The 2084 Precept (58 page)

"And how did he react to that?"

"He didn't blink an eyelid, Peter, he just
said that that was understood."

"Very cooperative."

"Yes, I think he realized that this could
possibly turn out to be a momentous meeting; but only possibly of
course. In any event, he made a call and had the audio shut
down."

"O.K., so he was keeping an open mind but,
obviously, no more than that."

"Quite. He might also have been thinking,"
said Jeremy, "that he could become the biggest laughing stock in
world history if he weren't extremely careful."

"I don't blame him."

"No…well, I simply told him the truth, or
most of it. I told him that I was an alien inhabiting a human body.
I didn't tell him that I was a student, that would have made it
even more confusing and would have complicated my explanation as to
how today's situation had arisen. I merely informed him of the
situation, I told him of the terminal danger involved, I told him
why, and I told him what the only potential solution was. The human
race has to change itself, it has to change what it is and it has
to change how it is. The same as I told you, Peter. Human beings
have to stop being aggressive and a menace to other species, as
well as to themselves. The slaughtering has got to stop, and you
have to mutate into benevolent beings. Provably so."

"And how did he take that?"

"He didn't believe me. The 'occurrences'
were obviously of tremendous ongoing interest to him but, like you,
he merely put them down to some amazing telepathic powers I
apparently possess. He was skeptical of course, like everybody else
including yourself, Peter. Nevertheless, he was mightily puzzled by
the asteroid event. He was assuming it had to have some technical
or scientific explanation of which he was as yet unaware."

"So what did he do?"

"He continued to treat me with extreme
courtesy which, for a man in his position and given the fact that
he presumed he was dealing with a seriously deranged person, was a
laudable demonstration of educational excellence."

"Or intelligence," I said. "Don't forget,
his main interest has to be how he and his country can lay their
hands on these unheard of brain-hacking powers of yours—or,
alternatively, how they can persuade you to agree to use them
exclusively for their benefit and not for anybody else's. And at
the same time, Jeremy, he and his colleagues are probably scared
witless anyway about what you could do with these unheard-of
powers, should you ever take it into your head to use them for your
own purposes or, God forbid, for someone else's."

"Yes, that too—just like you, Peter." And I
heard him enjoying a pleasurable chuckle on the other end of the
phone. "On the other hand, he didn't ask for the audio equipment to
be reactivated, and so we continued our conversation one on
one."

"So what happened then?"

"I told him that this was the only meeting I
was prepared to have with him alone. Either he could manage to
persuade the other major powers—as many as possible, but at least
China, Russia and the USA—to meet and start working to resolve his
species' detestable characteristics, or the matter was closed. But
that if such a meeting were to be organized, I
would
be
prepared to assist by attending
that
meeting personally. At
which point in time, Peter, you would also be receiving the extra
payment we agreed upon." And I heard him chuckling at that too.

"And what did the prime minister say to
that?"

"He said he would, if I didn't mind, like to
ask me two favors. I said it depended on what the favors were. The
first one, he said, would be for me to have some of his on-site
colleagues—but not the security personnel—come into this room, take
off their shoes, get down on all fours, and start bleating like
sheep. Just for a few seconds, he said, and then they could leave
the room again. The cameras would continue to function and record
all of this. He asked if I could possibly do that."

"He's not stupid. He wanted more proof. For
himself, and afterwards for his colleagues. I can understand
that."

"Yes. Well…I did it for him. He was of
course disconcerted, astounded, and speechless; to the extent that
I had to ask him what the second favor was. Ah, he said, now that
would be one which would frighten the other countries' leaders
sufficiently to have them agree to an initial summit meeting.
Something they could all know about in advance and be told by their
experts that it couldn't happen. It couldn't be anything that would
cause any harm, I said. I understand, he said, so how about another
asteroid, a very big one, and hitting the planet closest to us.
Venus, he said."

"Venus?"

"Venus. But I had to tell him that whichever
planet is the closest one to Earth can change by the day, by the
month or by the year. It could be Mars, it could be Venus or it
could be Mercury depending on which point in time, although,
admittedly, Venus is the one which can come closest. And Mercury's
maximum proximity only occurs every few thousand years. But Venus
would be a waste of time in any case, I said. Its atmosphere, which
is the densest atmosphere of all of your planets and is mostly
carbon dioxide, is covered with an opaque layer of highly
reflective clouds largely made up of sulphuric acid, and they
prevent you from being able to see its surface—and consequently any
impact on its surface."

"And so he chose Mars?"

"Yes, and very appropriate too, I thought,"
said Jeremy.

"Appropriate?"

"Yes, because my research tells me that the
name Mars reflects two of your species' main characteristics."

"And those are?"

"Religion and killing. Mars was one of your
gods, before you decided to switch your adherences to other ones.
And he was, in fact, your Roman god of war."

"Ha, ha, Jeremy. I see what you mean."

"Yes. Anyway…that is the planet we agreed
upon. And I will provide the coordinates of the impact tomorrow
morning to the deputy prime minister after receiving the
information from my colleagues. I also suggested next Monday as the
date. That will give everyone's physicists and astronomers plenty
of time to make whatever preparations they deem necessary to be
able to focus on the event in a concentrated manner. An event
which, for them, is unforeseeable."

"And how is he going to use this incident to
try and force a summit meeting?"

"It will instill fear, Peter. As we have
discussed previously, fear is the one emotion which all of the
species in the universe understand and react to."

"Maybe," I said, "but what you are after
here is collective fear. Not so easy."

"Same thing, Peter," he replied. "My studies
have shown me that in your species the amygdala is the brain
structure that is the center of most of the neurobiological events
associated with fear. It is located behind the pituitary gland. It
generates the secretion of hormones and, among other things,
facilitates the 'memorization'—through synaptic plasticity—of
situations which incite fear. Fear is induced by a perceived
threat. This can be of something
known
, such as death, or of
something
unknown
, such as the dark and what may or may not
be hidden by it. And there are various possible reactions to such
threats."

