One Thousand Years (16 page)

That evoked a thought in McHenry.
“Do you think there might be some people — humans,
I mean — who support the Grauen?”

“It is possible,” said Bamberg.
“But I hope never to meet one who does.”

Vinson and Bamberg had exchanged grim glances and those expressions became
fixed into McHenry's mind.
Clearly, treason was something no one could countenance.
He thought about how Bamberg had so easily brushed off the possibility
that he might still want to escape, even though they had become good friends.
Duty was so deeply ingrained into these men.
He wondered whether that was in their genes, deliberately so,
and concluded almost instantly that it probably was.

He now regretted having steered the conversation in this direction,
as he needed to return to his point.

“So, can I trust the SS?”

Bamberg nodded.
“You can trust them to operate in the best interest of
the
Führer
.”

“I see,” said McHenry, even though he didn't.
He knew only that the answer would really depend upon the interests
of the
Führer
.
Perhaps that was the best answer he could have gotten.
Would the Führer care?
he wondered.
He couldn't see why.

“I
think I see, too,” said Bamberg. “You believe there is
some ulterior motive to the collecting of people from the past.”

“The
thought occurred to me.”

“Then
put that out of your mind. We are going to be on this mission, on
this ship, for at least five years. You are a pleasant diversion for
the crew. Our entertainment.”

“But
what about Dale trying to indoctrinate me?”

“Probably
because she likes it. She is in the SS. They like to be
ideological. It's their nature.” Bamberg turned momentarily
to Vinson, “Sorry. It's true.”

“It
is part of her charm,” Vinson shrugged.

McHenry
sat back, considering how to broach the subject, and then decided to
simply say what he thought. “You can't tell me there is no
propaganda value for when you return to your millennium. The Reich
can parade us all around like trophy pieces.”

Bamberg
laughed. “Such as might have been in your time. There is
little need for that in the future. I can assure you, when the folk
want to see such trophies, the rechners can present them in any form.
They can create — what you think of as movies — of
people saying anything they want them to say. It is like the
simulator here except with images of people. You would not know the
difference.”

“You
mean,” McHenry began, “they could change the ending to
Casablanca
to where the Germans win?”

“Yes,
they can, although it sounds like one they would have simply erased.
They can do that even in your time.”

*

“When
the moon is full it throws its swath of gold across the lovely
Mediterranean, and sometimes the nights are so calm and moontinged
and gentle that you cannot remember or believe that the purpose of
everything around you is death.”
—
Ernie Pyle, war correspondent, (April 19, 1944)

McHenry
met Dale for breakfast the next day. He was upbeat, having decided
that the
Führer
probably had more things to worry about than Parker. If true,
the decision would be put squarely into the realm of science. That
could still be a problem, he thought, but Parker would get a fair
chance by the SS. His friends in the Luftwaffe would then do their
very best to save his life.

The
sad expression on Dale's face gave him the news before she could even
say the words. “I'm so sorry, Sam.”

He
sat at the table and slumped. Any pretense of defiance as a P.O.W.
had disappeared from his mind days ago. Now he was giving up the
pride he had felt as a man who had risen to the most unusual of
situations. He had so much looked forward to sharing this experience
with Parker, showing him the future, the Earth from 22,000 miles
above, and then teaching him to fly through space.

She
held her long fingers over his hand. “Let's talk over lunch.”

“I'm
not hungry.”

“You
still need to eat,” she said warmly. She then instructed the
machine to give them both the same meals they had the last time they
breakfasted together.

“I
didn't know you could do that,” he said.

“It
remembers everything.”

He
didn't eat right away, but he did take a sip from his soda. The cold
drink was refreshing. He never guessed the effect was designed to
subtly ease the stress on his nervous system. In that respect, the
meal was not entirely the same one he had the day before.

“I
was looking forward to showing him the wonders you have. He would
have loved the food.”

