And What of Earth

Chapter 2



Jennifer managed to rouse more or less at her usual time the next morning, despite getting less than 4 hours sleep. Toast for herself and her dad, and she left the house, heading to where the barrier intersected Emerald Street, between Thicket and Briar.

A Wakiran male stood sentry at the location. On the other side of the barrier, Jennifer could see two soldiers obviously near the end of their shift guarding their side. Jennifer smiled at the Wakiran and said, "My name is Jennifer Hodges. The mission commander has given me permission to pass through the barrier to perform my duties."

"I have received orders to allow you to leave. You may proceed."

Jennifer looked confused. "Just walk through? Don't you have to modulate the frequency or something?"

This time, the male looked confused. "Just walk through. When you return, state your name and the male on duty will reach out and pull you through. In order to pass through the barrier from the other side, you must be in contact with something that is on this side of the barrier."

"I thank you, sir." She continued over to the barrier. "Hey guys, I'm coming out."

"They cannot hear you or see you. We can hear and see them, but the reverse is not true."

"Oh. Kinda kinky," she said, then blushed. "I thank you again for your help." She slowly pushed one hand then the other through. The guards took notice and readied their weapons. Slowly, she pushed her head through. "Don't shoot, guys. I'm human." She took a long look at one of the guards. "Rafe?"

"Jenny? What are you doing here? Last time I heard, you were in Minnesota."

"That was 5 years ago Rafe. You sure look different without the hip-length hair, and the matted beard. Kinda cute."

Rafe stood up a little straighter. "Joined the army. Couldn't get a job anywhere. I've been clean for a year and a half too."

"Great. I bet your mom would've been proud--." She wondered if she shouldn't have mentioned his late mother. "I'm going to step through now. The tingling the barrier causes is really unpleasant." She pushed her torso through and looked back at the barrier. "Thank you again, sir," she said to the now non-visible Wakiran, and then completely stepped through.

Rafe Dixon stepped towards Jennifer, partially blocking her way. "Ummm, Jenny. They're going to want to question you. Wait here while we get instructions."

"I can't. I'm due at the clinic in less than 10 minutes to start my shift. If someone wants to question me, they can question me there. Though I've already told them all I know in the broadcast I did last night." She gracefully stepped around her former schoolmate and continued on her way, After a few steps, she turned and said "You really look good clean shaven, Rafe." She waved jauntily and strode purposefully away.

She was surprised to see Bethy in the clinic with Barb. They were surprised to see her. "Bethy? What the heck are you doing here?"

"Jenn!" they said in unison. "How did you manage to escape?" Bethy asked.

"I didn't escape. I asked Myka -- the mission commander -- if I could leave so I could do my shift. When I pointed out to him that there was no one to replace me, he let me go. His security flunkies are probably livid, though."

"I called Bethy and asked her to do a few hours so I could go home, feed John and Billy and get a couple hours sleep before coming back in," Barb said.

"No need to worry. I should be able to come for my shifts without any problem." She turned to Bethy. "Honey, you need to amscray in a hurry. Some military boss is probably on his way over to question me. You don't want to be recalled to duty again, do you?"

She shook her head. "Three tours at the field hospital at Kandahar Airport was enough for me." She looked intently at Jennifer. "Are you okay? They haven't done anything to you, have they?"

"I'm fine, Bethy. Barb. I didn't get much sleep last night, but I suspect that billions around the world are saying the same thing. Besides, I got to do the one thing that most nerdy space freaks fantasize about. I got to be the point of first contact. First person on Earth to meet and interact with an alien. It is way cool. Completely sick." The three of them laughed. "Now go, guys. I'll be fine. Just don't be late for the shift change. They're expecting me back about 12 hours from now." The two older ladies hugged her, then hurried out the door.

Jennifer got her first military visitor about 30 minutes later. His gruff and forceful demeanor didn't score any points with her. Nor did his threats of incarceration or worse. When she countered his threat with "The Wakira are expecting me back behind the barrier at 6. If I don't show up, they'll probably make a point of looking for me. Do you want a half-dozen alien ships filled with heavily armed aliens to land in town to start looking for me?" From the look on his face, she got the impression that he actually was considering it, but acquiesced.

