Denver walked over to Fitz. “This thing going to take us to the Moon?”
“Oh no, it will just transfer us to where we will meet our contact. Then it’s on to the Moon.”
A shot of fear went up his spine. What are these people really going to do with us? He thought of escape, but there was none. So far, they had not done the recruits any harm. The bus lifted up and turned toward the setting sun.
“Those people were not interested in the offer no matter what?” asked Fitz pointing at the last bus.
“Nope.”
“Don’t know what they think they’re going back to.”
The mountain dropped away; the bus yawed around, and off across the wilderness, they went not gaining any more altitude and going along at quite a clip.
“What does this thing run on, jet engines?” asked Denver.
“No, I really don’t understand it completely, but this technology forms some sort of gravity torus around us and as it moves we move.”
“Where we heading?”
“Siberia.”
“You could get us shot,” cautioned Denver.
“Don’t worry, less chance of getting caught. No, we are getting to where we had rather not land a spacecraft in North America, too dangerous. Their technology is getting better for killing. It’s nothing compared to what we have, but still we want to avoid having to demonstrate that.”
He looked up at Denver. “You did all right. If these people sign up that will be almost a 25% increase in recruitment.”
“Glad I could help.”
“Might as well make yourselves comfortable,” Fitz said to the group. “This is going to take a while.”
It did. They fell into silence. Some people dozed, and some talked. Smith tried to find the North Star and get some idea where he was and where he might really be going.
The farther north they went, the lower they flew and at blazing speed. Finally, sea and ice gave way to land. They sat down on a nondescript frozen plain and waited. Soon the sky brightened, and a ship approached.
“It’s a flying saucer,” one of them spoke up in astonishment.
“Not really a saucer, more like a horseshoe,” quipped Fitz. He looked at the startled people. Now he had their attention.
There was only hushed silence. There in the middle of the light was a huge flying saucer.
“This can’t be real,” said one astonished recruit.
“Oh, yes it is. It’s real all right,” said Fitz reassuringly.
The others began talking excitedly among themselves.
“I’m not getting on that thing,” one man said. “I’ve seen enough.”
Fitz seemed annoyed and glanced at Denver. “I’m going to look pretty stupid if these people don’t even get on the ship.”
Denver stood up and turned toward the others. “Are you kidding? This is a chance of a lifetime! You couldn’t keep me off the ship.” With that, he opened the door himself and bounded off like a kid.
The others stood up and followed. Now they were all excited and ready to get near the ship. “Can I touch it?” one of the women asked.
“Sure,” said Fitz, and off they went.
“Better get them onboard before they come to their senses,” remarked Denver quietly.
“I see your point. Okay ladies and gentlemen, let’s go.”
The ramp came down, and they headed off. As he led them up to the passenger compartment, they saw several of the crewmen.
“Hey, where’s ET? These people look, well, like people.”
“Sorry,” said Fitz, “this ship is run entirely by humans.”
“Is it one of yours or one of theirs?”
“This one is one of ours. We cruise the solar system in hybrid ships, their propulsion but our ship design and construction.”
“Interesting.”
“Okay, sit down everyone. We’ll be off in a minute.”
Chapter 8: Lieutenant Commander Fitzpatrick
It was not an easy job, but somebody had to do it. Fitz really did not like working with the down-earthers in spite of the fact that his own mother was one. She was the exception. Otherwise, they were just as grimy as he had always heard. His people thought they were better.
Heck, they are better. They were healthier, genes have been modified, they do not have anything like the problems the down-earthers have. Mental illness is caught early and treated before it has a chance to become a problem. They have not had a murder in over twenty-five years. Fitz knew his people were better.
Yes, we have our problems. There have never been that many of us, and some people claim we are from too small a population sample to begin with.
The knock on the door interrupted his daydreaming. “Pardon me Commander; you want me to send in the school teacher?”
“Yes, send him in.” This plan was a long shot, but what could we do? ‘The People’ had no hope of turning back the Reptilians, and it was partly our fault they’re coming. This is the worst danger we have faced since the end of World War II, Fitz thought.
“Hello Commander,” Denver began. “Nice office you have here.”
“It’s not really my office, just some borrowed space.”
“Some borrowed space onboard a spaceship.”
“Actually, the spacecraft is borrowed too.”
“You must have some pull.”
“No, our situation is just desperate.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. Just who are you people? I understand you had airships long before von Zeppelin.”
“Why don’t you sit down; it’s a long story,” began Fitz.
“It just so happens I’m free for a while.”
“Okay, where to start? The sea, which had been our home for over two hundred years, is probably the best place to start.
“It all started with the French, a few Germans, English, and a few other wealthy Europeans. With the right technology, we could sail under the seas and learn to live there free from the tyrannical control of kings and bankers, as well as their corrupting influence.”
