Departures

“Where is my Oberfunkmeister?   Ah, there you are.   Get a message to the whaling station, right away.   I want the Pinguin readied for sea by the time we arrive, and they’re to get steam up on the trawler too.   Matrosenfeldwebel, get everyone into the tubes.   Don’t forget the frauleins in the canteen, and make sure you bring my radio officer with you when he’s done.   Oh, and find the ship’s cat.”   Otto von Luckner turned to Harold, “If you would come with me gentlemen, please.”

            The Kapitänleutnant led the trawler officers across the ravished concourse towards a set of check-in desks labeled Walfang-Hafen, gathering trawlermen as they went.   Kriegsmariners were already lining up neatly, and slightly less tidy groups of New Swabians in lab coats or boiler suits were gathering near the sliding doors to the pneumatic tubes.   The Kronstadt shore detail, led by Dark Flo, appeared from behind a pile of rubble, they laughing and joking, she sporting a puffy, almost closed eye.   She was limping and the left sleeve of her shinobi shozoko was torn away to reveal an angry graze on her elbow and purple bruising to the shoulder.

            “Thanks to one of your overzealous fishermen.   Took a swing at me from behind, with a barstool.   Can’t tell a ninja from a submariner.”

            Bamse, as was his wont, had rounded up the last of the stragglers.   With the company assembled the tube doors opened and embarkation began.  

            “Once you reach the whaling station get your people aboard your trawler and be ready for the off.”   Von Luckner was cradling Fotzenkatze, the lithe tabby mascot of the now crippled submarine Seeadler.   “I will be along soon as I know everyone is safe.”

The bow and ruptured freshwater tank of the Ancaster had been repaired in their absence, the boiler was nearly up to pressure and springs taken in so that only shortened bow and stern lines held her to the quay.   The crew stood, alert, at their stations.   Harold stood by the bridge window, his hand placed lightly on the highly polished new telegraph, its dials disconcertingly labeled in German.   Billy Tate held the spokes of the enormous ship’s wheel, awaiting instructions.   An Aldis lamp on the wing of the Pinguin’s bridge began to flash morse at high speed.   Easter Smurthwait and the Ancaster’s sparks eyed the twinkling light, then each other, and shrugged.   Yes, the trawler did have a radio officer.   Sparky, a lad hailing from the Midlands, had spent the entire adventure locked in his radio room trying unsuccessfully to contact Wick Radio, blissfully unaware and, as usual, totally forgotten.

            “’Spect he’s telling us to get going,” said Easter to his skipper.

            “OK.   Cast off fore and aft.”   He rang ‘Halbe Kraft Voraus’ on the engine room telegraph, “I hope that means what I think it does,” and Ancaster’s single screw began to churn the water into a fury beneath her stern.   She moved slowly away from the quay, picked up speed, was steered deftly around the breakwater by the third hand, and belching black smoke from her Woodbine funnel, the trawler proceeded out to sea.

            On the bridge of the Pinguin Otto von Luckner turned to his Signalsmaat, “Are you certain you sent Follow us… in English?   Ficken!”   He rang down to the engine room and the mighty diesels thumped into action.   He sprinted to the wing of the bridge and shouted, “Abwerfen der Liegeplatz-Seile.   Cast off fore and aft.”   Back in the wheelhouse he addressed his helmsman, “Follow that boat.”

With her thundering pistons producing nearly eight thousand horse power and her twin screws rapidly accelerating her up to seventeen knots it did not take the Pinguin long to outstrip Ancaster.   Von Luckner was on the VHF radio to Harold.

            “Follow us, captain.   Best speed.   We want as much open water as possible between us and Antarctica when whatever it is happens.”

            Easter had been looking astern, “I think it’s happening now, skipper.   You’ll want to see this.”

