Red Dot: Contact. Will the gravest threat come from closer to home than we expect? (20 page)

Even if he went quietly, upheaval in the President’s inner circle made this ET crisis all the more difficult.

“I have to be very clear and confident about what I say in my speech about the ETs, to reassure the public,” Douthard said. “I need to receive the latest information and analysis on D9 and be able to clarify any points I’m not sure about.”

After he hung up, the President looked around the iconic Oval Office at the imposing presidential seal on the carpet, the grand, gold-thread-trimmed flag, and other familiar trappings of power that awed most visitors. Outside the office walls were tens of thousands of lawyers, secretaries, military officers, and others, ready to carry out his policies. He took a deep breath. His stomach churned with fear, and a vise seemed to squeeze his shoulders. In recent days, he had felt the shock of approaching extraterrestrial life and his growing affection for Claire start to break down his old emotional barricades.

Now, for the first time, he admitted something to himself that some others had suspected:
I don’t want to do this
, he thought.

Since his wife died, if he had stopped to describe what he wanted to do, it would have been to be left alone to find comfort somewhere in his memories. Now, as a political storm began to rumble just outside his door, he thought about sitting by his wife’s bed two days before she died of cancer, slowly feeding her small spoonfuls of strawberry ice cream. She wasn’t eating regular meals and no longer had the strength to talk, but she went through two small cartons of ice cream.

The President didn’t put his feelings into words, but if he had, he might have said, “Why can’t I go back to that night, and back to happier times?”

As a student at the University of Virginia, Douthart had dated young women who were prettier and more vivacious than Jocelyn, but the cute, shy little blonde captured his affections. She had commonly faced other people with a pleasant, but restrained smile, the corners of her mouth barely curling upward as her large light blue eyes scanned the person’s face, apparently carefully sizing him or her up by some standard that wasn’t clear. As she got to know Douthart better, they became trusted friends and then lovers. Douthart thought he had something special.

But soon after graduation and their marriage, rough times set in. They argued, frequently and sometimes heatedly. The triggers for the spats sometimes seemed trivial to Douthart, who grew increasingly upset. After a couple months, it occurred to him that Jocelyn was testing him, to find out if he loved her deeply enough to stick with her through hard times. He didn’t understand it, but he decided to try to make the marriage work.

Then one day, as they walked hand-in-hand, shopping for towels in a department store, it struck him how close he felt to his wife at that moment, and that they hadn’t fought in weeks.

After that, through raising a child and Douthart’s demanding rise in politics, they knew they each had someone they could count on for love and support, no matter what.

Jocelyn’s cancer diagnoses after a routine checkup seemed unreal. But soon the steadily growing pain and failing health made the approach of death clear.

As the President sat at his desk in the Oval Office, he realized that if he put his feelings into words, he would say, “I wasn’t ready for her to go. There must be something I missed—something that I could feel or think, that would finally make it OK, that would allow us to go on.”

Having faced his biggest demons, Douthart seemed to find some solid ground. His new relationship with Claire and the phone call they just completed had helped, to an extent. They had not professed their love or made any plans, and there was no comforting talk in their conversation. But just focusing on her words and actions, caring about them, seemed to give Douthart more room to maneuver. The confusing swirl of ideas slowed a bit, giving him a chance to make decisions.

At Denver One, Claire tried to put her fears for the President behind her by diving into preparation of her report on D9. Cindy would be a major contributor to the effort to understand the ETs, drawing on her work on possible paths for evolution of intelligent life outside the solar system. With Claire at the head of a table in a conference room, anthropologist Cindy sat on her
immediate left and Ahmet, a linguist with a math background, to the right. Farther down the table, surrounded by protective moats of statistical reports and electronic devices, were three supervisors from the math and physics sections.

The unofficial spokesman for the hard scientists was Taylor McKenzie, a thirty-one-year-old MIT professor widely assumed to be on his way to a Nobel Prize for his work on dark energy. McKenzie was not only more accomplished and slightly older than a lot of other scientists at Denver One; he carried himself a bit differently, too. Normal dress for most of the scientists was dorm-room casual, but for McKenzie, it was business casual. Although not arrogant, he always dressed neatly and dealt with others with some reserve, but with an easy confidence.

Cindy started the discussion. “I’m more convinced now of my original idea that the ETs want to communicate with us on a personal level. The fact they chose to communicate in thirty-six different major languages instead of an artificial language, and the spread of thousands of red dots throughout the Earth, are strong indicators. And since we’ve been able to understand their messages, it seems that they share some of the same values we do. They seem to favor tolerance and what we might call justice. Aesthetically, they have expressed appreciation for the types of colors and sounds that appeal to us. These shared values might have encouraged them to communicate directly with us. I think the ETs value life. I must emphasize, though, that this is the appearance they give. They may be simply regurgitating the tastes and preferences they found in our communications. Maybe they are faking them for some reason. We don’t know yet for sure what their ‘real’ values are.”

Claire looked at Ahmet and the “number crunchers” at the table. “I know there was some resistance to the theory that the aliens were ‘warm and fuzzy,’ as some of you put it. What’s the view now?”

“Well, I admit I’ve come to agree a bit more with Cindy’s ideas,” Ahmet said. “It seemed ridiculous at first that creatures with that unimaginably advanced technologically would want to connect on what you might call an artistic or subjective level. But … after reading hundreds of messages and
translations of messages from D9, I’ve kind of come around. Like the hip hop message showed,” Ahmet said, flashing a quick smile at Claire, who had to deliver the profane lyrics to the National Security Council, “that they didn’t always understand the whole context. But in the messages in Korean, Hindi, Hebrew… You name it, they showed some understanding of metaphors, references, and even humor. Shoot, I even got the impression they actually enjoyed writing the messages.”

