Xenophobia (12 page)

The next morning, Bower was woken by a sharp rap on the door and a soldier’s voice yelling, “Get your shit packed.
We roll in fifteen
.” At least, she thought that’s what was said.

For a moment, she had to check whether she was dreaming. It was still dark out, but the sky was lightening. Kowalski was already downstairs, she figured, as his bag was gone and he was nowhere to be seen. Fifteen minutes, Bower felt like screaming at the top of her lungs. What sort of world is it where people expect you to get ready for the day in a mere fifteen minutes?

“Barbarians,” she muttered to herself as she wandered into the bathroom and splashed water on her face. If she was going to be ready to go in fifteen minutes she’d have to hustle. By her somewhat admittedly anecdotal reckoning of time she was downstairs within fifteen minutes with her bag over her shoulder, but she was the only one standing there by the Hummer and the truck.

Bower felt cheated.

She could see one of the soldiers on sentry duty on the second floor, watching the vehicles and the back entrance to the hotel, but this was hardly the quick, early start she’d expected.

Jameson came jogging casually down the stairs.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully.

“Morning,” she replied. Bower couldn’t bring herself to add the noun good, not yet at least. Ah, she was being too grumpy and she knew it.

“There’s coffee in the kitchen.”

“I’m good.”

There, she said it, good was out there for all to hear. Well, Jameson at least.

“We should be ready to go within -”

“Fifteen,” she added, cutting him off.

He smiled. She could see he was a little confused by her abrupt comment. Bower softened her attitude, saying, “Yeah, I thought we’d be ready in around fifteen minutes.”

If she could figure out who had thumped on her door, she was going to throttle them.

Jameson seemed a little perplexed by her attitude, but he clearly wasn’t in on the joke. He just nodded as he put his pack in the Hummer.

“Wouldn’t it make sense to just take the truck?” Bower asked out of curiosity, watching as Jameson rummaged around in the back of the Hummer. “It’s big enough for all of us. Won’t our fuel go further that way?”

“That old piece of shit?” Jameson replied. As the words left his lips he seemed to soften, apparently not wanting to offend her. “Nah. Two is one, one is none.”

“Sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

“Oh, it’s an army phrase,” Jameson said, grabbing another pack from the rear steps of the hotel. “If you’ve only got one set of wheels and something breaks, you’re screwed, if you’ve got two, you can pack everyone into the one remaining vehicle if one of them breaks down. Two is one, one is none. It means, ensure you have redundancy.”

“Oh,” Bower replied, nodding at the realization.

“And besides,” he added. “We’re a small force. Two vehicles make us appear bigger, a force to be reckoned with. A bit of bluster goes a long way.”

The sun was low, barely creeping over the horizon, casting long shadows down the dusty city streets. Above them, the alien craft soared through space. It orbited Earth once every two hours, appearing overhead for about forty five minutes as it slowly soared through the sky. During the night, the craft shimmered like a chameleon, changing colors. Like oil in a puddle, there was a greasy, rainbow of colors, almost metallic in their appearance. The fine tentacles waved as though caught in a breeze. Bower wondered about how big they were, knowing their size was deceptive given the distance involved, but they looked as fine as the hair on her arm.

The previous night, they’d sat up talking until the early hours of the morning, watching for each passing of the alien spacecraft like kids waiting for Santa, at least that’s the way she felt. Across the city, a cry would resound as the inhabitants recognized the unearthly shape drifting smoothly above them. At first, Bower thought it was a cheer, but as the night went on she realized it was a wail, like that of mourners at a funeral.

In the early morning light, the craft took on the purples and pinks of the dawn. For her, the sight was hypnotic.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Jameson replied.

“I don’t mean to doubt you, or anything like that, and I do appreciate your ... ” She was struggling for the word, “expertise in things military, if that’s the right way to phrase it. But, why did we wait here so long? Why stay two nights in
Ksaungu instead of pushing on to Lilongwe. I mean, I know it wasn’t because you’re afraid or anything like that. I don’t think that at all. It’s just, I thought there was a plane waiting for us there or something ... ” She was tripping over her words. What started out as a good question had slowly degraded into blather.

