The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781616961633
Amazon: 1616961635
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2014-07-15T07:00:00+00:00

The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything (1984)

George Alec Effinger

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) began publishing science-fiction and fantasy stories in the early 1970s and soon thereafter published his first novel, What Entropy Means to Me. He went on to publish more than two dozen books, including several collections of short fiction and such novels as Relatives, The Nick of Time, and the Marîd Audran books: When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss. Much of his writing is marked by his strong sense of humor, which is in full flower in “The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything.”

I WAS SITTING at my desk, reading a report on the brown pelican situation, when the secretary of state burst in. “Mr. President,” he said, his eyes wide, “the aliens are here!” Just like that. “The aliens are here!” As if I had any idea what to do about them.

“I see,” I said. I learned early in my first term that “I see” was one of the safest and most useful comments I could possibly make in any situation. When I said, “I see,” it indicated that I had digested the news and was waiting intelligently and calmly for further data. That knocked the ball back into my advisers’ court. I looked at the secretary of state expectantly. I was all prepared with my next utterance, in the event that he had nothing further to add. My next utterance would be, “Well?” That would indicate that I was on top of the problem, but that I couldn’t be expected to make an executive decision without sufficient information, and that he should have known better than to burst into the Oval Office unless he had that information. That’s why we had protocol; that’s why we had proper channels; that’s why I had advisers. The voters out there didn’t want me to make decisions without sufficient information. If the secretary didn’t have anything more to tell me, he shouldn’t have burst in in the first place. I looked at him awhile longer. “Well?” I asked at last.

“That’s about all we have at the moment,” he said uncomfortably. I looked at him sternly for a few seconds, scoring a couple of points while he stood there all flustered. I turned back to the pelican report, dismissing him. I certainly wasn’t going to get all flustered. I could think of only one president in recent memory who was ever flustered in office, and we all know what happened to him. As the secretary of state closed the door to my office behind him, I smiled. The aliens were probably going to be a bitch of a problem eventually, but it wasn’t my problem yet. I had a little time.

But I found that I couldn’t really keep my mind on the pelican question. Even the president of the United States has some imagination, and if the secretary of state was correct, I was going to have to confront these aliens pretty damn soon. I’d

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