The Prometheus Invasion

The sky over the mountains to the east had turned from night to twilight as they walked on the flight line. Lindstrom was in a flight suit. Manville was still in the flight suit he'd put on in California.

Manville saw that the Sabre that had gotten him to Nellis had been replaced by an F-89 Scorpion, built by Northrop. It had two seats, one more than the Sabre.

"Ever flown in a fighter jet, Dr. Lindstrom?" asked Manville.

"No," she said.

"Well, now's your chance. Walk onto the wing. You're in the back seat."

Lindstrom hesitated before going up the ladder to the wing. "Can you fly one of these?"

"I was in California three hours ago. You can't drive from Mojave to Vegas in a half-hour." Lindstrom walked carefully on the wing. "Step onto the seat with your right foot. Then pull your left leg over the side and put it in the footwell. You can't get into one of these very ladylike."

Lindstrom followed Manville's directions. After a few moments, all that was visible was her blonde hair and her face.

"Just hope there's enough gas in this." Manville went up the ladder. "The distance to Homestead is about the same as the range on this plane."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Manville got into the pilot's seat. "Put the helmet on first. Put the mask on when I fire it up. That'll turn on the oxygen and the radio. We can ditch in the Gulf if we need to."

"You had better be joking." Lindstrom wasn't sure what Manville was referring to.

"Well, we are flying over the Gulf. But we could gas up at Chennault in Louisiana if we had to. But I think I'm going to try to push it."

"Why?"

"Because, doctor, you never know how a plane will respond until you push it to its limits. You never find out what a car will do by driving 35 miles an hour."

"I'm not interested in finding out what this plane will do. I think we're expected to get to Florida in one piece."

"Relax. Max throttle isn't conducive to efficient use of fuel. And knowing the Air Force, they'd probably make me reimburse them for the $800,000 this plane costs."

Manville set the clock on the plane. "We should be there around 1000 ... I mean ... 1300 ... 1 o'clock in Florida. Hope they're still serving lunch by then."

Manville started the Scorpion's two engines. He then carefully stood partway up on the seat and looked back to Lindstrom. He pointed to his mouth to signal her to put on the facemask, which was attached to the left side of the helmet.

He shut the canopy, and then radioed the control tower as "Air Force 1863" to get takeoff clearance. He then turned on the intercom.

"Air flow is the control knob on the right," she heard through her helmet. "The smaller one is for headset volume. The mike button is on the helmet cord. Push to talk."

"What are all these controls I'm sitting in front of?"

"You're sitting in the radar operator's seat. Don't touch anything unless I tell you to."

"Aye aye, sir."

Manville smirked as he taxied onto the runway, pointing southwest. He checked the instruments one final time, then pushed the throttles forward. The Scorpion inched forward, then started rolling progressively faster. He started whistling "The U.S. Air Force" as the plane rushed down the runway.

Halfway down the runway, the nose began to lift. Two-thirds of the way down the runway, the wheels left the ground. The plane gained altitude at a 15-degree angle while Manville turned the plane 120 degrees to the left, heading to the east, the wild blue yonder. As he steered into the sun, he put down his helmet's face shield.

"That's Lake Mead below us," said Manville. "Grand Canyon in about 15 minutes."

The ground below them still had long shadows from the sun at the early hour.

"Dr. Manville?" said the voice from within Manville's helmet.

"Just call me Lance," said Manville. "I'm a Ph.D. I only use 'doctor' when I'm trying to get reservations. I think Ph.D.s who call themselves 'doctor' are insufferable."

"We doctors thank you for that."

Silence. Then, she asked, "What was your dissertation?"

"My what?"

"Your dissertation. If you have a Ph.D., you have to have a dissertation." She had gotten the hang of pushing-to-talk quickly.

"That's classified."

"That's what someone who didn't have a dissertation would say."

Smart girl, he thought. "I know, but I'm not kidding. It is classified. Ask General Grover the next time you see him."

Manville's dissertation was about creating an airplane wing that was able to change shape depending on the stage of flight. Instead of merely movable flaps and slats, Manville suggested that a wing could be designed that could move forward or backward, or portions of the wing could be moved forward or backward, or even up or down.

Manville's MIT advisor called the dissertation "very interesting ... but impossible given current realities of aviation construction." And then as soon as his meeting with doctoral student Manville was done, he immediately called the Pentagon.

Manville's next meeting with his advisor included another man, an Air Force general who demanded to know where he had gotten the information for his dissertation.

"I designed it myself," said Manville.

"That's impossible," said the general. "Do you believe him?"

"He mentioned to me something about a new wing design," said the advisor. "This is the first time I've seen this on paper."

"You know what he's done?"

"That's why I called you."

"I'm going to have to take that, Mr. ..."

"Manville. Lance Manville."

"Is this the only copy, Mr. Manville?"

"Yes, it is. I didn't make another copy. I was waiting to get revisions for my next draft."

"Give him an A-plus, professor, and make sure no one else learns about this," said the general. "That includes you, Mr. Manville."

