A Gift from the Gods

by Martin Gunn

  “The attack looks frenzied,” stated the constable who had followed behind.

  “I don’t think so,” disagreed the chief inspector, “the old man and the girl were killed very precisely – almost surgically even. No, the focus of our killer’s hatred was the boy. You saw his expression, his death was ritualistic in its execution – and execution it was, designed to cause as much terror as possible. We need to find out who this poor fellow is, then perhaps we’ll have some idea who did it.”

  “Well at least their deaths were quick,” added the constable, “We need to get this bastard before he does it again.”

  Alas, it wasn’t to be. The very same day of the murders, Gustav had packed his belongings, such as they were, and boarded a train to Croydon Airport, London, and even as the inspector spoke he was on a plane over the channel heading for Germany’s capital city.

  ***

  Berlin was a very different city to the one Gustav had experienced as a boy. It had been ten years since he had run through the streets wild and carefree. There was still political unrest but the city was also in the grip of economic depression.

  Death duties and crippling inflation had taken its toll on the family fortune, but due to his guardian’s solicitous handling of the family finances, there was still enough for him to live comfortably. He looked forward to the occasion of his twenty-first birthday when he would become independent – especially financially. And since his father’s title was hereditary, he could if he wished call himself Baron, though the title meant little to Gustav.

  For the time being he took rooms in the borough of Spandau on the western side of the city and once settled in, decided to explore his new surroundings. One of the first things he noticed were the ubiquitous brown-shirted Sturmabteilung, Hitler’s paramilitary SA troops. Everywhere he turned they seemed to be marching, canvassing for support, bullying Jewish residents and smashing up their premises. Intimidation and fear seemed to be the SA’s raison d’être. He had read about the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in England and believed a great deal in what they stood for. Though to him the Brown Shirts simply came over as mindless thugs, wearing a uniform which made them look like overgrown Hitler Youth.

  Gustav’s attitude towards the Jews was one of ambivalence. To him Judaism was just another religion, in a long line of religions that in his mind, were born out of ignorance and superstition. It came as no surprise then that when Gustav was to eventually learn of Himmler’s occult beliefs, and his crazy pagan obsession with the sun, he felt somewhat uncomfortable with it. And as for Himmler’s theories on Atlantis, well they were just barking mad, though he wisely kept his opinions to himself.

  His curiosity towards Hitler and the Nazi party continued unabated however, and he found himself attending meetings and rallies more and more,

  mesmerised when he heard the future leader speak. Security at these meetings was seconded to Hitler’s own guards, the Schutzstaffel, SS soldiers in their black uniforms. To Gustav they seemed to have a dignity and discipline that the SA lacked. He very quickly came to realise that in the ranks of the SS was where he wanted to be.

  Recruitment was for him a matter of routine. One of the main prerequisites for this was to be of pure Aryan ancestry and, like his father before him when he joined the Thule Society, this posed no problem. His family’s connection with the Teutonic Knights of old fitted perfectly with Himmler’s ideology. By the late summer of 1929 Gustav was training to be an SS officer and started his military life in early 1930 at the rank of Rottenführer or corporal. Very soon he was promoted to Oberscharführer or sergeant major and then in the spring of 1933, not long after Hitler came to power, Gustav’s education came to the attention of Himmler.

  After being summoned in front of his commanding officer, Gustav was worried that he might be in trouble, only to learn that at the special request of Himmler, he was to lead a team of a dozen men to search for religious relics.

  “Why me?” was his one and only question.

  “Your interest in archaeology and the classics and your studies at Cambridge, however short, make you best qualified for the job,” was the reply.

  “You will be promoted to Obersturmführer with immediate effect,” continued his commander, “congratulations.”

  This astounded Gustav, he wondered whether he was the youngest person in the SS to be promoted to Lieutenant.

  “Where do I start?” enquired Gustav.

  “Report to this address in Berlin and you will be briefed. Here you will also meet the men that you will command.”

  Within the week Gustav found himself in his new barracks. He had blossomed into a young man physically fit, mentally strong and ruthlessly independent. This was matched by his complete lack of compassion and sentimentality – to him weakness was a trait not to be tolerated.

  Pouring himself a glass of red wine and picking up the files given him relating to this new expedition, Gustav sat on his bed and placed the files beside him. He sighed, then began to reflect on the tortuous journey which had lead him from childhood to a mid-ranking officer in the SS, in such a short period of time. He concluded that it is the small things in life that make the difference. Those decisions made that seem so insignificant in one’s early life that set you on a path from which there is no turning back. Perhaps free will is just an illusion, a construct of a species that is kidding itself that they are masters of their own destiny.

  Thoughts of destiny brought his thinking back to the matter in hand – The Spear of Destiny. Hitler had shown a personal interest in this venture so he needed to take it seriously. A quick glance at the files suggested that Vienna was a good place to start. The location of one of the possible specimens.

  He put his wine glass down and picked up a copy of the Bible, opened the pages in the New Testament to the Gospel of John, and began to read.

