The Takeover, page 29
July 4th passed without incident, and the human race heaved a collective sigh of relief. Perhaps the aliens weren’t coming after all. Perhaps there were no aliens. Perhaps the domes would magically disappear on their own any day now. Poof!
Or perhaps not. On July 5th, exactly one year to the day since the seeds had first settled onto the planet, the city-ships arrived in the skies above Earth.
They appeared with virtually no warning. Trackers at U.S. Space Force, along with a handful of professional and amateur astronomers, had noted an occlusion of the star known as Ross 154 in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius a few hours before their arrival—but by the time the intelligence was confirmed, and the news broadcast around the world, the ships had already arrived. The lack of advance warning meant people were caught off guard by the fleet’s arrival, even though they had been dreading it for months. The long-feared invasion was finally upon them, and people were surprised at just how surprised they were.
Ross 154, they all soon learned through constantly repeated newscasts, was a red dwarf flare star with a mean time between major flares of about two days. It stood 9.69 light years away from Earth, making it one of our closer neighbors. Whether the ships had come from some unknown planet orbiting Ross 154, or from some other more distant point in that same general direction, was impossible to say. Since the Galactic Center itself was located in the direction of Sagittarius, any number of stars or planets could have been the starting point for the aliens’ voyage to Earth.
Most astronomers had been training their telescopes in directions other than Ross 154, which was considered an improbable candidate for the mounting of an invasion, since it was a flare star unlikely to support life. But improbable or not, here came the invading fleet!
*****
Just as the people of Earth were most in need of real-time information, many of the world’s communication systems went down. The vast armada of ships entering Earth’s orbit wreaked havoc on the delicate constellations of satellites encircling the planet. Hundreds of manmade satellites crashed into the alien fleet’s protective shields, disintegrating into dust.
In the space of a few seconds, GPS systems went down, soldiers were cut off from command, pilots lost contact with air traffic control and had to fly blind, and satellite-based weather systems vanished. Even internet and telecom systems stopped functioning reliably as the GPS constellation they depended on for accurate time signal data disappeared.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station came dangerously close to splattering like bugs against a windshield as the alien fleet entered low Earth orbit. The astronauts got one hell of a closeup view before miraculously missing the fleet altogether. Their exclamations of astonishment at what they saw were a precursor to the reactions of most humans on the planet over the course of the next hour.
Before long the city-ships became visible to the naked eye. As they continued their descent towards Earth, it became apparent just how enormous they were. Each was roughly ten miles in diameter—massive enough to cast a shadow that blocked the sun, just as depicted in scores of alien invasion movies. Then, too, when seen from below, the ships really did look like the prototypical flying saucers depicted in countless films. They were circular in shape and porcelain in appearance, a creamy off-white that looked like alabaster but was obviously durable enough to weather the rigors of an interstellar voyage. All told there were some sixty thousand ships—nearly one per dome—yet another indication of the aliens’ precise and meticulous natures.
The ships enveloped the planet, hovering overhead until all were in place, as if to show off their invincibility before simultaneously beginning a slow and deliberate descent towards Earth.
It was at this moment that Russia launched its first missiles, followed by China and the U.S. All told, hundreds of missiles targeted the ships, but the ships were shielded with the same force field technology as used by the domes. The missiles splashed harmlessly against their shields, accomplishing nothing except to serve as an impromptu fireworks display for the people craning their necks upwards in awe.
The ships, for their part, didn’t even bother firing back, nor did they pause in their descent. If anything spoke of the aliens’ utter disregard for human weaponry, it was this.
Each ship descended towards a specific dome, as if it had been preassigned, settling towards Earth as gently as a mother laying her newborn in a crib. No propulsion or deceleration system was apparent; whatever slowed their descent was as incomprehensible as the domes themselves.
Meanwhile, every human being on the planet who was anywhere near a dome stopped whatever they were doing and stared upwards in silent wonder. Those who were indoors came rushing out, irresistibly drawn by the chance to see something truly once-in-a-lifetime.
For the briefest of seconds, each ship seemed to alight atop its chosen dome before passing through. The force fields did nothing to stop them. And why should they? They were built to protect these very ships! What humans had banged their collective heads against for months was inconsequential to the actual owners of the technology—which explained why they now owned half the planet, much to the dismay of its original inhabitants.
*****
At the exact center of each ship’s flat underside was a concave chamber designed to fit over the ovate. As the ships settled to the ground, they nestled over the ovates like mother hens brooding over their eggs. Unfortunately for humans everywhere, this had no effect whatsoever on the ovates’ ability to power the force fields, which remained as intact as ever.
The ships came to rest flush against the flat surface that had been prepared for them. In some instances, they straddled a major river bed, such as the Hudson or the Mississippi, in which case the river continued to flow directly beneath the ship. Less consequential rivers were forced to divert around the enormous obstacle suddenly blocking their path—much to the dismay of local communities, which now had flooding to add to their long list of woes.
