GENESIS (Projekt Saucer)

by W. A. Harbinson

  We were masters and slaves. The latter were virtually robotized. The former were still controlled by Artur Nebe, but were clearly redundant. The slaves had all been implanted. The whips were no longer needed. The only danger of revolt now resided in the guards and technicians. Nebe recognized this danger. He gave permission to implant. We both knew that this could lead to resistance, so we had to work carefully. It took us two years. We performed the implants one by one. We anesthetized the men while they were sleeping and then stole them away. The operation was simple. The men were programmed to forget the implants. When they awakened, they would not seem any different to those still untouched. After two years it was finished. There were no untouched left. Only Kammler and Nebe and myself were allowed to go free.

  Every member had his function. His every thought was controlled. Every man, woman and child was robotized and had his course mapped out for him. Their desires were my desires. Their needs were my needs. I ordained their pain and pleasure, their every hunger, and was worshipped accordingly.

  The implantations were all different. Some severe, some less so. What mattered was that each individual would perform as required. To drain a mind is to kill it. One must drain only a little. One must leave free those cerebral areas that perform certain functions.

  The technical staff were least affected. I left them the spur of discontentment. This discontentment only related to their creative urge and did not go beyond that. What I removed was their hostility. What I enhanced was their love for work. Given this, they were almost like normal men, but lacked personal ambition.

  Below the technical staff were the administrators. Such men and women were more affected. Required for systematic tasks, uncreative and repetitious, they were programmed to be wholly positive thinkers, enthusiastic and dedicated. They were drained of discontentment. Their work triggered satisfaction. In frequent contact with the scientists, who were almost like normal men, the administrators had minimal personality and no thought for themselves.

  The lowliest workers were most affected. I could allow them no personality. I think of Nebe’s soldiers, of the factory workers and secretaries, of the drivers and laborers and cooks who performed simple tasks. All were heavily implanted. All were drained of personality. All were programmed to perform their given tasks without reason or thought. In a real sense they were robots. They experienced few emotions. Much cheaper and more reliable than cyborgs, they had a minimal consciousness.

  What an achievement this was! The first perfect society! No waste, no crime, no need for debate, no insubordination or rebellion, no conflict of any kind. Such a society is a miracle. It is also highly productive. With no digressions for politics or conflict, it can advance by extraordinary leaps. It can and ours did. We rode the whirlwind and conquered it. Within two years our saucers were creations of an awesome complexity. Jet propulsion was obsolete. Atomic energy was routine. And even this, given the benefit of hindsight, was but a modest beginning.

  I see the saucers as I sit here. They soar vertically from the wilderness. As I observe them, they glide across the sky and cast their shadows on mountain peaks. The sun beats all around them. They merge with the flashing ice. They ascend vertically and the hover in silence, their inertial shields glowing.

  I confess: I feel pride. Inhuman? I cannot be. As I sit here on the mountain, as I gaze out through the windows, the beauty of the saucers above the snow makes me feel like a young man.

  A divided society could not have accomplished it. Certainly not in that brief period. I would not have accomplished it myself had I ignored Nebe and Kammler.

  They both wanted to leave the wilderness. They wanted to regain what they had lost. Simple men, moved by normal, pointless hungers, they wanted cheap, instant glory. The saucers offered that opportunity. They knew the saucers were invincible. They wanted to use the saucers to plunder the Earth and make it bow down before them.

  I did not desire the same. I wanted only my work. My new cathedrals were made of ice and stone, my sole religion was science. I did not want that changed. I knew that conflict would change it. I also knew that with patience and time there would be no need for conflict.

  The saucers rendered us inviolable. Their very existence was our security. What we needed, we could obtain from the outer world if we handled it properly. Meanwhile, we could progress. We could increase our capabilities. If we did so, we would be in a position to gain much with no effort. The outer world would have to join us. We would gradually draw it in. Given time, the outer world would surrender, turning men into Man.

  Yes, given time. But Nebe and Kammler had no time. Their brains untouched by the healing electrodes, they were still normal men. They still suffered from base emotions. They felt fear and resentment. They both yearned for the world beyond the ice, and for its decadent pleasures. Vengeance and power. Material gain and the means of squandering it. Like bored children, Nebe and Kammler were inflamed with the need for attention. No, they couldn’t wait. They wanted a war of their own making. They wanted to use my remarkable creations as their weapons of plunder.

  I could not let that happen. Such a victory would be short-lived. Such aggression would be met with the resistance of inane politicians. Why encourage a nuclear war? What real purpose would it serve? Already our resources were running low, our needs increasing dramatically. What we needed, the world possessed. We could have it without conflict. In gaining it, we could progress even more and thus bide our own time. In the end, the rest would come. The rule of science was inevitable. A conflict such as Nebe and Kammler wanted could only lead to mutual destruction. I could not let it happen. I had no immediate goals. My concern was for the future of science and Man’s metamorphosis – I still wanted the Superman.

