FictionPress.com - let the words flow| FictionPress.com - let the words flow |
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
This was part of my final for Science Fiction this year (blargh...), and I rather like it, so I thought I'd put it up. The ending is lacking, but ah well...I got something like a 97 on it, so I can't have done too badly.
Sorry to those of you waiting for an update on WYWF...I was really busy with schoolwork and TWC, and then I lost my notebook. But I have it now, and Ch. 3 should be up by Wednesday.
The Weight of the World
Every presidency has its defining moment, one significant issue or conflict for which it will be remembered. Eric Torrin, 47th president of the United States of America, had thought that the Iranian civil war was his big issue.
Apparently he’d been wrong.
“Let me see if I’ve got this, Henry,” Torrin said, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Aliens want to colonize Puerto Rico?”
“It’s not that simple, Mr. President,” replied Henry Breakwater, four-star general and head of Military Intelligence. “At 0800 hours, the Arecibo Observatory received what they think is a message from the Seren system. Seren is about four and a half light years away, a yellow dwarf much like our own Sun—at least, it was. According to the message, it’s about to go supernova in under a decade. When it does, it will destroy the entire system. Of the six planets orbiting Seren, only two contain sentient life, but once Seren goes, they’ll all be destroyed.”
“And they want refuge.”
“So they claim, Mr. President. They say their total population is around ten billion,” Breakwater said carefully.
Torrin started to push his glasses up again, then frowned and took them off. “Ten billion aliens want to colonize Puerto Rico.”
“Not Puerto Rico, sir. Not even Earth. They want Mars.”
“Of course they do.” Torrin frowned again, glaring at his spectacles as though they were to blame. “How do we even understand this?”
“Their language is a derivation of Latin,” Breakwater explained. “Unless, of course, we’ve misinterpreted it entirely.”
“Who else knows?” Torrin asked, ignoring the General’s sarcasm.
“Sir?”
“Somehow I doubt these aliens only care about the opinion of the Puerto Ricans. Who else has received the message?"
"We think that most of the major countries know by now—China, South Africa, Australia, and Argentina all have strong radio astronomy problems, and no doubt their scientists and ours have told their foreign colleagues. I think it's safe to say that the major world powers are aware of the situation."
“We should be the first to break the story,” Torrin said.
“Yes,” Breakwater agreed. “Should I have someone at the Pentagon draft a statement, or would you like to do it?”
“Hm…” Torrin thought. “Have Arecibo do it, then I’ll follow with a statement of my own.
“Very good, Sir.”
There was a flurry of cries of “Mr. President!” but Torrin’s Secret Service agents, impersonal and efficient as ever, managed to get him into the Oval Office before they could do more than shout at him.
“That went well,” Breakwater remarked from his place by the president’s desk. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the Secret Service boys move so fast.”
“Hn,” Torrin agreed, fiddling with his glasses. “What’s the reaction from overseas?”
“The UK and France are making statements now—the entire EU is peeved because we didn’t tell them we were going to break the story. China’s mad because we stole their story, and Mexico is annoyed because somehow they never even got word of the message before the press briefing. And the Prime Minister of Australia is on the phone for you.”
“Wonderful.” Torrin sighed. “Well, I guess I’d better take that. It won’t do to keep the PM waiting.”
He was halfway through Economic Forecast for the Agricultural Industry Through 2050 when Breakwater came in. “Excuse me, sir.”
“Hn? Oh, yes, Henry. What is it?”
“Have you been watching the news?”
“Not exactly.” Torrin nodded to the Oval’s TV, which was always set to CNN. It was muted.
“You’re going to want to hear this…” Breakwater reached for the remote.
“…Western allies,” the Russian president was saying. “But Russia will not be fooled by such a message. These extraterrestrials do not want Mars! They want Earth! They want our home! Mars cannot support life—what could they want with it? It is only a ploy, a trick, a deception to get us to allow them into our solar system.”
“There’s more,” Breakwater said grimly, switching to C-SPAN.
“You may think that they will be content with Mars, but I am here to tell you they will not be. Mars is only the beginning. From there they will spread, to Venus, to the moons of Jupiter, until they are strong enough and numerous enough to launch an attack on Earth!” Torrin recognized the speaker as Earl Perry, leader of one of the “Anti-Alien” groups that had sprung up once news of the message broke. “God gave this great Earth to us, and we will not give it up for anything!”
“The other side is out in force, too,” said Breakwater, switching channels again.
“…Help all. They may not be human—does it matter? These are sentient beings, living creatures in need, and we have a duty to help them!” exclaimed a woman from beneath an Amnesty International banner.
Breakwater switched channels again. “…Meet them! For years we’ve been telling people they existed, but you wouldn’t believe us! Well, now we have proof. Aliens are real, and they’re coming, man. I plan to welcome them when they get here,” said a rather scruffy college boy. His friends nodded in agreement, and then began to chant, “Aliens are coming! We will greet the aliens! Aliens are coming! We will greet the aliens! Aliens are—”
Breakwater muted the television again. “The entire planet is in uproar.”
“Well, what did we expect?” Torrin asked, looking down at his economic report. Suddenly it seemed much less trivial then the aliens. Aliens are coming, we will greet the aliens! Honestly… he thought. As if running a country wasn’t bad enough; somehow now it seemed he was responsible for the entire galaxy.
