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“But this is from Flensburg,” she said, and all the other Red Cross women exclaimed when she mentioned the new capital. Even the typist stopped typing. In an awed whisper, the woman went on, “This is from the Fuhrer, from the Fuhrer himself. We are to help this man, he says.”
They all crowded around to examine, and to exclaim over, the special telegraph form with the eagle with the swastika in its claws. After that, Johannes Drucker found things going much more smoothly. Instead of being a client and hence an obvious inferior, he was a man known to the Fuhrer-the Fuhrer himself, Drucker thought sourly-and hence an obvious superior.
“Helga!” the blue-eyed woman barked. “Check the records at once for the Herr Oberstleutnant. Drucker. Kathe. Heinrich. Adolf. Claudia. At once!” Drucker’s eyebrows rose. She’d been listening. She just hadn’t wanted to do anything about it. To him, that made things worse, not better-lazy, sour bitch.
Helga said, “Jawohl!” and went for the file boxes at the run-so fast that a lock of her blond hair escaped the pins with which she imprisoned it. She grabbed the right one without even looking and riffled through the forms in it. Then, on the off chance something had gone wrong, she went through the boxes to either side. Having done that, she looked up at Drucker and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we have here no record of them.” Since he was known to the Fuhrer, she actually sounded sorry, not bored as she might well have otherwise.
It wasn’t as if Drucker hadn’t heard it before, too many times. Lately, though, he’d added a new string to his bow. “See if you have anyone who was living on Pfordtenstrasse in Greifswald.” Maybe a neighbor would know something. Maybe.
“Helga!” the woman holding the telegram thundered again. While Helga went to a different set of file boxes, Drucker got the precious sheet of yellow paper back. He’d need it to overawe people somewhere else.
Sorting through those boxes took longer. After fifteen minutes or so, Helga looked up. “I have an Andreas Bauriedl, at 27 Pfordtenstrasse.”
“By God!” Drucker exclaimed. “Andreas the hatter! He lives-lived-only three doors down from me. Can you have him fetched here?”
They could. They did. Half an hour later, there was skinny little Andreas, ten years older than Drucker, hurrying in to shake his hand. “Good to see you, Hans!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t know you’d made it.”
“I’m here,” Drucker answered. “What about my family? Do you know anything?”
“They gave Heinrich a rifle, same as they did me, and put him in a Volkssturm battalion,” Bauriedl answered. “That was when the Lizards were getting close to Greifswald, you know. If you were a man and you were breathing, they gave you a rifle and hoped for the best. It was pretty bad.”
Boys and old men, Drucker thought. Everybody else would have already gone into the Wehrmacht. He asked the question he had to ask: “Do you know what happened to him?”
Bauriedl shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you, Hans. He got called in a couple of days before I did, and into a different unit. I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you more.”
Drucker sighed. He’d learned a little something, anyhow. “What about Kathe and the other children?”
“They left town right after Heinrich went in. Piled into the VW and took off.” Bauriedl frowned. “Something about Uncle Lothar? Uncle Ludwig? I was coming up the street when she drove by. She called out to me, in case I saw you. I’d tell you more, but they bombed the block a few minutes later. They got Effi, damn them. We were in different rooms, and…” He grimaced. “I went into the Volkssturm hoping I’d get killed too. No such luck.”
“I’m sorry.” Drucker hoped he sounded sincere. He’d heard so many stories like that. But excitement burned in him, too. “Kathe has”-he made himself use the present tense-“an uncle down in Neu Strelitz. I think his name starts with an L. I’ll tell you one thing-I’m going to find out.” Neu Strelitz wasn’t so far away, not when he’d already walked from Nuremberg. But maybe he wouldn’t have to walk. He had connections now, and he intended to use them.
Gorppet was discovering he liked intelligence work. It was for males of a mistrustful cast of mind. It was also for males who wanted more than just to be given orders. He got to think for himself without becoming an object of suspicion.
He was writing a report on what he suspected to be underground activity among the Deutsche when a Big Ugly came into the tent and said, “I greet you, superior sir. I am Johannes Drucker, the friend of Mordechai Anielewicz.”
“And I greet you.” The Tosevite had named himself, which Gorppet found considerate. Even after so long on Tosev 3, even after his spectacular capture of that maniac of a Khomeini, he still found that most Big Uglies looked alike. Since this Drucker had announced who he was, Gorppet could proceed to the next obvious question: “And what do you want with me today?”
“Superior sir, does the Race have a garrison in the town of Neu Strelitz?”
