The Martian Pendant (12 page)

When the permit applications for the Oil Cartel’s projected exploratory drilling and that of the Chicago dig were received, they were turned over to him to process.
What a windfall,
he thought, but his anxiety continued. His fraud was certain to be discovered sooner or later. There had been some Hong Kong Chinese oilmen in Dar recently, enquiring about permits for exploratory wells along the coast. While he was supposed to be co-operative with British interests, Hong Kong still being a Crown Colony, he could never, under the circumstances, be sure whether any Chinese was friend or foe. Either way, his cover might be threatened. There was a training program for Chinese Intelligence Agency Cadets offered by the KGB in Moscow. There, information as to his true identity would easily be available. He decided at length that the safest course to take with the permit process for the Chinese was to delegate it to his assistant, an Englishman, Rodney Kindred, originally from East Anglia. That would free him to pay close attention to the American venture, gathering information first-hand.

His nervousness subsided as he made plans for the trip. He would use the four-wheel drive vehicle assigned him, a one-man safari. All he would need in addition to suitable wear and provisions would be field glasses, his two-way radio, cameras with film, and weapons--a hunting rifle, certainly, and the handgun he always carried, his Russian copy of the Walther P-38.                                                             

Recruits

The dissident oilmen, going first to Kenya, deplaned in Nairobi, interested in the Mau Mau uprising there. The plan was to enlist terrorists for use in disrupting the oil exploration over the border in Tanganyika. It would be a difficult mission, persuading the Kenyans to cross the border and then turn them against the people at the dig. But they knew that radicals among the revolutionaries might be persuaded to use violence if they had the right incentive, always short of the expensive and necessary arms and ammunition as they were.

By 1958, there were few militants in Kenya remaining free, most of them having been killed or imprisoned by the British in the campaign to neutralize the Mau Mau. It was known that some of them had fled to Tanganyika, hiding out among the scattered Kikuyu tribespeople. Even then, they were limited in their terrorist activities by TANU, whose struggle for freedom was geared to peaceful means, ballots instead of bullets.

Jeremiah Grant, the de facto chairman of the oil splinter group, had finally been able to contact a small band of poorly armed militants just across the border. The plan was to use bribery, mostly in the form of surplus Lee-Enfield rifles and ammunition. They would be disguised as local herders, setting up on the higher ground to the west of the encampment. Their cover, such as it was, would consist of ten head of cattle that he had purchased.

The plan was flawed from the beginning. Five men per cow would, even to an ignorant observer, seem a ridiculous ratio. A critical person would also notice that they had little resemblance, except in skin color, to the tall, slim local Maasai.                                          

In the eroded hills to the west of the dig encampment, in the rapidly cooling twilight, the furtive band of fifty Mau-Mau gathered around their newly established campfires. The Kenyans, all Kikuyus, were miles from their hiding places across the border, and wary of the local Maasai. Two white men were in their midst, one of them Grant. Through his interpreter, Cedric Milford, an old-line settler, he was trying to encourage them.

“Look, you see no other campfires except where the foreigners have gathered. And their numbers are no greater than your warriors; and some of them are women. With the new firearms I brought you, they will run in terror when you descend on their camp.”

The leader of the Kenyans excitedly spoke to his men, receiving some comment in return. He then addressed the listening Milford, who turned to Grant. “He says his group only number fifty, and the camp guards have automatic rifles.”

“Ask him,” Grant replied scornfully, “since when is a Kikuyu warrior not the equal of any three men? Tell him that if he won’t fight, I’ll enlist the Maasai around here to do the job.”

That did it. The Kikuyu leader spat into the fire, and then turned to Grant, his coffee-colored face further darkened by rage. In broken English, he almost shouted, “You whites think you own us, and before you came, it was the Arabs. Now it’s time the black man shows you. Our revolution will yet force the British out of Kenya, and the lessons taught there will bring freedom from white rule here and all through the rest of Africa.”

Taken aback, Grant replied through the interpreter, “We Americans sympathize with your wish to become free. We ourselves had to fight the British for the same cause many years ago. That’s part of the reason we’ve supplied you with weapons and ammunition, for your struggle in Kenya. But remember, it works both ways. We help you with the fight in your country, and you help us here. And after winning, we won’t stay, as the Europeans did. You have my word on that.”     