"I've answered your questions," she pointed out to him. "I can't tell you what I don't know. And I don't appreciate being threatened. I suggest that you leave now. I'll be willing to speak at length with someone who possesses decent interpersonal skills." With that, she turned her back to him and rummaged through some old outdated files. It took a more than a few seconds before she heard the door to the clinic close behind him.

She had a number of visitors that morning, none of whom actually needed medical attention. All of them wanted to see the young woman they all knew (or knew of) who had appeared on national TV and had told the President what to do. The questions were more or less the same with every visitor -- what is it like behind the barrier, is everyone okay, what are they like, do they have tentacles, etc. Jennifer patiently answered each one with pretty much the same answer -- it's strange, everyone is unharmed, a general description of their appearance with emphasis on their faces, and no no tentacles (didn't you hear me mention that in the broadcast?).

By noon, Jennifer was getting tired of the celebrity, and was wondering what she was going to do for lunch. Just after noon, she was standing by the door looking out onto the street. She noticed an army officer walking in the direction of the clinic carrying two paper bags and a drink tray with two drinks. Jennifer smiled a knowing smile and circled the counter to her usual spot.

"Good afternoon, General," she greeted the man in his late 50s, after he fumbled slightly with the door. "Should I be wary of a man in uniform bearing gifts?"

He plopped the bags and drinks on the counter and circled around to sit beside her in the spare chair. "On behalf of the Joint Chiefs, I'd like to apologize for what happened earlier this morning." He waited for a response. When nothing was forthcoming, he emptied out the bags, producing a burger and cheese fries for the two of them. "I asked the lady at the counter what you liked. She insisted that you had to have cheese fries."

She looked at him coyly. "If threats won't work, bribery might?"

"Something like that," he admitted, pulling out the paper napkins and splitting the food into two meals. "Colonel Daniels is an a*shole. Intimidation might work on subordinates, but is contra-indicated for -- shall we say -- strong-willed individuals?"

Jennifer tried hard not to smile, and reached to pull out a single cheese fry. "I have been known to come across as a bit arrogant," she confessed before popping the helpless fry into her mouth. "Actually, I've been known to be pretty bloody-minded at times."

"You'd probably make a great officer, then." He picked up his drink and pulled a long draw from it.

"I already have a job," she stated, deciding that she would engage in some verbal jousting while she ate. "The pay is currently non-existent, but I seem to have taken a vow to undertake thankless tasks when they're thrust upon me." She surrendered to the bribe, and picked up the box of fries.

"The Pentagon has every analyst they can get their hands on taking apart what you said last night. Would you care to spare the taxpayers the expense and tell us what you wanted to?"

Her initial response was garbled by a mouth stuffed with fries and cheese. She was obviously hungrier than she had initially imagined. She tried to swallow, then decided to help the cause with some of the soft drink he had brought. Another hard swallow, and she tried again. "No savings to be had. They're all salaried staffers."

The general's chuckle sounded almost genuine. "Okay. So the stated premise of the appeal was bogus. But we need to know as much as we can--." The general stopped when the door to the clinic opened.

A young teenage boy walked in. "It is you," he said in awe.

"Can I help you? Are you hurt or sick?" She stood, and got her pen and report pad ready.

"No. No, I'm fine. I -- I just wanted to tell you that you were right. What you said in the broadcast. You were right."

Out of the corner of her eye, Jennifer noticed the general lean forward in interest. "I was right about what?"

"The message you sent in Klingon. You were absolutely right. I do wish that I was you."

"Oh!" Jennifer blushed, as if she had just been caught red-handed. "I probably shouldn't have said it. I just wanted to show people that I was real and that I wasn't being forced to read a speech. I mean, how many aliens would know Klingon? Or know what it's like to be a nerdette?"

"Anyways, I think it's so cool that you've gotten to interact with real aliens. And gotten to go on one of their ships. I'm jealous."

"You mean envious," the general corrected him. "The term would be envious."

"Please excuse my older friend here. He doesn't realize just how blissed out we nerds get when thinking of meeting aliens." She glanced over at the general and winked. "Is there anything else?"

