The Iron Dream (15 page)

ating hot air, and I'm therefore pleased to offer you my services."

Feric was deeply touched by this profession of loyalty from a man of such caliber. Waf&ng's blunt honesty was quite convincing, expeciaUy since there wasn't an ounce of false humility in it. Only a fine specimen of true humanity secure in the knowledge of his own heroic nature could make such an immediate declaration of faith in the cause while seeming neither arrogant nor suspiciously submissive.

"I welcome you to Party membership. Brigadier Waffing," Feric said. "I'm sure you'll serve the cause well."

"I'm just as sure of that as you are!" Waning exclaimed with a hearty laugh. "From what I've been able to find out about your organization—which is considerable, since I have ready access to all Star Command intelligence reports—you lack proper military leadership. You, of course, possess the instincts for supreme command, Trueman Jaggar, but then your level of military leadership sinks all the way to the abyss of this ruffian Stopa."

"Stopa does his job well enough," Feric replied cautiously. "The cracked heads of hundreds of Universalist thugs are testimony to the efficiency and force of the Knights of the Swastika under his command."

Waning smiled. "No doubt, no doubt," he said. "I'm sure the man leads his little band well enough for now.

But you can't seriously consider placing that sort at the head of a real army."

Feric sensed some inner meaning to all this. "The Knights of the Swastika are merely a private security force," he said blandly. "They are hardly an army."

"I'll speak bluntly" Waning said. "Much of the Star Command is sympathetic to the Sons of the Swastika, but out of a firm sense of preserving their own position, they won't let the Knights grow much more powerful under the present leadership."

"Under the present leadership?"

"You can hardly expect the Star Command to trust the 100

friendly intentions of a powerful force led by such as Stopa. On the other hand, if your storm troops were led by a man whom the generals trusted, they would be more secure in their belief that the Knights of the Swastika represented an ally rather than a rival."

Feric could not help chuckling aloud. "A man such as yourself?" he asked Waffing.

Waning put on a broad, mock-humble expression. "It's true that I'm an experienced leader of men and that I have the confidence of the Star Command," he said. "As for my personal qualifications, I would not presume to advise you in that regard, Commander Jaggar."

"Have you been put up to this by the Star Command?"

Waffing's reply was instant, forceful, and characterized by intense, indeed fanatic, sincerity. "My loyalty is to yourself and to the Sons of the Swastika, my Commander!" he shouted, his eyes flashing fire. "If you so direct, I will take up a post of latrine orderly so as to serve you and the Swastika! The Star Command knows nothing of this; I merely inform you of the attitude of the generals and suggest a solution."

The situation was crystal clear. With Stopa in command, the army would not permit the Knights to grow to the point where they presented a potential threat, that is to say, to the point where they became a militarily useful force. With Waffing as his military commander, the Star Command would be less resentful; indeed they might be won over entirely, being for the most part good Helder patriots. On the other hand, the nucleus of the Knights was the ex-Avengers and the men they had recruited; these fellows had an awe of Stopa second only to their respect for his own person. To replace Stopa with an outsider like Waffing would surely stir trouble in the ranks.

A subtle solution was called for.

"I will appoint you Party Security Secretary," Feric told Waffing. "I will create a new bodyguard to be called the Swastika Squad, a true elite, chosen for devotion, genetic purity, physical force, and high intelligence. You will directly command neither the Knights nor the Swastika Squad; however, in your capacity of Security Secretary, you will be the superior of the heads of both storm troops. This arrangement should mollify the Star Com-

mand."

Waffing broke into a broad grin. "A stroke of genius!"

he declared. "Better than I could've worked out myself."

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Once again, Waffing laughed heartily. "When you know me letter," he said impishly, "you'll know just how high a compliment such an admission is, coming from the lips of Lar Waffing!"

At this Bogel, and Feric himself, could not help but burst into comradely laughter.

