Erich Bruckner
Under Greenland, May 2, 1945
The mist was not as thick as it appeared, and as the rubber boat slipped across the calm surface, Erich could see farther into its depths than he’d anticipated. Two seamen from the gunnery crew, Decker and Stirtz, plied the water with caution coupled with a degree of clumsiness. Each man had a Schmeisser MP-40 slung over his shoulder, and had been picked for their ability to use the submachine gun with great facility, rather than their paddling skills.
“Ready to transmit, Captain,” said Bischoff.
“Proceed.”
“One Eleven, come in. One Eleven, come in. Over…”
Erich listened for a response through the static on the portable radio.
Nothing, which prompted Bischoff to continue: “One Eleven, come in. This is U-five-zero-zero-one on R&R to your position.”
After a short pause, a voice penetrated the static. It was weak, but clear. “This is Dr. Bernhard Jaeger. Station One Eleven. We read you, Five-zero-zero-one.”
“Contact,” said Bischoff, handing the headset to Erich.
“Get those paddles out of the water,” said Erich. “I need silence.”
He spoke as his men complied. “This is Captain Erich Bruckner of the U-5001. We have been sent here to assist. Can you state your location and situation?”
Everyone on the boat strained to hear the words of Dr. Jaeger, who gave precise coordinates and directions. He reported that there had been an “event,” which killed many of the Station personnel. Erich did not like the sound of the doctor’s words.
“Doctor, is my boat and crew in danger here?”
A pause, more static, then: “Presently, I think not. The danger is over, the worst has already happened.”
“How many survivors?” said Erich.
Weakly, Jaeger spoke: “Unknown. In my lab, there are five of us. That is all I know. Rubble from an explosion has blocked us in.”
“Very well, stand by…” Erich nodded, looked at Bischoff. “You have a fix on their transmission?”
“Yes, Captain.” He gave him a compass reading and Erich directed his men to follow it.
As they moved toward the shoreline, they could not ignore the illumination above them.
“What the hell is that light?” said Manny. “It is bizarre.”
He pointed upward at perhaps fifty degrees off the horizon to something that appeared to be a sun-like object trying to burn its way through the thick fog. But Erich knew it was impossible to be getting actual sunlight this far underground. “Probably something Dr. Jaeger and his friends have arranged,” said Erich. “Soon we know for certain.”
The paddles violated the water, slapping and gurgling loudly. The sound made Erich ever more aware of the silence of the place. As they distanced themselves from the U-5001, he felt like they were entering a vast cathedral in the middle of the night, feeling alone, and dwarfed into insignificance by the scale of things around them.
So large was the enclosure that he had no real sense of movement other than the gradual dissipation of the mist as they cleaved it. The “ceiling” above hung so distant, it could have been the sky itself. Manny raised his compact Leica to his eyes, snapped off what would be the first of many pictures. The slide-click! of the aperture also sounded loud, intrusive.
“Bischoff,” said Erich. “The field glasses.”
Instantly, the funkmaat operator handed his binoculars to his captain.
Raising them to his eyes, Erich focused on the light source which threatened to burn through the curtain of fog at any second. Without warning, a sudden brilliance filled the eyepieces and he yanked them away from his face.
“Sheisse!”
“Look at that!” said Manny, his words shaped by equal amounts of awe and fear. “What is it?”
Erich rubbed his eyes quickly, forcing them to adjust. He looked back at the bright orb beyond the mist, not sure what he was seeing. The object was a girdered tower, similar to the one in Paris, standing alone on a rocky island-base. It rose to a height of several hundred feet and its top held a sphere of glowing light. A thick shaft ran up its center from the earth to the sphere.
Decker and Stirtz had ceased their paddling, transfixed by the structure before them.
Forcing himself to remain calm, to appear in control, Erich raised the field glasses to study the surface of the tower. Magnified, it appeared hastily constructed with no thought to style or design.
“What is that thing?” whispered Manny, as he paused to photograph it. There was something in the timbre of his voice which negated the question. Fassbaden knew what it was—as did Erich.
“Excuse me, Captain,” said Seaman Stirtz. “Do we keep going?”
