by Ira Tabankin
Everett knew General Rosco wasn’t read in on Kalteck, so he had to be very careful what he told them. “Sir, to the best of our data, no such craft crashed in the USSR. We have had no reports either officially or off the record about anything unusual happening near the Soviets. Isn’t it possible their German rocket scientists were better at designing large rockets than ours?”
“Damn. I was really hoping you’d tell us a craft did crash which would explain how they leapfrogged us. In fact, I was counting on you to give us the answer. Now we have to figure out how the hell they managed to loft such a payload out of our orbitals. I was told that under project paperclip (transplanting German rocket scientists to America after World War Two) we got the best Germans; I hope they didn’t grab the best ones. General, I know you’re going to see the President tomorrow for breakfast, so I’m going to let you get some rest. I’m sure we’ll see each other again before you return home.”
Everett looked around the room and asked General Rosco, “Sir, will we be responding soon?”
A very tired general took off his reading glasses, his bloodshot eyes looked at Everett, “I wish we could. None of our existing missiles has the payload required to carry a satellite. If we had one, which we don’t, we’d have sent it to the moon. The new Titan could, but its first test firing isn’t planned for another month. I’ve already pushed them as hard as I can. Our planned launches are all orbital birds. They damn Reds grabbed the headlines out from under us in ’57 with Sputnik and they did it again with this damned lunar shot. We know it’s nothing but a press stunt because, according to our plotting, they’re going to miss the moon. Can you imagine they spent a fortune to aim at something as large as the moon and they’re going to miss? Anyway, thank you for coming by. I was hoping you had an answer to how they managed to pull their stunt off, but now I’m going to have to tell the President they are head of us in their rocket technology. I know that’s not going to make him happy.”
Everett asked, “Sir, when are you going to be telling the President your thoughts?”
“Tomorrow at dawn. I get the joy of seeing him right before you.”
Everett thanked the general and was driven to his hotel. Liane knew something was wrong when Everett walked in. “Honey, is something wrong?”
“No, everything is fine. I’m going to see the President tomorrow for breakfast, so if you don’t mind, let’s go to bed. I’m going to have a long day tomorrow.”
Chapter 2
Everett knew the President wasn’t pleased as soon as he was shown to the Oval Office. “Everett, I thought we’d have breakfast in the small dining room. I’ve already had two cups of bitter coffee in my first meeting this morning. I’m looking forward to speaking with you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know you met with General Rosco last night and I learned from him this morning you didn’t spill the beans about your friend, which is good, but Everett, what kind of game is your friend playing?”
“Sir?”
“You know damned well what I’m saying. Don’t tell me he didn’t help them launch Sputnik ahead of our launch…”
“Mr. President, he did warn you he had to assist the country that he thought had the better chance of orbiting the satellite. He told us he thought the Soviets would succeed ahead of us. You told him, you promised him, we’d beat the Soviets. Our first two efforts failed when they either exploded on their launch pads or right above them. He told us what was at risk if one of us didn’t succeed. From his point of view, he didn’t have a choice but to assist them. I don’t think he helped the Soviets launch their moon rocket. I’m almost sure of it.”
“I’m listening. Tell me why you feel he didn’t have anything to do with their launch.”
“Sir, first of all, General Rosco told me they’re going to miss the moon. Don’t you think if Kalteck was helping them, he would have made sure they either struck or landed on the moon? The second reason why I don’t believe he helped them is that he has a base on the dark side of the moon. He wouldn’t be helping anyone reach the moon until he was sure his base was completely hidden, or he’d programmed where the moon device was going to orbit so it wouldn’t see his base.”
The President leaned back in his office chair, he thought over what Everett said, he then slowly nodded, “How are your eggs? More coffee?”
“Perfect, sir. Thank you. I’ll get it. Can I refill your cup too?” Everett got up to grab the silver coffee pot.
The President nodded, “As usual, you’re making a very logical case. Where is our friend?”
“I don’t know. I expect he’s searching for any sensors or bases the aliens left behind. I haven’t heard from him in a while. I have a gut feeling he’ll be returning soon. I don’t have any facts to back up my feeling. You know how gut feelings work.”
“I’ll accept your gut feelings. So far they’ve been right on the target. Did General Rosco ask you anything about Roswell?”
“No, sir. He said he hoped an alien ship had landed in the USSR, which is how they managed to gain their technology to reach the moon. If he did ask about Roswell, I’d have given him the agreed upon cover story.”
“Do you have any thought as to why the Soviets were able to launch a device towards the moon so early?”
