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3. Invasion
Present day, somewhere far above North America
The vast alien mother ship slid silently through the interstellar void. Round about it the de rigueur invincible space armada jostled for position as it plunged towards the small defenceless disc of Earth.
Or perhaps not. From behind an insignificant, and conveniently placed, asteroid a handful of single-seat fighters swooped to the rescue. Crewed by pilots representing the full ethnic and sexual diversity of their home planet, this brave band of warriors charged to almost certain death. Sportingly, the aliens held back the myriad of wonder-weapons their ancient civilization was no doubt able to deploy, instead launching swarms of their own tiny fighters. These craft, bearing an uncanny resemblance to various Earth insects, were piloted by the most clumsy and ham-tentacled of their species. Those that made it out of the vast hangar doors without crashing engaged the Earthlings in a swarming battle of instant death. Even so, due to the sheer numbers of alien craft, the humans faced an uphill struggle. Today was no day to be without their hotshot ace pilot.
Aboard the alien Emperor’s personal star-barge Captain Troy Meteor, Hero of the Earth Defence Force and Olympic Low-G Fencing Champion, stood tied to an over-endowed and scantily clad cheerleader. It had been a tough break getting captured the way he had. Odds of 9000–1 were not usually a problem, but then Troy knew all about tough breaks, just like he knew all about ‘War is hell’, Officer’s Club banter and YMCA gymnasium showers.
The alien commander squatted in a vat of bubbling indigo goo atop an unholy dais. ‘So you see, our plans are quite simple,’ it croaked like a multi-hued perversion of a tobacco company’s research-lab beagle. ‘Even though our two races developed light-years apart, changes in the radiation signature of our sun mean we can obtain sustenance from one source and one source only.’
‘But why are you telling me all this?’ muttered Meteor darkly, trying hard to make it look like he was attempting to free his hands, but all the while touching-up the cheerleader’s bottom. ‘If I escape I’ll know every detail of your conniving scheme.’
Bringing forth his ceremonial gorging straw the Emperor cackled. ‘It matters not, my simian-based friend, for very soon, via your nasal cavity, I shall have sucked out what passes for your brain!’
Half way down aisle C, Dave yanked the lightweight plastic headphones from his aching ears and shook his head in stupefied disbelief. How was his fledgling science ever to be taken seriously when they continued to churn out this Troy Meteor shit? It was enough to make him weep. Beckoning a glassy-eyed stewardess, Dave ordered himself a stiff drink and made yet another effort to read the in-flight magazine.
But it was no use. The text that made up the thirty pages of glossy advertising copy was completely unreadable for anyone with a mental age higher than their shoe size. The words seemed to slip under Dave’s conscious brain only to be sucked into the subconscious box marked forget forever. With a weary sigh, he settled back in his economy seat and did what he always did at times like this. He thought of Kate.
He had asked her to come with him, but he had done it with that same air of hopeless, optimistic resignation that he asked her to do anything – go to a movie, share a curry, or on those rare occasions when copious amounts of lager got the better of his natural timidity, let him get inside her knickers. The answer to the last of these, as always, was no. A movie and curry were OK, but hot gusset action wasn’t the sort of thing best friends did.
‘But what if I meet a stunning Californian babe and we fall madly in love – what will you do then?’ he’d asked her.
‘Then I’ll look forward to the wedding and pray you name your first trans-Atlantic toddler after me. But if that’s the biggest risk I’m running letting you go on your own, fine. It’s not even a proper holiday. If you expect a girl to put up with two weeks of emotional blackmail, the least you can do is throw in a beach and a gallon of pina colada.’ Then she’d paused, looked at him searchingly, sadly maybe, and said: ‘Does everything you ever do have to be tied in with that ridiculous magazine?’
He’d been hurt, as he always was. The ‘ridiculous magazine’, as Kate insisted on calling it, was Dave’s pride and joy: none other than the internationally renowned ScUFODIN Monthly – the official journal of the Scientific UFO Discovery and Information Network. And the international renown bit was no idle boast, either; only last month Dave had received an enthusiastic letter from Belgium.
Kate steadfastly refused to acknowledge the journalistic worth of the magazine Dave edited. ‘It’s written by cranks, for cranks,’ she said.
‘And where does that leave me?’
‘Lovable but misguided? Your letters page reads like the visitors’ book of a care-in-the-community drop-in centre.’