“I do not remember telling you to stop.” Erich nodded toward the towering object before him and tried to look as implacable as possible.
Instantly both crewmen began paddling with renewed energy, and the rubber craft surged forward. No one else dared speak as Erich continued to stare at the strange tower.
The mist which still roiled in the distance began to thin.
“Look, beyond the tower.” Erich pointed as he raised the field glasses to penetrate the fog-like barrier. Instantly, new details became clear. At the far end of the underground sea, where the curved arch of the enclosure finally curled down in a vertical wall of rock, there loomed unmistakable lines and shapes.
More towers, more structures. Held together by the curves and angles of an unknown geometry, the shapes reached upward to define the elemental, yet very alien, profile of a city.
The configurations were so unfamiliar, and also terrifying…because Erich knew they were not of this time, of this world. He felt it in the deepest folds of his brain, the part some scientist had called the reptilian core. It was the place where cold simple assessments were made, where atavistic reactions originated, and it was screaming a warning to be very careful.
“What is this place?” said Manny. “Where are we?”
“Decker, Stirtz. Ease off.” Erich continued to scan the escarpments of the architecture ahead, looking for any sign of movement, of hostility or danger. Although the men had ceased their paddling, the boat still glided forward with a deliberate tack. They were at least 500 meters from the shoreline, but caution must reign. “Bring your arms to bear, gentlemen. Be ready for anything.”
Manny reached down, pulled his own Walther from its holster. The others, except for Liebling, unarmed, readied their weapons.
“All right, steady as you go. Maintain heading.”
Manny looked straight up at the distant ceiling, then across to the tower and harbored city behind it. “This is so weird. I read a story when I was a teen. A translation of an American writer. He described a place like this—called Pellucidar.”
Erich nodded. “Burroughs. Yes. He wrote Tarzan. Popular, fanciful stuff.”
“But this is real. Could he have known?” Manny said. “The American?”
“Not a chance,” said Erich, who finished a sweeping, binocular study of the landscape ahead, then repeated his search in the opposite direction.
“Do you see anyone?”
“Not a soul. The base of the tower looks barren. No place for anyone to dig in. The buildings on shore, they also look empty. But we are still too far to be certain.”
“All right,” he said. “We will have a quick look around. Herr Bischoff, remain here and alert Massenburg that all is well—so far—and inform him of position and progress.”
Nodding, Bischoff directed his pack-animal, Liebling, to hold the radio steady while the funkmeister dialed up the frequency back to the boat. Liebling rubbed the flaming red wound across his jaw and complied without a word.
They headed to the center of what looked like it may have been some kind of harbor. Mist still hung close to the water’s surface, alternately obscuring, then clearing, their view of the city ahead of them.
As they approached, Erich realized they were victims of some kind of optical illusion. He knew that sometimes when you approach distant objects which are of sufficiently immense proportion, you lose your sense of scale, and he suspected he had been thus fooled. Although they continued to paddle straight toward the unknown shore, the city appeared to remain at an unreachable distance. Erich realized part of this effect was the truly gigantic cavern, an enclosure on the scale of America’s Grand Canyon. The city grew out of the rock that held it as if it were a natural extension or growth of it.
And it was impressive, growing larger with each passing meter which drew them closer, despite the mist which tantalized them with ambiguous views of their target.
Everyone must have sensed what Erich felt about this place. No one spoke as their little boat slid across the inland sea. The gunners paddled in unison, drawing the dinghy closer to the center of what Erich had begun to think of as the harbor for the city that lay before them like a series of sculpted steps carved into the side of the mountain. Within several minutes, the soaring sun-tower lay behind them and along the shoreline the details of individual structures and buildings grew more defined. Checking his field glasses, Erich could see much smaller features now. Openings that must have been windows or doors—some of them in unexpected geometric shapes, and some like flattened rectangles. The latter reminded him of the ports of fortifications like the “pillboxes” the vermacht had strewn along the French coast.
“It looks dead,” said Manny.
Erich grunted softly. “But we know there are survivors.”
Erich nodded, but preferred not to imagine too deeply what forces might be at play. He didn’t like this place. Too many questions that could not be answered.
