by Matt Eaton
* * *
At 4.51am local time on December 27, Apollo 8 careened into the warm waters of the Pacific like a ton of bricks, splashing down in utter darkness.
Borman had been standing by to cut the parachutes free at the moment of impact, but the force and surprise of their splashdown left him momentarily stunned. He was immediately doused with water, although from where it came he had no clue. He shook off his stupor and moved to jettison the chutes. But he wasn’t quick enough and the capsule flipped, leaving the astronauts hanging precariously upside down. Trash that had been stashed under their seats now rained down over them like a tickertape parade of crap.
“One more great moment in manned space flight,” Lovell muttered to no-one in particular.
Borman finally ditched the chutes and flicked the switch to inflate the balloons stored in the nose of the capsule, which were designed to keep them the right way up. The downpour of crud and dust sent him into a momentary coughing fit. It felt rather like he had just crashed the family wagon. They were around 220 nautical miles north-west of Kiribati and a long way south of Hawaii in what could poetically be described as the goddam middle of nowhere.
Thankfully it was only a few minutes before the world righted itself as the inflatables deployed.
The sea was rough that morning. They bobbed around like a cork in a bathtub and it didn’t take long for Borman to get seasick. It would be another 45 minutes before the US Navy recovery crew came knocking on the door. As previously agreed, they waited for dawn to break before beginning the retrieval operation. The Navy didn’t want to drop divers into pitch black water in case of sharks.
Borman spent much of the waiting time hurling his guts up. With splashdown his command had technically ended, meaning the other two, especially Lovell the Navy man, felt free to rib him mercilessly.
“I suppose this would feel pretty rough to a West Point ground pounder,” said Lovell. “I’ll say this for you Frank, you’re nothing if not consistent. Finish as you start out, eh?”
Up to this moment, Lovell had been quite restrained about the fact that his commander had suffered a good dose of the vomits for much of their journey to the Moon.
“Boy oh boy, we’re really bouncing around now,” said Borman, grimacing. He didn’t really care too much about the jokes, he was just happy to be home. They were alive and for that he was eternally grateful.
A day or two before lift-off, the head of flight crew operations Deke Slayton had told him privately he rated their chance of coming home alive at about 50-50. It sure seemed as though they had flipped that coin and won. He’d take a pain in the guts over Deke’s other option any day of the year.
With the light of dawn finally shining through their window, a shimmering black monster emerged from the deep to pull open the capsule door. A strangely foreign smell immediately filled the cabin and Borman smiled as he realised it was the taste of fresh air.
They had been locked in a tin can for six days.
The Navy Seal frogman pulled the mask from his face to greet them, although his expression was not exactly one of welcome.
“Everything all right, son?” Borman asked him.
“Yes sir, everything’s fine,” he replied. “Welcome back sir,” he added hurriedly.
Borman guessed they must be a sorry sight. Unshaved, unwashed.
A change of outfit awaited them in the Navy’s recovery chopper. Like men possessed, they ditched their flight suits and stripped nearly naked with a delirious eagerness. Never had clean clothes felt so good. White shirts adorned with the mission logo, white pants and aviator sunglasses. They felt human again.
Borman tried to be as casual as possible as he removed the Minox from his flight suit and slipped it into his trouser pocket. He knew the Seals would ask no questions.
In no time at all they found themselves on the deck of USS Yorktown amid a football crowd of faces — hundreds, maybe thousands of sailors dressed neatly in white and gathered across the ship at every available vantage point to catch a glimpse of the astronauts’ arrival. They watched through the window, amazed at the size of the assembled crowd. As the blades of the helicopter gradually ground to a halt, two sailors placed a set of stairs alongside the hatch for their descent to the deck.
“Those stairs must be for you, commander,” Lovell said, grinning.
“You better believe it,” Borman told him. “I have no intention of falling flat on my face with the eyes of the world upon us.”
NASA splashdown technician Eugene Geyer was the first up the stairs to greet them.
