Insistence of Vision (25 page)

“We weren’t able to move everybody in time,” Senator Green said when I was finally dragged before the Emergency Committee. “Three more were killed in the last hour. Thanks to you.”

He expected an answer, but I had learned from the Martians. Conversation is inefficient. Any comment I made would be superfluous.

“We fixed the mistake that let you access the protection database,” said the President’s representative. “The location of threatened individuals will be more secure.”

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

“We
will
protect our citizens.”

That roused me a bit, in curiosity.

“How? By hiding four million people? By fighting?”

A general pounded the table. “If necessary, yes! They must be taught to respect us. Our laws and our lives.”

“Very stirring,” I answered. “How’s that going?”

The general flushed without answering. No need. In my cell I’d watched TV footage from the slaughter in Seattle, when a National Guard armored company fought in the streets with heavy weapons, battling to protect a billionaire bookseller and space aficionado from a single lanky alien. This time, the Martian departed the
Battle of 12th Avenue
with a temporary limp... quite an accomplishment... though several tank crews died to achieve it. Along with the prominent book dealer.

Proportional punishment. Twenty brave men for one briefly inconvenient wound.

“I hope you at least took my advice about badges,” I said, wincing as one of my broken teeth twinged.

The general glowered. But Senator Green nodded. “The soldiers wore no identifying markings. You still haven’t explained why –”

“Why we should take advice from a collaborator and accomplice in cold blooded murder!” interjected the fellow from the White House. His attitude reflected a keen political sense of rising public will. The beating I received upon being arrested was a mere taste of what would happen if I were released onto the street. Vigilantes would spare nothing larger than a hangnail.

“Why listen to me? Maybe because I’m the only one who seems to have a clue what’s going on.”

This time, the whole Committee lapsed into sullen quiet. You could scoop their hatred with a shovel.

“So.” I broke the silence. Somebody had to. “Will anybody explain why I’m here? Why did you send for me?

“Wait,” I continued, holding up a hand. “Let me guess the reason.

“They keep their word. They honor their debts.

“I’ve been paid.”

Tight-lipped, grudgingly, Senator Green nodded to an assistant, who turned on a fancy live-access screen nearby. “A new web site appeared on the internet, twenty minutes ago. We can’t trace the source. It contained only this video clip.”

The screen flickered – a glitch at our end, I figure, since Earthling network technology would seem trivial to these ancient, advanced beings. When the static cleared, there stood a creature from another planet. One whose brain and form had already been “optimized” before our ancestors split off from dinosaurs.

It spoke rapidly and with characteristic efficiency – haloed by the iridescent-green fans, or wings, that fed it directly from the sun.

“
The assistance proved helpful in accomplishing my immediate goal. I have also benefitted by selling updated location information to others of my kind.

“Despite this, some hunters report being inconvenienced by the clever evasiveness of those they seek. It appears increasingly likely that targets are being aided by other humans.

“I wish to know more about non-listed humans who interfere. I will pay for information about them. Their reasons for interfering. And for assistance adding their names to our List.”

This was my first time watching the video. Everyone else in the room must have already seen it, many times. Even so, that last sentence drew a murmur of dismay.

“
If you can help to identify those who interfere, contact me using the code words that you established,”
the Martian continued.
“Meanwhile, the assistance received so far has proved valuable. Hence, I will now pay the first installment of the agreed-upon price.”

I felt tension all around. Despite grueling interrogation, I had refused to explain what passed between me and the alien that morning, after I tore off the monitoring devices.

“
You asked specific questions, requesting that I post answers on the crude planetary network. I deem that your help so far merits three answers. I will post more if success continues to result from your assistance.”

In other words, further rewards would flow if the envelope that I handed over, early this morning, helped aliens to murder even more people in a long chain.

“
Question Number One. Why have I come to Earth – a barbaric and unpleasant place – in search of human beings to kill?

“Answer. As you surmised, the motive is vengeance – a concept which human beings appear to understand, though in a typically gross and primitive manner, absent all subtlety, persistence, esthetics or depth.

“Someone of great importance to me died as a direct result of the arrival of a Mars Exploration Rover. Under the Calculus of Reprisal, I seek redress from those responsible. I shall exact payment from a sufficiently large number of humans to restore balance. At present that figure is eighty-nine thousand and seventy three – subject to change.”

It was my turn to gasp, at the appalling number. Was that how small we seemed to them? Intelligent enough to be held accountable, yet not worthy of conversation. Bright enough to be punished, but only satisfying in large quantities.

One solace. Whatever calamity had come to Mars on that space probe, inadvertently wreaking harm – perhaps some terrestrial plague that took them by surprise – it did not slaughter
millions
as I had envisioned. Just forty, possibly fifty, or so of those ancient ones must have died. Maybe the same number as our invaders. Did each one come to avenge a single – loved one – by leaving a bloody swathe of dead humans?

The creature held up two fingers – an eerily humanlike gesture.
“Second question. What form of cooperative enterprise constructed the interplanetary vessel that brought me here?

“Answer. Our craft was built by a collaborative association of the aggrieved. Sharing nearly identical motives, a number of us gathered – using ancient and long-dormant skills – in order to cross space, achieve vengeance and restore balance. Such collusion is distasteful. But imperative need overcame natural aversion.

“It has become apparent to me that Earthlings form collaborative associations with disgusting readiness, and hew to those associations rigidly. Like the association of four million that sent the deadly Mars Exploration Rover. This cultural difference merits study. I will pay for further information about –”

“Stop!”

At my shout, the assistant tapped a key to freeze playback. Onscreen, the Martian remained motionless, warped slightly by video clutter.

“As I feared,” I muttered. “We’re in trouble.”

