“Shall we give it a spin?” Durant asked.
__________
THE DRILL WAS attached to a metal arm mounted to a weighted pole, so that it could run without anyone holding it.
Kozakov examined the two bits again and chose the one he thought inferior. His first attempt would be made on the broken rod piece, just in case the bit worked too well and damaged something important inside.
After he secured the rod in an industrial-strength brace, Kozakov mounted the bit into the drill and moved the arm so that the tip of the balabanite was almost touching the rod. He then turned to Durant. Crowded around the director was the rest of the Project Titan team, all hoping to finally witness a breakthrough after years of frustration.
“May I begin?” Kozakov asked.
“You’re in charge on this,” Durant said. “Go whenever you feel ready.”
Kozakov donned his safety goggles. “It may be best if everyone steps behind the safety panels.”
There were three of the thick metal panels in the room. Each had a rectangular window of equally thick glass through which observers could look.
As soon as everyone was repositioned, Kozakov turned on the audio recording machine used for all experiments on the craft. “This is Dr. Kozakov. The date is July third, 1943. The time, two fourteen p.m. I will now be attempting to drill into the detached Titan appendage. I will be using the newly received balabanite drill bit. I have selected a point along the broken section. My premise is that this will be the least resistant area. I’m turning the drill on now.”
He flipped the switch. Because the balabanite was in its natural form, it looked lopsided as it began spinning, but quickly became a uniform blur by the time it reached full speed.
“I will now touch the drill to the appendage.”
Using levers that were part of the structure holding the drill, he extended the arm forward until the tip of the balabanite touched the rod.
A loud screech filled the room. Kozakov’s eyes slammed shut as the sound seemed to almost touch his mind. He thought he heard others yelling but he wasn’t sure.
Blindly he slapped out for the lever, trying to pull the drill back. When he finally moved it, the sound immediately stopped.
He turned off the drill and looked back at the safety panels. The others were no longer visible through the windows.
He said, “Test ended. Time, two fifteen p.m.” He hesitated, thinking he should document what had just happened, but he had no idea what to say. “Results to be determined.”
Leaving the recorder on, he hurried to check on the others. Most were doubled over, and those who weren’t were sitting on the floor with their hands on their heads. Though they all appeared shaken, no one seemed seriously hurt by the noise.
“What the hell was that?” Durant asked, still wincing.
Kozakov shook his head. “I-I am not sure. I have never heard anything like it before.”
“Did the drill at least work?”
“I have not checked.”
Rubbing his temples, the director said, “Well, then, do it, goddamn it!”
Kozakov hurried back to the appendage. At first it looked as though the surface was undamaged. But when he looked at the point of contact through a magnifying glass, he spotted a mark. It was tiny, but it hadn’t been there before.
He looked at the balabanite bit. What he saw both excited and troubled him. A flake of the craft was resting on the tip, meaning that for the first time, they’d been able to pry loose a little of the craft. The bad news was that the balabanite—the hardest substance on the planet—had cracked.
Kozakov carefully teased the sliver of shiny metal into a container before showing it to the others. “The bit broke to get this much.”
“Was that what made the noise?” one of the technicians asked.
“I assume so.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sure didn’t sound like something breaking to me,” Chambers said.
“If you have a different theory, please share,” Durant said.
Chambers thought for a moment but in the end shook his head.
Durant motioned for Kozakov to give him the container, then took a look inside. “Is the sample enough to figure out what it is?”
“Perhaps,” Kozakov said. “I would need access to an electron microscope, however.”
“That can be arranged.” Durant looked at the others. “All right, everyone. We’re finished here, so back to what you were doing.” He nodded for Kozakov to follow him.
Once they were in Durant’s office and the door was shut, the director said, “Is it worth trying the second bit?”
“I think we should see what we can learn from the sample first.”
Durant raised the container. “If the balabanite can’t get through this stuff, how the hell are we going to get inside?”
Kozakov had the same question so he said nothing.
Durant handed the container back and flopped down in his chair, lost in thought.
“We should listen to the tape,” Kozakov said.
There was a slight delay before Durant said, “What?”
“The tape. We should play it.”
Chambers had been right. The screech had sounded wrong to Kozakov, too.
Durant picked up his phone and pressed the intercom button. “Lauraine, I need the tape from Dr. Kozakov’s session. Yes, right away.”
As soon as the tape arrived, Durant mounted it in his reel-to-reel playback machine.
They listened as Kozakov set up the experiment. When it neared the point of the screech, Kozakov said, “You might want to lower the volume.”
Durant did so a moment before Kozakov said on the tape, “I will now touch the drill to the appendage.”
Kozakov braced himself, but there was no screech. Nothing but the whine of the drill motor, and then the screams of the Titan team.
Durant played it again, upping the volume, but the crippling sound was still missing.
The two scientists looked at each other.