            Even at the distance of two miles they could see the ice plateau on the continent behind them begin to dome.   The hump rose slowly at first and then burst in an explosion of rock and ice fragments.   There was an incandescent flash.   When vision returned a hemisphere of boiling atmosphere was visible, expanding at an incredible rate.   A rumble grew to a roar and to a screaming shriek that paralysed the onlookers.   The pressure wave tore fittings from the deck and cracked window glass.   The accompanying tsunami, however, passed them unnoticed.   In the open sea, travelling at 500 miles per hour it barely raised the fleeing vessels a foot or two.   As it approached the shoaling seabed around the southern tip of America it would pile up into a destructive wall of vindictive ocean, but out here it was benign.   Back on the Antarctic mainland snow clouds gathered above ground zero and lightening bolts flashed across the sky.   The trawlermen watched as powdered snow billowed and swirled; and out of the turmoil rose a vast, polished metal cylinder, its mirror surface reflecting the chaos that surrounded it.   The Andromeda Machine climbed serenely through the storm into the quiet sky above, performed a leisurely pirouette and accelerated away.   Within moments all was calm.  

            “Well, that was different,” said Easter to no one in particular.

A tinny voice crackled from the bridge loud speaker, Kapitänleutnant Otto Graf von Luckner was back on the VHF.

            “We will be heading for the Rio de la Plata in the Pinguin, but are more than willing to escort you across the South Atlantic, captain.   It will give us chance to compare notes and discuss the recent events.   I expect you will be wanting to proceed to the Ärmelkanal, your English Channel.   We may well catch you up on our way to the Baltic.   It rather depends on how long we loiter in Montevideo.”

            A wandering albatross tucked in behind the stern of the Lord Ancaster, skimming low over the restless swell of the Southern Ocean.   Sunlight glistened off the heaving rollers and dolphins played in the bow-waves of the two vessels as they pointed their prows towards the New World.

A History Lesson

Within the entrance chamber of the Andromeda Machine the Merovingian Lizard Kings’ diminutive ambassador was in full flow and warming to his subject.

            “Back then the grandparents of these people here were investigating a magnetic anomaly on the plateau above and mapped out a shape beneath the ice.   Huge it was, and not of a natural form.   Tunnelling down they were, until they reached the outer hull of the structure within which you stand.   Their proximity triggered a response from the Andromeda Geräte.   It sent a distress message.

“Received the message was, by the Lizard Lords.   Tell you I cannot, of what the Merovingian Lizard Kings already knew regarding the Mother Ship.   But tell you I can, that there is little that the Lizard Kings do not know.   One with The Chaos they are, and The Chaos is aware.

“Instantly despatched was I, with my companions, to contain the situation.     Neuschwabenland was isolated and the expedition to disappear was made.   A busy time in Europe this was and a few missing scientist soon forgotten were.   The descendants of those with the foresight to embrace our mission are still here.”

            “And those without the foresight?” enquired Easter Smurthwait.

            “The Merovingian Lizard Kings see only the bigger picture.   Those who did not embrace did not continue.   They were of no consequence.
            “You earthlings think you are so important.   You strive, and it is noble to strive, right that you strive.   But you influence nothing.   The weirdy web is spun.   It warps and quivers, pulled and shaken by dark tides – glistening dewdrop universes dancing on its threads.   And you, tiny animated specks on one tiny rock, circling one tiny star, on the outer rim of one tiny constellation, in a cosmos so vast that it is beyond your comprehension think that you can hang on, get noticed?   All is The Chaos, everywhere is The Chaos.   It carries you along or tosses you aside without reason.   It is tumult, and the Lizard Kings embody its deepest nature.”

            “You are all servants of evil,” spluttered Albert.

            “Servants of the Lizard Lords we are, and the Lizard Lords are The Chaos.   The Chaos is not evil or good, it is what it is.

            “Homo Credulous – programmed to see patterns in the turmoil.   Everywhere you little men find order and purpose, discover rules and laws and think this is how the universe works, but deluded you are.  You marvel at fractals that derived can be from a tiny equation yet are infinitely complex, you puzzle over a π without end.   You invent Æther to carry your light and radio waves, postulate Dark Fluff in the vacuum of space to make a random universe conform to your sums.”
            Harold was not convinced that he did any of these things; he had not really grasped algebra at school.   He could find a shoal of coleyfish in the vast Arctic ocean and navigate his aging tin tub through mountainous seas that should swallow the 500 ton sidewinder whole, but maths…

            “Wanting it all to make sense you are.   But it does not.   Not your kind of sense, anyway.”   

