions. `There’s no point liking or disliking it, is there?’ he replied. `It’s what I was trained to do. It’s what I always knew I would be doing. I know everything there is to know about my job…’

        `And you know exactly how long you’ll be doing it for, don’t you?’ `That’s right.’ `But don’t you ever yearn to do anything else?’ `No.’ `Haven’t you ever looked at the bloke who lives next door to you and felt like you wanted to do what he does? Or have you ever liked the look of someone else’s wife or house and…’ `I’m not even going to bother answering your questions. I’ve already told you the answers.’ `Is there anyone you don’t like?’ I pressed. `My race or alien?’ he sneered. `Your race,’ I sneered back. `Alien.’

        He shook his head. `No-one.’ `Any one ever pissed you off?’ `Pissed me off?’ `Got on your nerves?’ `You’re the first for a while.’ `Any of your kind?’ `No.’ `So you live in this perfect world where everyone gets on and there’s no resentment and no discrimination and…’ `Give it a rest, Tom,’ pleaded Siobhan. I ignored her. `…and you all do everything for the good of everyone…’ `What’s your point?’ Rob butted in. `My point is I find it hard to believe any of this bullshit.’ `Believe what you want to believe,’ the alien said softly. `The fact is it’s true. We work together because it is the collective effort of each one of us that keeps the structure of our society intact. We are all equal.’ `Do you feel superior?’ I asked. `Superior to what?’ `Us.’

        He thought carefully for a moment, still staring at me with those piercing blue eyes. `Yes,’ he said simply.

        Conceited bastard, I thought. I got up from my chair and went to fetch more beer. I could feel Rob and Siobhan’s mood physically lift as I walked away. I guess that if I had been in the alien’s shoes then I would have probably felt the same way about our backward society as he did. But this was my backward society and my home and I loved it. How dare he think himself above us? Technical knowledge and skill was not all that success and advancement was measurable by. What did his kind know about art and music and other, less regimented pursuits?

        I could hear the conversation continuing outside without me. `So,’ Rob asked, seemingly unaffected by my outburst and my exit, `tell us more, will you? If everything’s so structured back where you are, how do you deal with illnesses and accidents?’ `We don’t have illnesses,’ he replied. `What?’ `We’ve eradicated them all.’ `How?’ `Remember your computer revolution when the silicon chip was invented?’ `Yes, why?’ Rob answered. `That was a fundamental technological change that enabled a thousand other technologies to advance, wasn’t it? About fifty years ago we entered a similar kind of phase on our planet.’ `How do you mean?’ `We made a discovery that changed everything.’ `What discovery?’ `We discovered how to take apart and reassemble the smallest atoms and electrons. We’re able to modify them, control them, change them, rearrange them, destroy them, create them…’ `Jesus…’ Siobhan whispered. `And once you have the ability to do all of that,’ the alien continued, `you can look at everything in a new way. You’re able to do just about anything.’

        `Such as?’ `You mentioned medicine? We can now look at our bodies in a whole new light. We can break things down to the very lowest level imaginable. In the same way that you might repair a complicated computer network with a single new chip or a change of software, we can repair our bodies by forgetting about limbs and bones and organs and thinking in terms of individual cells.’ `I don’t follow,’ Siobhan mumbled, already feeling the effect of her first bottle of beer. `A diseased cell was probably once a healthy cell, agree?’

        She nodded. `Yeah…’ `So what we’re able to do is reverse the process that caused the cell to become diseased. We can rearrange the component parts of the cell in order to return it to a healthy state. By learning the precise role of the smallest parts of even the smallest atoms of the smallest cells it’s been possible for us to identify and isolate the base cause of every physical problem. And as our technology has continued to improve, so we’ve been able to cure those problems and, eventually, prevent them from happening in the first place.’ `So what are you saying?’ I asked, entering the room in much the same mood as I had been in when I had left. `What do you mean?’ the alien sighed, obviously tiring of me. `Does this make you all powerful?’ `You could say that. There’s very little that we can’t do…’ `So why do you die?’ `Because it’s part of the plan. There has to be progression.’ `Why bother? You all look the same, there doesn’t seem to be much progression to me…’ `Bodies age…’ `So reverse the ageing process.’

        He shook his head. `We have very strict ethics that control the use of this technology.’ `Are you controlled?’ `No.’ `You mention computers - you can erase a computer’s memory and reprogram it. From what you say it sounds as if you’re able to do that with your memories and brains.’ `The technology exists, yes.’ `So you could delete memories, change personalities, suppress emotions…’

        `We could, but we don’t.’ `You’re programmed to tow the line, aren’t you? You don’t deviate from what you’ve been ordained to do because you’ve been programmed not to.’ `This is bollocks,’ spat Rob. `No it isn’t,’ I protested. `Come on, can you tell me with any certainty that no-one’s messed with your mind? Are you sure that you’re not just a worker drone that’s been sent out into space to do the work of who knows what?’ `It just wouldn’t happen,’ the visitor sighed. `Listen to yourself, will you? You’re talking about `us’ and `them’ all the time. In our society we only talk about us. Everything is done for the common good.’ `It’s all wrong,’ I insisted. `It’s all fucking wrong. You’re talking about a technology that allows you to control everything - even the most basic thought processes.’

