The Gemini Divergence (27 page)

Gus eventually stopped the truck and
everybody got out.

All of the other truck’s brakes squeaked
loudly as they came to a stop in a linear sequence, then their
occupants disembarked their respective trucks, once they were
parked.

Now there was a group of about twenty people
standing in a crowd around Gus’s truck, with the dust still falling
out of the air.

Volmer unfolded a map and laid it down on the
truck fender as he tried to read where they were.

Gus walked up and glanced at the map and then
looked around at the valley.

He then turned back around to Volmer and
politely pushed Volmer’s hands out of the way as he said, “Excuse
me Mr. Volmer.”

Gus then turned the map around, as Volmer had
been reading it upside down, and pointed to a spot, “We are here,
Mr. Volmer, see the road, and see these two peaks,” as he pointed
to the map.

He then pointed to the real peaks across the
valley as he spoke to Volmer, “The peaks are there and there, that
way is north east,” as he pointed to where the road went over a low
pass on the horizon.”

Volmer commented, as he looked through his
thick glasses at the road on the horizon, “Gee, I am very glad once
again that I have you along Gus.”

“Don’t deride yourself, Mr. Volmer; there are
a lot of times I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Gus then took the initiative to show
authority and spoke to the entire crowd, “OK everybody, we are
going to set up one equipment operating location here, and then one
over the valley ridge in a map grid number 51, just to the north
east from this valley. The actual tests will take place in this
valley which looks like its called Yucca Flats.

*~*

The saucer docked gracefully with the central
hub of the station, since the central hub had the slowest movement
of the station.

As Schwerig and Kreutztrager egressed from
the craft, they struggled, as they had never experienced
weightlessness before.

They held the hand rails as they ascended
down one of the stations spokes because they were instructed that
the closer they came to the outer circle, the stronger the pull of
gravity would be on them.

If they would have just floated down the
spoke, they eventually would have progressed from floating into an
actual fall from the center.

As they grew nearer to the bottom of the
spoke they were entirely using the ladder connected to the inside
of the spoke to descend, the gravity was now almost an entire
G.

When they got to the bottom they were met by
Hauptman Graff, “Welcome Herr General, Herr Oberst, gentlemen,
please remove your helmets. The atmosphere is normal in the outer
wheel.”

Schwerig skipped the formalities and
immediately started asking questions, “How do you maintain one
atmosphere, here on the main platform? I would think that it would
be harder to make gasses adhere to the same inertia as objects of
heavier mass.”

Hauptman Graff looked very surprised to hear
such a perceptive question, “Very observant, Herr Oberst, that was
a difficult problem to overcome, but we found that if we released
compressed air at the center hub, then the atmosphere would
gravitate and dissipate pressure uniformly to here in the outer
rim.”

Schwerig probed further, “What do you do
about sleeping arrangements? I would think that if the crew were
asleep and not moving around to mix the air that the heavier
gasses, like carbon dioxide, would settle towards the outside, or
the floor. Wouldn’t that cause asphyxia?”

“Correct again, Herr Oberst,” answered Graff,
“unfortunately we learned that the hard way and lost some valuable
crewmen our first night here. We have since suspended the bunks
from the ceiling as well as extended all of the return air
registers to the outer rim or floor. Eventually it will be routed
through the planned greenhouse before filtering.”

“Interesting,” affirmed Schwerig, “You must
fill me in to all of these problems that you have overcome, so that
we may not re-introduce the same problems with our newer
developments.”

“Yes, Herr Oberst, I certainly shall. It
already looks like the Oberst’s insights will save many lives.”

“I also was mesmerized by the beauty of the
station on approach,” continued Schwerig, “but it then concerned me
greatly that it could be very detectable from the earth.”

“I don’t think that it is of a large concern,
Herr Oberst,” answered Graff, “no one on earth has anything that
they can shoot at us with.”

Schwerig scowled, “Yes but that will remain
the case, only if they do not see us. If a farmer never sees a
wolf, he may never feel the need for a firearm, but if he sees a
wolf on his farm, even if it has never attacked, he will certainly
attain a firearm as soon as possible.”

