The Domination

Chapter Thirteen

LYON, PROVINCE OF BURGUNDIA

AIRSHIP HAVEN

JULY 28, 1947 1100 HOURS

The Issachar was approaching Lyon from the north. Kustaa let his eyes drop from the pale turquoise haze of the sky to the land droning by six thousand feet below. The Savoie Alps were passing by to the east, dark blue with distance and higher than the airship itself; below, the Rhone trough was widening out, a patchwork of varicolored orchard, vineyard and field and the russet brown of ploughed earth. Vehicles moved insect-small along the long straight roads, trailing dust plumes like the white-gray feathers of sparrows; the river itself was blue-brown, with hammered-silver patches downstream where banks of pebbles broke the low level of the summer waters. An aircraft passed, climbing, a swift flashing of combined velocity, and there were two more dirigibles in sight, long whale shapes laboring north against the backdrop of mountain.

The American took another sip of the single beer he had allowed himself; Danish, excellent, mellow amber with just the right hint of bitterness, biting at the back of his throat. Methodically, he probed at his nerves. Not bad, he thought. Still a little shaky. Hamburg had been bad, very bad indeed; he was running through cover identities faster than Donovan had planned for. The danger was different from combat strain, more like a night-ambush patrol; less intense, but it didn’t end. Worse than the danger was the effort of simply being a Draka for so long; having them hunt him through the Finnish woods had been simple by comparison.

He’d been skipping a good deal of the multiple tasking Donovan had planned for, as well. It was even worse tradecraft than he had anticipated, endangering the indigenous networks that were all the OSS had to build on, until it could somehow infiltrate the Domination’s own organizations.

Shit, endangering me, too. Now I know too much; I’ve got to get back. Straight to Lyon, but the delays had put him right back on schedule. With any luck, the coded messages had been sent out for the last week. With any luck, there was still someone there to pick them up. With any luck and a day at the races, I’d be rich, he mused.

“Docking in ten minutes.” the voice over the intercom said. “Docking in ten minutes. All passengers please be seated until docking is complete.”

Kustaa finished his beer and waved to the stewardess. The airship lurched as she reached across him to pick the glass off the veneered aluminum table, and a half-full bottle on the tray in her other hand toppled, sending a stream of amber-colored Tuborg splashing off the rim of the birchwood platter and into his lap. He began a yell, remembered to turn it to a strangled grunt and sank back into the seat.

The girl was on her knees beside his chair, reaching out with a cloth that trembled in her shaking hands to mop at the stain on the front of his fawn-colored trousers.

“Oh, Master, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please, let me help, please, Master—”

The lilting Swedish accent was raw with fear as he irritably snatched the towel and hastily wiped off the worst of the mess. Looking down he saw huge cornflower-blue eyes starring with tears, and a mouth working with terror.

“A-ll right,” he grated, keeping to the strangled grunt that his cover allowed. “G-o.”

She righted the bottles on the tray with frantic speed, wiping the floor plates, froze again when she saw who was looking her way, the senior stewardess, a born-serf in her thirties with a hard flat Kazakh face and a leather razor strap on a thong around her wrist. They were both in the same livery, a smart tailored jacket with a long V neck and a pleated skirt of indigo blue, but the older woman did not have the Swede’s look of vulnerability. She came over with a brisk stride, her low-heeled shoes clicking on the roughened-metal planking, muffled over the rugs.

The offending woman (No, girl, Kustaa decided. Seventeen, maybe eighteen) stood and held the tray before her, there was a slight rattling from the glasses and bottles, a quiver she could not suppress.

“You wish punish this slut youself, Mastar?” The Kazakh’s English was Draka-learned, with the hint of a barking guttural beneath, Kazakhstan had been the northernmost of the Domination’s conquests in the Great War, a generation ago, about when this one had been born, he estimated. Her face held no more than her voice or the posture of her well-kept body: precisely trained deference.

“N-o,” Kustaa said, waving a casual hand. “Is nothing.” As much as he could say, as much as he could do. You’re here to observe and report, he reminded himself savagely, behind a mask of detachment as perfect as the serf’s. Follow orders, dammit!

The Kazakh nodded. “Rest assured, Mastar, she no sit fo’ week.” A jerk of the head, and the blond girl walked staring past them, through the cloth-curtain door behind the bar. There was a murmur of voices, one pleading it had been too little time since the last strapping.

