A Lonely and Curious Country (27 page)

              The results were collected in three papers for the Ahnenerbe – the last one of which drew the attention of Himmler himself. The small town of Innsmouth had undergone an expansion due to the introduction of exactly the same sort of gold and platinum trinkets that are now flowing into Japanese hands shortly after a Captain Marsh had visited the region. At first I assumed that Captain Marsh had merely begun a trading relationship with the inhabitants of Nan Madol, but such seemed unlikely given the Spanish control of the region. But certain other facts came to play – Marsh not only had the trinkets, but his fishing trawlers began to show remarkable catches. He seemed to be possessed of a superior aquatic technology than other fishermen of New England. In addition to this he (and his family) cast off the strictures of Christianity preferring an older vitalist religion based on bloodlines. It took me many months to accept that the return of the undersea Reich believed in by superstitious South Sea islanders was begin accepted (and prepared for) by tough logical Americans – in a region dominated by chalk white Aryans. What we were struggling for in Germany by political means was occurring naturally in America in accordance with cosmic principles. The obsession of the Innsmouthers with blood-lines could only mean one thing – they had begun to interbreed with undersea Aryans. A strain of immortal, strong, wise herrenvolk was coming into being in America. Of course it was no surprise that as Hitler had come to awaken the land-dwelling part of the Aryan brotherhood, the undersea portion would be casting off its aeons long slumber as well.

              The political aspect of this miracle could hardly be over-looked. If we could reunite the sundered halves of the Aryan world, we could become masters of the world decades sooner. On one hand we would have a built-in enclave on the American coast – a port friendly to our U-boats that could be used to deliver soldiers to American soil. We could avenge ourselves upon the Americans for their involvement in war. On the other hand, great secrets of Aryan science could be added to the war effort. Clearly all history was moving to this moment.

              Himmler summed me to his castle at Wewelsberg. He cried with joy when I showed the evidence I had collected on Innsmouth and the undersea Aryans. This was the omen that the Reich had been waiting for!!

              Now only practical matters remained. How did we contact the Fischvolk? They must have maintained secrecy for years for a reason. The rising of the undersea Reich must be fragile in some manner, or it would have long ago occurred. Was there a natural/cosmic reason that this had not been manifest? I had not considered this obvious question, and when Himmler asked it; I felt ashamed.

              “I am a scholar, not a political scientist, Herr Himmler.”

              I thought he might have discovered my shameful interlude at the asylum. When I was seventeen a beautiful tall blonde girl named Helga Curfman had pretended an interest in me, She had told me that she had dreamed that we should be lovers. It was Destiny, she told me. I had never kissed a girl. Near our school, the Heinrich Schlemann Oberschuke, was a municipal barn, the kind that dotted Berlin in those days. She told me to strip naked and light a lantern, she would join me at night. It was cold and I was shaking with lust and coughing, longing and goose-pimples. The barn door opened. I raised my lantern and in rushed dozens of my school mates – both male and female. They pointed at my naked body. They laughed. They threw excrement on me. I had a breakdown after this. I never finished the gymnasium. I never ventured into business like my successful brother. I became a haunter of libraries, a husband to piles of books, a ghoul feeding on missing lore and grateful for the adventures of others. But Himmler smiled at me and gave me the keys to my kingdom.

              “Do you know that Germany lost is greatest scientist in 1931?” He asked.

              “I do not know of whom you speak.”

"Just as it needed a child of Austrian culture - Hitler! - to put the Jewish politicians in their place, so it needed an Austrian to cleanse the world of Jewish science." Said Himmler.