“I see, Herr Oberst,” answered the Hauptman,
“I must confess that I have never looked at it that way… I stand
corrected.”

~~~**^**~~~

The Cold
War / Diamonds In The Sky

3 January 1952

Air Force Intelligence General Garland sent
a secret memo to Air Force General Samford about the increasing
reports of UFOs. He was convinced that the Air Force needed to
determine the origin of these saucers, and thus drafted the memo,
‘Contemplated action to determine the nature and origin of the
phenomena connected with the reports of unusual flying
objects’.

*~*

Secretary Symington frowned at his
displeasure that Lemay was lighting a cigar in his office.

Some still considered it rude, in 1952, to
say anything about someone else smoking.

“General Lemay,” started Symington, “I must
confess that I am on the verge of resignation because I can’t
convince congress to give any more funding to your new secret
technological intelligence gathering entity, and what I find even
more troubling is that they are listening to fools like Garland and
Samford, who are moving in the direction of starting a duplicate
organization.”

“With all due respect Sir,” answered Lemay,
“Generals Garland and Samford have not been informed that there
already is one, and they are merely coming to the same conclusions
to solve the same problems that I have.”

“But they already have many high powered
people in their pockets, and have already received the green light
to start a compartmentalized project to build a global instrumented
detection system. We could use those funds for your project
instead.”

Lemay leaned back into his chair and
nonchalantly answered, “I’m not too concerned.”

“What?” gasped Symington, “why not?”

“They’re leading the dog and pony show away
from the ‘real deal’, responded Lemay, “They don’t realize it, but
they are running a perfect front for us. Any entity outside or
inside of the U.S. that is looking for such a project to develop,
will see those loud mouth prima donnas, and think that they’re the
main project.”

Symington, realizing that Lemay was onto
something, then chimed in, “And so then, when congress grows tired
of the subject, they will cut funding to the squeaky wheel instead
of the ignored bastard child.”

“Exactly,” answered Lemay, “Some times to win
the battle you have to let the heroes hit the beach, the real war
is always won by the reinforcements that come after their
sacrifice.”

Symington nodded in agreement, and then
slightly changed the subject, “Well, I have another item that may
go hand in hand with what we have been talking about, but I have
been nudged by the President to upgrade Project Grudge to a whole
new larger entity called ‘Project Blue Book’.”

Lemay looked irritated and asked, “You may
not be able to do anything against the Presidents wishes, but are
you going to give them more investigative power? Because, that damn
Ruppelt has been a royal pain in my posterior.”

“Do you think he is onto your project?”

Lemay answered, “He asks a lot of well
designed questions that become increasingly harder to answer, but I
don’t think he has figured it out yet.”

“Try to keep him at bay, General.”

“I have been, but I think he’d make a better
prosecutor than an Air Force report grinder.”

Symington laughed then continued, “I have to
give the President another secret briefing tomorrow about the
Germans in Antarctica, is there anything to add besides the fact
that they have developed nuclear power before us, and they appear
to have a city or base of about 50,000 people?”

Lemay responded, “Mr. Volmer seems to think
that they have already achieved space travel, either that or they
have achieved flight at altitudes that far surpass our technology…
I am afraid that they have the ability to drop bombs on us at any
time they wish.”

“I can’t tell the President that, unless your
one hundred percent sure.” insisted Symington, “At 50,000 people,
surely they could not engage in any kind of devastating or
prolonged attack, especially since we now know where they
live.”

“I don’t think that they will stay there for
long.”

“Where in the hell will they go… back to
Germany?”

Lemay leaned forward and placed his hands on
Symington’s desk, “They always seem to pull something out of their
ass… Hell, we all thought the damn war was over seven years ago,
and poof, there they are in Antarctica.”

*~*

From the war years, up until 1952, most UFO
sightings had been primarily in the U.S., with the exceptions
being, the ‘foo fighters’ in Europe, and the sightings over the
Soviet Union.

Suddenly in 52, the wave of sightings
increased dramatically, and to the Air Force’s surprise, sightings
in South America started to explode in volume.

Like the other civilian populations of the
world, the South Americans believed that the objects were extra
terrestrial, but were in fact the traffic from the newly found
German base in the desert jungle around Fuerte Esperanza,
Argentina.

*~*

Schwerig’s new office on the space station
had an even more stunning view than the last, with a picture window
that looked out into the inside of the stations wheel, where any
observer could see the work being done on the station. They could
also see all arriving saucers as well as a tremendous view of the
planet below.

Kreutztrager had approved of the station’s
progress, and given permission to move all of Schwerig’s engineers
and an entire Kugelblitzen Jasta, or ‘fighter saucer squadron’.

Schwerig had also been granted the use of a
transportation squadron outfitted with larger saucers and all of
the support staff needed to maintain the fleet and the construction
of the present station, as well as start construction on the
second.

In total the new station had a compliment of
around 1000 men and the second station, already under construction
was not yet inhabitable.

Schwerig looked out of the window at the
construction of the new station, which was orbiting in formation
with the present station, but standing away about a thousand
meters.

It looked to him, more like a double ended
sickle, because the outer ring was incomplete.

“How long until we finish the second station
and start the third?” asked Graff, who had been seated quietly
across from Schwerig’s desk.

Schwerig walked up to the window to get a
better view, and answered, “Oh, we will start construction on the
third and fourth before even the first station is completed. We
should complete them all though, within a year or two. Once
completed we will post them at the quarters of the Earth, where we
will have constant visual and electronic communication as well as
virtual monitoring of the entire globe at once.”

“It will be the most glorious day ever for
the Fourth Reich,” suggested Graff.

“It will indeed,” agreed Schwerig.

*~*

The fire crackled brightly in the night, as
the crew huddled around the campfire for warmth. Everyone was
surprised at how cold the arid desert could get at night, even in
the middle of the summer.

Jack was telling scary stories to the people
around the fire, but Gus and Volmer were standing away from the
light to get a better view of the Milky Way in the sky.

“Do you ever think we will travel out there?”
pondered Gus.

Volmer looked surprised, secretly knowing
that the Nazis were already out there and asked, “What do you mean
we, do you mean America?”

Gus looked back at Volmer, a little puzzled
himself now and said, “No, I mean anybody.”

“Ohhh,” answered Volmer with sudden relief,
“Yes, I am very certain that we will someday.”

Gus looked at the sky and then back to Volmer
with suspicion.

Volmer felt Gus’s stare but tried to ignore
it.

Gus then asked, very sternly but in a lower
voice so the others would not hear, “Are you holding out on
me?”