V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History

X-1

MARCH 15, 1942

“This is impressive,” Colonel Bliss said, “but do you really think it’s possible?”

Standing at the workbench in the Physics 390 lab, he studied the blueprints spread out before him. Seven pages of preliminary designs for a manned rocket ship, detailing every major feature from the radar array in the nose to the engine bell aft of the twenty-eight-foot wings and the horizontal stabilizer. The craft looked like nothing in the sky. It didn’t even look like anything on the cover of a science fiction magazine; it was more sophisticated than that.

“We’ve been working on this for the last five weeks.” Robert Goddard stood beside him, fondling an unlit cigar. The team had made him promise not to smoke in the lab; his cheroots reeked, and security precautions prohibited them from opening the windows. “There’s still a lot of work to be done, of course, but it’ll give you an idea of where we’re at just now.”

“To answer your question… yes, sir, we think it’s possible.” Henry Morse stood on the other side of the bench with the rest of the 390 Group, as the Pentagon had recently started calling Goddard’s rocket team. “We wouldn’t have wasted our time if we didn’t believe that.”

Bliss didn’t respond. He continued to leaf through the blueprints, examining each one for a minute or two before turning to the next one. He hadn’t visited Worcester very often lately; most of the last five weeks had been spent shuttling between Washington, D.C., and New Mexico, along with a brief trip to London for a meeting with the MI-6 office tasked with keeping track of Silver Bird. During his occasional visits, he’d learned from Goddard that the 390 Group was working on a rocket that would be a radical departure from his previous efforts, but this was the first time he’d seen anything in detail.

He finished looking over the blueprints, then returned to the first one, an overview of the as-yet-unnamed craft. “And you think a piloted vehicle is definitely the answer?”

“It’s the only answer,” Goddard said. “You’ll remember that one of the very first things we discussed was the manned option. The more we’ve studied it, the more we’re convinced that a surface-to-air missile won’t do the trick.”

“Making a killing shot that precise from the ground is almost impossible.” Michael Ferris used his unlit briar pipe to point to the calculations written in chalk on the blackboard behind him. “Based on what we’ve learned from the Sanger-Bredt study, Silver Bird’s velocity will probably be about thirteen thousand feet per second by the time it reaches New York. Not to mention a possible altitude of more than forty miles. Even if we surrounded Manhattan with missile batteries and fired them all at once, our chances of hitting it would be about the same as a hunter trying to take down a deer while blindfolded.”

“Which one’s wearing the blindfold?” Gerry Mander asked. “The hunter or the deer?”

Everyone chuckled except the colonel, who scowled at the group’s youngest member. Gerry just grinned back at him, his impudence irritating Bliss even more. Wisecracks had become common, even during the most serious discussions; it was a way of letting off steam that Goddard condoned and even encouraged but Bliss never understood.

“I understand,” the colonel said, ignoring Gerry and returning his attention to Bob, “but putting people in this thing adds a whole new level of complexity.”

“That’s why we make the rest of the vehicle as simple as possible… relatively simple, at least.” Goddard opened the blueprints to the second page, a cutaway diagram of the ship. “Look, we’re going to use liquid oxygen, nitrogen, and kerosene for the main-engine fuel mixture even though we’d probably get a better ips ratio from liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Manufacturing and storing liquid hydrogen is difficult, especially if you’re talking about a vehicle that’ll need to be fueled on a minute’s notice. Since that means we’ll have less thrust for escape velocity, the payload mass will have to be stripped down to the essentials.”

“Uh-huh.” Bliss bent closer to the table. “That’s why you’re planning to put only one person aboard. I would’ve thought you’d want a pilot and copilot, maybe even a gunner.”

“No. Just one person, the pilot. He’ll have his work cut out for him, but it will reduce the payload requirement and make life support a lot easier. So…”

“I don’t see any armaments. Where are the guns?”

Goddard didn’t respond at once. They all looked at one another. “We’re still working on that, sir,” Jack Cube said at last.

“‘Still working on it’?” Bliss stared at the junior officer. Even out of uniform, neither man forgot his respective rank in the Army. “Lieutenant, I’d think arming this bird would be your first consideration, not the last.”

Jackson looked away, embarrassed. Goddard came to the rescue. “What Jack Cu… Lieutenant Jackson means is that we’re studying alternatives to wing guns. This is one area where this craft won’t resemble a normal fighter because firing guns beyond the atmosphere would cause a recoil effect that could alter the craft’s trajectory. We need to come up with something else.”

“Rockets?”

