Second Contact, page 39
part #2 of Not Alone Series
Emma didn’t back down. “You’ll be paid millions of dollars per hour for that help once the plaque’s origin is verified,” she said. “And as for your second question, I’ll refer you to what I just said: we don’t know what it’s going to say… that’s the point.”
Andrew Feather encouraged his brother to drop this point, telling him that Dan wasn’t going to keep the plaque’s message a secret for long and that they would see the engraving when everyone else did. Michael eventually accepted this without looking too pleased.
Clark directed Tara to an old shopping bag on the floor and asked if she could hand it to Dan; his own injured ribs weren’t happy with the idea of him bending down to pick it up. Tara rolled the bag into a loose ball and tossed it to Dan.
“Put it in there without looking at the front,” Clark suggested.
Dan hesitated. “You really think I should carry a message from aliens in an old shopping bag?”
“Well…” Andrew Feather interjected with a high-spirited grin, “the Argentines did lift an alien sphere out of the ocean in an old shark cage.”
This comment broke the tension and prompted Dan, laughing in the absence of a suitable riposte, to do as Clark said. He surprised himself greatly by not sneaking a look at the engraved side of the plaque — however much anyone else wanted to know what it said, he needed to know even more — and this self-restraint came as a result of his understanding that Emma was right when she said there was no sense in involving the Feathers any more than they already were. His inevitably expressive reaction, one way or the other, would likely have left little to their imagination and made it more difficult to convince Michael to be patient.
While the contract didn’t guarantee that the Feathers could see the engraving, it likewise didn’t expressly state that they couldn’t. Dan nevertheless opted to keep it from them, however, loath to cause Emma any more headaches and equally reluctant to make the Feathers’ job of keeping their mouths shut any more difficult than it had to be by sharing with them the nature of the Messengers’ latest engravings.
With the plaque safely in the bag, Dan lifted the box it had been found inside back up to the empty space on the shelving unit. He then carefully made his way across the makeshift bridge back to the relatively clear side of the overflowing outbuilding. Once back on safe footing, he made a point of shaking both of the brothers’ hands and thanking them for their help.
If Michael had borne any resentment over not seeing the plaque, it faded in this moment. “Honoured,” he said, very simply.
Andrew encouraged Dan to hurry up and get home so the plaque could be shared with the world sooner rather than later. “Because if you think I’m going to sleep before I know what it says…” he said with a laugh.
After a quick group photo taken by Michael at Dan’s request, the rest of the group’s goodbyes were short and sweet. Andrew Feather’s final words came as he pointed out how weird it was that the plaque’s discovery in the tiny little mountain town of Salida was so in keeping with the final line of the prophecy taken as gospel by countless plaque-hunting Finchers:
“A triad of great discoveries will bridge the gap between soil and star, arising from the shadow of the Alps to delve the depths of the Silver ocean and gaze upon the Rockiest peak that lies beyond.”
From Toplitz to Miramar to Salida, it had all come to pass. Dan, understanding a lot more than the Feathers about the nature of the first two discoveries, had no idea whether the Messengers had paid any heed to this prophecy or whether the fourth plaque had turned up in the Rockies because they were on his doorstep and hence easily reachable.
On the one hand, it made sense to him that the Messengers might have played along with such a prevalent theory so that the location of the plaque’s eventual discovery didn’t seem completely random. But on the other, he knew how dangerous it was to make any assumptions about alien motives, thought processes or philosophies — particularly when it came to considering how the Messengers might act based on their own potentially imperfect observational assumptions about how humanity might react to any given action.
What counted for now was that the plaque was safely in Dan’s possession, so he put such thoughts to the side and held the bag tightly.
Outside, everyone quickly retook their seats in Emma’s car in the same positions as they had for the outward leg of their trip. At Clark’s sensible suggestion, Emma drove a few hundred metres away from the Feathers’ home before pulling up and telling Dan that it was safe to open the bag and take a look without having to worry about stifling any visual or vocal reactions that might follow.
“No one watch when I first look,” he said quietly, a request rather than an instruction. “I don’t want everyone staring at my face.”
“You want me to grab that bag and look for you?” Clark asked. “Just look!”
The others afforded more respect to Dan’s request, although Emma did briefly gaze into the rearview mirror to gauge his reaction and Timo did strain his eyes looking to the side as his head faced the window. Dan could hardly blame them — Timo had been through almost as much as he had, and he knew that he wouldn’t have survived a week of the IDA leak without Emma — so he didn’t repeat his shy request even though he noticed their peeking. Clark chose to stare rather than peek, while Tara both turned her head away and closed her eyes.
An intense feeling of anxious anticipation grew and tumbled around in Dan’s stomach. He had felt this only once before, when he’d stood on Winchester Street and gazed down at a manila folder with a label marked KERGUELEN. With every fibre of his being, he hoped that the object he now held in his hands would not prove to be another Pandora’s box; beyond anything else, he hoped that the message on this plaque would finally and decisively clean up the mess he had unwittingly unleashed by first picking up that wretched folder and then anonymously sharing its contents online.