It was hard to disagree with this particular point in her otherwise unfounded argument. All of his formal education had trained him for a career in science, viewing the world as a rational and logical place. Inevitably enough he often found himself at odds with the New Age and conspiracy theory wings of the movement. He did his best to keep things on an even keel, but it was an uphill battle – like trying to catch a monsoon in a thimble. As an editor who largely relied on the contributions of his readers Dave was at the mercy of the zealots. By the time he’d cut out pieces on ‘Holes at the Poles’, Flat Earth Society propaganda and ‘I’ve had sex with an alien who looked like Helena Bonham-Carter’ abduction stories from the live-at-home-with-my-mum boys, his heavyweight magazine was regularly reduced to a flyweight pamphlet.
And then there was the question of funding. For a journal that at best sold a few thousand copies, and was then universally consigned to a dentist’s waiting room in Aberdeen or the bottom of budgie cages, Dave was never short of operating cash. It wasn’t as if he ever had to go cap in hand to the magazine’s publicity-shy owners. Where it all came from was a mystery. Accounting had never been one of Dave’s strong points, but even he found himself a little uneasy at times over the prodigious quantities of cash that came pouring through the magazine’s bank account.
As far as he could make out, most of it was simply given to him, though by whom and for what was harder to pin down. No doubt some came from wealthy and elderly benefactors, humoured in their final years and at least glad to have a ready source of emergency toilet paper. But who on Earth were ‘The Institute for Meteorological Advancement’ and the ‘The International Council of Illuminanti’? One month, when Dave took a stand in the interests of scientific integrity and devoted the entire issue to real testable theories, the mystery funding dried up. Dave was no financial whiz-kid but he knew not to rock a boat that didn’t even have a keel. Not wanting to incur the wrath of his normally dormant publishers, next month the lunatic fringe returned with a vengeance. And so did the money.
So, truly scientific investigation of the UFO phenomena was currently at a low ebb, lower even than Dave’s love life – and as tides went that particular ocean surge was so far down the beach you could smell the rotting seaweed and had to step over the occasional surfer dying of toxic shock. But with Kate steadfastly declining his amorous advances, constantly maintaining that she wanted them to remain ‘just best friends’, for better or worse, ScUFODIN Monthly remained the real partner in Dave’s life.
An overly cheerful mechanical voice, asking him to fasten his seatbelt, brought Dave back to the present with a bump. He was meant to be putting all that behind him on this trip of a lifetime, but as Kate was so fond of saying, ‘You don’t just bring your work home with you, you sleep with it. If you were female, you’d have its babies.’
When he came down to it he had to admit she was right about the motives for his journey. Sure enough, he was claiming it as holiday, the first he’d had in three years as editor. But in his rare moments of self-honesty Dave knew there was only one reason he was visiting Nevada, and it wasn’t because he liked one-arm bandits or dancing girls with ostrich feathers sprouting from their pants. Well, OK leave in the last bit, but really this was a pilgrimage he’d wanted to make all his life. A holy journey you had to do once in a lifetime. Even though his personal desert Mecca was enshrined in triple-thickness security fences, antipersonnel minefields and luminous day-glo signs reading PROPERTY OF UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT WITH BIG GUNS he’d be there to worship at the first opportunity.
Ten minutes later, with a cheerful smile and an optimistic swagger, he stepped off the plane at Las Vegas International Airport and gazed up at the star-filled desert sky. Kate or no Kate, while he was here, he knew he was going to have one hell of a time.
4. Revelations
February 1969, somewhere deep beneath North America
The politician stepped onto the circular pedestal and self-consciously smoothed back his sweat-laced hair. One trouser leg was rolled up to the knee, revealing a pallid vein-riddled lower leg. Around him the intense darkness pressed in from all sides. When the beam of white light flooded in from above he squinted through heavy-browed eyes, his weighty jowls quivering as he searched for figures in the blackness beyond. Shortly, the sort of computerized voice that was much in fashion before computers had very much to say gave its verdict.
‘Subject confirmed as Richard Millhouse Nixon. Thirty-seventh President of the United States, and Chairman of the Committee of 300.’ From a rather tinny loudspeaker somewhere far above drifted the first few bars of ‘Hail to the Chief’. It was hard to escape the feeling it had done this many times before.
