Species: A sci-fi medical thriller of riveting suspense and intrigue

By Johan Fundin

Species: A sci-fi medical thriller of riveting suspense and intrigue

Species is an addictive science-fiction-tinged medical thriller with engrossing conflicts that keep the reader turning the pages from the startling beginning at the height of the Cold War to the momentous finish on th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asioni Press
• Release date: Sep 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781999981754

Johan Fundin

Dr. Johan Fundin writes medical techno-thrillers and science fiction. He has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the top research-intensive Uppsala University and a background as a scientist at national and international laboratories and high-tech research facilities in several countries. Also, he has extensive experience of clinical work at a major metropolitan hospital.

Book preview

Hominid and hominin—what’s the difference?

Hominid: the group comprising all modern and extinct great apes, i.e., modern humans, chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas, plus all their recent antecedents.

Hominin: the group comprising modern humans, extinct human species and all our recent antecedents, including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Ardipithecus.

Current use of the word ‘hominid’ can be confusing because the definition of this term has altered over time. The word ‘hominid’ used to possess the same meaning which ‘hominin’ now possesses.

Thus, all hominins are hominids, but very few hominids are hominins.

In this novel, Species, both terms are present.

OCTOBER 1969

EAST BERLIN

~ ONE ~

The car, a black GAZ Volga, was rushing through the outskirts of the city towards the source of the secret.

It carried a corporate logo and the acronym LPF in olive-green lettering on the doors and the bonnet. The rain lashed against the windows. The wind roared in the door frames. The rumbling convoy of Soviet tanks was passing in the oncoming direction.

The driver stared at Klurov in the rear-view mirror.

Klurov was thinking. The car was rolling too fast. Why? Could the driver be a Stasi informer?

The Ministry for State Security had collaborators, infiltrators, everywhere.

The LPF car had, under contract, picked him up at Schönefeld Airport. His travel documents and identity papers were in order. But his arm prosthesis was aching, as if it were a genuine part of his body.

The phantom pain in the aluminium arm was an omen he never dismissed.

"Drop me off at Haupteingang zwei," Klurov said in flawless German. Main Entrance 2 was for visitors.

Klurov shivered. His artificial right hand dug out a Melnik and a lighter from his coat pocket. He leaned back in the seat, lit the cigarette and gathered his thoughts in the gloom.

The Volga jolted and shook and kept rolling into the unknown. The roads got worse and worse. Buildings became sparser and sparser. The non-stop rain intensified. The wind escalated into a raging gale.

Lightning shattered the sky. Thunder boomed. Soviet military stopped the vehicle in a routine security check. Eleven minutes later, the car was stopped again, this time by the NVA, the Nationale Volksarmee, the GDR’s own military.

Seven minutes after the NVA control, the Volga was once again stopped, this time at the LPF’s own Sicherheitsinspektion.

Gates opened, then closed again behind the vehicle. The journey continued inside electric fences. Thunder crashed above. The sky flashed. There was more forest than city. More trails than roads.

All of a sudden, front-lit by the furious lightning, it showed up among the whirling veils of rain—the castle which had been converted into an industrial unit.

The neo-Gothic building sported a pearl-white façade. A steep, ink-black roof. Exposed wooden beams, blunt spires. Tall and narrow windows, pointed at their upper ends.

In the front yard, wind-battered trees and shrubs waved and stirred. The rain slashed like needles against a gravelled roundabout for visitors’ vehicles. The driver stopped and turned off the car engine.

The LPF was known as a petrochemicals factory. That was only true in part. No Western government knew the full truth. The Lennard Petzold Factory was way ahead of its time.

Klurov pulled his hat down over his ears and climbed out of the Volga. The lower part of his buttoned coat fluttered in the blasts of wind. Black-brown puddles encircled his leather boots.

He grabbed his suitcase and moved through the cascades of rain towards Haupteingang zwei.

Everything was under control. For a while.

◘

Oberleutnant Baumbacher was a relic from the days of the Third Reich. His appearance and body language were reminiscent of an outdated Führer’s.

