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“That’s true-they won’t,” Dornberger said, which nipped his hope before it was truly born. The Fuhrer went on, “But that doesn’t mean I don’t need you closer to home. I’m going to order you here to Flensburg, Hans. You’ve got no idea what a small cadre I have of men I can really trust.”
“Sir…” Drucker’s voice trailed away. Dornberger had him by the short hairs, and he knew it. Of course the Reich’s new leader could trust him. Dornberger knew why the Gestapo had seized Kathe. If Drucker gave him any trouble, the blackshirts could always grab her again.
“I’ll have a car there for you-for all of you-in a couple of days,” Dornberger said. He didn’t mention the sword he’d hung over Drucker’s head. Why would he? Smoother not to, smoother by far. The Fuhrer continued, “You’ll be doing important work here-don’t kid yourself for a moment about that. And you’ll have the rank to go with it, too. Major general sounds about right, at least for starters.”
“Major general?” Now Drucker’s voice was a disbelieving squeak. The young lieutenant who’d brought him to the fire station stared at him. He didn’t look as if he believed it, either.
But Walter Dornberger repeated, “For starters. We’ll see how you shape in the job when you get here. I hope to see you soon-and your whole family.” He hung up. The line went dead.
“Sir…” The lieutenant spoke with considerably more respect than he’d given Drucker up till then. “Sir, shall I escort you back to your house?”
“No, never mind.” Drucker walked back to his wife’s uncle’s in something of a daze. He didn’t know what he’d thought Dornberger would have to say to him. Whatever it was, it didn’t come close to matching the real conversation.
When he went into the house, the children, Kathe, and her uncle Lothar all pounced on him. The children exclaimed in pride and delight when he gave them the news. Lothar slapped him on the back. Kathe congratulated him, too, but he saw the worry in her eyes. She knew the grip Dornberger had on him through her. He shrugged. He couldn’t do anything about it but hope things would work out all right. He wished he could think of some-thing else, but what else was there?
The motorcar that came for them was an immense Mercedes limousine. People up and down the street stared as they piled into it. Drucker hoped it wouldn’t tempt some ambitious band of holdouts into trying a hijacking. It purred away from Neu Strelitz in almost ghostly silence.
A few hours later, they were in Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein hard by the Danish border. “It’s like another world,” Kathe breathed as the motorcar pulled to a stop in front of the Flensborg-Hus, the hotel where the Reich was putting them up till they found permanent lodgings. And so it was: a world that hadn’t seen war. In the Reich, that made it almost unique. It was the main reason Walter Dornberger had chosen the town at the west end of the Flensburger Forde, an arm of the Baltic projecting into the neck of land that led up to Denmark.
Some of the people at the hotel spoke more Danish than German. The monogram of Frederick IV of Denmark stood above the gate: he’d built the Flensborg-Hus as an orphanage in 1725.
A major general’s uniform waited in the room to which the bellboy led Drucker. He put it on with a growing feeling of unreality. After he’d adjusted the high-peaked cap to the proper jaunty angle, Heinrich’s arm shot out in salute. “You look very handsome,” Kathe said loyally. If her heart wasn’t in the words, how could he blame her?
The next morning, a lieutenant who might have been brother to the one back in Neu Strelitz took him to the Fuhrer. Walter Dornberger was working out of another hotel not far from the downtown maritime museum. A servant brought Drucker pickled herring and lager beer. After he’d eaten and drunk, he asked, “What will you have me doing, sir?”
“We’ve got to rebuild,” Dornberger said. “We have to conceal as much as we can from the Lizards. And we have to take full control of the country, put down the outlaw bands or at least bring them under government control. Until we’ve done all those things, we’re hideously vulnerable. I’m going to put you to work at concealment. The more weapons we can keep from turning over to the Lizards, the better.”
“What have we got left?” Drucker asked. “Explosive-metal bombs? Poison gas?” Dornberger just smiled and said nothing. Drucker found another question: “What do I do if the Lizards find some of it?”
“Give it up, of course,” Walter Dornberger answered. “We can’t afford to do anything else-not yet we can’t. One of these days, though…”
“If the Lizards are patient, we have to be patient, too,” Drucker said.
