The Gemini Divergence (26 page)

Members of the ground crew strapped them in
as they explained how to use the emergency equipment that would be
at their disposal.

Kreutztrager protested at having to wear the
helmet and gloves, but the ground crew insisted that he did.

As the crew exited and closed the hatch,
Kreutztrager looked behind himself to make sure that they were
gone, and then removed his helmet and gloves.

He then opened a bag and pulled out a
newspaper to read on their journey ahead.

As he started to read, he began to laugh.

Kreutztrager then took the paper and showed
it to Schwerig, who was sitting directly next to him in a window
seat, and said, “Look, the Americans believe that they have been
first.”

Schwerig read the headline, “First Nuclear
Power Plant Turned On, Arco, Idaho, December 20, 1951, Powers
Entire Town!”

Schwerig then sneered, “Well, ‘you know’ that
‘they know’ that we had one first. They are just not allowing their
public to know the truth. They are frightened to tell them about
us.”

“They should be,” answered Kreutztrager, “We
are ten years ahead of them in technology. If we had access to the
same resources and people that they did, we would be twenty years
ahead.”

“I agree.”

“It will take them close to a generation to
be able to see a space station such as we are going to see today.
What a pity that we can not gloat to the world about it.”

Schwerig then offered up, “I believe that it
was the Americans founding father Franklin that said, “What is the
good of being perfect, in that by being perfect, you would have to
be humble enough not to tell anyone about it.”

The General then laughed as he replied “Yes I
am a fan of the old American wit, I have found myself laughing at
quotes from their ‘Mark Twain’ from time to time. It is a shame
that Goethe, Schiller or Nietzsche didn’t have his sense of
humor”

The Pilot came over the intercom and
announced that they were starting the engines and would be taking
off shortly.

Kreutztrager then continued, “Still, I feel
secure knowing how far ahead we are.”

“I know. We must take advantage of the lead
that we have, to prepare for the inevitable destruction of New
Swabia,” answered Schwerig, “I fear that the only reason that they
have not attacked already, is that they are not sure of our
defensive size… and our atomic power plant may have actually become
a benefit because it prevents the Americans from shelling us from
the sea… but we must move quickly to relocate everyone.”

“Yes, thank God we are taking everybody, and
we don’t have to endure the blood bath that we had to the first
time,” returned Kreutztrager.

“I agree,” said Schwerig, remembering all of
the nerve racking deception. As he looked out of the window when he
felt the craft start to move, “I had no idea in whom I could trust
towards the end of that fiasco.”

Schwerig watched as the saucer levitated
slightly as they waited for the hanger door to open.

Once the door opened the saucer slowly
hovered out of the opening.

Now clear of the building, they were then
pushed back into their seats as they felt the sudden acceleration
of the craft.

Schwerig could not see anymore from the
window as they flew into the cloud cover.

After climbing above the clouds, the sun
showed through the window, but all Schwerig could see as far as the
eye could see were more clouds, laid out like a carpet beneath
them.

He turned his attention back the General and
said, “Skorzeny has worked out a deal with the Peron’s in
Argentina, to allow us to set up a temporary supply base in the
remote unpopulated wilderness that surrounds their ‘Fuerte
Esperanza’.”

“Yes, I believe that we will be using that
facility for more than a forward supply base.”

“What do you mean, Herr General?”

“I mean that I still don’t believe that we
will have a large enough facility in space to house everyone that
we need to, when it comes time to abandon New Swabia, we are almost
certainly going to have to set up our New Swabian outpost there in
Argentina, until we have large enough facilities in space. I just
don’t think we have the time.”

“So you are worried about the men I
intercepted in the valley?”

“Yes I am, there will certainly be more, and
when they don’t return, they will send a combat division, and we
can’t afford to loose people at this time. We must be gone before
it comes to that.”

“Yes, Herr General, I see. Do you think that
we will be able to get the Argentineans to accept that?”

“We must not tell them, let them believe that
we will only be using it for whatever Skorzeny negotiated for, but
we must tell Skorzeny, so he doesn’t get caught trying to explain
something that he knows nothing about.”

Schwerig then interrupted, “Oh General, you
must witness this,” as he pointed out the window as they cleared
the atmosphere and entered space.

The General then said, “My God, you can see
for hundreds of miles.”

“I have dreamed of this moment for years,”
added Schwerig, “and it is not disappointing me.”

The Captain came over the intercom and
stated, “We are now entering orbit. The G-force from our ascent is
the only thing giving us gravity at this time. I have been trying
to keep the acceleration at around one G. After we actually fully
enter orbit, stop accelerating, and change the angle of attack of
our ship, we will then witness weightlessness. I ask that everybody
stay strapped into their seats so that no one is injured. I will
let you know when we sight the station.”

“Look down there,” pointed Schwerig, “I
believe that it is the southern tip of Africa.”

“How can you be sure?” asked the General.

“Well, I have never been this high before,
but I am still a pilot, and used to navigating by picking out
landmarks from the air.”

“So, in what direction are we headed, where
are we going next?”

“We are headed towards the north east and
will probably turn eventually over the Indian Ocean somewhere and
then proceed along the equator, so my guess is that the next land
that we see after Madagascar will be India.”

“How long will that take?”

“Well, we will have to be traveling at around
twenty eight thousand kilometers per hour to maintain orbit so we
will probably cross India in about ten minutes.”

The General looked shocked, “Wow, are you
kidding?”

“No, Herr General, I am not kidding.”

The General sat in amazement for a few
moments than pondered, “So, we could theoretically drop a bomb
anywhere in the world within an hour?”

“Yes, I guess we could,” answered
Schwerig.

After they crossed India and then the Orient,
they started trying to pick out and name the islands of the Pacific
as they were flying over.

