"Why?"
A pause down the line. "I'm sorry, is this American humour?"
"What? Who is this?" Now Chet wanted to be more irritated, but something about the voice gave him an enormous feeling of distance. He thought he might actually vomit.
"Oh, yes, I'm terribly sorry; we're what you might call aliens."
It took them a while to verify that this phone call was actually coming from deep space, so Sir Jeffery went to play a few hands of Cannabact, keeping the phone near to him so he could hear when they shouted they were ready. He didn't mind waiting, he had expected it, and that was why they had secretly redirected the costs so that the bill would go to the President of the US. He had, however, overestimated the Earthens and lost his bet on how long it would take them by nearly a full hour.
Now he was on the phone to a Colonel Rogers who was a very brisk man, though no one quite does brisk like the Victorians so Sir Jeffery was unimpressed. It was also quite comical that someone from such a backward planet should be so sure of himself.
"Right then," the Colonel barked, "So you'll be getting here when, then?"
"Well it will take us an hour or so to get there, so whenever you are ready."
This took the Colonel by surprise; despite them coming from space it never really crossed the Colonel's mind they might be smarter than the average American, of which he really was one.
"Hour or so? Well, it will take us a few hours to get ready here, I'll need to notify the President you'll be coming, sort out where you can land; how big are your ships? How many are there?"
He was half way between in-control and completely exasperated.
"Well, I'm sure it would be better to sort that out with a representative of the Queen, no need for you to worry about it."
"You what?" the balance tipped toward exasperated.
"Well, we wish to come and see the Queen of England."
Past exasperated into confused and pressing on steadily to bewilderment. "I don't understand; why?"
"Well we're British, are we not? I thought I had briefly explained this to you."
"Well yes, but, I mean," America calls it being Gung-ho, the rest of the world calls it arrogance, either way when in crisis it kicks in and saves Americans around the world on a daily basis. "Look here, America is the leader of the free world, we are the ones who have travelled into space, we are the ones who have evolved every aspect of culture, it is us, and our President that you will need to see."
This leads to why Americans are not trusted in the Universe, it is merely a misunderstanding of semantics really. You see, the term 'the free world' suggests the rest of the world is not free and normally it is the free people who cause the others to be incarcerated. Take the Nazis and the Jews, White North Americans and African slaves, the British Raj. Frankly, the British Empire and pretty much anyone they came across. Generally if there are free people and incarcerated people it is the free who have done the incarcerating. Therefore it is considered in some parts of the Universe that the Leader of the Free World is a man of great evil. Depending on who's in office, a great number of Earthens agree.
Sir Jeffery knew the truth and felt sorry for the White House press officers. They were about to begin the biggest campaign of their life to convince the whole Universe that the President was a nice man, and let's face it there have been times when they have failed to convince just citizens of the US.
"My dear boy, take a moment to think of Farmsville, West Virginia. Famed across many galaxies as one of the finest spas in the Universe; think of how important, though, it is in terms of US politics and survival. That is how important your country is in the scheme of the Universe. In fact perhaps slightly less. We don't need to see anyone, you don't have much choice. We are coming to welcome you, not the other way around."
"Well why ring us in the first place?" The Colonel was affronted greatly.
"Well, like you said, you're the ones who went all the way to the moon and with all your satellites and radar, it's just polite isn't it?"
***
It was decided not to give Earth too much time to think about it and whilst Sir Jeffery and company bombed through space the Americans were desperately trying to reach everyone else in the world to let them know. The President was hastily flown to England spending a lot of time asking "Aliens?" slightly dumbfoundedly, which was precisely the same thing as the British Prime Minister was doing, just not in a plane. After a brief chat the PM and the President decided to take the press conference together, basically in case one of them became speechless at the realisation of what they were saying. While they were waiting a huge crowd of engineers, carpenters, middle men and curious people were in St James' Park setting up the welcome area where the aliens had decided to land: next to the Avenue of Trees, pretty much next to Buckingham Palace.
Basically everything stopped; really what could be so important now? Everything that Earthens had thought was so important, worth fighting and dying over in some cases, seemed very small and narrow-minded. How far would coal take you into space? Did anyone else think gold was worth anything? Did it matter what colour your skin was? Out there were completely different races. Who had invented office work and why? It was like taking the 9 year old winner of Clockhouse Junior School's sports day and putting her in the Olympics.
The Prime Minister and President came on television and told everyone around the world the news. It was decided beforehand that the PM should take the lead as the aliens were landing in his country; and so he found himself interrupting normal programming all across the world to inform people that, it would appear, Aliens were indeed approaching Earth right now and that they were coming in peace to help Earth enter into the Universal Trading Network. That they would share all their technology and that, in fact, they were descended from Humans. So, er, no need to worry, no alarm or panic, this is a great day for Earth and that the landing of the spaceships would be televised so don't leave your televisions. Which, honestly, most people weren't planning on doing even without an alien invasion.
