GENESIS (Projekt Saucer)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Not lightning. Something else. A streak of light. It just passed us.’

  ‘Passed us?’

  ‘It crossed our path. It flew east to west. A long streak of light. Like a tadpole. I just blinked and it disappeared.’

  ‘A meteor,’ Richard suggested.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ the woman said. ‘I don’t know… It seemed strange.’

  She shook her head from side to side, her eyes brighter, less bloodshot, flitting from left to right in nervous spasms, surveying the twilight sky. Richard stared at her, disturbed, wondering if she was hallucinating, now aware that she had really drank a lot and was dangerously tired. Then he looked up at the sky. He did it almost against his will. He saw drifting gray clouds, the crimson fire of the sinking sun, vaporous ribbons of mist along the hills, the lonely splendour of Bodmin Moor.

  ‘We’re in Cornwall,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a bright boy,’ the woman said. ‘We’ve been in Cornwall for the past thirty minutes and you’ve finally noticed.’

  Richard flushed at her sarcasm. ‘I’m pretty sleepy,’ he said. ‘I’m tired and the gin just knocked me out. I can hardly keep my eyes open.’

  The woman appeared not to have heard him. She kept looking all around her. Her green eyes were too bright, framed by flaming red hair, and she kept licking nervously at her upper lip, her tanned brow furrowed anxiously. Her tension was contagious, reaching out to touch Richard; he glanced around and saw the moors, the hills rushing past the car, rising and falling away into shadow, looking ancient and frightening. Richard shivered again. He suddenly felt oddly haunted. He stared obliquely at the sun, at that sinking ball of fire, and the light spread out and filled his line of vision and made his eyes sparkle.

  ‘Why strange?’ he asked.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You said that the light you saw seemed strange. What did you mean by that?’

  The woman’s eyes turned toward him, too bright, no longer bloodshot, took him in and then turned back to the road and blinked repeatedly, nervously.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Think,’ Richard said. ‘Let’s assume it wasn’t a meteor or a plane. What do you think you saw?’

  The woman took a deep breath, nervously licked her upper lip, then raised her left hand, spread her fingers and patted her hair.

  ‘It was very fast,’ she said. ‘It was very close the first time. The first time I just saw a bright flash and I assumed it was lightning. The next time it was different: it was farther away. It was fast – a lot faster than a plane – and it seemed unnaturally bright. It flew from east to west. It shot across and disappeared. And it didn’t really fly out of sight: it just seemed to blink out. It wasn’t a plane. I know it couldn’t have been a plane. It was strange. It wasn’t a meteor. It appeared to be… climbing.’

  Richard felt ill. His head was light and he felt feverish. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, glancing vaguely around him.

  ‘Climbing?’ he said.

  ‘You’re always repeating what I say.’

  ‘It was faster than a plane and it was climbing? Are you sure you saw right?’

  ‘I’m not that drunk,’ the woman said. ‘I think I know what I saw. That light was very bright, very fast, and the damned thing was… ascending.’

  ‘Any noise?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Not a sound,’ the woman said. ‘It just shot across the sky, in front of the car, and then it blinked out… making no sound at all.’

  Richard glanced around him, saw the desolate, timeless moors, sludge-like clouds drifting over the misty hills, the sky a darkening crimson haze. There was nothing up there. The woman was probably hallucinating. She was obviously very tired, she’d had too much to drink, and now she was starting to fall apart and see things that weren’t there.

  This thought disturbed Richard. He wanted to get out of the car. He didn’t want to end up in a ditch with his head through the windscreen. Hoping to avoid the subject, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He slipped in and out of consciousness, his head spinning, stomach churning; he thought of Jenny back in London, of the cottage in St. Ives, of the woman’s red hair and green eyes, her tongue licking her upper lip. These visions were relentless, materializing and disappearing, giving way to streaming stars and spinning suns, to white lights in a black void. Richard shivered and muttered incoherently. A bolt of panic lanced through him. He almost groaned aloud, but checked himself, shook his head and licked his dry lips, then spiraled back up through the darkness and opened his eyes again.

  ‘What on earth…?’