"No. Oh no! You're eating lunch. I'm sorry. I just wanted to tell you that you were absolutely right." With that, he turned and hurried out the door.

Jennifer sat back down and dug into the fries once more. "These are so good," she mumbled while chewing. "I haven't had these since soon after I moved back here." When the general didn't say anything, she looked at him. He was staring at her blankly. "What?"

"The message was a nah-nah hey-hey thing?" he asked, incredulous.

"Unless I've lost my Klingon grammar skills, it should've translated to 'I bet you wish you were me'. Just like the boy said."

The general slowly put his nearly-empty box of fries down on the counter. "We thought that you were trying to tell us something."

Jennifer's right hand was frozen in mid-dive towards the last of her fries. "I did tell you something. I told you lots of things. I told you to stand down, to not provoke them. That they are so far technologically advanced compared to us, that some of the things they can do will probably seem like magic to us. That if they wanted to, they could destroy us and the entire planet and not break a sweat. That in and of itself is worth far more than Mrs. Summer's double patty burger and cheese fries. Though I do thank you for the food. Food, like money, is scarce in town."

The general looked like he wanted to "harumph" but didn't.

Jennifer put the now-empty box of fries down and picked up the burger with the necessary two-handed grip. "I'll tell you what I can tell you, General, but you have to realize that, in a sense, I've been forced into an Honest Broker position here. I'm going to work hard for my species -- you'll be happy to note that I include you in that group --" she smiled cheekily "but I have to fulfil the promises I made to their mission commander. That I not put them at risk."

The general finished chewing his mouthful of beef, swallowed and said, "You can't have it both ways, Miss Hodges. You can't be for us and for them at the same time."

"Who said anything about being on their side? My promise was that I wouldn't betray their trust nor put them at risk. Given the fact that we can't possibly hurt them, not with their energy barriers and advanced weaponry, then short of drawing them out from behind the barrier to be abducted and tortured by military crazies -- of which I DON'T think you are -- I won't be violating that part of my promise. But I also can't betray their trust."

She put the burger down on the counter with a little more force than she had intended. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the way I look at it, my job in this situation is to make them like us. Maybe even like us a lot. If they arrived with evil intentions, if we make them like us, they ought to be less likely to follow through on those intentions. No?"

"That's an awfully huge assumption. How can we know if their emotional makeup is similar to ours?"

Jennifer gave him a "Well, duh" look. "We can't. We don't. Of course it's a huge assumption. But I'm all we've got. And if they did arrive with evil intentions, then our only hope is that I/we make them like us a lot. Cause we sure can't defend ourselves." She paused to chew her lower lip. "I honestly don't believe that they have evil intentions," she added softly.

They ate quietly for a few moments. "This frightens me, Miss Hodges. Our survival rests --."

"MAY rest," she corrected.

"Okay, may rest solely on the assumption that they don't hurt newly-minted friends. But it also rests solely on one individual. I know that you're a genius, Miss Hodges, but you have no experience acting as a go-between."

"That may be," she countered, "but I have the most experience of dealing with the Wakira of anyone on this planet. And I prefer the term 'nerdette' or 'wackadoodle'. I always have an image of me looking like Einstein when people call me a genius. My having a bushy mustache freaks me out." The joke fell flat.

The general was quiet once more, his mind not on finishing the meal. "No limit hold-em," he said without warning, breaking the silence. "You know the game?"

"Vaguely," she smiled. "While I worked at the VA hospital in Brookings, I would participate in some after-shift games with my guys. After awhile, it was like toying with them. I started deliberately blowing big hands from time to time. Just don't tell them that."

"Well, to use Hold-em as a metaphor, you've got pocket 2s, and they've just pushed all-in preflop. You're covered. There are a gazillion different ways they can have you beat. And you have to choose your course of action. Oh, by the way, you have 15 seconds and they are totally unreadable. Push or fold? If you push and they have you beat, we may die. If you fold, we may die anyways. What do you do? That is why I'm frightened Miss Hodges. Even if you manage to choose correctly, in this weird version of the game, we could still lose."

For the first time in the conversation, Jennifer noticed that there was fear in his eyes. "Crap," she said under her breath. "You're right." She slumped down in her chair. "Even if I'm flawless in my planning and execution, we can still lose."

