A Learning Experience

Chapter Twelve

Joint Base Andrews, USA

Steve disliked having to admit that he’d been wrong, but his father had taught him — more than once — that it was worse to cling to something he knew damn well wasn’t true. He didn’t trust the government — he would never trust the government — yet Kevin had been right. He’d allowed his hatred to drive his actions, rather than sober cold rationality. Perhaps it was time to mend fences.

Mariko had agreed, when he’d gone to her and confessed everything Kevin had told him. She’d listened, then pointed out that men had their pride — and the more powerless a man felt, the more he would cling to his pride. Steve had humiliated the government and the government would want to push back, if only to maintain its position. But perhaps, if they talked openly, there was a chance to come to an agreement.

He smiled as he drove the van towards the gatehouse. Joint Base Andrews, the home of Air Force One, was one of the most secure locations in Washington, designated as a Presidential bolthole if the shit hit the fan. The armed Marines stepped out of the gatehouse, weapons raised, as he pulled the van to a halt. Steve couldn’t help feeling a hint of nostalgia as he saw them, followed by a flicker of approval. These men were genuine combat troops, alright. They knew better than to let an uninspected van anywhere near them, not when a bomb packed in the vehicle could do real damage. Steve waited until one of them came up to the window, then removed his sunglasses.

“My name is Steve Stuart,” he said. “I’m here to meet with the President.”

They’d argued endlessly over how Steve should approach the base. Mongo had proposed teleporting into the base itself, but with the Secret Service on the lookout — and probably already paranoid after events in Montana — it had struck Steve as a very bad idea. Besides, as Kevin had pointed out, the idea was to try to mend fences, not rub the government’s face in its technological inferiority. Eventually, one of the vans had been transported to a point near Washington by a shuttle and Steve had driven the rest of the way.

It was nearly twenty minutes before he was cleared through security and allowed to drive up to a nondescript building. There was nothing, apart from a handful of snipers on the rooftop, to suggest that anyone important was inside, something that Steve thoroughly approved of. The simplest way to avoid being targeted was to act as though there was nothing worth targeting in the area. He parked the van, then opened the door and climbed out. It felt oddly good to be standing in a military base once again.

“Steve,” a droll voice said. “What have you been doing?”

Steve smiled when he saw Craig Henderson. They were old friends; he would have recruited Henderson, if he hadn’t remained on active duty. As it was, it would be nice to have someone on his side in the meeting — or at least willing to help build links between the two parties, when the talks got heated.

“Something extraordinary,” Steve said. He smiled, then jerked a thumb towards the van. “I brought a gift. You’ll need to assign a team of loaders to unload it, then transport it to somewhere secure.”

Henderson paused. “And what is this gift?”

“All will be explained,” Steve said. He inclined a hand towards the door. “Shall we go inside?”

The building was surprisingly luxurious inside. Henderson kept up a running commentary about how the building was often used for secret low-key meetings between the President and foreign representatives. It was, apparently, as secure as possible, although none of the precautions seemed to block Steve’s link with the starship. However, if they started to broadcast more static into the air, it might well prevent a safe teleport. He kept his expression blank as Henderson led him into a small, but comfortable room. The President was sitting on the sofa, waiting for him. He rose as Steve entered the room.

“Mr. Stuart,” the President said. He held out a hand, which Steve awkwardly took and shook, firmly. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

Steve nodded, feeling himself lost for words. This was the President, the duly elected Head of State and Government, the most powerful man in the world. He’d been brought up to respect the office, even if he had been taught that the men who sat in it were human and therefore fallible. His father hadn’t spoken favourably of any President since Reagan, condemning Clinton in one breath and George W. Bush in the next. And he’d died midway through Bush’s second term.

“All exaggerated, I suspect,” Steve said, as the President released his hand. “Particularly the story about the Swedish woman’s swim team.”

The President smiled. It was a genuinely friendly smile. Up close, Steve had to admit the man had charisma. It shouldn’t have been important in a Presidential election, but it was. And the man had balls. Faced with what had to look like a villain straight out of James Bond, the man had picked a meeting place and come to the meeting, without giving into the temptation to cower under his desk.

He sat down on the sofa facing the President and waited until the Navy Stewards had poured them coffee, then withdrew. Henderson stood behind the President’s sofa, clearly ill at ease. Steve didn’t blame him. Craig Henderson had always been ambitious, but he’d never wanted to become involved in political battles. Few military officers cared for bureaucratic engagements.

“Well,” the President said. “Shall we get right to the point?”