“I have no idea,” Gorppet answered. “Say the name again, so that I can enter it into our computer and find out.” Drucker did. As best Gorppet could, he turned the odd sounds of the Deutsch language into the Race’s familiar characters. The screen displayed a map of the Reich, with a town south of Greifswald blinking on it. That the displayed town was blinking meant the computer system wasn’t sure of the identification. Gorppet pointed at the town with his tongue. “Is this the place you mean?”
Johannes Drucker leaned forward to get a better look at the monitor. His head went up and down in the Big Uglies’ affirmative gesture. “Yes, superior sir, that is the right place.”
“Very well.” Gorppet spoke to the computer. The light indicating Neu Strelitz stopped blinking. Gorppet interrogated the data system, then turned back to the Tosevite. “No, at present we have no males in that town. We cannot be everywhere, you know.” That was a truth that worried him. The Deutsche might well be hatching trouble under the Race’s snout-there just weren’t enough males to watch everything at once. But he said nothing of that to Drucker: no point in giving a former Deutsch officer ideas. He probably had too many already. Gorppet did ask, “Why do you wish to know that?”
“My mate and two of my hatchlings may be there,” Drucker replied. “I was hoping that, if the Race did have males in that place, I could there in one of your vehicles travel.” Every so often, he would forget about the verb till the end of a sentence. A lot of Deutsche did that when speaking the language of the Race. The Big Ugly’s sigh was amazingly like that of a male of the Race. “Now must I walk.”
“Wait.” Gorppet thought hard. Mordechai Anielewicz was a Tosevite the Race needed to keep happy. That meant keeping his friend happy, too-especially where kin were concerned. Anielewicz himself had been almost insane with joy after recovering his own hatchlings and mate. And having a former Deutsch officer owing the Race a debt of gratitude might not be the worst thing in the world, either. It might, in fact, prove very useful. Gorppet said, “Let me make a telephone call or two and I will see what I can do.”
“I thank you,” Drucker said. “Do you mind if I on the ground sit? I do not fit well inside this tent.”
Sure enough, he had to bend his head forward a little to keep from bumping the fabric of the roof, an unnatural and uncomfortable posture for a Big Ugly. “Go ahead,” Gorppet said, and made the affirmative gesture. As Drucker sat, Gorppet spoke on the telephone. Had he still been an ordinary infantry officer, he was sure the quartermaster he called would have laughed in his face. The fellow took an officer from Security more seriously. Gorppet hardly had to raise his voice. When the quartermaster broke the connection, Gorppet turned an eye turret back toward the Big Ugly. “There. I have arranged it.”
“Have you?” Drucker asked eagerly. “So thought I, but when you speak rapidly, I have trouble following.”
“I have indeed.” Gorppet sounded smug. He’d earned a little smugness. “Go three tents over and one tent up”-he gestured to show directions within the Race’s encampment-“and you will find a motorcar w
aiting for you. The driver will take you to this Neu Strelitz place.”
“I thank you,” the Big Ugly said again, this time with an emphatic cough to show how much. “You are generous to a male who was your enemy.”
“I am not altogether disinterested,” Gorppet said. Drucker, he judged, was smart enough to figure that out for himself. Sure enough, the Tosevite nodded once more. Gorppet went on, “You Deutsche and we of the Race should try to live together as smoothly as we can now that the war is over.”
“That is always easier for the winner than for the loser to say,” Johannes Drucker answered. “Still, I also think it is a truth. And the Race fights with honor-I cannot deny it. I almost killed a starship of yours, but your pilot accepted my surrender and did not kill me. And now this. It is very kind.”
“Go on. You will not want to keep the driver waiting, or he will be annoyed,” Gorppet said. The driver would undoubtedly be annoyed anyhow at having to take a Big Ugly somewhere, but Gorppet didn’t mention that. He did say, “I hope you find your mate and your hatchlings.”
“So do I,” Drucker said. “You have no idea how much I do.” That was bound to be literally true, given the different emotional and sexual patterns of Tosevites and members of the Race.
Drucker got to his feet. He bent into an awkward version of the posture of respect, then hurried out of the tent.
Hozzanet, the male who’d recruited Gorppet into Security, came into the tent just after Drucker had left. “Making friends with the Big Uglies?” he asked, his voice dry-but then, his voice was usually dry.
“As a matter of fact, yes, superior sir.” Gorppet explained what he’d done, and why. He waited to find out if Hozzanet would think he’d overstepped.
But the other male said, “That is good. That is very good, in fact. The more links we have with the Tosevites, the better off we are and the easier this occupation will be.”