“Welcome home,” he called, holding his hand out to Borman and immediately losing his footing at the top of the stairs. Luckily Borman still had hold of his hand and kept him from falling back down to the deck. The poor man retreated quickly, partly out of embarrassment but also to clear the way for the astronauts to exit.
Borman turned quickly to the other two. “Let’s not follow in Eugene’s footsteps. Tread slowly and carefully. We’re all going to be a bit shaky on the pins.”
They stood together for some time at the top of the stairs, waving at the crew of the Yorktown. The sailors cheered and waved back. It was a welcome for heroes. Borman guessed that’s what they were, although until this moment it hadn’t occurred to him. He descended slowly to the deck of the ship. Anders stumbled at the top of the stairway but corrected himself by grabbing the hand rail. Nobody else seemed to notice.
A red carpet awaited them on the carrier flight deck. Borman felt slightly unsteady on his feet, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as when he and Lovell returned from their 14-day Gemini VII mission. That time he had struggled to stay upright.
“How’s those sea legs?” Lovell asked him. Borman just smiled, the cheers of the Yorktown crew so loud he could feel them in his chest. He was filled with a sudden sense of euphoria. They had done it. The greatest undertaking of his life and it had come off virtually without a hitch. He had never felt more proud.
At the end of the short red carpet, the Yorktown’s commanding officer Captain John Fifield waited for them alongside a microphone.
“Permission to come aboard, sir,” said Borman.
Captain Fifield smiled and shook their hands one by one before stepping up to the microphone. Their arrival was being broadcast live across the world.
Fifield gazed up as he spoke to the crew of the Yorktown. “On behalf of the entire Yorktown crew, a most hearty welcome aboard and congratulations on a tremendously successful flight. Colonel Borman, would you care to say a few words to the crew?”
Borman stepped forward. “Yes sir, thank you. Well, we’re just very happy to be here and we appreciate all of your efforts and I know you had to stay out here over Christmas and that made it tough. Jim and I always seem to fly in December. We made it home before Christmas in ’65.
“But we can’t tell you how much we really appreciate you being here and how proud it is for us to participate in this event because thousands of people made this possible and I guess we’re all just part of the group. Thank you very much.”
Captain Fifield handed them Yorktown caps which they happily donned, stopping to pose for pictures on the flight deck. Borman was dead tired, but he was keen to appear as amenable as possible to the folks on the Yorktown, knowing NASA would be reliant upon the Navy’s cooperation for many years to come.
“Now gentlemen, if you’ll just follow me, we’ll get you out of the glare,” said Fifield.
The Captain calmly directed them toward the nearest hatch, a path to it appearing as the crowd dutifully parted to let them pass. The ship’s interior was much darker as they left the glare of daylight. Borman’s eyes adjusted in time for him to register the ladder they now needed to negotiate. Fifield nimbly led the way. Lovell went next, then Anders. Borman brought up the rear, taking each step slowly, double-checking his footing was secure before moving down to the next rung.
At the bottom, Fifield led them along a narrow gangway. “Now I know you’ll want to sho
wer and clean up,” he said, “but we figured after six days of sucking on tubes for sustenance a hearty breakfast might be top of your list.”
Lovell and Anders smiled. “Now you’re talking,” Anders told him.
“Don’t worry Frank, we’ll eat for you,” Lovell jibed. “The Colonel is still finding his sea legs,” Lovell told Fifield quietly, with more relish than Borman might have liked.
“Don’t worry about me, I could eat the leg off a horse,” Borman assured him.
Fifield stopped outside a hatch marked Officers Mess.
“We’ve factored in a bit of down time for you. Breakfast’s ready and waiting. The room’s all clear, so you can just relax and take it easy for a spell,” Fifield told them.
The astronauts saluted the Captain, who enthusiastically returned the honour.
“It’s a pleasure to have you aboard,” he told them.
“Thanks, Captain,” Borman replied wearily. “Care to join us?”
