The Return (The Next Galaxy) Read online

  “As you can see from the images being displayed on our ultra-thin widescreen television,” the science secretary said, “nothing could be further from the truth about our dear planet being visited by aliens.”

  The men and women in the room turned their attention to the screen.

  On it, they could see the huge ball of green, blue, and brown floating in the black void of space. Earth was still a splendid piece of nature to look at from any distance. Around it some satellites could be seen, revolving ever so slowly. Some distance away from the farthest, most visible satellite were thousands of alien crafts of different shapes and sizes.

  The crafts were floating in space and maintained a semi-circular formation, but remained pointed towards Earth. The crafts’ bodies were reflective, which caused the rays of the sun and nearby stars to deflect off their smooth, silver surfaces. The people present in the room looked in disbelief at what appeared like many armadas of spacecrafts. Despite the science secretary’s urgings, all of them felt intense fear at what the pictures represented. It certainly did not look like curious friends coming to confabulate with earthlings.

  This looked more like Spanish conquistadors coming to plunder and pillage, rather than indulge in a polite tête-à-tête. Would the result of this interaction be as devastating for Earth’s people as contact with Europeans had been for the Native American people? Bob McNamara looked at the picture dispassionately, as he’d had a look at them before and was not shocked at the starkness of what he saw.

  Instead, he was probably the most composed of the people in the room, despite what the two distinguished female colleagues in the room thought about him. He was aware that his colorful private life might have biased perceptions about him, but in his mind, his personal life had nothing to do with his professional life. As a child he had been greatly influenced by his father, who had himself served as secretary of state with distinction. His father often read to him from a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling about what it meant to be a man, and this had had a profound influence on him.

  As he shut his eyes, he could still hear his father’s silky-toned voice reading to him . . .

  If you can keep your head when all about you

  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

  If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;

  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

  Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

  If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

  If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

  And treat those two impostors just the same;

  If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

  Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

  If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

  And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;

  If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,

  And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

  If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

  If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;

  If you can fill the unforgiving minute

  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

  Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

  “Madam President.” The science secretary’s strident voice shook him out of his reverie. “My fellow distinguished colleagues, this is a real-time feed from one of our satellites on the boundary of the atmosphere of our world. These images have been closely monitored by NASA and other space agencies around the world. Those spaceships have been in that same position for the past 72 hours. Tell me, what do you really see?”

  There was slight murmuring among those seated in the room. There were a couple of council members who felt that things weren’t as peaceful as the science secretary would have them believe, but seeing the president’s inclination toward her, they kept their peace. In any case, it wasn’t as if they had any clue about what was about to happen.

  The science secretary nodded as she looked around the room with a measure of satisfaction and said, “Yes, your guess is as good as mine. Even though they have made no contact with us, they do not look like a fleet that is about to mount an invasion of our dear planet. Even a rudimentary knowledge of military strategy would make one aware that those who attack do so stealthily. They don’t make their appearance apparent to the whole world like these aliens have. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, governments spent billions of dollars in designing and manufacturing stealth aircraft that would not be detected by radar. Invaders would sometimes send a small diversionary attack force to confuse the enemy as to where the real attack would come. This is basic military doctrine. Rather, from what NASA and other space agencies have been able to deduce, they seem to be conferring among themselves on how to approach us. That is not what an attack force does. THEY DO NOT CONFER; THEY ATTACK.”

  The defense secretary stood up. “Conferring amongst themselves? About what, if I may ask? Is it on how to approach us in peace or how to attack us? Please, people, can’t you see what is about to happen? You talk about outdated military tactics of the old days. Which century are you living in? These aliens can camouflage at will. Only they don’t need to. Do human beings attack a colony of ants with stealth? So much for your moronic analysis! Let’s not be ostrich-like in our approach. Let’s see reality as it is, not window dress it. I will finish my submission by quoting Sun Tzu, the ancient and perhaps the greatest military strategist of the world. ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.’”

  The man’s voice quivered with emotion and he seemed to be pleading.

  The president pointed a finger at the defense secretary. “Let’s not give labels to our esteemed colleagues. As regards the grand invasion, I don’t see anything about to happen, Mr. Defense Secretary. Or is there something else that these clear as crystal images are showing that I cannot see?”