Jameson smiled. He really was a gentleman at heart and seemed to understand what she was getting at far better than she did herself.

“Combat isn’t about shooting guns madly at bad guys, it’s about planning and preparation. Rule number one: Never walk blindly into a new arena.”

Bower sat on the dusty steps of a fire exit as he spoke. She finally recognize Smithy on the second floor balcony, peering out across the city with her machine gun at the ready, having kept watch through at least part of the night. Bower wasn’t sure how often the sentries rotated, but she knew Jameson had two of his team awake at all times.

“Combat is fluid, never static, always changing. Lilongwe is an unknown. While there was the chance of rest here in Ksaungu and no good intel on Lilongwe it was prudent to sit tight.”

Bower nodded thoughtfully.

“Besides, we needed to get that radio fixed. Now Bosco’s got the shortwave circuits working on the radio we’ll be able to contact any troops still in Ksaungu. Shortwave won’t give us over-the-horizon coms, but we will have line-of-sight. The standard operating procedure when someone’s MIA is for a high-altitude fly over, listening for MAD chatter.”

“Mad Hatter?” Bower replied, surprised by the term. “What? Like Alice in Wonderland?”

“No,” Jameson added, laughing. “Chatter, MAD chatter. MAD is an acronym meaning Military Air Distress. They’ll be listening for us on the MAD frequency.”

“Oh,” said Bower, feeling a little stupid. “And how far is line-of-sight?”

“About fifty to a hundred clicks, depending on our terrain and their altitude.”

Bower didn’t ask what a click was, but she figured fifty to a hundred of them was neither close nor that far away.

“From what we’ve heard, the road to Lilongwe is littered with burnt out army vehicles. The rebels fought hard to break the supply lines between the two cities, but the army’s kept the roads open. I mean to squeeze through before the rebels regroup and try their hand again.”

Bower breathed deeply. Jameson made the plan sound routine.

Kowalski walked out with Leopold.

Jameson said, “We roll in -”

“Fifteen,” Bower added, again cutting him off. She grinned at Jameson, showing her teeth in a half smile. He looked a little confused and must have realized she had her own private joke going on.

“Actually,” he replied, “since everyone’s up I was going to say, five.”

Jameson disappeared inside the rear entrance to the hotel.

Bower screwed her face up.

“They’re not going to like that,” Leopold said, talking to Kowalski more than Bower. “I think the staff here quite liked having the Rangers around. It was like they had their own personal security service, mercenaries that didn’t drink or shoot up the bar. This whole section of town has been quiet since you guys arrived. I don’t think anyone wanted to upset the Americans, hoping they’d stay. No one wants to be abandoned, and seeing US soldiers on the ground has given the Africans some hope, false hope for sure, but hope nonetheless.”

The two men sat next to Bower.

“Have you changed your mind?” Bower asked, turning to Leopold.

“Nope. Have you? Better the devil you know, and all that. Besides, there’s an NBC film crew due in here at the end of the week. I’ll hook up with them.”

“Keep your head down,” Bower replied.

“You too.”

Kowalski sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup.

“Hey, why didn’t you wake me?” Bower asked.

“I thought you’d prefer a little more sleep,” Kowalski replied. Bower knew he meant well, but she’d have rather he didn’t try so hard. Kowalski was always trying too hard to be considerate. As long as she’d known him, he’d always been like that, always prepared to put himself out for others. For once, she wished he’d be selfish, and not just so she didn’t feel so bad. He needed to be selfish for himself, so he didn’t burn out.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I slept like a log,” she replied, having had her best night’s sleep in weeks. It might have been short, but it was deep.

Leopold was watching the alien craft drifting effortlessly toward the horizon.

“Gives me chills,” he said to no one in particular.

Bower understood why Leopold found the alien presence unnerving, but for her, once the fear passed, the mystique of an apparently living interstellar spacecraft awakened a sense of awe within her. She saw an object of beauty, moving with grace as it glided through the heavens.

Kowalski must have seen her staring into the sky. “Well,” he said. “Seems they’re happy to circle around up there, and that’s fine by me.”

