The Iron Dream (16 page)

Waffing stepped up to the microphone and gestured for silence; in a moment a great hush filled the packed stadium. Waffing's introduction was surprisingly brief and to the point.

"Sons of the Swastika, fellow patriots, true Helder everywhere, I present the Supreme Commander of the Sons of the Swastika, our great and glorious leader, Peric Jaggarl"

At this, the scene in Heldhime Stadium became pure bedlam. The great crowd seemed determined to shout itself hoarse, while the sea of torches on the arena floor tossed madly, and the SS men in the great black swastika formation saluted again and again in perfect and fervent unison. Slowly, Feric climbed the stairs and emerged onto the speaker's platform and into this awe-inspiring universe of name and cheering and massed saluting. At the sight of this heroic figure in his tight-fitting black-and-chrome uniform, his red swastika cloak trailing majestically behind him, the Great Truncheon of Held secured to his studded leather belt, twin red lightning-bolts emblazoned on each of his high black boots, the enthusiasm of the great throng reached a new fever pitch of frenzy.

Feric clapped Waning on the shoulder as he departed and then stood alone on the white platform at the hub of the great black swastika gleaming in the fiery sea of massed torches. He was totally surrounded, engulfed, by cheering, saluting, arm-waving Helder, the focus of the souls of thousands of people he could see all around him and millions more waiting for his word throughout the length and breadth of the land. The roar of the crowd was like 106

the legendary heaven-shattering sky thunder of the ancients in intensity and magnificence, a sound that enveloped Feric's being in mythic grandeur.

Standing at the exact focal point in space and time of this turning point in history, his soul the center of a sea of patriotic fire, Feric felt the power of cosmic destiny flow through him and fill his being with the racial will of the Helder people. In a very real sense, he was the pinnacle of the evolutionary force; when he spoke, he would advance the course of human evolution toward a new height of racial purity by an act of his own will. Through his lips would speak the collective voice of true humanity. At the moment of such an act, he was the Party, he was the racial will; he was Heldon.

At the peak of the ovation, Feric raised his hand in the Party salute, and the almost instant silence was even more awe-inspiring than the tumult had been. The breath of the whole world seemed to be held in anticipation, waiting for him to speak.

"Fellow Helder," he said simply, the echoes of his voice reverberating back to him and filling the massive silence with his presence, "I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for a seat on the Council of State. I stand alone as the standard bearer of the Sons of the Swastika, for I run for the Council not to join the decadent rabble who control that farce as one Councillor among equals, but the better to bring this cabal of limp-wristed traitors and cowards crashing down in pieces into the rubbish-heap of history. Election of a Swastika majority on the Council would not be enough to save true humanity from the perils that beset it; even a Council composed entirely of Sons of the Swastika would not suffice. Heroic challenges demand heroic acts!"

Deliberately, so that none might miss the gesture, Feric placed his right hand upon the hilt of the Great Truncheon of Held, though he refrained from drawing the noble weapon.

"Once this Great Truncheon was the sceptre of the kings of Heldon; now I wield it, not as claimant to any royal title, but as the instrument of our racial will. I take part in this ludicrous election only to allow the racial will to make itself known by my election to a Council seat!

Once elected, I will base my actions not on the dictates of some numerical majority, nor out of some sense of fealty to petty-fogging legalism, but on the principle of unswerving 107

loyalty to the racial will, to the genetic purity of Heldon, and to the cause of total human victory over all mutants and mongrels everywherel"

At this, the crowded stadium once more broke into a prolonged and absolutely thunderous ovation, while the SS

men in the swastika formation saluted again and again with iron perfection and fanatic force.

Feric removed his hand from the hilt of the Steel Commander and held it up for silence. Instantly, a great hush came over the stadium; by extension, Feric could feel this expectant quiet extending to millions of souls in public squares all over the nation, for in this moment all Heldon was bound together in the mystic communion of the racial will.

Speaking somewhat more measuredly, Feric filled the waiting void with words that struck a noble chord in every Holder breast. 'Today I call upon every true man in Heldon, every patriot, every specimen of the true human genotype, every denizen of this wide realm that walks on two feet like a man, to rise up in a great body of enraged heroes and carry the Sons of the Swastika, as the bearers of our racial cause and the cause of sapient evolution, to total and final victory!"