The American rubbed at his eyes. I thought I was tough, he thought wonderingly to himself. Every little bit pushes you a bit further. Fuck it, I want to be home, away from these people!

“Not a bad little piece,” the man across the table from Kustaa said idly.

He was an exec from the Dos Santos Aeronautics Combine, up from the Old Territories to oversee conversion of European facilities. A square-faced man in his fifties, conservatively dressed by Draka standards, down to the small plain earrings and Navy thumb ring, smelling of expensive cologne. It mingled with the leather-liquor-polish scent of the long room along the lower edge of the dirigible’s gondola; this was a short-range bird, shuttling between the larger European cities, not equipped with overnight cabins. No rows of bus-type seats, as there might have been on an American equivalent, though. Scattered tables for four, and freestanding armchairs, and a long bank of canted windows giving a view of the ground below.

“Not bad at all,” he continued, with the air of a bored man making conversation. There was a flat smack of leather on flesh from the curtained alcove, thin yelps of suffering giving way to a low broken whimper. “Wonder how she strips.”

“Black an’ blue, now,” the Air Corps officer beside him said. “You’d have to let her get on top.”

She laughed at her own joke, more than mildly risque by the Domination’s standards, began stuffing files in the flat attaché case before her, then frowned. “That’s a bit much,” she said, and raised a brow at Kustaa. He nodded vigorously.

“Enough, there,” she called, and the sound of blows ceased. Yawning, the pilot glanced idly out the window and exclaimed: “Look! Just what I was talkin’ about, Mr. Sauvage.”

The exec followed her pointing finger, and Kustaa’s eyes joined his. They were over the military section of the air haven north of the city, the usual tangle of runways, hangars, workshops and revetments. The usual expansion work going on as well, the iron-ordered standardization of the Domination being overlaid on the more haphazard pre-War foundations. Long modular buildings, a chaos of dust as the road net was pushed out. Neat rows of fighters, older prop-driven models and sleek melted-looking jets. Strike aircraft, twin-engine Rhinos mostly, grim and squat and angular with their huge radial engines and mottled paint; they had been known as the “flying tanks” during the Eurasian War, for their ability to absorb punishment. Kustaa’s OSS antennae picked up at the sight of the electrodetector towers, but they were basic air-traffic-control, phased-pulse models; no real need for air defense here, he supposed.

And a row of helicopters, gunboats; that was what the Air Corps tetrarch was pointing at. He remembered the smell of burning woods, and the chin turrets’ blind seeking . . . There were wings on the breast of the officer’s uniform tunic, and the AntiPartisan Cross below that. Probably she flew the choppers; his ears went into professional mode again. He had convinced them that the cripple did not want to be included in a conversation he could not fully share, convinced them to the point that they ignored the human recording system sitting across the table.

“Look!” she said. “An’ tell me those are cost-effective.”

The exec cleared his throat. “Precision firepower,” he said stolidly. “Entirely new application, an’ barely a decade since we turned out our first single-seater scout model. Fo’ once, we’re completely ahead of the Yankees. We have to concentrate on capital-intensive weapons, we’re—”

“—not a numerous people,” she finished. “Look again,” she continued. “How many of those are on-line, an’ how many yanked fo’ maintenance? Serious stuff, not jus’ cleanin’ fuel lines.”

Kustaa checked . . . yes, three out of seven with the dismounted assemblies that told of more than routine care. Interested, he glanced back at the Draka woman; she was small for one of her race, thin-featured and dark with a receding chin and big beaked nose pierced for a small turquoise stud. For a moment he wondered what had moved her to emphasize her worst feature. Naivety? Defiance?

“An’ that’s the problem. Sho’ you got them to us fast—too fast. They’re the best thing since the hand-held vibrator when they workin’, but the whole beast is a collection of prototypes, every subsystem experimental. An’ the power train is too highly stressed. An’ the servos fo’ the weapons systems is temperamental; and either they works wonderful or they don’t work at all.”

The man examined his nails. “Technical Section—” he began.

“TechSec doan’ end up in the bundu with the bushmen breathin’ down they necks an’ only those things to save they ass! You should ’a taken another four, five years makin’ sure of things, in the meantime produce mo’ Rhinos. They can’t hover, but they works.

