One Thousand Years (13 page)

The result was devastating. The entire wall filled with names.
McHenry stared in shock.
He could hardly read the list, his eyes filling with tears.
There were so many, he dared not look for the most familiar names.

“How did they all die?” he asked, his voice a mere whisper.

The machine responded without emotion:
“Seventy-nine percent attributed to illness or other natural causes.
Five percent accidental deaths.
Fifteen percent killed during wartime service.
One percent list no record of death.”

The
dry recital made no sense. Slowly, he realized the error. “Do
you mean that most of these men died of old age?”

“Yes.
Fifty-seven percent died of old age.”

He
sank back into his chair, relieved but angry. Of course, he thought,
everybody he knew would be dead after one thousand years. He
wondered whether the machine could have foreseen his reaction, and
asked himself why it would allow him to make such a heart-rending
mistake.

Correcting
the error would have been easy now. All he needed to do was ask for
a list of those killed in combat. But he wasn't ready for that now.

“Rechner,
show me the
Fenster
again.” The Earth appeared and the names were gone. The music
kept playing.

He
thought he would feel better. He didn't. He wondered what Parker
would do, and then he wondered whether Parker survives the war. That
was something that couldn't wait. He needed to know now.

“Tell
me what happens to Captain Joseph Parker,” he ordered, his
voice firm. “Same unit. What happens to him?”

He knew the answer even before the machine spoke.

“Captain Joseph Charles Parker was killed in combat during wartime service.”

*

McHenry
decided to miss breakfast with the pilots that morning. Most of the
pilots would be in training anyway, and yesterday's Tiger mission
wouldn't return until mid-afternoon. It seemed the perfect
opportunity to sulk.

A chime sounded. It was a familiar sound, but he couldn't remember
where he heard it before. Looking around his room, he saw a message
displayed on the window.

“Rechner,
what was that?” he called.

“
Sturmbannführer
Dale is waiting at your door.”

“Then,
that's a doorbell?” he asked absentmindedly, getting to his
feet.

“Yes.”

He
straightened himself, checking that his shirt was taut. He was still
not used to the fact that his clothing seemed to know when to relax
and when to firm up.

“Well,
open the door.”

“I
was worried about you,” said Dale as she stepped inside. “I
heard that you missed breakfast this morning, and all I could think
about was the conversation we had yesterday. Please tell me you
didn't get some bad news.”

McHenry
studied her face. She seemed genuinely concerned, but that swastika
on her arm was so ugly to him. Especially now. He almost wanted to
blame her for Parker's impending death.

“My
flight leader is going to die,” he said. “He's my best
friend.”

“Oh
Sam, I'm so sorry.” Dale took a seat that seemed to slide out
of the wall and tapped his chair, beckoning him to sit beside her.
This timeless gesture hadn't changed in a thousand years.

“Sam,”
she continued softly. “Let me tell you something I really only
understood a few years ago. As you know, I am a lot older than you
are. Much, much older. One of the differences with our immortality
is that people can live for many years without ever losing anyone
they love. You have lived a very short life and have already seen
death many times.”

“That
doesn't make it any easier,” said McHenry, almost instantly
regretting the sour tone. He could see tears forming in her eyes.

“Sam,
I lost two of my grandchildren once.”

Those
words startled him. He remembered, again, she wasn't the young woman
she appeared to be.

“It
was an accident,” she explained. “They could have easily
survived if they had been on Earth, or on any starship, or any one of
a dozen planets. You know that doctors can repair anything. But
they died on another world far from here.”

“I'm
sorry,” said McHenry. It was the first time he saw her in
despair, having shed her cloak of Nazi pride.

“I
have five children, and now six other grandchildren. That didn't
make it any easier for me. I lived the first hundred years of my
life without ever losing anyone who was truly close to me. Not an
uncle; not a grandfather; and certainly not a child. This happened
fifteen years ago, and I'm still not over it.”

“I
don't mean to take away from your loss.”

“That's
okay, Sam. You see, I do understand. You won't ever forget your
friends and family either.”

“He
just meant a lot to me, that's all,” said McHenry. “He's
the one who stood by my side whenever I had problems, and now I won't
be there for him. He was the last man I saw before I...”

He
sunk his head down and closed his eyes. He had wanted to show
strength but gave in to the emotion.

Dale
waited a moment before she spoke. “This war was such a
terrible thing. I look at the casualty rates every day in my work.
I need these numbers for our history equations. But I'm still a
human being. I just can't get out of my mind that every one of those
men had somebody who cared about them. I have to keep telling myself
that the war will end. Sam, the war will end.”

*

“There are today hundreds of thousands of British soldiers who will cease to
live during the attempt to invade Western Europe. They are prepared
to sacrifice their lives, but for what? For their country?
Demonstrably not! Britain has only the stark prospect of poverty
before her. For the rights of small nations? Certainly not. What
British politician wants to hear of Poland today? For what, then,
are these men to die? They are to die for the Jewish policy of
Stalin and Roosevelt. If there is any other purpose to their
sacrifice, I challenge Mr. Churchill to tell them what it is.”
—
William Joyce, Nazi propaganda broadcaster, (April 17, 1944)

“We
missed you at breakfast this morning,” said Vinson. He and Dr.
Evers were waiting at the hangar in the same corner that
McHenry would go to whenever there wasn't a Tiger available for him
to board.

“I
needed to be alone,” McHenry answered curtly. He looked across
at the one empty moor, one Tiger evidently overdue.

“They're
not back yet,” explained Vinson. “There could be many
reasons for this. He can't leave the water until the horizon is
clear.”

“How
late are they now?”

“Two
hours,” said Evers.

McHenry
was a little disappointed, having looked forward to meeting the
Italian. Then a thought occurred to him. “Do any of you guys
speak Italian?”