  The woman glanced at him, shook her head in bewilderment, pressed her foot on the accelerator and changed gears as the car coughed and spluttered. The engine roared and then cut out. The woman cursed and pumped the pedal. The engine spluttered again and then was silent as the car rolled downhill. The woman turned the ignition key, changed gears, but nothing happened. The car rolled down the hill, its wheels hissing in the silence, then it stopped where the road leveled out and its headlights blinked off.

  ‘I don’t believe this. What’s wrong?’

  The woman shook her head and angrily smacked the steering wheel. She turned the ignition key a few more times and still nothing happened. Cursing, she looked at Richard. He shrugged and stared outside. He saw the blood-red sky, the gnarled, silhouetted trees, a nearby circle of Neolithic stones that made him think of other worlds. Richard felt himself shivering. The silence seemed to be vibrating. He gulped and licked his lips, his heart racing inexplicably, then he turned and stared hard at the woman and imagined a roaring.

  Not a roaring… Something else… A strange, nerve-tingling humming. Richard blinked and saw that huge pulsating sun, the light shifting, expanding. ‘Oh, my God!’ Richard whispered. He abruptly forgot what he was doing. The sun expanded and became a white sheet that blotted out the whole sky. Richard gasped and knew fear. He pushed the woman against her door. He saw her hands darting up to cover her ears, the sky beyond her a silvery haze.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Richard hissed.

  It came over the nearest hill, over the Neolithic stones, a fierce, incorporeal luminescence that spread out and moved forward. Richard stared and was blinded, turned away and looked again, heard a loud, almost physical humming, felt the sound, was crushed by it. The woman shrieked and shook her head, her hair falling around her face, bent forward, huddled up, her head touching her knees, trying to hide in her seat. The noise increased and the light expanded, swept across them, filled the car, and Richard gasped and felt a sudden scorching heat that made him howl and double over, just like the woman.

  His head touched the woman’s head. The whole car started shaking. The engine roared into life and then cut out again and left only the sound of the woman’s sobbing. Richard retched. He felt the burning of his face. He touched the woman and felt her jerk away as if stung by a whip. The vibration, the noise… Oh, my God, it was cutting through him… His body trembled as his mind slipped into chaos, an intense, choking fear… What was it? Jesus Christ! Something roared and shook the car. He glanced up and saw the woman’s red hair, the blinding white light beyond her. Richard felt his heart pounding. Sweat was pouring down his face. The car rocked from side to side, shrieked in protest, and then settled down again. Leaving silence… and fear.

  Richard shivered and shook, reached out slowly, touched the woman; she recoiled and stared at him with wide eyes, still crouched low on the seat. They just stared at one another. Neither knew what to say. The interior of the car was unnaturally bright and then it abruptly darkened. Richard wiped sweat from his forehead, licked his lips, gasped for air, his chest heaving, lungs scorched and sucked dry, arms and legs shaking helplessly. The woman’s green eyes were glazed, looking at him and through him; and then, as if by order, as if reading each other’s thoughts, they both sat up and turned to the front and looked o
ut at that brilliant white haze.

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  The fear crawled up Richard’s spine, took a hold, shook him viciously, left him limp and drained, a hollow shell, almost mindless with disbelief. The woman clearly felt the same, body twitching, dress soaked, her hands rising blindly to her face, fingers outspread and trembling. They both sat there in the car, looking out, their eyes stinging, taking in the impossible dream, their senses deserting them.

  The white haze was receding. Beyond the white haze: a dark mass. The dark mass, that great featureless body, was blocking off the whole sky. Richard stared and was mesmerized, terrified and fascinated, looking out across that field of shimmering light to where it eclipsed the sinking sun. He couldn’t believe in that dark mass. He kept looking and it remained. The white haze seemed to flare up and fade slightly, and then he saw the dark mass more clearly.

  It was hovering above the ground, about a hundred feet up, an enormous dark mass, a dark mass containing lights, sequential flashes of green, blue and orange, very bright, very fast. The lights went from left to right, illuminating the ground below. Richard gasped when he saw an immense, silvery disk stretching over the whole field. It was several stories tall, about three hundred feet in diameter, an enormous, kaleidoscopic apparition that rendered him speechless.