"Such as?" I interrupted.

"Such as dread, horror, panic, flight, or
concealment. Such as paralysis. And of course, such as anger and
confrontation. And the greatest fear of all, as you yourself have
pointed out before, is the fear of ceasing to exist. And, as you
have also made clear, fear is the main motivation for your
religions. The carrot, you said, is that if you listen to us, and
believe in us, and do as we advise, you will live forever. And if
you don't…well, here are the threats. My research has in the
meantime confirmed that your species' religious fears have existed
for thousands of years and have even driven you humans to
frequently commit murder."

"Murder?"

"Yes. You said it yourself last week and I
have done some checking. You mentioned sacrifices to your 'Sun
Gods' and a variety of similar deities—my research shows that this
involved the killing of children, women, animals and occasionally
men, depending on whatever you thought the god you were scared of
wanted, and whom you were therefore trying to please. The Crusades.
The Inquisition. The various 'Holy Wars'. And even your invention
of the existence of witches and the consequent torturing and
slaughtering of hundreds of thousands of them, both here in Europe
and in the USA—Salem is an example which sticks in my mind—are all
the product of fear."

"So the fear of ceasing to exist is as
strong collectively as it is individually?"

"Yes."

"And how do you intend to successfully
induce this fear?"

"The fear of imminent death?" said Jeremy
with a smile, "I haven't thought about it Peter. But it's easy.
First of all, the Mars event will scare most of them but,
incredibly, not all of them. They will want to be convinced
further. And there are a thousand ways to do that. But we'll let
them
choose. They are perfectly capable of picking on some
event horrific enough to convince themselves."

"Mmm…"

"The prime minister will not, obviously,
tell them about a sick person who claims to be an alien. That
wouldn't work, they would merely laugh at him. And anyway he
doesn't know what to believe himself at this point in time. No…I
suggested to him that he should say his country has developed a
powerful new weapon, powerful beyond imagination. And that he is
going to demonstrate it. And that he believes that knowledge and
power of this immensity should come under international control and
supervision, that it should be jointly shared and controlled by all
of the leaders of your species. And only by
all
of them. And
to that he agreed. That will work, he said."

"And so how did the meeting finish?" I
asked.

"Very politely, very courteously. He thanked
me for coming and said that he would now be meeting with his
associates, the ones he most confided in. And that, really, was
that. It went quite well, in my view, and he didn't have the audio
switched on at any time. Naturally, he will be telling his
associates what he won't be telling his summit partners, namely
that I am a lunatic who thinks he is an alien occupying a human
body. But they will definitely be taking my telepathic powers and
my abilities to influence extraterrestrial objects—or at least, to
forecast their movements—far more seriously than before."

I thanked Jeremy for the update. I took Mr.
Brown for a walk down to Marie-Anne's and I had a very fine filet
steak…
trés cuit
as usual. Then we went home, I gave him his
evening meal, and I went downstairs for a coffee with Monika. The
coffee took a long time. A long and erotic time and the devil came
knocking at my door as you might suppose. And, needless to say, he
came knocking at Monika's door as well and hers was usually
somewhat ajar, if you will excuse the expression. But mine remained
firmly locked. The trouble of course is that the devil is a
persistent, persuasive and patient bugger and time, as the
debauched and voyeuristic bastard well knows, is on his side.

I smoked the day's last cigarette on my
balcony and idly wondered, not having had the benefit of today’s
IHT, how many conflict deaths there had been on our planet
yesterday.

I woke up thinking—surprise, surprise—about
Jeremy Parker and his asteroid manipulation stories. My neurons
were refusing to be duped in this manner. It was an affront to
their intelligence and to the unwavering pride they had in their
unassailable ability to explain everything and anything existing or
occurring on or within their home planet. It was merely a question
of taking the required steps to acquire the necessary knowledge on
each occasion, and to use that knowledge and extrapolate it into an
appropriate and befitting conclusion.

What had Jeremy Parker done this time? The
neurons had thought about it, they had considered it, they had
performed an analytical review of the facts, and they had
formulated a conclusion. They didn't know much about Mars and I
wasn't going to spend my time to allow them to add to their few
basic nuggets of information on the Internet. So they had just had
to work with what they had.

It didn't matter whether Mars was one of the
closest planets to Earth or not. What mattered was that Mars was
much closer to the asteroid belt and was consequently in the
unfortunate position of facing a bigger risk of being struck from
that source. Struck by asteroids, meteorites or comets—they are all
just flying lumps of rock or minerals or rubble and/or ice—escaped
from the orbit of Jupiter and/or of the sun. Mars has over 43,000
detectable impact craters of five kilometers or more in diameter,
and there could have been a lot more were it not for its
atmosphere. Unlike, for example, our moon, Mars has an atmosphere,
albeit 95% carbon dioxide and albeit very thin, but it has served
to protect it to some degree from many of the smaller objects
intent on colliding with it, because they burn or break up entirely
when hitting that atmosphere.

Nevertheless, and even though it is only
around half the size of Earth, there is no doubt that Mars is a
prime candidate if you are on the hunt for a local bombardment
range. Not that Mars is hit, in our terms, very frequently. But in
galactic terms, it has been hit very frequently. And so, my neurons
had concluded, on the one hand our friend Jeremy has a more than
acceptable candidate for bombardment, and on the other he has some
tremendous astronomical knowledge which permits him to know that
next Monday, as it happens, an object of a decent size is due to
impact Mars' surface. The same explanation as for the Jupiter
impact. He simply has the knowledge.