Kane nudged Bergstrasser. "She's right. Let it be. The tale will spread on its own."
"I need Rogers for our tactical air operations," Bergstrasser said cautiously to Kane. "But I'm worried about getting him. After today, he'll be a legend. The Half-Breeds have touted Hoffman as invincible. He's taken down at least twenty of our Manta fighters. He was hell on wheels with those disrupter beams."
Kane shrugged. "What you're saying is already history. Hoffman and his legend of invincibility is gone. I don't know where you intend to mount any significant air action, Marcus. After today, who are you going to fight? We've just proven—or rather, Buck Rogers has—that we can bring the guerrilla outfits in line without mass fights or killing. Your need is for defense against mass attack. Anybody who sends out a fleet after today is simply offering a great target. You can do better than that, Marcus. Rogers is far more valuable as a champion, white horse and armor and all that."
Marcus scowled. As quickly as she dared, Wilma stepped between the two military leaders. "Air Marshal," she said to Bergstrasser, "how do you think Rogers will do in a Manta or a CF fighter? The Manta has disrupters, ray beams, even lasers.
A Life in the Future
But it's a clumsy craft at best. It can't maneuver like those old planes we just saw fly. Buck would probably hate it. From what I've learned of him so far, I believe he could modify the Manta into a really potent weapon."
"Stop prattling, you two," Kane growled. "You can't see beyond your noses. I want Rogers for space ops. Can you imagine what kind of magic tricks he'll be able to pull off in deep space? Our fly-by-wire systems are a joke. Most of our rocket fighters are more like lead sleds. You both know that. It's like throwing rocks out in space."
"I suppose you want him on the Armstrong complex on the moon," Bergstrasser growled.
"To hell with the moon. That's engineer territory—mere plumbing problems as far as I'm concerned," Kane snapped. "We need him on Mars—for starters, anyway."
Wilma held up both hands. "Sirs?"
"What the hell is it, girl?" Kane demanded.
"Permission to speak frankly. Commodore. Off the record."
Kane made a sour face. Bergstrasser laughed at him. "Take your own advice, Kevin. Do what you told the major. Calm down. Besides," he added with a grimace, "we're both too late."
"What does that mean?" Kane glowered.
"Look for yourself," Bergstrasser advised, pointing to a group clustered across the runway beside the Messerschmitt. They all recognized Admiral Benjamin Black Barney in close conversation with Buck Rogers. Several junior officers from Barney's command stood by silently, paying close attention to the words of the two men. Kane and Bergstrasser could have directed a miniature laser receptor to pick up their conversation even at this distance, but that was something they never did to one another,
"Wilma," Kane said quietly, "you know more than you're telling us. Lay it on us, woman."
"Sir, it's classified," Wilma said stiffly.
Kane grinned at her. "Very good, Major. Now I'm addressing you as your superior officer. Tell us what you know, Major. That's an order."
'Tou won't like it, sir."
"Do you want to be a lieutenant, Major Deering?" Kane asked, only partly in jest. "Spit it out!"
"Admiral Barney met with the council this morning, sir. He
Buck Rogers
has their agreement for a special mission he's about to launch, and Rogers is part of his team. By the way, sir, Rogers is now a full colonel, courtesy of the dramatic defeat of one Rocky Hoffman."
"And just what is this mission?" demanded Bergstrasser.
"The admiral believes they've located the lost empire of Atlantis." Wilma waited for her words to sink in.
Both men dropped their jaws and said simultaneously, ''Whatr
"Atlantis, sir. What they call the Lost Continent."
"I know what they call Atlantis!" Kane said acidly. "There are other names for it I can think of. Poppycock and balderdash are some of the more common ones."
"The others aren't spoken aloud in mixed company," Bergstrasser joined in. "Crazy, insane, foolhardy, or just plain nuts. Those will do for starters. Major, there have been stories about Atlantis for a couple of thousand years! Every time they find a squared-off rock or what seems like a stone road buried in the sea, the rush to Atlantis is on again. What's set it off this time?"
