The Cocoon Trilogy

by David Saperstein

  “No other organ in the history of life has been known to grow as fast as the human brain. The growth was explosive—and it was early man’s tool-making industry that triggered it off. The possession of a good brain enabled Homo to make tools in the first place. But the use of tools became, in turn, a driving force toward the evolution of a better and better brain ...”

  Mr. Jastrow was right. He was, unknown to himself, writing about the basic theory behind the Antarean processing room. It was not the external use of tools that brought the human brain to maximum; it was the use of the ultimate tool—the brain itself—that allowed the breakthrough. Once activated, the entire brain became a tool of infinite capacity and depth. It was as infinite as the Universe it reflected. It was a mini-Universe, containing all that any life form required to comprehend existence itself.

  But in a relatively obscure structure, in a corner of Coral Gables, Florida, nine hundred forty-one human beings made a quantum leap into the full realization of their capacity that would take their own race several thousand years to accomplish.

  The Geriatric Brigade was almost complete.

  CHAPTER FIFTY- TAKING CARE OF LOOSE ENDS

  “I think it’s going to be very close.” A concerned Ben Green sat quietly with the Antarean commanders. Three weeks had passed since the processing had begun. Several events, some lucky and some disturbing had occurred. The last action remaining, and perhaps the most unpredictable, was to move the occupants of the nursing home to the Antares complex and process them. Those thirty-six residents would complete the army.

  “ Ben,” Beam said sincerely, “you have all done a wonderful job.” Beam, who sat next to Ben, touched him as she spoke. Kindness flowed between them. The warm sensation, although not new to Ben, still surprised him.

  “When will you bring them?” Amos asked.

  “Tonight. We think they won’t be missed by anyone outside the home for at least two days. That should be enough time.”

  “Yes, that is enough now that we have so much help. We will have to alter the commanders soon, also.” Beam said.

  “We are ready. Joe and I will be the last. We have to finish the business of the wills. Also there’s the matter of Mr. Stranger.”

  “Have you seen him today?” All Light asked.

  “Joe spent some time with him this morning. He is still being unreasonable. That will be Jack’s problem after we leave, but I’m sure he can handle it.”

  “Jack has been so very helpful to us all,” Amos said. “I want to reward him in a way that will make his life easier after we have gone.”

  “Do you have any ideas?” Ben asked.

  “I have arranged to meet with Mr. DePalmer at the bank tomorrow. I am going to sign the complex over to Jack, with the suggestion that Jack involve Mr. Stranger in some way to repay him for his detention here these past weeks.”

  “Good thinking. Stranger responds well to money. What about the other loose ends?”

  “They concern me,” said Amos. “I only hope that we can hold them off for the few days we need. After that it really won’t matter.”

  Poor Jack, thought Ben. He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do.

  They all heard him and agreed.

  Tropical Storm Ellen had flirted with the Florida coast for almost a week before striking the peninsula near Boca Raton. It then swung north, went back out to sea, and in a most unusual maneuver, did a turnabout and went south again, hitting the Florida Keys with hurricane three force.

  But Ellen served the Antareans well. It was the perfect cover for them to bring their mother ship down from the moon’s dark side and park it underwater, near The Stones.

  Madman Mazuski and Phil Doyle had scouted the Antares complex once, but saw little. The storm kept them away for a week and a half after that.

  The control tower at Miami International Airport, and the new radar-tracking station attached to the Strategic Forces Base in southern Florida, both picked up the large Antarean ship on their radar. Because of the size and speed of the image on their screens they both concluded it was an electrical anomaly caused by the depression recharging itself over the warm Atlantic water as turned and headed. Besides, since it was stabile moving through the most violent part of the storm, they concluded that it could not have been an aircraft and survive the turbulence.

  Had the airlines carefully checked their passenger manifests, they would have observed a slight growth in passengers from St. Louis, Boston, and New York. Had they checked further, they might have found the age of those passengers were older than usual for this time of year. But there was nothing strange about older people coming to Florida.