Mollified, the African turned, calling out orders to his band. One-third of the men spread out on the periphery to watch the exploration site while the rest selected spots around the fires for sleeping.

“One thing,” Grant said, “
you’ll need more cattle to make your band look like a genuine group of herdsmen. If you don’t get them, you’ll arouse too much suspicion to be effective when the time comes. Lacking the element of surprise when you strike could make all the difference.”

Little further exchange was necessary, and they bade the Kikuyus goodbye. Milford explained, “The fierce pride of the these tribesmen has overcome logic. They will stay, their leader said, and await their opportunity to attack. Because most of the foreigners there are white and are robbing their fellow black Africans of their birthright, killing them will be easy. That’s the Mau-Mau way. It appears they regard the people down there as no different than the settlers they murdered in Kenya. Whites will have to pay, they say.”

With that, the two men clambered into their truck and drove off toward Arusha, the nearest town. There would be good food and drink as well as warm beds there, to salve any pangs of conscience they might have.

ELEVEN

The Spaceship

The final layer of rock was being scraped away from what proved to be the starboard side of the ship. An ecstatic Diana was taking pictures as Dan stood by with the CO
2
detector, marveling at the sight.

“Look,” she said, “the hull material! It’s the same as the fragments we found on the surface, and that of my pendant. There must indeed have been two ships, the other destroyed on landing.”

As the excavation continued, the very large size of the craft became apparent, as did its orientation along a deep watery fissure in the mix of volcanic rock and limestone.

On the mound of excavated earth and rock above, Ballard called down, “The diameter of the hull is at least a hundred feet. I can see the nose now, and there’s not a sign of a heat shield, but there
is
a large streamlined cupola there, apparently housing the flight deck.”

Diana replied, “Well, you know we showed that this material will withstand at least 2,000 degrees. But that’s just scratching the surface, no pun intended. For this ship’s skin to hold together without a heat shield to burn away in the process, it would have to withstand anywhere between 2,900 and 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on its speed. We know that meteorites, composed mostly of nickel and iron, melt or burn away at around 2,750 degrees in their plunge to earth. This spaceship obviously withstood the heat generated by entry into our atmosphere, but by what property or mechanism? And, you say no ports for the pilot? There must be openings for tubes of some type that could house instruments to monitor outside conditions and speed. Maybe something like television?”

Dan replied, “I can’t see any openings for that. But the tolerances could be so small that detecting the edges of hatches and other covered openings could require the use of a microscope. Or, they may have been obscured by mineral deposition long ago. Maybe the nose is like one-way glass.”

Complete excavation of the starboard side took three weeks, partially because of the size of the ship, but to no small degree due to the need to chip away the surrounding calcareous and igneous rock. Time was also required to rig a camouflaged covering to hide its presence from observation from the air or the surrounding heights. It became evident that security guards would also have to be posted in order to exclude spies or saboteurs. This was ultimately ineffective, of course, due to the make-up of the staff, a fifth of whom would prove to be spies or hires of various sinister groups. So the secrecy, put in place belatedly after GeoSat’s discovery, was practically worthless.

The last part of the ship to be uncovered was the tail section. There, a spherical housing, obviously for the propulsion system, was mounted on a thick tubular spar extending a hundred feet back from the cigar-shaped body. Again, rather than having exhaust jets to the outside, the power unit appeared devoid even of markings denoting possible openings. The scintillation counter recorded the bulk of the radiation that remained as being over that surface, confirming its function. There were only one other protuberance seen, a streamlined sponson, low on that side, which would prove to have a mate opposite it. There were porthole-like orifices along the length of the ship, not evident until the last few feet were excavated, close to the craft’s bottom, and situated in its forward third. These were too small for even an average-size man to enter, serving most likely as ventilation ports that had been left open. After inspecting them, Diana decided that a slim woman could squeeze through, once the concretions of limestone narrowing the openings could be removed.