  My intention was to trade. I needed mass-produced items: small components and tools, nuts and bolts, screws and nails, light bulbs and printing paper and pens and other modest essentials. So far we had stolen them. Our flying saucers had landed. We had often abducted human beings and machines where isolation protected us. But nuts and bolts were more difficult. Small items were large problems. What was shipped to here throughout the war years was now diminishing rapidly. No colony can be self-sustaining. I had always understood this. So it was that in 1952 I had to form an alliance. There was really no alternative. I had no choice but to trade. What I had, the world needed; what the world had, I needed; and until I had the world on my side, I would have to negotiate.

  Indeed, I had already started. I was negotiating with President Truman. After the Washington invasion of 1952, he had agreed to a meeting. We met in the Oval Room. My CIA contacts were present. President Truman was an intelligent man, and as such he was nervous. He kept fiddling with his glasses. His lower lip was not too steady. General Vandenberg was standing near the desk, his eyes bright with suppressed rage. The Oval Room was crowded. General Samford and Professor Robertson. Other members of the Robertson Panel, including Lloyd Berkner. The meeting didn’t take long. They had already examined my brief. Most being specialists in the physical sciences, they had no problem in reading. I put forward my proposals. Truman sighed and raised his hands. Generals Vandenberg and Samford were outraged, but inevitably out-voted. The scientists knew what they were reading. They were aware of our capabilities. They put the facts bluntly to Truman and we reached an agreement.

  After that, I had no choice. Nebe and Kammler became a threat. Disgusted that I should barter instead of conquer, they started plotting against me. I have no proof of this. I just know it was inevitable. Their chance for immediate recognition and power had been ruined by my actions. They were now trapped in the colony. In the outer world they would be war criminals. The only way they could return to the outer world would be to land as aggressors. So, they felt trapped. Thus they had to plot against me. And knowing this, I had no choice but to remove them and take over the colony.

  They had not been implanted. They were men of free will. I could not, as I could with the others, suggest euthanasia. For
this reason I had no choice. What I did, I had to do. I could not concern myself with individuals while my future was threatened.

  Not shortly after the war, then. It was 1953. We had dinner overlooking the plateau, the snow white, the stars glittering. I served champagne and caviar. The meal was followed with brandy. Such luxuries were rare in the colony, but the night seemed to warrant it. Kammler spoke of America. He reminisced about his visits there. Artur Nebe turned his glass between his fingers, his dark eyes unrevealing. Kammler spoke of General Vandenberg. His voice trembled with loss. He said that Vandenberg had reminded him of his past, of his days with the military. Artur Nebe was not attentive. His gelid eyes surveyed the ice. He gazed over the glistening plateau to the dark, frozen wilderness. Kammler spoke of the V-2 rockets. He talked of fighting in the Hague. He recalled his days with Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun. The hours passed in this manner. Artur Nebe’s cold eyes were veiled. A large saucer became a glowing cathedral that ascended majestically. Artur Nebe did not look up. His gaze was fixed on the wilderness. Kammler yawned and stood against the large window and was framed by the starlit night. He talked vaguely about the future. He said decisions must be made. He turned away and I saw the white wilderness dissolving in darkness.

  They both left shortly after. I had no sense of urgency. The glowing cathedral descended from the heavens, hovered briefly and disappeared. I looked out and saw the ice. The frozen wilderness stretched out below me. I stood up and then went to my desk and turned on the two scanners. Kammler and Nebe were in their rooms, the latter with his whore. I reached down and pressed the button on my left and let the gas fill their lungs.

  What I did, I had to do. What I do, I have to do. Above morality, above the sanctity of the individual, is my duty to science. I do not suffer guilt. They were of use and were used. Without them, I would never have escaped – thus I offer them tribute.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Stanford climbed out of the car, closed the door and looked around him, listening to the moaning of the wind as it swept across the broad field. The sun was going down, the sky aflame with crimson light, a few drifting clouds casting the shadows that would soon die in darkness. Stanford stood there for some time. The field was utterly desolate. The flood-lights and the barbed wire had gone, but the scorched earth remained. Nothing would grow here anymore. The butchered cattle had been buried. The dust drifted lazily across the ground, emphasizing the barrenness.

  Standing there alone, Stanford was drawn to the mountains beyond the flatlands. He thought of what Scaduto had told him, and it made him feel lost. The saucers didn’t come from space. They weren’t figments of imagination. They were real and they were right here on Earth and their source was a mystery. Stanford thought about that. To think about it was frightening. He took in the desolate flatlands, saw the bloody sinking sun, watched the dust drifting over the field and then turned back to his car.

  He sat in the driver’s seat, closed the door and stared ahead, thinking of the girl on the ranch and wondered what she might know. Lust grabbed him immediately, filled his head with her presence, almost making him forget what he was here for, his groin flooding with heat. Damn it, he thought, starting the car, driving off, remembering her eyes, their oddly vacant luminosity, her breasts and her thighs and her brown legs, her thumb parting her moist lips. He couldn’t understand himself, didn’t know what was happening to him, so drove blindly, hardly seeing the road ahead, the flatlands stretching out on both sides. What was he really doing here? Was it the girl or what she knew? Stanford shook his head wearily, feeling nervous and excited, confused by his conflicting emotions, despising himself.