Shortly thereafter, Manville was notified that his draft status had been changed from 1S(C) to 2B — occupation in a war industry.

Manville's cover story was that he was working as a designer for North American Aviation. In truth he was working for the Air Force on advanced jet designs, working with North American, Bell, Convair, Douglas, Grumman, Lockheed Martin, McDonnell, Northrop, Vought and other aircraft manufacturers.

Manville's services were highly sought after because he had the ability to fly prototypes of the planes he was designing and make design changes based on his flight experience. He wasn't a test pilot, but he could provide a second opinion to corroborate, or challenge, the experience of test pilots. With the U.S. in the height of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and the additional threat of Red China, the Air Force sought every possible advantage.

"So what was yours?" asked Manville.

"My what?"

"Your dissertation."

"Oh. It was fiction."

"You wrote a novel for your doctorate?"

She laughed. "No. It was about the kinds of living environments other than Earth's atmosphere in which humans could live."

"So that's why you're on this UFO chase."

"Who said anything about UFOs?"

"Well, what else could it be? The Russians can't make metal appear and disappear. Shape-changing ... creatures?"

"I think you've been at too-high altitude too long. The air's thin up there."

"You may be right," Manville said. "How long were you at Nellis?"

"I got there a week ago. The Air Force flew me to Washington, and then back for this morning's meeting."

"Nellis is not the most exciting place to visit."

"I never left the base while I was there."

"I bet the jocks were drooling around you."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The jocks. The test pilots. Not many civilian women on an Air Force base."

He flew close enough over the Grand Canyon to be able to see it, then increased altitude to comfortably clear the Rocky Mountains.

"How high are we?" asked Lindstrom.

"Angels 34," answered Manville. "Thirty-four thousand feet. So how do you feel about being classified 'expendable'?"

After a short silence, Lindstrom answered, "Nobody's ever called me 'expendable' before now."

"Welcome to the service. Everyone's cannon fodder. Including, apparently, people who just work for the military and aren't actually in it."

"Did you serve?"

"I was in high school when World War II ended. I was still at MIT when Korea broke out. So I never got drafted."

The terrain below flattened as the jet flew past New Mexico over Texas.

"What do you think this is?" asked Lindstrom.

"This is Texas below us."

"Not that. I mean, where we're going."

"I think we're not supposed to jump to conclusions."

"But you have to have some kind of idea."

There was silence for several seconds. "I certainly want to meet the guy who developed that metal. That's a feat that doesn't seem possible."

After a while, he said, "Gulf of Mexico on your right."

"Are you stopping in Louisiana?"

"No, I have plenty of gas left. This plane's max speed is 550 knots. We're only going about 400. Why? Do you need to stop?"

"I'm fine. I am getting a little stiff back here."

"You can't get out and stretch in one of these things. Flights like these are really not what these planes are designed to do. The Air Force usually flies people on transports — a C-54 or something like that, or they just throw you on a civilian plane. So they must really want to see us today."

There was silence for about a minute. "By this time tomorrow, we might be flying in the Caribbean. You should have married your boyfriend while you had the chance."

"What?"

"Your boyfriend."

"Is that all you think women are good for? Being wives and mothers?"

There was silence while Manville tried to extricate himself out of the mess his mouth had gotten himself into. "No, of course not. I just thought ... I can't believe you haven't had to ward off men with a baseball bat."

"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to feel complimented or not." The tone of her voice switched abruptly from hostility to as if she was enjoying Manville's verbal predicament.

"Obviously you know what you're doing, or else Grover wouldn't have brought you in on this ... whatever 'this' is."

"In my experience, male doctors look at women as someone to have dinner ready when they're done at the golf course."

"I think my mother would agree with you. She's a nurse. I've heard stories."

"Is your father a pilot?"

"No. My grandfather was. I used to visit him summers, and that's where I kind of got the flying bug. Dad never thought flying as a career was very practical. Grandpa had a couple of flying businesses. One of them went under, and then he died in a plane crash."

"I'm sorry."

"He always said he wanted to die doing what he loved to do. I guess he did. Anyway, Dad suggested designing planes might be a way to get into aviation without the risk of being a pilot. I don't think he thought I'd be flying the planes I was designing."

For a couple minutes, there was silence from the back seat. "I don't know why you'd want to bring children into this world anyway."

"What?"

"Isn't it obvious? We just killed millions of people 10 years ago, and now we have nuclear missiles pointed at a country that was our ally in that war. And they have nuclear missiles pointed back at us."

If you only knew, Manville thought to himself. "Some things are worth dying for, because some things are worth fighting for. If our parents had thought that way because of World War I, neither of us would be here right now."

"I guess I understand how you might feel that way. You're part of it."

"Part of defending our country, yes. I admit that building weapons with the idea of not having to use them doesn't seem to make sense. Hell, it doesn't make sense. Having a country be your ally in one war and then your enemy in the next one doesn't make sense either."

"But you believe better dead then red?"

A pause came from the front seat. "I guess."

"Do engineers usually wax philosophical?"

"Not usually." He paused. "Of course, they don't usually fly either."