INCEPTION (Projekt Saucer, Book 1)

by W. A. Harbinson

  Closing his eyes, he recalled Greta’s outburst, and considered once more, as he had done so often, how the glory of man’s mind could be perverted with primitive emotions. He had never felt such emotions, though he knew that most people did, as he also knew that there were many who thought his lack of so-called normal feelings was inhuman.

  Was this so? He didn’t think so. Instead, he took it for a sign of genius. He had always felt himself to be different from his own kind – even from his good parents, other children, his women – and had viewed the blatant emotions of others as the aberrations of weakness. Man’s emotions belonged to the cave; his mind was his glory.

  And he, this individual named John Wilson, was ruled by his brilliant mind.

  It had always been so. Behind his closed eyes, he relived it. He saw his parents in the fields, their backs bent under the sun, then himself, a mere stripling, kneeling beside them in the church of Montezuma, where he kept his eyes open. They were decent, simple folk, introverted, even distant, and although they had always treated him well, he viewed their virtue as weakness. They made him read the Bible, but he thought it a book of myths. When they prayed, either at home or in church, he translated their worship as a form of awe no more rational than the primal fears and superstitions of cavemen.

  He felt that man was not made to worship gods, but to attain godlike stature.

  He was not like his parents. Nor was he like other children. His parents didn’t notice the difference, for they were too involved with themselves, but at school he was considered odd, because he didn’t like playing games and was ferocious at studying. He always wanted to be alone, to live through his books, and that made him different.

  Then he decided to become a scientist and devoted himself to that. At twelve, he was practising vivisection and was caught by his parents. They were shocked by his cruelty, which he viewed as pure research, and they punished him by sending him to his room for a whole week, which merely gave him more time for his reading and intense contemplation. It didn’t stop his experiments – he just continued them in secret - and by the age of fifteen, when at high school in Des Moines, he knew more about biology and science than his teachers could teach him.

  He was also convinced, by then, that the only thing dividing man from the beast was his ability to think – not the heart, but the mind; not emotions, but reasoning. Once he had accepted that as truth, he learned to distrust what were widely regarded as man's ‘finer’ feelings.

  Man was but a tool of evolution; the human mind was its instrument. And because most human emotions were dead weight, Wilson, from an early age, took pride in not having them.

  He was a genius, a completely rational being, and that made him unique.

  Nothing else mattered.

  When the SS car slowed down, he opened his eyes again and saw the beams of the searchlights criss-crossing one another as they swept over Kummersdorf, erratically illuminating the tall hangars, prefabricated offices, wooden huts, barbed-wire fences, and high, ugly watch towers, where the helmeted troops sat behind machine guns and kept guard all night. Though normally empty, the compound in front of the experimental centre was now filled with troop trucks, all bathed in the steady glare of overhead lamps. A lot of the troops were carrying equipment and papers from the hangar to the parked vehicles, while other trucks roared into life and headed toward the main gate.

  After leaving the car and entering the hangar, Wilson saw the Schriever saucer still sitting on its raised steel platform. It looked enormous in that enclosed space, its smooth surface giving off a silvery glint in the overhead lighting. Looking in vain for Flugkapitän Schriever, he crossed the floor and entered his own office, which was now bare of its filing cabinets and wall charts. There he found Ernst Stoll, SS Brigadier Hans Kammler, and the dark-eyed, dangerous SS General Artur Nebe sitting up in hardbacked wooden chairs, all smoking, drinking what looked like brandy, and clearly waiting for him.

  ‘So,’ Wilson said, ‘the move’s begun already.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kammler said. ‘The first trucks are already at the station and you can leave any minute now.’

  ‘What are the arrangements?’

  ‘I have to remain here to oversee the V-1 and forthcoming V-2 rocket launchings against England. However, General Nebe and his finest troops will accompany you throughout the journey, for protection, and Captain Stoll will also go along, to ensure that you settle into Kahla without problems. Once things are running smoothly at Kahla, which will be administered jointly with the nearby Nordhausen Central Works under the jurisdiction of Captain Stoll, General Nebe will return to Berlin to organize the eventual time and means of escape from Germany. Meanwhile, Stoll will divide his time between Thuringia and Berlin. This will enable him to look after your project and keep his eye on our increasingly unpredictable Reichsführer.’