Steve nodded and started to speak, outlining everything that had happened from the abduction attempt to the capture of the alien starship and the start of a new nation. The President listened, his face curiously expressionless; behind him, Henderson didn’t even try to hide his astonishment. Steve wondered, as he came to the end of his story, just how much of it the President had guessed beforehand. After all, significant advances in technology didn’t come out of nowhere.

“I see,” the President said, when he had finished. “And that is all true?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Steve said.

“And you intend to found a new nation, while defending the planet,” the President mused. “An interesting endeavour — and quite a worthwhile one. Might I ask how you intend to proceed?”

Steve had expected a demand that the ship and technology be instantly turned over to the government. Kevin, however, had doubted it. The government would hardly risk exposing its own weakness by making a demand it knew would probably be rejected outright. Instead, Kevin had predicted, the government would try to come to terms with the new nation.

“We intend to continue recruiting — more openly, now — and purchasing supplies and raw materials from Earth,” Steve said, carefully. “Given enough time, we should be able to put together a working defence network for the planet, particularly as we unlock more and more secrets of alien technology. Eventually, we plan to settle the entire solar system and reach for the stars.”

“Ambitious,” the President commented. “Perhaps we can be of assistance?”

“We would prefer to do our own recruiting,” Steve said. “If this became a US Government project it would cause problems with other nations, problems we would prefer to avoid.”

“I would have thought that NASA might have some ideas,” the President said.

Steve snorted. “If NASA had been led by men of vision, Mr. President, we would have hotels on Titan and Mars would be halfway to being habitable,” he said. “Instead, trillions of dollars have been wasted on pretty artwork and feel-good diplomacy, while the Russians, Chinese and Indians move ahead with their own space programs. We don’t even have a working replacement for the Space Shuttle.”

He shook his head. “We will recruit people who we believe can help us, then open the floodgates to immigration,” he added. “But we will deal with people as individuals, not as groups or nations. Let everyone have a chance to stand on their own two feet.”

For a moment, he thought the President would ask him to explain, something Kevin had warned him to try to avoid. Ranting at the President would have been rather less than constructive, no matter how much he wanted to tell the President exactly what he thought of some of his more damaging polices.

“We have never forbidden emigration from the United States,” the President said. “And, if your new nation is no threat, we will certainly not start now.”

Steve nodded. “We have a great deal to offer you,” he said, “in exchange for your cooperation and assistance, when we need it.”

The President leaned forward, interested.

Steve allowed himself a smile. “There are three different gifts in the van, Mr. President,” he said. “One of them — the large box — is a portable cold fusion reactor, capable of putting out…”

The President’s jaw dropped. “A nuclear reactor?”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Steve said, with some amusement. He had to be the first person to smuggle a nuclear reactor onto an American military base. “As I was saying, the reactor is capable of putting out… well, it’s capable of putting out the same amount of power as the nuclear reactor on an aircraft carrier. Anything built with purely human technology would cost at least nine billion dollars and take years to complete, assuming it wasn’t politically sabotaged along the way. A handful of them would suffice to meet all of America’s power requirements, without any pesky nuclear waste, political problems or even terrorist threats.”

“I don’t believe this,” the President said, shaking his head. “A nuclear reactor the size of a small van?”

“Smaller than that,” Steve confirmed. “But you don’t have to take my word for it. The Foreign Technology Division will have fun experimenting with the power systems and figuring out that it does what it says on the tin. And there are two other items we brought along.”

He paused, then went on. “There are a number of room-temperature superconductors,” he continued. “They have quite a number of interesting applications, but the important one right now is that they can be used to build very effective batteries. One of them could be used to power a car for weeks, replacing gas… which would sharply reduce the West’s dependency on Middle Eastern oil. We could meet the requirements of the United States and our allies from local production, once the batteries were used to replace gas everywhere.”

“There would be political problems,” the President said, sourly.

Steve wasn’t surprised. The wealthy oil corporations and Arab states had worked hard to ensure that possible alternatives to oil were marginalised or simply disregarded. Introducing the fusion reactors and the batteries would have a whole series of effects on American society, perhaps even knocking over the oil corporations, which would render millions of people unemployed. It was unlikely that they would all want to go to space.

“We will not interfere in your decisions, Mr. President,” Steve said. “Or those of your successors, as long as they don’t threaten us.

“The final item is a set of medical treatments designed to eradicate cancer,” he added. “We can only produce them in small quantities so far, so if the CDC or someone else manages to figure out how to duplicate them we would be very pleased. Again, you don’t have to take my word for this. You can take the gifts, all of them, and test them freely, as you see fit. And how you use them is up to you.”

The President gave him an odd little smile. “You don’t have political ambitions?”