Fifield seemed to consider the possibility for a moment but finally shook his head. “I’ll buy you all a drink tonight. Another esteemed Navy man will be joining you as soon as you’ve had something to eat. Thank you, gentlemen.”
A veritable smorgasbord awaited them — a pyramid of fried eggs, their body weight in bacon, hash browned potatoes, cereal, fresh bananas and apples, and a large bowl of fruit salad. Tea, coffee and juices were lined at the far end of the buffet next to the plates and cups.
“What, no champagne?” said Anders.
“God, I hope that coffee’s strong,” Lovell sighed.
“Pour me one of those, would you Jim?” Borman asked as he grabbed a plate and began gathering food.
Anders snatched a piece of bacon and shoved it in his mouth. “Mmm-hmm, that’s good. I don’t think anything’s ever tasted better.”
“Don’t get too carried away,” Lovell warned. “You’ll be throwing up in half an hour if you overeat — after what we’ve been surviving on for the past six days.”
The voice of experience. With Gemini VII and Gemini XII already under his belt, Lovell had now logged more hours in space than any man alive. He knew all too well about the fall back to Earth.
They’d been fortunate on the return flight from the Moon. Deke had packed them a Christmas turkey dinner. Not exactly how Mum would make it, but a whole lot better than anything else NASA had to offer them. Borman had drawn the line at Deke’s little bottles of brandy. He had never been much of a drinker and cocktails in deep space was never going to be an option. The brandy had remained safely locked away inside the capsule, which by now should be on its way to the cargo hold of the Yorktown.
“How’s about that re-entry?” Anders remarked. “It was like being inside a furnace.”
“Yeah, it’s one heck of a flaming crescendo,” Lovell agreed. “Talk about ending with a bang.”
“I’m always mighty relieved to see those main chutes opening,” said Borman.
“Except we couldn’t see them in the dark,” said Anders.
“But we knew they were there, right Frank?” said Lovell. He was talking about their ignominious splashdown.
Borman grinned. “We sure did.”
“I hope I get to go back up there,” said Lovell.
“I’ll put in a good word,” said Borman. “What about you, Bill? Keen to try again?”
“Well, I’ve gotta say we made it look easy. Considering we were flying without a net.”
Anders meant the absence of a lunar module. The LM’s construction had been delayed. Because it was a separate spacecraft, the plan had always been to use it as a life raft if anything went wrong with the command module.
But with only a year to go before the end of Kennedy’s deadline to land on the Moon, NASA had decided not to wait for the LM to be ready. So Apollo 8 flew solo. Everyone agreed it was worth the risk.
“Ask me again when I’ve slept for a few days,” said Anders.
Borman was thankful at that moment they didn’t query his future intentions. He might have been forced to think long and hard about how to respond, despite the promise he’d made to his wife. His boys might see it differently. Teenagers had no fear of death, although it would be fair to say they might have a more sober take on their old man’s grip on mortality.
He had already put Susan through so much. He couldn’t wait to see her again, to share her happiness at his safe return. She would be so relieved. He couldn’t take that away. He needed to stand by his assurance to her that enough was truly enough.
But Deke had almost offered it on a platter. Won’t you regret it, Frank? He offered you the Moon, said you of all people deserved to be the first. And you said no.
Food piled moderately high on their plates, they ate in raptured silence, each man calmly reflecting on their achievements. Each, in his own way, thanking God they had made it home alive.
A proud-looking man of mature years with a face rather like a wrinkled prune entered the Officers Mess looking at once like he didn’t belong. The absence of a uniform told them he was a civilian. Late 60s, thin, educated by the look of him. He could have been a general or an admiral, but by the crumpled and oversized cut of his well-worn suit they could tell he was no serving military man.
Their visitor closed the hatch slowly and carefully before turning to face them. The expression that greeted them could only be described as one of steely determination. He held a stack of documents under one arm.
“I assume from the looks on your faces nobody told you I was coming,” the man realised. He had a definite air of authority.
“No sir, no-one said a word,” Borman replied.
