My Journal

By Harriman Nelson

3

I felt awkward boarding Seaview in my walking shorts and sneakers. But I could tell all hands were glad to see me, regardless. In fact, I heard more than a few sighs of relief. It felt good to me needed, but at the same time, Chip was in command here, not me.

“Captain Morton, is the computer tied into the SEA?”

“Yes, sir. But we’re having intermittent problems keeping the connection, and their computers can’t read everything you sent due to the static and blackouts.”

“As you may know, Chip, Lee, er, the  president’s ordered me to evaluate the data as it comes in. I want the SEA connection to take priority over other communications, except for the White House and Pentagon. No unnecessary calls or emails home that might lessen our reception."

“Understood.”

“And, Captain,” I added, “I want you and all hands to know that I have every confidence in the president’s decision to sit tight for now.”

“Aye, sir,” he replied, then took me aside, “the brass is  giving him a hard time?”

“Afraid so,” I said as I headed aft.

As I dressed, thanks to Chip pulling some khakis and shoes from stores, though my stars were still back home in Santa Barbara,  I remembered the presidential broadcast I’d seen aboard FS1. 

Lee had stressed to the nation how he trusted his fellow Americans and our allies not to panic or be carried away by unsubstantiated rumors of an invasion. That we would treat the situation logically and in the spirit of welcome and diplomacy toward our visitors. But also that all of our military was on alert. (He didn't mention that he believed our weaponry to be inferior.) He also stressed that he had no doubt the visitors would make contact soon.

I checked my watch. Well, they sure hadn’t yet. The damn spaceships were just hovering. I needed a smoke and found an almost empty carton of cigarettes in my desk. Oh, I’d stopped smoking with occasional lapses, but who cared right now. I took a long soothing drag which startled me into a fit of coughing. Perhaps I really had ‘quit’.

I’d just reached the Control Room when Sparks called out that there was a new CNN update.

“Permission to pipe it through, Mr…Captain?”

Chip tossed me a glance but I didn’t respond. This was his decision, and the sooner the crew accepted that I was in effect, just a passenger, a scientific advisor,  the better.

“Would it limit our reception from the SEA?” Chip asked Sparks.

“Shouldn’t sir. Well, not too much. It’s bad enough as it is.”

 “It’s worth the risk. Pipe it through to all monitors.”

“The nation,” the reporter was saying, “appears to be growing even more divided as to the president’s decision to wait and see instead of attacking the spaceships.”

“Looks like a definite threat to me,” a man in the street said as protesters with placards marched in front of the White House, with drawings of aliens using strings on the puppet president.

Then the  news image changed to the prison lobby.

“Even,” Ronald said, “the highest ranking Army general quit, rather than stand by and watch us get blown to smithereens. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather follow his lead and have us blow up the things and stop the conflagration before it starts.”

“That,” the reporter at the anchor desk said, “was Ronald Nelson and he’s not alone. In fact, polls show that there is renewed interest in holding the elections early as was previously considered, or even impeaching Nelson-Crane. One of our reporters in the field managed to interview his mother, Mrs. Crane, at a local Santa Barbara diner, for her views about the situation…”

“Well,” she said, Angie and Lola beside her, “If these aliens meant us any harm, don’t you think they would have destroyed us already? The fact that they’re just looking at us, well, it doesn’t make sense that they’re out to hurt us.”

“It would if you wanted to reconnoiter the best the places to attack,” one of the other diners said to a fair amount of applause.

“My God, at the first sign of trouble you people don’t want him to make the decisions that go with the job. Well, you can’t have it both ways.”

“We can if we make the general president and let him take care of the aliens."

“He’s resigned,” Angie said.

“From the Army, Missie, not the country.”

Just about everyone in the diner, except the employees were cheering.

“C’mon, girls,” Mrs. C. said, getting some money out of her purse and laying on the table of uneaten food,  “I’ve lost my appetite.”

With that she and her companions left.

“I’m surprised,” Chip said. “I know some of those people…it’s…never mind.”

“No, go on,” I said.

“Well, it's as if they have a kind a mob mentality. Brainwashed even.”

“Say that again.”

“Sir?”

“Sparks, see if there’s any kind of pattern to all the static.”

“But,” Chip said, “If I read you right, why would the aliens want us to attack them?”

“To legitimize any retaliation on their part. Destroy us. My question is why? Why would they want a dead planet? No doubt they have weaponry far advanced than we have.”

The image returned to the anchor desk and the screen behind showing the Lincoln Memorial at twilight.

“The president himself may be having second thoughts. He didn’t keep to his usual jogging schedule and surprised the Secret Service by taking his evening run to the memorial, ordering the bodyguards to give him a little space. Not that there were many visitors at the time and the ones that were, kept their distance, out of respect for the president, or out of fear of the police and agents.

Lee was sitting on the floor, his back leaning against one of the pillars, dressed in jeans and chambray shirt,  knees bent, hands folded in front of him, head bent, across from the lighted statue of the great man.

I’d frequently seen Lee brood. Sometimes he needed solitude. To ponder, to pray, to just make sure that whatever decision he had to make was the right one.

“In other news, Ronald Nelson and his mother Jessica Hawthorne may be up for parole. A surprise decision by the governor due to overcrowding in our penitentiaries and the fact that both have been model prisoners. There has been no comment from Mr. Nelson's father Admiral Harriman Nelson nor his brother the president."

“Good behavior?" Chip mocked, "after what they did to you and Lee and Mrs. Crane?"

“Excuse me, sir,” Sparks called out, “there’s nothing in the static to indicate any kind of pattern.”

“I don’t know whether to be relieved or upset,” Chip said.

“Either way, we need to tell Lee…the president,” I corrected myself, “our suspicions.”

“Sparks?” Chip said, “Figure out the best reception, cell or radio, to the White House.”

“I’ll take the call in my cabin,” I said, “you come too, Mr. Morton, er, Captain.”

And so we waited. And waited. Lee was in conference with our allies, and the reception was worse. But I had Sparks continue to ‘hold’ as long as possible.

And so here I am, Chip having returned to the Control Room, and Cookie having brought me a sandwich.

I may be way off, but perhaps the objection to Lee’s policy is simply too many old Sci Fi shows on TV and at the movies. Sheep like, follow the leader mentality. 

As for alien subliminal suggestions? I have nothing, no evidence to go on. But damn it, why are the ship’s just hovering?

God only knows.