Chapter Seven

1947

 

 

 

            Michael Hathaway was a year into post doctoral studies when two grim looking men paid him a visit at the Harvard lab. He was twenty-seven years old; his two brothers were veterans of the European theater, one involved in liberating the Dachau concentration camp. Their father was a WWI vet and one great grandfather saw action in the Civil War. The family had a sense of pride and duty as Americans, thus it was with seriousness that the young scientist listened to the two government agents.

            The Air Force had a special project located at Wright-Patterson in Ohio that required the expertise of a thoroughly dedicated, patriotic microbiologist. Hathaway nodded sharply as the two men in drab suits explained that he would need to leave immediately. The university had already been informed that the professor would need a leave of absence to serve his country.

            The two agents, Beem and Cheever, drove him home to pack a bag and then to the airport where he caught a DC-9 for Ohio. He was the only passenger on the plane. Hathaway knew he would never serve in the military due to a slight limp in his left leg, so this adventure excited him. It would be five years before he saw his family again.

            When the plane landed at Wright-Patterson Airfield Hathaway was blind folded in the plane then taken some fifty yards into what he assumed was one of the hangars on the field. The agents walked him in circles to disorient him before Hathaway heard an elevator engage and descend into the earth. He rode down alone and when the door slid open several levels down Hathaway heard a male voice tell him to step out of the elevator.

            He emerged onto a cement floor and someone yanked the blind fold off. Mike stared into the solemn face of a Colonel Stabler in a full dress Army uniform who extended his hand. Hathaway shook the man’s hand and followed him into a conference room filled with men in white lab coats around a long table. He recognized Herman Dexler who was born in Vermont, but had attended medical school in Germany. Dexler had taught at Harvard for a time and Hathaway had grown to love their intense discussions about genetics when he was still a student. They had similar ideas regarding crossing species to create hybrid cows more durable against disease and with more muscle mass.  

            Three sides of the room were covered with black boards with nearly every inch of space so cluttered with white and yellow math equations that it looked like abstract art. The atmosphere was sterile and humorless. Hathaway sat at the only empty place at the table near the door.

            Dexler stood up and welcomed the group. He wasted no time in getting to the point. The project was above top secret requiring the isolation of the team for months and perhaps years. Anyone that talked would be measured for a casket with no questions asked.

            Jesus, what did I walk into? Mike wondered as he peered at the others with similar expression on their faces. About half the names on the lab coats were German. Before anyone could go beyond the conference room an oath of allegiance was demanded. Hathaway hid a grin as some pledged loyalty to America with heavy German accents. Not long ago the same men had vowed to support Adolph Hitler.

            “You have all been chosen either for your talents or previous exposure to certain elements. Together we hope to be able to utilize the new material recently acquired in Roswell, New Mexico. I’m sure you all have heard something of the incident. Well, it is true. We have an alien craft and three of the crew. One was dead on impact, and two are ill at this facility. We think they crashed due to some sickness picked up God knows where in the universe. Some of you will be assigned to identify the microbe and others will analyze the ship for reverse engineering.” Dexler pushed up his thick glasses as he paced back and forth before the chaotic blackboard.

            One of the Germans, Bertholt Mueller, leaned forward. “Is the ship similar to ones we found in Russia?”

            Dexler looked to the Stabler waiting at parade rest at the back of the room. He nodded approval and Dexler continued. “Yes, at least we think it is. Normally, we work on a need to know basis only, but in this case we don’t know what is need to know.”

            “What do you mean?” Hathaway blurted out anxious to get the show moving.

            “In normal circumstances we biologists would not even be informed of the existence of a ship; much less any details about it and visa versa. The engineers would be told nothing of the crew. However, there seems to be a crossing of fields here.”

            “What was found in Russia? Are we talking about space ships?” Hathaway asked.

            “Yes, doctor, space ships with space men, or space beings, since we can’t tell if they have different sexes or not. Our German colleagues were called in to examine the craft discovered in Siberia and were unable to determine the start mechanism. Since that time, we have concluded that the ignition apparatus is biologically dependent.” Colonel Stabler talked and walked slowly to the front of the room, his hands clasped behind his back.

            “There is a strange depression on a disc near what appears to be the pilot’s seat that matches the hand prints of the alien crew. There are no visible finger prints, so we don’t know if the craft starts with any hand in the device or there is something specific about the pilot’s hand that triggers ignition.” Mueller offered, excitement beginning to over ride the fear that had been in his eyes at the mention of the word “casket”.

            “Exactly and there are no knobs or other obvious means of controlling the craft, so we have a two-fold mission here to discover what made the crew sick and how they controlled the ship.” Stabler had icy blue eyes and a buzz hair cut that made him appear hard and emotionless. The muscles in his jaw twitched after each word as if he were toning them up like his biceps, which struggled against the snug uniform sleeves. Stabler cracked his knuckles then clapped his hands.

   “So gentlemen, lets go meet our new friends!”  

 

************************

                       

           The outer space visitors were housed two levels down in a state-of-the-art infirmary. First the group was taken to the pathology lab where one of the beings was laid on a cold steel table. It did not look like the aliens in the comic books.

            Hathaway was struck by the similarities it shared with human beings. The features were not as defined as humans, but there were clearly a nose, eyes and mouth. The outer ears were more pointed and elongated than human beings. They had a generally more delicate appearance, which prompted one of the scientists, Manfred Wilmot, to state that their bodies were not made for the earth’s gravity.

            It was not green, but the skin had a bluish hue from the color of the being’s blood. The pathologist, Dr. Helen Salem, informed them that the blood was copper based rather than iron based like earthlings. It also bore a high gold content. The heart that pumped it had eight small chambers and it was located near the center of the torso, lower than a human heart.

            The hair was light colored and thin, the eyes bright blue, the five fingers long and thin with a thumb and narrow palm.

            “How do you know it was sick?” Hathaway asked the dark haired doctor in the lab coat.

            She peered over her glasses and cocked her eyebrows. “The same way I’d know if you were sick. Though there are differences between these beings and us, the similarities are multiple. Viruses are universal gentlemen. They caught a virus somewhere, maybe even here, and it mutated into something lethal in their systems.”

            “But one survived we were told.” Wilmot questioned her.

            “Two actually, but one is near death. I suspect that like us the aliens have varying degrees of immunity, some are in better shape than others, plus the one that is doing well did not suffer injuries from the crash unlike the other two.”

            Hathaway had a photographic memory and would one day record in writing every minute detail about the almost sad little being on the steel table. It was so delicate compared to the thick, bone and muscle bodies of humans. It looked like an abused child lying there.

            “What sort of skeletal structure does it have?” Hathaway inquired peering close at a limp hand.

            “Very frail compared to ours, in fact they could not survive very long in our atmosphere. Their bones are very brittle. The one I autopsied had hair line fractures on both the upper and lower legs. The survivors are kept in a chamber with altered gravity that allows them to live without pain, at least as far as it appears. Our gravitational field is too heavy for their physical structures.”

            The room full of men nodded and pointed as they mumbled observations, then followed Helen down a narrow corridor into a room with a heavy reinforced door marked, “Sector 6.”