        I noticed that Rob and Siobhan were looking at each other.

        They appeared awkward and uncomfortable. I felt frustrated and angry, but I wasn’t completely sure why. I was getting nowhere and all it was doing was winding the others up.

        I got up, walked to the end of the garden and stared out over the calm, dark sea. A brisk, cold wind blew in from the coast and chilled me to the core.

        The things that I had heard that evening rattled round and round my head for hours. I couldn’t sleep. Siobhan lay in bed with her back to me, sleeping soundly. I had really pissed her off with my behaviour tonight. She hadn’t spoken to me since the alien had left the house just after midnight.

        I just couldn’t accept what I’d been told. The alien had asked us to believe that he came from some utopian paradise billions of miles away - a place where people lived predestined lives without question or complaint; a place where individuals worked together selflessly for the common good. Someone once said that we only see things from our own perspective. I could only base my judgement on what I knew of myself and the rest of the human race, and that experience made me doubt that this paradise could ever have existed. What about character and personality? What about creativity and spontaneity? None of those qualities could possibly have been allowed to exist on the alien homeworld. Such attributes would only serve to disturb the precious status quo.

        If what I had heard was true then the options were limited.

        Either this place was a shining example to the rest of the universe, a cold, anodyne hell that no-one in their right minds would want anything to do with, or it was simply the most dangerous mind-fuck in existence. My gut reaction was that this alien `John’ and the rest of his blissfully happy species were being controlled like puppets by some godlike being who’s purpose I didn’t even want to think about.

        October.

        Autumn had arrived with a vengeance.

        The days were shorter and the nights longer and the temperature had begun to plummet. I lay in bed with Siobhan sleeping soundly next to me. I was restless. I’d drifted in and out of sleep a few times but hadn’t been able to properly lose consciousness. It was one of those endless dark nights where everything and nothing ran round and around my mind constantly. Without thinking of anything much in particular I had managed to keep myself awake until just after three o’clock. The cool night air was icy cold. I shuffled closer to Siobhan and wrapped my arms carefully around her.

        It was hard to believe that the aliens had been among us for the best part of three months now. It was even harder to believe that Mum and Dad had been gone for almost half a year.

        If I was perfectly honest with myself and put aside my own personal feelings and misgivings, then it felt as if the aliens had been with us for much, much longer. They had become such an accepted and integrated part of society that it was difficult now to try and remember what things had been like before they’d arrived.

        Although they seemed to have passed by in a matter of moments (certainly much quicker than the dark dragging hours had tonight) our first months together had been more than long enough for the first tangible benefits of our mutual existence to become evident. It didn’t matter what I thought of the aliens (and, to be honest, I still didn’t think much of them) there was no denying that we as a race had benefited greatly from their experience and expertise. The truth of the matter had been brought home to me a week or so earlier when I’d found myself watching live television coverage of man’s first landing on Mars.

        Okay, so the distance to the red planet was nothing compared to the vast distances the aliens had travelled, but no human had ever been further away from home. It was a monumentally important new beginning for mankind. Years ahead of previous schedules and predictions, the trip had been made in a vessel which had once been an ordinary, run-of-the-mill space shuttle. By the time our alien advisors and human technicians had finished redesigning, cannibalising and rebuilding the machine it was able to take off, fly and land completely unassisted like a conventional plane. Once white and bulky but now smooth, sleek and black, the ship could cruise effortlessly at incredible speeds which, just weeks earlier, we had only ever dreamed of.

        This year the summer had been particularly harsh and dry.

        Elsewhere in the world the landscape and whole populations had been all but destroyed by high temperatures and virtually nonexistent rainfall. Now, with the help of alien technology, previously lifeless fields had begun to flower and to flourish again. I’d heard reports that in one of the driest parts of Africa, a water manufacturing plant had just been opened and a vast manmade lake had already been filled. In the short time that the aliens had been with us, they seemed to have changed the face of the planet more than we had done in the last hundred years.

        I rolled onto my back and stretched. Siobhan stirred next to me. She mumbled something and then reached across and ran her outstretched hand over my chest. She stroked me tenderly for a few seconds before moving her hand further down and gently grabbing hold of my balls. I was erect in seconds, and completely awake in microseconds. `You are the sexiest woman alive,’ I groaned as she took me in her mouth and began to suck and lick. `I know!’ she tried to say with her mouth full of me.

        We fucked for almost an hour. Ravaging each other like animals, scratching and biting each other’s naked flesh, sliding into position after position until we were too exhausted to carry on.

        When we’d finished Siobhan silently rolled over and, still sweating and panting like a dog, I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my face against hers. Within seconds I was asleep.

        Completely satisfied and blissfully happy.

        Sunday morning. Cold, dull and uneventful. With Siobhan working I drove across town to see Clare. It was Penny’s birthday and I had a card and present for her.

        In stark contrast to the summer just ended, the village now appeared almost deserted. The vast invading armies of tourists and journalists had all but disappeared as the holiday season had finally ended and also as the aliens had begun to travel outwards and the phenomenon of their arrival had no longer been restricted to my home village and the few towns surrounding.