“Yes, sir, that’s a possibility.” Jack Cube had recovered his poise and was once again speaking for himself. “But again, there’s the problem of accuracy. Since Silver Bird and the X-1…”

“That’s what we’re calling the ship for the time being,” Goddard interjected, and Bliss nodded.

“… will be traveling at different velocities, hitting the target is going to be very difficult, even if our pilot gets close enough to open fire. That’s why we’re still working on a solution… sir.”

“I see.” Bliss seemed to regard Jackson with a little more respect. “Lieutenant, you’ve received flight training, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I have. But I didn’t get my wings before I was reassigned to…”

“Have you… and by that I mean your team as a whole… had any thoughts about what we’ll need to look for when we search for a pilot?”

A wary smile ticked the corners of Jack’s mouth. “Well, sir, I’d volunteer myself were it not for one thing… I’m too tall.” He pointed to the cockpit, located about halfway down the fuselage. “Whoever we find is going to need to be five-ten or less if he’s going to fit into the cockpit.”

“Well, that’s a start.” Bliss paused, as if sizing up the young black officer. “Lieutenant, I’d like to speak to you later. I think I have a special job for you.”

Jack Cube nodded, and once again Bliss turned to Goddard. “So this is it? This is definitely what you want to build… not a missile, but a manned vehicle?”

“Like Henry said… we wouldn’t be wasting time with this if we didn’t think it wasn’t a viable solution.” Goddard looked him straight in the eye. “The Germans are building a spacecraft. Why can’t we?”

“Since you’ve brought that up…” Bliss reached down to pick up the briefcase he’d brought with him. He started to open it, then paused to look at the men gathered around him. “What I’m about to show you is classified top secret. You’re not to discuss it outside this room. Understood?”

Everyone nodded, and the colonel pulled out a manila folder holding three photographs. “Although the Allies are still reluctant about mounting an air raid on Peenemünde, they’ve begun sending high-altitude reconnaissance planes over the Baltic coast in an effort to gain intelligence. These pictures were brought back last week by one of those recon missions… at great risk, I might add, since the P-38 barely escaped the Luftwaffe fighters dispatched to shoot it down.” He spread the photos out across the table. “Bob, I’d particularly like to get your opinion on what we’re seeing here.”

Adjusting his glasses, Goddard bent forward to study the pictures; the rest of the team crowded in to get a closer look as well. The images were distant but sharp; although they’d been taken from a great altitude, the camera had used a zoom lens to increase the magnification, making objects appear much closer than they’d actually been. It wasn’t difficult to tell what they were looking at: a large collection of buildings of all sizes, separated by paved roads running between them, with a long beach running nearby.

“Looks like a college campus.” Goddard pointed to a small oval on the left side of one of the photos. “There’s even an athletic field. See the running track?”

“That’s not what interests us.” Pushing another photo closer to him, Bliss tapped a finger against an object in the center of the frame. “MI-6 has some ideas of what this is, but we’d like to get your take on it.”

The object was near the beach and appeared to be some sort of tower. One end rose straight up, while a long, horizontal structure jutted out from the other end, making the whole thing look a little like a half-finished suspension bridge. The tower was surrounded by a broad white border, apparently a concrete apron. The nearest building was some distance away, but there appeared to be large trucks on the road leading to the tower.

Goddard examined the photo carefully. “I’ll have you know, Colonel, that I despise air travel. I’ve only been up in a plane once, and it scared the devil out of me. So this is an unusual perspective.” He stood erect, took off his glasses, and cleaned them on the sleeve of his lab coat. “However, I’d say that we’re looking at the test stand for a rocket engine, and quite a large one at that.”

“I agree.” Henry laid a finger on the horizontal structure. “I bet that’s a bridge crane for unloading rockets from trucks, and the tall thing over here is the gantry tower.”

“Besides, look at all this concrete.” Mike ran a finger around it. “They wouldn’t lay down this much for any reason except to provide a blast radius. And putting it next to the beach…”

“Uh-huh.” Gerry was leaning across the table, trying to get a good look. “If they launch a rocket, and it goes out of control, it’ll go out over the water, where it won’t hit anything.”

“Like a barn, you mean,” Jack Cube murmured. The others chuckled, and Gerry scowled at his roommate for a moment before managing a sheepish grin. The two had been getting along better lately, once they’d learned to put racial differences aside.

“That’s what MI-6 thinks, too.” Bliss appeared satisfied. “Thanks for confirming our suspicions. However, what’s just as important about these pictures is what we don’t see. There isn’t any sign of a launch track being built.”