Everything came down to this.
With no further fanfare and no dramatic pause, Dan lifted the plaque from the bag and immediately turned it around to see the front.
“It’s real!” Timo said, betraying his furtive peeking.
Dan ignored this neutrally-toned comment and took in every detail of the message he was looking at. It took almost no time for the obvious conclusion to be cemented and for his lips to part and share the news.
“I was right!” he said, unable to contain his excitement. “It’s a star map with two scales… one showing the brightest stars as we see them from Earth and the other zoomed way in to show more. Timo, look: there’s a square on the zoomed-out version, and the zoomed-in version shows everything inside that square in more detail. But then there’s a small triangle on the close-up, showing us exactly where to look — exactly where to go! Emma… I was right!”
Emma turned to gaze directly at Dan. There had been no gloating in his voice and there was nothing but joy in her eyes.
Almost rendered speechless, Timo gently rubbed his fingertips over the small engraved triangle. “Is this… is it really…”
“Damn right,” Dan McCarthy boomed, smiling the widest smile of his post-Disclosure life so far. “It’s the way to New Kerguelen!”
C minus 4
Drive-in
Birchwood, Colorado
“Word on the street says this announcement Slater is about to make is that we’re pulling out of the GSC,” Phil Norris said, sipping a beer alongside his two best friends and customers.
“What street?” Mr Byrd laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, it could be about that, but don’t act like you have some insider info.”
“I’m no fan of Slater but I hope this is the withdrawal announcement,” Henry chimed in. “Global anything is a bad idea. Guys like Godfrey, whichever side of all the left versus right crap they pretend to be on, these guys just want to be in control. And when the thing they’re fighting to be in control of isn’t the government of one country but the government of every country… the government of the whole damn world… somehow we expected that to go well?”
“No disagreements from me on that one,” Phil said. “The other possibility, as I see it, is that some American astronomers or data analysts have found something big. There are still some good private observatories here that don’t answer to Godfrey’s goons, so maybe someone has found a hole in his story about everything that’s going on?”
Henry, who had been midway through a long hospital stay when President Slater made the famous Disclosure announcement a year earlier, shrugged and blew air from his lips. “I guess. All I know is that if someone has found something new, it’s going to be no good for anyone if they take it to the GSC…”
C minus 3
White House
Washington, D.C.
For the first time since the Kerguelen bolide of seven days earlier, President Slater stood in front of the nation’s press to address growing concerns and anger over the absence of a decisive GSC response to recent events.
She had been pressed for comment on countless GSC-related issues throughout the past year, opting to keep out of disputes over everything from the precise funding formula to the occasionally aggressive actions of the organisation’s Security Corps whenever she reasonably could. Other national leaders had respected the spirit of the New York Agreement by maintaining the same detachment, with the notable recent exception of the provocative words delivered via the British Prime Minister’s widely detested proxy, Jack Neal.
By and large, Chairman Godfrey had kept things in check from his operational base in the heart of Buenos Aires. But in the face of his greatest challenge yet, the ball had well and truly been dropped. And at a time when GSC buildings in some regions of the world were being defended with water canons and rubber bullets, dignified silence in deference to a handshake agreement was no longer a responsible course of action.
“My fellow Americans,” Slater began, looking and sounding far stronger than she had during the Disclosure announcement which remained the defining moment of her presidency despite an economically successful and socially cohesive year in the interim.
“I do not need to remind anyone that we live in a post-Disclosure world. I do not need to remind anyone that I sat here just a year ago, joined by many of the same journalists who are here again today, and that I delivered to this great nation the difficult news that we are not alone. The news was difficult not primarily because of its intrinsic content, but rather primarily because of the circumstances surrounding it; because of the secrecy surrounding the initial discovery in Lake Toplitz, and because of the outright obstructiveness and unforgivable duplicity of a certain Richard Walker.
“I am here today to address the great deal of speculation and conjecture which has engulfed our country and our planet over the last few days, much of it whipped up by irresponsible media reporting, about the nature and meaning of recently observed celestial events. I have personally seen a thorough internal GSC report on Tuesday’s unexpected satellite re-entry and what I can reveal today is that this report has satisfactorily addressed our concerns regarding the national security implications of that particular incident. As for yesterday’s extraordinary fireball in California, I have been informed that, as visually spectacular as it was, this kind of incident isn’t as spectacularly uncommon as many of us think.
“But given what we now know about our place in this universe, what I will not stand here and do is pretend that the timing of these events, particularly when considered alongside the location of the Kerguelen bolide, is something that we can dismiss out of hand as a mere curiosity of random chance.”
Although the attendant reporters were already paying attention to Slater’s words, this comment caused more than a few ears to prick up and more than a few surprised glances to be exchanged.
