The Prometheus Invasion Ch. 03

The rest of that day, and all of the next day, were spent preparing for their reconnaissance mission. Manville took several flights in the plane they'd be flying, a Grumman SA-16 Albatross flying boat.

Manville spent time at a shooting range with the .45 automatic he'd be carrying. He took the gun, while suspecting it would be inadequate for whatever they'd find on the island.

Dana's day was spent learning to use the measuring equipment the plane would have onboard. She suspected it would be thoroughly inadequate as well, in addition to its not being portable.

At the end of a long day, Manville and Lindstrom sat in Homestead's commissary eating a late dinner.

Manville and Lindstrom were eating steaks. "Food in the military usually only qualifies as 'food' by the loosest possible definition," he said. "But this isn't too bad by military standards."

"The condemned man's last meal?" asked Lindstrom.

Manville smiled. "You're catching on," he said. "Although I assume they'll be feeding us breakfast before we go tomorrow."

"Do you believe in the Bermuda Triangle?"

Manville looked at Lindstrom. She didn't appear fearful, only curious.

"I believe that there have been a lot of plane accidents and shipwrecks in the Bermuda Triangle," he said slowly. "Back in October there was a Navy R7V-1 flight out of Maryland heading to the Azores. Forty-two passengers and crew. Disappeared without a trace.

"I saw the Navy's report: 'a sudden and violent force, that rendered the aircraft no longer airworthy ... beyond the scope of human endeavor to control. The force that rendered the aircraft uncontrollable is unknown.'"

"Were you involved in investigating that?"

Manville smiled. "That's classified."

Manville ate an onion ring. "U.S.S. Cyclops. Navy ship, went down right after leaving Barbados in 1918. Three hundred nineteen on board. Down without a trace. Biggest single loss of life in Navy history to date.

"Navy flight of Avenger bombers, training flight out of Fort Lauderdale in 1945. Not only did all five disappear, but one of the rescue planes the Navy sent out to find them also disappeared.

"DC-3 flight from San Juan to Miami. Disappeared 20 minutes before it was supposed to land. Twenty-eight passengers."

"How do you know all that?"

"Classified, remember?" Manville paused. "But that's some of the heaviest traveled airspace and ocean on the planet. There are all kinds of other potential explanations that you can't investigate if you can't find the wreck — mechanical failure, overloading, inaccurate compass readings. Pilot error. And if you study plane crashes, usually you find there was more than one cause anyway. Usually, there's a chain of cascading events that leads to the crash.

"Anyway, the Atlantic is a big ocean, and that's a half-million square miles out there."

Manville finished his coffee. "I'd offer to buy you an after-dinner drink, but I have to fly tomorrow, and I don't think we're allowed off the base anyway."

"I suspect you're right."

"So what about you?"

"Me?"

"What do you think this is?"

"The Bermuda Triangle?"

"No, whatever it is you're supposed to be investigating as part of this little expedition of ours."

"I think my explanation of what the blood does is similar to your explanation about what the metal does."

"Which is to say, there isn't one."

"Unless you believe in life beyond Earth."

Manville laughed.

"You don't?" she asked.

"Not until they show up here."

"You don't think life on other planets is at least possible?"

"There isn't any evidence that there is."

"You mean, there isn't any evidence that we've found."

"Well, of course."

The next morning, Manville and Lindstrom walked onto the flight line, where their Albatross was parked. They were back in flight suits. Manville was wearing sunglasses. Manville wore a gun belt with a .45-caliber automatic.

Manville yawned. He looked at his watch.

"I think my body still thinks it's 6 in the morning," he said. "If nothing else, I'm getting very varied flying experience in the past 24 hours."

Manville put his and Lindstrom's bags in the back. "Ever flown a plane before?"

"You flew me in one yesterday," she said.

"That isn't what I meant — have you ever flown a plane before?"

"No, I haven't. Why do you ask?"

"Well, technically you're the copilot. This plane is supposed to have a crew of five, including a pilot and copilot."

The Albatross indeed had yokes for a pilot and copilot. The throttles were mounted on the ceiling of the cockpit between the two.

"Nobody said anything about flying a plane," said Lindstrom.

"Then you better hope nothing happens to me," said Manville. "Or that you're a fast learner."

Manville sat in the pilot's seat. He pointed out the instruments in front of the wheel — airspeed, radio compass and artificial horizon on the top row, rate of climb and altimeter on either side of the yoke.

"You find it unusual that here's this big top secret operation, involving just two people?" asked Manville.

"I don't have the experience with top secret things you seem to have," said Lindstrom.

Manville smiled. "Ever read Ben Franklin? 'Three can keep a secret ...'"

"'... if two of them are dead,'" finished Lindstrom.

"Uh huh. I'm not even sure what the hell we're supposed to do once we find this island, if we do find it. This plane isn't armed. Are we supposed to land and knock on the door? Radio back so they can send out a B-52?"

"What are we going to do?"

Manville shrugged. "I guess we'll figure it out when we get there ... assuming we do find it. If this thing only shows up at night ... well, this isn't night. But we're not equipped to do a night search anyway." He sighed. "You can't do your biology thing from the air anyway."

Manville flipped a switch. A high-pitched whine came from their right, and then the right-side engine coughed to life.

