The base could have been in a Norwegian fiord. Rather than early Autumn as it had been in Maryland, it was early Spring here, far below the equator at the terminus of the spiny ridge of the South American continent, upon the twisted origin of which Darwin had declined to speculate. The stagnation of industrial and technical evolution had, in Theographical circles, begun to encourage speculation that The Theory of the Origin of Species, of Evolution, in short, might not be so reason-clad as Richard had been taught. He had long suspected that Darwin himself did not “believe” so fervently in his reasoned speculations as his later day adherents did.
Such were the broad-scoped shadows, doubts trailing like gray cloaks behind their fiendishly hunched backs, that scudded across Richard’s rampant mind’s eye as he was lowered by hawser upon a pallet that contained his kit and sober footman. The Color Sergeant Major and O’Neal were already upon the liftway along with gray-uniformed men whose appearance gave Richard a start of wonder tinged with bitterness.
Richard was greeted with salutes by his Sergeant, by an Argentine General, a Russian Colonel, a Chinese Major, and, and a German Admiral, Commander, and a Captain. The last three were attired according to 70 year old military uniform codes so notable for their striking aesthetics. Entire books explored the nuances of uniform and operational methods and equipment employed by the army of that now extinct nation, Germany.
Richard looked up to these tall men, lean in their gaunt uniforms of deathly gray, saluted stiffly and stepped towards them as his footman and stevedore unloaded his kit and the pallet lift was hawsered back aloft. Commander Levsky was hurrying over from the forelift as Richard addressed the men, “Enemies of my forefathers? So it is true that some zeppelins escaped to Argentina and Chile?”
The admiral answered with a slight smile, “I am afraid that our airships all went down protecting the Fatherland. However, the U-Boats were never unleashed in battle, but saved for the survival of the entire human race.”
“U-Boats?”
“Young Captain,” soothed the Admiral, “I am Alfred Donetz, grandson of the Undersea Admiral. Three of our last four U-Boats have been lost this year. The Enemy is both areal and aquatic and is jealous of these domains. We launch before dawn while production is moved elsewhere—rockets were but a ruse. French, British and Russian submarine programs were open to sabotage. German U-Boat technology was developed in secret. We have a crew of 24, sons of Argentine and Kriegsmarine, all devoted to Supra-National Theographic Expedition.”
Bing-Ham, Zephyr, Pullman, the doormen, Mister Pete and the bar keep, printer and reporter converged from the aft.
Commander Levsky, Sergeant Suvarov, Sventlana, Hilda and two sailors converged from the fore hawser, bearing all their effects as Blackie and Pope were lifted down with the balance of Richard’s expeditionary articles. The fiord was enclosed as a natural compound. Three simple U-shaped docks, covered piers he was told, projecting into the cold inlet, were mirrored by three barracks surrounding a workhouse with higher roof and black out windows.
Richard was bemused, so impressed as he was with the speed, utility and vantage of the airship that yet hovered above them. “Why not by air, if we are bound for climes Antarctic, Admiral?”
He asked this as he noted that though the uniforms were German antique in design, the insignia was of a five-pointed star within the sphere of the earth, a symbol he took it of Supra-National Theography. Bing-Ham, Zephyr and Pullman exchanged pleasantries with a Teutonic scholar by the name of Mickles, speaking of retiring to the workhouse for planning and a geographical brief.
She then started, and he sharply, sickeningly, felt her wince with fright, “Czarina?” he asked, turning to see her squeezing Hilda’s thick hand and gasping in her silvery voice so lush with worry, “It sounds like the cutting of a rug, of a floor man ripping up carpet with a hook-beaked knife!”
The men fell silent.
Richard thought to himself, hoping she would know his thoughts, not wanting to clutter her trance with the wordy here and now, ‘Is it near?’
She groaned, “Oh, Captain Jones!”
The woman, so commanding, confident and fit, then swooned.
“To the Boat!” ordered the Admiral. Major Yu, see to the relocation of production. Captain Kleves load the expedition. General, Operation Odysseus is in play.”
‘How interesting,’ Richard mused, ‘that we are the least of the force, but the King’s English chosen for allied discourse.’
The calm words of command, issued by the Admiral echoed all around him as he signaled for the Sergeant to Get all hands and effects down to the boat shed.
Richard drew his revolver and stood about instinctively, knowing with a weird certainty, that something evil that way came.
Only Commander Levsky did likewise, seeming to cue off of Richard, as if privy to the ethereal connection between the Czarina and the strangely haunted and maimed provincial Captain.
Richard cocked his 0.50 Caliber revolver, held it to his right shoulder and shivered as he heard a cacophony of single song, a one tone, sharp and rising to infinity that would shake the confidence of any man not infected by the heady balm of fanaticism. That call rang like all the sirens of an extinct ocean and felled the one Russian sailor who had stayed to attend the commander, quivering on the air lift strip, frothing at the mouth, hands over ears, shaking like a winter-bitten leaf.
Levsky growled, “Come on, Jones!”
As if on cue, the aft and fore guns of the Czarina barked dreadfully above, shooting gouts of flame, evincing one dreadful pining call, as if a hawk the size of an elephant screed in rage.
The guns roared again, multiple times, tracking something. Small arms sparked and barked on the cat walks, Russian sailors seen outlined in the tiny spittings of firelight. Then, gray clouds swept aside and the moon was seen to glower behind the air ship, some winged thing passing over its top with a scree of ear-rending keens. The fore and aft guns thumped and flamed, lesser guns sparked and barked—
… came the cutting of the rug, a sound like a titan tearing a tapestry between his hands. [1]
The giant balloon listed, then burst into flame, guns still firing, a winged thing burning like a phoenix in the death grapple with the giant exploding albatross in its claws. The Czarina took horrible flame as the sound of Svetlana’s ether voice seared its sorrow into his brain, as if a great mechanical twin of hers died and she shared her pain through an astral embrace, “No!”
‘She is suffering with the doomed crew above even as she swoons below—not unconscious, but in some kindred state.’
A great flame erupted like a wall of burning night before them, falling to the inner foot of the fiord’s parapet. It was a wonder of disaster, a quenching of industrial sadness at the ends of the earth. Richard stood in wonder, and apart, sensing for the weirdness in the moment of annealing dread he knew was to come. Oh how he yearned to fight a monster!
Levsky said with a voice steady as steel, “Death is afoot, Captain. You and I are all that stand between the foul owl’s beak and the production crew, without which—”
A flaming phoenix rose from the blaze before them as Richard’s was singed by flames a hundred yards and more distant, the screams of incinerating men wafting their end up to heaven, and ushering a singular form of damnation towards he and Levsky.
…
Notes
-1. Over the past two weeks I have torn up carpet for an Alaskan family living in Portland, as I finish this novel. The sound was a much magnified version of that made by the beak of my Pittsburgh friend’s 6 ounce parrot as it tore apart the canvas backing of a chair. That terrible little avian, which attacks giant humans who fail to bow to its tyrannical demands is the basis for the Phoenixiathan. -JL, 1/11/25