  The missing person calls were up a bit for the Miami police. There had been a few disappearances of older people from the lower Collins Avenue district reported by neighbors. Had the cops checked deeper, they would have found more than one hundred people were actually missing. But most people down there lived alone and had no family. The detectives assigned to the area had little to go on. There were no signs of violence, robbery, or murder. There were no ransom demands. The people were from a variety of backgrounds, races, religions and politics. The only common denominator was their age. None of them was under seventy. They couldn’t even stake out any specific part of the neighborhood. It was too large and everyone down there was old. Who would the police watch? What would they watch for? So they wrote the calls off to cranks and people who went to visit someone and didn’t tell anyone.

  Judy got the Florida Power and Light spokeswomen part in their commercials. The shooting had been delayed because of the storm, but there were costume fittings and rehearsals to keep her busy. Jack spent some time with her on and off for two weeks, until it was time to begin shuttling the processed seniors out to the mother ship on the Manta III. Judy was so excited about her job, and about the treasure that Jack would share, that she didn’t bother him about his absence. On the last day the Antareans planned to reveal themselves Judy, Arnie and Sandy and the truth. Until then, Jack kept the secret.

  Arnie and Sandy kept their word to remain silent about the treasure. Mr. Miner, Arnie’s boss, did press him about where he had taken the Banshee, and why. Arnie satisfied his curiosity by telling Miner he brought some clothing to his brother who was docked there.

  Wally Parker was out of the hospital with a wired jaw, a lawyer, and the burning revenge that came from a bad beating.

  Ralph Shields was out on bail, desperately trying to talk with Wally, who would have no part of it. He was also disturbed that Tony Stranger had mysteriously disappeared.

  Tony Stranger had visited Wally in the hospital, and the caretaker wrote down the events that led to his hospitalization. It struck Tony that what had happened to Wally was too similar to what had happened to him to be coincidence. He knew somehow Amos Bright was behind it. The banker DePalmer wasn’t talking. So Tony had gone directly to Building B and when Hairy and Hal caught him sneaking through the basement, Stranger raised the roof,

  screaming and yelling and demanding that the police come. Now he was a guest of the Antareans, in a locked room, a prisoner of his own curiosity. He was frightened, even though one of the old men came to see him each day to reassure him that he would not be harmed.

  With the weather clear, Jack, on the Manta III, and Harry on the Terra Time, began shuttling the processed humans out to the mother ship. Their initial schedule fell short and they were only able to make four trips a day. Each boat could safely carry some fifteen passengers and their few possessions. At that rate they would fall short some two hundred fifty passengers, including the Antareans, by the scheduled liftoff time. So night deliveries for the last three days were to be initiated to make up the difference. Jack sensed that the people at the gas dock were suspicious of his activities, and Phil Doyle had been asking around about the Manta III.

  “Do you think Mr. Doyle would like a charter himself?” Amos asked.

  Jack was hesitant. “Well, he’s been nosing around. I guess he�
�s a little pissed off at me for ignoring him when he came over on the chopper. How would I approach him?”

  “Why not tell him the truth?” Art Perlman suggested. “You won’t be able to lie because he will see our fellow soldiers go over the side and not come up.”

  “It sure would make it easier,’ Jack agreed. With three boats we could even get a tank truck over here and save the time it takes to get over to the gas barge every morning. But I don’t know how he would take the truth—I mean the actual truth.”

  “Frankly, I don’t want to lock anyone else up like Mr. Stranger.” Bernie Lewis chimed in.

  Beam suggested that Jack call Mr. Doyle and ask him to come over to the dock. They would prepare a demonstration for him so that there would be no doubt about the job and what Jack had been doing. What Jack never brought up was Madman Mazuski.

  Jack sat on the bridge of the Manta III when Doyle and Mazuski walked onto the Antares dock.