“You’re kidding. This whole thing started over the bankers.”
“In large part, their control of the money in Britain and Germany was bad enough, and it was growing. We had some bright people; we brought in Russians and Scandinavians, anybody who believed the human race was worth escaping. We had undersea boats way long before your people did.”
“Great, that would explain lots of things, like the airship scare.”
“That was at a time when we hadn’t completely withdrawn. Back then, our people thought we could live apart but not completely separated. The banks became afraid. Governments could not touch us. The sun never set on the British Empire, and the Americans were a technological juggernaut waiting to come into full bloom.”
“Wait a minute. Those foo fighter things were you guys?”
“Yes, some of our early field generating experiments. You see your technology had advanced quickly, too quickly, because of the Second World War. Then in the early fifties, they began to detect our presence. There was just no place to hide anymore on the surface.”
He smiled and looked out the tiny porthole. “Multiple sorties in broad daylight over Washington DC must have scared the daylights out of them. They could not touch us. Their fighters would come up, and we would fly off so fast they never saw us.
“They were just no match for our boundary layer control jet aircraft. They would turn back, and we would be over their capital before they knew what was happening. They learned to leave us alone, and it gave us enough time to move our entire operation under the sea.
“Oh, we had our people who would keep in touch with the topsiders, as they were called then. Cities under the sea, beautiful cities, had been imagined. Now, they would be built. They came in handy later. You see we learned to live in ho
stile environments. The next real breakthrough was undersea boats that could lay just below the surface and launch a flying craft. Later, it could retrieve it. That was the ticket.”
“Wait a minute. I remember hearing something about UFOs rising out of the sea and flying away. Was that you guys?” asked Denver.
“Oh yeah. We almost got caught in some bay up in Canada. One of our undersea boats suffered a major malfunction. We sent another boat to get it going again; all the while, the Canadians had divers all over the place. Kept their distance, though, long enough for us to get our people out of there.
“Then boundary layer control aircraft quickly led to spacecraft. We flew our first man into space five years before Sputnik, which was even before the undersea city. We got a bit of a scare when the down-earthers landed a man on the moon. Fortunately, they didn’t keep it up.
“We were always driven by technology and a desire to avoid all the ills of their existence; that kept us separated.
We eventually discovered that it was better for our women to return to Earth in order to bear children.”
“Is that what you meant when you said the undersea cities came in handy later?” asked Smith.
“Yes, Earth’s gravity field made the development of the fetus normal. We were accustomed to being inside vessels, so a city under the sea wasn’t that big of a deal. I was born on the bottom of the sea in a beautiful city. My mom didn’t take me into space till I was ten.”
“Man, I wish I could see that.”
“Not going to happen. In fact, I probably should not have mentioned it. I would just as soon you forget it.”
“How do you get your women to go through all this hassle?”
“In our society we are all equal, but a woman who bears, at least, three children has special status.”
“Male children?”
“No, girls of course.”
“Interesting, but why?” questioned Denver.
“Simple, we need females to make more of our people, so our civilization doesn’t die. You know like the ancient Greeks and Romans. However, we have no need for a large number of young men to put an army in the field to defend the civilization.”
“Practical, if nothing else. Anyway, let’s get back on topic. I think I see a potential problem growing here. Our peoples have been living separate for a long time. And let me guess,” continued Denver, “some of your Captain Nemo types don’t want trailer park trash from Earth sullying up their pretty solar system.”
“Uh, yes.”
“Only a bunch of big lizards are about to kick your ass, and now you need us.”
“Succinctly put, Professor.”
“Surely you had some people who didn’t feel the way your larger culture did about the human race.”
“Oh sure, some of our people would occasionally decide to rejoin your world, and sometimes we would bring an outsider into ours. Mostly, we kept our distance.
“Now back to the matter at hand. The Reptilians are threatening to destroy us all, so we have to fight back. Unfortunately, our people are spacecraft crew, not warriors in the classical sense. Then someone bowed to the inevitable. There was only one place to get a large army of humans, and we needed them. It’s still controversial, and at this rate of recruitment we might never make it.
“The problem was how to do it? We couldn’t just act like almost two centuries of separation did not exist. Our people had built up considerable resentment to your people. Not to mention, I don’t think our immune systems will stand up to so many of you.
“So how to do it? The high command decided that we would be the navy. We had been under-seafarers, and now we were spacefarers. You, however, would be the army and carry the burden of the ground warfare.
“Initially, we would supply the officer corps. Over time, your own leadership would develop from within.”
“I can see a hundred ways this can go wrong,” thought Smith out loud, while gazing at some invisible horizon.
“Only a hundred?” quipped Fitz.
