kimber_mcleod | If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

"...For the first time in a very long while Riley Smalls was excited. He liked life on the Colony, there was no doubt about that, but it was hardly exciting. He had made the decision to abandon Earth and move there for good only a few months after coming out of cryogenic suspension. The planet that had greeted him on his waking had been quite different to the one he had left behind, it was so crowded and the people there so different. The everyday things he had taken for granted no longer existed. The things that he thought of as timeless traditions now were little more than footnotes in history.

The counselors provided by the cryogenics lab tried to tell him that this was simply the way of the world, that times change or that things came to pass, but he was having none of it. As far as he was concerned the world had forcibly been changed by the very people he had railed against on his television show. They, it would seem, had won and left the world an overcrowded and chaotic mess. When the opportunity arose to pack his bags and leave for Saturn he had seized it in an instant.

But then a strange thing happened. Days smudged into weeks and months and eventually years and he came to realize that he was bored. For years now his show, The Smalls' Agenda, had largely involved him pouring scorn upon a planet more than a billion miles away based upon the tidbits of information they received on the weekly news broadcasts. He began to see his role as little more than a comforting reminder to the inhabitants of Chelsea 426 that they had made the right choice leaving Earth and that it was so terrible there they would never want to go back.

All that had changed with the discovery of the spores and the arrival of the Newcomers. Now there were people on Chelsea 426 for him to rail against. Now his words would make a difference. Truth was, the Newcomers terrified him. Chelsea 426, as boring as it might have been, was a comfortable oasis of calm. Its environment was so carefully constructed to remind the inhabitants of a time and a place that was, so they imagined, less troubling and changeable, that the arrival of any reminder that the rest of the universe was not that way troubled him. It hung over him like a dark storm cloud overshadowing his thoughts and emotions. However sudden and uninvited the appearance of these Sontarans was, they spoke of ridding the Colony of invaders and that was good enough for him.

"Mr. Smalls, they're ready for you." It was one of his show's runners standing in the doorway of his dressing room. He faced her with a disarming smile and nodded, rising from his chair and following her out into the corridor.

In the studio he sat behind a wide gray desk before a blue and red backdrop. One of the sound technicians clipped a tiny microphone to the lapel of his jacket, and the makeup artist gave him a last minute dab of powder on the nose. Behind the camera the director counted down.

"Five...four..." and then mimed the rest of the countdown with his fingers three...two...one.

"Greetings." said Smalls, smiling into the camera. "As some of you may be aware, our honorable guests, the Sontarans, are investigating a serious incident here on our Colony. At first they arrested our so-called "visitors" the Newcomers from their ships and hotels. Now it transpires they are arresting the residents of Chelsea 426. Now there are some out there who will say they are overstepping the mark, that they are trampling over our liberties but to this I say 'Nonsense'.

The Sontarans are a proud and noble people who just so happen to be at war with a venomous and parasitic race called the Routins. Right now we happen to be caught up in that war. Granted it is through no fault of our own but that isn't to say that we can simply stick our heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening. The good citizens of Chelsea 426 have nothing to worry about. It is the Newcomers who have brought the war to us not our people and certainly not the Sontarans and so it is the Newcomers who will suffer.

Arrest and questioning by the Sontarans is but a minor inconvenience if we are to have stability returned to our once happy Colony. What you must ask yourselves is 'Do you want stability? Do you want peace?' Are you so arrogant that you believe these things will be handed to you on a plate? Or do you believe as I do that sacrifices must be made? Could you hold your head high with any sense of pride if you knew that cometh the day you had taken the coward's way out? That you had kowtowed to such a vile and poisonous species as the Routins? Furthermore," he paused, taking in a deep breath.

Then he was interrupted very suddenly by a crashing sound somewhere on the other side of the studio. Peering past the studio lights, shielding his eyes from the glare with his hand he saw dark figures entering the room. Dark, broad shouldered figures brandishing guns. One by one the technicians and assistants from his program were being dragged out of the studio, marched at gunpoint through the exits. Finally, one of the shadowy figures stepped into the light. It was a Sontaran.

"We have orders to take you into custody." said the soldier.

"What?" said Smalls, getting to his feet and unclipping his microphone as quickly as he could.

"You are a Routin suspect and as such will be taken into custody."

"No" said Smalls, backing away from the creature waving his hands desperately as if this might ward off the Sontaran. "No, there must be some mistake. I supported your investigation from the beginning! What is this, you can't arrest me! I'm Riley Smalls for crying out loud! Don't you know who I am? Where is your commanding officer? I demand to speak to your superi..."

His words were cut off suddenly and violently as a second Sontaran grabbed him from behind covering his mouth with a gloved hand and jabbing him in the back with the barrel of a gun. Smalls felt his wrists locked together suddenly with handcuffs, seconds later he was blinded as one of the Sontarans tied a length of cloth around his face and over his eyes before wrapping another around his mouth, gagging him completely.

The camera's were still rolling, filming nothing but his empty chair, as they led him out of the studio."

*******************************************************************************************

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)