“Hey, I know you!” Lovell realised. “You’re Dr Menzel, the astrophysicist.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Menzel, clearly pleased his reputation had preceded him. He held out his hand to Lovell, who rose to his feet to shake it. “Dr Donald Menzel. An honour to make your acquaintance, Captain Lovell.” Menzel greeted Anders and Borman in turn, his grip firm, his focus unwavering as he stared confidently into their eyes. “An honour to meet you all.”
Borman said nothing. He had no idea what Menzel was doing here, but instinct told him surprises right now were unlikely to be a good thing.
eHe
“I hope you don’t mind the intrusion – well not too much, anyway,” said Menzel, chuckling to himself. “But, you see, Captain Fifield has kindly allowed us some time to speak in private ahead of your next round of public interviews and glad-handing.”
“That’s not why you’re here then?” Anders quipped.
Lovell tried and failed to stifle a laugh. Menzel showed no obvious sign of taking the remark as a slight, although Borman couldn’t help thinking in this instance appearances might be deceptive. Proud men usually struggled with self-deprecation in his experience.
“I’m an intruder, I know. Sit down, please, you must all be exhausted. I won’t take up too much of your time. That is, none more than necessary.”
“Exhausted would be putting it mildly,” Borman admitted.
“I have a few important matters to discuss with the three of you. Matters, I’m afraid, which must not be delayed.”
Menzel carefully placed his papers down upon the table nearest to the astronauts as they finished up the last of their breakfast. He pulled off his black suit coat and draped it over the chair beside him like he was settling in for a long visit.
Anders wasn’t about to let any man keep him from his food. He shoved half a fried egg into his mouth and began chewing rapidly, then washed it down with a slug of coffee.
“Sounds ominous,” Lovell suggested, perhaps reading an undercurrent in Menzel’s tone.
“Not at all, not at all,” the scientist insisted. “But please, you’ve got to tell me — what was it like to gaze down upon the Moon from up close?”
It was the first of many times today the question would be asked of them. Borman figured it might be a good idea to get their lines straight now, behind closed doors, so the
words sounded crisp when they were uttered in public.
“Like a massive beach covered in dirty sand. A great big, dirty beach,” Anders offered.
“The biggest expanse of nothing you could ever imagine,” said Borman. “A vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing.”
“It looks like plaster of Paris,” said Lovell. “Parts of it — the far side especially — were like some sort of ancient war zone. Craters layered upon craters. Billions of years of bombardment have torn the surface to shreds, yet it was incredibly beautiful. It was a privilege to be the first men out there. But at the same time…”
“We felt awful small floating around out there in our little tin can,” said Borman, finishing Lovell’s sentence.
“No doubt, no doubt,” said Menzel. “I think it’s remarkable that you men were willing to put your lives on the line like that.”
“That’s why we train hard — to minimise the risks,” said Borman.
“On the other hand, nothing gets done in this world without taking a few chances,” said Anders. “But, you know, to me the most remarkable thing we saw out there was the Earth. We went all that way to discover the Moon, and in the end what we really discovered was the Earth. You wait until you see the photos I took, they’ll knock your socks off.”
“Photos. Yes. I look forward to that,” said Menzel.
“Nothing will ever be the same,” said Anders. “I feel as if what we’ve achieved will make me question everything from now on. It makes me think mankind can do anything we set our minds to.”
The others didn’t quite know how to respond to Anders’ declaration, although it seemed a suitably grand summation of their endeavours. They had beaten the Soviets to the Moon. They had taken a great leap toward their ultimate destination and their experience and success would mean in a few short months their fellow astronauts, perhaps even one of them, would go all the way to the lunar surface, meeting the deadline President Kennedy had set all those years ago.
“So what can we do for you, doctor?” Lovell asked Menzel.
“Right. Yes.” Menzel sat himself down and opened the topmost folder in his stack of material.
“I have come to give you an early heads-up on a report that is about to be handed to the Air Force. It concerns two of you directly in that it examines an incident that occurred during your journey on Gemini VII.”