No one said anything for a few moments. Everyone knew what the colonel was getting at. Silver Bird’s launch rail was supposed to be two miles long; something that big would be obvious from the air. If it wasn’t on Peenemünde…

Goddard cleared his throat. “This could mean one of three things. First, they haven’t yet begun to build any launch facilities for Silver Bird. This is probably a static test stand converted from their old missile program. Second, the facilities, including the track, are under construction, but they’ve been camouflaged to prevent their being spotted from the air. Third, the launch site is somewhere else.”

“I agree with all that, and those explanations have occurred to our intelligence people, too.” Bliss hesitated. “However, we can’t ignore the fourth possibility… Silver Bird is an elaborate hoax, something intended to distract us from… well, whatever else the Nazis may actually have in the works.”

Goddard stared at him. “You can’t seriously believe that.”

“I’m just telling you what other people have said. Lord Cherwell, the British Defence Ministry’s so-called rocket expert, thinks the whole thing is nothing more than a red herring.”

“Then Lord Cherwell is an idiot. Negligent at best.” Goddard jabbed a finger at the photos. “Look at these facilities, Colonel. Look at that test stand… you can even see blast marks around it. That took time to build, not to mention a lot of money and manpower. No one makes an effort like this simply to stage a hoax… particularly not a country at war like Germany, where they need every available resource to keep their military machine going.”

“But the Nazis might…”

“The Nazis aren’t stupid!”

Everyone stared at Goddard, stunned by the outburst. Most of the time, he was genial, soft-spoken, able to make or take a joke; for some, he was like a favorite uncle, even a father figure. No one except those who’d worked with him for a long time—Henry, Lloyd, and Taylor—even suspected that he had a temper to lose.

Bliss was probably the most startled of all. He regarded the professor as if he were a viper who’d just lunged at him. “Bob…”

“Omar…” Goddard took a deep breath, closed his eyes, waited ten seconds, then opened his eyes and let out his breath. “Sorry. Please forgive me. It’s just that I have a low tolerance for fools, and one of my definitions of a fool is that he’s someone who ignores the obvious.”

“I don’t believe anyone is ignoring anything,” Bliss said quietly.

Henry spoke up. “Colonel, with all due respect, I disagree. What Lord Whatshisname… or anyone else who thinks this is a hoax… is overlooking is the Sanger-Bredt report itself. Every person on this team has gone through it over and over again. Everything in it checks out. I mean, we’re actually kind of impressed. No one would go to this much effort just to pull a gag. It makes no sense.”

“Silver Bird is real, sir,” Jack Cube said. “And we’d be making a serious mistake if we came to believe otherwise.”

Bliss slowly nodded. “I think it is, too. There are people in Washington who are unconvinced, too, but I think they’ll listen to me if I tell them that you believe that the threat is real.” He absently stroked his mustache as he contemplated the blueprints. “In the meantime, we need to get to work building this thing… the X-1, as you call it.”

“My feelings exactly.” Goddard smiled; he was relaxed again, back to his usual self. “Once we finalize the main-engine specs, we’ll start assembling a scale model for testing…”

“I’m sorry, but that’s out of the question.” Bliss shook his head. “One of the reasons why we’ve separated Blue Horizon’s design and test operations is to prevent accidents that would put your group at risk. Fabrication and assembly facilities are already under way in Alamogordo. All you need to do is supply the final blueprints, and our engineering team will…”

“No.” Goddard’s tone was adamant.

Bliss met his determined gaze without flinching. “Bob, this has already been settled, and may I remind you that you agreed to it. Your job is to design the rocket. It’ll be someone else’s job to build it.”

“Doctor G agreed to this,” Ham said, using Esther’s nickname for her husband that the others had lately adopted as well. “The rest of us haven’t.”

“You weren’t asked,” Bliss shot back, “but you’re expected to abide by his agreement.”

“You’re asking rocket men not to get their hands dirty,” Henry said. “It doesn’t work that way, Colonel. We built and fired twenty-one Nell rockets in Roswell, and never once did we put ourselves in serious danger.” He was stretching the truth; there had been a few close shaves, such as when Goddard had once walked out to the launch tower to see why a rocket hadn’t lifted off, only to have it blow up before he was halfway there. Bliss didn’t need to know that, though. “You can’t isolate us like that and expect this project to be a success.”

Bliss was quiet for a moment. “All right… a compromise. Once we’ve assembled the test rocket, we’ll let some of your people come in to supervise the launch.”

“So long as it isn’t me.” Goddard forced a grin. “As I said, I detest airplanes.”

