—I say a few words somewhere…Here…I also know many of you have doubts. The decision to create the EDC was not a unanimous one. Why should you trust the EDC and not your own military? That is probably the only question I can answer today. I’m a military man, have been for over forty years. I can tell you this: Military people need intelligence…
—You need to say more than that. Tell them about how many wars you have been in, how many people you killed. Make them see the blood. Make them think of you as a warmonger who would drop a bomb on London at the first excuse. Only then will they believe you when you tell them they should not.
—What can I say? I am a Brigadier General in the South African Army and Commander of a UN military force. In South Africa, I was in charge of the Army Armour Formation, that’s a hard-to-pronounce way of saying lots of tanks. I fought in a segregated unit during the Border Wars, I have been part of peacekeeping operations in Sudan, I have led forces for the UN Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I have been in one army or the other for all of my adult life—
—Perfect.
—…and I can tell you this: Military people—people like me—need intelligence to be useful. We need to know what’s going on. Without intelligence, take my word for it, you do not want your fate in the hands of the military. We do not improvise. We’re like an elephant in a china shop, we can make a big mess of things if you have us chasing our tail.
I am also the Commander of the Earth Defense Corps, technically another military force with a single, gigantic weapon. As Commander, I have two soldiers under my command. Make that one soldier. The other is technically a Canadian consultant. I also have sixty-eight scientists working for me. They didn’t exactly phrase it like that when they offered me the job because they know I don’t like scientists. Scientists are like children: They always want to know everything, they all ask too many questions, and they never follow orders to the letter.
That, people, is the EDC. A big robot, one soldier, a linguist, and a whole lot of disobedient children. What we need, what the world needs right now, is them, my insubordinate kids. They know more about alien technology than anyone on Earth and they’re learning more every day. That is what they do, they learn things, constantly. They claim land for our little island of knowledge so that we can have room to breathe.
—Touching.
—I remembered the speech you gave me when you tried to sell me this job the first time around.
—You said no.
—I did, but it was a good speech. Then I have a few paragraphs about what we know, mostly about what we don’t know.
—What do we know?
—Not much. Here’s what I have.
We’ve only had a few hours to look at the data that’s available, and our people haven’t been onsite yet, so this is what we know. The figure in London is roughly ten feet taller than Themis, and about 10 percent more massive. We’re calling it Kronos. That’s it. The rest is conjecture.
There might be no one in that big metal man. It might be remote-controlled, it might not even be a robot; it hasn’t moved since it arrived. We feel this is rather unlikely, but it’s not something we can blindly discard as an option. There might also be humans in there. That would mean another robot was buried somewhere and was discovered by one of the nations represented here today. That also seems unlikely but not impossible.
Given what we know about Themis, the most probable scenario is that there are two or more alien pilots on board, and since the figure in London looks a hell of a lot like Themis, our working assumption at this point is that it was built by the same race. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we are dealing with the people who built Themis. They left one giant robot on this planet, it stands to reason they could have done the same thing on another inhabited planet, and it might be these people visiting us. Like I said, we don’t know much.
Assuming we are in fact dealing with aliens, they might be friendly. They didn’t come out guns blazing—that’s usually a good sign—and our current theory about Themis is that she was left here for us to defend ourselves. Their intent might very well be hostile. It would be odd for a foe to give us this much time to prepare, but its presence might be a prelude to a full-scale invasion or attack. Another very reasonable explanation, the one we’re leaning towards, is that they’re still trying to figure us out. They would have no way to know whether we mean them any harm or how we’ll react to their presence.
But enough speculation. All I can offer you right now is a lot of ifs and maybes. I was asked to come here and make a recommendation. For now, it’s a very simple one: Send Themis to England, that will take seven or eight days. Let my kids do their job for another week and we’ll reconvene. In the meantime, I will ask, implore all of you to exercise restraint and let this process take its course. This is not the time for impulsive action, no matter how tempting it might be.
That’s it. That’s my speech. Is that long enough?
—It will do just fine.
—Of course, it didn’t help that I had to write a whole new one for the press corps after Rose lost her goddamn mind.
—What did she do?
—You missed that? She went on television and told the whole world we shouldn’t be involved.
—Who is we?
—The EDC. She said sending Themis would be our biggest mistake. I know you like her, but you know she hasn’t been thinking straight. That girl is hanging on by a really thin thread.
—She has been through some…unsettling events.
—I get that. What I don’t get is why you put her in charge. She could have been on the team without running the show, you know. She doesn’t like me because I’m the big bad military, but what she’s doing really isn’t helping. Sending Themis over there is the only way I can buy some time. Without that, there’ll be troops in Regent’s Park by morning, and we both know how that’ll end.
—Let me hear it.
—What?
—What you prepared for the press corps.
—Fine. You may have heard the Head of our Science Division, Dr. Rose Franklin, speak to the media this morning. She had a lot to say, but, to summarize, Dr. Franklin believes we should do nothing, send no one, not even the EDC, and hope that the robot eventually leaves of its own accord. Dr. Franklin is a brilliant scientist and she is certainly entitled to her opinion, even if she doesn’t speak for the EDC. As you may know, Dr. Franklin was almost killed in an accident involving Themis in Colorado, and I believe the incident has left her unnecessarily cautious. While I disagree with her conclusion, she did say a lot more than “we shouldn’t send the EDC.” She made a few good points this morning.
We’re making first contact with an alien species. No matter how it goes, this will be a defining moment in human history. We should all stop for a minute and realize how significant and far-reaching these events are.
With that in mind, Dr. Franklin pointed out that sending an armored division and a few thousand armed soldiers is probably not the best way to make a good first impression. I find it hard to disagree.
She did suggest that sending Themis would be an even bigger mistake. Tanks and foot soldiers might be perceived as a sign of aggression, but they would most likely pose no serious threat to the robot if it’s anything like ours. Themis, on the other hand, could possibly give ’em a run for their money. I believe that showing the aliens a familiar face might be a good way to open a dialogue, but there is an argument to be made that sending the only thing on this Earth that could hurt these guys might not be such a great idea.