Christopher Nuttall - The Trojan Horse

“It’s the theme from Close Encounters ,” one of the SETI scientists shouted back. As the official Discoverer of the aliens, Jason had been guaranteed a place on the reception committee; SETI’s other members had had to depend on the luck of the draw. Local politics, Jason had heard, had influenced the selection process, despite its seemingly random nature. SETI drew researchers in from all over the world and the scientists included in the reception party included men from Europe, Japan and even China. “They picked it because of its positive implications of alien contact!”

Jason had to smile. New Yorkers had turned out to welcome the aliens, with their famously independent Mayor Hundred leading the parade. There were hundreds of people wearing facemasks and posing as science-fiction characters from Mr Spock to Chewbacca. The fact that most of the aliens portrayed in human culture tended to be unfriendly had seemingly escaped most of the greeting party, including the dozens who wore grey face masks. Jason had even heard a rumour that victims of alien abduction had been gathering together to file a class action lawsuit against the Galactic Federation, although as far as he knew there was no proof that alien abductions even existed, let alone that the Galactic Federation was somehow involved. It beggared belief that there were two such disparate societies within reach of Earth, but the human race knew nothing about FTL travel. The Galactic Federation might span the galaxy, or even beyond.

Silence fell as the official loudspeakers hummed into life. “We have just received word from the military,” Mayor Hundred said, his famous voice booming out over the crowd and even silencing the musicians. “The alien craft has just entered the atmosphere and is heading towards New York. Their ETA is twenty-seven minutes.”

Jason felt a new rising tide of anticipation. The average American wouldn’t understand just how remarkable — and advanced — alien technology had to be. Even the Space Shuttle — before it had been withdrawn from service — had needed a long runway to land; the aliens, it seemed, had developed technology to land in the midst of the city as casually as one of the helicopters flying high overhead. It was awesome — and terrifying. The human race would have nothing to offer the aliens, no technology, no scientific knowledge… perhaps they were doomed to be a perpetual Third World state in space. Or maybe not; the Japanese had mastered Western technology before they could be crushed and colonised by the West.

Sure , the darker side of his mind reminded him, and then they were crushed after picking a fight they could not win .

SETI had long puzzled over the strange silence from the heavens. If aliens existed, they had reasoned, and if they had possessed technology similar to humanity’s, the human race should have detected some sign of their existence. And yet nothing — apart from a single signal that might have been nothing more than an unexplained natural phenomenon — had ever been detected. Quasars, once thought to be alien navigational beacons, had proved to be entirely natural in origin. The aliens, if they existed, appeared to be too far away for their radio signals to reach Earth without being lost in the background noise.

There were other theories, of course. Some said that no aliens existed, that the human race — created in the image of God — was the sole form of intelligent life in the cosmos. Others said that the aliens had simply failed to break through the technological barrier to developing high technology and eventually heading out to the stars. Still others said that there was no means of travelling faster-than-light, sharply limiting a race’s ability to colonise other stars, or that races evolved beyond the need for colonisation sooner rather than later. And some speculated that the first alien race to develop was stamping out other alien races before they could become a threat. It was the theory that kept a handful of SETI experts awake at night. The human race could not survive if any alien race arrived intending to exterminate the human race.

And then there was the final theory. The aliens intended to allow Earth to develop at its own pace, preventing any of their people from visiting Earth and contaminating the native culture — and ensuring that no signs of their presence reached Earth before the human race was ready to welcome the aliens. He looked over towards a small crowd at one end of the massive space, the Witnesses. They believed that the aliens weren’t just friendly; they believed that the aliens had actively interfered to help shape human development and were — effectively — gods, the creators of the human race. It said something about the degree of credulity in humanity’s nature that — for an internet meme that had existed slightly less than five days — they already had hundreds of thousands of followers. They were ready to welcome humanity’s patrons — to borrow a term from David Brin — but Jason was much less sure of their grounds. There was a reason ‘patron’ was the root of ‘patronise.’ The world-famous science-fiction writer had understood that perfectly. It was unlikely that the Witnesses shared his understanding.

“Ten minutes,” the loudspeaker boomed. “They’re coming!”

Part of Jason’s mind braced for disappointment. He’d read stories where the world had been hoaxed into believing that the aliens were about to land, for all kinds of motives. SETI had wanted to check and recheck the data before making any kind of public statement, if only to avoid being turned into a laughing stock by being hoaxed again. But now… the crowds around him seemed to share his anticipation as the alien craft slowly came into view, followed by a trio of F-22 Raptors. Rumours on the internet suggested that the fighter jets were unarmed, merely providing a deterrent to any media aircraft that might fly alarmingly close to the alien craft. The aliens, as far as SETI was aware, hadn’t offered any objection to the military escort. Indeed, they seemed to be bending over backwards to avoid panicking the inhabitants of planet Earth. That, the general consensus of SETI agreed, was a very good sign. The aliens didn’t have to be kind to the primitive humans, who were staring at their craft as the Aztecs or Incas must have stared at the sailing ships that had brought the Europeans to the New World. It had been a sight beyond their comprehension.

The media had speculated loudly on what an alien landing craft might look like. They’d pulled up hundreds of fanciful designs from science-fiction, ranging from flying saucers to the Starship Voyager . The alien craft was almost a disappointment; it was little larger than a large truck, an ugly craft shaped almost like a brick. Two glowing lights appeared at the stern as the craft tilted over New York and started to slow to a hover, flying without the aid of wings or rotor blades. The human race had built far larger aircraft, even heavy-lift helicopters used by the military, but none of them could hope to reach orbit. For all of its ungainly bulk, the alien craft seemed to float through the air with the greatest of ease. The aliens had certainly not specified that they needed a runway long enough to take the Space Shuttle.

A dull whine, just high-pitched enough to be irritating, echoed over New York as the alien craft sank gracefully towards the ground. Dogs started howling and scrambling away as the sound tore into their far more sensitive ears. The band played louder as the alien craft touched down, the whine fading away to a duller note before it finally vanished. There was a dull clunk as the alien craft reached the ground, suggesting that their shuttle, for all its tiny size, was actually quite heavy. Jason felt excitement spinning through his mind. The complete lack of wings on the shuttle suggested that the aliens could control gravity itself; they might even be able to produce an antigravity generator. It would revolutionise spaceflight if the human race mastered the same technology. The bottleneck had always been lifting a cargo out of the Earth’s gravity well, a task requiring extremely powerful boosters which had to be capable of boosting the mass of their fuel into space along with the cargo in the nose cone. If the aliens taught humanity how to develop antigravity… nothing, absolutely nothing in the entire world was too high a price.