  Bob McNamara turned to face the president. “Madam President, thank you for letting me speak. It’s not that I love painting doomsday scenarios. But as secretary of defense, it is my duty to highlight facts the way they are. What do the facts tell us? Let us just forget about what is happening presently in outer space and focus on terra firma, down here on Earth. Imagine, for instance, that you plan on paying a visit to the Russians, or the Chinese, or maybe the Koreans. Would you come to their boundary with your entourage and begin to hold a meeting the way that these strangers are doing at the perimeter of Earth’s atmosphere?”

  The president looked back at the screen and shook her head. “Well, not exactly.”

  The defense secretary clapped his hands and said a little triumphantly, “Precisely! That is my point, Madam President. Whatever deliberations needed to be done must have been completed long before you decided to embark on your trip. Then again, even if you did have an urgent need to confer with your entourage, which is very likely to happen, it would never be done in the full sight and presence of your intended visitors.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, imagine that we are a fortress or castle to which the enemy have laid siege. We fervently hope that when our attackers do inevitably breach our defenses, they will spare our lives instead of slaughtering us wholesale. So we send out
emissaries to find out their intent, but in the meantime, we fortify our defenses and prepare for a final do-ordie battle, as we intend to go down fighting. To quote the great Sun Tzu again, ‘All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.’

  “There is a lot we can try and do against the mightiest enemy. Even if we go down, we do so with honor and courage. Therefore, Madam President, I refuse to agree with the science secretary. This is a clear act of provocation, and the sooner we take counter-offensive measures, the better it would be for our dear planet.”

  “Counter-offensive measures? You contradict yourself. A few minutes ago you said there was nothing we could do to avoid this catastrophe, and now you talk of counter-offensive measures. Be that as it may, why should we take any counter-offensive measures when they have not given us any reason to do so?” the president asked.

  “Reason? Madam, are you waiting for a reason before you would act?” the defense secretary asked incredulously. “I did say that there was nothing that we could possibly do to prevent an invasion. I said nothing about not fighting back. I believe, like Dylan Thomas did:

  Do not go gentle into that good night,

  Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

  Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.

  Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  “At a time of crisis like this, I would like to read an excerpt from the famous speech made by John F. Kennedy at the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis:

  The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission. Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

  “Coming back to matters at hand, would the science secretary please account for the fact that every attempt that has been made to establish communication with them has been rebuffed?”

  CHAPTER 3 The president frowned. “Rebuffed?” She turned to the science secretary. “Is that true? Have we been making attempts to communicate with these alien visitors?”

  The science secretary nodded. “Yes, Madam President. We have been trying to get in touch with them. But, unlike what the defense secretary has just said, I refuse to agree that we are being rebuffed. Rather, I believe we have not been able to get the right code, frequency, or channel with which to establish that communication. Instead of reciting fatalist poetry about how we must fight a brave and righteous but inevitably doomed fight against certain disaster, I believe in finding practical solutions.”

  The defense secretary shook his head. “I don’t believe this. The right code, frequency, or channel? Are you serious? That is twentieth century stuff; and you call this practical solutions?”

  “Of course I am serious. If we go back to your example, assuming you wanted to communicate with your visitors, wouldn’t you utilize the appropriate language to do so? And where there is no common language, the next bet is to find a means of translating their language to the one that you understand, correct? This is a normal standard in international relations here on Earth,” the science secretary said.

  “And so what is it now?” the defense secretary asked. “Are you trying to develop a translation key already?”

  The science secretary nodded. “Yes, of course.” “Of course,” the defense secretary imitated the science secretary’s high-pitched style of speaking.

  “Furthermore, for what purpose, may I ask? You just said that they have not been responding to your attempts at contacting them. How do you translate a language that you have not yet heard and do not have any idea about?”

  “All right, that’s enough, you two,” the president said. “If I must remind you all, the point of this council meeting is to adopt a position that will be presented to the United Nations Security Council. As the chairman of the UN, we cannot tell the Security Council that the world should simply give in and expect an invasion, as the defense secretary has suggested. And if we should treat these unknown and unidentified beings as friendly visitors, what should our approach be? How do we handle these visitors?”