"The Chileans, sir."
The two men held their silence as they studied Wilma. She was doing her best to maintain a poker face.
"What else do you know, Major?" Kane said finally.
"They're serious about this, sir. Intelligence has been on the matter for several weeks. We've monitored everything we could pick up about Chilean activity. We've done everything we could think of short of reading their mail, and I'm not absolutely certain we haven't tried that. But the Chileans seem to be dead serious about this. They're mounting a major expedition to the site."
"Where, damn it?"
"That's the problem, sir. One of their DeepDivers was on a research mission off Puerto Rico—the main trench. It goes down twenty-seven thousand feet. Their sub sent a coded message that they found evidence of the remains of an enormous city and strange installations they couldn't figure out but that seemed capable of generating tremendous power."
"Nuclear?" Bergstrasser asked.
"No, sir. Whatever the Atlanteans had—provided there really
A Life in the Future
was or is an Atlantis—is nothing like we've ever seen or imagined. Admiral Barney made his case to the council that we can't afford not to get down there ourselves."
"But . . . we're talking about pressure of tons to the square inch. Our subs can't touch that kind of pressure. And if the Chileans can, then they've got equipment that I'm not familiar with."
"Yes, sir," Wilma said politely.
"Wilma, damn it, you've got canary feathers all over your face. You still know more than you're telling us. I suppose if I gave you another order to tell us the rest, you'd disobey me?"
"Yes, sir," she said quietly. "And may I say, sir, those are the orders I received directly from Admiral Barney himself"
"One last question, then, and I'm talking now to Wilma Deer-ing, not Major Deering. You got that?"
'Yes, sir."
"How come you know so much about this project? It's got to be top secret."
"Yes, sir, it is."
"So?"
"I'm going on the mission. Commodore. I'm assigned to Colonel Rogers, sir."
Kane studied her for several moments. "Are you sweet on that fellow, Wilma?"
"With the commodore's permission, sir, I prefer not to answer that question."
Chapter 13
Benjamin Black Barney rested his boots on his desktop, leaning back in a heavily padded chair with wide armrests. Buck Rogers stood before the admiral's desk, taking his time stud3ring the rows of buttons and controls mounted in each armrest. He had already learned enough of the science and technology of this divisive world to recognize that Barney was a man of his times, extracting from the past everything that might be useful and at the same time employing every scientific device that had emerged from the heavily protected research laboratories of the Niagara Orgzone and its scattered cities throughout North America.
Barney was both a man of his times and a throwback to the best fighting men of Buck's own era in the Twentieth Century. Buck appreciated the "throwback" aspect of the admiral. Barney came from that very special class of leaders of fighting men who never demanded of his subordinates any action he would not undertake himself He was proficient with every weapon in his navy's arsenal, which was as lethal and diverse as any Buck had ever imagined.
Barney gestured to a comfortable chair near his desk. "Make yourself comfortable, Colonel," he said easily. "If you're going with us on this underwater rabbit hunt, we'd best get to know
A Life in the Future
one another. That way you'll understand my orders ins
tinctively and won't need precious time to think them through. You'll do what's needed and do it fast."
Barney laughed, a deep, booming sound that echoed off the curving walls of his spacious office. "Funny the way a man falls into his own traps, isn't it?" he said finally, chuckling. "Here I am preaching to you about fast actions, swift reflexes, and going all-out in a fracas, and you've just cut that Hoffman character into chopped liver. I've watched the videos of that dogfight you had. I like what I saw. You're good, damned good. But you know what was even more important to me?"
Buck didn't answer immediately. He was considering every aspect of this extraordinary man, his skin as black as shining ebony, eyes equally dark and fierce, his skull shaved and polished to a gleam. And there was more. Buck had seen the way he moved, with all the grace of a panther, almost effortless in his movements.
"You know. Admiral, in my day, we'd have no trouble fixing a label on you ... no disrespect intended."
Barney smiled. 'You didn't answer my question, Rogers."