Manville reached over to the headphones draped around the copilot's yoke and handed them to Lindstrom. He flipped the switch next to it, and another high-pitched whine was followed by the left-side engine coming to life.

He put on the pilot's headphones.

"Put your hands on the wheel, but don't do anything," said Manville. "Just let the wheel move your hands. Same thing with your feet on the pedals."

Manville got clearance from the Homestead tower.

"You'll notice this is not a jet," Manville said as he pulled the throttles forward.

Compared in Lindstrom's mind with the Scorpion, everything seemed to be in slow motion.

Manville stopped at the entrance to the runway. He held his hand out parallel to the floor of the plane.

"Principles of flight," he said. "Pitch," and he moved his hand from his wrist as if it were a teeter-totter, "roll," and he twisted his hand and wrist, "yaw is left and right.

"Push the yoke, pitch goes down; pull back, it goes up. The pedals and the yoke turn the plane left and right. The yoke controls roll, left or right."

Once in the air, Manville executed a leisurely turn eastward.

"You'll be able to see Grand Bahama to the right," said Manville. "This is going to take us a good 2½ hours, and that's pushing it."

Flying at nearly full throttle the entire time, they arrived at the map coordinates in 2 hours and 20 minutes, having traveled 400 miles east and slightly southeast.

Manville dropped the Albatross to 2,000 feet and slowed to usual cruising speed. He handed the binoculars to Lindstrom while he took a wide circle around where the island was supposed to be.

"Do you see anything?" he asked after the orbit was completed.

"There's nothing but ocean down there that I can see."

Manville took the binoculars and held them to his eyes with one hand while he steered the yoke with the other to roll the plane at a nearly 45-degree angle to be able to see the ocean. He duplicated the circle he had flown before.

"I don't see anything either," he said. "I'm going to go out farther."

Manville dropped the plane to 1,500 feet and took three orbits consecutively wider. He saw nothing but open water — no bodies of land, and no ships.

For the next hour, Manville flew over the map coordinates in a search pattern, flying out 25 miles, turning 180 degrees, flying back another 25 miles, and turning back. Lindstrom kept looking, even getting out of the copilot's seat to watch from midplane.

Lindstrom came back, shaking her head.

"Getting time to go," said Manville. The plane was reaching the point where it had to return to Homestead or risk running out of fuel. He assumed if needed he could land in the Bahamas or San Juan or Havana, but he was familiar with no airfields in Puerto Rico, and heading into an unfamiliar airfield while running out of fuel was generally not recommended. Nor was flying a military plane into an unfamiliar airfield in a foreign country while running out of fuel.

Manville was about to hit the transmit button to radio Homestead when he noticed his instruments. The heading indicator and artificial horizon were spinning around, and the altimeter and vertical speed indicator needles were oscillating wildly. Only the airspeed indicator and turn coordinator appeared to be working normally.

"What the hell," said Manville.

"What's wrong?" said Lindstrom.

"The instruments are acting strange," he said. He was startled, but not panicking. The plane appeared to his eyes to be flying straight and level. His watch said it was noon, so he could look at the plane's shadow on the ocean to determine north, and flying 90 degrees to the left of north would be west, back toward Florida.

He hit the transmit button. "Air Force 2121 to Homestead tower. Air Force 2121 to Homestead tower. Come in. Over."

The radio was silent. He repeated the hail twice. Nothing.

"And now the radio isn't working," he said. "Having a radioman on this plane would be helpful right now."

"What are you going to do?"

"I can still get us back." At least back in the right general direction, he thought to himself.

He started wondering if he had spoken too soon when his right engine began sputtering.

Manville was flying south into the sun. He decided to try to turn right to head west.

"I thought you said we had enough gas," said Lindstrom. Her voice was slightly higher than it usually was.

"We do. Or we should." He pointed at the fuel gauges, which were below half, but too far to not get back safely.

His airspeed was down to 75 knots. He knew that was close to the Albatross' stall speed. He pushed the left engine's throttle to the firewall to try to gain speed.

Instead of gaining rpm, the left engine began stumbling like the right engine.

"Get your seatbelt on," said Manville. "We may be landing before we get back to Homestead."

The right engine shuddered and stopped running.

Manville hit the transmit button. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Air Force 2121. We are ... about 220 miles east of Nassau. We have lost power and are losing altitude. Air Force 2121."

Nothing answered back.

Then the left engine died. The plane began to dive as it slowed past stall speed.

Manville pushed on the yoke trying to gain airspeed. Diving made the plane sink faster, but going faster might allow him to control the rate of descent better so he could land on the water instead of crashing into the water. Even a flying boat would break up if it hit the water at too steep an angle.

"Hang on," said Manville grimly.

The plane dropped through 400 feet. At 200 feet, the rate of descent started to slow. At 100 feet, the rate of descent allowed Manville to think he might be able to land on the water.

At 50 feet, he saw an island in front of him. He tried to pull up so the plane would fly over the island. The plane didn't respond. He tried to turn left to miss the island. The plane didn't respond.

"Get your head down!" he yelled to Lindstrom.

A wing of the plane hit a tree on the island. The plane sank to the water and hit it hard. And that was the last moment of consciousness for Manville and Lindstrom.