As the ships touched down, huge clouds of ash and dust boiled out from below. The ash swept towards the onlookers gathered in mute wonderment just beyond the dome walls—a fine welcome from the aliens upon their arrival. People coughed and turned away as the ash clouds roiled over them.
Despite their enormous size, each city-ship was surrounded by some seven miles of open space in every direction—a generous buffer that made it all but impossible for humans on the ground to observe them. Nevertheless, as soon as the ash clouds dispersed, binoculars and telescopes were trained on them in fascination. At the same time, drones, reconnaissance aircraft, helicopter news crews, and any remaining spy satellites up in the heavens vied for a closer look. Everyone wanted to know what the ships looked like and who, exactly, might be on board.
The first thing everyone noticed was that the ships were anything but flat on top. Instead, they were covered from one end to the other with what could only be described as cities—strange alien cities, but cities nonetheless. Unlike the undersides, which were as smooth as pizza stones, the superstructures teemed with domes, spheres, and towers of every type and description.
One enormous domed structure stood at the very center of each city. Clearly this dome must serve as the beating heart of each city. Encircling it were four tall towers—spiraling helixes the color of alabaster, one at each of the city’s cardinal points. Each tower had a colorful spire on top—yellow, red, blue, green—but what these colors might mean was anyone’s guess. Spreading out beyond the towers were thousands of smaller spheres—individual dwellings, most likely. Everything about the architecture was curvilinear: curving dome walls, spiraling towers, circular portals, rounded windows, sinuous walkways.
It was instantly apparent to all who saw them that the aliens didn’t need to build cities: they had brought them along with them. Prefab alien cities made perfect sense now that they were here staring people in the face, but no one had predicted them beforehand.
Since the hull of each ship was about fifty feet tall, the alien cities themselves were perched some fifty feet above the ground. This arrangement allowed the aliens to look down upon their newly acquired domains, like lords of the manor atop their castle walls, while humans had to look up from below like vassals of old.
Not that any lords or ladies were visible at the moment. Every portal and window remained closed, and so they remained for the rest of the day. No matter how many times people refreshed their news feeds, impatiently waiting for their first glimpse of an alien, they were left unsatisfied. They really should have known better by now: the aliens were nothing if not masters at disappointing people.
When night fell, the dome at the center of each alabaster city illuminated, as if a million flickering candles had all been lit at once. An ethereal glow radiated outwards, climbing floor by floor up to the tops of each helix tower, then extending outwards to the furthest spherical dwellings at the rim. People gasped at the sight, and all the cameras and video equipment came back out. For a fleeting moment, it was hard not to appreciate the beauty of the alien cities. But that beauty hid an ugly truth: the unleashing of genocide upon an entire planet, and that was something too awful to conceal behind soft lighting.
*****
Another day passed, and another, and still the aliens refused to show themselves. For all people knew, they might look like walking ferns or amorphous blobs. The desire to see an alien up close was intense beyond all reckoning. News helicopters buzzed overhead like flies over a tempting dessert covered under glass. Each network was intent on grabbing that first sensational image that would blanket the airwaves from one end of the Earth to the other.
But the aliens remained decidedly uncooperative. For the rest of that week and into the next, they stayed locked up inside their alien cities, intent on their alien ceremonies, or their alien sports, or their alien sex, or whatever it was they were doing in there. Perhaps they just got a kick out of making the earthlings wait.
After prolonged days of this sort of thing, most humans finally got fed up and went back to their own lives. Which, of course, was when the first alien showed itself.
Actually, two aliens. Two friends? Two lovers out for a stroll on their new planet? A little walk around the dusty block?
A portal irised open like a camera lens, and out they came, on a summer’s evening, strolling around what looked like a high observation deck encircling one of the spiraling towers. This particular sighting happened at the Topeka Dome. Similar sightings occurred elsewhere over the course of the next several days, but this was the first—the Big One—filmed from above by one of the circling helicopters and broadcast to millions around the world.
First impressions: they were bipedal and humanoid. Beanpole tall—eight feet at least—with bodies as spindly as spiders’ legs, and elongated heads that seemed a bit too big for their bodies. They had two eyes and a mouth right where they were supposed to be, but only slits for noses. They were hairless and alabaster-white like their ships, and they were cloaked in what looked like white silk.
Their bodies were segmented like a wasp’s, with impossibly thin “waists” that seemed to pivot all the way around in disconcerting fashion. One of the aliens swiveled around to talk to the other behind him/her/it as they walked along. It was impossible to tell their sexes, if that was even a thing for them. They seemed to be breathing the air just fine through their slit nostrils.
One of the aliens was more animated than the other, raising its hands in the air repeatedly as it talked. It was a tad shorter than the other, although still quite tall by human standards. Its companion had big hands and big feet and looked ungainly, like a giant adolescent still growing into its body. It appeared subdued or possibly lost in thought.
The animated one finished speaking, and the two stood there for a minute on the observation deck of their city-ship staring up at the heavens. What were they looking at? The helicopters? The drones? The color of the sky itself? A missing city-ship late coming to the party?
