GENESIS (Projekt Saucer)

by W. A. Harbinson

  green and blue and orange and violet, flashing right around the rim of

  the saucer as it moved slowly forward. The caves expanded as they

  approached, became enormous dark tunnels, and the saucer glided into a

  tunnel, its colored lights flashing on and off. Stanford saw natural rock,

  the glint of moisture and green moss, then saw a pinpoint of light far

  ahead, growing bigger each second. First a pinpoint, then a dime, then a

  glowing balloon, then a round exit racing at them and pouring light over

  them.

  Stanford saw another valley, almost roofed in with cliffs, the rocks

  forming an umbrella above, the sun beaming through crevices. The

  valley floor was far below, broken up by silvery domes, some minute,

  others looking quite large, the ground around them a deep brown. The saucer hovered and then descended, dropping slowly, almost leisurely; it appeared to bob up and down gently, yet Stanford felt nothing. He looked down on the silvery domes, at first mistaking them for geodesic domes, but then saw them rising up and becoming larger and taking shape as parked saucers. Stanford stared at them, bemused. The valley was spread out around him. The saucer dropped past a soaring wall of glinting metal, and Stanford, looking back, saw a flying saucer as big as

  a cathedral: one of the legendary carrying ships.

  The saucer touched down gently. The hunchback looked up and

  smiled. Stanford gazed through the window, saw a large square steel

  platform, the flashing lights around the saucer’s rim blinking out one by

  one. The metal panels slid back down, leaving the saucer’s body, the

  fuselage, looking smooth and seamless once more. The steel platform

  was above the ground, thrusting out from the face of the cliff, fronting a

  tunnel from which a group of men emerged, bareheaded, wearing

  coveralls. They were all big men, their lower half of their faces in

  silvery masks, and they pushed a mobile lounge against the saucer as its

  door angled downward. The door was swallowed by the mobile lounge.

  The lounge was pushed against the saucer. Its angled edge had been

  perfectly contoured to the saucer’s sloped surface.

  ‘We go out now,’ the hunchback said.

  Accompanied by a cyborg guard, he led Stanford down the steps,

  across the dome-shaped white room, past the adolescents in coveralls,

  the Ache in the chairs, their mouths and noses sealed and rendered

  useless, their narrow eyes dulled and fathomless. Stanford, now

  accepting them, almost thinking of them as normal, left the room with

  the hunchback, followed him back along the curving white-walled

  corridor with its row of sealed windows. They turned onto the ramp, the

  lounge’s ceiling arched over them, the walls and floor painted white, the

  windows framing solid rock, passed through the lounge and continued

  along a tunnel with invisible lighting. The tunnel was quite long and

  had been hacked out of the rock; it ran into the bowels of the mountain

  and was surprisingly warm.

  As Stanford followed the hunchback, he studied his strange hands,

  took note of their uncommon, almost feminine delicacy, the crude

  contrast of powerful arms. Then they left the tunnel, stepping into

  brilliant light, crossed a catwalk high above a workshop of impressive dimensions. Stanford saw jibs and cranes, a lot of roaring machines, sheets of metal, dull-gray and all shapes, being swung to and fro. There were hundreds of workers down there, steel benches, steaming vats, blast furnaces and screeching electric drills, immense saucer-shaped

  skeletons.

  Stanford stopped to see more, but was pushed forward by a

  cyborg, saw an oblong metal plate in his fist, was touched by it and

  received a shock from it. It was a sharp electric shock, jolting painfully

  through his shoulder, and he hurried onward, still following the

  hunchback, his arm stinging and burning. They passed through another

  tunnel, crossed a steel-plated room, rows of frosted-glass cabinets on

  the shelves, naked bodies inside them. Stanford stared at them, startled,

  felt the chill in the room, then recovered and followed the hunchback

  through a door that led into another room.

  This room was a laboratory, steel-plated, quite large, the walls

  rising to a ceiling of chiseled rock that was part of the mountain. The

  staff looked perfectly normal, men and women in white smocks, reading

  and writing, peering into microscopes, checking printouts and gauges

  and thermometers, working quietly, intently. What was different were

  the specimens in the cages and glass jars: human heads, pumping hearts,

  floating brains and intestines, a naked body sitting upright in a chair, a

  wire frame where its head should have been. The frame was shaped like

  a human head, was made from crisscrossing wires, contained flashing

  bulbs and fuses and copper coils, wires and tubes running out of it. The

  wires and tubes ran to a console, were plugged into various sockets, the

  console flashing and buzzing, activating the headless body, its arms

  rising and falling, legs kicking: a puppet of flesh and blood. Stanford

  quickly turned away, saw the hunchback smiling at him, felt the sting of

  the electric fist in his back, so followed the hunchback through another

  door.

  They passed through a kind of warehouse, its walls hacked out of

  the mountain, refrigerated and couched in semidarkness, filled with

  tables and cabinets. Stanford tried not to look, was fascinated and

  horrified, his head level with the cabinets, the tables on all sides, his

  eyes drawn against their will to what was present: the nightmare of

  scientific progress.

