she said, ‘Maybe not to you, but I know what it means.’
‘What?’
‘More UFO investigations. Even more than before. Since those first sightings, last
July, you’ve been travelling all over the place. Now that you’re in charge of the
whole thing, it’s bound to get worse.’ She headed for the bedroom, then turned back to face him. ‘And you like it,’ she accused. ‘That’s what maddens me the most. It’s not that you have to do it, it’s that you enjoy it so much. You’d rather be travelling and investigating UFOs than be at home with me and Nichola. I could hate you for
that.’
‘That isn’t true, Beth.’
‘It is. And damned well you know it. Goodnight, Dwight.’
‘Goodnight.’
When she disappeared into the bedroom, Dwight poured himself a stiff drink, neat
bourbon, and had it while sitting by the window, looking up at the night sky. He felt
guilty because he knew that Beth was right, so the drink went down well. He was just
finishing and contemplating bed when the telephone rang. It was Bob, sounding
shocked.
‘When I left you,’ he said, ‘I went back to the office – ’
‘What for?’ Dwight asked, realising instantly that the office was the only place on
the base where Bob and Thelma Wheeler could get together.
‘I forgot something... Anyway, what the hell’s the difference? What I’m saying is
that I was back in the office when I received a call from a buddy at Fort Knox,
Kentucky, informing me that Captain Thomas F. Mantell, an experienced pilot and
Air Force hero during the Normandy invasion, was killed in a crash today -
reportedly when trying to pursue a UFO over Godman Field.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Dwight blurted out, hardly able to believe his ears. ‘What made
them think it was a UFO?’
‘I don’t have the full facts yet. Godman have promised a detailed report, but in the
meantime all I’ve got is what I was told over the phone.’
‘Yes?’ Dwight demanded, feeling breathless.
‘There were a series of sightings this morning all over the area, beginning in
Maysville, Kentucky, less than a hundred miles east of Louisville, where Godman
AFB is located. The object was also sighted over Owensboro and Irvington, located
in northwest Kentucky. The cumulative sightings, called in to the local police,
indicated a circular, metallic object about 250 to 300 feet in diameter, heading in a
westerly direction, towards Godman Field. Early that afternoon, the state police
contacted Godman, but the control tower operators could confirm no similar sighting
at that time. However, half an hour later, the assistant tower operator picked up the
object, which was subsequently observed by the operations officer, the intelligence
officer, the base commander, his executive officer, and a band of other ranking
personnel.’
‘Christ!’ Dwight exclaimed.
‘A flight of four F-51 fighter planes, headed by Cap'n Mantell, was sent in pursuit
and was observed disappearing in the southward wake of the UFO. According to the
control-tower operators, by the time the four planes reached 10,000 feet, Mantell was
well ahead and far above them. He reported to the control tower: “I see something
above and ahead of me. It looks metallic and it’s tremendous in size. Now it’s starting to climb.” He then said that the UFO was above him, that he was gaining on it, and that he intended going as high as 20,000 feet. Those were his last words before he crashed. Losing contact with him, the other pilots returned to base, where they were
informed that Mantell was dead. The UFO wasn’t seen again.’
Bob went silent, though Dwight imagined he could hear him breathing heavily. He
then realised that he, too, was breathing heavily and that his heart was racing. Taking
a deep breath, he glanced up at the clouds and stars, then he let his breath out again. ‘Make sure you get the full report,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ Bob said. ‘Goodnight.’
The line went dead and Dwight put his phone down. He thought of Beth in their
bed, already concerned for him, and wanted to lie quietly beside her and press himself
into her. Instead, he poured himself another drink and let it last a long time. He drank
it while gazing up at the night sky, until it seemed to press down upon him,
threatening to crush him. That sensation, he knew, was caused by fear. He would
have to get used to that.
Chapter Six ‘They weren’t ours,’ Wilson said as he gazed out from his office of steel and concrete near the summit of the mountain to the vast, white desolation of Antarctica. ‘Neither the Maury Island sightings, nor those made by Kenneth Arnold over the Cascades, were of our saucers. The ones that flew back towards Canada belonged to someone else. Not to me. Not from here. We must look to America.’