At last Feric was able to call the first full meeting of the Swastika Circle, the thoroughly reorganized and renamed Party heirarchy, and could not be other than heartily pleased with the great changes he had wrought. Gone were the petty-fogging Party titles, replaced by honorifics of rigor and force, which, moreover, served to make the chain of command crystal clear. Gone were the idiosyn-cratic styles of personal garb with which the Party leaders had first greeted Feric's eye; with the exception of Stopa in his brown Knight's uniform, every man seated around the plain oaken table in the stark conference room was resplendent in the black leather of the Party elite.

Moreover, the makeup of the Swastika Circle fully reflected Feric's will. Bogel was now High Commander of Public Will in charge of both formulating the aims of the Party and making those aims the desires of the Helder people, thus banishing the likes of Parmerob and Marker from high Party circles. Haulman was still Party Treasurer, but without the rank of High Commander; a distinction that made the relationship of economic necessity and Party policy abundantly clear. Waffing was High Commander of Security. Stopa had been given the ambig-uous title of Commandant of the Knights of the Swastika, which ranked him below Waffing, although he was entitled to a place on the Swastika Circle. For the sake of symmetry, Bors Remler, Commandant of the new Swastika Squad, had also been admitted to the Swastika Circle. In order to emphasize the absolute supremacy of his position as Supreme Commander, Feric had appointed Best to the Swastika Circle with the full rank of High Commander, though the lad lacked even a single subordinate in the line of command. As for Bluth and Decker, they had been banished to the obscurity that such nonentities deserved. All in all, the Party's house had been put firmly in order for the heroic struggle to come.

Feric opened the meeting without formalities; the atmosphere was more that of a meeting of comrades to discuss battlefield strategy than of a bourgeois party hot-air ses-102

sion. "Our ultimate goal is the re-establishment of true human rule over the habitable earth and the extinction of all subhuman sapients. The first major step in this direction must be to establish the absolute rule of the Swastika in Heldon. We must now take practical steps to bring us to total power."

This forthright statement was greeted with fervent enthusiasm. Remler in particular seemed to shine with fanatic fire; his icy blue eyes and thin aquiline features radiated an almost papable patriotic frenzy.

"With five hundred cycles and five thousand trooperSr the Knights can take Walder in a day," Stopa promised.

"With a thousand cycles and ten thousand men, we'll march on Heldhime and squash the bugs with our boots!"

"It's not that simple," Waning said, without raising his voice in anger. "If the Knights take Walder or march on the capital, the government will order the army to crush us. Rather than display fear in the face of an armed enemy, the Star Command will move against us and our cause will be lost. We cannot hope to defeat the regular army in an all-out civil war."

"I myself favor the electoral method," Bogel said.

"There will be a Council election soon; all nine seats will be at stake. I feel confident that we can elect at least Feric to the Council. With Feric in Heldhime as a Councillor, we certainly should be able to place four more men on the Council in the election after that, only five years hence."

Render's thin, shiny face blazed with indignation. "We cannot think of waiting five years to seize power!" he exclaimed. "How many genes will be lost in five years?

How much deeper will the Doms worm their way into the body of Heldon? How much stronger will the Universalists grow? It is our sacred racial duty to seize absolute power with the least possible delay!"

"Well spoken!" Feric declared. There was no doubt that he had chosen well when he picked Remler out of the ranks to head the SS. The fellow was a brilliant but utterly pragmatic idealist and he had stated the moral imperative precisely. The twin red lightning bolts that Feric had made the special ensign of the SS well suited his vigor and style; Remler was a fine model for the elite of genetic purebreds he would command.

Remler's speech had only confirmed the moral and pragmatic suitability of the plan upon which Feric had 103

already decided. To commit the Party to seeking power by means^ of decadent electoral legalism alone would be treason to the sacred cause of genetic purity. However, a political campaign would give Party propaganda a most useful focus, and, more to the point, each candidate for the Council was given one hour of national television time a week to use as he saw fit.

"I have decided our immediate course," Feric declared.