Upright, uptight, loud, resolute, ebony-black moustache and a neck as stiff as ice. His uniform buttons were as shiny and vibrant as the stars in the Berlin night sky.

Last week, Moscow announced that one of their nuclear rocket scientists would make a study visit.

Correct, Klurov said.

You? Baumbacher lifted a targeted forefinger.

Correct.

Why no one of higher authority?

Both the SRF and the Kremlin want to keep a low profile on the matter. And so does the LPF, we hope, Oberleutnant.

Your full name, rank, employer?

Igor Gerasim Klurov. Sergeant. The Strategic Rocket Forces.

You are a scientist as well as military, aren’t you? An SRF scientist.

Engineer is a more accurate job title. At the SRF rocket study group. My area of expertise is nuclear weapons. Since I lost my arm, I’m more engineer than army infantry.

Do you carry any weapons today, Sergeant?

Two Makarovs.

Baumbacher showed his teeth.

Safety precaution, Klurov said. When I’m on a secret mission like this. The documents from Moscow are in order.

I’ll check you out with Moscow.

I expect you will.

I take care of the pistols until you leave.

I have a suggestion, Oberleutnant.

Baumbacher glared. Yes?

Until I leave, you take care of the charged magazines. I keep the empty pistols.

Reason?

Paranoia. A problem I live with since the war.

You don’t want to be separated from the guns?

I don’t want the guns to be separated from me.

That’s what I just said.

Not quite.

Baumbacher flicked at a speck of dust on his jacket sleeve. The war ended twenty-four years ago, Sergeant.

I still wake up at night with the noise of blaring gunfire in my ears.

Silence.

Baumbacher broke it.

Hand over the bullets. Keep the empty pistols.

Klurov took the pistols from his coat pockets and ejected the magazines. He returned the empty firearms to the pockets.

What’s in your suitcase, Sergeant?

Toiletries and a change of clothes, Klurov said.

Something else?

No.

Open the suitcase.

Klurov opened the suitcase.

Change of clothes, toiletries, Baumbacher said.

As I said, Klurov said.

Baumbacher spent a quarter of an hour searching the contents of the suitcase.

He turned all the clothes inside out. He emptied the toilet bag and sniffed at the contents of the aftershave bottle and the toothpaste tube.

Baumbacher gave Klurov a disapproving look. Trojnoj aftershave, uh?

I know, it’s dirt cheap, but it doesn’t taste that bad.

In the end, Baumbacher appeared disappointed. The suitcase was straight and legal, without hidden spaces, sans an extra bottom. What’s your concrete interest here, Sergeant?

You mean: What’s Moscow’s distinct curiosity?

Baumbacher glared. And?

Information on dead bodies surfaced. Human bodies found in connection with an archaeological dig. By the way, dead human bodies? Bones and fossils are more precise words, aren’t they? True, Oberleutnant?

Baumbacher stabbed the air with his forefinger. Why is a rocket study group interested in archaeological finds?

Klurov considered his words. I can’t answer that question now, Oberleutnant, not until I’ve discussed the topic with Professor Lamprecht.

You can’t, or you don’t want to?

I meant what I said.

We’re in the GDR, Sergeant. And my rank is higher than yours. You do as I say.

My orders are dictated by Moscow.

How did you lose your arm, Sergeant?

Is it a relevant question?

How did you lose your arm, Sergeant?

German artillery fire. The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942.

You were an eighteen-year-old soldier then.

Correct.

So, since then, you’ve been more engineer than army infantry.

Correct.

But still military.

Klurov didn’t know what the man was driving at. I guess you could say so, Oberleutnant. At the SRF, we have a strong belief in interdisciplinary activity.

Klurov glanced at the wall clock. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted security guards in front of the swing doors to the two corridors.

Two uniformed guards per corridor. The stony-faced men were armed with Soviet-made SKS carbines.

Our limited time is precious, Oberleutnant. Now I would like to meet with Professor Lamprecht.

Baumbacher showed his teeth again. You’re in a hurry? He sat down behind his desk and lit a cigarette.