"I was getting to it. I was trying to judge what you'd see in me based on what you are."
A broad smile met his words. "Well, that's certainly different—a man from the distant past putting a label on poor old Black Barney."
"Poor old—" Buck laughed out loud. "Is that the label you want from me, Admiral?"
Barney leaned forward, elbows on his desk. He pressed a button near his left hand. A bottle rose steadily from the desk. Buck failed to recognize its contents, but he got the impression it was both powerful and unusual. Behind the bottle were two empty glasses. Barney took his time pouring, then slid one glass toward Buck.
"Drink up," he said quietly. "I bet you've never tasted anything like it."
Buck held his glass to the light. No help there. Through the thick, heavy glass, he saw an amber-colored liquid. "Mind if I ask what this is. Admiral?"
"Hell, no. Ask away. What you're about to drink is a whiskey that didn't exist in your time. Combination of deep-sea plant
Buck Rogers
extract, synthetic chemicals, sour mash for bite, and some energizing catalysts that'll make your heart dance and your mind prance."
"Poetic," Buck said noncommittally.
Another booming laugh. "You'll never drink anjrthing I won't drink myself. We call this stuff orcade. Got the strength of a killer whale, fills you full of fizz and fight, tastes great going down, kicks off a real buzz, and the effects are gone in three minutes. No drunken stupor, no rotten hangovers." Barney scowled. "If my men want to tie one on, that's up to them when we're not committed to a mission. So they drink orcade instead of the regular rotgut. It has one more advantage, Rogers. For several minutes, you're soaring as if you've had an amphetamine boost. It sharpens the mind and your claws. And you, my ancient friend, have claws. Hoffman found that out. Drink up, blast you!" Barney lifted his glass in a silent toast and tossed the liquid down his throat in a single swallow. He grinned owlishly at Buck.
There was only one thing to do. Buck held up the glass, brought it to his lips, and drained the contents. He couldn't quite identify the taste. It was like cognac, but with a sweetness he'd never tasted before. Then he forgot about the taste. Suddenly his vision sharpened and colors took on a dramatic intensity. Admiral Barney seemed to be seated beneath a clear and revealing light. Buck felt incredibly light, as though he still had all his body mass and strength, but only retained a fraction of his weight. He breathed "Wow" quietly, trying to concentrate on the immediate effects of the orcade. "Strange name for something this good. Sounds like what we used to drink during sports or heavy workout sessions. They called it Gatorade."
"Have any real gator juice in it?"
Buck laughed. "Hardly. They called it that because it was developed for the football team of the University of Florida, the Gators, who were right in the middle of alligator country."
"This is named after our friendly killer whale," Barney noted.
"The gladiator orca," Buck added.
"Right on. Ace." Barney filled two more glasses. He sang out, "Drink hearty, my friend, and then it's back to business," and once more drained his glass in a single long swallow.
Buck was still in the clouds when Black Barney got back to the matter at hand. "Let me give you some additional back-
A Life in the Future
ground, Ace," he rumbled. "We've got a lot of black dudes in our outfit—"
"Admiral Barney," Buck broke in, "I don't care if they're black, green, white, pale pink, brown, or striped purple. I don't even know why you brought that up."
"Because not all your history is lost in the limbo of the past," Barney said immediately. "I seem to recall mention of some, uh, racial inequalities. . . ."
"So you want to know where I stand?" Buck asked.
"I knew before you walked in here, and you've let me know in other ways," Barney said with obvious satisfaction. "Just so you know I'm not in the least offended by your pale, pink-white, pasty color." He grinned dazzlingly.
"Okay, that's out of the way," Buck replied. "What now?"
"How much have they told you about the Atlanteans? I know they were supposed to slip you some data about them during your indoctrination."
