THE SUPERWOMAN FROM KRYPTON

THE ETERNAL COURSE. PART IV

Somewhere in Vermont, September 1948

Lex Luthor got out of the car, a black Studebaker, under the watchful eye of his chauffeur and bodyguard, and walked along the roadside. The forest almost closed over his head. The sun was shining brightly, yet it barely filtered through the branches. He walked briskly towards a clearing where a stream sounded and there was a wooden bridge. The summer had been very difficult for Luthor. The work with the Kryptonian pathogen had not ceased and was extremely complicated. Several scientists had died, as well as several people used as guinea pigs. The work with ICARUS continued, but the Kryptonian's corpse did not reveal all its secrets for the time being. Only a few months had passed. On the Island of Death, or whatever they called it in the Aleutians, they had drained the lake and were about to start digging up the capsule that emitted the strange signal. Twelve thousand years buried. All the last months of work of all the teams of the Rand Corporation were in his hands, and the most important of that work was to be found on six microfilms hidden in six fountain pens he carried in his jacket.

The summer was ending, the election campaign was in full swing. Luthor had obtained authorization to move ICARUS' body from Area 51 to an island in Metropolis Bay owned by TELCORP where a group of scientists were working with him. He had thus removed him away from the Pathogen. Maxwell Lord was still obsessed with the Pathogen but had suddenly regained interest in the capsule buried in the Aleutians and in alien technology. The Area 51 team seemed to have discovered some very interesting things in the extraterrestrial technology concerning wiring and chips.

Luthor sighed and stubbed out a cigarette over the bridge railing. A young bald, well-dressed, priest-like little man emerged from the trees and approached Luthor.

"How are you, Colonel Luthor?"

"Colonel?" Luthor's expression was one of surprise, but he quickly understood.

"Congratulations on your new rank, Comrade Stalin is grateful for your services. The Russian atomic bomb and our extensive knowledge of extraterrestrial life would not be possible without you. I have nothing to give you, just shake your hand."

The little man smiled. Luthor knew his name was Karla and that he lived in San Francisco, but he treated him as Tony. Luthor smiled and shook the other man's proffered hand.

"So Luthor, what do you have for us?"

"A collection of fountain pens," Luthor took them one by one out of his jacket and held them out to Karla.

The little man smiled, "This is very generous from your side."

"The last three months have been full of effort and hard work."

"Won't the political change affect you?"

"No, I have subordinated myself completely to Maxwell Lord and I am his strongest supporter in the Rand Corporation, and to General Hardy. They now believe they are in charge, giving orders and counter-orders. I have gotten them to agree to move the Kryptonian's body away from the Pathogen and it is now on an island in Metropolis Bay. Research on alien technology and the pathogen remains inconclusive. Perhaps your scientists can advance faster than ours."

"Don't be confused Mr. Luthor, your scientists are not really your scientists, and mine are your comrades."

"It's clear to me."

"It's normal. Sometimes in these situations you get confused about what role you are playing, right?"

"I am very clear about which side I am on."

"Don't worry."

The little man smiled at Luthor with beatitude and understanding.

Luthor was besieged by the cynicism and distrust of the Soviet agent. His political evolution had been chaotic. He had always been upright in his personal life, had never had religious concerns, believed in progress and equality of man but also in freedom. Luthor believed in the scientific method. He had believed in capitalism. He had been a staunch conservative in the early 1920s, when he began working for Nikola Tesla and they founded the TELCORP company, making enormous advances in broadcasting, aviation, electricity generation and computing. The Great Depression unhinged Luthor. The upright, conservative world he believed in crumbled. Corruption and poverty were everywhere. Luthor was still wary of communists and revolution. The Soviet Union seemed to him incapable of making real progress. He had become enthusiastic about the Nazis and the Italian Fascists. The Fascists would bring Europe to its feet, would stop the American expansion which he saw as too corrupt and above all the French and British depredation in Africa and Asia. His illusions were soon shattered when it became clear that they were only racist, violent, delusional, and reactionary regimes. Without quite knowing why Luthor began to study Marxist theory, he sympathized with them, they were historicists like him. Marxists believed strongly in the study of history to understand present and future processes, and in the progress of man. The brutalities of Stalin's regime were only an anecdote explained by history, perhaps a necessary evil. He began to correspond with university professors. Luthor was enthusiastic about the idea that conflict was the engine of progress.