“The bogey,” said Borman, nodding his head.
“This would be the Condon committee report,” said Lovell.
“Precisely, Captain Lovell. I have the advance copy of the committee’s findings with me. It hasn’t been formally handed over just yet and it certainly hasn’t been made public. But when it does, it is going to get a lot of attention. Suffice to say, it will shift the ground significantly in relation to the way the Government and the military deal with the topic of UFOs.”
“A shift you say?” asked Anders, eyebrow raised.
Borman and Lovell exchanged a knowing glance.
Lovell shuffled forward in his seat. “Are you telling us the Condon report is going to acknowledge the presence of visitors from outer space?”
Menzel sniffed at the astronaut’s choice of words. “Actually, I mean precisely the opposite. The Condon committee will conclude unequivocally that there is no evidence of anything non-terrestrial or unexplainable in any so-called UFO sighting thus far recorded.
“We, that is, they will be recommending to the Air Force that it should give up its official investigation known as Project Blue Book, that there is no advance in science to be gained from such an investigation and that there almost surely never will be.”
Lovell sat back in his chair. “But what about what Frank and I saw up there? That was no rocket booster, I’ll tell you that right now. It was not space debris. I don’t know what it was, but…”
Menzel held up his hand. “Captain, please. I mean you no disrespect. I hold every one of you in great esteem. I know you are brave men of science and exploration. Don’t misunderstand me. I think it is very possible that intelligent life, perhaps more intelligent than we are, may exist somewhere in the vast reaches of outer space. But it is the vastness of space that complicates this issue. The distances are almost inconceivable. It took you, what, three days to travel from here to the Moon? And you covered that distance at thousands of miles per hour. Do you have any idea of the distance between us and the nearest star around which there might be orbiting a planet with just the right conditions to support life? What you saw up there while you were orbiting the Earth was a military satellite. A top secret satellite whose position is unknown to civilian authorities lacking the proper clearance.”
Lovell turned to Borman and then looked back at Menzel. “Under whose authority are you here today, Dr Menzel? Because I’m not exactly sure you have the military clearance for us to be speaking to you about these matters — no disrespect.”
“Mr Lovell, it might surprise you to learn that I have Navy Top Secret Ultra clearance. How do you think I came to be here today? You must hold nothing back.”
“So the Condon committee report aims to discredit all the anomalous sightings and even the most credible of eyewitness accounts?” queried Anders. “Because let me tell you, there have been more than a few I’ve heard that are enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.”
“Gordo Cooper’s sighting springs to mind,” said Lovell. “Surely you’ve heard of it, Dr Menzel — at Edwards Air Force base back in ’57.”
Menzel nodded. “I’m familiar with it, yes. There is a perfectly rational explanation for that sighting. For reasons of national security, it was not on the Condon committee’s list for examination.”
Lovell was incredulous. “They ignored it?”
“Nobody’s ignoring anything. They didn’t need to see it. See, you have to understand something, gentlemen.” Menzel’s tone was colder than steel. “When this report is handed down, the scientific community will be as one in its view on this topic. In a nutshell: you cannot be a scientist and believe in UFOs.”
The astronauts looked warily at one another, each thinking the same thing. What they had seen on the far side of the Moon could not be blithely dismissed as space junk or a rogue military satellite. The object that appeared just metres from their window dramatically changed speed in order to match the velocity of Apollo 8: it was no random act. They watched it disappear into outer space at something approaching the speed of light.
“Let me tell you something,” Anders began.
Borman held up his hand to stop him. “That’s enough, Bill.”
Anders opened his mouth to object but read the look in his commander’s eyes and closed it again.
“I’m telling you this,” said Menzel, “because I know there has been a lot of chatter inside the astronaut program about the things you’ve seen, or should I say the things you think you’ve seen.”
“Chatter?” spat Lovell.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear. I am making it my mission to tear down any semblance of credibility this lurid topic has gained from the interest and input of high-profile people such as yourselves. If that means destroying a few reputations, then so be it.
