Christopher Nuttall - A Learning Experience

“I’m afraid we have bad news,” Steve said. He hesitated, watching her rapidly paling face. What did one say to a wife who’d just lost her husband? And a wife who would have to help fake the conditions of her husband’s death to avoid attracting attention? “Vincent…”

“Is dead,” Ginny finished. She shook, suddenly. “What happened? And why?”

Steve took a breath and explained everything.

“Impossible,” Ginny said, when he had finished. She didn’t sound as if she believed them. “He can’t have died like that, surely.”

Steve wondered, suddenly, what she was thinking. He hadn’t been as close to Vincent as he was to Mongo, so he had no idea how strong his friend’s marriage had been. Did Ginny think that Vincent had run off with a younger woman and convinced Steve to tell his wife a cock-and-bull story to explain his disappearance? But surely no one would come up with such a story and expect it to be believed?

“It’s true,” Mariko said. She held out a hand as Ginny started to cry, then wrapped her into a hug. Steve watched, awkwardly, as the two women held each other tightly. Female tears had always embarrassed him. “We’ll take you to see the body.”

“Yes,” Steve said. He send the instructions through the interface. “Brace yourself.”

Once again, the world dissolved into silver light.

Virginia, USA

Kevin parked the car outside the house, then took a long breath. Making contact with potential sources had always been part of his job as an intelligence officer, but it had also been fraught with danger. A source might turn out to be a double-agent or nothing more than bait in a trap. And now, even with the headband hidden under his cap, he couldn’t help fearing what would happen if his target took what he said to the government. Bracing himself, he walked up the path and knocked firmly on the front door.

A middle-aged man opened it, lifting one eyebrow. Kevin felt an odd spurt of hero-worship — he’d grown up reading the man’s books — which he firmly suppressed. There would be time to ask him to autograph his copies later. Instead, he held up the faked ID card and waited for the man to examine it.

“I’m Kevin, Kevin Stuart,” he said. “We spoke briefly on the phone. Mr. Glass, I presume?”

Keith Glass nodded, stoking his beard as he studied the card. “That is I,” he said. “What can I do for you, Mr. Stuart?”

“Just Kevin, please,” Kevin said. “My… employers have a proposition for you.”

Glass nodded and turned, leading the way into the house. Kevin followed, keeping his hero-worship under control. Keith Glass had spent ten years in the USN before retiring and starting a new career as an author. His work might not have won any Hugo Awards — they were delightfully politically incorrect — but they had a loyal fan base which grew larger every year. It had crossed Kevin’s mind that recruiting Glass might put a dampener on new novels, yet they needed someone with military experience and a libertarian bent. Glass seemed to fit the bill nicely.

Once they were in the study — he couldn’t help admiring the computer and the massive shelves of books — he opened his briefcase and produced a piece of paper. “I’m afraid we have to ask you to sign this before we can bring you onboard,” he said. “It’s a standard security agreement.”

Glass ran his eyes down the agreement. “This isn’t standard ,” he said. “I would be surprised if it was even legal .”

Kevin shrugged. “Consider it a standard government-issue non-disclosure agreement,” he said. “There are no protective safeguards because there is nowhere else you could acquire the data which will be disclosed to you. Should you break the agreement, for whatever reason, the consequences would be dire.”

“I see,” Glass said. He placed the contract on the desk and looked up, meeting Kevin’s eyes. “Why should I sign this agreement?”

“Because this represents an opportunity that will never come your way again,” Kevin said. He’d targeted Glass first because he admired the man’s writing skills… and his innovative approach to old problems. But there were other science-fiction writers. “This is a chance to join a working group that will have a decisive effect on the world.”

“I was told that before, back in 2003,” Glass said. “If we had any effect on the world, beyond wasting thousands of valuable trees to print out our reports, I didn’t see it.”

Kevin scowled, inwardly. Glass had other qualifications than just being a writer used to considering the possibilities of space combat. He’d been involved in the Bush Administration’s attempts to light a fire under NASA’s collective hindquarters and get the human race heading back out into space, then a civilian attempt to work with commercial space developers to establish bases on the moon. All of those attempts had failed, killed by bureaucracy and the simple shortage of money. The experience had left all of those involved more than a little bitter.

“This is different,” Kevin said. He leaned forward, throwing caution to the winds. “I tell you, sir, that this is one opportunity you won’t want to miss.”

He tapped the agreement. “Should you sign, you will be told the full story,” he continued. “If you don’t want to be involved after that, which I highly doubt, you will be free to go as long as you keep your mouth shut until full public disclosure. After that… you will spend the rest of your life wishing you’d made a different decision.”

Glass met his eyes. “Alien contact,” he said. “A crashed UFO?”

Kevin merely smiled. “Sign the agreement,” he said. “Sign the agreement and all will be revealed.”

Glass picked up a pen and signed it with a flourish. Kevin took it back, stuck it in his briefcase, and produced a cell phone. Glass eyed it, puzzled.

Kevin flipped it open, unable to resist. “Scotty,” he said. “Two to beam up.”

“You have got to be fucking…”

The world dissolved into silver light, then reformed.

“…Kidding me,” Glass finished. “I…”

Kevin smiled. “Welcome onboard, Mr. Glass,” he said. “We have a lot to show you.”

“It seems to have worked,” Mongo said. “The cops haven’t raised any awkward questions about the accident.”

Steve smiled, humourlessly. Mariko had used the medical kits on the starship to repair the damage to Vincent’s body, then they’d placed it in one of his old cars and deliberately crashed it off the road. The body had been discovered several metres from the crash site, having been hurled right out of the car and into the ground hard enough to break his neck instantly. With nothing suspicious about the corpse, it would be soon handed back to Ginny and cremated, just to make sure there was nothing left for a later investigation.

“Glad to hear it,” he said, finally. One day, the world would know that Vincent had been the first casualty of a war that threatened all of humanity. Until then, people wouldn’t raise too many different questions. Everyone who’d known him knew about his hobby of driving old cars. “And Ginny herself?”

“She seems to be coping,” Mongo said. “Jayne’s staying with her at the moment.”

Steve nodded. Once the wives had been told, they’d brought in the children and a handful of relatives. They’d all agreed to keep the starship a secret, although not all of them had wanted to travel to the moon — or anywhere else, for that matter. Steve had accepted their word, then put the newcomers to work scrubbing the decks. The starship needed to be made safe for human inhabitation.