“I heard it,” Durant said.
“I did, too.”
“The microphones should have picked it up.”
“Maybe it was outside the system’s range.”
Durant shook his head. “The equipment’s top of the line. Better than what they’re using in Hollywood even. It picks up things you and I can’t hear.”
They listened to it one more time, the volume all the way up, but there was no miraculous materialization of the sound. Durant removed the tape and put it in a desk drawer.
“Magnus, this needs to stay between us until we know more,” he said. “If the others catch wind of it, they’re liable to overreact.”
“They’re scientists. They can handle it.”
“Individually, perhaps. But as a group? Groups work differently and I can’t take that chance. What we’re doing here is the most important work man has ever undertaken. Can I trust you not to say anything?”
Kozakov was silent. He agreed with the importance of their work, but he was uneasy about keeping something like this from his colleagues. “The moment we know what’s going on, we need to tell everyone.”
“Of course.”
__________
ANALYSIS OF THE metal shaving did not go well. The material was unlike anything Kozakov had come across. Because of its size, most of the flake was destroyed in the examination process before he was able to determine its makeup. He needed a larger piece, so a month after the first test, he tried the second bit.
On this occasion, he was the only one in the room, the others having relocated beyond the closed blast door. For his protection, Kozakov wore an experimental marine dive suit with fully enclosed metal helmet, and the best noise dampening ear covers made. Even with all these layers, he knew he’d still be able to hear the screech. He just hoped it would be dampened enough not to affect him.
But when he moved the spinning balabanite against the side of the craft, the only sounds were th
at of the motor and his own breathing. He paused long enough to take the helmet off. When he started again, there was still no unusual sound. He scooted one of the ear covers halfway off, and concluded the screech was not going to reoccur.
Now that he could concentrate on getting more metal shavings, he let the bit run against the craft for a full minute before pulling it away and taking a look at the side of the craft.
Nothing. Not even a scratch. It was as if the bit had not even touched the surface.
Increasing the speed, he tried again, shoving the drill in as hard as the rig would allow. Later analysis of the audio recording indicated he kept at it for three minutes and forty-seven seconds before the bit shattered into a million pieces.
Even then, it failed to mar the surface.
Over the following two and a half years, four more bits would be made and tried, always ending with the same result. The screech from the first test never repeated itself, and its source remained a mystery.
But not forever.
ONLY A STATE OF MIND
THIRTEEN
1946
Three Years Later
PROJECT REPORT 109-ND
DATE: FEBRUARY 5
AUTHOR: DR. NORMAN DANIELS
SUBJECT: FOLLOW-UP ON REPORT 108-ND
I have begun to doubt my previous findings. While there’s no question the isolation Project Titan team members have been working under—some for nearly a decade—has taken a psychological toll, there are several incidents that I cannot write off as mental distress caused by living conditions in the facility.
Eighteen days ago, Francis Langer, one of the lab technicians, suddenly stopped the task he was performing, walked crossed the entire length of the main floor, entered the electronics control room, and started flipping off circuit breakers. When the overhead lights began going out, Dr. Winters, who was closest to the control room, told me he rushed in, assuming there had been some kind of overload. He was able to stop Mr. Langer, who then acted disoriented and surprised that he wasn’t still in the lab.
When I questioned Mr. Langer after the incident, he said the last thing he remembered before finding himself at the breaker panel was working at his station. Everything in between was a blank. I asked him why he would have wanted to turn off the breakers, and he said he had no idea. My assessment is that he was telling the truth, at least as he believed it.
After consulting with Dr. Durant, I confined Mr. Langer to the dorm wing for one week. He was kept under constant watch by either me or one of the assistants assigned to me. We observed no incidences of blackouts or other behaviors that might have explained his previous episode. Once the period of confinement had passed, he was allowed to return to work.
Three days after Mr. Langer reported back to his station, I began receiving visits from several of the team members, all of whom were experiencing what I am calling vivid dreams. This is not the first time I’ve heard about strange dreams (see my report from December 13), but at that time only one person (technician Theodore Lemon) was experiencing them, and his dreams apparently went away after I prescribed a sleeping aid.
This time, however, eleven people claimed to be having the dreams. (See attached chart documenting dates and times, and note that in many cases, subjects experienced events concurrently.) I asked each person to describe his or her dreams to me. Their stories matched so closely, I briefly considered the possibility this was some kind of hazing exercise. But I could not ignore the emotional effects, especially from technicians Patrick Dalby and Leann Tobler.
The best description came from Ms. Tobler, and is analogous to what everyone else has told me. “Bright colors that I’m sure would have hurt my eyes if I saw them when I was awake. Purples and greens and reds. Yellows, too. Oh, and I remember this one shade of blue I just wanted to sink into. It was like a world of ribbons. You could walk on one color and then jump over to another. It wasn’t like a normal dream at all. It was so…beyond real. And I remember every moment. I usually forget my dreams, but these are still in my head. Every single second of them.”