  Fear and fascination. Disbelief and stunned awareness. Richard felt his thoughts slipping and sliding into dark, swirling chaos. Was he drunk? Hallucinating? The woman’s red hair: Was she real? He gasped for air and tried to stop himself from shaking, tried to keep himself sane. The woman trembled beside him, her hair falling upon her shoulders; her spine was arched and she seemed to shake in spasms and then settle down again. Richard looked past her head, saw that huge, floating mass, its colored lights flashing on and off brilliantly, illuminating the field below.

  Richard sobbed and bit his lip. He looked again and saw it changing. It flared up and went dark, became one with the evening sky, then two panels of yellow light, a good three hundred feet apart, materialized to silhouette two black pupils, two bright eyes staring down at him. The woman gasped and bit her knuckles. Richard held on to his seat. The shimmering panels disappeared, the black pupils became metallic, then they flew down from that vast ink-colored mass and headed straight for the car.

  ‘Jesus, no!’ Richard whispered.

  A whipping sound: the car shook. A brief silence: a sudden humming. Richard closed his eyes and opened them again and saw the disks at both sides of the car. They were miniature flying saucers, about three feet in diameter, and they circled the car slowly, first humming, then whistling softly, and then a beam of light shone from each one, cutting down through the darkness.

  The car began to shake. Richard groaned and clenched his fists. He glanced at the woman, saw her sitting up straight, and understood, rather than saw, her paralyzed fascination. Richard couldn’t believe it; he sensed no fear in her at all. Then a disk dropped by her window, shone a bright light on her face, and she gasped, visibly twitched, settled down, closed her eyes and just sat there. Richard sank into his seat. The blade of light burned his neck. It moved away and he sat up again and saw the disks disappearing.

  ‘It’s all right,’ the woman whispered, opening her eyes, looking peculiar. ‘Don’t be frightened. It’s all right.’

  Richard stared at her and shivered, disbelieving, wracked by fear, his breath coming in large, anguished gulps, his heart pounding, his head on fire. Against his will, he looked up. The panels of light blazed in the sky. He saw the immense, much darker mass above the field, the panels of light at each end of it. Then the panels swallowed the disks, blinked out, leaving darkness; then the black mass, that enormous floating shape, started glowing and flashing.

  Mesmerized, Richard watched it.

  The great disk was solid, a silvery craft in a shimmering white haze, towering high and spread out across the field, flashing green, blue and orange lights. It now had shape and dimension. It had long, narrow windows. Silhouettes moved back and forth across the windows, very small, faraway. The colored lights continued flashing, illuminating the field below; the tall grass and shrubs had been flattened and appeared to be scorched. Richard looked up in awe. He saw the panels at either end. They were doors and they opened again, looking larger, more ominous. Then Richard shook with fear. He reached out to touch the woman. He saw another two disks, silverygray, emerging from the panels. There were searchlights on these disks, turning down toward the car. The disks hovered just in front of the larger craft, then flew toward Richard.

  ‘Oh, God!’ he whispered, distraught, feeling unreal, disorientated, stripped of every defence; he sat trembling in his seat, feeling naked, dispossessed from the real world. What was happening? Was this real? Where was he? Hallucinating! He tried to think about who he was, what he was, but then it all fell away from him. A whipping sound, a sudden wind, the car shaking and shrieking, then silence, the other disks at each side of him, their gray metal gleaming.

  Richard almost stopped breathing. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He reached out and grabbed the woman by the shoulder and she turned and stared at him. He saw her suntanned face, the red hair, the moist lips; her green eyes were staring at him and through him as if he didn’t exist. Richard shivered and turned away. He saw a disk outside the car. It was about thirty-five feet wide, hovering just above the ground, and its perimeter swept up to form a dome made of something like frosted glass. Richard stared, mesmerized. A strange creature stared back. The opaque dome distorted its features, made it look quite grotesque. The eyes were two slits, the nose appeared to be metallic, and Richard shivered with revulsion when he realised that it didn’t have lips. The creature’s skin was gray and wrinkled. It raised a clawlike hand. Richard screamed and then a beam of light struck him and rendered him oblivious.