“And yo should be simplifyin’ maintenance. As is, we keep the squadrons goin’ by keepin’ preassembled subsystems on hand, jus’ jerkin’ anything that doan’ work and sendin’ them back to the factory.” She thrust a thumb at the stewardess, who had emerged ashen-faced from the bar cubicle and was walking stiffly about her tasks. “Look, it easy to train the cattle to pour drinks an’ fuck, or to dig holes an’ break rock. Maintainin’ high-speed turbines is anothah matter!”

The exec rubbed his jaw. “Tetrarch,” he said, “my own children are pilots; we are doin’ the best we can. There are just so many engineers, aftah all, and any number of projects. As fo’ maintenance technicians, that’s always been tight. I’d’ve thought with all these Europeans comin’ on the market, fully or partly trained already . . . ”

“That another thing, we gettin’ spoiled by Europe. Richest place we’ve ever took, an’ skills the best part of it. Trouble is, we’re livin’ off loot; an’ consider the social costs of maintainin’ that level of trainin’ over generations.”

The man glanced from side to side in an instinctive gesture of caution and leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Mo’ right than you know, Tetrarch. We had some bad trouble in South Katanga, just last month.” She duplicated his look and leaned closer herself; that was one of the important industrial subregions of the central Police Zone—mines, hydrodams and a huge complex of electrical-engineering and motor works, mostly owned by the Faraday Electromagnetic Combine.

“Took a lot of the serf cadre out of the plants there fo’ the conquered territories, promoted from their understudies, an’ shipped in Europeans to do the donkey work.”

“Uprisin’?”

“Serious. Citizen casualties, mob of ’em nearly bust out of their compounds into the free zones, turned them back with vehicle-mounted flamethrowers.” The pilot winced; there had been nothing like that in the Police Zone in living memory, the sort of measure used in newly-conquered areas. “They had to gas a whole mine. Decided to lobotomize an’ ship most of the survivors; three big factory compounds out of order, jus’ when demand fo’ industrial motor systems is gettin’ critical.”

The two Draka shook their heads; the woman seemed about to speak when the Issachar jolted. Kustaa looked up, and saw that they had docked. The dirigible quivered as her steerable tiltmotors held the nose threaded into the anchor ring of the tower; then there was a long multiple clicking sound as the restraining bolts shot home into the machined recesses. Another quiver as the engines died, the sudden absence of their burbling whine louder than their presence. More clicks and jolts as the anchor ring moved to thread the docking cable through the airship’s loops, then cast them loose.

The American looked out the window, saw the horizon sinking as the winches bore the dirigible down below the level of the surrounding buildings, down to the railed tracks. A final quiver as the keel beneath them made contact with the haulers, and a whining of pumps as gas was valved through the connectors into the haven’s reservoirs, establishing negative buoyancy. The observation deck was only five meters up, now; he could see the cracked concrete surface, the interlacing rails, the huge silver-gray teardrop shapes of the other dirigibles, most locked at rest, flocks of nose-in circles around their terminals. Groundcrew swarmed about, little electric carts flashed by tugging flatbed trailers loaded with luggage; a train of heavy articulated steam drags was passing under an anchored airship, unloading cargo modules that clipped down on their backs with prefitted precision. The scene moved, creeping by as the haulers dragged the Issachar to her resting place, and there was a bustle as the passengers moved to fasten jackets and assemble forward.

Kustaa remained in his seat as the disembodied voice came tinnily through the speakers; just as fast to stay in comfort for a minute as wait standing at the end of the line. “Prepare to disembark. All passengers to Lyon prepare to disembark by the forward ramp, please. Through passengers to Marseilles, Genoa and Florence, please remain seated.”

He was alone when the stewardess came by again. Her eyes flicked aside at him, returned to the table she sponged down. Her face was gray, with a bleak pinched look that aged her ten years, or a hundred, and she moved with the arthritic care of an old woman. Against his will, Kustaa felt his hand go out to touch her sleeve. She came to a halt, instantly.

“Sor-ry,” he croaked, standing and taking up the heavy leather case that never went out of arm’s reach. “Ve-ry sor-ry.”

The stewardess’s face crumbled for an instant at the words, then she shot a lightning glance around and began to speak, her eyes flickering up to his face as she whispered fiercely and scrubbed at the veneer: “Oh, Master, you look like a kind man, please here’s my number”—a slip of paper, palmed and tucked into his jacket pocket in an invisibly swift movement—“please, I can’t stand it any longer, buy me, please, I know it can be done, someone bought Inge out just last month because their children liked her, I’m a hard worker really I am, I can cook and look after children and type and drive a car and play the piano and I’m good in bed, very very good, buy me and I’ll be the best worker you’ve ever had always, Master, only 75 aurics, please.”