  The cabinets kept the flesh frozen, arms and legs, hands and feet,

  wires extending from bloody necks and stumps, electrodes sprouting

  from sliced skulls. The tables were even worse, the human subjects not

  completed: here a steel chin and nose, there a woman with plastic

  breasts, here a torso with metal legs, valves and tubes instead of

  genitals, there a chest with the skin peeled off the bone, its hydraulic

  heart pumping. Other cabinets contained the hardware: the exoskeletons

  and pacemakers, the percutaneous power connections, the bifurcated

  blood vessels and aortic valves and silicone boosters, the orthopedic

  braces and cobalt joints and piezoelectric generators – the stainless steel

  and chromium, the meat and bone, of those picked to be cyborgs. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Stanford whispered.

  The metal fist thumped his spine, the electric shock stabbing

  through him, and he gasped and followed the hunchback past the tables,

  the cyborg padding behind him. They went through another doorway,

  passed more bodies in cabinets, the glass frosted, the graph needles not

  moving, and then came to yet another door. The hunchback stepped

  aside, bowed to Stanford, waved at him, and Stanford stepped through

  the doorway and was dazzled by bright light and plate glass. He was in a dome-shaped room, its white metal walls gleaming,

  large windows running around the curved wall, framing clear sky and

  mountain peaks. There were doors between the windows, steel-plated,

  all closed, large consoles jutting out just above them, their lights

  flashing on and off. The room was about fifty feet wide. There was a

  desk in the mid
dle. On the desk there was an intercom, a Micro-film

  viewer, a pile of books, pens and pencils, notepaper, a black panel of

  switches. There were chairs in front of the desk, all white, deep and

  comfortable; there was no other furniture in the room and the floor was

  cold plastic. A man sat behind the desk. He was staring steadily at

  Stanford. He was handsome and white-haired and slim, and he waved

  Stanford forward.

  Stanford crossed the cold floor, his footsteps reverberating. It

  seemed to take a long time to reach the desk, but he got there

  eventually. He stopped and stared at Wilson. He had no doubt that it

  was Wilson. Stanford saw the unusually seamless forehead and knew

  who he was talking to.

  ‘Mr Wilson,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Wilson replied. ‘You’ve come a long way to see me.’ Stanford didn’t smile. He hadn’t smiled in a long time. He rubbed

  his beard and looked at Wilson’s blue eyes and was reminded of the

  Antarctic ice.

  ‘This is it,’ Wilson said. He waved his hand in a careless manner.

  ‘Those doors lead out to the colony, to all the different departments; the

  consoles tell me what’s going on and I control it from here. The colony

  forms a sort of circle. The tunnels run right through the mountain. The

  tunnels are the spokes of the wheel, and this room is the hub. We’re at

  the top of a plateau. The tunnels lead down to the bottom. The saucers

  and construction plants are down there, and can’t be seen from the sky.

  This room constitutes the highest point. Overhanging rocks hide it. I

  have lived here for more than thirty years and I find it inspiring.’ Wilson offered a bleak smile, his blue eyes as cold as ice,

  brightened with a luminous intelligence that did not show emotion.

  There was no malice in him. Stanford sensed that immediately. Wilson

  knew neither malice nor fear: he had gone beyond all that.

  ‘You know who I am?’ Stanford asked.

  ‘Naturally,’ Wilson said. ‘We’ve been watching you and Epstein

  for years; you were both too persistent.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Stanford asked.

  ‘You’ll see him soon,’ Wilson said. ‘Dr Epstein is healthier than

  he was – and is really quite happy.’

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Yes, happy,’ Wilson said.

  ‘What the fuck did you do to him?’ Stanford said.

  ‘I just offered him life.’

  Wilson smiled and stood up, crossed the room to the window, his

  movements excessively slow and careful, then stopped and looked out.

  All white. Everything. The Antarctic was spread out far below. He

  turned away from the window and looked at Stanford, his face smooth

  and expressionless.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.

  ‘I came for Epstein,’ Stanford said.

  ‘No,’ Wilson said, ‘I don’t think so. That doesn’t make sense.’ ‘Why not?’ Stanford asked.

  ‘You must have known you couldn’t go back. You knew you

  couldn’t get in here unless we let you enter – and you knew that you

  couldn’t escape. You must have known that and yet you still came… It

  wasn’t just for your old friend.’

  ‘Partly that,’ Stanford said.

  ‘And the other part?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Stanford said. ‘I’m not sure. I guess I just had to

  finish it.’

  Wilson smiled without humor. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. He

  went around the desk and sat down, his gaze still fixed on Stanford. ‘You’re living dangerously,’ Stanford said.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘We’re all alone here,’ Stanford said. ‘I could kill you. And I think

  I might do it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Wilson said. ‘You didn’t come here for that.

  Besides, it would serve little purpose: it would not affect this place.’ ‘You’re not concerned for yourself?’

