Chapter Nine

Greyhaven, surrounded by the world's television cameras explained that there had been a terrible misunderstanding, but he and Staines had quickly come to an arrangement with the Martians. There were many exciting opportunities ahead. The few thousand people still in the Square cheered him as he made his way from the area.

Every paper led with a full page photograph of the alien ship hovering over London. There wasn't a great deal more variation in the headlines. 'We are not alone' was used by a couple of them. The Mail had 'UFOria'. The Telegraph had 'ET Our Friends, But The EU Are Not'. The Independent printed the declaration of peaceful intent in full. The Mirror had 'Mars: Planet of Peace'. Only The Times seemed to remember the Mars 97 with 'Britons on Mars, Martians in Britain'.

They weren't looking at what was happening in the rest of London or in Washington. News of the Prime Minister's assassination came too late for the papers. Before anyone had time to take in the tragic news, a press statement announced that evidence had been uncovered by MI5 of a conspiracy underway to overthrow the entire British political system and to kill the Prime Minister. Members of Parliament and other figures were arrested, some service chiefs had been suspended from duty. The conspiracy went deep into the civil service, the armed forces and both Houses of Parliaments. Many prominent people were involved, a number of whom were still at large. Under the circumstances, it had been agreed to dissolve Parliament, pending a full investigation.

Any other day, the greatest constitutional crisis since the Restoration would have dominated the headlines and thrown the country into panic, perhaps even civil war. Today, though, people were too busy rejoicing that the Martians were here and that they had come in peace to even notice.

It was light at six o'clock.

The police would tell you that at that time, London's streets are almost empty. The street sweepers and delivery men haven't quite started work, the trains haven't started arriving. Taxi drivers sit dozing in their ranks. In the big hotels, the kitchen staff are gearing up for breakfast, but the foreign night porter is still on duty and only a handful of the guests have received their alarm calls. Cafes and markets are beginning to open, but they don't have customers.