Buck locked eyes with Admiral Barney. "And ours turned out to be the best bet," Buck went on. "If they had instruments capable of spectral analysis better than ours, they could determine the nature of this planet, and when they discovered it was a water world, it was like a miracle to them."
"What would you have done if you were in their place?" Barney asked.
"There would be only one thing to do—throw every resource you have into getting to this world," Buck said at once.
"Across a distance of fifty thousand or more light years?"
"The odds are they had either close-to-light-speed travel or they had /as^er-than-light travel. They found some way around the Einsteinian block that nothing can travel faster than light because of infinite mass."
"And if we had FTL—faster-than-light—capability—?"
"The whole galaxy and beyond would be in our hands."
"Take it one step farther. Buck. What if this alien race, and we'll assume there was such a race, came from a planet that was even more of a water world than ours? And when they traveled across space and came here, they found the land surface of Earth was filled with hostile creatures, all manner of viral and bacteriological dangers, terrible weather—"
"You can stop right there. Blacky. They'd go underwater."
The two men stared at one another, and then they breathed the same word simultaneously. "Atlantis."
"Again, assuming everything so far is correct, they built huge underground facilities, and in some remote area of this planet, surrounded by a great deal of water surface, they raised their above-ground city, or city-state, or whatever. And rather than spreading out across a hostile surface, they concentrated their energy into this one place they considered their new home." Barney threw up his hands. "And we come up again with Atlantis."
A Life in the Future
Barney leaned forward again to stare intently at Buck. "Forget wondering if there ever was an Atlantis. I know, I know—people have been searching for the fabled land of Atlantis forever. It was supposed to be in the Mediterranean, or off the coast of Japan, or in the Atlantic, or it was part of Polynesia. Anywhere and everywhere."
"So something else has happened—recently, I mean."
"That's why you're here, m'lad." Barney smiled broadly.
"I need more," Buck told him.
"We need you for a special mission to Chile. Specifically, to the coastal area of Chile."
"But I don't—"
Barney cut Buck off in midsentence. "You used to fly jetliners from Miami to Santiago, Chile, right?" He waited as Buck nodded. "You did it for years. You know the routes, the mountains, the valleys, lakes, coastal areas. And to top it off, didn't you fly for a National Geographic television special in that same area? Don't answer. Nobody alive in our country today knows that area better than you."
"But why is that so important?" Buck protested.
"Because Atlantis wasn't in the Mediterranean, and it wasn't in the South Atlantic or anywhere else that everyone has been looking," Barney said with growing excitement. "Didn't you ever wonder how the Chileans were able to leapfrog centuries of technological progress and suddenly burst forth from what was essentially a third-world nation into a nation that was capable of building energy weapons, all sorts of electronics, and especially submersible craft that put everyone else to shame?"
"Of course I've wondered," Buck admitted. "But from the fragments of information I've received, it looked like they got their help from the Mongols and all those international mercenaries who sold them the best hardware we or the Europeans could produce."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," Blacky said. "Several hundred years ago, during the period when we were all tossing hydrogen bombs at one another, the bombs that were used for deep penetration before they detonated caused more than a few crust-destroying earthquakes. They tumbled mountainsides, ripped open chasms, caused tremendous tidal waves, stuff like that. We learned only within the past several years that one of
Buck Rogers
those quakes carried along a fault line where the Andes Mountain extend well out into the Pacific Ocean."
"Don't tell me—along the coast of Chile," Buck broke in.
"Right as rain, Ace. A few years after that particular earthquake and its subsequent subterranean disturbances the Chileans seemed to flower overnight. Today we know they didn't do it on their own. And they didn't do it with help from us, or the Mongols, the Chinese, the Europeans, or anyone else we know."
"You're telling me," Buck said slowly, "that the Chileans found Atlantis?"
"Exactly. They found Atlantis, or what was left of it after tens of thousands of years. We come to believe that an alien race came to this world as a life-saving, desperate measure. They chose a site in the Pacific close to the coastline. While they still had their energy devices, they tunneled deep beneath the ocean floor into the Andes in Chile. This was their conduit from their underwater living habitat to the land. To protect themselves against whatever prowled, flew, or crawled in the Chilean jungles and mountains, they decided they needed a surface city, or center, or whatever you want to call it, so they could better understand and deal with the surface life-forms of this strange new world.
"That city, which we have designed Hidden City, is in an area marked on the charts as Crater Lake. It's the crater of a huge extinct volcano. The entire water surface of the lake is a sham. Oh, it's water all right, right on down to some floating vegetation and native canoes and the like. But the water is only a few feet deep. Beneath the surface, there's a layer of some alien glasslike alloy. When the Atlanteans needed to come up for surface exploration or research, they could drain off the water or use tunnel exits with thick air locks. When the twentieth century began, the Atlanteans discovered that men had learned to fly and would inevitably soon be exploring much of the planet that had previously been beyond their reach.