“Okay then… that leaves us with one more thing.” Bliss laid a hand on the reconnaissance photos. “Army intelligence and MI-6 want to try to locate their launch site… that is, if Silver Bird is not going to launch from Peenemünde. This is crucial even if it’s beyond our bombers’ current operating theater. Once Silver Bird takes off, it’ll take only a little more than an hour and a half for it to circle the globe and reach New York. So it’s imperative that the Allies try to put someone nearby who can watch the area and send word if it appears that a launch is imminent.”

“So what do you want from us?” Taylor asked.

“You people know Silver Bird’s capabilities better than anyone else. That said, you probably have the best shot at figuring out possible launch sites in Germany.”

“We might be able to do that.” Goddard looked over at Henry. “I think we can spare you for a day or two. Want to take a crack at this?”

“Sure, why not?” Henry grinned. “At least it’ll get me out of the lab for a while.”

He avoided looking at Frank O’Connor, but everyone knew what he meant. Ever since the night they’d been caught sneaking out to a bar, their FBI escort hadn’t let the 390 Group out of his sight. The men went from their boardinghouse straight to the physics lab and back again. During the weekends, they were allowed to go out for dinner and a movie, but only under supervision and with any public discussion of Blue Horizon strictly prohibited. So the men eagerly took any opportunity to slip the leash, if only for an hour or two.

“Very well. I think that takes care of everything.” Bliss stepped away from the table. “Meeting adjourned. Lieutenant Jackson, may I speak with you a moment?”

Henry watched as Bliss and Jack Cube walked over to a corner of the room. They kept their voices low and their backs turned to everyone else, so he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Lloyd slid up beside him. “What do you think that’s all about?” he murmured.

“Haven’t got a clue, and it’s probably none of our business anyway.” Henry walked over to the coat hooks and pulled down his overcoat and hat. “Well, it’s off to the campus library for me,” he said breezily, relishing Lloyd’s envious glare. “Can I bring you anything? A good book, maybe?”

“Screw the book. Bring me a coed.”

“If I meet any nice Jewish girls, you’ll be the first to know.” Putting on his hat, Henry headed for the door. “See you at dinner, Frank,” he said to the FBI agent, and got a cold stare in return.

The university library was located a short distance from the Science Building, about halfway across the Clark campus. Henry took his time getting there; spring was just a week away, and the last of the winter snow was melting beneath the red oaks and sugar maples of the commons. He opened his overcoat and whistled just under his breath, enjoying a rare moment when he was going somewhere without another team member or Agent O’Connor tagging along.

The library’s reference room was located on the ground floor. Students were hunched over books and notepads spread open upon long oak tables, intent on preparing for the upcoming midterms; the only sounds were the faint scratch of pencils on paper, the click of slide rules, and the occasional whispered conversation. Henry knew what he was looking for, so instead of approaching the reference desk, he went straight to the atlas collection and pulled out the largest one he could find.

Its maps were arranged by geographic area and were detailed enough for him to locate specific cities and towns. Unfortunately, what he needed was something else entirely: a map of Germany that would reveal topographical features as well, and also a global map that would show him precise lines of latitude and longitude between Europe and North America. He checked the other atlases, but they were no better than the one he already had. Clearly, he ought to find something better.

A young woman was seated at the reference desk. She had shoulder-length chestnut hair and a pretty face, and the mannish fisherman’s sweater she wore wasn’t baggy enough to hide some nice curves beneath it. She was reading a detective novel—Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler—when Henry approached her, but she didn’t look up until he pointedly cleared his throat. Then she peered over her tortoiseshell glasses, and Henry found himself being regarded by a pair of startling green eyes.

“Yes?” she said, her voice low and slightly annoyed at being interrupted from her reading. “May I help you?”

It took Henry a second or two to find his tongue. What came out of his mouth was a quiet croak. “Umm… ahh… well, yes, I’m… ah…”

“Not interested. Thanks anyway.” She returned her attention to her book.

Henry blinked. “Pardon me? I don’t understand…”

“Yes, you do.” She turned a page. “You were about to ask me if I’d like to have a drink with you, or maybe go out for dinner, or something like that, and I’ve given you my answer. No thanks, not interested.” Her fingers made a shooing motion. “Now go away.”

It was Henry’s turn to become annoyed. “If you want to catch up on your reading, then why are you sitting at the reference librarian’s desk?” He gazed past her; there was no one else behind the counter. “Where is she, anyway? I could use some help.”

The young woman looked up at him again. “I’m the librarian,” she said, a bit less dismissive. “May I help you?”

“Now that you ask, yes, you could. I need a good global map, with enough detail to show me major geographic features as well as cities and borders, and also exact lines of latitude and longitude.”

“Mercator or Lambert projection?”

