Voyagers II - The Alien Within (28 page)

Stoner watched as the leaders of the various warring factions finally got out of their helicopters. There were eleven of them, and he idly considered the notion that if thirteen was a baker’s dozen, then eleven might be a politician’s.

He had grave doubts as he watched them step to the ground and look around the dry, wasted gorge of Olduvai. The Katangan was tall and lanky as a basketball player, dressed in camouflage battle fatigues, his face hidden by dark glasses. The president of Zaire was as stubby as a black thumb, strutting imperiously in his splendid uniform of royal blue and scarlet. One of the Nigerians had swathed himself in loose robes; he could be carrying a small arsenal under them, Stoner thought. Another Nigerian wore a Western business suit. A third, the multihued dashiki that was as unique to his tribe as a Scot’s tartan is to his clan.

Stoner watched them as they eyed each other, warily, disdainfully, like Hollywood actors portraying Mafia gang leaders gathering for a summit meeting. Nine black men, one of brown skin, one white. None of them trusted any of the others.

They were in this remote place without their usual hordes of sycophants and admirers, without the prying cameras and recorders of the media, without the crowds and honor guards and ceremonies that usually attended meetings of national leaders. No one but a few close advisers and a handful of personal bodyguards for each of the eleven. Stoner had insisted on that, and he saw that each of them had acceded to his demands. He felt a small gleam of hope at that, as fragile as a soap bubble floating in the sunlight—and as beautiful.

How easy it had been to tell Colonel Bahadur that he would bring the warring factions together. Looking back on it, Stoner realized that his glibness had been a façade. He could think of no other way to stop the fighting than to bring together, in one place at one time, the leaders of each faction. He had been confident of his powers of persuasion, and that confidence had not been misplaced. Stoner had talked his way past suspicious soldiers and paranoid security chiefs, past unctuous secretaries and bullying aides, past loyal henchmen and ambitious assistants who harbored treachery in their hearts. But in each case he had finally gotten to the leader. In bustling metropolises, in jungle camps, in redoubts dug into mountainsides, aboard a luxurious yacht cruising on Lake Victoria, he finally saw the man responsible for the fighting in that part of Africa. Sometimes the man was alone, and Stoner spoke with him behind locked doors. Often he was flanked by assistants. More than once, the man sat accompanied by a woman: wife, mistress, power-behind-the-throne.

Each of them agreed to Stoner’s suggestion of a peace conference. None of them had any real chance to disagree, Stoner knew, once he got to talk to them face to face.

Now they were assembled beneath a lowering sky on the open plain of Olduvai. Now the real work would begin. But Stoner waited, let them pace around their helicopters, sitting quietly now on the brittle grass like giant metallic grasshoppers, their bulbous canopies catching the fast-disappearing rays of sunlight like an insect’s faceted eyes. Stoner stood by the edge of the gorge, arms folded across his chest, watching and waiting. As he watched, Stoner saw the leaders—some proud and vain, some worried and uncertain—slowly, inevitably, approach each other, eye one another, take each other’s measure.

He could not hear their conversations from this distance, but he knew what they were saying.

“A strange place to meet.”

“Yes. And it looks like rain, too.”

“There isn’t any shelter around for miles.”

“I thought I saw some tents as we flew in. We could commandeer them.”

“What ever made us come out to this godforsaken place?”

“That man.”

“Yes. Him. He seemed so…intense.”

“Persuasive.”

“What did he tell you to make you come all this way?”

“He was very persuasive.”

“What did he tell you?”

“What did he say to
you
?”

“Something laughable.”

“Laughable? You came here because he made you laugh?”

“No, of course not.”

“He told me that I would be killed by an assassin if the fighting continued another three months.”

“He threatened you?”

“It was not a threat. He did not imply that he would send the assassin. He seemed very sad when he told me, as if it were inevitable and there was nothing that anyone could do about it.”

“You believed him?”

“Yes.”

“He offered you proof?”