As ever some people got it all wrong and promptly rioted and looted. Those who didn't stay with their TVs decided either that they were about to have a brand new start in space or that it was the end of the world. Either way it seemed a good reason to loot and riot. Most would be very disappointed to find that life would go on pretty much as normal for most people. The people who would be most disappointed the next day would be those who told their bosses to 'shove it' and would have to grovel they're way back.
Those who would go out into space would find it just as monotonous as an office job. Only exciting people have exciting lives; these people attract excitement and adventure, they'd even have fun in Bognor, probably meet a spy who thought Bognor was the last place the Russians would look for him; help said spy out of a fix when the Russians found them and end up sleeping with the lesbian agent in charge of torture whilst normal people would be at one of those crap discos that you find at holiday resorts (and can only be experienced and not described) trying to pull some bird wearing what appears to be merely a belt, drunk off her face on alco-pops.
***
Somewhere around Uranus [snigger], Jason and Milk passed Sir Jeffery's welcome committee and they stopped briefly to chat over the video-com.
"Well, good to see you again, Milk."
"And you, Sir Jeffery, off to welcome Earth?"
"'Fraid so," Sir Jeffery looked ashen as opposed to Milk who was full of colour now he was finally back into space.
"You're looking good, Milk."
"Erm, yeah, so are you," Milk lied.
"And well, well, Chase Darkstaar, number one rogue of the galaxy."
It took Jason a couple of moments to realise he was being addressed and then he flushed an embarrassed red.
"Er, yeah, here I am. I guess."
"Well, we shouldn't keep you; you have important work in front of you. As, unfortunately, do I."
"You'll be fine, we're a lovely bunch really," sa
id Jason trying to be nice, the man did look awfully pale.
"We?"
"They."
"Ahh," said Sir Jeffery after a pause. "You wouldn't want to swap then, would you?"
"No," said Milk a bit too forcefully.
"No, no I guess not. Oh well, must do what one must, I guess. We didn't build an Intergalactic Empire by being afraid, did we?"
"I have no idea, but I assume not. Fear and aggression usually seem to work," replied Jason.
"Righty-o, see you both soon."
And the screen reverted to black space where they could see the three saucers hanging and then they were all on the move again.
***
Agitated crowds were gathering at the landing site in St James' Park along with a stage and the world's media. The PM was pacing by a phone on which the aliens would ring when they were nearly there. He remembered a favourite game of he and his friends; they would take a telescope to the night sky and search for planets, comets and spaceships and talk about what could be out there. Then they would draw pictures to help their stories along, envisioning aliens with two heads and trunks like elephants, aliens that breathed CO2 and urinated oxygen, sleek fast spaceships that they would travel the galaxy fighting evil aliens to rescue the princesses.
Now he really would be meeting aliens and it wasn't half as exciting as he had thought as a child. It was terrifying really; not because he was going to meet people from out of space, but because he might just cock it all up. This was easily the most important thing to happen on Earth. Ever. And it was all in his hands. Not good. Normally everything was in the President's hands and the PM just followed along; he was not the leader of the Free World, he was the Robin of the Free World, the Little John, though unless he went on a diet his wife would start thinking of him more as the Friar Tuck.
But, really, this was not what was bothering him; no, what was bothering him was the fact that he was more nervous about cocking it up than about meeting the aliens. What had he become? The child he was would have been desperately excited, but now bureaucracy weighed too heavily on him; now he realised that he had sacrificed that child to be a success, he had sacrificed excitement for bureaucracy. He had wanted power more than simple joy.
Now as the child who dreamed of meeting aliens and the man who dreamed of balancing the budget in time for the next election stood facing each other he realised that it had all been for nothing; that in the scheme of the Universe he was of very little importance even as the Prime Minister of England. That he had sacrificed a lot to get to the top only to find that it was merely a very low foothill.
***
It was a strange feeling, leaving the Milky Way for the first time, a weird plummeting in his stomach, a strange feeling of isolation and longing, though for what he was not sure. OK, leaving Earth you can understand a certain sadness, but having never been round and about in the Milky Way he didn't know why leaving it should cause him any sadness. And anyway he'd only really been there for five years, so maybe it was excitement in his stomach? The excitement of returning home at last? Hmm, that made him think. In all his thoughts he hadn't really asked Milk what to expect, what kind of culture shocks might be in store?
"Well, geezer, I haven't been in space for the last five years either, so I dunno."
He looked over at Jason; they were currently watching Earth television as Milk thought it might act as a safety blanket as they hurtled deeper into space.
"You will find a surprising lot of Earthen things; like TV," he nodded to the screen. "People in the Universe are quite taken with it, even if it is primitive."
"How so?" Jason pulled his eyes away from an American comedy about nothing.
"Well, something about Earthens, they don't really think big. This means that while other planets spent a lot of time perfecting space jumps or working out the best way to breed cattle more effective and then transport it across the galaxy, Earthens were perfecting beer. No one has better alcohol than Earth. Same for music, no one else would spend so much time working out a guitar riff, it's just not that important in the scheme of things. But then of course Earthen music got out into space and everyone realised that maybe it was worth it after all."
"You're saying we're, sorry, they're small minded?"