  “So there really is a Jack Fischer!” Phil shouted up to him.

  Jack slid down the ladder onto the deck. He looked around wondering why the Antareans had let the Madman through. “Hi, guys. Mazuski, how’ve you been?”

  They shook Jack’s hand as they boarded the boat. Phil looked around to see if anyone else was on the Manta III. “You alone?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know you were bringing company.”

  “He’s one of us. I was with him in the chopper a few weeks ago when we saw you over at The Stones. What the hell were you doing there?” A voice came from the dock. “He was working for us.”

  Hal, Harry, Amos, and No Light were on the dock, standing near the Manta III.

  “Where did you guys come from?” asked Mazuski. “There was no one here a second ago.”

  “We came from far, far away, Mr. Mazuski,” Amos said as he boarded the boat.

  “Very far away,” said No Light as he too came aboard. Hal and Harry remained on the dock.

  “And gentlemen,” Amos Bright continued, “we would like to talk some business with you both. Shall we go below?”

  An hour later there were two more helpers, and the Antareans had an unexpected bonus—one serviceable helicopter flown by a pilot who thought he had seen it all until, as the clincher, Jack brought an eighty-five-year-old woman onto the boat. She was Ruth Charnofsky, Rose Lewis’ aunt from Collins Avenue. The woman greeted the visitors and proceeded to jump over the side of the boat into the canal. She settled to the bottom, some ten feet below, and remained visible, waving from time to time at the astonished pilot. After ten minutes he gave up. “I believe. I believe. Get her up here. I’m losing my breath.”

  Mazuski arranged for a gasoline tank truck to park at the dock the next morning and shuttle operation began.

  CHAPTER FIFTY- ONE – WHERE DID THE SENIORS GO?

  Mr. DePalmer had handled the arrangements for Arthur Perlman to buy the nursing home. The owners were given, as Arthur, given his tawdry past, liked to joke, “an offer they couldn’t refuse.” The entire staff of the home was given two weeks’ notice and replaced by members of the Geriatric Brigade who had not yet been completely processed. Betty Franklin, Bess Perlman’s sister, was removed the day the processing had begun. After the original staff departed, she returned to speak to the remaining tenants of the home. These were people who had been left by their families to end their days under the care of strangers. Their families, and in some cases government overseers who were also on the owner’s payroll, had ignored their complaints about harsh treatment and cruelty. Had Bess not seen it for herself, it would have been hard to believe that human beings could treat other human beings with so little dignity or care.

  Yet Bess and Art were concerned that the resident understood, as best they could, what was being proposed because their task was to arrange to move the people from the home to Building B. Could they pluck these ailing seniors up and send them on such a fantastic journey? Could they take those unable to comprehend them without consent of some kind?

  Difficult as it was, the answer was yes. The files were examined and thirty-six of the fifty tenants of the home were found to be alone in the world. They had not had visitors for years. They had no family on record. Some were wards of the state. Some had turned their life’s savings over to the home and in return received awful care. Art and Bess felt that after the processing, these people would be grateful. But it was a responsibility that they took on seriously, after much thought and soul-searching. The families of those left behind would be notified of the change in management and introduced to a new staff by Mr. DePalmer after the mother ship had departed.

  Art chose a Sunday night to move the nursing home residents, after visitors, few as they might be, were gone. At two in the morning a charter bus pulled up in front thirty-six octogenarians, confused and frightened, took the first step toward an adventure none could ever imagine. The bus driver was told that there was a gas leak in the building and the people had to be moved to safety. Art hoped the story would hold for as long as they needed. He miscalculated.

  Detective Sergeant Matthew Cummings of the Dade County Sheriff’s Office had been assigned to the Collins Avenue disappearances for two weeks. He was as baffled as the rest of the force. However, the matron who had been fired by Art Perlman, returned to the home on Tuesday afternoon to pick up a few personal possessions she had left behind. The home was now staffed with members of the Brigade who were in the process of hiring new people to take care of the remaining tenants. The matron, Mrs. Blackwell, was a vindictive woman. She poked around and soon realized that several residents were missing. She also thought that the woman now in charge was somehow familiar, but she couldn’t place the face or what right away.

