Arthur Clarke - The Last Theorem

Of course, none of that was a problem for the human race. There was a problem, though, and it came in two parts.

First was the inordinate demand being made on the world’s communications bandwidths. The mere broadcast of the catalog of galactic sentients itself made no real dent in these. What made a difference was the aliens’ courteous habit of broadcasting everything they had to say in a large fraction of the world’s 6,900-odd languages.

But even that discommoded only the handful of people whose favorite game show was squeezed off the air. Far more serious was the interference with communications, particularly the behind-the-scenes negotiations among many of the world’s military forces.

A quick call to Gamini Bandara confirmed what Ranjit was already sure of. No, it hadn’t been a voluntary decision of the Egyptian government that had produced the saber-rattling remarks of the American ambassador. The old Egyptian friend of Dhatusena Bandara, now Egyptian ambassador to Sri Lanka, Hameed Al-Zasr, had explained it all by phone to Gamini’s father. “He managed to get a personal call through to Dad. It was American pressure and they couldn’t fight it. There was some American cloak-and-dagger guy, Dad said—”

“Of course there was. Your old pal Colonel Bledsoe, I bet.”

Gamini sounded startled when he said, “You’re probably right. Anyway, Al-Zasr says Egypt wasn’t forgetting its Pax per Fidem obligations, but it’s still in the middle of implementing them. The changeover isn’t complete, and Egypt’s too poor to antagonize the U.S. Billions of dollars in American aid are involved.”

“Hell,” said Ranjit. And when he reported the conversation to Myra, she said much the same.

“We should have guessed,” she said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get any worse.”

In the Subramanian family it might have been young Robert who was the least affected by the scary developments in the world they lived in. He cried a bit more these days, true. It didn’t seem to be the state of the outside world that was saddening him, though. Rather, it was the obvious distress of his parents. Robert’s way of dealing with the problem was to be especially good—patting them, cuddling with them, even eating all his vegetables without argument and going to bed without protest when told it was time. And trying to cheer them up by repeating words and phrases from his Sunday school. “’Olden ’Ule,” he would say reassuringly, and, “’Oo unto others.”

Of course, hearing Robert’s recollections of Sunday school lessons about the Golden Rule didn’t really make things better for Ranjit and Myra. They were not displeased when he began to take an interest in things that were showing on the world’s news screens—when he could find a channel that was not overrun with the quaint denizens of the galaxy.

What was showing there was what these One Point Five invaders were doing in the Qattara Depression. Every human spy satellite not hijacked by reruns of the galactic bestiary was brought to bear on that almost forgotten part of the world.

As soon as the One Point Five armada had landed, it became clear why they had used rockets to decelerate instead of simple air friction. Air friction would have shredded their spacecraft. They weren’t streamlined. They weren’t even simple tube shapes, like the pygmy vessels of the Nine-Limbeds. The One Point Fives’ ships looked more like Christmas trees than any aerodynamic design, with cubes and balls and polygons hanging off the main bodies at all sorts of angles.

That explained their willingness to expend fuel on a slow-down. A shuttle-type reentry would have turned them into the brightest shooting star display ever, quickly followed by glowing fields of debris covering thousands of hectares.

Once they were landed in orderly ranks, the One Point Fives showed what all those grotesque add-ons were for. Some of them were tentacle-like in appearance; these detached themselves, waved indecisively for a moment, and then squirmed away to explore their new surroundings. Others linked together and headed for the brackish waters of the oasis, to do what, Ranjit could not guess. “That’s not potable water,” he said. “I hope they’re aware of that.”

Myra studied his face. “You know,” she said meditatively, “you’re looking a lot more cheerful since Joris called to say the dynamiters gave up. Now you’re worried about what these One Point Five creatures have to drink.”

Since what his wife said was true, Ranjit made no attempt to argue. “It’s like Robert keeps telling us,” he said. “We should ’oo unto others as we would have others ’oo unto us. I personally would not like any others to be shooting me.”

Myra grinned and then was caught by what was now going on on the screen. Some of the alien bits and pieces of machinery had detached themselves from their spacecraft, had crawled to a dune, and had begun chewing at it. “They’re digging a tunnel,” Myra marveled. “What do you think, maybe a kind of bomb shelter in case anyone attacks them?”

Ranjit didn’t answer that. The idea that the aliens might be expecting armed attack was all too plausible, but he didn’t want to say as much….

And didn’t need to, because all the news screens that still belonged to the human race at once went dark. They were quickly replaced by a flustered newscaster, hurriedly informing the audience that the president of the United States had requested immediate air time to make an announcement of “world importance.” “Those were the president’s words,” the newscaster on the Subramanian screen nervously informed her audience. “We know nothing beyond that here, except that this is almost unprecedented in—What?”

She was asking the question of someone invisible, but the answer was obvious. All she had time to say was, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the—”

And then the screen went briefly to black. When it lighted up again, it was showing a group of important-looking (but also worried-looking) men and women clustered around a table that bore a forest of microphones. Ranjit looked with some puzzlement at the scene; it was not the usual Rose Garden setting, or the Oval Office, or any of the other backgrounds the president usually preferred. There was, it was true, the giant American flag behind the standing group, as the president almost always required. But what Ranjit could see of the chamber they were in was unfamiliar to him—windowless, harshly lit with floodlights, with a corporal’s guard of armed United States Marines standing at attention, their fingers on the triggers of their weapons.

“Oh my God,” Myra whispered. “They’re in their nuke shelter.”

But Ranjit hardly heard her. He had made a discovery of his own. “Look who’s standing between the president and the Egyptian ambassador. Isn’t that Orion Bledsoe?”

It was. They had no time to discuss his presence, though, because the president had begun to speak. “My friends,” he said, “it is with a heavy heart that I come before you to say that the invasion—yes, invasion; I can find no other word to describe what has happened—of our planet by these beings from space has passed the point at which it can be tolerated. The government of the Arab Republic of Egypt has explicitly demanded that those who have committed this act of aggression stop their preparations for war at once and begin to withdraw from Egyptian territory. The aggressors not only have failed to comply with this demand, which is according to international law, they haven’t even had the courtesy to acknowledge receiving it.

“Accordingly the government of our ally, the Arab Republic of Egypt, is preparing an armored column to cross the desert and drive the invaders off their soil. Furthermore, the president of the Arab Republic of Egypt has called upon the United States to comply with existing treaties by aiding in the military effort to drive them out.