PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘Don’t tell me the panel refused to accept that evidence!’

  Dwight rolled his eyes in disgust, then nodded affirmatively. ‘They haven’t released their official report yet, but according to Captain Ruppelt they didn’t seem impressed.’ He wiped his forehead again, then studied the kerchief. It was soaked with his sweat. ‘Yet the Montana movie had been subjected to thousands of hours of analysis in the Air Force laboratory at Wright Field and the results proved conclusively that the objects weren’t birds, balloons, aircraft, meteors, clouds, or reflections - in short, they were unknowns. As for the Tremonton movie, it had been studied for two solid months by the Navy Laboratory in Anacostia, Maryland, and their conclusion was that the unidentifieds weren’t birds or airplanes, were probably travelling at several thousands of miles an hour, and judging by their extraordinary manoeuvres, were intelligently controlled vehicles. In other words, the evidence was conclusive.’

  ‘But the panel still wasn’t impressed.’

  ‘No, damn them. After going over the evidence for two days, the bastards concluded in their initial report that the evidence was not substantial, that the continued emphasis on the reporting of the phenomena was resulting in a – quote - threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic – unquote - and that the reports clogged military channels, could possibly precipitate mass hysteria, and might encourage defence personnel to misidentify or ignore actual enemy aircraft.’

  ‘In other words: the real problem wasn’t the UFOs - it was the UFO reports.’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ Dwight said.

  Even talking about it could make him feel bad these days, bringing his buried fears to the surface and encouraging what he sometimes believed was his growing paranoia. Yesterday, watching TV, he had seen mud-smeared, weary American troops celebrating the end of the Korean war - a sight that had filled him with overwhelming nostalgia for his own fighting days in World War Two. It was a terrible truth that war had its attractions, but for Dwight it was something more than that: it was the desire to escape from the deepening darkness and dangers of his all-embracing UFO investigations. The news of the death of the former UFOlogist, Mike Bradley, and his wife Gladys, possibly by an act of murder, had certainly filled Beth with fear and again made her plead for Dwight to get out of this business. In fact, he had tried, but the Air Force had refused his request; and now, when he thought of Bradley’s blazing house, he felt trapped and threatened.

  ‘So what do you think their official report will recommend?’ Epstein asked him.

  ‘Nothing honest or realistic,’ Dwight replied. ‘I think the whole idea behind the Robertson panel is to convince the American public that the Air Force has made the definitive study of UFOs and come up with a negative evaluation. In other words, their job is to shaft us... and I think they’ll succeed.’

  ‘That’s why you're giving me this information?’

  ‘Yes. I think Project Blue Book is going to be restrained by the recommendations of the Robertson panel. If that’s true, you’ll be able to use this info more effectively than us.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Epstein said, turning off the tapes. ‘Sadly, I believe you’re right.’

  Dwight was glad to make his escape from the airless office in Dr Epstein’s Aerial Phenomena Investigations Institute, or APII, and step back into the uplifting sunlight of late July in Washington DC. He caught a cab to the airport.

  Chapter Eighteen Marlon Clarke was talking to himself. His guillotined head had been separated from its original body for six years now, but was still functioning in an insane, chaotic manner. Still enclosed in a glass casing with an inner temperature reduced to just above the point of freezing, the head was connected to the two amputated hands and the surgically removed, still beating human heart in the chilled glass case on the desk beside it. Clarke’s eyes were still open, but were wide with terror or madness. His dribbling lips were moving rapidly to form a torrent of words that could not actually be heard because of the cutting of his vocal chords. Attached by the severed neck to a steel-clamp base enclosing artificial blood vessels and the wiring that connected it to the amputated hands and beating heart, the head was moving slightly, the eyes roaming frantically left and right, as the fingers of the severed hands opened and closed spasmodically, sometimes making the hands crawl across the boxed-in table like large, insane spiders.

