(eng) Mick Farren - Renquist Quartet 04 by Underland

Author:Underland [Underland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

At first it was only a dark shape dropping down from the overcast, but gradually it began to take on a solid form. The same inverted saucer that Renquist had seen in the 1947 film from Neuschwabenland in Antarctica was now materializing out of the fog beyond the double glass, dropping majestically for a vertical landing. As he was able to make out details, he saw it was sleeker than the attack craft that had routed Admiral Byrd’s forces back in the aftermath of World War II. That made sense, assuming that new machines had been built, and design improvements had been made. The craft still had the ironclad pomposity of the forties version; even though it came with fewer plates and rivets, it still kept the look of a circular submarine rather than any flying machine. It retained the essential shape of the upside-down dish with the domed superstructure, and an irregular jumble of spheres and steel hoses on the underside that had to be the basic propulsion unit. The new model, however, had more the lozenge/pod look of dark fifties science fiction, a style that seemed to be enjoying a renaissance in modern cyberdesign. The greenhouse panes of the old canopy had been replaced by one large piece of smoothly molded Plexiglas, like the cockpit canopy on a SabreJet, only a hundred times larger. It was tinted the same smoky gold as an astronaut’s faceplate, and dark figures could be seen both standing and moving in the dim, lit-from-below control room.

Weir gestured to the machine with something akin to pride. “That’s the Flugelrad, gentlemen and lady.”

Bridewell was the first to react. Her aura blazed with disbelief, shock, and delight. For a moment, she was nothing more than a deranged and wicked damaged child, seeing something that she had always wanted to see. First vampires and now this. “Holy shit. It really is a fucking flying saucer, just like in the film. A fucking Nazi UFO. I don’t believe it.”

Renquist said nothing, and he noticed Lupo had all but turned to stone. It was plain from his aura that he hardly believed it either. Renquist moved closer to the glass. The twenty-first-century Flugelrad shared more than just a fundamental configuration with its predecessor. Admittedly keeping up with the latest developments in contemporary aviation was not something he did with any particular diligence, and he’d never been in one of the supersecret places like Dreamland, but something about the saucer was, to his eyes, not quite right. Like the vintage model, the craft that was making a leisurely and apparently effortless landing that also gave the impression its designer had made almost no attempt to minimize the weight of the machine, and that could only indicate one of two things. If the Flugelrad still employed some improved version of Schreiver’s liquid vortex engine, the thing must have a huge power-to-weight ratio. Either that, or the Underlanders had been messing around with some form of antigravity, something supposedly years beyond any current human capability.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.