  “If you have your things I would appreciate your leaving the premises.” Bess Perlman was firm.

  “I asked you what happened to the rest of the patients here.”

  “They are out on an outing.”

  “Baloney. I know those people. Some of them couldn’t walk more than ten steps. You can’t take them out like that.”

  “But we did, Mrs. Blackwell. Perhaps you and the former owners didn’t try hard enough to make life pleasant for them.”

  “Something is fishy here and I intend to find out what. This isn’t the last you’ll hear from me.” Blackwell turned and left in a huff. Bess called Art to tell him about the problem.

  Within an hour, Sergeant Cummings had the complaint about the nursing home on his desk. He called Mrs. Blackwell and sent a car to pick her up for questioning. Within another hour the sergeant and Mrs. Blackwell were at the home. Bess had gone back to the Antares complex for a few hours, but the other members of the Brigade held to the story of an outing. The police were told that the group had gone to the Miami Seaquarium and would return in a few hours. Cummings felt uneasy and decided to check out the Seaquarium himself. One of the seniors working at the home called Art Perlman, who, upon hearing the news, instructed his people to leave the home in the care of the few regular people whom they had hired.

  “No such group was here today, Detective.” The words kept ringing in Sergeant Cummings’ ears. Back at the home, when he questioned the residents left behind, one of them said that she thought she saw a bus had take several people for an outing a few nights ago. He put the home under police guard and radioed for his office to begin checking bus charters for the night before last. This was the break he had been looking for in the Collins Avenue missing senior’s case. H was sure it tied in somehow.

  By the following morning the last of the people from the nursing home had been processed at the condo. All that remained was for the human commanders to be transformed, the equipment packed up, and the final trip out to the mother ship could take place.

  Amos Bright met with Mr. DePalmer at the bank. Jack Fischer sat with them, signing the papers that made the Antares condominium complex his property, free and clear.

  “Of course, Mr. Fischer, our bank will be delighted to assist you in any matters that you deem nece
ssary. We are at your service.” DePalmer was trying to make sure that he kept the business.

  “I’m sure we can work things out, Mr. DePalmer, and I’ll rely on your help.”

  “Good. Let us know whenever you need anything.” He gathered all the papers and checked them again to be sure things were in order.

  Ralph Shields, who had been released after Mr. Bright refused to file charges, had been watching the bank, hoping to have a word with Mr. DePalmer about what had happened. He hoped Mr. Bright might hire him back. He approached the meeting. “Mr. Bright, could I speak to you for a moment?”

  DePalmer stood up. “This is a private meeting, Mr. Shields.”

  Amos stood, offering Shields his hand. “It’s okay, Mr. DePalmer. Mr. Shields has something to say and I think we should listen. Yes, Mr. Shields?”

  “Well, I wanted to say that I’m not the crazy man you all think I am. Something is going on that I don’t understand. I thought maybe you could tell me.” He spoke softly and was contrite.

  “Perhaps we can, Mr. Shields. Perhaps we can. Why don’t you come back to the office with us and we can talk this out?”

  Shields was relieved. “Great. I’d hoped you would say that. I’ll follow you in my car.”

  “Good,” Amos said. “If you will excuse us for a moment, we have some business to complete. We will meet you outside in the parking lot.”

  Relieved, Shields left.

  “Mr. DePalmer, I want to thank you for all that you have done for me, and for the Antares project. I know you will help Mr. Fischer, and I know the relationship will be of benefit to all.”

  “Are you leaving town?” the banker asked.

  “I’m going away for a while. Mr. Fischer will know where I am.”

  “Well, have a good trip. It’s been a pleasure serving you. And please feel free to call on me if I can be of any help in the future.”