Standing on the top of the ship, she could see the course of the stream supplying the carbonate deposits, flowing from a limestone cavern opened at the end of the ditch they had cut exposing the tail. The stream continued along the belly of the craft and into the low-lying openings. No sign of an exit was apparent, although by then only one side had been uncovered. That the stream had its outflow at some other point was obvious. A cut nearly 200 feet into the earth had been made to reach that underground stream, a limestone conduit more than big enough for a man. She knew creatures would be living inside, fish and crustaceans, probably. It was the thought of reptiles that bothered her, particularly the one that had taken their hapless co-worker Joan. And there were crocodiles in the stream only twenty miles to the north.
Could this subterranean system connect the ship to that river?

Entry

One of the first projects involved the installation of diesel-powered pumps to maintain the area free of noxious and suffocating gases. The placement of riflemen to keep predators away was also mapped out. Men with jackhammers were turned loose at the ports, one of which was fairly quickly cleared of the soft rock. After the rough edges were sanded until the glassy surface appeared, it was seen that soaping them would make squeezing through easier. The pumps were then used to clear the air and water inside for twenty-four hours before an attempt at entry would be made.

As none of the other women were interested, Diana determined she would go. When she emerged from her tent wearing only her swimsuit, Max couldn’t help but let out a low whistle, bringing an icy look from her that put him in his place. Dan scowled at Max, but turning to her, concerned more with her safety, expressed his fears about the uncertainty of her getting out, after gaining entry.

Eager to be first to enter what seemed to be the Martian ship in her story, she reassured him. “Danny, if I’m able to get in, I shall probably be able to get out any time. And with our new cutting torch, we can enlarge the opening with a little work.” 

Ballard looked at her incredulously, cautioning, “We haven’t built the cutting torch yet, and really don’t know if it will work even then.”

She shrugged that away with a chuckle, “Should I become stuck, I’ll not eat for a day or two and lose a few pounds. Voila! I’m out.”    

Ready for that day’s scheduled entry of the ship when the CO
2
level inside was shown to be little more than that of the surrounding air, she gathered her equipment. Ballard assured her that the pumps, placed well above the excavation, would make it safe, should even a venting of that or other gases take place. To be on the safe side, she would take along a portable oxygen tank and mask borrowed from the aid station. Other safeguards were a flashlight, should the power fail to the extension cord she would pull after her, and an intercom, with its wires taped to that line. Food and drinking water, if needed, would be available at the entry port.

The sun had reached halfway to its zenith, shining weakly through the camouflage netting, by the time she was ready. Shafts of light played across the reddish surface of the craft, as the freshening breeze imparted waves of motion to the fabric overhead. Diana was wearing her snuggest one-piece swimsuit, which she thought would allow her to easily squeeze through the opening. She also had a camera with a flash attachment, and standing there, wearing sneakers and carrying all the paraphernalia, she looked small and vulnerable.

With a last-minute check of the rhythm of the pumps, and after putting her equipment on a ledge inside, she smiled at Dan, gave him a hug, and squeezed inside headfirst. The closest she came to becoming stuck was at the hips, but by wriggling, she slipped through the opening.

“By Jove,” she called excitedly, her voice hollow with the echoing, “This is quite fantastic!”

She found herself standing in the foot of cool water that the pump had not cleared. Using her flashlight, she directed the beam in all directions. There was a low ceiling indicating the deck above, with a long companionway extending in either direction.

Reaching outside for the light and the intercom, she said, “The walls are obscured with concretions like those that covered the ports. I think that at one time there were screens of some type covering the openings. I’m going forward to see what I can find now.”

“Be careful, Di,” Dan called in a worried voice, “and don’t forget your camera.”

As she proceeded up the long passageway, pulling the heavily insulated electrical cord after her, she remarked, “There are stalactites hanging down wherever water drips from the ceiling. This ship has been part of that underground river until now.”

Moving slowly, holding the light ahead of her, she continued, “The walls or bulkheads are covered with a kind of limestone also, obscuring any signs, control buttons or switches that might be there. A more thorough exploration will certainly require hammer and chisel.” Then she exclaimed, “I say, this ship is inhabited.” Shining the light into the water covering her feet, she continued, “There are a few white cave-fish, and they’re nibbling on my shoes. I can’t see their eyes—but they must be blind anyway, just as in any underground stream.”