  ‘What about Rudolph Schriever and that’ – Wilson paused to glance through the window at the flying saucer in the middle of the hangar – ‘that thing out there?’

  ‘A week from today,’ Ernst Stoll solemnly informed him, ‘the remaining staff of Kummersdorf, with Schriever in charge, will be moved, with the saucer, to a secret location near Prague. Thus, while Schriever’s progress will be watched closely by Himmler, you’ll be able to complete your Feuerball and Kugelblitz, protected by General Kammler, under my jurisdiction.’

  ‘What reason have you given Schriever for the move?’

  ‘The same as we gave Himmler. Namely, that your work has become erratic, you can no longer be trusted, and so you’re being moved to Nordhausen, to be placed under our supervision, now that Wernher von Braun has been moved back to the rebuilt factories in the development works, on the old site of Peenemünde East.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Wilson said.

  ‘And now we’d better go,’ General Nebe said softly, his face as unemotional as a rock, which gave Wilson comfort. ‘We want at least to get out of the station before the Allied bombers come again.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Kammler said.

  The day before, Wilson had supervised the dismantling and packing of the separate parts of his Feuerball and Kugelblitz in the BMW plant at Spandau for transportation to the railway station. Today he was pleased to follow the others out of his office for the last time. Just as they were leaving, Flugkapitän Schriever, Habermohl, and Miethe emerged from the former’s office and stopped right in front of them. Schriever, thinking he was now in charge of Projekt Saucer, gave Wilson a broad, superior smile.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re going to Nordhausen.’

  ‘Yes,’ Wilson replied.

  ‘Naturally, I’m sorry to be losing you.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, Flugkapitän.’

  ‘I have naturally recommended your work to Himmler – ’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘ – and while obviously he appreciates your contributions to Projekt Saucer, he feels it’s now time that we Germans take it over completely.’

  ‘I understand,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Once we get to Prague, I’ll have the saucer flying in no time, I can assure you, Herr Wilson.’

  ‘I hope so, Flugkapitän.’

  Schriever offered his hand. Wilson took it and shook it, then Schriever gave the Nazi salute and led his two men away. Stoll smiled thinly at Wilson, nodded toward the exit, then led him and the other two Nazi officers out of the hangar.

  Wilson didn’t look back. There was nothing there to interest him. He took his seat in the SS car, made room for Stoll beside him, and kept his eyes open as they drove out of Kummersdorf, heading in the direction of Berlin. The night sky was bright with stars, the moon gliding behind thin clouds, but he soon saw a red glow in the sky, far ahead in the darkness. Then he heard the sound, the distant crumpcrump of explosions, and knew instantly that the glowing in the sky was from the flames of an air raid.

  ‘They come nearly every night now,’ Ernst said. ‘The swine never stop.’

  ‘Remember the Blitz on London
,’ Wilson replied, ‘and you won’t expect them to stop.’

  ‘My family live in Berlin, Wilson.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Wilson said, though he didn’t give a damn.

  ‘My wife left me,’ Ernst continued like a man in a trance, ‘but she’s living with the children in her parents’ house in the district of Wannsee, which they bomb all the time.’

  ‘Not good,’ Wilson said, bored.

  ‘I worry about them more when they’re elsewhere – and now we’re off to Thuringia.’

  ‘It’s important, Captain Stoll. Very important.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ernst said. ‘I know. I just can’t help but worry.’

  Luckily, they did not have to return to Berlin, but instead turned away from it, to a station in a small town that Wilson didn’t recognize, though he knew it was on the route to Brandenburg.