              Like many scholars I had remained in my own field. I had not heard of Dr. Hans Hörbiger, who had developed the Doctrine of Eternal Ice, which refuted the “general relativity” of Jewish science. According to Dr. Hörbiger, ice was the basic substance of all cosmic processes, and ice moons, ice planets, and the "global ether.” The earth had a series of encounters with great ice moons – each almost destroying life as we knew it. The ice had almost destroyed the Aryans several times, but our evolutionary response was to grow in might and main. Clearly the undersea Aryans had been developing a great civilization in the Pacific; surely I had noticed how Aryan the heads at Easter Island were? But the Earth’s previous ice moon (whose fall had produced the myths of the Flood and Atlantis) had not destroyed the Aryan Pacific Empire, but forced an evolutionary change on our brothers. This also explained why the Pacific seems to be such a large zone without land. The land here was buried under the ice. How long our brothers must have labored to rebuild what was once theirs. As we – the Aryans of the North – had struggled against sub-human hordes, so they must have struggled against giant octopi and fierce whales!

              “But flesh is stronger than ice!” said Himmler, “And the Aryan spirit is stronger than time!”

              I was filled with rapture. Here was a man who Understood! All of the days at being laughed at by degree carrying scholars, even mocked by my own family were over. I was to be part of the redemption of the world. God, the real God, the God of the Folk had chosen me. But my joy expanded even more. I was not the mere scholar, the mere messenger of all-healing history. No. Himmler said I was to be the ambassador to the watery realms. I would go to the sea near Innsmouth and reunite the halves of the Teutonic race! I would be having an adventure rather than reading about one.

              We began researching this question at once. We must not assume that the undersea Aryans even knew of our presence. Atlantis had sunk, or as we now know been destroyed by an ice moon, millennia ago. The Fischvolk might assume that they alone are the true bloodline, and might have their own plans for world salvation. They might distrust land dwellers, or be frightened by the large numbers of Jews that live among humans. As Herr Himmler pointed out, there were an exceptional number of Jews living on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Likewise the undersea Aryans might not speaks we do. In the cold and stormy world they inhabit they might speak only by thought – indeed which might have been how our ancestors communicated with one another. It was perhaps not until the coming of the Jew were words needed. Does not the Jewish religion says that the Word was God,” instead of “God is the Blood.”?

              At first we began looking for psychics, Germans with strong minds that could communicate silently. But our experiments were failures. Then an investigator in Munich contacted Himmler. Dr. Robert Schuss had been concerned about the communication problem. How could the lighting fast minds of our generals communicate with the average foot-solider? He had been working on a “telepathy-radio” and was hoping for funding. He had worked out the telepathic problem, but had not solved the distance problem. He could broadcast or receive thoughts from about thirty meters, but no further. Abs a communication device, he felt he had failed, but hoped that with Reich backing, this could be the ultimate communication device, or perhaps the ultimate propaganda device. Himmler contacted me at once, and we began trials. We choose non-German speaking inmates from the camps. There was some worry that such non-Aryan minds would be too primitive to receive our signals, and certainly too dim to broadcast to our minds. But the test seemed valid; our minds might be very different than the undersea Aryans. Perhaps (since they were most likely a telepathic race) their minds might be stronger than ours. Perhaps we (because of the excitement of being associated with Hitler) might have superior energy to theirs. So we tested
.

              Their thoughts toward us were so vicious. They couldn’t understand the greater good we were doing the world. But we could understand them even if they spoke Hungarian and read Hebrew, or spoke French and Ladino. We could understand them. And we could communicate, “Lift your right arm or the guard will strike you!”

              The range was about thirty meters in air, twenty five in water, five through stone. The machine was not large. It could be fitted into the nose of VIIC U-boat. The U boat could keep its mine-laying capacity, but would lose its forward torpedo tube. This meant it would have to escorted by a second U-boat into the American waters. The Americans never had any true sense of fear. At the beginning of the war, they had only one anti-submarine boat acting as a coast guard in the Atlantic. It would be easy to mount a large submarine invasion. Himmler persuaded Hitler to allow us to try and contact the undersea Aryans of the Massachusetts’ coast before any other war effort. He loved tales of the undersea Aryans. The discovery of such a proof of Aryan science coupled with the strategic edge of having an Aryan presence in America would be a war changing moment.

