The Trojan Horse

Chapter Five

New York

USA, Day 5

The wallflowers — the collection of aides, secretaries and mistresses that followed their masters everywhere — stood pressed against the walls of the General Assembly Hall, watching their political masters from a distance. They were joined by the Ambassadors to the United Nations, who had been displaced by their respective Heads of State, and hundreds of unarmed security staff, who universally shared a horror at the possible danger to their charges and their outrage at being ordered to come unarmed. Toby understood their fears, but there was little choice. The last thing anyone needed was an incident when the Ambassador from the Galactic Federation was shot dead on Earth. It was the kind of event that tended to start wars.

He looked around the room, and then fixed his gaze on the alien Ambassador. The General Assembly Hall had a seating capacity of 1800 and it was full to bursting, creating a fire risk that had — inevitably — added to the fears of the security officers. Above the podium, the UN emblem glittered in the light, a reminder of the hopes of those who had founded the UN — hopes that had been brutally dashed by reality, just like the League of Nations before the Second World War. The alien didn’t seem impressed, but it was impossible to read the alien face. For all they knew, an alien ‘smile’ could really be a frown. There was no reason why an alien race had to share the same visual cues as an American-born human.

The Secretary-General returned to his place in the Assembly as the alien slowly mounted the podium. It was clear that they’d studied the UN; the alien escorts — or maybe they were aides, or security personnel — didn’t show any sign of surprise or confusion. Toby risked a quick glance at his palmtop and wasn’t too surprised to see that the latest electronic detection gear developed by the NSA couldn’t tell if the aliens were exchanging secret messages or not. The chances were that the Galactics would possess technology centuries beyond human science, although perhaps not beyond imagination. One resource the human race most definitely possessed was years of science-fiction writing to study for ideas and inspirations.

Just for a moment, Toby caught the bright red eyes of the alien Ambassador. They were almost hypnotic, seeming to draw him towards the alien and yet refuse to reveal anything about the alien’s motives, or purpose in visiting Earth. The alien briefly revealed his sharp teeth and Toby shivered. There was no way to avoid the conclusion that the alien was a predator. They would have been on top of the food chain on their planet, just as humanity sat at the top of Earth’s food chain. And anyone capable of getting into space would be intelligent, powerful — and willing to use that power in their own interests. Who knew what the Galactics really had in mind for humanity?

It wasn’t uncommon for speeches at the UN to be interrupted with shouts and walk-outs. Only a few years ago, a lengthy speech by an Iranian delegate claiming that the Holocaust had never taken place had resulted in a mass walk-out by Western delegates. Toby had a feeling that no one would walk out of this speech, no matter what the aliens said. The CIA’s analysts had wondered if the alien desire to meet with humanity’s leaders represented a determination to talk to whoever really made the decisions on Earth, or was a subtle slap at Earth’s population. Ambassadors were expendable; they could be ordered home, their careers destroyed, without starting a war. It was much harder to avoid a diplomatic incident if a Head of State had started it. And the alien, as exotic as he was, was only a mere Ambassador. But God only knew how the Galactic Federation would respond to any mistreatment of their representatives. They might not be as willing as President Carter to allow an insult to go unpunished… and they had seventeen starships orbiting the Earth, a silent reminder of their power.

Silence fell as the alien opened his mouth. The voder — it couldn’t be anything, but a translator and speaker — started to blink as the alien spoke. There had been no way to slip a microphone near the podium without alerting the UN’s security force, but some of the cameras at the rear of the chamber were actually designed and operated by NSA technicians. If they were lucky, they might pick up samples of the alien language and start humanity on the long road towards deciphering their words. Being dependent upon alien translators was a dangerously insecure position.

“In the name of the Galactic Federation, thank you for welcoming us to your world,” he said. The voice seemed to becoming more natural as the voder — there had to be a hell of a translation program buried within the small device — adapted to Earth’s conditions. “It is always a delight to encounter another intelligent race. There are many hundreds of races within the Federation, yet they all add something unique to the melange of cultures shared by the sentient races of the galaxy. You have wondered if you are truly alone in the universe. Know now that you are far from alone. The stars wait for you.”

There was a long pause. “The translation program we have developed is adaptive, but it can make mistakes,” the Ambassador added. “We apologise for any confusion caused by the translation. We will not take offense if you wish clarification of any matters raised during this meeting and we hope that you will extend us the same courtesy. The Federation has extensive experience in contacting new races and welcoming them into the fold, but each race poses its own problems which require individual solutions. We look forward to the day when your race joins us in the endless quest to seek out new worlds and civilisations, boldly going into the endless unknown.”