“He told me things about myself that no one knew. No one! And things…about my aides, my closest comrades. I believed him. Yes, I believed what he told me. That’s why I am here. If the fighting does not stop soon, I will be assassinated. I am certain of that.”

“He can read minds, then?”

“He can foretell the future.”

“You think so?”

“He convinced you to come here, didn’t he?”

“Not by frightening me!”

“Then how?”

“Well…”

“Come, tell me. You said it was laughable.”

“He said that a great statue would be erected in my honor. In Lagos, the capital.”

“That must have pleased you.”

“But he warned that the statue would be erected only if the war ended soon. If it continues much longer, I will…well, my reputation will begin to dim.”

“You will lose, is that it?”

“He said that I will be blamed for defeats that would be no fault of mine, yes.”

“And your people? The cause that you are fighting to uphold? What of that?”

“Obviously, if a great statue is erected in my honor at the capital—at the
capital
, mind you!—then my people and their cause will have triumphed.”

“Obviously.”

“I believe that he can foresee the future. He has strange powers, this man.”

“He has returned from the dead, you know.”

“Yes. He was frozen in the alien spacecraft for many years.”

“Do you think that is where his powers come from?”

“I have no doubt of it.”

“What else did he tell you? What other predictions did he make?”

“Your province of Katanga will gain its freedom.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

For nearly an hour Stoner waited, as unmoving as a patient robot, as the eleven leaders moved cautiously about their helicopter and spoke to one another. He noticed that men who opposed each other did not speak. The Katangan rebel chief did not engage the president of Zaire in conversation. None of the Nigerians spoke to one another. The Kenyan talked with the general from Chad.

Finally he sensed that they were growing impatient, apprehensive. He walked toward them, and the leaders and their aides unconsciously formed a ragged semicircle facing him.

“We are here,” Stoner said without preliminaries, “so that we can discuss ways to stop the fighting without the glare and pressure of publicity. No one is making a transcript. This meeting is strictly informal, and no one outside this group need ever know what is said here.”

Turning toward the gorge, where the paleontologists had returned to their work, Stoner said, “I picked this spot not only because it is safe from prying eyes, but because it is one of the earliest known sites of human habitation. The human race had its beginnings here. It is up to each of us to keep faith with those early ancestors of ours, to work on the side of life and civilization, rather than death and destruction.”

Stoner knew that there was only one way to make this peace conference actually end the fighting: he had to convince each of these men that he stood to gain more from peace than from war. Why should Zaire give up the resourcerich province of Katanga? How can the central government of Nigeria hold together the tribes that each want to establish their own individual nations? How can Chad feed its starving population unless it has access to the fertile lands to its south?

There were answers to each of these questions, and Stoner patiently coaxed the eleven leaders toward those answers.

It began to rain, and they dashed into the nearest helicopter. No time to argue about protocol or even security; they all ran like schoolboys for the nearest shelter. The helicopter was too small to accommodate all of the aides and guards. Stoner and the eleven leaders squeezed into its interior. The others sprinted through the spattering raindrops to their own helicopters. Radio contact between the choppers was established, so that each leader had access to his assistants. But the eleven of them were sitting pressed together on the plastic bucket seats and bare metal floor of this one helicopter’s cabin, seriously discussing ways to achieve peace, while the growing rainstorm raged outside the hatch. Stoner smiled to himself, satisfied with the earnestness of their talk.

A flash of lightning flicked across the darkened afternoon, and an immediate explosion of thunder made more than one of the men wince. The world outside grew darker, turned into a black caldron of fury lanced by sudden blue-white tongues of lightning. Thunder boomed and rain drummed incessantly on the helicopter’s metal skin. Ferocious gusts of wind rocked the aircraft. Stoner saw, through the window of the closed hatch, the aircraft’s crew tying it down to stakes pounded into the puddled, grassy ground. Still the men talked, argued, hurled accusations and angry denials at one another, waggled fingers, and shook their heads. Yet they kept on talking.

