Second Contact, page 43
part #2 of Not Alone Series
Dan couldn’t miss the irony that Billy, something of a forgotten man in his consciousness of late, was yet to learn just how right he had been in suggesting that it was unwise to ignore comets when discussing possible threats from above.
One panelist who either knew already or would find out very soon was Jack Neal, by virtue of his sycophantic attachment to the leader of a GSC primary member state. Dan expected that Jack, a man he would love to forget about forever, was sure to climb down on his threat that John Cole would pull the UK out of the GSC if Godfrey didn’t get his act together; for now that a real threat had emerged, a détente between Godfrey and Cole was almost as necessary for global stability as that which had already occurred between Godfrey and Timo was for the planet’s very existence as a viable ecosystem.
The panelist whose rationality Dan felt least confident in depending on was Joe Crabbe. A longtime ally and friend of Richard Walker, Crabbe’s shock-jock instincts knew no boundaries.
To date, Crabbe had stayed quiet about the botched interview with Richard Walker he’d attempted to conduct a few days after this episode of Focus 20/20 first aired, and the media had long since moved on having dismissed it as a cheap publicity stunt for Crabbe Shoot Radio.
But a throwaway comment Crabbe had made during his Focus 20/20 appearance, which no one took seriously, was illustrative of the kind of paranoid and potentially dangerous nonsense he was willing to spread: “Does anyone really trust Godfrey’s GSC not to divert an asteroid our way to get rid of the troublesome American thorn in their side?”
People like Joe Crabbe, of whom there were mercifully few, thrived on attention and would say whatever they had to say to attract and retain it; should the comet’s approach become public knowledge, Dan knew that these could prove to be the most dangerous people of all.
But the part of the show which troubled Dan most on this second viewing was a part which had sparked feelings of vindication at the time: the public revelation of an internal GSC memo whose signatories claimed that their analysis of the Kerguelen bolide suggested it was an “observably unnatural” event.
Rather than the content of that so-called GSC leak, what bothered Dan was its very existence. The glee in Billy’s voice as he gloated about this leak, one which Emma and Timo had actively facilitated, would certainly not be in keeping with the type of reactions which would follow if anyone inside the GSC leaked knowledge of the approaching comet. Troublingly, Dan wasn’t sure whether the hatred some GSC staff harboured for Godfrey would be enough to push them towards a spiteful public revelation.
Every time Dan now heard Billy calling for Full Disclosure, the phrase ‘be careful what you wish for’ lingered at the front of his mind.
Dan himself wrestled with the dual meaning of the term Full Disclosure quite often. While Billy and his ilk used it in vague reference to some unspecified data they believed the GSC was hiding, Richard Walker had previously and independently used it to refer to a hypothetical public revelation that the IDA leak and the supposed cover-up which surrounded it were in fact component parts of the greatest hoax ever devised. Dan had never imagined that anything would come along which could cause more societal damage if revealed to the public than the hoax, but the discovery of Il Diavolo was quite possibly just such a thing.
He hoped beyond hope that anyone with sufficiently high security clearance to be in the loop would be intelligent and responsible enough to bite their tongues for at least the week or so it might take for the GSC’s primary members to desperately hammer out some kind of plan, but Dan’s own time in the spotlight during much of the previous year had taught him that intelligence and responsibility couldn’t always be reasonably expected from those in positions of authority or entrusted with combustible information.
“How long are we going to keep the plaque quiet if nothing happens?” Tara asked as soon as the closing music hit and the credits rolled at the end of the show.
Dan turned to her, surprised by the suddenness of the question.
“Because there might be a lot of complacency if people think the Messengers are going to help,” she went on, “and people might expect them to help since they don’t know as much as we do. They don’t know we found this thanks to a warning from the Messengers.”
“I know what you mean,” Dan said. “And if nothing quickly comes out of whatever discussions the GSC member states are going to have, we’ll do what we have to do. Timo isn’t sure but he thinks Godfrey is going to announce a formal GSC summit tomorrow morning, without saying what it’s about. Everything like the California Fireball and the protests about the Kerguelen memo he tried to suppress actually provide a pretty good cover for having top-level political and scientific discussions about the comet.”
Tara nodded slightly. “Obviously I hope they come up with something, but I’m glad to hear you’re not totally against ever telling people about the plaque. Because if people don’t know it’s a warning then they could be hoping for some deus ex machina moment of the aliens coming down from the stars to save us at the last minute, which we know isn’t exactly likely. I mean, from what I can see, they’re not coming to save us.”
Dan shifted in his seat, suddenly deep in thought.
“I went to college for four months,” Tara continued with a smile, thinking he was impressed by her turn of phrase. “And that’s four months longer than you, so don’t look so surprised when I start breaking out the Latin.”
“Deus ex machina is Latin but it comes from Greek,” Dan said. “It means something like ‘God from the machines’ and it’s from old theatres where—”
“Where the guys playing gods were hidden above the stage,” Tara interrupted. “I know, I know. They would hang on strings, out of sight. Then at the end they would come down and take care of everything to wrap the story up, all nice and neat. Latin, Greek, whatever. And obviously the real aliens aren’t gods, but if people think they’re going to come down and rescue us then it’s pretty much the same. Hoping for that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but expecting it?”