Toby thought fast. The aliens had admitted a weakness, which was odd. There were human cultures that saw admitting weakness as somehow intolerable, as if it hurt their pride to be thought less than perfect. And yet part of him admired the aliens for being willing to admit that they were far from all-powerful. Or… had they warned of translation errors to allow them to claim a mistranslation if humanity took offense at their words? He looked up at the unreadable red eyes and shivered. It was easy to believe in friendly aliens in the abstract, but in person… there was something about the Galactics that alerted every ancient sense in his mind. The aliens were dangerous.

And their words sounded suspiciously like Star Trek’s central credo…

“There are two ways in which we can encounter a new world of friends,” the Ambassador said. He had the attention of the entire chamber. Everyone was paying attention to his words, calculating how they offered advantages and threats to their particular nation. No matter how anyone looked at it, the aliens would change the entire world. Nothing before — not Korea, not Iraq — had ever matched the sheer significance of First Contact. The world would never be the same again. “We can encounter them in space, when they have developed starships to cross the gulfs of space and reach worlds that belong to the Galactic Federation. They have no difficulty in being integrated into the Federation, if that is their choice. The Federation has never had to force a member to join. All join willingly, convinced of the benefits of membership. Access to our vast database of knowledge about the galaxy, about the hundreds of races that flower out into space, is the least of it.

“Or we can discover them before they make the climb into space.”

There was a second pause, more chilling than the first. “In normal cases, a world is left to develop on its own until its natives start building starships for themselves. We have discovered that contact between an advanced civilisation and a primitive race, one unaware of atoms, or that their planets orbit stars, is utterly devastating for the primitive race. Everything they might have brought to the Galactic Federation — knowledge they might have developed, understandings they might have shaped, contributions to art and crafts… everything is lost forever. They become, at best, shadows of what they might have become.

“Your race has seen a similar process, although on a much smaller scale. Contact between the Native Americans, or Australian Aborigines, and the Europeans proved devastating for the weaker side. They were crippled by disease, by technology and — above all — by a worldview they could not match. The Galactic Federation has long determined that all contact between the advanced civilisations that make up the Federation and the primitive races that have not yet discovered the building blocks of science and technology is to be forbidden. This is the most powerful edict of our culture. We do not contact races below a certain level of technology.

“In rare cases, we discover a race that has developed a level of technology without advancing into space, or is on the verge of destroying itself with technology that it has not yet developed the maturity to handle safely. In such cases, it is the responsibility of the discoverers to attempt to guide the discovered through the bottlenecks that can destroy an entire race, removing its potential from the galaxy forever. Your race is unusual in that it has both failed to move into space in any meaningful way and has failed, as a society, to develop the maturity that would allow you to avoid being destroyed by your own technology. We have observed you long enough to know that the only thing that prevented you from destroying yourselves before we made contact was sheer luck.

“There is much we do not understand about your race. You are lucky enough to live in one of the most blessed solar systems in the galaxy, yet you have been almost childishly lax about moving into space. You could have started mining asteroids and the gas giants and placing your heavy industries in space, but instead you choose to continue polluting your planet and poisoning your environment. We will show you models that will illustrate the true danger of the situation you are facing. Total environmental collapse may well be possible within decades. You have even failed to produce defences in case of a natural disaster from space; there are asteroids orbiting near your world that may eventually intersect with your planet, slamming into it with a force that would shake your world.

“Put bluntly, your race is isolated on a single vulnerable world. You have been risking extinction for centuries… and not just through natural disasters or your polluting of your own environment. You pose a very real threat to yourselves.

“By the time most races reach your level of technology, they have developed governing systems that span most of their homeworld’s surface. They develop political systems that allow them to concentrate their efforts on reaching into space and ensuring their own survival. You have chosen to fragment your world into many disparate countries, each one scrabbling with its neighbours; the rich choosing to exploit the poor, the strong choosing to oppress the weak. You fight wars over religion, over skin colour; in over half of your countries, you allow your females to be brutalised by an oppressive male patriarchy that weakens their ability to contribute to the whole. Your governments have shown a sickening hypocrisy in allowing short-term national gains at the expense of long-term planetary development. Your global system has been trending towards disaster — an event that would shatter the foundations of your world — for the last four decades. Our models predict disaster within the next ten years, an upheaval of such power that it would dramatically reduce your population and destroy your governments.”

The Ambassador seemed to pause for a long moment. He was lecturing the Assembly, not debating with them, yet no one seemed inclined to object. Toby suspected that he understood; the alien, isolated from global politics, might be seen as a neutral observer rather than someone pushing a view for their own purposes. Or perhaps they were reluctant to risk the alien’s ire. If half of the speculated benefits from joining the Federation happened to materialise, angering the aliens could result in the benefits to their countries being lost — permanently.