He sipped his mineral water and placed his glass back on the table by the panoramic window. Hans Kammler, still blonde, handsome, and cold-eyed, gazed over Queen Maud Land, his beloved Neu Schwabenland, and smiled thinly, bleakly, to himself.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘the Americans. Perhaps the Soviets as well. Our captured V-2 rockets were shipped from Germany to New Mexico in 1945. The launch of American V-2s commenced at the White Sands Proving Ground in March the following year, under the direction of that traitor, Count von Braun. We have since received a report confirming that North American Aviation are planning to go into the production of rocket motors under a USAF contract and will be basing their work on the original V-2 motor.’
‘How ironic,’ Wilson said, smiling, ‘that the V-2 in turn was based on the rocket motors of America’s own, badly neglected Robert H. Goddard, with whom I also worked when he was located in Roswell, New Mexico, now the location of the White Sands Proving Ground. It has all come full circle.’
‘It’s nothing to be pleased about,’ Kammler said testily. ‘The Russians have Habermohl and the Americans have Miethe, who also worked on Projekt Saucer. Miethe was formerly stationed with von Braun at Fort Bliss, New Mexico, but is now located at Alamogordo, the centre of American rocket development. God knows what he’s constructing there.’
Wilson glanced at the launching pad far below, carpeted thinly with snow and shadowed by the encircling rock face soaring high above it. The Antarctic sunlight beamed down upon the latest 300-foot flying saucer like a torch shining into a dark well, making the machine’s metallic grey take on a silvery sheen. The many men in black coveralls, who had been swarming all over the saucer, were removing the ladders and hurrying behind the shock-proof protective shields located in small caves hacked out of the rock. From this high, behind the thick, plate-glass window, Wilson could not hear the saucer, but he could see it rocking slightly from side to side, its heat turning the thin snow into steam as it prepared for lift-off.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the original Projekt Saucer team are a problem. Now that pompous fool, Schriever, who managed to escape from Prague, is living back in his hometown of BremerHaven, West Germany, telling all and sundry that the Allies are building flying saucers based on the one he constructed during the war. Though the press is viewing him with scepticism, he is in fact correct. The Canadians and Americans are both working on a flying-saucer development programme based on designs found in Germany at the end of the war. The Canadian project is being undertaken by the A.V. Roe Company in Malton, Ontario; the American one is hidden somewhere in the White Sands Proving Range, reportedly Holman AFB.’
Far below, the Kugelblitz Mark III lifted off the ground, swaying gently from side to side, then ascended silently, growing wider as it came up to Wilson’s level. The high
er it climbed, the more sunlight it caught, which turned it from dull, almost invisible grey to dazzling silver.
It looks alien and beautiful, Wilson thought. Or beautifully alien. We have done a good job this time.
‘If their work is based on the Schriever designs, we have little to fear,’ Kammler said.
‘Not at the moment, but time could change that. Already the Americans and Canadians are more advanced than they should be. While grossly exaggerated versions of what Harold Dahl and Kenneth Arnold saw over the Cascades have enthralled the world, both men did in fact witness the test flights of a series of remote-controlled, pilotless discs, based on our original Feuerball and constructed at the A.V. Roe Company in Canada. A larger, piloted saucer is also being constructed there, as well as by a US Naval Laboratory team in that hidden location in the White Sands Proving Range. While reportedly neither machine is very good, both have had satisfactory test flights.’
‘Witnessed by various pilots and other trained military personnel,’ Kammler noted.
‘Yes. As have ours,’ Wilson said. ‘Which means that the US and Canadian saucers have been mistakenly credited with the kind of capabilities that only our machines possess so far. This, at least, is to the good. The Americans think the more efficient saucers have been made by the Russians, who believe that the Americans made them. Thus, we can fly our own saucers with impunity, not having to worry if we’re seen. By attempting to build their own saucers, based on our old designs, the Soviets, Americans and Canadians have actually given us greater freedom of movement. They should get an award.’