The rubber boat slipped ever closer to a narrow quay that fingered outward through the water as though pointing at them. Directing his men to put ashore at the base of the quay, Erich appraised the strange city from closer range.
The buildings were far from equal in size. There were innumerable honeycomb-like arrangements of enormous proportion, as well as smaller, separate structures. The general shape of these things tended to be conical, pyramidal, or terraced; though others were perfect cylinders, perfect cubes, clusters of cubes, and other rectangular forms.
Erich allowed himself to think aloud. “How could our people build something like this? In just a few years? It does not seem possible.”
“I have never seen anything like this,” said Manny as the boat was within meters of the quay. “Who builds things that look like that?”
A rhetorical question to be sure. No one offered an answer as Decker reached out with his paddle to ease them to a stop. “Captain?” he said tentatively.
“Stay here with our boat,” Erich said to him. “Everyone else—with me. Now.”
He stepped onto the quay first, followed by Manny, then Bischoff, then Liebling with the radio strapped across his back, followed by Stirtz with his MP-40 at the ready. Motioning his gunner forward, Erich looked toward the city which lay in wait for them. “You take the vanguard,” he said to Stirtz, whose growing beard gave him a dark, angular aspect. “Anything that looks threatening, shoot it.”
Stirtz nodded, swallowed with difficulty. “Aye” was all he could muster in reply.
Erich started walking toward the shore, noting the construction of the quay appeared to be a seamless shape of some sort of metal or polished stone. It looked as if it were one solid piece, as if popped from a gigantic mold, or rose fully-formed from the seabed. Whatever it was, he had never seen anything like it.
Walking in single file, they entered the city as Bischoff re-established contact with Dr. Jaeger, who gave them specific directions to navigate the station.
Up close, surrounded by countless structures, Erich felt overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the place. It was not so much the expanse of the city being so large, but the buildings themselves conveyed a sense of immensity and great age. It was like walking into the tomb of a great ruler, instantly knowing the chamber was sacrosanct, and apart from any other location in the world.
The effect was mitigated by the presence of German military equipment, large field tents, several motorcycles with sidecars, and large crates of supplies. And of course, flags and banners. And everything strewn and smashed as if by a cyclone
And many corpses.
As they moved deeper into the warren of buildings, they found the bodies of soldiers and civilians. So mutilated and bloodied, on cursory glance it was not possible to tell if they’d died from an explosion, gunfire, or something worse. The casualties littered the installation. Something terrible and sudden had happened here. But somehow, Dr. Jaeger and a few others had survived.
Erich did not like the situation. Too many questions. Too many ways to have a calamity.
In addition, Erich noticed an air of instability in the way things were arranged and set up. Hasty and impromptu—exactly how long had Dr. Jaeger and the others been established here?
“Easy now,” he said to Stirtz, who was advancing down a wide avenue bordered by soaring towers that appeared to have been lathe-turned into great, soft spirals. The gunner’s mate pointed his Schmeisser forward from his hip, finger on the trigger ready to fire instantly. He looked like most soldiers who believed they might die—anxious but resolute.
“Not much farther.” Bischoff pointed straight ahead.
“Captain?” Stirtz had spoken softly, but his voice, amplified by the architectural acoustics, rolled back over them as if he’d used a megaphone.
“Yes?”
“I think we’re heading into an open space up ahead.”
“I see it,” said Erich. “Keep going. We should be close now.”
Stirtz had managed to pull away from the others without realizing. He was more than fifty meters ahead of them when he suddenly starting shouting.
Looking up, Erich could see that his gunner had cleared the canyon-like walls of the buildings, and was now standing at the edge of what appeared to be a vast open space. As Erich advanced, he entered a plaza in the center of which stood a tall domed structure with eight sides. Each face of the building held a large arched entrance.
Stirtz moved carefully through the nearest opening, lost from Erich’s view. Several moments later, the seaman rushed out to face the rest of the party. His eyes were wide, his jaw slack. Something was wrong.
“Captain!” he yelled hoarsely. “You must see this for yourself!”