  “In the beginning was the word…”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Die Glocke

  Secret Weapons Research Installation

  Milkow near Ludwigsdorf – Germany

  16th July 1943

  With the war starting to turn against his homeland, Dr Sprick knew that his research would soon have to be moved to a safer location. His concerns were vindicated in late October 1942, when Munich was bombed for the first time by the British. It was too close for comfort. Luckily the Nazi High Command saw it this way too, so by the spring of 1943, the whole operation had been moved further east, closer to Poland. The inconvenience of the move however, only exacerbated the pressure he was under. Von Brandt was beginning to be a thorn in his side, continually pointing out, as if he needed to be told, that time was now against them. For a man trying to reverse engineer a time machine, the irony of this point was not lost on him. Understanding the plans and schematics were a real headache and he still hadn’t fully got to grips with the controls. And when he finally had the shell of the Glocke constructed, von Brandt casually ordered him to construct another. This only added to the delays, and the tight tolerances involved in the machine’s design meant that production was slow. The engine, for want of a better word, had also been problematic. In the depths of the spaceship a shiny silver ball, about four feet in diameter was discovered, hovering in its chamber seemingly defying gravity. Once they had gained access to it, one of his assistants was foolish enough to touch the surface with a pencil. Instantly the silver substance flowed over the pencil and down his arm covering him from head to toe. It was then Sprick realised that this was a metal with similar qualities to mercury. He decided to call it Liquid Chrome. When they finally examined the hapless assistant, it became apparent that the metal had eaten away at his tissue so completely that he had become solid metal. Interestingly, when they offered up the metallised body back to the silver ball, it immediately subsumed the statue back into the whole; all evidence of the man’s body completely gone. Sprick noticed that the ball had increased slightly in size and it occu
rred to him that this is how the power source replenishes itself: with organic matter. The propulsion device was what Sprick called an Implosion Drive, he seemed to be the only scientist in the whole facility who understood it, and this floating ball of liquid metal was the power source.

  The door opened into the underground test site and Dr Sprick turned his head to see von Brandt enter.

  “Good morning Captain, you are just in time to see the first test of the Implosion Drive engine.”

  Von Brandt had been informed of this significant progress and wanted to see the test first hand. He scanned his eyes over the contraption which stood in the centre of the room. It was bronze in colour and looked as though it had been cast, though he knew the parts had been finely manufactured by skilled machinists.

  “Excellent, Doctor,” replied von Brandt with a smile, “some progress at last.”

  Sprick hated it when von Brandt smiled, usually it meant more inconvenience for him, but this time he seemed genuinely pleased.

  “As you can see we have fitted a metal belt around the waist of the vessel, with three chains attached, equally spaced around its circumference.” Sprick walked around the device followed by von Brandt, showing him the chains, which drooped along the ground and were tied to the wall.

  “There is plenty of slack,” continued Sprick, “to allow for movement.”

  “Shall we get started then?” was von Brandt’s curt reply.

  Up in the control room, Sprick started to manipulate some levers, whilst an assistant started to film the proceedings.

  “Are those chains going to be strong enough?” enquired von Brandt not unreasonably.

  “I don’t know,” replied Sprick, still concentrating on the controls, “we are about to find out.”

  Gradually the Glocke started to rotate, and as it picked up speed, began to lift off the ground. When it was hovering at about eight feet, Sprick turned to von Brandt and asserted,

  “Hopefully I can manipulate it remotely with this joystick. It replicates some of the controls inside the device itself.”

  He grabbed the stick and started to move it to the twelve o’clock position. Immediately the vessel moved away from them until it stopped, constrained by one of the chains. Then for the next twenty minutes he moved it around the room, initial results proving if nothing else, that the Implosion Drive worked.

  “Obviously this is nowhere near full power,” advised Sprick.

  “I’m impressed, Doctor,” commended von Brandt.

  “Soon we will be ready for a test run,” beamed the doctor, “just as soon as we have devised a chronometer.”

  “What about the drug?” enquired von Brandt, ignoring the comment.

  “I have some results on that also,” retorted Sprick, expecting the question. “If you would care to come back to the laboratory this afternoon, say about 1400 hours, then I can discuss what we have.”

  “Well Doctor, until this afternoon then.”

  With that, von Brandt left the control room.

  “Doesn’t he ever let up?” asked his assistant with the camera.

  Sprick gave no response, he knew that von Brandt was under pressure also, and it would stay that way until they had something that was operational.

  ***

  Sitting at his desk in the lab, Sprick waited in anticipation of von Brandt’s arrival. He was nervous, tests on the drug had had mixed results. Von Brandt had ordered the drug to be found even if the ship was to be ripped apart, and that is exactly what they had to do, eventually finding a compartment of phials deep inside the bowels of the ship. Clearly the aliens were keen that this particular treasure would not be found so easily. Dismantling of the ship was academic, since no-one was able to understand its controls and analysis of the craft’s metal skin proved fruitless also. It was simply out of this world and as a consequence, impossible to fabricate. Ultimately it was not unlike a child taking a toy apart and lacking the ability or the knowledge to reassemble it.