  ‘Not really,’ Wilson said. ‘I’ve had a long life, a full life, but it

  can’t last forever.’

  ‘You’re a cyborg,’ Stanford said.

  ‘Not quite accurate,’ Wilson said. ‘I have an artificial heart, a few

  joints are prosthetic replacements, my face has undergone plastic

  surgery, but I’m hardly a cyborg. Not that it makes much difference.

  Even cyborgs pass away. We still haven’t conquered the liver, and that

  means we’re still mortal.’

  ‘How long have you got left?’

  ‘A few more years,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Then what? What happens when you die?’

  ‘This place will continue.’

  He stared steadily at Stanford. His eyes radiated no feelings. He

  displayed neither malice nor warmth, his soul destroyed by intelligence. ‘Man is simply a tool,’ he said. ‘He is the seed of evolution. He

  exists to explore and create, and has no other value. But men alone are

  self-destructive. Without discipline they rot. Take the history of man

  and examine it and you come up with lunacy. Wasted time and

  opportunity, self-indulgence and corruption, material greed and self-pity

  and vanity – all negative impulses. The will to freedom has never worked; every success has been matched with failure; we step forward and then we step back and wallow in pettiness. Our superiority is in thinking. Only the mind has any value. But our animal needs, our appetites and fears, keep us chained in self-imposed imprisonment. We must leave the cave behind us. We must reach for the stars. We can’t do

  that while Democracy persists and lets freedom destroy us.’ ‘Freedom leads to creativity.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ Wilson said. ‘Freedom leads to boredom and

  conflict and waste – and encourages stagnancy.’

  ‘The world hasn’t stagnated.’

  ‘It hasn’t advanced much,’ Wilson said. ‘Or, at least, it’s only

  advanced on one level and is now dangerously imbalanced. We have

  advanced scientifically, have made extraordinary leaps forward, and

  now we stand on the brink of the miraculous and can reshape man’s

  future. But that advance was intellectual. We’re still emotionally

  retarded. The other side of man is still as primitive as it was in the cave.

  That side remains unchanged. It hides the dire results of freedom. It

  disguises mindless greed, political suspicion and social fear, pointless

  hatred and the boredom and resentment that lead to destruction. The

  world is wallowing in bloodshed, the atmosphere’s being polluted,

  we’re gradually gobbling up our natural resources and inviting a barren

  Earth. We do this because of greed, because of politics and war, and

  these things are the consequences of so-called freedom, the fruits of

  Democracy. Man must have a purpose. He must be disciplined and

  driven. Only then will the world become sane and save itself from

  ruination.’

  ‘Totalitarianism,’ Stanford said. ‘A world of masters and slaves.

  The people will be content because they’re zombies… and the Earth

  will be peaceful.’

  ‘You disapprove,’ Wilson said.

  ‘Damned right, I disapprove. It’s obscene and it’s been tried

  before and it just never works. A man needs free choice. Without that,

  he’s not a man. To steal a man’s will and contradictions it to steal his

  humanity.’

  ‘That�
�s sentiment,’ Wilson said.

  ‘I’m a sentimentalist,’ Stanford said.

  ‘You’re a primitive,’ Wilson said. ‘You’re self-destructive. That’s

  why you came here.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Stanford said. ‘What you’re saying is shit. And you

  won’t get away with it forever – the world out there won’t let you.’ ‘Won’t it?’ Wilson said. ‘How naive you are, Stanford. The world

  out there is part of the conspiracy – and has been for years. The United

  States knows about us. The Soviet Union knows about us. The British

  and the Germans know about us, and all of them deal with us. What I

  have is what they need. What I’m doing is what they want. The world is

  out of control, freedom has led to revolution, and now Democracy is no

  more than a name to keep the innocent happy. You think your people

  are any different? No, Stanford, they’re not. Totalitarianism creeps over

  the world and is stifling resistance. Regimentation is increasing. People

  are numbers instead of names. The world is now ruled by a selected

  few, and suppression is spreading. Surveillance is widespread. Every

  citizen is on file. The salient facts of every individual human have been

  fed to computers. Television mesmerizes them. Piped music fills their

  factories. Credit cards and employment cards and passports have

  rendered privacy obsolete. All these people are mere numbers. Their socalled freedom is an illusion. Their politics, their culture, their religions

  have no bearing on anything. Let them demonstrate occasionally. Let

  them criticize and abuse. Feed them issues that will keep them engaged

  while the real work goes on. In the end, they’ll be passive. They won’t

  really have any choice. Their credit cards and employment cards and

  passports can be withdrawn at any time. Such items make or break

  them. A select few decide the issue. The mass of men are led by the

  nose and they don’t even know it. That’s your freedom, Mr Stanford.

  That’s your precious Democracy. The world is a chess game, the pieces

  are property, and the game is only played by the select few who hide

  behind closed doors.’

  ‘A neat theory,’ Stanford said. ‘But it has one glaring flaw. Your

  players will fight amongst themselves, and you’ll still have world

  conflict. The Americans want you out of here. The Russians want you