Once again, Feric's right hand went to the hilt of the Great Truncheon of Held. "I do not beg for your votes like the unmanly bourgeois politicians!" he shouted. "Nor do I seek to capture your votes with guile like the Universalist lackeys of the foul subhuman Dominators. As the human embodiment of the racial will, I command them as my right! And I command morel I command every true son of Heldon to take to the streets tonight in overwhelming force. With your massed presence and patriotic fanaticism, I command you to convince all you encounter of the righteousness of our cause, the irresistibility of our will, and the certainty of our final and total victory!

Should Universalist scum show their wretched faces, smash their skulls and grind their ruined bodies beneath the soles of your booted feet! Should supporters of other parties remonstrate with you by word or deed, persuade those capable of reason, and ram the others aside! Let the forces of the Swastika march throughout Heldon this night and far into dawn! Make the streets ours!"

With this, Feric drew the Great Truncheon of Held and thrust it toward 'the heavens, a huge shaft of gleaming metal aimed at the stars; the glistening headball sucked up 108

the power of the massed torchlight and flung bolts of this physical manifestation of the racial force flying to every section of the stadium, and via the airwaves to all Heldon.

At this signal, the thousands of Knights and SS men began a circular close-order march around the hub of the speaker's platform, filling the stadium and all Heldon with the drumfire thunder of high-stepping steel-shod boots. From above, the great circle of flame on the arena floor seemed virtually motionless while the great black SS

swastika rotated about Feric endlessly and irresistibly, like the grinding wheel of fate.

To Feric, it seemed as if he stood at the axis of the world, with all Heldon rotating at his feet, the racial will pivoting about his being, as he brought his speech to a crashing climax.

"Hail Heldon!" he shouted with every last physical and mental fiber of his being. "Hail the Swastika! Hail final victory!"

Standing in the center of the great revolving swastika, the epicenter of the nationwide eruption of racial will, his body thrumming to the heady thunder of fourteen thousand marching feet, Feric felt a total fusion with his people, as if every Helder now pouring into the streets throughout the land were an extension of his flesh, his being.

And from a hundred thousand throats in the stadium, from millions of new Swastika fanatics choking every public square in the nation, the reply came in one great racial voice from amidst groves and forests of outstretched arms, the racial will itself speaking in a transcendent bellow that shook the very land with its thunder: "HAIL

JAGGAR! HAIL JAGGAR! HAIL JAGGAR!"

8

From the outset, the legalistic result of the election was a foregone conclusion. Since Feric was the sole candidate of the Swastika while the other parties ran full slates of 109

nine candidates for the nine Council seats which were filled at large nationwide, his election to the Council was assured.

What was also assured was that he would be the only Swastika Councillor on a Council that would probably be dominated once more by the Libertarians, a result Feric considered altogether desirable. Far better to be a lone hero opposing a gang of traitors and poltroons than the leader of a minority political party!

Since the legalistic result of the election was not in question, the campaign could be used to further more absolute goals: to demonstrate the ruthless and forceful fanaticism with which the Sons of the Swastika pursued their sacred ends, and to show that the racial will spoke through Feric by assuring that he got more total votes than any other Councillor. Fortunately, these two election goals were entirely compatible; they could be pursued with undivided attention and total concentration of force.

Thus, three days before the election itself, Feric stood erect in the rear of his open command car, resplendent in his black leather uniform and scarlet cape, and holding the Steel Commander in his hand for all to see, ready to lead his men into the climactic battle of the election campaign.

Crouching before him in the car also in the black leather of the Party elite were Bors Render and Ludolf Best, armed with spanking new submachine guns.