“Do
you really believe he would have liked being here?” she asked
gently.

“It's
better than dying,” he said.

“I
don't think you felt that way at first. He may never.” She
looked for any response and then continued. “The things that
are important to you might not be important to him.”

“He's
still better off here than dying in the water.”

“I'm
sorry, Sam. I wish we could have done it. All of us do. But we
also have to think about the security of the Reich.”

“I
don't expect anyone to take risks for me or my friend. All I wanted
was a fair shake.”

“We
did that,” she insisted. “We tried everything. I'm just
so sorry that we couldn't find a way.”

McHenry
heard the desperation in her voice and believed her. “No,”
he said. “I should apologize. I knew this could happen. I
should really thank you for trying. Everyone. Please tell all the
SS people that I thank them, too.”

She
seemed pleased, or at least relieved, at his thoughtful words.
“Sam,” she said after a pause, “We of the SS are
calling the regiment to parade. It's a function to celebrate Adolf
Hitler's birthday. The main watch room will be converted into a
temporary review field. A few of the senior Luftwaffe staff will be
there, too. I know that you may not appreciate our first
Führer
the way that we do but I do think you should attend. You might enjoy
it.”

He
wasn't in the mood to celebrate Hitler's birthday but he nodded his
head. “Yes, I'll be there,” he said.

“Good!
It's a formal military event. You'll do me the courtesy of standing
at attention when we're in formation, won't you?”

“I
always stand for the
Kommandant
,” he noted. “You've
seen it yourself whenever somebody around here shouts ‘
Achtung
!’
The Geneva Convention demands prisoners respect proper military
formality. Heck, I even get up when everyone else is standing for
those ridiculous morning
Führer
speeches —
including by Hitler himself — and you know I hate that. I'm
not going to Heil Hitler but I won't embarrass you either.”

She
smiled tenderly, then looked down at his garment. “Rechner,
Herr McHenry will need special attire for the
Führertag
event. Give him a dark blue civilian suit when he gets ready for it.
And give it some yellow trim.” She looked back into his eyes
and smiled. “You'll look good in that. It's very stylish in
our time.”

“When
is Hitler's birthday?”

“Oh
Sam!” she said, raising her voice just a bit. “That's
the first thing we should have taught you. It's the twentieth of
April. That's tomorrow.”

*

Barr
swung the Tiger gently to the east, heading to the last satellite on
the recall list.

“Fifty
seconds,” he reported to Mallory, the SS man beside him. At
their present velocity, relative to orbit, they could have every
satellite on the recall list inside the ship in record time. Anxious
to complete the mission, Barr already had his finger on the satellite
trap control.

This probe was a small one, an SB-27.
Like all satellites on this mission,
it was black as night, wrapped in an unterkarbon net, and
virtually undetectable. Even active sensors would require a distance
of less than fifty meters. They would have to rely almost entirely on
the position recorded in the manifest and hope it hadn't drifted too
far. Barr set the trap to snag the probe. They were closing in. He
tweaked the stick one more time and programmed a final breaking
maneuver.

The
field wake alarm startled them. Far below them, a Grauen ship was
lighting up its interstellar drive while leaving Earth's atmosphere.
Barr released the throttle and the shuttle coasted. Maybe they
wouldn't be seen. Mallory targeted the main guns dead center on the
enemy ship, just in case.

Rules
of engagement were complicated. If they destroyed a Grauen ship
here, one thousand years in their past, history would be changed.
But simply being noticed by a Grauen ship could do that as well. The
SS man would make the decision whether to fire.

“He
doesn't see us,” said Mallory, watching the blip on the dome.

“
Ja.”
Barr agreed. It seemed
like the Grauen would leave them alone. No one really knew the
limits of Grauen technology. Weren't they millions of years ahead of
the Reich? But then how could they not be aware of the Tiger's
presence? If they were, they didn't act like it. Or maybe they just
didn't want to fight. It looked to Barr as though Mallory certainly
didn't. He decided to just let the Tiger coast until the Grauen ship
was long gone.