His smile was not returned by Kammler, a man of limited humour, so he concentrated on the 300-foot saucer as it reached the level of the window and hovered there, swaying gently from side to side, as if in salute. In fact, it was just testing itself. The steel covers on the raised dome were open, revealing the transparent pilot’s cabinet with six crew members inside, but they would close when the saucer actually took off on its long flight to Paraguay, making it look like a seamless spinning top in flight. Now, as if obeying Wilson’s instinctive nod of approval, the saucer dropped out of sight below the window, descending back onto its landing pad.
‘Is Stoll ready to leave?’ Wilson asked.
‘Yes,’ Kammler replied. ‘Not too happy, but prepared to do his duty. I better go down and say Auf Wiedersehen.’
‘Tell him I’ll be down before take-off, after I’ve visited the laboratory and talked to Dr King.’
‘He responded well to his indoctrination. Particularly after hypnotic-drug treatment, which helped in changing his mind - for the rest of his life, I trust.’
‘He’s a man of considerable will power. He’ll serve us well in the end. So, Hans, let’s go.’
Pushing his chair back, Wilson glanced again across that vast, spectacular panorama of Antarctic wilderness, then stood and walked across the immense, domeshaped room, with Kammler behind him. They took the lift down to Level 3. Leaving Kammler in the lift, to continue his descent to ground level where the flying saucer was parked, Wilson walked through a short tunnel hacked out of the rock and entered the laboratory containing its ghoulish collection of human spare parts and artificial replacements. By now, some larger glass cabinets had been built into the walls of bare rock and contained drugged, unconscious, and frozen human beings who had been abducted by Wilson’s flying saucer crews. Wired up to machines that showed their declining heartbeat and brain waves, they would eventually freeze to death, though not before providing valuable information for the ongoing researches into longevity.
Surrounded by other white-smocked physicians and surgeons, Dr King was at a long table, examining a drained human torso which had a prosthetic replacement attached to the stump of one of its amputated arms. The interior of the prosthetic arm had been left open to reveal a complex of electric wiring that ran from the shoulder down into the artificial hand. A white-smocked assistant was applying electric charges to the prosthetic while Dr King checked the mobility of the twitching artificial fingers. He looked up and stopped what he was doing when Wilson approached him.
‘Good day, Wilson,’ he said, sounding calm enough, but not smiling.
‘Good day. How’s it going?’
King glanced down at the prosthetic arm fixed to the drained human torso. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll get there eventually. Working with human cadavers, instead of animals, short-circuits a lot of otherwise time-consuming experiments and aids progress tremendously. It’s really quite exciting. I think we’ll have working, myoelectric limbs before the year’s out. They won’t be all that good, but once we’ve got a working model, the rest of it will come even more quickly.’
‘What about head transplants?’ Wilson asked. ‘Or even partial replacement of the face and head: the mouth, throat and jawbone. I mean for the development of cyborgs. For survival in outer space and on the seabed. To man the saucers indefinitely.’
King glanced at the guillotined human head now frozen in a small glass case on a nearby table; it was wired up to an EEG machine recording weak, dying brain waves. The eyes of the head were open, staring wildly, seeing only God knows what. It was the head of the unfortunate Marlon Clarke.
‘A long way off yet,’ Dr King said, ‘but we’ll get there eventually. At the moment, we’re concentrating simultaneously on many different aspects of the problem and discovering the biological and physical interrelationships between them. Experiments already undertaken in the animal laboratory have convinced us that animal gut, intestines and even skin can eventually be transplanted successfully into humans. Similarly, the heart and lungs might be used, but this will take longer. Regarding artificial bones, joints and sockets, it’s my belief that the main alloys required will be of the cobalt and chromium variety: tantalum, titanium, niobium and molybdenum. Limited success has already been attained in the preservation of human heart valves, bone, blood and even the cornea of the eye.’
‘Very good,’ Wilson said. ‘Have you been able to make any advances on what you were doing in the Powered Limbs Unit of West Hendon hospital?’