McKenzie squirmed in his seat at this implication that the ETs were so much like humans. “OK, OK,” said Ahmet, holding his hands up. “We don’t want to go too far.”

“I’m afraid we already have gone too far,” said McKenzie. “I know Dr. Ricci is familiar with our powerful tendency for anthropomorphism,” he said, nodding to Cindy. “We can’t seem to resist imputing human traits to other creatures and even objects. We think our pets and even hurricanes have human personalities. We see Jesus’s face on a piece of toast.

“I can understand some of the points Dr. Ricci and Dr. Johnson made. And I acknowledge that there is no evidence so far that the ETs have any malicious intentions. They may indeed turn out to be ‘warm and fuzzy.’

“But they are capable of doing us such harm. And there are a number of reasons for them to travel to Earth that don’t bode well for us: They may want to strip our resources, or complete a conquest of the galaxy. It’s just hard for me to believe they came all this way only to be our friends.

“At this point, it would be best to advise the government to prepare for and expect the worst.”

All eyes turned to Cindy, who said, “I think that’s going too far in the other direction, especially since a lot of people in government and the media are already over-wrought about the dangers—almost hysterical. We should clearly state the possible dangers, but also note that the indications are, the ETs are most likely on a friendly mission.”

“No. I think they are most likely on a mission that will cause us harm,” McKenzie said, as the other two hard-science supervisors nodded in agreement.

In the short, awkward silence that followed, Claire recalled that weeks ago, after she first got to know her colleagues at Denver One, she made a mental list of those she thought would conclude D9 was friendly and those who would think D9 was malicious, based on each person’s personality. Now, with all the scientists exposed to the same evidence, the list remained absolutely accurate, with the possible exception of Ahmet, whose frequent contact with ETs made him slightly more inclined toward optimism than before. Claire didn’t mention the list; she thought the highly trained scientists at Denver One might be offended by the suggestion that in the absence of hard evidence, their conclusions were based on gut instinct instead of reason.

“All right,” said Claire. “What about the aliens’ technology and their apparent difficulties using it?”

“The basic idea is still the same,” McKenzie said. “They have used exotic physics for part of their journey—the two times they disappeared and appeared again—and for communications. But they have not completely mastered it, and it leads to erratic movements and problems sending and receiving messages. We’re still far, far from understanding what exactly they’re dong, let alone being able to do it ourselves, but a team led by Dr. Li Douwen at Tsinghua University has come up with some interesting ideas on how the ETs might use quantum physics to travel great distances instantaneously.”

“The problems they’re having—apparently random movements through space and communication troubles… How serious are they?” Claire asked.

“Quite serious,” said McKenzie. “I wouldn’t want to be on a space craft thirty thousand light years from home and have to depend on faulty technology like that to get back. Communicating with home base would also be hard. Talking with us is more efficient now, but still difficult. It’s hit or miss, and very awkward.”

“OK, how about this,” said Claire, tapping her pen on the table. “It looks like we have two irreconcilable positions regarding the threat posed by D9. In our advice to the President, we don’t say anything about the ETs having human values or characteristics, but I will present the positions of both
Dr. Ricci and Dr. McKenzie. In fact, I will replay your own words,” Claire said looking at both the scientists and briefly placing her hand on a small digital recorder.

“I’ll buy that,” said Cindy, looking at McKenzie.

“Yes, I think that’s fair,” he said, as Ahmet and the other two supervisors voiced agreement.

C
ODE
T
UMBLER

W
hile Claire put
together her report, Vice President Duggard prepared to brief Congressional leaders at the Capitol, and Secretary of State Whiteton started to sound out top military brass at the Pentagon, the President wrote notes for the points he would make to Fitzgerald and how he would explain the drastic step of firing him to the nation and world leaders. As he wrestled with how to anticipate, and counter, the Defense Secretary’s reaction, an unrelated thought formed in his mind with startling clarity:
I can’t go back
, he thought on the subject of his wife’s death.
Nothing will make it OK
.

Although the conscious thought came out of the blue, it felt like the end of a long and painful search, deep in his mind and heart.

Douthart closed his eyes for several seconds and felt a leaden heaviness in his chest. He opened his eyes and looked at his notes for a few moments, then resumed writing.

Minutes crept by for the President while he waited for Fitzgerald to arrive for their 11:00 meeting. A sense of foreboding gripped him, but this time he kept his determination to fire the Defense Secretary. Shortly before the scheduled meeting, Duggard and Whiteton called to report they were ready to begin their part of the plan—the Vice President in Congress and the Secretary of State first in the Pentagon and then from his office. In addition, they wanted to see how Douthart was holding up emotionally, and found him solemn but focused. Claire also made a brief call to the President
to summarize the contents of her report, and in the hope that her contact would provide support.

Just before 11:00, President’s secretary announced on the intercom that Fitzgerald had arrived, and Douthart asked her to send him in. As Fitzgerald entered the Oval Office, his overall visage was dour as usual. But unlike the last confrontation with the President, the Defense Secretary did
not
have a confident, almost mocking, smile on the lower half of his face.

Douthart noticed Fitzgerald was carrying a small, leather document holder, but thought nothing of it at the time. When the Secretary sat down, he hunched forward—a marked difference from his relaxed and erect posture in the previous meeting.