  ‘The main problem,’ Dr Gold was explaining to Wilson, Kammler and Nebe, ‘is not in perfecting the psycho-physical interaction between head and body, but in retaining the sanity of the severed head. As you can see, Clarke’s head is successfully receiving the blood being pumped by the separate heart and has retained its power to agitate the amputated hands, though in a chaotic, useless manner. This suggests that while the head still has enough consciousness to send impulses to the severed limbs, it’s in a state of delirium, or insanity, caused by disbelief and trauma. It’s impossible to ascertain just what Clarke is thinking right now - if his thoughts still include self-awareness or not - but his wide-open, wandering eyes prove that at least he’s still aware of something. We just can’t tell how much.’

  ‘So the main problem isn’t physical, but psychological,’ Wilson said. ‘We have to find a way to minimise the shock and retain the severed head’s sanity.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Dr Gold said. ‘With regard to cyborg development, I believe we can solve this with artificially induced amnesia - chemical or electric stimulation of the relevant areas of the brain. In this case, the severed head, or the beneficiary of a surgically rearranged face, part original, part prosthetic, will assume that it’s always been what it is and not suffer trauma. This way, please.’

  Leading them across the laboratory, which had walls hacked out of the interior of the mountain and therefore gave no view of the Antarctic wilderness outside, Gold stopped at a bizarre, headless figure strapped upright to an electric chair that was wired to a large computer console. From the waist down, the figure was a perfectly normal, naked male, though the blood had been drained from the legs, giving them a pasty-white, slightly blue, mouldy appearance. However, from the waist up, the torso was artificial, made from moulded steel plates, with one plate missing, exposing a ghoulishly colourful mass of electric wiring and a narrow glimpse of the original intestines. One arm was missing from the headless torso and the other, Wilson noted, was actually a cobalt-chromium alloy prosthetic.

  ‘The prototype for our first cyborg,’ Gold explained. ‘The lungs, kidneys and original intestines will remain, but will be strengthened and supported by a two-chamber pacemaker. Working prosthetic joint replacements have already been perfected and will help defeat the rigours of supersonic flight and space travel. The psycho-physical interaction between brain and artificial limbs will be stimulated by the use of an electronic metal skullplate and the problem of speech for the lower-face prosthetic, including new chin implant, will be solved by using an electronic larynx. Control of the cyborg will be attained by a combination of chemical-electronic stimulation of the brain and computerised, remote-control interfacing between the cyborg and its activating machine, located here in the colony and in the saucers. These are early days yet, but I believe it can be accomplished relatively soon. If we can solve the problem of the sanity of the severed head, we’re on our way to success.’

  A severed human head was resting on a table beside the electric chair. One eye was missing. An odd-looking eye, rather like a glass marble, was resting on the table beside the one-eyed head.

  Smiling, Gold picked up the loose eye and showed it to Wilson. ‘An acrylic eye. We’re trying various experiments with them. Unfortunately, so far, when we’ve implanted them in the heads of living subjects, they haven’t worked well. When we replace only one eye, the living nerves of the remaining eye help the replacement to see slightly; but when we replace both eyes at the same time, blindness results. Still, given time and a regular supply of living subjects, we’ll get there in good time.’

  ‘There’ll be no
problem with living subjects,’ Kammler said. ‘Stoll is doing a good job in Paraguay and the supply of Ache Indians is limitless. You need have no fears there.’

  ‘Good.’ Gold glanced with pride around his busy laboratory, filled with whitesmocked surgeons, bio-engineers, dedicated scientists, headless torsoes, amputated limbs, and isolated, still pumping human hearts. ‘Please, gentlemen, this way.’

  He led them through the nearest door, along a short corridor, and into another, larger laboratory containing various chairs, some electric, others normal, all with buckled straps on the arms, and small, dark cells with leaded-steel doors containing narrow viewing panels.

  There was a dreadful amount of noise in this laboratory - and the noise, by its very nature, was even more dreadful.

  Gold introduced Wilson, Kammler and Nebe to Dr Eckhardt, formerly of an SS experimental medical unit. Eckhardt gave them a tour of his domain.

  In a small side chamber, human subjects, male and female, were strapped to heavy chairs cemented into the floor, wearing headphones, bleeding profusely from their nostrils and ears. They were also, in some cases, vomiting into plastic bags taped to their mouths.

