“The domes…?” Allen began.
“The placement of the domes was necessary in order for the Serene to bring about the successful implementation of the charea.”
“And the Serene?” Allen asked. “You are their… their acceptable face, perhaps? What are they like in reality? Why don’t they show themselves?”
“They are humanoid in appearance… not dissimilar to yourselves.”
“And not monsters, repellent to our senses?”
“By no means.”
“Then why don’t they show themselves to us? I take it they are somewhere aboard these ships? Would it be possible to meet one…?” The very idea of it, he thought; to meet the aliens responsible for the salvation of the human race…
The figure hesitated. “There are no Serene aboard the kavala, the eight ships. They are few in number, and spread wide throughout the galaxy. We do their bidding, in their absence.”
Allen wondered whether he should be put out, on behalf of the human race, that the Serene did not see fit to be present during the momentous changes taking place on his planet. He said, “The golden figure I met earlier, in Uganda… it said that it, you, were ‘self-aware entities’… But what does that mean? Are you… robots, androids, or something my puny intellect cannot comprehend?”
“We are living, biological beings, self-aware, individual, conscious — but grown, as it were, and programmed with the… desires, is the right term… of our mentors, the Serene.”
“And have you yourself ever met a member of the Serene?”
The figure gazed at him. “That honour has never befallen me, but several of my contemporaries have had the privilege.”
“And what are the chances that I might one day meet a Serene?”
He sensed the being smile. “As a selected representative of an uplifted race,” it said, “the chances I would assess as… good.”
Allen smiled, then laughed. “If I’d been told about any of this a few days ago…” he began.
The golden figure said, “And now, if you have no more questions…”
“I have about a million, but it’d take a year to think of how to phrase them.”
“There will be time enough in the years ahead, my friend. Now, you wish to be transported to London?”
He stared. “How could you possibly know that?”
The figure inclined its domed and pulsing head. “The Serene know so much,” it said, and faded from view.
The padding around Allen flowed, returned him to an upright position. He followed the golden strip-light on the ground, and minutes later found himself aboard the alien plane. He was the first human of four to take his seat, and the second he did so he slipped into unconsciousness.
SPRING HAD COME to London, sunlight replacing the grey drizzle he had left just days before — but that was not the only change. The ad-screens plastered across the walls of buildings as he came into Victoria monorail station no longer flashed with tawdry advertisements. Every one of them showed the eightfold coming together of the alien starships over rural China, and the growth, on the parched land far below, of a second green city.
He noticed a change among his fellow Londoners, too. There was a collective air of excitement about the place, a buzz he had experienced only in times of momentous events — the outbreak of war, or Great Britain’s victory in the 2022 World Cup. Everyone was discussing the arrival of the aliens — the fact that they were called the ‘Serene’ was not public knowledge yet — and it appeared that even now, in the early days of the charea, some subtle change had come over the citizens of the capital. Was he imagining it, or were people more polite to each other, more respectful? As if, concomitant to the blanket ban on violence, individuals were wary of showing even such nascent signs of violence as bad temper or irritability with their fellow man.
He wondered how long it might be before a more unconscious psychological response manifested itself? Denied the cathartic release of violence might some individuals, the psychotic and unstable, suffer increased mental conflict? And what about citizens who never thought of resorting to violence? Would the very fact of violence being denied have some effect on society as a whole? No doubt, over the days and weeks ahead, the newsfeeds and TV channels would be bursting with pundits expounding their views at length.
On the way from Heathrow he read on his softscreen that the very first official communiqué from the alien ships had been received at the UN headquarters. The Visitors — as the news media had dubbed them — had announced that they would broadcast their intentions to the world at three that afternoon, Greenwich mean time.
Just as he was about to alight at Victoria, and take the underground to Notting Hill — where Sally would be awaiting him — he heard a couple of businessmen discussing in anxious tones what the aliens might have planned. One invoked the old film Independence Day, another The War of the Worlds, and both agreed that the end was nigh… Nursing his knowledge like a privilege, Allen felt like telling them that they were foolish and that there was nothing to worry about.
He left the carriage and took the packed escalator down to the Tube, and as he made his rattling journey west to his apartment and Sally, he saw his first case of ‘spasming,’ as it came to be known.
A dozen school kids were arguing in the aisle. In the general verbal to and fro, one particular insult was taken badly and a youth moved towards another, anger on his thin face. He pulled a knife, drawing gasps from nearby passengers, then stopped suddenly, his face twitching, his entire body convulsing as if in the grip of some autonomic malaise.
“He’s spasming! Spasming!” the others taunted, dancing around the stricken youth.
Allen stepped from the train at Notting Hill, thinking that the display of spasming and the resulting taunts were eminently preferable to the violence that had been circumvented.
HE UNLOCKED THE door to his flat and stepped into the hall, the pleasurably tight pressure of anticipation within his chest. He heard a sound from the lounge, dropped his holdall and waited for Sally to emerge. She appeared in the doorway in faded blue jeans and a white cheese-cloth blouse. She stopped there, her breath caught, then rushed at him. He lifted her off the floor and it came to him that the heft of her in his arms, her reality, was far more meaningful, far more emotionally resonant, than his recent encounter with the extraterrestrials.
He carried her into the lounge and collapsed on the settee; they kissed and hugged, pulling away frequently to look at each other.
She appeared far more beautiful than he recalled her ever being in Africa; her face was fuller now, no longer taut and stressed, and she’d had her hair cut and styled, shortened to shoulder-length.
“You look… incredible.”
She laughed. “It’s great to be back. I can’t believe the range of food. I forgot what London was like… I’m eating well. I’ve put on pounds!” She patted her perfectly flat stomach and laughed.
“All the more to love,” he said.
She tugged at his shirt, and they undressed and moved to the bedroom.