317. Martians in Mill Valley - Part 4

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Martians in Mill Valley

Part 4

Operation Odyssey continued

They were spotted by the San Francisco Police at a stop light on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge and by the time they had driven three blocks the cops were swarming around them. “Commodore, there are police cars...” Jeff was silenced by a powerful sinking feeling in his stomach. Clarence had sealed the doors, pushed the turn signal to the right turn position, and eased down on the brake pedal; the ship was rising into the air. He banked to the east as everyone belted in, then pushed both pedals firmly to the floor. At 95,000 feet he leveled off and proceeded across the continent at mach eight. SFPD officers were still attempting to fill out incident reports when the car landed on the South Lawn at the White House. Traffic jams were reported at NORAD in Colorado Springs, at SAC in Omaha, and at the Pentagon, as ambulances lined up to carry stricken staff officers to coronary care centers and psychiatric wards.

As the car landed, the Commodore switched off propulsion and turned the defensive shield on. The ship was quickly surrounded by White House security. Herbert picked up a microphone under the dash and read a prepared speech over the PA system hidden in the car’s grill, “Testing. Testing. Good evening. We are not hostile. As representatives of the duly elected government of New Atlantis, we humbly request an audience with the President of the United States in the interest of establishing peaceful relations between our two great nations. Thank you.” He switched off the speaker. “How did I do?”

“Fine. Now all we have to do is wait for their response.”

“Clarence?”

“Yes, Jeff.”

“Any chance of our slipping away and finding a bathroom?”

“Use the ship system. No one leaves the ship until they calm down out there.”

“I wish we could send out for a pizza.” Al remarked.

“Turn on the TV monitor and see what they have on us.”

When NBC switched to its long range camera at the scene, Jeff and Al rolled down their windows and waved. Nine year old Bobby Martin of New Rochelle, New York voiced the feelings of the entire nation when he complained to his parents, “They ain’t even green.”

Within moments of the first radio reports of aliens at the White House, a crowd began to assemble outside the fence. Besides the idle curious, there were reporters who had been kicking themselves ever since they missed the Watergate story -- normal appearing men and women who would have sold their mothers into slavery if it would have given them a shot at this “story of the century.”

Just as rabid, were the university people. Cultural anthropologists, economists, and historians fought their way to the fence. A team of sociologists from Stanford raced to the airport and headed for Washington. An assault squad of sex researchers from George Washington University rammed in a White House gate with a ‘73 Volvo station wagon before they were stopped by police. A Nobel laureate in physics was knocked unconscious in a fall from the perimeter fence and never even saw the car. He wrote a speculative article anyway.

By 10:00 pm there was one ring of security around the car and a second around the White House grounds. Under Secretary of State Whitehall approached the car. Clarence rolled down the window and said, “Hello.”

“How do you do?”

“Quite well, thanks. Will we be able to see the President now?”

“The President is still meeting with advisers. Are there more of you people around?”

“Not within nine light years of here.”

“Oh.”


“Would it be alright for us to leave the ship one or two at a time and stretch our legs? Your security seems pretty thorough.”

“Hang on.” Whitehall spoke briefly with the head of security. “Two at a time would be alright... but stay close to the car and wait until all our personnel are informed.”

“Of course.”

“The President will probably meet with you around Noon tomorrow.”

“That sound reasonable. One other thing....”

***

The pizza delivery boy walked through the security lines to the car. “You order a pizza?”

“Right. Mushroom and sausage?”

“Yeah. That’ll be $10.57.” 

***

At 3:00 am, Herbert and Jeff switched places with Al and Clarence outside the car. Herbert sat on the hood holding a flashlight. Jeff fell back asleep on the trunk. Most of the security men and researchers and reporters camped at the fence had fallen asleep by this time, but not four medical researchers from Walter Reed who stealthily scaled the fence, darted through the trees and across the lawn. They fell on Jeff, two holding him down while another took a blood sample from his arm. Jeff shouted as they ran off. They escaped in the uproar that followed.

Within hours the Washington Post had the story. Their headline read, “MED REPORT ON ALIENS,” and below that, “Blood Specialist Goldstein Hints At Grave Health Hazard.”