Professor Lamprecht knows me. The professor and I have met before. Rotten luck that someone like Baumbacher had to be the LPF Head of Security.

I do not recognise you from the past, Sergeant. With exaggerated slowness, the man leafed through a binder. And there’s no record of a Klurov in the visitors’ logbook.

This is my first visit to the LPF plant. On two previous occasions, I’ve met Professor Lamprecht in connection with an electronics programme in Karl-Marx-Stadt.

Klurov was lying. He had never met Professor Lamprecht before. But it wouldn’t matter if Baumbacher decided to check it out with Lamprecht, since the professor was in on the lie.

Baumbacher lifted a telephone handset and spoke into it. However, he didn’t hurry in the slightest. The man took his time only to demonstrate that he could.

Then he put down the phone. Professor Lamprecht is waiting for you, Sergeant. The first corridor to the left. The last door on your right.

Thank you, Oberleutnant.

~ TWO ~

Professor Lamprecht was a corpulent gentleman in his mid-sixties, with rosy cheeks and a monocle. He was accompanied by a young woman with short cream-blonde hair, dark eyelashes and enticing legs.

The woman’s name was Miss Helga Escherich. She was the professor’s assistant.

The professor and the woman wore LPF lab coats.

The laboratory is wired, Professor Lamprecht said. The radio transmitter and a microphone are hidden in the ceiling. I discovered it six months ago.

Klurov nodded. Oberleutnant Baumbacher?

Baumbacher is involved. Like many others here.

Stasi?

Yes.

How will we reach West Berlin? Helga asked. We will climb over the Wall?

You won’t, Klurov said. It would be suicide. You wouldn’t even make it across the death strip.

Tunnel under the Wall? the professor asked.

Klurov shook his head. "Your defection will take place through the Friedrichstrasse–Zimmerstrasse border crossing point. I have contacts with secret agents in the American sector.

My friends will help you with Western currency and airline tickets. Direct flight to New York.

I long to see the Statue of Liberty, Helga said.

Are all papers in order? the professor asked.

Yes. You leave the Soviet sector as Mr. Helmut Orndorff and Miss Frida Blumenfeld. You are Belgian diplomats.

May we see the papers? Helga asked. Now?

Klurov understood Miss Escherich’s eagerness. He placed the documents on the table. The professor and the assistant leafed through the forged documents. The woman’s blue eyes twinkled.

Excellent work, the professor said.

I’m dreaming of the Statue of Liberty already, Helga said.

Thus, the formalities are completed. Professor Lamprecht adjusted his monocle and lit a cigar. Commence your summary, Helga.

Certainly, Professor. Helga started a projector.

The black-and-white film blinked multiple times. The old 1950s Ernemann projector murmured. The film jumped and hacked and whined.

The purring celluloid strip threw sweeping aerial photography of southern GDR onto a cloth screen. A silver-shiny lake appeared. The film zoomed in on the lake.

Look. Helga pointed towards an oval computer monitor mounted next to the projector screen. It was reminiscent of an early television apparatus. The computer coughed a few times. Its glass screen flashed.

Soon, a contrasting pattern of black and white appeared. The projector still held the zoomed-in lake.

Klurov watched. What am I looking at?

A survey of archaeological remains, Helga said, hidden deep below the surface of the lake, even under the bottom of the lake. The ruins of a forty-thousand-year-old city.

That old? Impossible. There were no cities forty thousand years ago, were there?

At first, we couldn’t believe it either. According to the conventional view, the first cities were formed after the Neolithic Revolution, twelve thousand years ago. However, our radiocarbon measurements of organic matter associated with the finding site are accurate. This ruined city is indeed forty thousand years old.

Margin of error?

Plus minus twelve hundred years. The tone in Helga’s voice turned enigmatic. We found something in the ruins.

Klurov succumbed to an unforeseen impatience. What did you find in the ruins?

The woman lit a cigarette and puffed on it. Fossils of human skeletons. All well-preserved specimens. Protected from the water. Buried.

Professor Lamprecht still said nothing.