They
would miss the satellite but that was okay. A firefight with a
Grauen here had to be avoided at all costs.

It
might take almost an hour for Barr to return to position. This would
normally be a fifteen-second maneuver but time was no longer the
priority. He carefully plotted a course that would veer away from
their original direction, all the while minimizing the energy use
that might expose their position.

It would require another orbit. Maybe two.
For Barr, the only good thing about
the trip was that the SS man beside him kept quiet for now.

*

“You
would have enjoyed meeting him,” McHenry told Vinson. They sat
alone in the Tiger discussing his disappointment.

“In
some ways, I feel that I did meet him,” said Vinson. “He
was the one who followed you down into the water, wasn't he? I was
listening from below.”

“He's
the one.”

“I
remember listening to his steady voice. He personally called that
ship they sent after you. I am sure they worked faster because of
his presence. Kathy — I mean
Sturmbannführer
Dale —
was laughing because he ranked lower than the ship's captain. But he
never identified his rank, and they were so very deferential to him.”

That
provoked McHenry to smile. “They probably thought he was
white.” It had happened before, he remembered. Almost all
military officers were white, so it's easy to make that assumption.
Even a Tuskegee airman could fall victim to it.

“You
never talk about your experience living under racism,” Vinson
observed.

“What
is there to talk about? It's lousy.” It was not so much that
McHenry didn't want to discuss it. As much as he liked Vinson, he
didn't want to degrade his own country to a man who was, in effect, a
soldier of a country the United States was at war with.

“Well, then,” Vinson said,
eager to get back to the subject of flying.
“We will set up for another descent exercise.
Even with unterkarbon around you,
you will need a lot more practice before you can evade the Grauen.”

*

“Two
minutes,” Barr reported.

“
Ja,
”
was the simple reply.

He
looked over at Mallory, saw him studying the manifest, and then
turned his attention to the satellite.

They
would be coming in slowly this time. It was a risk to return to the
same area as before, but a necessary one. The Grauen's field wake
had come too close to the satellite. It certainly would have
drifted. The longer they wait, the further it might stray. But how
far had it gone? The machine would plot the best guess but there was
no way to expect accuracy out of these measurements. A field wake
was not a phenomenon of normal space, and therefore its influence
could not be in the realm of normal physics.

“Sixty
seconds.” Barr applied more braking and extended the trap.
They were practically crawling now. He switched the display mode to
a tactical view and the dome washed out the continents on the Earth
below. The flight path projected on the dome began to split. The
rechner could no longer compute the expected position as one straight
line.

“Why so slow?” asked Mallory.

“That Grauen field wake jarred the satellite's orbit,” Barr
explained. “We cannot have a fix unless we get really close.
We may have to make several passes or wait for it to realign.”

“Why
are you only finding out now?”

Barr
took a deep breath. “We knew there would be a deviation when
the Grauen passed us.”

“I did not know that.”

“Well, why did you think we were coming in so slowly?”

Mallory didn't have time for an answer, even if he had one. An alarm sounded
again, only this time it was a damage alarm. They had just hit the
satellite.

“
Scheiss!
”
shouted Barr. But it was worse than that. The satellite's
unterkarbon net tore loose from its mount and a few of its fibers
touched inside the Tiger's open cargo hold. Barr's status display
lit up in a way he had only seen in a simulation. The unterkarbon
was reacting to the normal matter. He jettisoned the cargo, a rack
of satellites they'd taken in before. But it wasn't enough.

“What
do I do?” asked Mallory.

“Just
man the guns,” Barr said angrily. Seconds ticked by and the
display indicated more trouble was brewing. The Tiger's engines were
affected, which Barr took to mean a failure of the power system. Or
was it? Three percent of the engines were out. Then four percent,
and then five.
What was going on?