On Erich’s signal everyone, including Liebling, moved forward to join Stirtz, who guided them into the hexagonal structure. The interior walls were devoid of ornamentation or design—perfectly smooth. But Erich barely noticed this because his attention focused on the thing in the center of the space.
Towering 20 meters just below the vault of the dome, a gigantic statue dominated the space. Erich stopped in mid-stride, as did the rest of his crew, locked into a sudden paralysis. So shocking and utterly alien was this monstrous sculpture, no one could move or speak. A silence gripped them and an almost palpable sense of dread enveloped them.
The statue’s posture proclaimed total predator—hunched and coiled as if captured in stone at the moment just before it lashed out with primordial fury. A great hulking body supported by saurian-like hind legs ending in webbed claws and long, thickly-corded forelegs rendered ordinary only because of the hideous and hugely out-of-proportion talons that gripped the edge of its pedestal perch. Curving scimitar-sharpness that could gut a dinosaur with a single cursory swipe.
Erich swallowed hard as his mouth had turned instantly dry. Just gazing at this hideous apparition filled him with what could only be described as the most atavistic fear he ever experienced. As if he knew the thing in front of him was a true and terrible representation of a real horror beyond imagining.
And it had wings.
Fanned out beyond its broad shoulders, as if grafted from a gigantic bat or pteranodon. They looked both absurd and terrifying, because the thought of this leviathan being able to fly just didn’t compute. Was it possible such a massive behemoth could actually lift itself skyward?
But it was the bulbous, tilting head that kept the men mute and immobile. Erich knew they all shared the same thoughts searching for a means to refuse the basic existence of such a creature. Such a thing, thought Erich, simply could not be. Beneath a baleful pair of huge, blistered, amphibian eyes there swarmed a swollen tangle of tentacles curled and spread as though probing in constant search of prey.
Suddenly nauseous, he staggered back, dizzy and disoriented. Unprepared for what he had seen, Erich felt stunned into silence as though stricken by the hand of God.
Erich had often imagined the awe and the sense of insignificance men must have felt when they first gazed upon the unearthed bones of the dinosaurs. What kind of wonder and terror crossed their minds when they realized what horrific beasts once walked the earth?
Now, Erich had an answer to that question…but others leapt to mind.
Was this sculpted nightmare the vision of a tortured artist, or the fearful icon of a lost religion? Or was it something far, far worse?
Erich could not escape the notion, rooted deep within him, that they all stared at something of an age unknown and uncountable. What race of beings had created such a thing?
Manny, standing next to him, squeezed off several shots with the Leica.
Erich was not certain if the other men understood fully what they were looking at, but the troublemaker Liebling was clearly disturbed as he backed away from the statuary and began to sob.
“We have entered the gates to Hell,” he said.
Liebling was an embarrassment, but on second thought, maybe Erich had not given the man enough credit.
At least he had the good sense to be terrified.
Regardless, a distinction must be made between feelings and actions. Liebling’s behavior was not befitting of a kriegsmariner. When Manny angrily reprimanded him, ordering him to attention, the man ignored the command, and began to wail. So loud, his voice echoed off the distant walls.
Erich was incensed. There was no time for such distraction.
“Stirtz, get him out of my sight.”
As Stirtz reached for Liebling, the man wrenched Stirtz’s pistol from him and ran full speed out of the domed building, back toward the quay. Before anyone could react, he had gained enough distance to dodge down an adjacent intersecting avenue. He waved the Sauer sidearm wildly as he ran, firing off several rounds into the air.
“We cannot have this,” said Erich. “We have a job to do.”
Stirtz spit contemptuously before speaking. “I’ll get him, Captain.”
As the gunner ran off in quick pursuit, Erich, Manny and Bischoff followed more slowly. Liebling had no way of orienting himself. He could become hopelessly lost in the labyrinth, but he made no effort to hide himself as he rushed headlong away from them.
Angrily, Erich wished he had listened more sincerely to Herr Kress, who had warned of the man’s instability. All the more reason to keep him under watch, but now Liebling had become more than merely a problem. He was a dangerous problem.