The new President tentatively stepped down and shielded his eyes from the glare. Nothing moved, apart from a small vein at the side of his temple. Then, accompanied only by a faint whiff of sweat, which Nixon quickly realized was his own, a dark figure stepped from the shadows. The newcomer’s voice was like gallows-yard gravel ground under an executioner’s heel, yet as smooth and cultured as an upper-cut from an Oxford Don.
‘Can’t be too careful these days, Mr Chairman. Traitors where you least expect.’ There was no doubt which of his guest’s titles afforded the most respect.
The Commander-in-Chief offered a half-hearted salute, then thought better of it and turned it into a cheerless wave. ‘Well no, I guess not. Reds … and worse shades, everywhere. You must be …’
‘They call me Becker. Some call me worse things, but when the enemies of justice hate your guts you know you’re doing something right. You can roll down that trouser leg too – we don’t pander to mysticism down here.’
His guest looked to be in two minds. ‘I thought you Committee boys were sticklers for tradition?’
Becker’s eyes held the faintest trace of annoyance. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony, as long as it doesn’t stand on us. I suspect you’ve been misled by some of your senior partners. Would you walk this way, please.’
They stepped onto a conveyor belt which whisked them off down a seemingly endless corridor of smooth walls and no doors. The leader of the Free World took the chance to study his companion. He was a big man, wearing an impeccably tailored black suit cut in the ‘organization man’ style of the early fifties. In his big grizzled hand he held a dark and sinister package. At his wrist was some sort of complex flashing electrical device. Though his craggy features were cast in shadow, somehow his eyes seemed darker still.
Small talk was neither of their specialities, though nervously the President felt an urge to try. ‘Quite a facility you have here. Good to know the public’s tax dollars aren’t all wasted, even the ones we don’t account for.’
The Dark Man looked back coldly at his nominal superior. Then, after a heart-stopping instant, his broad face creased into a mirthless smile which got no nearer his eyes than Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets had to JFK. ‘We know you’re one of us, sir. Those who took you this far will ensure you stay in power. The Committee will back you to the hilt, and beyond – as long as you fulfil your role.’
At this assurance the President grinned his dumbest vote-catching grin. As was his custom, Becker didn’t. Further conversation was now clearly inappropriate.
Dark and silent minutes passed, until at last the walkway glided to a halt before a huge and featureless wall.
‘The time has come for you to learn what all who hold your high office must know – I speak not of the Presidency but your other, more fundamental brief. Beyond this wall is our organization’s most closely guarded secret, hidden even from the likes of yourself – one of our most promising associate members. It’s my opinion that if this information ever leaks out the bedrock on which the Committee’s power rests will crumble. Unfortunately, not all your colleagues share my views. I have reason to worry about their motives. Prepare yourself.’
The President looked on agog, an expression he was practised at, as Becker fiddled with the device strapped to his wrist. Slowly and steadily a section of the vast wall slid away before them.
What gradually appeared was the interior of a hall the size of an aircraft hangar. The first thing to strike Nixon as odd was the small grassy hill rising from the floor not twenty yards from where he stood. Larger than the infamous Texan ‘grassy knoll’, it was nevertheless similar enough to touch off a spark of guilty panic in the President’s underemployed heart.
That was the first odd thing. Then everything else struck him at once. In the middle distance grew anaemic-looking trees. Overhead, great banks of spotlights produced a sun-like glare. Far away, a snatch of bird-song that warbled for a moment then died off then repeated – tinny and false, clearly recorded. But these details were mere bit-players in the rich pageant of unreason that unfolded before his eyes. Atop the hill was a ramshackle old house with wooden walls which had seen better days, though where, when and how was another matter. The chimney would have embarrassed Pisa’s leaning tower. Windows were untidily boarded up. Along its front stretched a tumbledown porch ringed by a crumbling rail. Finally, scattered around this strange scene lounged half a dozen scruffy little children.
But Nixon’s eyes were drawn inexorably back to the dusty bare-dirt driveway, and what was suspended above it. Parked up on blocks sat a battered thirty-foot metallic saucer, the type which would have embarrassed even the most short-sighted B-movie special-effects supremo.
The President was about to ask what sort of insane practical joke this was when he took a closer look at one of the children who had now turned at his approach. It stared back at him through huge almond-shaped black eyes set in a featureless grey face. He checked the others again. They were all the same. These weren’t children, they were … they were … When the thing that was staring at the President saw his shock, it sprang into jerky action. Seeing this, the others followed suit.