  The station was heavily guarded, surrounded by armed SS troops, and the midnight silence was broken by the barking of Alsatian dogs and the awful sound of men bawling through megaphones. Torches shone on white faces, searchlights swept across packed trucks, and Wilson had to follow Stoll through massed ranks of armed troops, none of whom looked too happy, and into a small railway station that was the stage for a nightmare. Prisoners from the camps were there, undernourished, terrified. They were forced to run the gauntlet of snarling dogs and cracking whips, then herded up into the box cars, where they were packed in like sardines. There were not many left – most of the box cars had been closed already – but Wilson saw enough to have a clear picture of what was happening.

  It seemed chaotic, but it wasn’t – it was well organized – and when Wilson saw General Nebe near the last of the open box cars, his face impassive but his dark eyes always restless, he understood why. Nevertheless, Wilson was glad to get out of it and into his carriage, which, as he discovered when the train pulled out shortly after, he was sharing with Stoll, Kammler, Nebe, and their most favoured officers. Nebe let them all relax, smoking and drinking, playing cards, and soon the distant sounds of the bombing of Berlin had faded away with the crimson sky, leaving only dark flatlands outside and the train’s clickety-clacking.

  ‘We’re on our way at last,’ Ernst Stoll said. ‘Thank God for that at least.’

  ‘Yes,’ Wilson replied. ‘The sooner we get there, the sooner you can return to Berlin and your family.’

  ‘If they’re still there,’ Ernst said.

  ‘If they’re not,’ Kammler said icily, ‘you’ll have made your personal sacrifice for the Third Reich. Would you not consider that an honour, Captain Stoll?’

  ‘Naturally I would, sir.’

  ‘You seemed a little bitter, Captain.’

  ‘No, sir. I’m just tired, that’s all.’

  ‘We all are.’ Kammler sneered, then lit a cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke, and engaged Nebe in whispered conversation, which only served to make Ernst more nervous, as Wilson carefully noted. Turning his attention to Kammler and Nebe, sitting together on the seat opposite, he wondered at the calibre of human being he’d been forced to deal with.

  General Kammler, he knew, had been responsible for the planning of various concentration camps; had personally supervised and confirmed the plans for the enormous subcamp at Birkenau, part of Auschwitz, with its four gas chambers and crematoria; was impatient, ruthless, completely amoral, and, though Himmler’s present favourite and ostensibly devoted to him, was consumed by no more than selfinterest. General Nebe, on the other hand, was a more shadowy figure, one of shifting allegiances, someone known to be a practised survivor and no stranger to bloodshed. He rarely smiled, fondled his pistol a lot, and kept his conversation to the bare minimum. A good man to have on your side; a man to dread if your enemy. To Wilson, such men were animals, but they had to be used.

  It was a truly depressing thought.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to sleep, but instead thought about how divorced he was from his fellow men, unable to share their petty concerns and narrow ambitions. They wanted the here and now, the love of woman, man’s esteem, but failed completely to see just how short life was and, therefore, how important. Though born to be the tools of evolution, they still lived like cavemen.

  Their evolution would not come naturally. At least not in time to save them. The continuation of the human species could be guaranteed only if men took matters into their own hands and recreated themselves. And as most men could not even conceive of that, the exceptional few, like Wilson, would have to lead the way.

  I will do it, he thought, trying to sleep, but failing dismally. I will recreate myself, with my willpower and surgical assistance, and in so doing become the first of that race that will fly to the stars.

  I will become a biological mutation with my mind unimpaired. I will not find immortality – no, it’s too late for that – but the operations I’ve had, which have so far been successful, are merely the first steps on the road to man’s transformation, physical and mental... Those who follow me, on the operating table and with my philosophy, will evolve, as their regressive fellow men die off, into the Superman.

  This will be my achievement.

  Thinking about it, he smiled. He was still travelling, after all. He had left his home in Iowa, left his friends, then his country, and now he was on the road out of Germany.

  He was going to where the air was clean and mankind could be reborn.