Gradually they closed the gap and caught up with Liebling. His frantic pace had exhausted him. Stirtz ran him down outside a large building flanked by supply wagons and several mangled corpses. But Liebling complicated things. Instead of accepting the end-game, he emptied his stolen weapon at everyone.
But wildly, with no effect.
Erich grinned ironically, thanking the fugitive for making things easier.
“He is out of shots,” said Erich. “Stirtz, take him out.”
The gunner raised his Schmeisser, shot Liebling once—through the heart. Turning away, they left him slumped against a wall where he dropped. No one wanted to bring him back.
“Very well,” said Erich. “Let us finish this job.”
But as they walked away, embraced by the cold, ancient spaces, Erich experienced a strange guilt. Not for killing—because his business had been killing. Rather, he feared he had, in some way, violated this place.
They moved quickly after that, until they reached what was obviously their target objective—what had been a series of stepped terraced buildings now violated by a large crater and huge mounds of debris. Following Bischoff’s instruction via radio contact, they located Jaeger and four other survivors trapped behind a wall of rubble that had been part of their laboratory.
Requiring a slow, methodical approach, the rescue took several hours to clear a passage through the debris. A thin man with small wire-rimmed glasses and a thick shock of blond hair emerged first.
“Thank you! Thank you, gentlemen. We have two people back there hurt quite badly.”
Stirtz helped an older gray-haired man in a white lab coat out of the hole in the wreckage, then joined Bischoff and Manny, who went inside to assess the situation.
Erich, however, wanted answers. He remained with the two survivors and introduced himself.
“I am Dr. Bernhard Jaeger.” The blond man reciprocated and gestured at the older lab-coated man. “This is one of our engineers, Hervie Waechter.”
“What happened here, Doctor?”
He shook his head, held up his hands. “An experiment…an explosion. We were in a shielded area when it happened. But we were trapped as you found us. We thought other station personnel would be coming to our aid, but…something happened to them, they were…attacked.”
“Attacked? By who?” said Erich.
“I have no idea. All we could do was try to piece things together from what we heard by radio.”
“Where we have been. We have seen no survivors,” said Manny.
Jaeger did not react to this news. “From what we could hear, that is not surprising. It was utter chaos.”
“Mein Gott,” said Waechter the engineer. “The radiation must have been more than we imagined.”
The remark bothered Erich. He would need more information, but first he wanted another question settled. “You notified Berlin. How could you get a signal out of here?”
Jaeger looked up at him. “We had a team construct a special antenna buoy attached by undersea cable.”
“Ingenious,” said Erich. “Can we use it to inform Berlin of your rescue?”
“Certainly.”
Erich was pleased to know he was not totally isolated in this very strange place. He looked at Waechter. “Now, tell me about the radiation.”
“Similar to what you would call X-rays,” said Waechter. “But more…ah, potent. We call them ‘Tau’ radiation.”
Erich did not want to know what kind of terrible power had been unleashed here. No sense immersing himself in detail and situations he could not control. But he did want to know the timeframe. “When did this happen?”
Jaeger looked around, obviously haggard from the ordeal. “Three days ago.”
Erich had suspected something like this. The High Command had declined to tell him about the rescue mission until he had gotten underway, and he could surmise the reason. If there proved to be no survivors, there would be no reason to reveal the existence of this top secret base to an entire U-boat crew. When Jaeger’s radio messages persisted, Doenitz must have agreed to attempt a rescue.
The events of the last several hours had affected Erich in ways he would not have expected. The secrets of this base were clearly more profound than any other Nazi scientific projects, and he was not sure he felt comfortable with the likes of Jaeger and party zealots dubbed as its caretakers. Erich realized he would need more answers, but first he would remove the survivors from any further danger.
* * *
Several things happened in the next few hours: Kress and his men were able to repair the hydroplane, although he could not swear to how long the fix might last. Metal fatigue was one of those things that could not be assessed until an actual failure occurred. In addition, Dr. Jaeger and his four associates were pulled from the wreckage and returned to the boat for medical attention and food from Hauser’s kitchen. The U-5001 still floated on the serene inner sea of the cavern, but that would soon change.