She scuttled away to the next table and Kustaa stood for a moment, fingering the slip of paper in his pocket. Then he turned and walked calmly along the gallery, out into the passageway and down to the ramp that dropped from the nose of the airship, forward of the control deck. The last of the passengers were still there, checking out their firearms from the counter clerk, smiling and laughing in unconscious relaxation as they shed the subtle tension Citizens felt when deprived of their weaponry. The American watched his hands strip the clip from the automatic, reinsert it and chamber a round and snap on the safety before holstering it. The battle shotgun was handed to him still in its black-leather scabbard, with the harness wrapped around it. An autoshotgun, basically, with a six-round tube magazine below the barrel, the butt cut down to a heavy pistol grip. He jerked it free, popping the restraining strap, and checked the action: six rounds, alternate slug and double buckshot.

How many could I kill? he thought calmly, estimating the placing of the dozen Draka around him as his fingers caressed the chunky wooden forestock of the weapon. You for sure, Mr. Concerned-Citizen airplane maker who wonders how little girls looked stripped. Maybe you too, big-nose pilot, you’d be meat just like the two-legged cattle you killed to get that medal.

More calmly still: I am going insane. A few of the Citizens were glancing his way, feeling the prickle of danger without knowing why. When I get back to my family, will I still be fit for them?

His hands put the shotgun back in its sheath, slung it over his back with the butt conveniently behind his right ear, buckled the harness around his chest; while his mind painted the varnished metal red and pink and gray with blood and shattered bone and brains. Not enough, he decided. Not nearly enough.

“How may I serve you, Mastah? Kellerman two-door? Here keys, yaz sar, Mastah, right this way—”

Where had that been?

“Street St. Jacob? Right that way, suh; my respects to one who gave so much fo’ the Race. Nothin’ more I cain do? Service to the State!”

What had he replied?

“Drink? Certainment, maistre, you wish perhaps other entertainment—yes, maistre, I go—”

“Yes, this is certainly the place,” he said to himself, then started to his feet, the snifter of brandy in his hand. A frantic look at the bottle reassured him: only two drinks. He strode over to the table beside the bed; 25 Rue St. Jacob, Transit Hotel #79, room 221. Precisely right.

“My god, I nearly lost it,” he muttered to himself, raising the blinds. An ordinary European street, a little broader than most, five-story brick buildings. A few autosteamers going by; sunset behind the buildings opposite, streetlights winking on, the branches of the chestnut tree outside tapping against his window. Ordinary hotel room—bed with white coverlet, nightstand, desk, carpet, bathroom. “I nearly lost it, my subconscious is a better fucking agent than I am.”

He threw up the windowpane, letting in a breeze cooling with evening and fragrant with city smells, coalsmoke, dirty river, acre upon acre of summer-warmed brick and stone, burnt steamer distillate. A few dep breaths and he took up the phone. “Dinner,” he rasped. “Standard.” Now to wait for contact.

Well, well, fancy being back here so soon, Andrew von Shrakenberg thought, looking around the office of Lyon’s Security chief. Not just shopping, this time, unfortunately. The room was much as he remembered it, really quite nice murals, the two glass walls with their tinted panes swiveled open like vertical Venetian blinds to let in the cooling evening air. Westering sunlight sparkled on the broad surface of the Saone where it swung south and east to join the Rhone, forming the Y shape whose tongue of land had been the original site of Lyon. Celtic, he remembered. Called Lugdunum, originally. After the Gallic Sun-God; then a Greek settlement, followed by a colony of Roman veterans. Burgundians, later, an East Germanic tribe related to the Goths and Vandals. French, of various types . . . and then us, which is the end of the story everywhere.

He took another draw on the cheroot, a sip of the coffee, touched his lips to the Calvados in the goblet in his right hand; he had always enjoyed the scent more than the taste. Strategos Vashon was at his desk, checking through a report and making notes on a yellow pad with his left hand. Ignoring the Security Cohortarch standing at parade-rest in front of his desk, who was probably earnestly willing a suspension of her vital functions behind the blank mask of her face. The bruise that was turning most of its left side an interesting shade of yellow-purple helped, of course. The Strategos continued his methodical labors, with a detachment which was certainly an effective demoralizer for the officer on the carpet before him.