"In a word, yes. Think about it, the Greys came and gave Earth some of its technology for space flight, in the hopes they would evolve a bit faster. Earth is the only planet not to unify after getting into outer space. Once everyone else realised that there were thousands of other species out there they put their differences aside. Not only did Earth not do this, but the two major uses for the technology they have is war and television."
"Well," elongated Jason, "they're still going with it; it takes time to come up with such things. Er, I guess," he ended somewhat sheepishly.
"Yes, it does, but you get there a lot faster if you work together on it, if you scrap poverty and use all available brains. Think how many geniuses could be born in Africa and are never taught, never questioned, never used, because they were born into a desperately poor village."
"OK, fair point."
"So anyway, it has led to a lot of Earthen, or Earth-inspired things in space. The rest of the stuff you'll just have to pick up as we go along, I guess. Try not to stare at people who look weird to you. They're not weird they're just different. If you suggest they look weird, or look like you think it, they may very well eat you."
"Great."
"The biggest problem that we are going to have is that though you will remember no one, they will remember you, and most of them won't be your friends." Milk said to the screen trying to keep his voice casual.
"You what!?" burst Jason after a moment as it leaked into his understanding.
Milk looked at him, but tried to keep casual.
"Well you were, are, an intergalactic hitman, not everyone was happy with the people you killed being killed. Not everyone was happy that you took their money and/or wives in poker games. The InterG probably still have a warrant out for you."
"Right," he looked back at the screen and realised canned laughter was even more pathetic in space. "Sorry, InterG?"
"Intergalactic Police, like Interpol on Earth."
***
Just as Jason and Milk were getting attacked in space the telephone in St James' Park next to the Prime Minister rang. Everyone stopped. Silence slowly spread backwards through the crowd. The sharp metallic rings cut through the tension and disappeared into space.
Which was where Sir Jeffery was on the other end of the phone.
Another phone rang and a military man picked it up and listened. He put it down and told the PM and the President that NASA had three UFOs on its radars just outside Earth's atmosphere. The PM sighed and picked up the phone.
"Hello," he said glumly.
"Jolly good," Sir Jeffery replied trying to be chirpy. "Well we're here, are you chaps ready for us?"
"Yes. Yes, we are; here in St. James' Park like you said."
"Bravo, you are a fine PM and a true gentleman. Do you by any chance have cakes?"
To this the PM picked up. "Well, of course. With the tea."
"Oh, good show, good to hear you're on the ball, I certainly have missed a good cake with my tea."
"You don't have cakes in space?"
"No, not as good as Earthen cakes, they don't really put the effort in out here."
"Sounds awful."
"Oh it's not so bad; anyway soon the Universe will be delighted by Earthen cakes."
"Well you better come on down then, sir," he was rather brusque and felt in control.
"Wilco, old bean, see you in a few mo's," said Sir Jeffery feeling much better now he had connected with someone. Tea, in space as on Earth, solves everything.
***
The attack ships seemed to come out of nowhere, Jason was gently dozing whilst Milk watched channel 341 intergalactic news and was getting more than a little disturbed by it all. Seemed the Universe he was ret
urning to was not the Universe he had left. Suddenly the warning sirens bleared their unholy wail, the screen flashed to black space and Jason fell out of his seat. As he climbed back to his seat a joypad and small screen raised out of one of the arms.
"Valkswagon! Grab the joypad, we're under attack," Milk shouted
"We're under a what?" the screen flashed red from an unknown light source and the ship shuddered.
"Oh crap," Jason grabbed the joypad and stared at it. "This is a play-station controller!"
"Complete coincidence, just happens to be the most ergonomic design so it pops up all over the place. Use the blue button to lock, the red button to shoot, green for missiles and use the shoulder buttons to cycle through the weapon emplacements," Milk said urgently.
Jason looked at his screen and then leaned forward to reposition it so that he could sit more comfortably as he played, er, shot, destroyed; whatever. You had to get the perfect position, not too comfortable, that would slow your wits; not too uncomfortable, that would distract you. You had to find the ultimate playing balance.
He started cycling through the gun emplacements, but the screen was a similar black with stars and a superimposed circular aim. As he came round to what he thought was the first emplacement again there was a small pointy craft roaring across his screen. He watched it go and only when it disappeared off the left of his screen did he snap back to what he was doing. He pressed the button and jumped one emplacement left and the screen changed just to see the craft exiting stage left. He flicked to the next gun this time to see the craft entering the right of the screen; bigger now, it looked like it was turning towards them to attack. Jason was in full gaming mode now and used the direction buttons to bring the crosshairs around to bear on the fighter and then let out a long stream of green laser.
Before the ship had fully exploded Jason was cycling through the guns placed around the ship trying to find another target; the fact that he had just killed someone did not yet cross his mind.
He shot another two, fully immersed in what he was doing. It all felt so natural.
"BAM!" shouted Milk as he destroyed a second fighter and turned to the ship radar and then sunk back. "Clear."
Jason leaned back in his own chair and let out a long breath of tension. It was then he came back to life and realised he hadn't just been playing a video game, but real life. Real life in which real people had just died. He felt sick.