“I wonder what they’re thinking about, what they’re planning,” Bower said, thinking aloud.

“Crop circles and anal probes, no doubt,” Kowalski joked.

“I’m in no hurry to find out,” Leopold added.

“Don’t you think it’s beautiful?” Bower asked, again musing out loud, trying to articulate what she was feeling.

“Maybe,” Kowalski offered in an answer that was little more than a polite way of disagreeing. “In the same way a rattlesnake or a shark can be considered beautiful.”

“I’m serious,” she replied, surprised by the emphasis in her tone of voice. “I mean, think about it, just because something is different doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful. And not just in the way a butterfly is pretty, with colorful patterns painted on its wings. Beautiful as in delightful, functional, like a bee or an octopus. Even the most boring of birds, with dull brown feathers, has a natural beauty about it, and I can’t help but feel the same way about this. There’s a natural beauty to the alien spacecraft. I mean, it’s not a pile of nuts and bolts like our spaceships. And it’s not streamlined or aerodynamic, with sleek curves and sharp points. It’s not from this world and yet it has an earthy feel to it, as though it were something that could grace the cover of National Geographic.”

Neither man said anything. Bower continued her train of thought.

“I guess we see what we want to see, right? Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder ... The more I think about how they’ve traversed a gazillion miles through empty space, looking for our tiny mote of dust awash in this vast universe, the less I’m afraid. They came to us. They sought us out. They want to know about us. Isn’t that flattering? Here we are, looking up
at them
in awe, wondering who they are and what makes them tick, and they’re looking down upon us thinking the same thing. That’s kinda cool, and certainly nothing to be afraid of.”

The alien craft slipped over the horizon, disappearing from sight behind the distant buildings.

“Yeah, I guess,” Kowalski offered.

Her words must have stirred the journalist within Leopold. As he spoke, Bower got the distinct impression he was making mental notes for an upcoming article.

“My father used to tell me that fear is our default response to the unknown. It’s a survival mechanism, an instinctive reaction over a reasoned response. Our history is checkered with xenophobia, the fear of something different, different people from different countries, different cultures. We’re tribal. We like people to be the same as us.”

Leopold was divorcing himself, straightening his thinking. For Bower, it was interesting to see him reasoning through what she instinctively felt. That he was able to suspend his own fears and assume her hopes surprised her, but perhaps that’s what reporters did best; place themselves in another person’s shoes.

“And we’ve conditioned ourselves to respond like this. Really, it’s no surprise we’re overreacting and panicking about an alien invasion. When was the last time Hollywood showed someone turning up on our doorstep with anything other than death rays? Blood and guts with a splash of acid gets asses on seats. Hell, we can’t accept foreigners from Colombia or Sudan without an air of suspicion, wondering if they’re terrorists or drug runners. What hope does someone from another planet have? Someone wears a turban in a mall and Al Qaeda’s attacking.”

Kowalski laughed.

“Think of what we’ll learn,” Bower said, quietly wishing the star ship would land. She wanted to say more, but words failed her. It had taken some time to acclimatize to the concept, but she was genuinely excited about the future. The prospect of getting out of a country sliding deeper into civil war was the furthest thing from her mind. She just assumed that would happen. It was a trivial detail, something that paled in comparison to First Contact. Mortality itself seemed suspended by the alien spacecraft with its iridescent glow at night and its rippling surface in the bright daylight. Life trumped death, at least in that moment. Life coming from another star caused the pain and suffering and misery she saw in Africa to fade like the night giving way to dawn.

“This,” Kowalski began, having lost his initial skepticism, “this really could be a new beginning for the human race.” His acceptance of her position, and his readiness to move away from pessimism filled her with hope. Deep down, Bower knew it was unfounded and irrational, but she held to hope regardless. With hope and fear as equal possibilities, why not choose the positive? With hope, she could pretend Africa would one day be at peace. With hope, she could forget about the hundreds that would die that day in the swollen heat, victims of a futile war.

Jameson came jogging down the stairs with Elvis, Bosco and Smithy behind him.