“If that kind of thinking comes up, we’ll put it down,” Dan reaffirmed.
After a long pause, Tara asked another question: “Do you think they’ll save us? If it comes to that, I mean.”
“I think they might,” Dan said, “but we really can’t count on it. It could go against their notion of minimal necessary intervention. I mean, I don’t know why they would warn us but not save us, but to them it might make some kind of sense. That’s the problem… it’s not just a case of us trying to make sense of what they’re doing by assuming things about their psychology. The compounding factor here is that whatever they’re doing is based on their assumptions about our psychology. They said they had never taken anyone before Walker — the first time they took him, that is — so that means the only people they’ve ever directly communicated with are Walker, me, and Emma. So if they’re trying to judge how we’ll react to this, I don’t know whose psyche they might be assuming is normal. Mine? Emma’s? Walker’s? Or maybe a broader view, based on their general observations of how groups of people have dealt with certain things in the past? There are so many assumptions, on both sides of the question. It’s like… I don’t even know. It’s not like anything. It’s just a giant mess.”
“But still…” Tara mused, her tone suddenly slightly more upbeat. “At least they warned us.”
Dan’s expression softened at the simple truth of Tara’s statement. “I’ll tell you what, though,” he said with an ironic grin, “I sure as hell wouldn’t mind if someone from Fiore Frontiere turned up at the kitchen door and came inside to tell us that the comet is a hoax.”
Tara laughed for the first time in too long. “Seriously, though,” she said. “If you’re getting down about what’s happening, you need to remember something: without you falling for Walker’s hoax, and without you and Emma and Clark and Timo pushing so hard last year to get the story out and to make people believe it, we wouldn’t know about the comet. Il Diavolo would still be coming, but we wouldn’t know. The Messengers wouldn’t have come here at all if it wasn’t for DS-1, right? Because they only got involved to stop us from putting nuclear weapons in space? Then after that, they had to clean up the mess, so they called you to that cornfield. And without that line of contact, they couldn’t have quietly told humanity about Il Diavolo. Do you see what I mean? I dunno, this makes sense in my head. Like you said, I’m trying to make assumptions about them but it’s impossible to know what they think about us.”
“Don’t forget that without you recognising Smeltertown from that episode of American Treasure, we might not have found the plaque as quickly as we did,” Dan said. “And one thing we know for sure is that every day counts.”
“I just wish there was something else I could do,” Tara sighed. “Something else we could do.”
Dan wished the same thing with every fibre of his being, finding his current level of frustration worse than any he had known before precisely because it was such an oppressively helpless kind of frustration.
The previous year, when he believed that the hoax was a cover-up, he had at least understood the selfish motives of the people he was up against and had woken up every day with a burning desire to show them up for the liars they were. That things had turned out to be a lot more complicated than that didn’t change the fact that Dan had been able to follow a sequence of steps, difficult as they were, with reasonable expectations of what might come next.
But now? Now, none of that could be said. Dan couldn’t begin to understand the Messengers’ motive for warning humanity without actually helping, and from where he was sitting there was no obvious path forward.
Deep in thought, he said nothing.
SATURDAY
C plus 5
GSC Headquarters
Buenos Aires, Argentina
“I’ll keep this short and sweet,” William Godfrey began, “because I know you all have headlines to sensationalise and quotes to take out of context.”
A few uncomfortable laughs came from the mass of gathered reporters in the rarely used press room of the GSC’s Buenos Aires HQ.
“But in all seriousness, some of the reporting I’ve seen in the last week has been nothing short of disgraceful. I’ve invited you all here today in good faith that you will accurately relay my words to your viewers and readers, and this is the last chance some of you will get.”
The discomfort in some areas of the room was now palpable as individual reporters began to fear being called out by name. Fortunately for them, Godfrey’s point had been made and he had bigger fish to fry.
“The announcement I want to make is that a strategic summit will commence on Monday, right here in Buenos Aires, as we seek to forge a unified path forward beyond what has been a very testing and troubling period. While the Global Space Commission itself has faced tremendous pressure from various angles, within these walls we have remained firmly focused on performing our core functions. Admittedly, it is now clear that our horizons must be broader.
“So while analysis of recently observed phenomena and recently gathered data will continue and indeed intensify among research teams from across the globe when they gather here next week, I am excited to announce that senior governmental representatives of our primary member states will also gather to address the larger issues of… well, let’s call it what it is: anti-GSC sentiment. They will discuss how to best manage sensitive data in order to avoid the kind of unnecessary public disorder which has blighted many of their nations over the last few days, and they will discuss all possible implications of recent findings.