Then, the captain came over the intercom and
said, “We are now approaching the station. You will be able to see
it if you look ahead of our direction of travel. I must change our
angle of attack in order to dock with the station, after I finish
that maneuver, all of you will be able to see a bright star just
over the horizon. That will be the station.”

They felt the ship change attitude, as they
watched the earth rotate in their windows.

Suddenly, they felt the weightlessness, as
objects around them started to float in the air.

Their hearts were racing like the first time
they had ever been on an amusement ride.

When they had completed the maneuver, they
both looked up to see out of a window that was directly over their
heads.

Just above the point where the atmosphere
ended and space turned black, there was a gleaming star, truly like
a diamond set in space.

As they drew closer, they could start to make
out the wheel like appearance of the rotating space station.

“It doesn’t look that large,” observed
Kreutztrager.

“You have to remember, Herr General that you
are used to scaling everything that you have ever seen, from things
that you have seen in your lifetime on the earth. Nothing on earth
is as large as the backdrop you are comparing that object to. That
station is actually almost an entire kilometer across. If it were
an aircraft, or naval vessel, it would be the largest ever
constructed by man.”

“Why does it have to be so large?”

“Actually it is only about half the diameter
that it needs to be for the optimal earth like gravity, without the
nausea from the evident spinning. Also, it needs to be much larger
to house everyone.”

“I know that this station is only a
prototype, but how many could live on a station of this size.”

“We have estimated that around 2500 people
could live on a station of this size, 5000 on one of the larger
ones that we have been planning, and there is an even larger third
plan to build one that is shaped more like a cylinder than a wheel.
We hope to fit 20,000 people on it.”

The General looked very concerned and brought
to Schwerig’s attention, “Oberst Schwerig, we have 50,000 people to
move into space in less than a year, we have to be out of New
Swabia in the next couple of months. This sounds like it is going
to take years and a king’s ransom to pay for it. How on earth is
this going to be possible?”

Schwerig smiled and answered, “We are not
now, nor are we going to be ‘on Earth’.”

He paused and looked at the station, as it
now was about as large as a cookie at arms length, and comforted
the General, “Look, Herr General, Skorzeny has managed to dig up
enough gold to finance almost half of the projected cost
already.

“He has also found us a temporary home.

“I think that if we put everything into it
that we put into New Swabia, we can have all this up and running in
a year or two.”

Kreutztrager then asked, “Where will we get
the rest of the money?”

Schwerig again smiled in confidence and
answered, “We are going to start printing American Dollars and
laundering them in countries that do not do business with the
United States, therefore those countries will have to launder the
money a second time. The money may change hands five times before
they start to appear in the U.S., they will never know where they
are coming from. By the time they figure it out, we will be long
gone.”

Kreutztrager then finally smiled, as he also
looked at the approaching station, which was as large as a hubcap
at arms length, he said, “Very good, Oberst Schwerig, I am glad
that when I talk to you, I am constantly reminded why I gave you
this job.”

*~*

Gus and Jack were in their trucks again,
driving down a desert road with a handful of other trucks.

Although today they were not embarking to
launch a balloon.

They have a much different cargo, and one
that they never thought that they would be delving into months
back.

Now that AFOAT had been given additional
funding and directed to apply multiple sciences and technologies to
detect foreign technology escalation, hence the name Air Force
Office of Applied Technologies, Gus had been sent out with a newly
recruited team of seismologists to install a seismic array at the
new Nevada Test Site; aka NTS to Air Force personal.

This is the first array that the Air Force
was going to set up in order to monitor our own nuclear tests.

After this array was up and running, and Gus
and Jack learned how to install, troubleshoot and run them, then
they were to install similar arrays all over the world at secret
locations along with other detection apparatus like ground based
air samplers, radio and magnetic receivers and recorders.

Now every time they landed at some foreign
air base, they not only would have to work on the aircraft, but
they then would have to travel to the remote sites and check on the
equipment as well as retrieve the recorded data on regular
schedules.

Gus was driving, Jack was ‘shotgun’, and
Volmer was in the middle of the military truck driving down the
dusty Yucca Flats road.

As they drove over a ridge and viewed the
baron desert valley ahead, Gus commented, “I think it’s neat and
all that we get to learn how to work on something new, but I think
that they are piling an awful lot of work on us. I lose enough
sleep already when we go TDY.”

Volmer responded, “Well, we are going to
experience some growing pains for sure, but you should be joyful.
You are getting in on the ground floor of something, and you are
showing a good aptitude to learn and lead. I am sure that shortly
in the future you will be the leader of many teams doing the work
that you and Jack are doing now.

“Besides,” added Volmer, “This is not the
only new technology that you will have to learn, we are also adding
hydro acoustic listening devices into the world’s oceans to listen
for other countries ships and subs as well as the seismic waves
that travel though the oceans.”

As they drove through the valley floor, they
noticed many new temporary markers and flags.

Gus asked, “Has this valley recently been
surveyed?”

“Oh yes,” answered Volmer, “They have divided
this part of NTS into grids called ‘areas’; I believe that they are
similar to geographical areas that your American surveyors call
townships in other parts of the country.”

“Why, what for?” asked Jack.

Volmer turned to respond to Jack, “For the
nuclear weapons testing, of course… We are going to set up these
instruments in the same valley as the tests and another array to
the north east of the actual testing valley, to get the optimal
geographic separation for comparison analysis of our seismic as
well as air sampling tests.”

Gus turned and jokingly added for Jack,
“There, aren’t you glad you asked.”

Volmer turned to Gus trying to figure out if
he was joking or not and Jack rolled his eyes and turned to look
out his window at the desert valley.