  The surrounding land was desolate. The crimson sky was turning dark. Stanford drove through pools of moonlight and shadow, over stones and potholes. He thought briefly of Professor Epstein, his good friend, growing frail, now obsessed because death was at his door and the mystery that had haunted him for years still remained unsolved. He had to learn the truth for Epstein. He didn’t want to fail his friend. He couldn’t bear to think of Epstein fading away, his eyes tormented by failure.

  Yet that wasn’t the only reason. In truth, it never had been. Stanford’s throbbing groin insisted on the truth and stripped the mask from his self-deceit. He was doing this for himself, his own need was his main concern, and as he drove toward the ranch he felt shame, seeing only the girl.

  He also felt a little crazy. He didn’t feel like himself at all. His thoughts tumbled on top of one another and amounted to nothing. He was obsessed with the girl. His lust went beyond mere sex. He had to touch her, had to break through her silence, had to bore through her tunneled eyes. This need was bewildering, an irrational, compulsive lust; it was a need for the revelations of her body, for the source of her being. What she was, was what he needed. She belonged to what she had witnessed. The was alien, a human touched by the unknown, and that made her seductive.

  It was that… and much more. She had known he would come back. She had known and told him so with her smile, with her luminous, empty eyes. Not empty: concealing. Eyes that shone and quickly darkened. She had looked at him and willed him to return and now he felt enslaved by her.

  Stanford didn’t know what was happening, and was powerless to resist. He felt as if the girl had hypnotized him and drained him of willpower. She had known he would come back. He had known it as well. They had both made the pact three years ago without saying a word.

  Inexplicable. Ridiculous. It couldn’t be true, yet it was real: a web of mysteries and intriguing possibilities with the girl at its center. Her vacant eyes, suggesting all. Her languorous innocence, inviting lust. Standing thought of her standing on the porch, gazing up at the sky. She had touched and been touched. She had observed and now knew. She was silent as only the knowing are silent: secretive and inviolate. Stanford wondered what she had seen. He wondered what they had done to her. And he wondered, with a strange, hallowed awe, what she had then done to him.

  He drove for another five minutes, driving blindly and dangerously, bouncing over potholes and mounds of soil until he arrived at the ranch. He slowed down when he reached the gate, stopped the car, hesitated, then opened the door and slipped out and heard the wind’s lonesome moaning. The ranch hadn’t changed, was still sadly dilapidated, the dust drifting forlornly along the porch, the lights burning inside. The girl was not on the porch. There was no sign of the old man. Stanford sighed and then opened the gate and closed it quietly behind him.

  It was now nearly dark. The wind moaned across the flatlands. Stanford walked very slowly toward the ranch, his eyes drawn to the windows. The lights were on inside. There was no other sign of life. The only sound was the moaning of the wind, and that made him feel nervous. Eventually he reached the porch, looked up at the nearest window. He saw an oil lamp glowing fitfully between the curtains, a shelf of cracked plates and cups. Stanford glanced up at the sky. The moon glided beneath the stars. Stanford shivered and then went up the steps until he stood on the porch. There was no sound from inside. Stanford felt very strange. He stepped forward and knocked on the front door and then stepped back again.

  There was no immediate response. Nothing. Stanford waited for some time. Nothing happened, so he knocked on the door again and then stepped back a little. Silence. The wind. Stanford felt a bit unreal. He stepped forward and knocked on the door again and felt his heart racing uncomfortably. That annoyed him a lot: he wasn’t used to being nervous. He cursed softly and willed her to come and then he heard a faint sound. A tin mug on a tin plate. A chair scraping on the floor. Stanford took a deep breath and let it out and kept his eyes on the door. The bolt made a rasping sound. The door creaked and then opened slightly. A beam of light fell out over Stanford and then he saw the girl’s face.

  She stared blankly at him. Her brown eyes were too large. Stanford looked into those eyes and saw the void that led into the unknown. The girl was sucking her thumb. Stanford thought she was smiling. Her long hair tumbled loo
sely around her face in a dark, uncombed tangle.

  ‘Emmylou?’ Stanford said.

  The girl nodded dumbly.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ Stanford said. ‘I was here a few years

  ago. The night all the other men were here… the night the cattle were butchered.’ The girl sucked her thumb silently. The door was barely open. The girl’s body was pressed against the door, her head tilted around it. She was wearing a cheap cotton dress. Stanford saw a brown leg. The girl stared at him, possibly smiling, then she nodded again.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Stanford asked. ‘It’s important that I talk to you. I want to talk to you and your father. Can you tell him I’m here?’

  The girl just stared at him, her thumb still in her mouth, the brown eyes too large, strangely depthless, luring him in.

  ‘Can I speak to your father?’ Stanford asked. ‘Is your father in there?’

  The girl suddenly giggled, a high-pitched, childish sound, then she removed her thumb from her mouth and opened the door a bit wider. Stanford stared at her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was wearing the same flimsy dress that she had worn three years ago, the buttons undone up to her thighs, undone down to her breasts. Stanford wanted to put it into her. He imagined himself doing it. The lust seized him with immediate, startling force and stripped his senses bare. He shook his head to clear it. He was sweating and felt feverish. The girl was leaning in a languid fashion against the door, a distant smile on her face.