The two companions looked at each other for a long moment in silence, then reentered the portal. It spiraled shut behind them like a closing lens.
They had been outside for all of two minutes, but that was enough to feed the media frenzy for a week.
What they talked about was the subject of endless speculation. Memes poured forth that very same night. One imagined a wife berating her husband: “You forgot the camping gear? How could you forget the camping gear! I reminded you like a thousand times!” Another envisioned an alien priest accompanied by his acolyte: “Bless this earth, bless this sky, bless this dust mote floating by.” Another depicted an enthusiastic tourist gesturing up at the sky: “It’s blue, Muriel! Blue! Just like the brochures said!” Another pictured a world-weary traveler: “Halfway across the galaxy for some peace and quiet, and this is what we get: paparazzi! Paparazzi everywhere!”
In truth, humans didn’t have the faintest idea what had been said, no matter how many times they watched and rewatched the video, analyzed it, dissected it, laughed at it. The only thing everyone could agree on was that the aliens had shown no interest whatsoever in the humans whose planet they now occupied.
Which was a little strange, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t we be just as fascinating to them as they were to us? Wouldn’t we be the aliens from their point of view? How could they not want to come a little closer and have a look?
What was wrong with them?
*****
One frequent talking point was the strange coincidence of events that had brought the aliens to Earth exactly one calendar year after the seeds had fallen. What was that all about?
Why would an alien race care about Earth calendar years? And why would they go to so much trouble to land on July 5th, the exact same date scientists said the seeds had fallen? It beggared belief that it was mere coincidence.
It must have been planned, said most people. One year to the day? It had to have been formulated to happen that way by a species intent on…what? Temporal order? Chronological symmetry?
Ridiculous! said a vocal minority. It had to have been sheer chance. The aliens would have used their own calendar year, not ours, if they had wanted to lay out events in neat chronological order.
Not necessarily, countered the majority. It’s not all that different from what international travelers do when they set their watches ahead to their destination’s time zone. These aliens are simply synchronizing with our Earth years ahead of time, as it were, in order to avoid the ultimate case of jet lag.
That’s absurd! said the minority. What kind of crazy OCD aliens are we talking about here, anyway? Why should they care so much about chronological symmetry? That’s insane!
It’s not insane, it’s alien. You do know what alien means, don’t you?
And so the arguments went, around and around. But since the minority had no compelling alternate explanation for why the seeds landed on July 5, 2041 and the ships landed on July 5, 2042, they usually fell back on name-calling at some point and left to find others who already agreed with them.
Chapter 37
August 2042
On August 5th, one month to the day after their arrival, the aliens posted their first message to the world. They posted it on X, as if that were the most natural thing in the world for any alien to do. It read:
WE ARE THE PHANTS.
WE COME IN PEACE.
WE MEAN YOU NO HARM.
WE ARE SUBLIME THINKERS.
DO NOT DISTURB.
Oval Office, Philadelphia
“Like hell they come in peace!” cried President Talbert, slamming her hand down on the Resolute Desk. “And what do they mean no harm? They’ve harmed us plenty! Worse than any war or plague or natural disaster in our recorded history! Did they think we wouldn’t notice? How can they say something like that?”
Gil Lametti was silent for a moment, reading the message over and over again. “’We come in peace.’ ‘We mean you no harm.’ Those sound like the kind of trite phrases you’d expect to hear from a B movie about an alien invasion. I wonder if they’ve been studying our TV programming. Maybe that’s what they’ve been holed up doing over the past month.”
“They sound insufferable,” said the President. “Where do they get off saying ‘Do Not Disturb’ after invading our planet? And what’s all this nonsense about being sublime thinkers? Did they really say that? Are we sure this isn’t a hoax?”
“It’s for real,” said Lametti. “It’s been traced back to one of the domes.”
“And it’s gone out to the whole world?”
Lametti nodded. “In different languages, no less.”
“Well, they may as well have told us to shove it.”
“Haven’t they been telling us that for months now?”
President Talbert read the message over again. “What do you make of the sublime thinkers part?”
“It reminds me of one of those bad translations from Japanese into English,” Lametti said eventually. “You know, like when a non-native speaker looks up words in a dictionary and picks the ones that sound right, but they aren’t quite right? Like ‘Slip Carefully’ or ‘The Male Sex Toilet.’ ‘Sublime Thinkers’ sounds a bit like that.”
“But what are they getting at, even allowing for the bad translation?”
Lametti shook his head. “They sound arrogant, no matter how you slice it. Saying you’re a sublime thinker is like saying you’re super-smart or amazingly deep, and neither is something a human would say about himself, not unless he wanted to get laughed out of the room.”
“I agree. They’re arrogant.”
“So it would appear, based on what they’ve chosen to put in their very first transmission to us. Maybe they’re brainiacs. Maybe they pride themselves on just how smart they are compared to all the other species they’ve met. And I’m guessing we’re not the first species they’ve met, given how disinterested they seem to be in us.”