  Not immediately, however. He was still in the real world. He was reminded of that fact when the Allied bombers returned, growling low overhead, and the darkness outside the noisy train became a fabulous tapestry. There were ballooning balls of white light, jagged yellow flames, clouds of black smoke, then the luminous, scorching heat of the explosions lent the darkness a crimson hue. Sparks fountained to the sky, decorating moon and stars, and the buildings of the town outside the train collapsed into more beauty. It was the singular beauty of death, the awesome radiance of destruction. Wilson saw the walls exploding, the smoke billowing up from the flames, and knew, even as the noise erupted and clawed through him, that the beauty and horror of life on earth were one and the same.

  When the train screeched and shuddered, then ground to a halt, the SS officers crowded up against the windows to look out at the night.

  ‘Why are we stopping?’ Kammler asked, glancing at Nebe.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nebe replied. He stood up and crooked his finger at Ernst Stoll. ‘Come with me, Captain.’

  The train had stopped on the outskirts of town. The darkness outside was filled with sheets of yellow flame and geysering sparks. Smoke billowed up from the buildings, obscuring the moon and stars, and the steady droning of the Allied bombers seemed to make the air vibrate. Nebe stopped and glanced out, started forward, then stopped again when an SS sergeant hurried into the carriage and gave the Nazi salute.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ Nebe asked.

  ‘Some of the prisoners are panicking, sir. They’re hammering on the doors of the box cars and might start a riot. We don’t know what to do.’

  ‘What we do is set an example,’ Nebe said softly. ‘Captain Stoll, come with me!’

  Wilson watched them departing, followed closely by Kammler, then he pulled his window down enough to stick his head out. The noise of the air raid was deafening, hammering at him like a huge fist. He saw collapsing buildings, more showering sparks, billowing smoke, and glanced backward along the train to where armed troops were covering one of the box cars, the dogs straining at the end of their tethers, barking and snapping.

  Nebe, Kammler, and Stoll were there, standing in front of the box car. Nebe was removing his pistol from his holster as his troops opened the door. Bombs were exploding nearby, the ground roaring and erupting, and even as earth and debris showered back down, Nebe took aim with his pistol. The first prisoner was dropping. Nebe shot him and he fell. Another prisoner jumped out as Kammler and Stoll unholstered their pistols and also started firing. The prisoners were shot as they jumped out, screamed and jerked and collapsed. Then the wo
men inside started wailing as the SS troops, encouraged by their leader, fired into the box car.

  The noise was atrocious, a savage, staccato roaring, adding to the crescendo of the aircraft growling overhead, the bombs exploding on all sides, and the sibilance of the tracer bullets criss-crossing the sky above the boiling black smoke.

  No more prisoners jumped down, but Wilson heard the women wailing. That dreadful sound was shut off when the box car doors were closed again, locking in the subdued prisoners, then Nebe led Kammler and Ernst Stoll back to the carriage.

  The train moved off again as they returned and took their seats, Kammler and Nebe facing Wilson, the pale-faced Stoll beside him.

  Wilson noted Stoll’s shocked appearance. It was something worth remembering. Stoll obeyed orders, but not without distaste, and that virtue, which Wilson viewed as his weakness, was what would make him useful.

  Wilson closed his eyes again. He fell in and out of sleep. The train rumbled through the night, through more air raids and long silences, passing smouldering ruins and columns of troops on the roads and villages still remarkably untouched and silhouetted in moonlight. The ruins gradually disappeared, giving way to pine forests, The forests rose and fell over the hills of Thuringia, shielding picturesque villages, nineteenth-century houses, and the remains of fortified castles that stood majestically on the crest of the hills, overlooking the babbling brooks and rivers that crossed lush valleys.

  The train climbed up through the forests. There were no air raids here. The sun rose beyond the hills, a pearly light through starlit darkness, then the gray light turned into silvery striations that gave the trees back their colour.

  The trees covered the hills and mountains, hiding the great caves hacked out of them. The train, which had been climbing more slowly by the hour, finally stopped in a cleared area by the old walled town of Kahla, in the region of the southern Harz Mountains, on the same line that led on to the underground Nordhausen Central Works.