  ‘Infrasounds,’ Dr Eckhardt explained, raising his voice to defeat the agonised screaming of his victims. ‘Sounds just below the level of human hearing - so condensed that they can create physical pressure on the human brain and the body’s organs. At the moment, the particular infrasounds being used are bursting the blood vessels in the heads of the human subjects, with the results that you see. We’re also experimenting with other infrasound levels to ascertain their potential as surgical tools and beam weapons, which we hope to incorporate in our flying saucers. For this reason, we're also experimenting with strobe lights. Please, this way, gentlemen.’

  In one of the darkened cells, behind the closed, sealed door, a man was being subjected to flickering strobe lights. Viewed through the narrow panels in the leadedsteel door, in the rapidly alternating light and darkness, he appeared to be writhing and kicking in slow motion, while tearing frantically at his hair or clawing his own naked, bloody body.

  ‘The strobe lights,’ Eckhardt explained, ‘are flickering in the alpha-rhythm range, between eight and twelve cycles a second, thus causing an epileptic seizure in the human subject - as you can see. Other rhythms produce different results, inducing either drowsiness, full mesmerism, hunger, nausea, or various moods ranging from acute depression to uncontrollable violence. These, also, we are planning to incorporate into beam weapons for the saucers. Come, gentlemen, this way.’

  A gaunt, pale-faced woman, wearing a one-piece black coverall, was strapped by her wrists and ankles to the arms and legs of an electric chair. A metal skullcap, wired to the console-control beside the chair, was being lowered onto her shaven head. The woman was sweating, trembling and weeping.

  ‘Please don’t,’ she whispered.

  ‘A stereotaxic skullcap,’ Eckhardt explained, ignoring the woman’s pleading as the metal device, containing hundreds of minute, hair-thin electrodes, was lowered onto her shaven head. ‘When we can hypnotise or otherwise control human beings by remote control - say, with the use of brain-implants – we’ll abduct those we want, implant them by means of a stereotaxic skullcap such as this, then return them to the world of ordinary men, to do our bidding as and when required. Eventually, in this way, we’ll be able to enslave the world’s most powerful men and women without resorting to war and with few aware that they’re in our control. In other words, they’ll become our brainimplanted robots.’

  ‘You’ve perfected this?’ Nebe asked.

  ‘No,’ Eckhardt confessed, ‘not yet. At the moment, most of those subjected to electronic stimulation from the stereotaxic skullcaps become vegetables - but some are keeping their minds longer than others, so we’re getting there gradually. The breakthrough will come soon enough.’

  He nodded in the direction of the white-smocked technician at the control console. When the technician flicked a switch, the woman screamed in agony, writhed violently in the chair - or as much as she could with her wrists and ankles strapped - then urinated and collapsed into stillness. The technician turned off the power while a medic examined the woman’s pulse and heartbeat. Straightening up, he shook his head from side to side and said, ‘Her heart’s given out. I think we should try one of the adolescents; they have a much greater will to live.’

  ‘Bring one in,’ Eckhardt said.

  ‘The cyborg-and-other experimentation is excellent,’ Wilson told Gold when they had left Eckhardt to his work and were making their way back to Gold’s laboratory, ‘but what about human, non-prosthetic longevity? Are you making progress with that?’

  ‘There are still considerable problems, particularly regarding the liver, but eventually even that will be solved. I would remind you that even in the West, some remarkable discoveries and advances have recently been made, including the discovery of DNA, the basic structure of life; the first full chemical analysis of a protein; and the first impregnation of a woman with deep frozen sperm - so the secrets of longevity, and even of life, are now within the bounds of possibility. I would therefore suggest that you arrange for the abduction of some scientists and biologists specialising in those fields.’

  ‘I’ll see to it,’ Wilson said. ‘In the meantime, you’re doing invaluable work here. Keep it up, Dr Gold.’

