Adopted Son (35 page)

The Vice President was finishing up his statement. “...But we must stand together as a people in the face of what will undoubtedly be a big change in our world, our culture, our sense of selves. I now cede the floor to our President, who is making a statement directly to the Pliedian fleet. Mr. President, I turn to you...”

The director quietly held up a hand with three fingers. Bright lights glared in Jim’s eyes. The fingers counted down, three...two...one...go.

“This statement is addressed to you, the interstellar travelers now barreling down towards our world. My name is James Miller, and I am the President of the United States of America and appointed Commander in Chief of the joint United Earth Alliance forces. I make this statement to you as the designated spokesman of Earth’s myriad peoples, and with the full backing of all nations and all our citizens. Know that we stand united in this.”

“Fifty years ago, your predecessors contaminated our planet with a virus. It was an insidious thing apparently designed to turn us into beings like yourselves. One can only speculate that the purpose of your attack was to make us lose our sense of history and ancestry, and to make us more willing to submit to your culture and leadership.”

“I am here to tell you that your strategy has failed. It has failed miserably. No one on this planet considers you to be more than invaders. On Earth, we consider that there is much more to ancestry than mere genetics. We cannot and do not identify with a race of creatures so cowardly, so evil, that they would resort to using a biological attack against a peaceful and innocent civilization. We identify with our true parents, the original human species of this Earth. We identify with our fathers and mothers who raised us, who gave us a sense of value and a sense of self. We honor the memories of our true ancestors, the people who made our civilization, the
Earthling
civilization, regardless of our genetic links.”

“We, the adopted sons and daughters of Earth, reject you, and we will fight you to the last man if you attempt to use force against us. You may have removed our ethnicities, but you have not removed our essential humanity. Your strategy has worked against you. Before your arrival, we were many. We were black and white, Chinese and African, Catholic and Muslim. Before your arrival we fought amongst ourselves, but now that is over. Your cowardly attack has shown us that we are truly one. We are truly the same. We are no longer many different races and nationalities, we are now simply ‘Earthlings.’”

“Yes, Earthlings. This is our planet, willed to us by our ancestors, ours by right of primogeniture. We honor our lineage as the children of Earth. We will not submit to any external force attempting to take what is ours by birthright. We love this planet. We love our civilization, our
human
civilization. If you come in peace, you are welcome. If you come otherwise, you will face the mighty force of a combined four billion beings, all of whom will fight for our blue sky, our green trees, and our clear rivers. We will fight for our arts, for our sciences, for our cities and farms, for our children and in our parents’ names. Know that Earth will always remain a place for Earthlings, for our culture, for our descendants, and no force, however powerful, will ever defeat our love for the glory and wonder of the planet of our birth.”

The transmission ends.

The Heinrich Mensen Memorial Clinic for Genetic Reclamation, Toronto, Canada. Three hundred and twenty seven years after the birth of Johannes Handel.

“Push”

The young girl strained her stomach muscles. Her heart pounded, her feet pressed against the stirrups. “Push!” the doctor yelled again. The geneticists looked down on their patient from the gallery above. Sweat poured from her face. She breathed, in out in out, it didn’t help. The doctor said that this would be a difficult birth owing to the baby’s size, but she hadn’t expected so much pain. She was about to rip apart.

“I see the head,” said the doctor, all crouched down between her legs like a catcher waiting for a pitch. “Give me one more big push, just one more.” The doctor had his hands on the baby’s skull. The girl let out a groan. The doctor guided the newborn out of the birth canal. The spectators who had been holding their breath in anticipation were relieved to hear a tiny cough, then another, then a child’s cry. The experiment had been a success. Their decades of research had paid off. A nurse dropped a tool on the floor in shock.

The doctor looked down at the small bloody thing he cradled in his arms. The first difference that you could see was the color. The child’s skin wasn’t the traditional gray, but instead a ruddy pink. Its head was smaller, far smaller than normal. The rest of its body seemed large and overdeveloped in comparison. The thing looked up at him with its two small, mammal-like, blue eyes. Several of the scientists burst into the room for a first glance. They looked over the doctor’s shoulder and got their first glimpse of the child as it reached out and squeezed the doctor’s thumb with its tiny hand.

“The first of many!” exclaimed one of the scientists. A cheer was sounded by all.

Dominic Peloso worked for over ten years as a bioterrorism and policy analyst for the U.S. government. He claims to have completed this novel prior to September 2001 and therefore worries about his prescience. He lives near a giant cemetery and prefers company during thunderstorms.

Adopted Son is his second prose novel. He is also the author of the webcomic, Tiny Ghosts (
www.tinyghosts.com
).