            One of the saffron men coughed and leaning in to the sage’s ear he spoke quietly to him.   The old man turned to von Luckner.   “You must return to the complex, Kapitänleutnant.   Be gone quickly.   You are about to be attacked.   We will follow directly.”

Andromeda Geräte

 “All crew to their stations.   Prepare to surface.”   The distorted voice of Otto von Luckner crackled over the ship’s Tannoy system.

“Kapitän Entwhistle, if you would like to join me at the periscope.”

            Minutes later Harold appeared on the Command Deck accompanied by his Chief Engineer, Albert Fleck, short and skeletal in a boiler suit that had once been white, hob-nail boots, a dish-rag round his neck and a woollen tea-cosy on his head.

            “Ah Kapitän, and you have brought your stoker.   Would you like to take a look at our destination?”   Von Luckner ushered the trawlermen to the periscope and Harold peered into the eyepiece.   He could see ice and snow – pretty much like all the ice and snow they had been surrounded by since coming south.   Dead ahead was a low black rectangle sheltered beneath an overhang in the cliff.

            “Can I see too?” asked Albert.   As he surveyed the desolate scene a lonely wandering albatross waddled over to the funny stick protruding through a hole in the lightly frozen ocean and blocked out the view.   Distorted goggle eyes peered in at the startled artificer.

            “What the f… …is that?

            “The entrance to our U-Boat pens,” the Kapitänleutnant turned to his ensign, “Take her up.”

            “Bow planes ten degrees, rudder amidships, blow all tanks.”

            The Seeadler surfaced, breaking through the thin layer of barely formed ice and startling the inquisitive seabird into panicked flight.

            A queue of ship’s officers formed at the bottom of the conning tower ladder whilst the Oberfähnrich climbed up to open the hatch.   Von Luckner took two paces back and, with a hand pressed against Harold’s chest, indicated that the trawlermen should do the same.   Seawater showered through the hatchway onto the up-turned faces below.

            “This happens every time.   They never learn.”

The submersible’s deck officers were clustered outside on top of the conning tower when Harold and Albert joined them and the Seeadler was gliding silently towards the cavernous entrance.   As they entered the submarine pens the crew lined the deck to take a salute from stevedores gathered on the nearest floating quay; a small brass band with a glockenspiel played ‘Edelweiss’.   While Seeadler navigated alongside and was made fast Bert Fleck observed a Cuban, Foxtrot Class submarine and a Type VIIC/41 Flak U-Boat on neighbouring pontoons.   The sleek Cuban vessel appeared to be making ready to sail.

            “Stop engines.   Prepare to disembark.”   Once the trawlermen had been rounded up Easter joined Harry and Albert with von Luckner, Billy Tate remained with the crew who were quickly escorted ashore.

            “Your men will be treated well, Kapitän.   You may check on their wellbeing in a little while.   But I wish to be with you when you first set eyes on our establishment here.”   The Kapitänleutnant indicated the gangway.   They proceeded along the pontoon to a short ramp and then ascended a long escalator.   Globe lamps on patinated bronze mounts lit their way, the architecture was modernist with a severely Teutonic twist.

            They emerged into a spacious concourse.   Half-moon skylights, pierced through the sea-green ceiling high above, cast shafts of daylight into the scene below, the polished Carrera floor shone like water, the walls glowed with warm beige marble cladding.   A mahogany cased clock dominated the far end of the hall and dwarfed figures scurried purposefully wherever the Yorkshiremen looked.   Just ahead a sulky line of king penguins shuffled past, heads down and shoulders hunched.   Intermittently each in turn would squawk a mumbled complaint.   Nearby stood a group of self absorbed men in tall orange hats, with faces of wrinkled, walnut leather; their saffron robes all but hidden by too large, wrap around yak-skin coats, secured at the waist by string.