"Not much," Buck suggested. "Atlantis has always been the heart of some sort of imaginary great treasure hunt. Books describe this ancient, brilliant culture, far advanced in science, medicine, mathematics, engineering, technology-existing for thousands of years before the first farmers ever planted their crops alongside the Tigris River. The Atlanteans supposedly predated not only the Sumerians, Persians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Romans, but they were going great guns when cro-magnon man was busy trying to wipe the deck clean of his neanderthal predecessors. Find Atlantis, the story went, and you could not only rule the world but also own the future."
"And the people of your time did some heavy searching, I suppose?"
"Oh, sure. Who wouldn't go for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?" Buck answered. "It would be like finding Aladdin's lamp."
"What's that?"
"Another marvel of our day. A lamp, the same kind used to burn oil and incense, but this one supposedly had magic properties. If you found it and you knew what it was, you were supposed to rub the sides and mumble some magical incantation. Smoke would spew from the top of the lamp and a genie would appear."
"Slow down, confound it. A genie?"
Buck Rogers
"A sorcerer of unlimited magic powers. Not of the earth we occupied. He existed in some indescribable la-la land, and he could be summoned through the lamp. He would grant the holder of the lamp any three wishes he wanted, no matter how impossible they seemed." Buck laughed.
"So ... a children's fairy tale," Barney said.
"Some adults believed in it."
"Were all the people in the TV'entieth Century that nuts?"
"Admiral, you're walking on thin ice. Do you believe in God?"
"I don't know."
"How about your men? Or your women? Any religious people among them? Any church services, any chaplains?"
"Well. . ."
"Any of them ever tell you they've seen or talked to God?"
"What is God, Rogers?"
"Don't ask me a question the wise men of this planet have been trying to answer for tens of thousands of years, Admiral! I don't know. Call it a belief That's as good an answer as any. But when it comes to faith, it is describable, it is measurable, and it can be relied upon,"
Admiral Barney started to pour himself another drink, hesitated, then changed his mind. "Example, please."
"I'm a pilot. Tens of thousands of other men and women have been pilots. We all share the same absolute belief, a belief as strong and sustained as belief in any supreme deity, or angel, or demon. Maybe stronger."
"Don't stop now."
"To be a pilot, I have to have absolute faith in the reality of flight, although I can never see, feel, hear, watch, or otherwise judge with my eyes what lifts me from the ground
. The power of lift from an airfoil is invisible. It doesn't even seem possible. In fact, the more you study it, the less possible it seems. Yet I and my fellow pilots have absolute faith in its reality."
Barney drummed thick fingers on his desk. "You'd make a helluva preacher."
Buck laughed aloud. "I've done my share of prajdng, but usually it was because my butt was about to catch on fire."
"Okay, you're part of my team now." Barney waved his hand to cut off questions for the moment. "It's been cleared all the way up through Kane and Bergstrasser right to the council. Even
A Life in the Future
President Logan gave his stamp of approval."
"I don't get it, Admiral. I'm a pilot. You know, up there in the clouds with the birds and the angels? If you're on the hunt for Atlantis, you're going the other way—like down." Buck stabbed a finger at the floor. "Down there . . . well, I'm out of my league."
"Sure you are. I know that," Barney said.
"Then I don't get it."
"Do you want to go with us on this expedition to nowhere, Rogers? You have a choice, you know."
"Frankly, I didn't know. Somehow I was made a major, and after I waxed Rocky Hoffman, someone said, hey, man, now you're a colonel, so that means I take orders like anyone else."
"This mission is risky . . . groping through dark waters into the unknown, threading needles miles beneath the ocean—great entertainment like that. Nobody on my team is under orders to go. You can say no, we'll have another drink, and I'll send you back to Niagara, and that will be the end of it." Barney chuckled. "Of course, you're likely to go stir-crazy there after a while. No more dogfights for you, my friend. President Logan has decided that if you get knocked off in a soiree upstairs, no matter what the reason, everything they've gained by having the Half-Breeds coming into our camp goes out the nearest window."
Buck stared at the floor, not answering. Black Barney seemed to be able to read his thoughts. "Take your time, fella. You're not really under my orders yet."
Buck Rogers- A Life in the Future Page 14