Steve hesitated, trying to put his thoughts into words. “Mr. President, I was raised to be independent, to live my life without support from outside the family,” he said. “My family’s motto might as well be Live and Let Live. Ever since I became politically aware, I realised that both the Republicans and the Democrats were intent on expanding the government’s authority, without expanding the political oversight. Politicians in Washington were acting more and more like untouchable aristocrats than elected leaders of our nation. Both parties were pushing for laws that divided society and turned Americans against one another.

“I was taught that everyone deserved a chance to seek their own place in society and to be considered on their own merits. The best and brightest would rise to the top, Mr. President, but that is no longer true in America. Every single person claims to be a victim now, claiming to face discrimination when they don’t get a job or when someone is mean to them or they see something that offends them. I could give you a hundred examples of policies put forward by politicians, from Affirmative Action to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, that have only undermined the positions of groups they were intended to help.

“But why have groups? Why insist that two people are different because of skin colour, gender, race or religion? Why not just have individuals?”

He paused. “We’re not interested in waging war on America, Mr. President, nor are we interested in attempting to reform the United States. I simply don’t believe the country can be reformed. Instead, we’re building a new society where those who wish to join us and live life on their own merits can do so. An escape hatch, if you like, from a society that is rapidly becoming intolerable.”

The President pressed his fingertips together. “You know, when I was younger, I used to read Atlas Shrugged. A guy I knew, a few years older than me, actually tried to set up a Galt’s Gulch of his own. It lasted barely a year, then fragmented.”

Steve nodded. “Why didn’t you go?”

“Because the system Rand suggested was unsustainable,” the President said. “She admired the men who spearheaded the production of goods to trade, but thought little of the men who made it work. The machinists, the factory workers, even the floor sweepers. All of them had their own role to play in making the production work.

“And my friend wasn’t the only one who tried to set up his own little commune. California is littered with the remains of such places. The only ones that succeeded, that achieved any measure of success, were the very low tech ones. And life there was hard.

He paused. “How do we know that your grand society is going to be different?”

Steve considered his answer carefully. Two days ago, he would have angrily denied that could ever be a possibility. But now… the President did have a point. Their society had already trembled, as tiny as it was, in the aftermath of the attack on the ranch. Another shock like that could destroy the nation he was trying to build.

“We don’t, Mr. President,” he admitted. “It is possible that our society will come apart. But unless we try, we will never know. We have high technology, we have a stream of recruits and we have plenty of ideas for expansion. And if we fail… at least we will have tried.”

“True enough, I suppose,” the President said. “Do you intend to go public?”

“I was hoping to remain secret a while longer,” Steve confessed. In hindsight, embarrassing so many federal agents might not have been a bright idea. Rumours were already spreading rapidly. “Why do you ask?”

“I would prefer to try to manage how the information is released to the public,” the President said. “We’re talking about the entire world being turned upside down.”

“True,” Steve agreed. He paused. “There is one other card we would like to put on the table.”

He leaned forward. “I understand that you are preparing one final push in Afghanistan,” he said. “We have some… devices and personnel that might be of assistance.”

“I believe that should be coordinated through the military,” the President said. He looked up at Henderson. “Colonel Henderson will act as the liaison officer between us, at least for the time before there is any public announcement. Colonel, I’ll get you high clearance and whatever else you need to get the job done properly.”

He stood. “It’s been an interesting meeting, Mr. Stuart. And if things were different, I might have joined you myself.”

Steve doubted it. The President was a professional politician, born into the political class and never experienced life outside it’s charmed circle. He had no idea what it was like to live, literally, on less than a dollar a day. Or how hard it was to struggle with government bureaucracy. Would he really have tried to make a go of it on his own?

But he kept the thought to himself. Kevin was right. There was no point in making enemies for no good reason. And the President could help them get everything they needed to succeed.

“I’d like to see your starship, one day,” the President added. There was an oddly wistful note in his voice. “My eldest daughter keeps talking about becoming an astronaut.”

“She’ll have her chance,” Steve said. He had a sudden mad impulse to teleport all three of them to the starship, to give them the grand tour. But he forced it down ruthlessly. If blocking the DHS raid had had unpleasant repercussions, what would kidnapping the President do? “They’ll all have their chance, if they are willing to try.”

He watched the President go, then turned to look at his old friend. “Ready to see a whole new world?”

Henderson nodded. “Are you… is all of this for real?”

“Have the van taken to somewhere safe for the FTD to examine,” Steve said. It would be brilliant if the FTD did figure out how to produce their own reactors. The interface had been far from helpful about how they worked. “And then I will take you somewhere that will really blow your mind.”