  Another man raised his hand. The president nodded at him. “Yes, Communications Secretary? Would you like to make a contribution?”

  The man stood up. “Yes, Madam President. I was wondering if the science secretary could be more explicit about the progress that has been made in communicating with the visitors.”

  The science secretary pointed at the screen. “Well, like I said, we really haven’t made much headway. If we had, I doubt if our guests would still be waiting where they are right now. Who knows, perhaps they’d be guests of the White House already.”

  “So, in other words, we have tried but still have not gotten through to them?” the communications secretary asked.

  The science secretary nodded. “Yes, as of now, that happens to be the situation. But, we believe we should be able to make a breakthrough soon.”

  “Why don’t we simply approach them directly?” the communications secretary asked.

  The science secretary stared at him with her mouth wide open. “What did you just suggest?”

  The communications secretary nodded. “Yes, we should go to them directly, not wait for them to respond to our several messages. If we were to get physically close enough to them, I am sure that they would want to respond to our physical presence much more than they would want to respond to our messages.”

  The president frowned. “You think that approach would work?”

  “Yes, Madam President. It should work. If you ask me, maybe we have just been wasting time trying to communicate with these visitors in a code or language that might not be comprehensible to them. Who knows? If they are very intelligent beings, they might not be able to understand a word of what we have been saying to them all this while for the simple reason that our means of communication is so primitive. But if we were to physically approach them in a peaceful manner, they would be forced to reciprocate and welcome us. By so doing, they would definitely have no choice but to welcome us, and also open up or develop a means of communication with us,” the communications secretary said.

  The defense secretary shook his head. “This is madness and suicide all mixed in one big pot. Madam President, please, no matter what you do; don’t listen to any of this rubbish. We should adopt a more rational and calibrated approach. Have you all thought about the possibility that this is just a ploy by the socalled visitors to access our defense systems before an invasion? And if that be the case, do we go down without a fight? We need to at least fight for pride. Humans versus aliens, a fight till death for one! To quote Kipling:

  ‘But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

  When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!’”

  “Oh, stop babbling and get serious! Have you thought about what both your science and communications colleagues have been trying to say all this time?” the president asked. “Besides, aliens who are as advanced a
s these would not unduly worry about any defense systems that we might have in place. Have you thought of the fact that maybe, just maybe, this time you might be wrong?”

  “But what if I am right, Madam President?” the defense secretary asked. “What if we do get invaded?”

  The president shook her head. “Then we know we were wrong in our initial assessment of this present situation.”

  The defense secretary sighed yet again. He then wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Look, maybe we can modify what I consider the crazy idea of the communications secretary, and see how that pans out. Even if our defense systems are puny compared to theirs, it does not mean that we don’t protect them if required use them.”

  “What modification?” the communications secretary asked suspiciously.

  “You really think that we should make physical contact and approach these beings, or aliens, or whatever it is that they are, right?” the defense secretary asked.

  The communications secretary nodded. “Yes. We should send some of our people out there to see them, meet with them, and try to engage with them peacefully.”

  “I see. Then why don’t we do so, but with a contingency plan in place,” the defense secretary said.

  “A contingency plan? What sort of a contingency plan?” the president asked.

  The defense secretary nodded.

  “Madam President; a contingency plan in which our forces would be on stand-by for any unforeseen and unexpected eventuality. We really don’t know who they are or what they want. It would be completely suicidal to send our people out there to meet them and hope that nothing unexpected might happen. Like they say, forewarned is forearmed.

  “If these visitors do turn out to be vicious invaders hell-bent upon conquest, we have to prepare for war and hope that, like David, we will be able to slay this Goliath with our slingshots!”

  The president sighed wearily and turned to her communications secretary. “Well, what do you think?”

  “Well, at least it is not what he was suggesting initially, adopting an aggressive response towards them right from the start,” the communications secretary replied. “The point is that we should go out there to meet them. Anything else that we do back on Earth to protect ourselves from any unexpected eventuality would be all right.”