“But it is my sincere hope that matters do not need to be taken to the extreme. What I’m saying to you — and I really want you to hear this — is that you need to be on the right side of this argument, because the fight is over. If not, you risk embarrassing yourselves and, more critically, undermining the space program. And that, gentlemen, is simply not acceptable.”
Menzel stood up as if to punctuate his statement. For a moment, Borman thought he was preparing to leave, but Menzel was a long way from done. He merely walked slowly toward the breakfast buffet and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“If there’s one thing you can rely upon in life, it’s that the US Navy knows how to make a good, strong cup of joe,” he said to no-one in particular. The astrophysicist carefully measured three teaspoons of powdered milk into his steaming java.
“I overheard something while we were out there on deck awaiting your arrival. You’ll like this. Time magazine is going to declare the three of you the Men of the Year for 1968. Very well deserved, may I add.”
“They’ll be expecting us back out there soon,” said Anders.
“The NASA boffins will want to debrief and we’ll need to take a look at the capsule,” Borman added.
“Oh you don’t need to worry about any of that just yet. We’ve got plenty of time. Hours, in fact.”
“I have to say I’m disappointed by the Condon committee’s decision,” said Lovell.
“I wish I could say I was surprised, but it is a let down. I did hold out some hope that men of science might want to approach this topic with a genuinely open mind.”
“Sounds to me like the fix was in from day one,” said Anders.
Menzel was unmoved. “I understand you are all men of God. Men of science too, although many might argue those two viewpoints will never be reconciled.”
“A little bit like relativity and quantum mechanics?” Anders returned.
“I will admit the committee did not come to this task with an open mind.”
“There you go,” said Lovell.
“But that’s only because the men involved had already seen enough to know there is nothing to be gained from a scientific point of view in chasing these shadows. The Air Force knows it too. The Government never agrees to these sorts of inquiries unless the outcome is known to everyone from the start. The Condon report is a means to a political end. It is designed to draw a clear line in the sand. The Government needed the weight of science to back up its position.”
“That sounds a little bit like the Spanish inquisition to me,” said Lovell.
“The Air Force is keen to discredit all efforts at serious inquiry in this area,” said Menzel. “It is worried about aligning itself with crazies and pot-smoking weirdos. When these findings go public, I can assure you nobody in their right minds will be speaking out against the Air Force’s position on the matter.
“The Condon committee is unequivocal in its finding. Denial and ridicule are the order of the day. From here on in, it will be career suicide to speak out in favour of little green men. You’ll find it will catch on quickly in the popular media and every level of officialdom you care to name.”
Menzel put the coffee to his lips and sipped at it like it was 10-year-old whiskey. “Scientists know where their bread is buttered,” he told them with quiet certainty. “Inside two months there won’t be a credible research institution in the country willing to touch this topic.”
Anders stared him down. “I remember you now. You’ve been debunking this stuff for years.”
“With a passionate fervour,” Menzel told him. “I abhor ignorance and superstition. And that’s all this is — a modern version of ghosts, hobgoblins and the devil.”
Borman bristled at mention of the devil, but once more restrained himself.
“If we truly have visitors from outer space buzzing through our skies,” Menzel continued, “why haven’t they presented themselves to the President? To Congress? Or to anyone from the National Academy of Sciences?”
Anders scoffed. “They haven’t come seeking you out personally — is that your problem?”
“I know what’s going through your minds,” said Menzel. “That the ‘bogeys’ you’ve seen were not flying randomly or haphazardly, they were under intelligent control. But this too is easy to explain. Intelligent control comes from within. It is nothing more than your mind conquering your perception of matter. Aviators flying through clouds often see a peculiar reflection that appears to be metallic. And sometimes if they elect to chase it, the object will seem to take evasive action. But this is nothing more than the reflection of light from ice crystals in those clouds. There is a long list of mundane objects that are often reported as UFOs. Things like birds, kites, seed pods. Or weather balloons.”