Are you talking about graves? Klurov asked. Fossilised skeletons of interred corpses?

Helga nodded. "But not any corpses."

What do you mean?

Homo neanderthalensis. Neanderthals.

~ THREE ~

Klurov didn’t believe it. He couldn’t. He pretended to accept the story. What a phenomenal discovery. A ruined forty-thousand-year-old Neanderthal city found beneath the floor of a lake in southern GDR.

Incredible but true, Professor Lamprecht said.

These ruins hold many revolutionary details, Helga said. "The Neanderthals were more modern and more intelligent than conventional wisdom says. We’ll show you something fascinating.

Let’s consider three photographs of remarkable stone inscriptions from the interior of the ruined city. We shall save the most disturbing image for last.

Helga turned off the computer and the film projector, then started a carousel slide projector. The bulky apparatus hummed like a fan.

The first slide, labelled ‘Fig. 1A’, showed two circular objects. The larger object to the left was surrounded by eight pointed triangles or arrows which recalled a set of outgoing rays of light.

The smaller, non-radiating object to the right was intersected by a curved arrow which veered to the left.

You said we would save the most disturbing slide for last, Klurov said, though I can already see a picture which is very obscene, to say the least.

For clarity, we manipulated in an optical way the contrast between inscription and surrounding rock. In reality, the stone is darker, the inscription paler.

How do you interpret this, Miss Escherich?

"The larger object must be the sun. And it’s reasonable to assume the smaller object is the earth.

"We find, in figure 1A, three compelling pieces of information: the Neanderthals assumed the sun was stationary in the solar system—a good enough approximation for most purposes; they believed the earth was spherical, not flat like a pancake; and they imagined the earth travelled around the sun.

"The sun symbol lacks an arrow, which would have indicated motion, while the earth symbol comes with a curved arrow, which indicates rotation around the sun.

The Neanderthals, at least this particular Neanderthal community, believed all of this, forty thousand years before Nicolaus Copernicus and the heliocentric world view.

Was it possible? Could it be credible? If it’s true what you say, Klurov said, we must have in a gross way underestimated the intelligence and the abilities of the Neanderthals.

That’s what I just said, Sergeant. And this is just the beginning. Helga pushed a button on the rattling carousel projector.

The new slide, labelled ‘Fig. 2B’, demonstrated a smaller version of the sun symbol from figure 1A. Here, the sun was located in the upper left corner.

From three of the eight pointed triangles in the sun symbol’s periphery, three additional arrows followed, in the vertical, the horizontal and the diagonal direction, respectively.

Magnified sunbeams, Klurov thought.

At the tip of the diagonal arrow, an even larger arrow started, pointing to the slide’s bottom right corner. This arrow, the largest of them all, contained circles in a straight line.

I’m looking at a sun symbol again, Klurov said. Is there a new point to the discussion?

The most amazing thing here is represented by the circles inside the broadest arrow, Professor Lamprecht said.

This particular sunbeam, the one with the circles—does it illustrate a larger magnification than the other arrows? All the arrows are identical?

That’s right, Sergeant, Miss Escherich said.

How do you interpret the circles?

We believe they symbolise particles, the professor said. The Neanderthals guessed that light consisted of particles. And they guessed right, forty thousand years before Pierre Gassendi and Isaac Newton.

How on earth could they guess?

They probably made observations similar to those of the first modern scientists forty thousand years later, Miss Escherich said, "that is, without the need for sophisticated equipment.

"For example, they saw how light reflected in water and in other media. They noticed light ricocheted like a ball on a surface. They discovered that the angle of reflection equalled the angle of incidence. They also found, without much difficulty, that white light, sunlight, consisted of a mixture of colours.

"They regarded the blend of colours as a complex system of particles of different colours. ‘A particle of light with a special colour’ in a Neanderthal language would mean to us, in our modern language, ‘a photon with a certain frequency or energy’.

"We’ve found no evidence that this Neanderthal society’s researchers worked with prisms; but that sunlight can be split into different colours they could have figured out anyway, by paying attention to the weather, the nature and the atmosphere.