From beneath rag-torn dungarees and hopelessly stained gingham frocks they produced an assortment of musical instruments out of nowhere and got down to work. Banjos and home-made double-bass were much in evidence. It looked like the Walton family had got into a fight with a nuclear reactor and lost. With a quick glance around to see that all were ready, the creatures started to play what appeared to be a rehearsed song. Except that it was a song which had no rhythm, no timing and no tune.
A grim-faced Becker turned to his guest. ‘The Visitors like to greet their new ‘‘Big Pink Chief’’ with this traditional cultural display. They maintain they’ve brought it all the way from their home planet, though personally I have my doubts.’
He coolly continued to study Nixon’s open-mouthed, goggle-eyed face. ‘Best to show polite disdain, that way it doesn’t go on for too long. Eisenhower made the mistake of looking impressed and they kept it up all day. We had to shoot three of them to make ‘em stop.’
If anything, the wild revels seemed to be growing in intensity. Two of the more sprightly aliens grasped each other’s slender arms and did a fair impression of a Highland jig, the blonde pigtails of a wigged ‘female’ twirling as it spun. Perched at the rear, granpaw-alien’s harmonica playing became so frenzied he fell off his rocking-chair, though it didn’t seem to bother him much. Meanwhile the hand-clapper-and-stomper at the front put his foot through a rotten board.
Nixon looked on aghast. ‘But they’re …’
‘Idiots. I know sir. Cosmic trailer-park grey scum. Call them what you will. It seems the universe is full of hillbillies. Our top minds have been trying to figure it out for the past twenty-two years.’
‘Twenty-two years! It’s been going on that long?’
Becker shrugged. ‘Maybe longer.’
Taking it in, Nixon forced himself to adopt a bit of composure. ‘So, these top minds of ours – what did they conclude?’
For the first time Becker displayed a modicum of unease. ‘At present we have only non-positive results to show for considerable endeavour.’
‘Meaning we’ve got jackshit.’
In the darkness next to him Nixon’s host gave the faintest shake of his head.
Like many before him the President looked perplexed. ‘But how did they get here? It makes no sense. We spend billions on our space programme, employing the best Nazis money can buy, and it’s all we can do to launch a monkey round the moon. Then these space freaks turn up and show us how primitive we really are. It’s beyond reason … And, frankly, it’s not fair.’
The Dark Man looked about to say something, wavered, then decided to go for it. ‘There is one possibility – a malignant theory that slowly and painfully extends its tentacles of proof by the day. But I have to warn you, Mr Chairman, the rest of the Committee are reluctant to look at my evidence in a rational manner. The policies they pursue might even unwittingly aid whoever is behind these extraterrestrial aberrations.’
‘God in heaven, speak English, man. What’re you talking about?’
If Becker was offended by this outburst, he didn’t show it. ‘It’s long been calculated that our uneducated brethren would not cope well with the sudden undeniable proof of alien existence. Our most covert think-tanks tell us this knowledge would cause a paradigm shift from which the human race might never recover – a shock so great it could break us as a race. But for whoever’s behind this scheme even that does not seem enough. It’s as if they want to rub our under-evolved noses in it. I believe we are the victims of … a manipulation. What better way to scupper humanity’s infatuation with science and technology, to cast us back into a dark age of unreason and superstition, than by showing us another darker path offering better results? Someone or something wants to make us paranoid and superstitious, and they’ll go to almost any lengths to do so.’
Nixon squinted at the man again. He wasn’t sure he liked him. ‘Let me get this straight … You think this isn’t it? You think there’s more, that someone’s hurling brain-dead aliens from the sky at us to make the poor old human race feel bad? What sort of half-assed theory is that?’
Becker drew himself up to his full impressive height. ‘The Committee must end their policy of encouraging conspiracy theories and paranoia – it will play directly into our opponents’ hands. There’s even talk of leaking information on our grey friends – doctored of course to make it appear we have the situation under control. Sir, I need your help to convince the Committee they’re wrong.’
Nixon looked at him, puzzled. ‘Why should I do that, if I don’t believe you either?’
Becker judged it a good time to give him the evidence. ‘Read this, Mr President.’ He handed over the package he’d held throughout their meeting – a thick blue folder. ‘Read it, sir. And try not to weep.’