“There are no seed pods and weather balloons in space,” said Borman.
“Ah Colonel, you join us at last,” Menzel goaded. “No, you’re right, there aren’t. I merely cite some of the more common examples of objects mistaken as unidentified flying objects.”
“We are all men of science here, Dr Menzel,” said Anders. “As such, I’d very much like to hear how you feel about the fundamental principles of independent inquiry being cast adrift here.”
Menzel shrugged. “I don’t accept your premise. Nothing has been undermined. The Condon committee has carried out an exhaustive and comprehensive analysis of the data and intelligence presented to them.”
“But they didn’t examine the photos Gordon Cooper’s film crew took of the craft that landed in front of them at Edwards,” countered Lovell.
Cooper was one of the original Mercury seven astronauts. About two years before he was selected for the space program, he was one of an elite band of test pilots based at Edwards Air Force Base in California. They were in charge of several advanced projects. He was working with a professional film crew when an unidentified saucer-shaped craft landed almost on top of them. Cooper said the camera crew had time to film the saucer as it flew overhead, then hovered, extended three legs and slowly landed on the dry lake bed. His cameramen ran toward the saucer and got to less than 30 yards away.
Amongst friends and after a few drinks, Gordo talked about it incessantly. In his words it was a classic saucer — shiny silver and smooth, about 30 feet across. He was adamant it was an alien spacecraft. He sent the film to Washington before it was even developed. It vanished, like the saucer itself, and Cooper never heard another word about it.
“There was no point in presenting Cooper’s evidence to the committee,” said Menzel. “because we already knew what that was.”
Lovell smiled knowingly. “Care to enlighten us?”
“I can’t say too much, Captain, because the matter is highly classified. But I think you’ve earned the right to know that the ship Cooper saw was one of ours.”
Lovell couldn’t believe his ears. “One of… I… you mean it was American?”
“Why do you think it landed at Edward Air Force Base?”
“Good God,” Borman exclaimed. “You mean we have aircraft like that and the Air Force test pilots program doesn’t even know about it?”
“Experimental aircraft, yes,” said Menzel. “Conceptual design, and a rather intemperate propulsion system if I’m to be brutally honest. I am a consultant to Lockheed Martin and there are many things going on out there in the desert that no more than a handful of men in the Department of Defence are aware of. The intelligence is highly compartmentalised.”
“Are these experimental flying saucers of yours capable of space flight?” Lovell inquired.
“No, Captain, of course not. I can assure you that the Apollo program is operating at the cutting edge of our space flight capability.”
“I’m really not sure what to say about all this,” said Anders.
“Say nothing,” said Borman. “Dr Menzel, I’m afraid I must insist we draw a line under this for now. We’re dead on our feet.”
“Of course. I understand. But I think you’ll agree that our conversation’s not quite over.”
Borman’s head tilted slightly. “Right now, Doctor Menzel, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. But do me a favour, will you?”
“Name it, Colonel.”
“Leave me your copy of that report. I’d very much like to take a look at it when I wake up.”
For a moment Borman thought Menzel might refuse, but the scientist held out the report. “By all means. I’ll need it back, but take all the time you need.”
A ship’s steward was dutifully standing guard outside the Mess. He directed them along a series of narrow corridors to their sleeping quarters. They were grander than Borman had expected. The suite of rooms began with a large conference space where a table for at least a dozen people occupied only about half the chamber. From a door at the rear of the conference room th
ey entered a separate lounge, off which there were a series of bedrooms. Each of them would have a room to himself. There was even a private bathroom at the rear of the suite.
Captain Fifield joined them as they squared themselves away. “I think you’ll be comfortable here,” he said. “This suite was designed to accommodate an admiral and his aides.”
Borman smiled in appreciation. “After what we’ve been used to, this is a palace.”
“Get some sleep. We’ve organised a dinner in your honour for tonight. But that’s hours away. Until then, make yourselves at home.”
