Stranger Things

Of Men and Mice

David Towner was bent over his Architects board checking the calculations for the New Mexico tunnel complex when he got the call.

'What? They've asked to see me?' He puzzled into his phone. 'Why?'

'Why?' Susan his wife asked an hour later as  she watched him pack his bag.

'They won't say. I have to go there and then they'll tell me.'

They laid on a private jet, no expense spared. Free champagne which he turned down but the reclinable seat he used, to sleep through the thirteen hour trip. They woke him as they were about to land. Looking out of the condensation stained window he could see the Atacama Desert had sprung into life. Not with the native fauna but with a cacophony of administrative buildings, transport hubs and tarmacked airport lined with jets. Two months ago this area had been nothing but empty desert.

Standing at the centre of the vast ring of desks made up of the world leaders and their representatives David asked. 'Why?'

The President of the United States stood up, 'I think I speak for all of us in saying this job, which we hope you will accept is of critical importance to the human race and has the full support of every member state here. Please co-operate fully with them. They will tell you about it.'

They  were the Straw People, as an excitable World had named them enthusiastically on their arrival, in deference to their wheat flecked skin, willowy frames and long plaited hair. The twenty alien explorers from Orion's Belt who'd arrived three months earlier in their spherical space ship and made their home in a line of neat tents overlooking the featureless plain.

David was escorted to the farthermost tent and left at the entrance. 'Their request, to bring you here. This is their area,' nodded the Presidential Aide. 'You've been invited. Go on in.'

As he stepped inside and the faces turned toward him David felt oddly like a vicar entering the tea tent of an English village fate. The men were dressed in lounge suits and panama hats, the women in silk dresses covered in oriental prints. They sat in groups at a series of small circular tables, each with a coloured plastic top and vases of flowers. They were having afternoon tea. Perhaps he, imagined wryly, they'd been discussing the weather. He could tell them; no rain forecast for the next thousand years.

At his appearance, one stood up, brushed the shortbread biscuit crumbs from his suit jacket, strode across and took David's hand in his. 'Welcome, welcome. Would you like to join us? We have scones, jam and Earl Grey tea.' He winked amicably with one of his wide, doe eyes.

'But why?' David asked baffled as he pushed his tea cup aside and inspected the construction plans on the screen he held in his hand.

'Because the human race should shout out it achievements, a testimony to all they have done. All that has gone before, like the Romans, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Chinese Dynasties and the Incas to name a few who left physical testaments to their greatness. A marker left here for eternity for man to gaze on and be proud of.' His host beamed the way David supposed the Straw People beamed.

'It will be expensive. Hideously expensive. But I don't see.....'

'David, we have made an agreement to all those great leaders out there, build this fantastic monument as a testament to your race's skill and ingenuity and we will reveal something of huge import to the human race.'

'What, like an invasion by Martians or a giant fireball headed for Earth? Something like that?'

'Are there really Martians up there? Let's hope the fireball hits them, not Earth then.' His host wrinkled up one quizzical eyebrow. 'Build it, David and we will meet our obligation and perhaps your race will be saved from a great misfortune.'