"About this same time, as best as we could determine, they also came down with a terrestrial virus that decimated their numbers. Technologically, they were far beyond anything else on this planet. But their numbers were few, and their strength had been drained away by disease. So they accepted the Chilean natives. They used their advanced systems to teach and train them. The Chileans became their willing servants. They became
A Life in the Future
expert technicians, and on this basis, Chile began to build an undersea force like the world had never known—huge, advanced submarines, powered by some crazy stuff we can identify only as liquid air. It's not nuclear fission or fusion, like our subs. It gives them tremendous speed and weapons that can knock the stuffing out of any opposition.
"Apparently the Mongols somehow got wind of what was happening. When they did, they went after Chile with two huge air-fleets. Their ships were clumsy things when you think about it, but they figured they could set off some big underwater blasts with nuclear bombs, and the shock waves would put the Chilean defenses out of commission long enough for them to send down several thousand fighting men into the mountains. Well, the Mongols that landed on that artificial lake surface were sitting ducks. They came down with fl3ring belts. That went well enough, but once they were down on that slick surface, the belts were low on power and couldn't get them back up again. The Chileans, using Atlantean weapons, simply sent massive electrical charges through the lake surface. In one stroke, they killed off most of the Mongol invasion forces."
"What about the bombers?"
"Whatever powers the Atlanteans possessed gave them the ability to control weather," Barney explained, "at least enough to create enormous thunderstorms that generated incredible electrical charges. Prodigious lightning bolts were drawn to the Mongol bombers by the static discharge of their movements through the air. The bombers were totally wiped out. The credit for all this, by the way, didn't go to any Atlantean. They're always shadowy figures hovering in the background. The Chilean military people took the credit. Admiral Ricardo Benez Castillo runs the show."
"What k
ind of air power do they have?"
Barney gestured dismissively. "Hell, it's nothing more than a motley collection of old junk. Some choppers, a few old jet fighters and bombers. It doesn't amount to a hill of beans. They don't really need air power in the same sense we do. Submarines are their big gun. They're faster than anything we have. And, of course, they might have other things we don't about. I'd like to know more."
"One thing puzzles me," Buck said after much thought.
Buck Rogers
"Where and how do you get your information about this? From what you've described, the Chileans are pretty well covered in almost everything they do. And you also seem to know what happened to the Mongol forces. I don't imagine the Chileans told you about that."
"Have you heard much about the Golden Dragons?"
"I've heard about so many crazy outfits I can't remember. I guess I heard mention of them, but not much else," Buck answered.
"In a nutshell, then, the Golden Dragons started out as a Mongol secret society. To keep their new empires and conquests under tight control, the Mongols knew they needed up-to-date information on resistance movements or weaknesses in their own organizations. So they created this outfit—much like the old CIA or the Russian KGB—to keep tabs on everybody and everything. It was a hotbed of spies, trying to keep track of who was doing what to whom, and what the latest advancements in science, weapons, and technology were. They have two leaders, both of mixed Mongol and Chinese extraction. The man who runs the eastern half of the globe is Om-Ka-Zoril, and his partner, who keeps an eye on the west, is Morke-Ka. They're slick, dangerous, and ruthless. They started out as a Mongol arm, but as the years went by, the leaders got power-hungry. Instead of keeping to their sworn duty of wrecking our orgzones and keeping everybody on their knees, including the Mongol leaders in occupied Amerigo, they became an entirely new power faction in the world."
"What's their connection with the Chileans?"
"Smart," Barney said acidly. "The Golden Dragons befriended the Chileans by supplying them with materials and technology they couldn't easily procure from around the world. In turn, the Chileans gave the Golden Dragons free access into and out of the Hidden City in Crater Lake."
"But how did you get into their system?" Buck asked.
"Like I said, the leaders are hungry for power. It's simple. We gave them a couple of offers they simply couldn't refuse. First we gave them all kinds of money in the form of technology. Then we traded electronics for information. When they thought they had us by the throat, we let them know that the first time they tried anything against us, we'd let the Mongol Emperor in Asia know
A Life in the Future
what was going on. There's nothing a Mongol hates more than a traitor."
For several minutes, Buck didn't speak, choosing to watch the strange alien sharks cruising beyond the thick glassite walls. He let out a long sigh. "All this has been fascinating, Admiral," he said finally. "I understand your interest in my experience with the Chilean coastline and in the mountains. You're right. I went through much of that country by jet chopper for that television crowd doing documentaries. I even got to know some of the locals pretty well."
"And you speak their language," Barney added.
Buck nodded. "Spanish is my second language. That should be no surprise. Blacky, not with all the flying I did down there. But you've left me with one nagging question."
"Let's have it."
"From the way you described how the Chileans wiped out the Mongol airfleet, I don't see how you could possibly want me to fly down there now as part of an aerial task force or whatever. It doesn't make any sense."
"You're right," Barney replied. "That's why you're going down there with me."
Barney laughed. "By submarine."