“There are those among us who wonder if your race is… sick,” the Ambassador said. “Not seventy of your years ago, one of your nation-states attempted to exterminate millions of humans because of their religion, or ethnic origin, or merely because they wanted living space. The survivals of that terrible period have gone on to oppress others, who in turn have chosen to oppress themselves rather than learning to live with their fellow humans. Your race has produced some of the most evil regimes in the galaxy and yet many of your worst acts come from absent-mindedness rather than outright evil. There are even some amongst us who have considered establishing a permanent blockade of your world, fearful that you carry a mental disease that would spread into the galaxy. You are xenophobic to a degree we find alarming and almost unbelievable. How will you act if unleashed upon the universe?

“And if left to your own devices, you will cripple yourselves — perhaps even destroy yourselves — within decades.

“The Galactic Federation has made the decision to try to help you. We will provide you with technologies that you lack — technologies you could have developed for yourselves, had you chosen to spend the effort you spent on developing weapons on developing ways to improve your lives instead. We will assist you in escaping the bottleneck that threatens your race; we will guide you towards a point where you will be mature enough to enter the Galactic Federation without posing a threat to your cousins among the stars. Over the next few weeks and months, we will enter into talks with your political and economical leaders that will attempt to ensure that the level of disruption caused by our technology — our mere presence — is kept to a minimum. But we must also issue one word of warning.

“Every race must decide — for itself — if it wishes to grow into a mature race, or fall backwards into barbarism. We cannot make that choice for you. The contact between the Galactic Federation and Earth may well result in political and social disaster for your race. And if that happens, we will watch without interfering. You must choose for yourselves if you wish to develop the ability to survive and reach into space — foresight, understanding and tolerance — or if you want to wallow in barbarism. It will be your choice.

“We do not come to bring advantage to one nation-state, or an alliance of nation-states, over the other nation-states on your world. We regard your political fragmentation as one of the prime causes of your headlong rush towards disaster and we will endeavour to avoid worsening the situation. Our gifts will be distributed carefully, with the focus on preventing disaster. Do not seek to misuse our gifts, or exploit us for your national ends. We will not tolerate such abuse of our presence.”

The Ambassador gave the Assembly one of his strange near-smiles and then stepped down from the podium. Toby watched as the Secretary-General struggled to find something to say, even as the aliens swept out towards the exit and the crowds outside. The political leaders were starting to chatter nervously, as if they didn’t quite believe what they’d heard — or as if they feared the effect on their populations. Toby knew that almost everyone in the USA would be watching as the aliens departed, glued to their televisions or computers. The other modern states would have the same problem; even China or Russia, which had powerful tools to censor international media broadcasts, would still have to confront the fact that much of their population would know exactly what the aliens had said.

Toby found himself reeling as the last alien exited the chamber — and the other wallflowers were clearly just as stunned. The alien Ambassador had lectured the Heads of State of almost every nation in the world as if they were nothing more than children… and their political masters had just accepted it. Shock would turn to anger soon enough, Toby expected, except everyone would fear losing access to the technology the Galactics had promised. And much of what the aliens had said was true. The human race could have spent the past fifty years developing the solar system. It might have earned humanity a little more respect.

He glanced down at his palmtop. Over the last two decades, political advisors and spin doctors had developed powerful tools to monitor public opinion, knowing that the winner of any election would be the politician who trimmed his sails to ride the winds of public feeling. Already, mere minutes after the aliens had returned to their craft, the internet was buzzing with anger and an almost feverish excitement. The aliens hadn’t pulled any punches — and neither were the commenters on the internet. They were making their opinions known… and governments were getting the brunt of their anger. The politicians who had turned NASA into yet another pork barrel for the distribution of political largess were taking the worst of it, but almost every political leader was being hammered. Toby knew that people were braver in cyberspace, where opinions and sentiment didn’t always blur over into the real world, yet it was hard to escape the feeling that the alien speech was about to set off a political earthquake. Entire governments could fall within the next few days.

The President was already being escorted out of the chamber by his security team, his face pale and drawn. He wasn’t the only Head of State to look shocked. The Chinese Premier, famous for his stereotypical inscrutability, looked as if he had been drinking. How would China’s population — increasingly angry at the old men who ran the country according to their version of communism — react to the alien speech?

And there were countries that had no tradition of peaceful changes in government…

Toby shook his head, remembering the brief moment when he’d glanced into the bright red eyes. The Galactics had crafted their speech very neatly, aiming it at the wider human population. And no one would want to be left out of the bounty they offered to the human race. After today, the Galactics would be embraced by most of the world. Toby wondered, as he rose to his feet to meet up with the President in a secure location, if he was the only one to be worried by their words.

He couldn’t escape the impression he’d felt when he’d met the alien eyes. The Galactics were predators. And what did that mean for Earth?