“Look, Fitz, I don’t know how well you know us ‘down-earthers’, as you call us, but if they get the idea that you all think you are better than they are, they will be able to smell it a mile away. You better believe, if they are treated like second class citizens, you are going to have problems.”
“Boy, do I know that. I figured that out soon after the first two guys sent to the recruiting center were recalled. I think I’ve finally learned to project the proper amount of humility,” assured Fitz.
“It’ll be good for you.” With that, they both laughed.
“Keeping one as the navy, a space-navy if you will, and the other as the army should keep direct contact down, at least initially.”
“Well, maybe so, but what about the officers? How are you going to train them to lead these men?” questioned Denver.
“Well, I’ll tell you; I don’t know. Command is putting together the manual, and we are trying to identify people to be trained as officers from the recruits as quickly as possible. Even that has created controversy.”
“How so?”
“Some of our people think we should not let any of your people be officers, that we should maintain complete control.”
“Where do you come down on this?” asked Denver.
“I’m undecided so far.”
“The lousy economy should help you.”
“It already is. We’re getting a better class of …”
“Of losers,” interjected Smith.
“I was going to say ‘recruits.’ Right now, we are not getting recruits fast enough. If your idea works, you know, bringing them to the Moon before we make the offer, it will be a big help.”
“Well, we’ll know in three days.”
“Three days?” queried Fitz.
“That’s how long it takes to get to the Moon.”
“What do you think we’re using, a covered wagon?”
“Okay wise guy, how long?”
“A few hours.”
“Oh.” Smith thought for a long while. “You don’t trust us, do you?”
“Me personally, or us in general?”
“You guys in general.”
“Not really. There are just so many of you, and you love to make war. There is even a joke about a down-earther who went off to war rather than make love to his wife.”
“I don’t know about that. So you probably have some way of keeping us away from your zippy-wham-O interstellar spaceship drive.” It was hard to say if it was a question or an accusation.
“Oh, we don’t have that,” assured Fitzpatrick.
“Say again?”
“We can fly around our solar system at will with our field drive perfected with help from the Greys, but the interstellar technology, that belongs to our friends. Like I said, they won’t let us near it.”
“The little, gray guys.”
“Yes.”
“What about this ship?”
“Oh, it’s ours, only it uses a dumbed down version of their technology.”
“They don’t trust you either, do they?”
“Probably not.”
“You mean they, ‘The People’, have not given you the means to travel between the stars? By the way, where did they get such a dumb name?”
“It’s our translation of what they call themselves, and no they haven’t.”
“Interesting, none of us want one another, but we need one another,” commented Smith.
“I’m afraid that’s about it.”
“You can’t go to Earth’s governments for troops because you don’t want to share the solar system with the low rent scum on Earth, and the little Greys don’t want to share the galaxy with Captain Nemo and company. Is that about right?”
Fitz let out his breath for a long while. “I’m afraid you see the
problem clearly professor.”
He then looked directly into Smith’s eyes, “Will you help us?”
Smith leaned back in an obvious show of ease, “I don’t know; you haven’t made me an offer.”
“Fair enough,” chuckled Fitz. He was beginning to pick up idioms from the surface peoples.
At that moment, there was a chime from the box on the small table. “Commander, the captain requests your presence on the bridge. We will be landing shortly.”
“Acknowledged. Come on, you haven’t seen this.”
“Okay!”
The two men headed down the companionway. They passed the dayroom where the other potential recruits were glued to portholes.
“Everyone having a good trip?” called Fitz enthusiastically.
“Oh yes,” gushed the woman who had left her ex-boyfriend on the surface. The rest appeared to be enjoying themselves as well.
All except one man, who looked ill or in shock. Fitz went over to him and shook him. “Hey, you all right?”
He tried to feign a smile but failed miserably.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.” He turned to the others.
“You might want to return to your acceleration couches or, at least, hang on.” Fitz patted him on the shoulder and headed off up to the bridge with Smith in tow.
As the craft began to decelerate, people started to seat themselves. The spacecraft slowly arched for the surface and the mountains of the moon began to grow in the portholes.
Fitz and Smith sat behind the captain and the first officer. The ship settled gently on the Moon and sank into its hangar.
The crew went through the after landing check, and Fitz got up and turned to Smith.
“Well, here we are. Come on. Thank you, Captain.”
The captain smiled, “You’re welcome, Commander.”
Commander Fitzpatrick and Smith rounded up the rest and headed to the lower level.
One of them asked, “How are we getting out of the ship?”
“Wait till you see this. As you may know, the moon’s gravity is only one-sixth of the Earth’s. Sooo …” teased Fitz.
There was a soft thump and the sound of something locking. They could feel vibrations and just hear a hiss. Then Fitz opened a small hatch, and Smith could see someone below the ship.
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