“I’ve given this a lot of thought since I learned of it yesterday. I believe the Soviets lack our guidance technology, so they compensate with larger rockets. As they say in horseshoes, close counts. It’s the same in nuclear weapons. Since they can’t match our guidance, they overcompensate with larger rockets to carry larger warheads. Since their rockets are larger, they used one to loft a device towards the moon. The fact that they missed the moon supports my theory they lack sufficient guidance technology. I know that our friend hasn’t visited Moscow because had he returned; he would have contacted me. That I’m sure of.”
Eisenhower thought about Everett’s explanation for a couple of minutes before he smiled. “I don’t know why anyone else didn’t think of that. Of all of the excuses and explanations I’ve been told, that’s the most logical one I’ve heard in two days. General, well done. Are you sure the enemy fleet Kalteck warned us about turned around?”
“Mr. President, we have no way of knowing. Our technology and our telescopes aren’t good enough to pick out the very faint light and radiation of their engines. We’re going to have to rely on Kalteck’s information. I know you’re wondering if we can trust him or if he has set us up to fail. If his intention was for us to be conquered by that fleet, why would he have done anything to support us in the past twelve years? He could have stayed in orbit or anywhere in space and just waited for the enemy to arrive. He didn’t have to give us the technology he did…”
“Unless he wants us to destroy each other…”
“Sir, I was with him when he caused an earthquake to force Stalin to toe the line. He doesn’t need us to fight each other. If he really wanted to destroy us, it would be easy for him. Based on what I’ve seen of his technology, it would be child’s play. His weapons and capabilities seem like magic to us because they’re so far ahead of ours. He can fly between the stars, something Professor Einstein said was impossible. He has machines that appear to be alive and can think for themselves. Shall I continue?”
“No, you’ve made your point. Tell me, have your field investigators discovered any other real UFOs that have visited us?”
“Sir, they have. I have asked Kalteck for his assistance in figuring out if these are friends or foes. This is the one area that concerns me…”
“What is that? I thought you two were very close.”
“Sir, he continues to avoid discussing these other sightings. I have one plan which I need your permission to move forward with.”
“I’m listening. What do you need from me?”
“Sir, when he returns, I’d like you to invite the two of us here so you can hear directly from him what he discovered in space and the status of the enemy fleet. As you know, he has diff
iculty outright lying to authority figures. Hence, I figure if you ask him directly about these other sightings, he’ll either answer you, or we’ll know by his facial expression he’s lying. If he avoids answering, we’ll also know there are more threats then he’s warned us about.”
“General, I approve of your plan. If you have nothing else for me, then enjoy your weekend in the capital with your wife, it was a very good idea to bring her. Let me know as soon as our friend returns.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”
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Liane surprised all of her friends with her new outfits. She told Everett, “You should have seen their faces when they saw my new dress, shoes, and bag. You could have knocked them over with a feather. There’s nothing like it available here in the wilderness of Las Vegas. They were so green with envy. I loved it and then I dropped the big bomb on them. I told them, my husband, the youngest Major General, that’s a two-star, I told them, was asked to come to the White House to brief the President. Their faces turned white. I’m so proud of you!”
“Honey, I love you, and you’re my best friend, but please be careful with the stories about my visiting the White House. He wouldn’t like it if he heard about the bragging.”
“How’s he going to hear about something said at a women’s lunch all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Your friends will tell their husbands who still wonder what I do and why a two-star is running some strange project in the middle of the desert. Their husbands, a couple who are also generals may ask their friends in D.C. who I am, and that may get back to the boss so please go easy on the your husband advises the President.”
“You take all my fun away.”
“I’ll give you some fun. Put on a fashion show and let me see what I bought you. I saw the new large suitcase we brought home. I know it must be filled with all sorts of new things.”
Liane smiled and dashed off to change.
Everett spent the time wondering where Kalteck was and when he was going to return. He also couldn’t get the thought of the other UFOs out of his head. He wondered who they were and why they were observing the Earth. In the middle of Liane’s fashion show Everett’s red phone rang. Everett wondered, now what? I just returned. Did the damn Soviets do something else crazy? Did one of those UFOs land? I better answer it, or they’ll send the Air Police over here to see why I didn’t answer.
“Hello, this is General Yahnig.”
“Sir, this is radioman first class Brown. I’m sorry to bother you, but we received a coded message for your eyes only. Sir, this message has no, I repeat no, sending station or base code. It’s all in numbers, which I can’t decode. Should I bring it over to your home?”
“No, I’ll come to the base. Please hold the message in the TS safe until I arrive. No one, I repeat, no one is to see or know about that message. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Everett told Liane he had to fly to the base to handle an urgent matter. He called his driver, who quickly arranged transport from their home to the airport and to Area 51 which had to be reached from Las Vegas via shuttle flights called ‘Judy flights.’ Everett took the message to his office. He instructed the two Air Police who always guarded his office to secure the area and not allow anyone accesses to his office until he unlocked the door, “If necessary, I am authorizing you to use deadly force to keep everyone away from my wing of the building, am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Both Air Police officers snapped to attention, charged their M1 carbines and called for reinforcements to guard the general’s office and hallway leading to it. The Air Police officers were used to the general securing his office or even sections of the large base. The Air Police also sealed the entire office building until Everett instructed them it was okay to allow others access.