“Just so.” Dornberger beamed at him. “You will do very well here, I think.”
By God, maybe I will, Drucker thought.
“Well, well.” Gorppet looked up from a listing of new appointments by the Deutsch government. “This may be interesting.”
“What have you found?” Hozzanet asked.
“Remember that male named Johannes Drucker, with whom I had some dealings because he was associated with Anielewicz?” Gorppet waited for his superior to make the affirmative gesture, then went on, “He has turned up in Flensburg with a promotion of two grades.”
“That is interesting,” Hozzanet agreed. “What is he doing there, to earn such a sudden, sharp advance?”
“His title, translated, is ‘commandant of recovery services,’ ” Gorppet replied after checking the monitor. “That is so vague, it could mean anything.”
“I always mistrust vague titles,” Hozzanet said. “They usually mean the Big Uglies are trying to hide something.”
“We already know the Deutsche are trying to hide as much as they can from us,” Gorppet said.
“Really? I never would have noticed,” Hozzanet said. The Race didn’t have an ironic cough to set beside the emphatic and the interrogative. Had it possessed such a cough, Hozzanet would have used one then.
“Here, however, we are in an unusual position, because this Drucker speaks our language fairly well and has interacted with us in ways that are not hostile,” Gorppet persisted. “We have some hope of getting him to see reason and cooperate with us.”
“Really?” Hozzanet repeated, still sounding anything but convinced. “Is this Drucker not the male who refused to tell you anything whatsoever about how the male who drove him to, ah, Neu Strelitz ended up dead something less than halfway there?”
“Well, yes,” Gorppet said. “But that was an individual matter. This one pertains to the survival of his not-empire. If he sees he will endanger the Reich by refusing to cooperate, I think he will tell us at least some of what we need to know.”
“My opinion is that you are far too optimistic, if not utterly addled,” Hozzanet said. “But I can see you do not intend to listen to me. Go ahead, then: call this Drucker. I will warn you of one thing, though-accept none of his denials without proof. Distrust them even with thorough proof.”
“You may believe otherwise if you like, superior sir, but I really must assure you that I did not hatch from my eggshell yesterday,” Gorppet said stiffly. “I do know that Big Uglies will lie whenever it suits their interest to do so-and sometimes, I think, just for the sport of it. And…” His voice trailed off. He didn’t go on with whatever he’d been on the point of saying. Whatever it was, in fact, he forgot all about it. He started to laugh instead.
“And what is so funny?” Hozzanet asked. “Give me something to make me laugh, too, if you would be so kind. I could use a good laugh, b
y the Emperor.” He cast down his eye turrets.
So did Gorppet, who then answered, “It shall be done, superior sir. It just occurred to me: I believe I have the proper tool for persuading this particular Tosevite to listen to me and to do my bidding, or some of it.”
“Tell me,” Hozzanet urged. “Such a claim is usually all the better for proof. I do not think this likely to prove an exception to the rule.”
“I agree, superior sir,” Gorppet said. “Consider, though. When we first met Drucker, in whose company was he? In whose friendly company was he? Why, that of Mordechai Anielewicz.” He pronounced the Tosevite name with care. “And who is Mordechai Anielewicz? A leader of the members of the Jewish superstition in the subregion called Poland. The ideology of Drucker’s superiors requires permanent hatred for members of the Jewish superstition. If those superiors were to learn from us that he had violated their fundamental rule…”
He waited for Hozzanet’s judgment. If he’d missed something obvious, the other male would take sardonic pleasure in letting him know about it. But Hozzanet bent into the posture of respect, a very sizable compliment when from superior to inferior. “That is good. That is quite good,” he said, and added an emphatic cough. “By all means, make your telephone call. We may realize considerable profit from it. Blackmail is liable to prove more effective than friendship. This is Tosev 3, after all.”
“I thank you, superior sir,” Gorppet said. He had no trouble telephoning Flensburg. The Race often needed to do so, to tell Deutsch officials what to do. Even though he spoke none of the local Big Uglies’ language, he was quickly connected to Johannes Drucker: plenty of Deutsche, especially those involved with communication, could use the language of the Race. The line was voice-only, but he didn’t mind that; he was not good at interpreting Tosevite facial expressions.