Once more, Fifield made a rapid exit, making sure to usher their steward out ahead of him lest the sailor started having other ideas.
“We’ve got to tell Menzel what we saw out there,” Lovell told Borman quietly.
“Do you really think it’ll make a blind bit of difference?” Anders asked.
Borman held up his hands in surrender. “I can’t do this right now. I’d really like to stop smelling like a sweaty boot someone threw up in. I need a shower and some rest. We all do.”
Captain Fifield found Dr Menzel waiting for him in the corridor just outside the astronauts’ suite.
“Something else I can do for you, doctor?”
“No, no, you’ve been most accommodating, Captain Fifield. I just wanted to inform you that I will be in my quarters for the next couple of hours and do not wish to be disturbed.”
Fifield paused before responding, apparently seeking to choose his words carefully. “Thank you for letting me know. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Alone in the claustrophobic cell the Yorktown reserved for visiting officers — and confident he would not be interrupted — Dr Menzel began preparations for a quick side trip. He planned to be away from the ship and back again before the astronauts arose and before anyone else realised he had gone.
The Yorktown was cruising in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The nearest island was several hundred miles away, yet it was but one small step to Donald Menzel’s next destination. In taking that step, he would, in all likelihood, no longer be at sea. From his frame of reference, the journey would be unremarkable. Mundane. Like stepping through a doorway — for that was precisely what he would be doing.
He removed the small Hub device from his coat pocket and stared at it. The multi-dimensional transporter never ceased to amaze him. The power it placed at his disposal meant his single step became a very bold leap indeed. He twisted a small dial on the face of the unit to point directly at a small red light now flashing midway along its row of indicators. This activated the wormhole. A bubble of space-time now rippled around him like a sphere-shaped gateway. He took a single step to pierce the sphere and, in so doing, was transported across the vortex that connected him to his pre-determined destination. He was folding space, just as Einstein had postulated. Actually he was doing much more than that, but Menzel took a certain comfort in maintaining a stubborn finger hold on the fundamentals of relativity.
As surely as if he was walking through the exterior door of a building, the world around him changed immediately. The walls, ceiling and floor of the chamber in which he now stood were solid concrete. The large room was cool and, from the smell of the air, mechanically ventilated. He had no idea of his physical location, but figured it to be somewhere deep underground.
There was a very neat and precisely ordered lab set up in one corner of the chamber. Transistors, wires and diodes were stacked in colour-coded arrays and clearly designated work areas. In another corner, he noticed what appeared to be a small open-plan apartment: a couch and two single seater chairs faced one another across a plush and decorative Persian rug, the seating area lit by a standing lamp and the entire scene looking rather like a stage set. Behind this makeshift lounge room, against the wall of the chamber, was a kitchen bench and a refrigerator.
Positioned in his line of sight, right between the lab and the lounge, two men were waiting for him. Neither was shocked at his sudden materialisation. There was, after all, nothing miraculous about it when the science was laid bare.
He immediately recognised one of the men. Father Clarence Paulson walked forward and held out his hand. “Good to see you again, Donald.”
Menzel shook Paulson’s hand. “Father.”
A Catholic priest would never have been Menzel’s first choice for a role such as this. Admittedly, he didn’t rate priests as having any useful purpose, yet he had been forced to accept Paulson’s pivotal role in many of his most clandestine endeavours. He headed an unacknowledged research group known as the Verus Foundation. It was tasked with collating all of the world’s greatest secrets and recording them for the purposes of humanity’s betterment.
It was a noble task, one Menzel himself approved of — an official record of all human and non-human endeavour sensitive enough to be classed as Beyond Top Secret. Outside Verus, this knowledge was often held by no more than a handful of people. Without Verus, there was a risk that some or all of this knowledge might one day be forgotten or misplaced, thus becoming lost forever to humanity. Verus took this task seriously, knowing its records may likewise remain secret for decades, perhaps even hundreds of years, but that ultimately all of humanity would benefit.