"They could have studied the rainbow and learnt to explain how its colours appear. These Neanderthal people could also have discovered the optical effects which occur in puddles of water or mud splashed with oils or liquid fats, such as plant oils or animal fats.

"When sunlight, which contains blue, green, yellow and red light, radiates on a puddle of mud or water with oil on its surface, all sorts of colour combinations arise.

"An oil film on the surface of a puddle acts like a sheet of glass. It reflects light of a specific colour from zero to maximum, depending on its thickness.

"When the film of oil spreads and moves over the surface, its thickness changes in different places, which means the resulting colour patterns keep shifting.

"The phenomenon is called iridescence: when two surfaces reflect white light in a partial mode of action, causing shifting patterns of colours.

"Both Professor Lamprecht and I are confident the Neanderthal people had some limited knowledge of iridescence, even if they would not explain the phenomenon the way we do.

This natural optical phenomenon reinforced their view that sunlight consists of a mixture of particles of different colours.

Klurov did a double take at the slide. Do you have any evidence, miss?

Findings from the sunken city suggest the evidence is available, Helga said.

They might even have theorised about how auroras occur, Professor Lamprecht said. "If they understood the Northern Lights, they must have possessed a thorough knowledge of the topics which modern people call chemistry, astrophysics and astronomy.

"They must have understood, in their own way, what we call solar wind plasma properties."

Klurov was thinking. Polar lights occurred when charged particles ejected from the sun were accelerated by the earth’s magnetic field and collided with atoms and molecules in the earth’s atmosphere.

If the Neanderthals, or at least these Neanderthals, discussed this phenomenon, in their own way, forty thousand years ago, how smart would they have been today if their culture had survived and evolved?

Findings from the sunken city suggest the evidence is also available for this, Helga said.

Even if these people didn’t use words such as electrons or protons, Professor Lamprecht said. Of course, they also had other expressions, or signs, for solar wind and plasma.

People not quite like us, Klurov thought, looking at figure 2B again, taking in as much as possible of the overwhelming information.

A picture is worth a thousand words, the professor said.

Do you mean that certain Neanderthal beings were the first-ever particle physicists? Klurov heard himself ask. Before today, he wouldn’t have dreamt of asking such a provocative question.

No need to use the compound word ‘particle physicists’, Helga said. We believe only what we say—no more, no less.

Particles of light? Photons?

Since the photon concept was born in the early twentieth century, we don’t want to talk about photons in the context of Neanderthals, Professor Lamprecht said. It would be absurd.

I think the conversation is absurd already, Klurov said.

Helga said, "Even if—and we do stress the word if—these curious Neanderthals speculated about some particle with the characteristics of what we moderns call a photon, they wouldn’t have called it a photon."

You need a photon detection system to detect particles of light, Klurov said. You need a photomultiplier.

You don’t need high-tech tools to speculate, the professor said. Democritus and Leucippus theorised that the universe was made of atoms. Did hyper-modern laboratory equipment exist in the fifth century BCE?

You do have a point, Professor, Klurov said.

We shall save the most disturbing image for last.

What if we had a look at the third and last picture in the carousel slide projector? Helga said.

I’m more than happy to have a look at the third and last image, Klurov said.

The third slide was labelled ‘Fig. 3C’.

The distressing stone inscriptions in figure 3C contain several spectacular, shocking clues, Helga Escherich said.

I’m sure they do, Klurov said.

In the top left corner of figure 3C was a circular face with happy eyes and a warm smile. In the right bottom corner was an oval-shaped face with an angry mouth and mischievous eyes, and with a handful of zigzagging bolts of lightning around it, like some symbol of unbridled rage.

The elliptical face expressed chilling contempt for the circular face, Klurov perceived. Four arrows extended from the oval face in the direction of the circular face. The arrows resembled military map symbols for operations, movements and attacks.

These unidirectional arrows crossed two near-parallel lines. The two lines extended over the area in between the two different anthropoid faces.

At the upper edge of the picture slide, outside