"I and I alone will seek a Council seat. The fact that my candidacy will give us access to one hour of public television a week to fill with our own propaganda—which need not be confined to the banalities of electoral politics—is enough to convince me to run. Throughout the campaign, we'll stage mass rallies and displays of force. We'll drive the Universalists from the streets with fist and iron and make things hot enough for the Traditionalists and Libertarians as well. The goal will not be so much to win the election as to impress the patriotic people of Heldon with our determination to gain power and our genetic and ideological fitness to wield it. We will deliberately call down the wrath of the Universalist goon squads upon us for the purpose of getting them to put their skulls in position for bashing. The Party will not be used as a tool for winning the election; rather the election will be used as a tool for furthering the Party's ultimate ends."

At this, even the idealistic Remler joined in the general applause. The instrument of final victory had been forged; now it would be wielded with ruthless fanaticism and overwhelming force.

Heldhime Municipal Stadium was a vast concrete bowl that seated well over one hundred thousand people, and on the evening of the first mass rally of the Sons of the Swastika ever to be held in the capital, every last inch of seating room, and standing room as well, was packed solid with true humanity. The upper rim of the grandstand as well as the inner wall of the arena had been festooned with resplendent red, white, and black swastika bunting, which made for a fervent patriotic atmosphere.

A speaker's platform had been erected in the exact center of the arena floor; this was a simple cube of white-painted wood ten feet on a side. Upon it, the speaker would be visible from every comer of the stadium.

Surrounding the speaker's platform and filling the arena floor was a sea of uniforms and fire. Eight thousand 104

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Knights of the Swastika in their brown leather uniforms stood at attention holding flaming torches aloft. Among these Knights stood two thousand Swastika Squadsmen in black leather uniforms with special black capes, forming a great swastika of men centered on the speaker's platform.

Since the SS formation was torchless, the appearance of the arena floor from the upper rim of the stadium where Feric had had television cameras placed was that of a great circle of fire on which was emblazoned a giant black swastika that gleamed like some fantastic metal in the massed torchlight. The pure white speaker's platform stood out in the center of this huge black swastika like the hub of the universe.

Waiting inside the hollow speaker's platform with Lar Waffing for the rally to begin, Feric was filled with an almost unbearable elation; this mass meeting with its announcement of his candidacy would be the climax of the most exciting week he had yet spent in Heldon. His first visit to the greatest city in the world, with its heroic architecture and advanced technology, was thrilling enough for its own sake, but, more to the point at this juncture, Heldhime was in every way the center of power in Heldon. Here the Council sat, and here were headquartered the government ministries, the Star Command, and most of the great industrial concerns of the High Republic. The most advanced scientific research and production facilities were in Heldhime. The reigns of power were here to be grasped.

Waning had introduced Feric in high economic circles, as well as to important members of the Army Star Command. Many of the industrialists had poured funds into the Party coffers, and to a man the generals had proven to be opponents of the Universalists and the Doms; many openly admitted that they longed for the day when they would be ordered to crush these vermin. For his part, Feric left them with the solemn promise that when he became ruler of Heldon, they would have their wish and then some.

Further, Feric's fame had come to the capital before him, and little crowds of cheering citizens formed around him fhe instant he showed his face in public. Officers he had never seen greeted him with enthusiastic Party salutes. When he attended the theater, he was given a three-minute standing ovation by the audience as he entered his box.

Thus he awaited the commencement of the rally with a 105

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sense of keen anticipation and overwhelming self-confi-dence.

As the public television coverage commenced, Lar Waning, massively impressive in his black Party uniform and red swastika cloak, shook his hand for luck, and then puffed up the wooden stairway, appearing on the speaker's platform to an avalanche of massed cheering and saluting.

The hour of destiny had come! At this very instant, Bogel would be speaking in Walder's Am Square, where thousands would be gathered about the public television receiver to hear Feric's speech. Similar mass torchlight rallies were being held around public television receivers in every city, town, and village in Heldon, and officials of the Sons of the Swastika, great and small, were at this very moment preparing to announce him.