“Umm…” To him, a map was a map; he was unaware of any differences. “I don’t know,” he admitted, and was surprised when she smiled at him. “I guess I’m looking for something I can use to figure out… ah, air travel routes between here and Germany.”

“Oh, really?” The green eyes became curious. “Then you’d need an Azimuthal projection.” Putting down the book, she gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, her lips pursing together and twitching back and forth in a pensive but very becoming way. “I believe we have one in the cartography collection. Follow me.”

She stood up and walked out from behind the desk, and, as she strolled across the room, Henry noticed two things. First, every guy in the room watched her go by. Second, she didn’t walk; she seemed instead to float across the floor, her low-heeled shoes barely touching the checkerboard tiles. No wonder she’d become accustomed to college boys’ trying to ask her out. She was an angel in glasses.

She led him to a large map case at the back of the room, and in the second drawer down she found what he was looking for: a world map that not only displayed political borders, major cities, and geographical features such as mountain ranges and rivers, but was also laid out so that the latitude and longitude lines were straightened, therefore showing how many miles lay between one point and another. The map was larger than normal, big enough that it had to be unfolded and spread out across the nearest table. There was a freshman sitting where they needed to be, but he grabbed his books and scurried out of the way before the librarian even had to ask him to move. One does not argue with angels.

“Yes… yes, I think this will do nicely,” Henry said once the map was laid out. “Thank you.” The librarian nodded and started to glide away. On impulse, he blurted out, “Oh… um, one more thing. Do you have a ruler I could borrow? Maybe even a yardstick?”

“A ruler. Or a yardstick.” She stopped and turned back to him; again, the curious gaze, this time with one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. He nodded, and she smiled. “Yes, I may have one. I’ll look.” And then she went away, once again drawing every male eye in the room.

Henry had taken off his overcoat and pulled out his pencil and pocket notepad by the time she returned. “Ruler and yardstick,” she said, laying them on the table beside the map, then her eyes widened in horror as he picked up the yardstick, laid it across the map, and bent toward it with pencil in hand. “Oh, no you don’t!” she hissed, reaching forward to snatch the pencil from him. “You are not going to draw on…!”

“Relax. I’m not going to do anything of the kind. Just plotting points, that’s all.” Henry removed the pencil from her hand, and she watched closely as he moved the yardstick until one end rested on Germany’s northwestern Baltic coast, and the other end extended across eastern Europe. Being careful not to touch the pencil tip to the map, he used it to carefully align the yardstick with Peenemünde, then he opened his notebook and jotted down the exact latitude and longitude.

As he continued to work, steadily moving the yardstick due east in a straight line until he reached the map’s right border, then picking up again from the left side and moving it across the Pacific until it reached the North American continent, Henry became conscious of the librarian peering over his shoulder. “If you’re trying to figure out an air route between here and Germany,” she whispered at last, “wouldn’t you want to plot it to the west, not the east?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“I’m sure it is.” She continued to watch as he jotted down some more figures. “You’re not a student, are you?”

“Actually, I’m a grad student in the physics department.”

“Ah, of course… physics. That explains why you’re interested in plotting a flight around the world.”

There was a trace of amusement in her voice, but also a little too much interest in what he was doing for his comfort. “I’m studying with Dr. Goddard, in his Physics 390 program. We’re trying to…” Henry stopped, at a loss for words. There was no easy way to explain what he was doing that didn’t involve telling her a lie. “It’s complicated,” he finished.

“You said that already.” She pulled back a chair and sat down, resting her chin on her right hand as she continued to watch him work. “Sorry I was so rude a few minutes ago. It’s just that… y’know, I get a lot of kids trying to…”

“Say no more. I think I understand.” From the corner of his eye, he saw that she was no longer studying the map but him instead. “I’m Henry… Henry Morse.”

“Pleased to meet you, Henry. My name is Doris Gilbert.” She extended her hand; when he shook it, he found that her touch was soft and warm. “Yes,” she added.

“I’m sorry… come again?”

“Yes, I’d like to go out and have a drink with you. So long as it’s coffee because I don’t drink.” She paused. “That’s what you were thinking, weren’t you?”

“Actually, it wasn’t, but… sure, that would be swell.” Then he remembered Frank O’Connor, and how difficult it would be to get out from under him. “But I’m going to have to do that some other time. Dr. Goddard keeps me pretty busy.”

“Certainly. I understand completely.” Doris stood up. “You know where to find me, Henry. Come back anytime.” And then she returned to her desk, her hips moving gracefully beneath her long woolen skirt.

If you think her brains are great, Henry thought as he watched her go, just wait till you get to her legs.