“It occurs to me that the anti-GSC protests in which many upstanding citizens have participated have been driven by two compounding factors: anger, and fear. Anger at a perceived lack of action in Buenos Aires is perfectly understandable. Perfectly understandable. What frustrates me on a personal level is that this understandable anger would not be manifesting itself if the GSC’s public-facing communications were fit for purpose. I know that Chairman Godfrey is overseeing meaningful research and development into defensive projects as well as exploratory ones, but the culture of secrecy which pervades at the GSC ensures that members of the public — again, quite understandably — tend to confuse a lack of updates for a lack of activity.
“I do not consider the anger that the GSC has faced to be misdirected or misplaced; I consider it to be the fault of poor communication. I consider it to be avoidable and, more positively, I consider it to be highly remediable. Without wishing to diminish the broadly held feelings which I have repeatedly stressed that I consider quite understandable, the ease with which the problem of anti-GSC sentiment can be solved means that I am not overly concerned by the recent outpouring of public anger. I will say more on the GSC in a moment, but first I want to touch on something which does concern me: fear.
“If we are not careful and if we are not proactive, fear can consume all. Each and every one of us will recall the difficult weeks and months which followed our initial analysis of the first two plaques and which came to a head following the failed launch of DS-1. None of us need to be reminded of the violence and chaos which blighted some regions when understandable but incorrect conclusions were drawn from the engravings on those plaques, and none of us need to be reminded of how greatly that violence was exacerbated when the media pushed a narrative that our last hope of defending our planet had died with DS-1.
“What I believe many of us do need to be reminded of is how quickly the discovery and analysis of the third plaque quashed everything. When the context provided by that plaque eased so many fears in the blink of an eye, it became clear that all we ever had to fear truly was fear itself. And if the peace that has followed the discovery of the third plaque in Salzburg has shown us anything, it has shown us that we have nothing to fear from any further messages we may discover or indeed receive from our extraterrestrial counterparts.”
Once again, this comment excited several reporters. No one called out any questions — of late, Slater had been commanding a lot more respect from the press than she used to — but she couldn’t miss the change in their expressions as eyebrows rose all around the room.
“For a year,” she went on, “we have known that we are not alone in the universe. We have known this in an abstract way, with no direct contact or real-time observation. But given recent events, beginning with a powerful bolide at a location so improbable and apposite as Kerguelen and continuing with these similar incidents so soon afterwards, we cannot fully rule out the notion that we may be on the verge of a real-time observation sooner than many of us expected. For a year, we have known in an abstract sense that we are not alone; and what I wish to stress today is that there is no reason for fear as we reflect on the possibility that one day soon, we may also know it in a more immediate, more physical sense.
“In the meantime,” Slater continued, raising her pitch slightly and picking up the pace, “we should all afford the GSC the time it needs to analyse these recent events. Where I differ from Chairman Godfrey is in my view that we should give a reasonably fair hearing to any private groups with the competence and finances to assist in productive space-related endeavours which can and will benefit humanity as a whole. Cooperation rather than conflict is the order of the day — today and every day — and I sincerely hope that such cooperation will prevail.”
A few hushed murmurs greeted these wholly unexpected comments, which could only be taken as a highly public attempt by President Slater to pressurise Chairman Godfrey into reconsidering his policy of freezing out Timo Fiore’s well-funded and highly ambitious plans for Fiore Frontiere.
Some had believed that Slater might rebuke Godfrey’s leadership more generally or even announce a once-unthinkable US withdrawal from his crisis-stricken GSC; none had believed that Slater might half-heartedly support Godfrey with one breath before pushing him towards an embarrassing Timo-related climbdown with the next.
“But leaving all of that aside, I want to close with an important reminder that regardless of what we ultimately find out about the possibility of a pattern behind recent events and regardless of what we find out about the specific causes of each individual incident, the crucial thing to remember is that not a single person has been physically injured.”
The gathered journalists had watched and listened to Slater enough times to recognise the shift in tone which suggested that she had reached the end of her speech, but each continued to pay rapt attention in anticipation as to the nature of her closing remark.
Slater paused for effect and gave a very slight smile of confident reassurance before delivering her final line: “Ladies and gentlemen… if this is a precursor to Contact, then Contact is nothing to be feared.”
C minus 2
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
“I can’t even pretend to understand what just happened,” Emma said, reacting to President Slater’s comments as the rest of the equally confused group, other than the thoroughly preoccupied Dan, waited eagerly for her interpretation. “She’s doing what’s popular by criticising the GSC’s culture of secrecy and saying Timo should be allowed to contribute, and she’s doing what’s safe by diplomatically supporting Godfrey’s position… but I really don’t know what’s going on with the Contact stuff. It was almost a tease, like she knows something.”
“Maybe the craft Trey recorded was seen by others?” Timo suggested.
No one knew any more on this point, of course, and Dan’s trend-ticker displayed an appropriate scrolling post from Billy Kendrick which simply restated his belief that “a lot more is going on here than any of us know right now.”