Erich spent the time trying to make sense of what he’d seen at Station One Eleven. Too much of what he had seen did not “add up,” and he knew he would be demanding more answers from Jaeger, and perhaps eventually, even Admiral Doenitz himself. But for the moment, he had ordered a briefing with Dr. Jaeger and had invited Manny to sit in.
A tap at his quarters’ door announced their arrival.
“Come in.”
Manny opened the door, ushered in Jaeger, who looked better after cleaning up and a good meal. As they took seats on the bunk, Erich leaned back in his desk chair, regarded the scientist, who appeared to be in his mid-forties.
“I trust we have treated you well, Doctor?” he said.
“Wonderful. This is a magnificent boat, Captain. An impressive crew.”
“Good, good.” Erich paused, sat up, and assumed a serious expression. “Now, I will get right to the point. We are in the middle of a very important mission, but that does not preclude my asking you for some additional information.”
Jaeger grinned sheepishly. “To be blunt, Captain, I would be more surprised if you had no questions.”
Manny looked on, but said nothing.
“To begin,” said Erich. “What is the nature of the work being done there?”
Jaeger paused. “I am sorry, but the exact nature of Station One Eleven is so classified that—”
Holding up his hand, Erich spoke softly. “No, Doctor. Do not bother with the official party line. I have been inside the Station. It is no longer classified to me or my crew. Now, either you tell me what I need to know, or I will leave you here. This is my boat, and as long as you remain onboard her, I am the supreme authority.”
Manny grinned as a pall settled over the cabin. Jaeger’s silence indicated he was taking Erich’s words to heart. Finally: “You make a fine, logical point. I suppose there is no need to pretend the base has not been compromised.”
“Being here to effect a rescue, I would not use that particular word,” said Erich. “But I have no interest in semantics, only facts. Now tell me, what kind of work has been going on here?”
Jaeger drew in a breath, exhaled slowly. “Two basic lines of research, actually. One group has been exploring the ruins and the…artifacts of the cavern. The other group has been working to apply what we learn to our own new energy and weapons technology.”
“Ruins? Elaborate please. How long have our people been here? How old is it? Who built it?”
“The site that eventually became Station One Eleven was actually discovered in 1931 by Frederick Millhausen, a geologist from the University of Leipzig. His specialty was vulcanism, and he had been searching for evidence of volcanic activity. His team discovered a strange fault in the surface ice, and after some test bores, he uncovered unexplainable heat signatures and evidence of great geologic anomalies.”
“And that’s how Millhausen found this cavern?”
“No, not exactly. Several years later, after the Fuhrer had been sworn in as Chancellor, he heard about Millhausen’s work.”
“How and why would that happen?” said Manny.
Jaeger looked at him with a patronizing expression. “Hitler has always been driven by the idea of secret bases at both poles. He believes the antipodal positions mark the widest possible boundaries for the reach and control of the Third Reich.”
“Go on,” said Erich.
“Later that year, the new Chancellor financed new expeditions. One to Greenland and one to Antarctica. The northern expedition found an entrance cavern, and the ruins. Hitler was ecstatic. He believed he had been ‘fated’ to uncover this place.”
“Hmmm,” said Manny. “I have heard rumors that he and his cabinet are quite interested in things mystical.”
Jaeger smiled sadly. “Yes, that has been said.”
“What do you know about the ruins?” said Erich.
“Not as much as we would like. The best estimate is that they are at least fifty thousand years old, but that figure could just as easily be one hundred thousand or one million. There is no way to be certain.”
“Fifty thousand? That in itself is incredible.” Erich felt a slight shudder pass through him. The idea unsettled him. A million years was simply incomprehensible.
“Where did they come from? Who built them?”
Jaeger shrugged. “We do not know yet. There are theories, of course.”
“Such as?” Erich leaned closer across his desk.
“The earth is very old, perhaps billions of years. It is not difficult to imagine previous civilizations farther back in time than we ever realized. It is quite possible they were totally wiped out by some catastrophic events. All traces scrubbed clean from the surface of the earth. Perhaps more than once.”