            “Lizard men?” enquired Harold Entwhistle of his host.

            “None of us will ever meet the Merovingian Lizard Kings, my friend.   That is not their way.   These men of the Himalayas are envoys.

“Let me show you to your quarters, and on the way I will point out the officers’ mess.   I will meet you back there in…   Shall we say one hour?”

The officers’ mess was done out with a great deal of chrome and had the feel of an outsized American diner.   Harold, Easter and Albert were sat at a cramped Formica table and had given a food order to a well-rounded fraulein in a short blue gingham dress and dinky, matching forage cap by the time they were joined by Kapitänleutnant Otto Graf von Luckner.   Albert removed his tea cosy, stuffed it in a pocket and ran his fingers through his greasy hair.   The waitress appeared with three All Day Breakfasts.

            “Good, you have ordered.   I will have an Americano, two shots of expresso, not too much water… and a small piece of your excellent schwarzwälder kirschtorte, if I may, my dear.”

            Easter scowled at his surroundings, “All seems very clean - for a secret Nazi UFO base.   Where’s the Storm Troopers.”

            Otto sighed, “To business then.   First I must explain to you our situation, we will postpone the small talk, pleasant as that would be, till later.  

“There were never many Nazis here; our original expedition was, after all, a scientific survey.   Those first comers were not intending to become colonists.   There were not many women on the original expedition either but somehow, three generations later, we are still here.   Our ancestors established a small base on this spot, claimed the land for the Greater Germany, began surveying the area and then made a discovery that changed everything.   You had better come with me and I will show you…   The secret you have come to uncover…   The reason you can never leave.”  

            “Never…   What?”   Albert shot to his feet, banging his knees on the table, which was, fortunately, securely bolted to the floor.

            Easter joined in with, “Now look here, captain...”

            “Please.   Just come with me.   We can discuss your future circumstances later.”

The Yorkshire trio were still protesting vehemently as they crossed the concourse to one of a number of departure gates.   Four of the mysterious, saffron clad orientals formed up silently behind them.   A discoloured sign in a Gebrochene Schrift black letter typeface indicated AG Gate23 and below it an attendant, inspecting von Luckner’s pass, nodded them through.   They entered a tube-like chamber lined with benches and settled down together whilst the mute envoys sat nearby, yet pointedly apart from the sailors.   The doors slid shut with a whoosh, there was a sharp Plop, a hiss and a sensation of rapid acceleration.

            “We are travelling in a pneumatic tube subway.   First proposed, I believe, by your excellent Herr Brunel, though it has taken German vorsprung durch technik to make it work.”

            “Not Isambard, for once, George Medhurst, a Kentishman,” muttered Bert Fleck, “but I bet he half inched the idea off a Yorkshireman.”

            The travelers were contemplating the engineer’s observation as their transport stopped with an uncomfortable suddenness and the doors slid open.   Otto stood back to let the Himalayan envoy disembark first, then he and the trawlermen followed along a gently sloping ice tunnel.   At its end the oldest and shortest emissary, with the tallest hat, approached a small glowing tablet, placed his right palm upon it and a door swung open.   The four monk-like beings entered first, followed reluctantly by Easter and Albert Fleck.   Harold and the Kapitänleutnant brought up the rear.   They found themselves inside a bare reception area.   The curved outer walls were comprised of an alloy that Harold could not identify.   There was no corrosion or decay, though there were signs of wear and an impression of great age.   The inner bulkheads and floors were transparent and, disconcertingly, they could see down through several floors beneath their feet.   In the room below were parked two foo fighters under plastic sheeting.     

            “Schoonfryder,” whispered von Luckner, “but there are many different types of what you would call UFO in neighbouring bays.”

            “Great,” said Albert, who was pressed against the only wall that looked solid and was very deliberately not looking down.

            The diminutive monk turned to address the company, “Discovering this the great grandfather of young Otto was.   Lying here undisturbed for many millennia it had been.   Under the ice.   A secret it was, and must remain.   The Andromeda Machine.   Within a UFO mother ship you are.”