  Now back in Gold’s laboratory, Wilson glanced once more at the mad eyes and dribbling, silently gibbering lips of the severed head of Marlon Clarke. Impressed, he led Kammler and Nebe out, walking along a recently completed tunnel, past brightly-lit side chambers containing other laboratories, workshops, machine-shops, and rooms containing spare parts and supplies, all guarded by armed men in black coveralls. At the end of the tunnel, in a brightly-lit open space carved out of the rock, they took a lift up to Wilson’s office, located near the summit of the mountain.

  Entering, Wilson was briefly dazzled by the vast, sunlit Antarctic as seen through the panoramic windows that stretched along the full length of one wall, just beyond his desk. He did not sit at the desk, but instead indicated the chairs grouped around a table placed right in front of the window, giving a magnificent view of the white wilderness. The table had been prepared for dinner, with a bottle of white wine being chilled in a bucket. The food, which already was on the plates, consisted of a simple green salad, wholewheat bread and cheese. Wilson liked to eat healthily.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, pulling out one of the chairs and seating himself. ‘Let’s sort our differences out in a civilised manner, over good food and wine.’ When Kammler and Nebe were also sitting, both eyeing the healthy food with a visible lack of enthusiasm, Wilson removed the bottle of wine from the ice bucket and filled up their glasses. After toasting one another, they commenced eating, talking through the meal.

  ‘I believe you had a complaint to make,’ Wilson said, addressing both men.

  ‘Yes,’ Kammler replied. ‘While my direct responsibilities are for the scientific aspects of the colony, including labour management and discipline, I believe I should still have a say in other matters.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It’s not my belief that we should be negotiating with the Americans in return for their cooperation regarding supplies.’

  ‘How else do you propose obtaining such supplies?’

  ‘The way we’ve always done in the past: by stealing them and bringing them in on the saucers.’

  ‘The saucers aren’t yet big enough and our supplies are running out.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Kammler insisted, glancing nervously at the watchful Nebe, ‘I don’t believe we should let the West stay in the Antarctic. Nor do I believe that we should give the Americans the slightest knowledge of our technology.’

  ‘We don’t have a choice, Hans.’ Wilson was being patient. ‘We can’t wait until we run out of supplies and then make our trade. Once we run out of supplies, the West will have us over a barrel. We can’t let that happen.’r />
  ‘And what if those in the West, particularly the US, use the knowledge we give them to actually catch up with our technology?’

  ‘That simply won’t happen.’ Wilson was starting to lose patience. ‘I’ll only pass on what we’ve already superseded, which means that no matter how far they advance, we’ll always be even more advanced – light years ahead of them.’

  ‘I don’t think we can take that chance,’ Kammler said. ‘One of your old Projekt Saucer team, Walter Miethe, is now working for the A.V. Roe aircraft company in Malton, Ontario, helping them to construct some crude flying saucers based on our early designs. Habermohl is doing the same for the Soviets. Werner von Braun is now working for NASA, reportedly on a long-term moon programme. As for Flugkapitän Rudolph Schriever, he’s now back in his home town of Bremerhaven, West Germany, from where he’s busily informing all and sundry that the Americans have their own saucers and constructed them from his designs, which is partially true. The United States now knows too much, so we shouldn’t barter with them.’

  ‘And I repeat,’ Wilson said, his patience running out, ‘that it can’t be avoided.’ Disgusted, he turned to the silent, always calculating Nebe. ‘And you, Artur, what do you think?’

  ‘I agree with Kammler. We can’t take such a chance. If we want supplies, let’s go and take them. With our saucers, we can bring the United States to it knees - and from there take over the whole world. Why wait so long?’

  ‘You want power, Nebe.’

  ‘Nothing else in life matters.’

  Wilson sighed, despairing of base human nature. ‘I’m not interested in power for its own sake,’ he explained, ‘but want only to guarantee the survival and continuing evolution of this apolitical, scientific community. Eventually, our technology will make us the dominant power anyway, without resort to pointless violence, and in the meantime, we can get what we want with minimum effort. Let the United States bring in our supplies; what we give in return will serve them well, but not enough to give them an advantage over us. We’re safe from attack.’