***

The next morning the four men had breakfast in the ship. 

“What’s in the news?” Al asked.

“Mostly us,” Herbert answered. “Also a story out of Chicago about a doctor who went nuts in his office and hit golf balls into the windows of the office tower across the street. He was subdued by police after ten minutes.”

“Do things like that happen often?” Clarence asked Jeff.

“No. Usually they just take it out on their patients.”

“He is being sued by a lawyer cut by flying glass when a four wood shot broke his window.”

***

By Noon both parties were ready for the meeting. Under-secretary Whitehall escorted the Commodore and Jeff to the Oval Office. The U.N. Security Council was listening in from the War Room. Herbert and Al were listening in thanks to a transmitter hidden in the Commodore’s hat. Should there be any trouble, Herbert would home-in on the transmitter and fly to the rescue through the walls of the White House. 

The meeting was actually pretty dull. Clarence explained about New Atlantis -- that the ship/station was returning to its home solar system, and that there would be a need for cooperation on matters of tourism and trade and exploitation of the system’s natural resources. He suggested the establishment of a Consulate, following diplomatic recognition, to handle these and other problems. The Consul General would be Clarence.

“What?” Al wondered aloud. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“I guess no one planned on the Commodore running into Mrs. Pratt and wanting to stay here.”

“Really?” Al was surprised. “When did all this happen? Anyway, I’d love to see their faces back home when they hear about this. What do you think the government will do?”


“They’ll have to say this was part of a contingency plan. If they recall him he could carry the Osprey party standard in the next election and knock the present government out of office. Also, this means we’ll be the big shots when we get back home.”

“I’d rather stay here with the Commodore... and Noreen.”

***

The following day, papers were signed and Clarence became New Atlantis’s Consul General to the U.S.A. The day after that he became the Ambassador to the U.N., and received a one million dollar advance from a well known book publisher for the Earth rights to the Commodore’s memoirs. That same evening he proposed to Dorothy Pratt by telephone, and she accepted.

***

One morning two weeks after the White House landing, John F. Kennedy Stadium was packed to watch the 1958 Cadillac lift off on its return trip to New Atlantis. The Pulitzer Prize winning news photograph that year was a telephoto shot with Noreen, Jenny, Barbara, Jeff, Dorothy (all waving goodbye), and Clarence (saluting) with their backs to the camera in the foreground; Herbert (big smile) and Al (in tears) standing by the car in the mid-ground saluting; and in the background Julie Newberry, Miss Baton Twirler of 1979, lying unconscious after beaning herself with a baton.

***

Epilogue

In the years following these events, Jeff was kept busy ghost writing books and articles, under the Commodore’s name, for every conceivable magazine on every conceivable topic related to outer space. The Pratt family became very wealthy.

The U.S. government originally tried to limit alien tourism to Nevada for security reasons, until California governor Babba of Assissi led a delegation of twenty state governors to Washington and threatened to secede. This and a United Nations resolution sponsored by the U.K., France, Germany. Italy, and Canada seeking military sanctions against the U.S., forced the government to change its mind and allow unlimited tourism. 

Herbert and Al returned to Earth with the first load of tourists, government officials, and Atlantian handcrafts in 1986. (Trade was necessary to provide the Atlantians with Earth money to spend on their holidays. Since the technology gap was so wide and the effects of unlimited trade so unforeseeable, the governments agreed to limit their trade to handcrafts and media.)

Al recovered from the disappointment of learning that Noreen had married an electrician from Menlo Park, and accepted a position with the San Francisco Consulate where he spent his time prying enchanted Atlantian tourists off the cable cars.

Herbert was now the first officer on the tourist ship. He spent an enjoyable few weeks with Jenny before hauling the tourists back home and picking up another batch.

By the year 2000, Turl Felix Durban, the former commuter watch pilot for a New Atlantis sector news station, had become the most popular poet in the solar system (which now included New Atlantis). That same year, the New Atlantis Department of Consumption reported that three of five families aboard the ship had at least one Frisbee in their cabin.