  Entering the lab after a hearty lunch, von Brandt was upbeat and convivial. Due to his anxiety, Sprick had foregone his lunch and wasn’t looking forward to the afternoon session.

  “What have you got for me?” enquired von Brandt.

  “Progress has been slow on the longevity drug but I will show you what we have so far. If you’d like to follow me into the next room,” urged Sprick. standing up, “I have a film for you to watch.”

  Von Brandt followed him into a room with dimmed lights and Sprick motioned for the captain to sit down.

  “What we have here is footage of tests with the drug.” He signalled for the projectionist to start.

  The black and white film began, showing a rat being injected in the back of the neck and then placed in a cage. Immediately the rat started to shake uncontrollably then lay on its side, twitched once more and died.

  “We didn’t give it much but we had no idea how powerful the drug is,” informed Sprick, leaning towards von Brandt. “Next is what happened when we cut it open.”

  The footage changed to a hand slicing through the underbelly of the poor rat and a viscous sludge oozing out where its organs used to be.

  “That slurry was brown and smelt disgusting,” grimaced Sprick.

  “This next piece is what happened when we reduced the dosage to only ten percent of the first.”

  A second rat was shown to be injected and again placed in a cage. After a few minutes it appeared to be acting normally so a door was lifted up, enabling the rat to mix with three other untreated specimens. Without hesitation the rat ran into the neighbouring compartment and savagely attacked the other three. They were dead within a minute, the infected rat running around in a hyper sensitive frenzy.

  “Did this one survive?”

  “Alas, its heart gave out an hour later.”

  “I’m concerned that there has been little progress since we found the drug,” admonished von Brandt, “it’s been seven years.”

  “I have been concentrating on the time machine,” defended the beleaguered doctor, “you must understand this technology is way beyond us. I’m amazed that we have progressed as far as we have. Useful information has also been passed over to our rocket research programme at Peenemünde.”

  “Perhaps the tests would be more relevant on humans, don’t you think?” suggested von Brandt. He understood the pressure Sprick was under but he was being pressured also.

  “Who would volunteer for such a thing?” enquired the doctor somewhat naively.

  “We don’t need volunteers,” offered von Brandt, “we have plenty of slave labour here – use them.”

  “They are not the fittest of men to test on.”

  “We’ll choose the best and feed them up,” encouraged von Brandt, undeterred, “we must get this right. I shall see to it right away.”

  Sprick had already come to this conclusion some time ago, but didn’t want to be the one to suggest it. The officer’s initiative allayed his guilty conscience to some extent; relieved that von Brandt had taken it upon himself to organise human guinea pigs. In the meantime, he decided to try and determine how much serum to administer to an average human. Like the rats, he knew it was going to be hit or miss.

  ***

  Work was halted on the drug until suitable guinea pigs were available. This involved releasing them from their punishing work schedule and feeding them up. Sprick needed the men to be as healthy and as strong as possible.

  In the meantime, he decided to continue his work on the time machine. The problem he faced now was how to create some kind of chronometer – a timer device to accurately determine the pilot’s destination in time and space. Be it the past or the future. The schematics for this were available but Sprick could not make head nor tail of them, it was like nothing he had ever seen before. He had no choice but to try and create something mechanical and hope that he could inter
face it with the rest of the machine. By the time a prototype design was on the drawing board and ready for production, he was called back to continue on the longevity drug project.

  Sprick entered his lab to see a man sitting in a chair with a guard standing next to him. He was in his mid-forties, dressed in blue-and-white-striped pyjamas and his feet were bare. Although he had been rested and given a healthy diet, he still looked thin and gaunt in the face. His dark hair had been shaved off to rid him of lice. The expression and demeanour were that of a man who had been stripped of all dignity and hope.

  “What is your name?” enquired Sprick.

  “Wojtec Kaminski,” muttered the man under his breath.

  “Polish,” stated Sprick.

  Wojtec nodded, Polish Jew to be precise but he wasn’t going to argue the point.

  “Do you have any health problems?”

  “Yes, a heart defect which I was born with,” stated Wojtec, “I’m surprised it hasn’t killed me.”

  Stepping into the corridor, Sprick confronted von Brandt who was watching through the glass.

  “I thought we were going to use healthy specimens,” hissed the doctor, “this man has a heart condition.”

  “He’s the best we have,” countered von Brandt.

  “You do realise that the last rat’s heart gave out, don’t you?”

  “He is still our best specimen. I suggest you get on with it.”

  Sighing with exasperation, Sprick re-entered the lab to continue with the test. He approached one of his assistants.

  “Prepare a syringe with one tenth of a millilitre of serum. The same amount as we gave to the last rat.”

  The assistant nodded and went to work. Sprick walked over to Wojtec and got him to lie on an operating table. Then his wrists and ankles were strapped down.

  “What are you going to do to me?” asked the man nervously.

  “Don’t worry, it is just an inoculation,” lied Sprick.

  The injection was administered into the unfortunate man’s right forearm and everyone in the room looked on anxiously, waiting for some sort of reaction.