Stoner listened and watched, saying nothing except when an argument would threaten to end rational discussion. Then he would offer a word or two, and the argument would stop. Men would still glare at each other. Hatreds were still strong enough to be felt, like heat radiating from glowing coals. But they got past the shouting and the accusations and forged ahead to find ways to solve the problems that had led to war.

An Linh’s with the paleontologists, Stoner said to himself. Her job is to keep them away from here, to convince them that this outlandish political meeting will not interfere with their work, and they in turn should not get anywhere near the politicians. She’s probably in one of their tents, having tea and getting ready for a dinner of antelope haunch garnished with the local weeds.

Stoner realized he was hungry. Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw that the darkness outside was not merely from the lashing storm. He pushed through the intently talking men and made his way up to the flight deck. The crew, dried off now after their struggle to tie the helicopter safely down, had already broken out trays of precooked dinners. Stoner used the radio to have each leader’s crew bring in a meal. He accepted an extra tray from the helicopter’s pilot: frozen steak and whipped potatoes, made in the U.S.A.

The rain slackened and died away completely. After many hours, Stoner crawled down the ladder from the flight deck hatch and stretched his lanky frame in the chilly night air. Tendons popped satisfactorily and cramped muscles relaxed. He saw that the clouds were blowing away, and the stars were in their familiar places, twinkling against the darkness.

Still the politicians talked. Some clambered down from the helicopter and returned to their own machines for brief naps. Others sprawled ingloriously in the helicopter where the conference was taking place. Some stamped out onto the rain-slicked grass in anger, swearing to quit altogether and leave for home. Stoner talked with each one, walking a while under the stars. Each man returned to the helicopter, subdued, willing to make another try. Stoner could hear their voices cutting through the night. Often many of them were speaking at the same time, trying to outshout each other. But as the sky cleared and the stars wheeled around in their eternal cycle, the talking became calmer, more rational, more controlled.

The first hint of dawn was pinking the sky of Olduvai when Stoner decided to go back into the helicopter and see what progress had been made.

The way the men were sitting told him much. All eleven were back inside the cabin, all of them awake. The four Nigerians were grouped in one corner. The Kenyan and the Ugandan sat beside one another. The tall Katangan had long ago taken off his dark glasses and become the acknowledged chairman of the conference.

He looked up wearily as Stoner ducked through the hatch.

“It is hopeless,” he said softly.

“We have tried,” said the Ugandan, “but we cannot reach an agreement.”

“There are too many differences,” agreed the Kenyan. “We’ll never be able to settle them.”

Stoner stood in the open hatchway, gripping the ribbed metal overhead like an ape clinging to a precarious perch. The brightening sky was behind him. He could see the first rays of dawn reaching into the helicopter’s cabin. The eleven men looked haggard, taut with suppressed anger born of frustrated hope and renewed hostility. The cabin reeked of their sweat.

“It’s hopeless, you say?” Stoner asked, almost whispering.

No reply. They stared at Stoner like schoolboys caught breaking the rules.

“So you condemn your people to more bloodshed, to more killing.” Stoner’s voice began to rise. “You’re going to leave here and go back to your people and kill still more of them.”

“We don’t want—”

“You don’t want peace badly enough to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve it! You’d rather see your own people blown to pieces, burned alive in their own villages, starved to death. You’d rather kill women and babies than make peace.”

The president of Zaire said, “You don’t understand how difficult—”

“No,
you
don’t understand,” Stoner snapped, jabbing an accusing finger at him. “Nor do you, or you, or any of you. If the killing goes on, you will die, too. Don’t you realize that? Your own aides will poison you before the year ends.” Pointing to the lean, lanky Katangan, “You’ll be killed by an assassin in three months.” To the Kenyan, “An air raid will kill your wife and children.” To the four Nigerians, “None of you will survive the year.”

He stopped. Dead silence filled the helicopter’s cramped cabin. No one even breathed.

“And worst of all,” Stoner went on, his voice lower and calmer, “is that none of your deaths, none of the million deaths that your people will suffer, will matter in the slightest. The problems that you are too stubborn to solve today will remain to plague your survivors.”