‘Yes.’ The doctor spoke precisely, but rather like one of the automatons he was hoping to create. ‘In external prosthetics, the myoelectric control of limbs is racing ahead.’ He waved a hand, to indicate the prosthetic arm joined to the limbless human torso on the table. ‘As you can see.’ Wilson nodded. ‘Already we’ve perfected a hand-arm prosthesis in which all five fingers are capable of closing around objects of variable shape, though not yet with the precision of a human hand. We’re also working on other advanced prosthetics, including myoelectric arms with interchangeable hands. From there, I hope to progress to a more sophisticated myoelectric arm that will be able to move at any angle, speed or force simply by being thought into action. Such an arm will pick up muscle signals generated to the natural stump, transmit them to a small amplifier, and use that to drive a compact electric motor. The machinery for all of this will be housed inside a flesh-coloured, fibre-glass casing that resembles a real arm.’
‘Like the one on the table.’
‘Correct.’
‘But the head,’ Wilson insisted, glancing at the wide-eyed head of Marlon Clarke, which may or may not have been aware of its own existence, though it wasn’t likely to be sane any more.
Ignoring the head, Dr King pointed at the large glass cases containing unconscious, frozen human beings. ‘Our biochemists and mechanical, electrical, chemical, and biomedical engineers are already exploring the possibility of collecting healthy human specimens, rendering them unconscious, and freezing them to just under the point of death for as long as possible. If we can perfect a workable form of cryonic preservation, even though the brains of these living cadavers will have ceased functioning, they’ll still be respiring, pulsating, evacuating, and excreting bodies that could be maintained for many years as a source of spare parts and for medical experimentation of all kinds.’
‘But the head,’ Wilson said impatiently, glancing
at the staring eyes of Marlon Clarke. ‘Can we ever transfer the entire head from one human being to another?’
King nodded affirmatively. ‘I think it can be done. In the other laboratory isolated animal brains are being kept in cold storage and others, less lucky’ - here the doctor smiled bleakly – ‘are functioning, warm brains kept alive by hook-ups to blood machines or to live individuals of the same species. Right now we can’t speculate as to what’s going on mentally inside those disembodied brains, but our latest twoheaded dog has survived for a week now and is eating, sleeping and performing its physiological functions normally, as if nothing has happened. In other words, it appears to accept itself as perfectly normal.’
‘And longevity?’
‘We’ll require a steady supply of live foetuses. The heads will be cut off and then injected with radioactive compounds to enable us to study brain metabolism. We also need mature adults who can be injected with various diseases, including live hepatitis virus and cancer cells, to determine if the diseases can be so induced and suitable antidotes found.’
‘We conducted similar experiments in the Nazi concentration camps,’ Wilson informed him, ‘but they didn’t prove much.’
‘You lacked knowledge and proper facilities,’ King replied. ‘I’m expecting much more here.’
‘I think you’re beginning to enjoy this, Dr King.’
‘It’s more exciting than my work at Hendon,’ King said without the slightest trace of irony. ‘Here, the possibilities are limitless. The mysteries of longevity will eventually be solved here - and the cyborgs will come even before that. You have no cause to worry.’
‘I’m not the worrying kind,’ Wilson said. ‘Thank you, Dr King.’ After casting a final, curious glance at the wide, staring, unreadable eyes in the guillotined head of Marlon Clarke, Wilson left the laboratory, crossed a catwalk, and glanced down a dizzying drop to the mass of men in black coveralls working on skeletal saucer structures in the immense, arc-lit workshop with walls of solid rock. He then entered a tunnel still being hacked out of the mountain’s interior with the sweat of slave labour. Reminded, by the gloom, bedlam, dust and cracking whips, of the Nordhausen Central Works in the Harz mountains, he was glad to get through the nightmarish tunnel and emerge to the viewing bay overlooking one of the multiplying landing pads for the saucers. As this one was located directly below his office, landing pads for the saucers. As this one was located directly below his office, foot saucer that had ascended to his level during his discussion with Kammler - the one that was transporting Ernst Stoll to Paraguay.
PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series) Page 8