"George Alec Effinger - The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

THE ALIENS WHO KNEW, I MEAN, EVERYTHING
George Alec Effinger

An interesting thing has happened during the evolution of the science fiction genre: many sf stories
have portrayed our world being saved-or destroyed-by beings from far stars rather than by God. In
essence, God has been replaced in science fiction by creatures from planets orbiting other stars.
Perhaps that isn't surprising in our technological era, but George Alec Effinger's short story here has
some thoughts that may be as new and comical to you as they are to me.

George Alec Effinger has written many short stories and novels during the past fifteen years; the
latter include What Entropy Means to Me and The Wolves of Memory.

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 read stories about aliens when I was a kid, I'd seen all sorts of aliens in movies
and television, but these were the first aliens who'd actually stopped by for a chat.
Well, I wasn't going to be the first American president to make a fool of himself in
front of visitors from another world. I was going to be briefed. I telephoned the
secretary of defense. "We must have some contingency plans drawn up for this," I
told him. "We have plans for every other possible situation." This was true; the
Defense Department has scenarios for such bizarre events as the rise of an