Senator Green shook his head. “
Now
you say that? Or do you mean things are even worse than we thought? How do you conclude –”

“Never mind that!” the White House Guy growled. “We want to discuss the
third answer.”

“Third answer?”

“The
next
one. Where the alien offers a few sentences about their
space drive.
That’s the important one. Our physicists are all in a lather over what it says about
vacuum energy
and
neutralizing inertia.
A hundred theories are spouting all over the place, with no idea how to sort them out!”

I shrugged. “Well? What did you expect, detailed blueprints? A few sentences were all I had earned.”

A murmur of disgust greeted the word.
Earned
. Yet they clearly felt torn, these men and women who were charged with finding a solution to humanity’s worst crisis. I sympathized. But only to a point.

“If you want more hints – maybe even blueprints – I’m sure one Martian or another will sell them to you.”

“Sell them... you mean like the way
you
bought these answers? Never!”

I felt too fatigued even to shrug again. “If you won’t, then somebody else will, now that there’s a more convenient way to do business with them. Frankly, I think we’ll get a better deal if we do it carefully, in small stages, keeping the price high. Play them off each other...”

“You’re talking about selling these invaders the lives of human beings!” shouted the general.

“In exchange for knowledge we desperately need. Yes. To race through a quarter billion years of catch-up. Call it a
reconnaissance
with moderate expected losses, General.”

“Why, I never heard anything so monstrously –”

“Pragmatic?” With a sigh, I straightened, pulling my shoulders back. I had to try to get through to these people. If only in order to persuade them to send me a dentist.

“Senator, ladies, gentlemen, we need to ponder our own past. Especially when European sailors and settlers arrived in Africa, Oceania, the Americas. Few native peoples came through first or second contact very well. Many perished. And our differences then were nothing compared with the gaping chasm that separates us from extraterrestrials.

“Who managed best, among our ancestors facing those European strangers? Everyone suffered, but a few did better than average. The Japanese and Thais kept their independence and strove at great cost to catch up. The Cherokee and Iroquois carefully studied white newcomers, learning and borrowing whatever seemed to make sense.

“And yet, in our movies, books and modern myths, it is always the most obstinate tribes who are portrayed as noble, admirable, clinging to every aspect of their old ways, defying the clear need for flexibility, for adaptation. If we follow their example – proudly sticking by our own standards and customs, no matter what – we may
nobly
follow those tribes into extinction.”

Amid the glowering faces, one woman – an anthropology professor I had met years ago at a conference – spoke in a voice deep with gloom.

“Many of us already reached that conclusion. The debate now is whether it will be
better
to go extinct, than do as you recommend. What good is surviving, if we pay with our souls?”

I nodded. “Our ancestors must have had similar conversations, in hogans and wigwams, in countless huts and palaces, from Lapland to Australia. It’s an old story. Western civilization was luckier than most. But our luck has run out.

“I’m just glad it’s not my decision. You leaders – and others like you – will make the call. I’ve simply laid out the choice, stark and bare.”

“That you’ve done, sir. Ruthlessly.”

“Judge me later,” I snapped. “When you know all the facts. It’s humanity that matters now. Not individuals, or nations.

“Anyway, do you honestly think you can protect the people on that list? Say you do finally succeed at killing one of these creatures. Won’t that bring
more
Martians, seeking countless more human lives to atone? Ask Native Americans how well that math added up.”

The glum spell that followed was punctuated by a sound I made sucking at one of my broken teeth. I couldn’t help it, really, though it seemed disrespectful. In fact, part of me felt
glad
that these people were so unlike the pitiless clichéd authority figures of cinema. Instead, they seemed motivated by the highest values. Human values.

In my own way...

Senator Green spoke again.

“You don’t seem curious about the answer to your third question.”

“Should I be? A technical issue. Thrown in to interest scientists, the military. To show the Martians are so far ahead, they’ll casually trade information we find precious. Like the Dutch, buying Manhattan Island for beads. It may take a great many such answers before we begin to know
how little
we know.”

“Hm. And you’ve set it up so that now the aliens can trade information with treacherous humans via the internet.”

“As if someone else wouldn’t have done so, within hours. Even if you shut down the Net, that won’t matter. They’ve learned not to offer baubles anymore. Nobody will sell out a neighbor for nuggets and gems that can be seized by police or vigilantes. But how about a new industrial process? Insight to disease? An advanced machine or weapon? I’ve shown that information can be swapped without personal contact, using some personal code words.

“Soon, others will catch on. How to get a few sentences of useful data from creatures who are eons ahead of us. You can’t hide four million people from that kind of temptation. And now that the list is growing longer –”

“Longer,” the general mused. “They add names of those who try to thwart them. Those who help the four million. Is that why you advised us to remove all badges –”

“It’s worse, general. Much worse than that. Haven’t you wondered why they came after
just
people on that Mars Exploration Rover list?”

Committee members looked at each other before turning back to glare at me. But I only felt the frozen presence on the big screen. Tall, enigmatic, impervious and almost perfect.
Optimized
so very long ago that its kind craved the warmth of no hearth, nor even atmosphere. So perfect that it made its own food, living in almost pure autonomy, scarcely needing any other.

How jealous I felt.

“What do you mean, worse?” the anthropologist finally asked.

“I mean that they seem not to comprehend how interdependent, cooperative and gregarious humans really are. We’re individually so weak, so soft and frail, that we evolved these tendencies. We aggregate into large groups as a natural part of being what we are. Who we are.”

“So?”

“So, the notion of
permanent
associations – including nations and states – may be the most alien thing about us, from their Martian point of view. They do know we’re ‘disgustingly’ cooperative. When they examined the MER probe and found four million names, they naturally assumed that it was sent by a great big temporary consortium composed of those who
signed
the spacecraft –”