"Perhaps we should attempt to expand the number of people that they interact with. If we have six or seven players at the table, instead of just one, the odds of winning would improve."

Jennifer played with her ponytail as she pondered his suggestion. "They are by-the-book people. Letting me out this morning was unheard of. I suspect that they pick small towns and put up the barriers in order to limit the number of natives they have to deal with. Large enough to be an almost-valid subset, but small enough to control. Perhaps even to avoid reverse contamination."

The general's puzzled look spoke volumes.

"They are hung up on tradition. Past practices. Obviously, they've worked well for them in the past, so why abandon them? If you plunge yourself into a sea of aliens, with strange alien ways, you risk getting contaminated with alien thinking. Keep the contact as limited as possible, while getting the data you're looking for, and you limit having 'wrong thinking' introduced into your society. They're monotheistic -- imagine what would've happened if they had landed in India in the middle of one of the Hindu festivals? This forced isolation of the natives reduces the risk of our barbarian ways infecting or infesting their society."

"I would never have thought of that."

Jennifer shrugged. "It came to me last night, while I was trying to sleep. I couldn't figure out why they would have picked Jewel Nebraska. Then I realized. The nearest town is 40 plus miles away. The population is small. The population is weary from having to fight for survival -- no jobs, no money, no help. This town is filled with people who have already given up. Over the next few days, more of the people behind the barrier will leave their homes and will interact to some extent with the Wakira. But they will already consider themselves inferior and beaten. Docile. Without the energy to argue or correct or whatever. No 'Well, this is the way we do things here'. Thus, no risk of reverse contamination."

They were silent once more. After a few seconds, Jennifer returned her attention to the remainder of her burger. The general fixed his eyes on nothing in particular.

"Why are they doing this survey?" he asked suddenly. "I mean, why really? We're centuries away from heading to the stars -- why do they want to find out more about us? Why now? Why not a hundred years from now? The furthest we'll have gone will be Mars. Why now? Why us? This isn't their first survey, is it?"

Jennifer chased the last remnants of her meal with the last of the soft drink. "It's not the first. That's why it was hard for him to agree to let me broadcast to the country."

"It was worldwide."

She looked at him, astonished. "Worldwide? I guess this means I embarrassed myself in front of more people than I had thought."

"The signals from every geosynchronous satellite were replaced by signals broadcast from orbiting ships that we still can't detect. Every television program got cut off and you appeared. Including the network feeds, so people who get their television from cable or over-the-air also saw and heard you. I think that makes you the most highly-watched person on television in history." The smile that came with this tease was warm.

"Wow," she said taken aback. "Hey Mom, so much for you telling me that I would never be famous or amount to much." Now her eyes were fixed on nothing. "You're right. Why us and why now? Why travel all this way? And with a force of who knows how many ships. But why do a survey if all they want is to eliminate a potential rival? Why not just blast us into nothingness, dust their hands and move off to eliminate another civilization?"

"Those are questions we need to have answered. Maybe they are just curious neighbors. Maybe all of our fears -- the Pentagon and the White House -- have no basis in reality. I sure hope so. But why us? Why now? Are they hiding anything? If you can learn more about them -- their culture, their history, their moral standards even -- it will help us try and reason out the answers to all of our questions."

Jennifer merely nodded quietly, her eyes still staring blankly, her mind racing a million miles an hour. The general stood, and started putting the empty food packaging into the paper bags. The movement snapped Jennifer out of her reverie. She stood, and slowly stuck out her hand. "I'm in over my head, General Comiston." She had finally noticed the name on the tag.

He shook her hand firmly. "We all are, Miss Hodges. We all are. Thanks for the conversation. I've learned a lot in the space of an hour."

"I was glad to have company. Though, now you've made me feel afraid and inadequate. That part, I don't like." She smiled to soften any blow the words may have caused. "Thanks for the food. It was marvellous."

He picked up the debris, circled the counter and headed for the door. "It was my pleasure. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other frequently."

He stepped through the doorway and out onto Main Street. Jennifer slowly sat back down in the chair, and drew her knees up to her chest. Her bravado was now gone, and her self-confidence had been reduced to shattered fragments.