Everett took the special machine Kalteck had given him. He held up the message slip in front of the glass which lit up in bright blue light. There was a flash like a camera’s flashbulb. When Everett next looked at the glass, the message had been decoded into English. Everett wondered how the strange glass functioned, how it was possible to make glass not only so thin and lightweight but also how could glass bend and what allowed it to translate the coded messages. He remembered Kalteck said it could hold and display service manuals and even show full-length movies. That Everett sensed was a joke Kalteck was playing on him because how the hell could a small piece of flexible glass play a movie. Where was the projector? It couldn’t be a TV because there wasn’t a picture tube in the thin glass. Everett didn’t understand most of Kalteck’s technology, so he merely accepted it and used it as Kalteck had instructed him.
The message gave Everett the information the President had asked for, the details on the enemy fleet, and what Kalteck had discovered in his latest recon flights of the system. It also told Everett that Kalteck expected to return near the end of the year. He’d dipped into Earth’s atmosphere to send the update and was then on his way to the outer system. Everett placed a call on his red phone to inform the President of Kalteck’s news and his estimated return.
The President asked Everett to contact Kalteck to inform him the President would like to see him concerning the upcoming 1960 election. Everett sent the message hoping it would reach Kalteck before he was supposed to return.
Chapter 3
Kalteck’s ship almost silently slipped through the clouds to land inside of the specialty-built hangar. Once the large saucer-shaped ship landed, the roof of the hangar slowly closed, so anyone who looked at it wouldn’t notice it was different from the other nineteen hangars on the secret base.
Everett stood in the corner of the hangar, he waited for the saucer-shaped ship to steady itself and the spinning rings stop. He knew he couldn’t approach the ship until it stopped glowing, or he’d risk damaging his DNA. He’d been warned the radiation could cause massive internal damage to anyone if they approached closest to the saucer than ten feet until the rings stopped spinning and the glowing stopped.
Everett liked to play a game with himself. He liked to guess where on the ship the doorway would open. He knew there weren’t any windows, but once inside, he could look out as if the entire ship was a window, and while there weren’t any external door frames, a section of the hull could disappear, becoming the door. All of a sudden, Everett covered his eyes from the bright light that flooded out from the opened door that caught him by surprise. Once Everett’s eyes adjusted to the light, he saw Kalteck standing in the doorway. “Everett, it is good to see you again.”
“I’d say welcome home, but I assume you’ve been spent time at your old home on Mars.”
“That I did. I want to take you there one day. Now let’s open a few bottles of beer and share the news.”
Kalteck quickly swallowed four beers, “I missed beer. For some reason my replicator can’t produce beer. I’ve tasked my AI with modifying it so I can have some during my time on the ship. The last time it tried, I threatened to space my AI,” laughed Kalteck.
Everett smiled at his alien friend, “That’s great news, but how about telling me about what you saw out there. I assume your trick with the artificial moon sending the code worked because we’re still here.”
“Yes, it worked. You and I are going to pay a little trip to Moscow very soon. I am wondering why they sent a probe to the moon without it being on the list of objectives for a while. If the enemy had left any sensors behind and they saw the probe miss your moon, they would have notified the fleet that something was wrong. If my enemy was here, then you wouldn’t have missed the damn small planetoid, none of you would be alive to ponder why you missed. I want to know what they were thinking.”
“The President would like to speak with you…”
“Yes, but after our trip to Moscow. It appears that every leader in the USSR has similar traits. They’re headstrong and like to, as you say, play games. I’m going to show them how games are really played. I am angry with them for almost destroying all of my
work here.”
Kalteck’s ship landed at a Soviet Air Force base on the outskirts of Moscow at 1A.M. Khrushchev had ordered that only a specialty-trained group from the KGB were allowed on the base to greet his two visitors. Khrushchev himself decided to hold the meeting in a secure hangar on the base so the alien’s ship would be gone before the sun came up. The fewer people who saw the ship, the better. Khrushchev didn’t want to risk any of his enemies knowing he was holding talks with an American officer, let alone an alien.
Kalteck greeted Khrushchev with a frown, “I have many questions for you. First, have you received any news you’d like to share from your eastern state of Kamchatka?”
“So, it’s true, you can make the very ground shake. What other tricks do you have? Do you think your little parlor tricks are going to work on me? You might have scared Stalin, but that old fool deserved anything you did to him.”