The force that Feric led through the streets of Heldhime toward Oak Park was of necessity the largest and finest troop that the Sons of the Swastika had yet fielded, for Feric had deliberately challenged the Universalist filth to do their worst by grandly announcing that the final election rally of the Sons of the Swastika would be held in this grimy park located smack in the center of Borburg, a malodorous district notorious for being the largest and foulest nest of Doms and their Universalist lackeys in all Heldon. If the Universalists allowed such a rally to be staged without destroying it by force, they would be totally discredited as a serious contender for power, not only in Heldhime, but throughout the High Republic, since Peric had chosen to expend his final hour of public television time on coverage of this rally.

For his part, Feric knew that the Sons of the Swastika must maintain the safety and integrity of their rally in these utterly hostile surroundings, or suffer similar ignomi-ny. Feric had therefore assembled a force fully capable of dealing with any eventuality. In front of his command car 110

was a roadsteamer fitted out with a great iron plow; behind this shield lay three SS machine gunners, and inside the roadsteamer was a shock troop of the finest SS purebreds armed with truncheons and submachine guns.

Immediately surrounding Feric's car was a squad of SS

fanatics in snug black leather mounted on gleaming black motorcycles embellished with the shiniest of chrome brightwork. Behind Feric's car marched five thousand Knights of the Swastika carrying truncheons, torches. Swastika flags, and lengths of heavy chain. To the rear of this foot troop were two thousand motorized Knights, and as rear guard five hundred fanatic SS on foot armed with submachine guns and truncheons.

Throughout the campaign, both the SS and the Knights had acquitted themselves nobly. The hecklers who plagued every Swastika rally no sooner opened their mouths than their heads were split open by SS truncheons; the Knights ranged far and wide, to the point where no Universalist or bourgeois orator could open his mouth in front of ten people at a time without making himself the hapless target of their iron fists. Three times the Universalists had attempted to hold giant rallies, and three times motorized storm troops had sent the vermin scattering.

Now, however, the Universalists and the Doms could be expected to do their very worst. As Feric's car followed the armed roadsteamer down Torm Avenue, an ordure-strewn ditch surrounded on either side by reeking tenement slums, Feric gripped the handle of the Great Truncheon tightly, ready and eager for action.

"My Commander, look!" Best suddenly shouted, pointing up the avenue with the barrel of his submachine gun. A rude barricade of beams, crates, and all manner of garbage and rubbish had been thrown across the street up ahead to bar the passage of motorcycles. Behind this stood a mindless horde of filthy, pathetic, Dom-controlled rabble, armed with clubs, cleavers, knives, and whatever else came to hand; these wild-eyed wretches choked the street ahead as far as the eye could see. Fluttering above this sordid mob were greasy, tattered blue rags bearing the yellow star-in^

circle—the battle flag of the Dom-controlled Universalists.

"Don't worry. Best," Feric said, "we'll make short work of these vermin!" For indeed, he had fitted out the roadsteamer for dealing with just such tactics.

Twenty yards from the barricade, the machine gunners on the roadsteamer opened up. The jeering rabble behind 111

the roadblock broke into shrieks of pain, fear, and dismay, as their ranks suddenly were bloodied and decimated by the hail of bullets. Scores of the creatures spurted blood from innumerable gaping wounds and fell. Their comrades crushed the wounded and the dead underfoot, pressing and clawing at each other in a frantic and futile attempt to fall back up the street away from the Swastika force; since the street was packed for its entire length, this action proved as impossible as it was craven.

The plow of the roadsteamer struck the rude barricade at twenty-five miles an hour, smashing it to flinders, and pushing the rubble aside. The SS gunners inside the roadsteamer began firing massed volleys into the grimy tenements on either side of the street, feeding the panic.

"Forward!" Feric shouted at the top of his lungs, waving the Great Truncheon of Held high overhead. As the guns of the roadsteamer fell silent, the command car, surrounded by its honor guard of SS motorcycles, led the huge formation of marching Knights around the steamer and straight into the press of Universalist scum.

The truncheons of the Knights rose and fell like pile drivers, pounding screaming Dom-controlled creatures into the ground; chains whirled through the air like wind-mills, cracking open Universalist heads like so many rotten eggs. A dozen huge fellows carrying long knives suddenly rushed through the screen of motorcycles straight at the command car, their eyes aglow with the mindless frenzy of Dominator slaves, flecks of slaver wetting their lips.