“I’m too old for this, Henry,” he said with a sigh, removing his glasses. “After Iran, I thought…”
“No rest for the wicked, Eric,” the general said softly, breaking his military habits for just a moment. “You’re a good man, a good leader. When the time comes, you’ll do what’s right.”
“It isn’t really up to me.”
“Technically, no. But you have a great deal of influence. The EU respects you, most of the Middle Eastern countries like you—which is more than can be said of most of your predecessors, by the way—and you have the American people behind you. You carry a great deal of weight in the international community.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Torrin asked wryly.
“I’m not here to make you feel better,” Breakwater retorted. “I’m here to make sure you do your job.”
Torrin smiled at that. There were those who criticized him for his close friendship with Breakwater—he was the biggest military man in the US, after all, and it wasn’t good public relations to be seen as a military administration. But Torrin ignored them for the most part. He and Henry had been friends since before they could walk, and he was quite sure he never would have made it through the last six and a half years without the general’s solid shoulders their to ease the burden of Sol’s only populated planet.
"Eblurgh," muttered Torrin, fighting to stay asleep.
"Sir, you need to wake up. We have a situation."
Grudgingly Torrin forced his eyes open and sat up. Catching sight of the clock beside his bed, he swore. "Henry, it's four in the morning!"
"We've received another message."
That woke him up. "What's it say?" he asked, pulling a robe on over his pajamas and reaching for his glasses.
"So far, nothing. Just four different symbols, repeated over and over," Breakwater replied as they hurried downstairs.
"Do we have any idea what it means?"
"The Arecibo group thinks it might be a map of the aliens' genome."
"Why would they send us that?" Torrin asked, searching the cupboards of the Whitehouse for coffee. "You would think that, as president of the United States, I would be able to find a bag of beans!"
"So you would, sir," Breakwater replied, handing him the bag (he'd found it next to the coffee maker). "As to the genome, we've had the DOE Genome Institute in California look over the data, and they say it's an exact copy of our own."
Torrin turned slowly away from the coffee maker to face Breakwater. "You're telling me these aliens are human?"
"That's what the DOE boys say, sir," the general replied. "Our guess is that they're trying to convince us they mean no harm."
"They mean no harm, hm?" Torrin mused, watching the coffee percolate. "Do they really?"
"Sir?"
"What makes them think that we'll trust them at all? They speak our language, more or less, and they know the human genome, but isn't that more fishy than trustworthy? Do they really think we're that naïve?"
"Perhaps their society is not so…jaded as ours, sir. No, thank you," he said, waving away the steaming mug. "I try to avoid caffeine."
"Which is admirable, I'm sure," Torrin replied, taking a sip of his own mug, "but some of us are in charge of half the free world."
"A bit of an exaggeration,” Breakwater felt compelled to say, though they both knew it was merely a formality.
"I suppose." Torrin sighed. "What's the rest of the world saying about this new information?"
"The Russians are unwavering—they think this is just a trick to lull is into complacency. Australia wants us to let them come. The European Union says the situation merits further consideration in light of this new evidence."
“Of course it does…when do we announce?”
“The Arecibo team has prepared a statement for release at 0600 hours,” Breakwater replied. “We’ll want to make a statement after that.”
“Good, good,” said Torrin, beginning to pace. Now that he had coffee, he was able to think clearly. “Have someone wake up the Joint Chiefs, and tell them we meet in half an hour. I’m going to get dressed.”
He knew it was for the best, knew he had to be firm in his conviction, but deep inside, part of him still rebelliously thought, We’re killing an entire race of people. He scanned the pictures on his desk, the smiling faces of his children and grandchildren beaming up at him, with no idea of the billions of lives he’d thrown away.
They’d all been so sure, the Joint Chiefs, the UN representatives, everyone. It’s just a trick. They want to attack us. And, Torrin had to admit, it did make sense. But if they really did want to attack Earth, why ask for permission? Why bother with formalities?
And Seren was going to supernova—the boys at NASA had assured him of that. Despite what he’d told the UN, what he was going to tell the entire world, the entire galaxy…he believed the message. He believed the aliens needed refuge, and he believed that he had killed them.
His granddaughter was still smiling at him, grinning without a care. How many Serenian girls were there that looked like his Abby? How many of them would he kill? It’s easy to murder when the enemy doesn’t have a face, he thought morosely. Easy to condemn a faceless mass.
And when it came down to it, they had no idea if refusing to offer the aliens—the humans—sanctuary would affect anything. They could come anyway, determined to conquer the solar system and claim it for their own. It would take them four and a half years from the time they received Earth’s refusal—nine years total—to reach the solar system if they could travel at the speed of light…but what was to say they weren’t already on their way? How were they to know if the alien/humans weren’t just around the corner, waiting to attack?
There was no use in pursuing this line of thought—it would only drive him crazy. But he couldn’t get it out of his mind, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t crazy already. It was more than the world that rested on his shoulders now—in the course of a week, he’d become responsible for the universe. Did the Gods think he was as strong as they? He was no Atlas, to carry such a burden. He was a mortal man, a tired man, a man whose shoulders ached from the weight they bore.
He had no right to condemn these people to death. When it came down to it, he, like they, was only human.
