“And here’s the truth. I’m going to give it to you now. And it’s not going to be popular because it’s going to run maybe a little counter to what the official narrative is, and we know how protective the administration and its little enablers in the media are about the official narrative, don’t we? But here’s the truth, and just, you know, try it on for size and see how you like the fit.

“The Colonial Union? It’s the best thing that ever happened to the planet Earth. Hands down, no contest, no silver or bronze. Yes, it kept the Earth in its own protective bubble. But have you seen the reports? In our local neighborhood of space, there are, what? Six hundred intelligent alien species, almost all of whom have attacked humans in some way, including John Perry’s hallowed Conclave, which would have wiped out a whole planetary colony if the Colonial Union hadn’t stopped them? If you think they would wipe out a colony, what makes you think any of them would spare the Earth if they thought we were important?

“And you say, Well, fine, the Colonial Union kept us safe,but it also kept space from us Earthlings unless we became soldiers or colonists. But think about what that means—it means every person who went into space from Earth filled a role designed to protect humanity out there in the stars, or to build humanity’s place in the stars. You know that I take no backseat to anyone in my praise and honor of those who serve this nation in uniform. Why should I do any less for those who serve in a uniform that protects all of humankind, including those of us here on Earth? Our people— Earthlings, ladies and gentlemen—are the ones the Colonial Union turns to when it comes time to keep us allalive. The official narrative calls it slavery. I call it duty. When I turn seventy-five, do I want to sit here on Earth in a rocking chair, napping my days away until I kick off? Hell, no! Paint me green and put me in space! This administration isn’t protectingme from the Colonial Union by keeping me or anyone else from joining the Colonial Defense Forces. It’s threatening the survival of all of usby starving the one organization designed to keep all of us safe!

“And I know there are still some of you out there clinging to the official narrative, saying to me, Well, it kept us down technologically and socially, didn’t it? I ask you, did it? Did it really? Or did it make it so that we, out of all humans anywhere, are the ones totally technologically self-sufficient? We don’t have the advantage of seeing how other alien races do things. If we want something, we have to build it ourselves. We have a knowledge base no other species can hope to match because they spend all their time poaching technology from everyone else! And far from controlling us, the Colonial Union left us here on Earth alone to pursue our own political and national destinies. Jason, do you think that if the Colonial Union hadn’t had our backs all this time, that we could have avoided a world government? That people wouldn’t have been screaming for a world government in the face of almost certain alien race subjugation?”

“Uh—,” Jason began.

“You know they would have,” Birnbaum continued. “And maybe some people want the same government here that they have in Beijing and New Delhi and Cairo and Paris, but I don’t. Are we so naïve as to believe the world government that we have would be like the one right here in America? Hell, this administration has been busy enough trying to trade in our rights to make us more like everyone else!

“So I say, throw out the official narrative, people. Get with the truth. The truth is, the Colonial Union hasn’t been keeping us down. It’s been keeping us free. The longer we delude ourselves into thinking otherwise, the closer we are to doom as a species. And maybe I don’t have all the answers—I’m just a guy talking on a show, after all—but I do know that at the end of the day, humanity needs to fight to stay alive in the universe. I want to stand with the fighters. Where do you stand, people? That’s the question I want to talk about when we come back from the commercial break. Jason from Canoga Park, thanks for calling in.”

“I have one more point—”

Birnbaum closed the circuit and shut Jason down, then threw to Louisa Smart for the commercials.

“Okay, seriously, what the hell was that?” Smart said, over the headset. “Since when do you have a bug in your ass about the Colonial Union?”

“You said you wanted me to spend more time thinking about how to turn the show around,” Birnbaum said.

“You think championing the group that’s been pissing on Earth for two hundred years is a winning strategy for that?” Smart said. “I question your judgment, more than I usually do.”

“Trust me, Louisa,” Birnbaum said. “This is going to work.”

“You don’t actually believe what you just spouted, do you?” Smart said.

“If it gets the numbers up, I believe every goddamned word of it,” Birnbaum said. “And for the sake of your job, Louisa, so should you.”

“I have a job whether you’re here or not,” Smart reminded him. “So I think I’ll keep my own opinion out of the ‘sale’ rack, if it’s all the same to you.” She looked down at her monitor and made a face.

“What is it?” Birnbaum asked.

“It looks like you pinked somebody,” Smart said. “I’ve got a caller here from Foggy Bottom. It’s not every day we have someone from the State Department calling in, that’s for sure.”

“Are we sure it’s from the State Department?” Birnbaum asked.

“I’m checking the name right now,” Smart said. “Yup. It’s a deputy undersecretary for space affairs. Small fry in the grand scheme of things.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Birnbaum said. “Get him on when we come back. I’m going to light him up.”

“Her,” Smart said.

“Whatever,” Birnbaum said, and girded himself for battle.

*   *   *

Having furnished the pictures, Birnbaum fully expected Washington’s clients to furnish a war. What he wasn’t expecting was a blitzkrieg.

Birnbaum’s show numbers for the day were actually about 1 percent below average; fewer than a million people heard his rant live, streamed to the listening implement of their choice. Within ten minutes of the rant, however, the archived version of the rant started picking up listeners. Relatively slowly at first, the archived version’s numbers began to climb as more political sites linked in. Within two hours, the archived version reached another million people. Within three, it was two million. Within four, four million. The show archive’s hits grew at a roughly geometric rate for several hours afterward. Overnight there were seven million downloads of the Voice in the WildernessPDA ’gram. By the next day’s show—a show devoted entirely to the subject of the Colonial Union, as were the next several shows—the live audience was 5.2 million. By the end of the week, it was twenty million live streams per show.

Like a crack in an overburdened dam, Birnbaum’s pro–Colonial Union rant created a rapid collapse in a polite silence from various political quarters, followed by a swamping flood of agreement with Birnbaum’s vituperation for the current administration position of holding the Colonial Union at arm’s length. Birnbaum had occupied a sweet spot in the media discourse—not so influential that he was unable to promote a potentially unpopular (and possibly crazy) theory, but not so obscure that he could be dismissed outright as a kook. Too many Washington insiders, politicians and journalists knew him too well for that.

The administration, wholly unprepared for the tsunami of opposing views on this particular topic, flubbed its immediate response to Birnbaum and his followers, beginning with the unfortunately clueless deputy undersecretary for space affairs who had called in to Birnbaum’s show, who was so thoroughly dismantled by Birnbaum that three days later she tendered her resignation and headed to her home state of Montana, where she would eventually become a high school history teacher.