Slowly moving toward the nose of the ship, she passed the sump pump placed through a forward port. Speaking through the intercom, she said, “You might as well shut off the water pump; the intake screen is clogged with tiny shrimp.”

Taking photos and pulling the power cord and intercom line as far as it would go, she remarked, “What looks like stairs or a ladder is up ahead. I’m at the limit of my range now in that direction. I’d like to explore aft as far as possible today, but the water in that direction is deeper, really cold and beginning to sting, I think from alkali. Next time I’ll wear boots.”

The Confessional

The following day was a Sunday, and work around camp was put on the back burner. Pinkerton guards maintained a skeleton crew to keep the curious native laborers at a distance from the work, where otherwise they would steal odd pieces of equipment lying around. They also had to watch the truck drivers, who could photograph the work being done with the derelict ship, and sell the pictures to the newspapers.

Max was the one to first alert them to the Italian, or rather, Sicilian drivers. He had taken a dislike to them as soon as he saw them flirting with his secretary and the other women. His disapproval was a joke among the dig crew, but it was then that Diana began to suspect that truck driving was not the main reason they were there.
There was something furtive about the head driver, Staltieri,
she thought.

On that day, Celestre, in his clerical robe, looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, arrived in a small pickup with his portable altar and collapsible confessional booth. Most of the personnel from Chicago would have ignored him, had not the drivers lined up for confession. Diana was with Dan nearby, helping determine the stationing of the security guards.

“Did you get a close look at that priest? I’m not Catholic,” she said, “But even if I were, he’d be the last person on earth to whom I’d confess.”

As he surveyed the line of drivers at the tiny confessional, Dan said, “Maybe they didn’t get a good look at him before he closeted himself. As usual, the confessional booth is working both ways, obscuring one ugly priest along with the identity of the sinners.”

When Staltieri seated himself inside, he hastily whispered to Celestre, “They’ve discovered an alien spaceship, made of an impervious material. It looks as if had been propelled by some form of nuclear engine. It was buried under almost 200 feet of rock, ash and earth. Rumor has it that it landed many thousands of years ago. Next time you come, I’ll have more information and possibly some films for development. Plans are underway for attempting an entry for further exploration of its interior tomorrow.”

“But what about religious artifacts?” The priest asked. “They’re half my reason for being here.”

The Mafia soldier ominously replied, “Don’t delude yourself, we own 90 percent of you. Don’t forget that, unless you want to become carrion for the hyenas and vultures out there.” Celestre shuddered at the thought, but said nothing more.

With a malevolent smirk that the priest could not see, Staltieri asked sarcastically, “Aren’t you going to assign my penance and bless me, father?”

Up the Steps

That Monday, wearing knee-high boots, she entered the hulk once again. Slowly she climbed the stairs to the second level, dragging a longer power cord. As her light played around the passage leading from the landing on the next deck, she was horrified to see a large pair of red eyes shining in the light. As she reflexively leapt onto a nearby ledge, the monster came splashing and crashing against stalactites, lunging at her, its snapping jaws closer with each surge, propelled by its powerful tail. Realizing she had only one chance, she swung the light with its mesh guard against the bulkhead, breaking the bulb. Then she threw it into the blackness, at the onrushing reptile. The bare socket bounced off its scaly back and splashed into the water. She was nearly deafened as the crocodile roared loudly, the sound echoing for what seemed an eternity. Then there was quiet, as the thrashing ceased.

She could hear her heart pounding in the darkness, but there was no other sound except the dripping of water from above. Shakily turning on her flashlight, she could see the contorted 20-foot monster still quivering. As she breathed a sigh of relief, she asked herself,
Could there be others
? Forgetting to stop and take photos, she didn’t wait to find out the answer to that question. She feared the reptile was so large that the 220 volts had merely stunned it. Despite her rubber boots, she was unsure if she would be safe from the effect of the electrical current herself, and asked over the intercom that it be turned off. Her back seemed particularly vulnerable as she hastily made her way down the stairs, wriggling rapidly out of the little port. As Dan greeted her with a warm blanket, she clung to him.