This was similar to technician Lemon’s description of his dreams back in December.
Once I was sure this was indeed not a hoax, I began wondering if drugs might be involved. Perhaps the tedium of their living situation had driven them to self-medicate in hopes of escaping for a little while. But after conducting a series of follow-up interviews, I concluded that if the dreams were drug induced, whatever substance was responsible had not been taken willingly, and had either been accidentally ingested or purposely slipped into something they ate or drank. I ordered blood tests for all eleven team members, and, at the same time, had the facility’s food and drink stocks checked. Surprisingly, in both cases everything came back normal.
As I’d done with technician Lemon, I decided to treat the dreams with sleeping pills, but this time they did not work and the dreams persisted. I had no choice but to request that those affected be removed from their jobs until it could be absolutely determined the dreams were not damaging their health. Dr. Durant was not of the same mind, however. In his estimation the dreams were not affecting their work. So, against my strong recommendation, the eleven have been allowed to continue at their posts.
I have been following up with each of them every morning. As of today, two still report experiencing the dreams, though not as frequently, while the others have said the dreams have stopped. I’m not sure I believe them. I think they might be worried I’ll find some way to remove them from the program.
There have been two other incidents I’m having a hard time labeling simply as isolation/stress related.
The first occurred yesterday and involved Dr. Mueller and technician Samuel Ervin. When Dr. Mueller failed to show up for a scheduled meeting, a technician—Martin Olson—was sent to get him. Mr. Olsen found Dr. Mueller and Mr. Ervin lying on the floor of laboratory C. According to Mr. Olsen, while both men appeared to be unconscious, their lips were moving as if they were talking. Mr. Olsen tried to wake Dr. Mueller first, but the doctor did not respond. Mr. Olsen then attempted to rouse Mr. Ervin, but again with no luck. Dr. Tate and I were summoned, and Dr. Tate immediately recruited others to help bring the two men to the infirmary. I asked Mr. Olsen if he could tell what the two men had been saying. “Numbers,” he replied. “Random, single-digit numbers. One, three, five, two, four, seven. Like that.”
Later, as Dr. Tate and I were examining Mr. Ervin, both Mr. Ervin and Dr. Mueller suddenly woke. Both were confused as to why they were there. When it was explained to them what had happened, neither could believe it. In their minds they went from standing at the worktable in their lab to lying on an infirmary bed. (Identical in this respect to Mr. Langer’s episode with the lights.) When questioned about the numbers they’d been reciting, neither had any idea what I was talking about. They were given full medical exams, and—though both appeared to be perfectly healthy—have been temporarily relieved of their duties. They will be reassessed on Feb. 9.
The last incident I hesitate to mention at all. It’s absurd, and yet I can’t deny the proof I’ve seen. Peggy Wilton, Dr. Simon’s assistant, claims she can see into the future.
Just writing that sentence was difficult. In normal circumstances, I would immediately assume she was experiencing a mental breakdown. That still might very well be the case, and yet in all other things she is still as competent and calm as she has ever been. By no means does she claim to be able to see everything that’s going to happen. Rather, when she wakes each morning, she has a premonition of some event that will occur that day. She calls them “forward glimpses,” and told me they’re usually of mundane things like specific conversations or someone bumping into someone else.
These glimpses have apparently been going on for a month now, though she didn’t come to me about them until ten days ago. My immediate reaction was to put her on sedatives and relieve her of active duty, but she asked that I give her two days to prove it to me. Hoping that her delusions would pass i
n that time frame, I agreed. She then handed me a sealed envelope and told me not to open it until after the two p.m. department meeting. In all honesty, I forgot about it until almost four o’clock. When I opened it, I found a word-for-word transcription of something I’d said off the cuff during the meeting. She had given me the note in the morning, when, if I had been asked, I would have guessed I wasn’t going to say anything at the meeting. The next day she gave me another note that accurately described a small accident in laboratory B that occurred a few hours later. She has continued giving me these notes every morning, and not once has she been wrong.
Something is definitely going on here. To call myself perplexed would be a gross understatement. I have raised my concerns with Dr. Durant and Dr. Kozakov, and suggested an immediate halt to all sensitive work. However, it is their opinion that whatever is going on is not negatively affecting or affected by the project, and they have declined my request. The director has told me, though, that he will inform the oversight committee in Washington of my concerns, and assured me the committee will consult other experts to aid me in my diagnosis of the problem. An outside perspective would definitely be appreciated, and I told Dr. Durant as much.
As a side note, Dr. Durant has informed me he would like to extend my stay here until we have a better picture of what is happening. I very much would like to get to the bottom of these unexplained incidents, so I have agreed to his request. I hope that the additional data I collect will be the key to finding some answers.
Mine: The Arrival Page 7