              Our U-boat was renamed the
Cthulhureich
. Our protective boat remained the U72. The captains of both boats hated me and my mission. Fortunately Himmler had sent nine SS guard with us. Five in my submarine, four in the other sub, so that we would arrive safely. My men were tall, cruel blonde beasts – the image of what I wanted to be. I was short and dark and after Helga no woman have ever looked twice at me. My brother looked like Thor, but with my weak right eye I was Odin, ever prying into mysteries. I would be the savior of the folk.

              It took five days to cross the Atlantic. We sailed on the surface the first four days, but made our approach to the Massachusetts coast underwater. If our information, bought from an Innsmouth inhabitant for much gold was true, the American government had tried to destroy the underwater settlement in 1928. The puny human attack had not destroyed the Fischvolk’s city of “Y’ha-nthle” – a clear linguistic cognate to Wal-halla. I had guessed that Y’ha-nthele lay about two kilometers east of Cape Ann. It would lie in a trench of course. The captain worried about the depth and warned me that he could only remain in the trench for two hours at a time. Even the guns of my guards didn’t deter him. So I knew he must be speaking the truth. We found nothing during our first four days of searching. On the second dive we stayed a bit too long and a rivet in the hull imploded, shooting into the chamber like a bullet unleashing a stream of freezing sea water. We would surface at night, and twice sent small boats ashore to examine the town of Innsmouth, which seemed to be rebuilding.

One night I overheard one of guards talking to the captain. If we found nothing in a week’s time, I would be killed and they would return to Germany. The mission would never have happened and there would be no official embarrassment. I was not surprised. I had heard of other “erasures.” But I was deeply sad. That night I prayed to Cthulhu that I might meet with success.

              And my prayers were answered.

              We found another small trench, unmapped, half a kilometer east and two kilometers north. Our searchlight showed towers covered in mother-of-pearl. Strange minarets, oddly portioned frustra, delicate and cruel spikes. Dolphins, squid and enormous jelly-fish swam all around. The city suggested some alien thought. I thought it was perhaps a symbol, a bind-rune, of strange glory. I had never seen any architecture as lovely, but it suggested the magnificence of cathedrals, the moonlit beauty of the Taj Mahal, the strange film sets of Hans Poelzig. I gazed at it with rapt eyes. It frightened the sailors, even the captain. Good! It should terrify the world. In my mind I already saw the strange spires topped by swastikas.

              Then we saw
them
. Two meters long with scaly backs and white bellies. They lacked the beautiful Aryan heads and blond locks I was expecting, having fish heads – an irony upon mermaid legends! They had large sharp gills on their necks, and vast cold eyes bulging on each side of their face. They did not like the searchlight, so I do not know their true color, although I suspect it be gray green. Their long paws were webbed and they carried small rods – either some wonder of Aryan science or some artifact of eldritch wizardry. Seven of them approached our craft. Our captain began shouting orders to leave. One of my guards silenced him. I sat in the radio-telegraphy device and with all my might I sent my thoughts toward them, the mantra of Aryan power that Dr. Webb had recorded almost a century before in Greenland: “
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtag!
"

              The Fischvolk convulsed with surprise (or perhaps laughter?). One swam up to our submarine and placed her hands on the craft. I could hear her voice in my mind. She sounded like a schoolgirl I had known in Berlin decades ago. The cruel girl that made fun of my defective eye and my short stature. Her German was almost without accent.

              “Dreams from the sunken City enflesh themselves in Hydra’s spawn. The will of the Old Ones High Priest is undying!”

              Evidently this was a counter-call or litany. I did not know what to project, so I improvised, “Sister of the Folk, I greet thee! I am come to reunite the Aryan people. The ice-moon is long gone and we are preparing to scourge the land of inferior races.”

              Again the Fischvolk convulsed. I felt waves of humor. This must have been much-longed for news.