“Of
course,” said Vinson.

“Everybody
does,” the doctor added. “Every Hitler Youth can speak
at least twenty languages.”

“Oh.”
McHenry regretted the question. “I guess that explains how
everyone here can speak English.”

“Do
you speak no other languages?” asked Vinson.

“I'm
fluent in French. I'm afraid that's it.”

Evers
put his hand on McHenry's shoulder. “The time will come when
you will speak twenty languages too. They will put you through
treatments that will make it easier.”

“Medical
treatments?”

“Yes.
After three months in Berlin, you will be a new man.”

McHenry
wasn't sure what to make of having his brain tampered with. The
three held onto the railing, watching two technicians exit the second
Tiger.

“Barr
is in that one with an SS officer,” noted Vinson. “They
are ready to launch if we need a quick action.”

A
lineman floated out from the Line Office and shouted across the
hangar, “
Jetzt!
”
Then he turned to the corner.
“Now!” McHenry was by now familiar with the routine,
knew what the word meant, and imagined the man just repeated the word
in English to be cordial. The Tiger was about to enter the inner
seal of the ship.

A
horn sounded a minute later. The inner doors opened just barely wide
enough to allow the Tiger to float through, with the huge
sensor-evading net retracting behind it. The doors closed quickly as
the mooring arm carried it through the doors. McHenry remained very
still. He was trying to sense for any breeze, or any change in
pressure he thought should accompany the transition through the
doors. Nothing was perceptible, and that heightened his appreciation
for the technology at work here.

Evers
leaned forward. “The main cargo hatch should have opened by
now.”

“What's
wrong?” asked McHenry.

“Our
new visitor will be in a life-support container. That is, if he made
it.”

The
new visitor didn't make it. An SS man left the Tiger, beckoning
Evers to follow for debrief. Vinson nodded to McHenry, and the two
made their way into the Tiger.

Bamberg
was still sitting inside, completing his post-flight inspection. “It
was awful,” he told them, speaking slowly. “There were
one hundred and fifty-five men alive in the water. One hundred and
fifty-five! But ours was dying. One of his comrades stayed with
him, trying to save him. We
kept thinking, ‘come on man! Let him drown so we can pick him
up!’ But his
friend stayed by him even as they drifted away from the others.”

McHenry
was touched, as apparently were both Vinson and Bamberg. The story
reminded him of his friends who stayed with him when his engine cut
out. He now regretted the loss of the Italian even more.

Bamberg
sighed. “Hamilton said we could have killed that man if he was
going to die anyway, but we didn't know who he was until it was too
late. Ours died first. His friend died after an hour.”

“Couldn't
you get the friend?” asked McHenry.

“I
know, I know,” agreed Bamberg, his eyes widening. “I was
thinking this, too. The SS has this all planned out mathematically.
I thought it could be different once we know for a fact that they die
together. I mean we can see this right here. What do we have an SS
man along for if not to make decisions on the spot? But this is
apparently not so.”

“This
is a lot more complicated than I thought,” noted Vinson.

Bamberg
glanced behind them and then lowered his voice. “Hamilton is
on eggshells because he is looking for a promotion. I do not believe
it is any more complicated than that.”

*

McHenry
went to his room that night thinking about the Italian officer he
would never get to meet, and the man's friend who died alongside him.
He didn't know whether the man could have spoken English. The man
might even have been a racist. But he was certain they could have
reached a common bond, especially here. It would have been nice to
have another friend here in the same predicament as he. Then he saw
the opportunity.

“Rechner!
Tell me, where and when does Joseph Parker get killed?”

“Joseph
Parker is lost and presumed killed in the Tyrrhenian Sea on 28,
April, 1944.”

McHenry
stood, unable to contain his glee. It would have been depressing
news at any other time, but now there was hope. He jumped to the
door and ran toward the ladder.

He
found Vinson working alone inside one of the Tigers, testing the
equipment and using a tablet-like device called a
Klemmbrett
— which literally means
clipboard
,
although these do so much more. He set down the tablet when McHenry
came aboard.

“I
need to tell you about some bad news I learned last night,”
McHenry announced. “My best friend from my squadron is going
to die.”

“That
is truly awful,” said Vinson.

“But
there's some good news too, or at least there might be. The rechner
says he will be lost in the sea, just like I was.”

Vinson's
expression brightened. “I see what you mean, and that would be
great if he can make it! How much time do we have?”

“Until
the end of April. Is that enough?”

“There
is only one way to find out,” said Vinson as he shut down the
equipment. “We must see
Oberst
Volker immediately.”

McHenry
understood chain of command as well as anyone. The pair located
Bamberg, Vinson's superior, and explained the story. He then called
the
Kommandant
for an immediate meeting. The three proceeded
to her office adjoining
Kontrolle
. Mtubo was standing beside
Volker, and they listened to McHenry together. Mtubo remained
impassive but the
Kommandant
eagerly followed the story.

“Ma'am,
I realize I'm asking for a lot, but you've got an empty bunk here,
and this should be a piece of cake. Vinson tells me that not having
an exact location is not a problem.”

“No,
that is not a problem,” said the
Kommandant
. “It
is too early to be calling this cake but I do like the idea very
much. It would give the crew something new to look forward to. You
must understand there are no guarantees.”

Mtubo
looked more wary and less enthusiastic. “Indeed. Some of our
people will enjoy the diversion. We will give it our best effort,
even if we have to take another name off the list. No guarantees.
Time travel is a risk to all the people of the Reich. We cannot put
them in jeopardy.”

“I
understand that,” said McHenry.

Volker
turned to the window, looking out across the stars for a long moment
before she turned back to him. “You're a soldier, Herr
McHenry. Have you read Clausewitz?”