Christopher Nuttall - The Trojan Horse

He winced as the bus neared the second layer of fencing. There was a much stronger police presence there, along with a number of pro-alien and anti-alien protesters. The policemen had separated the two sides when they started fighting, according to the driver, and left them sitting by the side of the road, their hands cuffed, until a police transport could arrive to take them away for processing. God alone knew what would happen to them after that; Jason had known a couple of arrested protesters while he’d been at college and all they’d received had been a caution. He looked away from one crying girl and up towards the alien base. They built remarkably quickly.

Inside the fence, the alien base rose towards the sky. Jason had seen videos of the aliens landing components on the ground and then assembling them into a single set of structures. They’d moved with remarkable speed; some commenters on the television had pointed out that only a military unit could move with such speed and skill. Their prefabricated structures looked oddly simplistic for a star-travelling society, although he did have to admit that the human race had no benchmark to measure the aliens against any other race. Perhaps simple designs were a constant among the Galactics.

The base was composed of large angular structures, reminding him of the Pentagon to some extent, although the exact number of sides seemed to vary. Their featureless metal walls seemed to glow of their own accord, although it could merely be a trick of the light. He caught sight of the bus’s reflection as it parked beside one of the larger buildings and waited for the aliens to open the doors. When the building finally opened up, Jason was among the first to scramble for the door. There was no way he was going to pass up on the opportunity to see an alien base from the inside.

Inside, the alien base was something of a disappointment, although it was clear that it hadn’t been built with humans in mind. The proportions were odd to his eyes, casting a faint air of unreality over the entire scene; the lighting was bright, almost bright enough to hurt. It smelled strange to his nose, something almost familiar, but he couldn’t place his finger on the precise scent. The aliens who had arrived to serve as silent escorts beckoned them forward whenever they started to fall behind, as if they were impatient to begin. Jason found himself struggling to contain mounting excitement as they were finally shown into what was clearly a lecture hall. It was large enough to hold almost two hundred humans.

He smiled as he took one of the seats and waited patiently. The Galactics had offered to give information sessions to humans — and Jason, as the Discoverer, had found it easy to get a place. He felt as if he didn’t belong among the gathering of political leaders, businessmen and even a handful of religious representatives, but it hardly mattered. How could he have refused the chance to actually ask questions of beings who had seen what awaited the human race in space?

An hour later, he was feeling much less optimistic. The Galactics — they all seemed to be the same race, almost indistinguishable from one another — had opened with a brief session that repeated what they’d said at the UN, and then followed up with a series of blandishments that were long on optimism and short on detail. They seemed happy to answer some questions in great detail, but other subjects seemed to draw imprecise answers — or even a simple refusal to answer at all. It galled him as much as it puzzled him; they’d been promised answers, yet all they’d been given were bland statements that were devoid of any actual content.

Impatiently, he raised his hand. The alien standing in front of them — wearing a black unmarked tunic and a hood that almost seemed to cover the alien face, but not the bright red eyes — looked at him, inviting him to speak. SETI had primed him with any number of questions about the universe, yet so far he hadn’t had an opportunity to ask any of them. And now that he did, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask after all. The answers might not be forthcoming, or he might not want to know…

“You’ve told us that there are many forms of intelligent life among the stars,” he said, without preamble. SETI had picked up on one thing about the Galactics that really didn’t make sense. For a multiracial society — in the truest possible sense — they seemed to all share the same racial origin. “Why haven’t you introduced us to other forms of intelligent life?”

There was a pause as the alien appeared to consider. Jason had once attended a political rally where the candidate had made the mistake of too-obviously depending upon prompts from his political manager, waiting in the wings and using a concealed earpiece to advise his master. The alien seemed to be doing the same, although it was impossible to tell for sure. They might be simply checking and rechecking the translation. There had been a number of confusing utterances made by the aliens that had been blamed on translator error.

“Your race is unprepared to encounter more than one other form of intelligent life at present,” the alien said, finally. They hadn’t been given any names, or any other way of telling the aliens apart, something that bugged Jason and everyone else. “You must understand that while there are many races that are humanoid, there are many others which have almost nothing in common with your race. We were chosen to meet with you as we share a superficial similarity in form, but no biological similarity that might open the risk of a disease passing from an alien race to your own.”

Jason frowned. He’d read The War of the Worlds in grade school and he’d been disappointed by the ending. SETI, however, believed quite firmly that germs and viruses from another ecosystem would not be able to make the jump from alien into human — or vice versa. The idea that the aliens might be so close to humanity as to allow cross-contamination seemed implausible — but then, alien life itself seemed implausible. And SETI had never really had any data to prove or disprove its theories.

“That is a valid concern,” he acknowledged, after a moment. “However, you have been reluctant to tell us anything about the other members of the Federation. What kind of beings are they and when can we hope to meet them?”

There was a second pause. “All such information is being restricted until your race develops the political and social maturity to handle such information,” the alien said. The voice was as inhuman as ever, but Jason was sure that he detected a note of… irritation behind the cold dispassionate tone. “We do not wish to cause political turmoil on your world that might upset the schedule for your entry into the Federation.”

One of the other visitors, a famous writer of military science-fiction, interrupted before Jason could say anything else. “And you don’t want to tell us anything we could use against you,” he said. “After all, we might not join the Federation.”

The alien looked at him, bright red eyes pulsing with an unreadable emotion. “That is a concern,” he admitted. “Your race’s xenophobia may lead you to challenge the Federation itself.”

“Now see here,” the writer said. “That’s the bit I don’t get. How can you possibly feel threatened by us?”

“When one race joins the Federation, it alters the pattern of Federation affairs — even if the race in question is harmless,” the alien said. “Over the years, the Federation has never been threatened by another race, but we have learned to embrace change brought to us by new arrivals. And yet your race has a level of xenophobia beyond anything displayed by any other known race. We fear what you might do if introduced into our society.”