“If some in the media want to call this an emergency summit, as I’m sure they will, there’s not a lot I can do to stop them. The same is true if they wish to write their own stories between the lines of my announcement; all I can do is encourage the world’s population to retain its critical faculties. What I will say to preempt certain sensationalist news outlets is that if we wanted these meetings to be secret, I wouldn’t be announcing them. And when I mentioned managing sensitive data, that’s not newspeak for sweeping it under the rug. But a point that’s too often missed by the corporate media is that there is a middle ground between sweeping potentially unsettling findings under the rug and leaking half-baked analysis to the media as happened in the wake of the Kerguelen bolide.
“The final thing I’d like to stress is that the Global Space Commission has always provided an excellent framework for bringing nations and citizens together to address truly global issues. And in light of recent suggestions from several of our primary member states, I have decided to temporarily grant a team of scientists from Fiore Frontiere the status of official observers for the duration of this summit.”
As Godfrey had expected, this revelation drew surprised expressions and prompted some hushed mutterings among the press pack.
“Past differences between myself and Timo Fiore have never been a factor in my prior reluctance to extend such an invite,” he went on. “My concern on this has always been related to the difficult precedent of allowing wealthy individuals access to what is, after all, a Commission composed of politically sovereign member states. For this summit, however, Fiore Fron—”
“What about other wealthy individuals?” a reporter near the front blurted out, cutting Godfrey off mid-word and drawing gasps from the rest of the room. The question came in clear but locally accented English, and Godfrey’s deathly stare didn’t seem to frighten the young male reporter who raised it. “Is it one rule for Timo and one rule for the rest, or does this mean that anyone else with enough money will also be allowed to participate in GSC operations going forward? Is Timo Fiore a special—”
“You know my history with the man,” Godfrey interrupted, “so you know there is no special or preferential treatment. And Timo won’t be here. This is what I mean when I talk about accurate reporting; I said that scientists from Fiore Frontiere have been invited to discuss recent findings with their GSC counterparts. Words have meaning, so please pay attention to which ones I use. Timo won’t be brushing shoulders with the governmental figures who come here to discuss higher-level issues relating to the GSC itself.”
“So will scientists from other private groups be able to participate?” the daring man probed, seeking a clear answer.
Godfrey shrugged very slightly. “As soon as any other groups with a record of productive astronomical research present tangible proposals to invest billions of dollars in planetary defence projects, with full funding in place, we’ll be happy to draw up some more invitations.”
Another voice from much further back yelled out in reply: “Chairman Godfrey, have you found something else? Can we expect a new GSC leak in the coming days?”
This question, unaccented, came from a voice vaguely familiar to Godfrey. But the penny didn’t drop until the crowd parted to reveal a blonde-haired Blitz News reporter he recognised from her sensationalist coverage of the recent protests.
“Lisa Belmont for Blitz News,” she proudly continued. “So, are you aware of any other potential threats to Earth, imminent or otherwise? Natural or otherwise?”
“I don’t remember inviting any questions,” Godfrey replied with no effort to hide his annoyance. “This will be the last one I acknowledge, and only to point out that this ‘natural or otherwise’ nonsense really does have to stop. Upon its atmospheric entry, the meteor at Kerguelen did behave in ways we haven’t seen before; that much is true. But the two huge caveats are that we haven’t been scientifically observing meteors from above for very long, and that the memo which has been built up into this so-called ‘GSC leak’ actually amounts to nothing more than a sloppy subjective analysis of a highly complex event.”
In front of a TV in Birchwood, Colorado, Emma Ford quietly noted that Godfrey had taken care not to lie outright about anything given that the reason for the summit was almost certain to come out eventually. She also couldn’t help but tip her hat to his masterful evasion of the most dangerous and difficult-to-dodge question of all — “have you found something else?” — by focusing on another difficult but more manageable issue in the form of the infamous Kerguelen memo.
Whatever anyone thought of William Godfrey in a personal sense, no one could deny that he was good at what he did.
With four security guards looming, Lisa Belmont from Blitz News didn’t risk another question. The crowd of reporters un-parted, welcoming her back into their fold.
“I was almost finished, anyway,” Godfrey said, pretending to look through his notes to find his place. This drew some laughs, breaking the tension in the room as the security guards returned to their posts at each wall. “But more seriously, I am finished. I hope you all enjoy your week, and we’ll have a full report on the summit once it’s concluded. Thanks for coming along.”
As news stations around the world cut away from the announcement and back to their studios, most settled on the main talking point of whether allowing Fiore Frontiere scientists at a GSC summit amounted to Godfrey caving in to President Slater’s very recent calls for private-public cooperation in the troubled space sector.
Some stations focused instead on Godfrey’s direct reference to the Kerguelen memo, about which he had previously been reluctant to comment. Others, meanwhile, made inevitable comparisons between the upcoming summit in Buenos Aires and the previous year’s UN summit in New York at which the GSC itself had been created in the wake of concerns that the first two plaques were warnings of potential threats from above.
Today, no one was talking about any specific newly discovered threats.
No one in the media knew that this summit had also been called in the wake of concerns about a specific threat from above, and not even Godfrey knew that the fourth plaque had illuminated that very threat.