“But not beneath the earth,” said Manny.
“Correct,” said Jaeger. “Or beneath the waves. Perhaps the legend of the sunken city of Atlantis is based in fact. Such as this place.”
“What about records? Language? Art? What is left?”
“We have found traces of all those things. But they remain mostly a mystery.” Jaeger shook his head. “Deciphering a language with no links to any known language in existence is daunting. We have had better results using mathematical cues.”
Erich nodded. What the scientist was saying did not sound unreasonable to a thinking person. “Tell me more about the station. Our people have been here more than eleven years?”
“Yes, but in small encampments…until a large-scale permanent base was established in 1939. It has been under the command of General Hans Kammler—although he does not spend all his time here.”
“What about that tower in the harbor?” Manny said.
Jaeger smiled. “One of our greatest achievements. The first teams in here found the ruins of something very much like it. We used rare earth phospho-vanadate phosphors—based upon what we found in the original artifact. They emit light under extreme heat. We built the tower and the geo-thermal energy system by back-engineering.”
“Geo-thermal?” said Erich.
“Heat from the molten layers of the earth’s mantle.”
“Impressive,” said Erich. “Did it require all six years? Is that what contributed to blowing yourselves up?”
Jaeger looked embarrassed as he smoothed down his thick blond hair. “No, no. We have uncovered many remnants and artifacts of a very advanced technology, but we will need many years to understand even a small fraction of it.”
“What caused the explosion?” said Manny.
Jaeger shrugged. “Until we can get more people in here to investigate, I have no way to know for sure. Most of what we do here is trial and error.”
“Tell me more about the Tau radiation. You said it did more than you realized.”
Jaeger appeared hesitant to speak, then: “It may have…how would you say…awakened something in here.”
“Awakened? Awakened what?”
Jaeger shrugged. “Whatever attacked and killed everyone at the Station, obviously. You saw the bodies…”
Erich shuddered at such a notion. He mentioned the statue they’d seen, and Jaeger nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “There are others like that, scattered throughout these ruins. Some depicting even more bizarre beings.”
“Are you suggesting we may be in danger from these things?”
“At this point, I don’t know what I think. I am sorry.”
“And what exactly were you trying to do when the accident happened?”
Jaeger looked at him with eyes tinged by fatigue and a touch of madness. “Have you ever heard of the Philosopher’s Stone?”
Erich paused as he searched his memory for the vaguely familiar term. Then: “Something to do with alchemy, as I recall.”
“Very good, Captain. Yes, it was the element sometimes called carmot, which could be changed or transmutated into whatever element was required.”
“All right,” said Erich. “Go on.”
“We have discovered artifacts that appear to be something like carmot. When we presented our initial findings to Dr. Heisenberg, he was intrigued enough to come here himself.”
“What?” said Manny. “Werner Heisenberg has been here?”
Jaeger nodded. “Rather than carmot, he called the substance we discovered ‘inter-matter’ because it appears to exist in a state unknown to modern physics. But the implications are world-shaking, gentlemen.”
“In what way,” said Manny.
“If we can discover the mechanism, the means to convert any substance into any other.” Jaeger beamed as he imagined a future utopia. “We can create infinite supplies of energy sources from our garbage, and that is just the most obvious use!”
“Hmmm,” said Erich. “It sounds like the term ‘precious metal’ would become obsolete.”
Jaeger waved him off. “Inconsequential. Whatever country controls inter-matter will rule the world.”
Erich sighed. “I think I’ve heard that phrase before…”
“What do you mean by that, Captain?”
“‘Ruling the world?’ Perhaps you have not noticed, Doctor, but things have not exactly been working out to plan.”
Jaeger bristled under the remark, but said nothing for a moment. Then he added: “I understand you may be war-weary, Captain. And I respect your feelings. However, we are all working under obligations, and we must all do our part. In fact, there is one more thing we must do here before we depart.”
Erich looked at the scientist with the perfect Aryan features. No doubt Jaeger had mortgaged his soul to the cause of the Fatherland long ago, and for a man like that, there was no turning back. “Let me guess,” said Erich. “We need to retrieve your magic stone.”