  Darkness. Streaming light. A sudden nausea and dread. Richard retched and shook his head and sat up and hardly noticed the woman. No point looking: she was frozen. Richard stared straight ahead. He blinked and began to scream and then stopped himself and just shrank in his terror.

  He was still in the car. The fallen night stretched around him. The mother ship, that enormous craft, was coming down and blocking out the whole view. It seemed incredible, almost magical – its very silence made it awesome. It was spread across the field straight ahead, its colored lights flashing on and off. Richard licked his lips and groaned, rubbed his eyes and shook his head. The enormous craft settled down above the ground, fifty yards from the car.

  Then the car started moving. It also went wild. Richard’s camerastrap snapped, the camera smashed against the dashboard, then his ballpoint pen shot out of his pocket and fixed itself to the windscreen. Richard couldn’t believe it. The air was sucked from his lungs. The woman’s bracelets suddenly shot off her wrists and also stuck to the windscreen. Richard gasped, trying to breathe. He was being drawn forward. He pressed his hands against the dashboard and pushed himself back, but had to hold himself there with great effort. The car continued moving forward. Richard couldn’t trust his senses. The car was silent, but it moved forward inexorably toward that immense, flashing mass. Richard tried to scream again; he opened his mouth but nothing happened. He glanced at the woman, saw blind eyes, and then he looked at the smaller disks. They were at both sides of the car, hovering just above it, each shooting a beam of light down upon it, drawing it forward with them. Magnetism? Oh, my God! That’s impossible.

  Jesus Christ ! Richard pressed himself back into his seat and looked ahead and was terrified.

  The enormous craft was there before him. It filled all of his vision. The colored lights flashed on and off, left to right, right to left, then they abruptly blinked off, leaving gray metal gleaming, then the metal appeared to split along the bottom and a long, thing white light emerged.

  Richard sobbed and shook. His eyes were wide and disbelieving. He saw a large metal door sliding upward, then his senses were shattered.
A dazzling white light all around him. Silhouettes in the haze. The car was picked up and drawn toward the light and then surrounded on all sides. Richard drained out of himself. He let his senses fly away. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing happened, so he simply collapsed.

  All white.

  Everything.

  Chapter Four

  It is important that I remember. My time will soon be up. The plastic surgery and the pacemaker and the prosthetics have all been useful, but the liver still manages to elude us and so I must die. I remain philosophical. I have had more than most. I have lived a long time, made the dream a reality, and I cannot complain because nature still hides its secrets.

  We never conquered the liver. Perhaps we never will. Now I start to degenerate, feel the hardening of my veins, and my memory is not what it was and too often betrays me. No matter: it is done. We cannot be stopped now. The sun glitters off the ice as I write – and the ice is the New World.

  It is important to remember. Some fragments, if nothing else. It was all so long ago, so far away, and now it seems like a dream. My parents: not important. We are blessed and cursed by birth. Two very ordinary people heading nowhere, myself growing under them.

  I detested my childhood. This much I do remember. Long days in the Midwest, clouds of dust over the flatlands, my father and mother in the fields, bending over their crops. They were simple, decent people. I can scarcely recall them. They talked little and they worked very hard and received scant reward. Detested it. Yes. The days stretched out forever. As a boy, still a child, how young I don’t remember, I spent hours gazing up at the stars and wondering how I could reach them.

  I’ve never understood emotions. An aberration of the weak. I am thinking of what they call ‘love’ and its attendant illusions. They would call me a genius. By their terms they might be right. From the beginning (I remember this well) I was always obsessed. An emotion of a different sort. Not a need for human warmth. I saw humans in biological terms and thought the world a laboratory. The obsession was with knowing. It was all within the mind. Anything outside the mind – the need for love or material gain – was no more than a degrading manifestation of our primitive origins. What matters in Man is mind. I have always believed that. Even then, as a child, about ten years old I think, I believed that (or felt it) and lived it and would not let it go.