Chapter 14
Buck's muscles seemed paralyzed despite the deeply padded chair in which he was sitting. In the lower forward bow of/o, his attention stayed riveted to the extraordinary sights before him. Compressed glassite curved almost completely around the viewing chamber, so that Buck seemed to be floating in some sort of dreamlike underwater fantasy, with fantastic sights drifting by on each side as the huge submarine made its way steadily southward. He felt virtually no sensation of movement, certainly no vibration or spasms of the enormous engines that sped seventy thousand tons of submersible craft through the deep ocean without apparent effort.
Far behind the bow section, three compact nuclear reactors, each only a fifth the size of the reactors that drove the great missile-launching subs of Buck's time, generated a smooth flow of invisible power. No great screws pounded the deep ocean waters; no shrouded propellers emitted an unmistakable shrill whirring sound. lo forged ahead propelled by a swift flow of the very liquid through which it moved with amazing speed. Down to eight thousand feet, the huge submarine, heavier than most battleships of the Second World War and larger than anything else that had taken to the seas in the twenty-fifth century, moved with silken grace through the inky depths. Open channels along
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the rounded flanks of 7o sucked in water and pumped it back at great speed in a strange form of jetlike propulsion. MHD—magnetic-hydro-dynamics—formed the heart of 7o, named for the violently volcanic moon of the great planet Jupiter, in honor of that scathing little world lashed by the gravitational tides of its mother planet.
MHD had forged far ahead of the first systems tested hundreds of years past, but then the power source languished in obscurity during the hundred years of nuclear savagery that befell the world. Then it was put back into development again, perfected in round-the-clock research teams under the absolute, even despotic, prodding of Admiral Benjamin Black Barney.
Buck was still reeling from the wonders of the machine and how it came to be. Yet his attention suffered repeated interruption from glowing creatures, strange fish of often enormous size with some sort of built-in bioluminescence so that streaks of light along their sides served as running lights in what would have been absolute darkness. Except, of course, for the lights of lo itself.
But the fantastic underwater machine and the strange creatures of the deep weren't the only sources of Buck's wonderment. Buck had never known a woman like Ardala Valmar, the captain of/o. She sat in a padded contour lounge chair off to his right, a long thin cigar held aloft in her left hand, gesturing at the changing panorama of the subterranean valleys through which lo passed. Buck found it impossible not to take a few moments to study Ardala's profile. She was in every way a magnificent woman, yet within her easy grace of movement, there was undeniable power, a coiled spring of energy she might unleash at any moment. No man or woman became the captain of an astounding vessel such as lo without having competed with the best naval officers in Amerigo. Competed, and bested the lot.
"I'll make sure you meet the captain of Jo when there's not a crowd around her," Barney had promised. "Otherwise, you may never be able to get in a few words of your own. Besides, she's asked for a private introduction."
"I'm flattered, but I also feel as if I'm somewhere out in left field," Buck answered. "Why would Captain Valmar be the least interested in meeting me? I'm no submarine man, as I've told you,and—"
Buck Rogers
"Come on down here with me, Buck," Barney had said with impatience. "We don't mince words, you and I. Never forget that."
"Admiral, you have a way with words. Are you sure you're not a reincarnated drill sergeant?"
"I take it that's a compliment?"
"Damn right it is." Buck paused and grinned.
"Shall we get down to business?" Barney asked, obviously sensitive this morning as they prepared to leave the deep channel far out beyond the radioactive junkpile of what had once been Philadelphia. "I've got a million things to do right now, Colonel Rogers, and I want to get this over with in a hurry."
"Got it," Buck said simply.
Barney went to a holocontrol in his cabin aboard the sub. His thick fingers flew like cables across the contro
l board. A holographic image of a woman's face appeared. Buck drew in a long breath. He'd never seen a face like this before on man or woman. Every feature seemed to be chiseled from marble; her skin was the white of ivory. Her brows swept rakishly upward at sharp angles and then curved to the sides of her forehead. And her eyes! They seemed limitless in depth, as black as black could be, reflecting light in strange pinpoints like a diamond. Her lips were perfectly, delicately tinted with mixed red and purple lipstick. High cheekbones told of her Russian-Asiatic background, and the set of her face bespoke rich intelligence. In short, she was breathtaking.
Barney clapped Buck on his shoulder. "This is a holo. Wait until you meet her. She's devastating."
"I can imagine."
"Nope, you really can't. The toughest part of Ardala Valmar is her mind. She's as fast as a computer, as wicked as a card sharp, as brilliant as any scientist, and with it all goes strength of command and a wild sense of humor."
"And she's the captain oflo?"
"You'd better believe it, my friend. The best naval officer in the entire country. You've probably noticed how quiet this tub is. The MHD is the main propulsion source, but what few people know is that Ardala modified the system. The equipment sets up a tremendous contained magnetic field in the forward area. An opposite repulsive electromagnetic force is applied from the
A Life in the Future
stern. It pushes against the entire vessel, just Hke an old-fashioned rocker. But Ardala designed the tubular sluices along the hull. They magnetize the seawater, draw it into the sluices, and compress it—not much, but enough to eject it at tremendous speed behind the sub, adding to its propulsive force. It isn't easily detected because the water remains cold instead of pouring out heat like the nuke boats."
Buck Rogers- A Life in the Future Page 16