The problem is, does he really want to demoralize his subordinates? Andrew asked himself, laying down the eau-de-vie and fingering the gold hoop in his left ear. The headhunters were set up to play that sort of mindfucking game; the problem is, they become addicted to it, even with each other. Which raised the interesting point, frequent at the higher levels of the War Directorate, of whether they were being too paranoid about the paranoids . . . I wonder what the headhunter is thinking, I really do.

Strategos Vashon scowled slightly at the report before him, stripped the handwritten notes off the yellow pad and peeled the foil paper off a wax seal to attach it. The development people are letting their enthusiasm run away with them again, he decided. Pages of hyperbolic notes on how addiction to pleasure-center stimulation produced complete docility in even the most refractory subjects . . . Of course it did! So did lobotomy! This new treatment degraded performance levels almost as much, and to boot they had to leave a bloody great electrode sticking in the subject’s skull; most of them developed infections and died, and the remainder had to have intensive medical care.

He wrote on the bottom of the paper, “Note: The Race’s need is not for a breed of hospitalized idiots to serve them.” So far, this new approach was no better than the standard electroshock-sensory-deprivation-pentothal-chemoconditioning methods; a little more sure to stick, but with even more unfortunate effects on their capacities. The Holy Grail of a safe, quick method of ensuring absolute obedience without affecting intelligence or ability would have to remain a dream a while longer; and serf-breaking would have to remain a primitive craft industry, not one conducted on modern conveyor-belt principles.

He closed the folder, wound the cord around the fastener, sealed it with another prepackaged wax disk and tossed it in the out box for his assistant to take in the morning. Morning . . . he glanced out the windows. After seven again: perhaps he should go home . . . No, he decided. Home was an empty shell; his wife was six years dead in a traffic accident, his children off at school, nothing to do at home but prowl about, reread Psych and Organization texts, mount his concubines . . . dull compared to work. He took a sip at his coffee; decaffeinated, like eating deodorized garlic, but he had to watch the stimulants, the doctor said. Sometimes I wonder who’s the one who works like a slave around here . . . That was the price of power; the serfs down on the lower levels were the ones with nice regular ten-hour days.

He transferred his gaze to the officer from the . . . research facility—better keep it at that level even mentally—research facility at Le Puy. The medical report said she hadn’t been exposed to more radiation than would result in some nausea and purging. Which was less than the bitch deserved.

“Well, Cohortarch,” he said pleasantly, looking at her for the first time and steepling his fingers. “How do you account fo’ yesterday’s events in Le Puy? Is it treason on you part, or simple incompetence?”

She did not move her head, but he could feel her attention move to the War Directorate officer in the lounger. “Don’t worry, Cohortarch Devlin, our comrade-in-arms here is involved.” Slightly, his mind added, but he could see another film of sweat break out on her face at the hint of yet higher levels of interest.

“Now, Devlin,” he continued, leaving out her rank with deliberate malice, “I’m waiting fo’ an explanation.”

“Suh.” Her eyes were fixed on the window behind his head. “The new link fixtures fo’ the reprocessin’ of the enriched uranium were shipped from the Kolwezara facility, in the Police Zone, an’ checked as adequate because the machinin’ matched the older European parts. Incompatible alloys, leadin’ to possible corrosion—”

“Shut up.” Vashon’s voice returned to its even, genial tone. “That’s in TechSec’s preliminary report, Devlin,” he continued. “And TechSec sees the world in terms of engineerin’ and physics, but we know better, don’t we?” Another bark: “Don’t we?”

“Yes, suh. Mah own prelim’nary survey indicates that there could have been a manual override on the standard valve shunts, allowin’ explosive mixtures of gases in the precipitatin’ tanks.”

“Oh, very good, very good. An’ who would have had the required access?”

“Ah . . . suh, apart from mahself, the personnel with the required access levels are all among the casualties. Suh.”

“Buggerin’ marvelous!” He leaned forward over the axeblade of his steepled hands. “Devlin, four hundred dead, an’ twice that injured in this little accident of yorn. I’m not talkin’ about field cattle or broom pushers, Devlin, I’m talkin’ about the most highly trained scientific an’ technical personnel in the Domination, Devlin. A hundred of them Citizens, Devlin; their skills an’ heredity lost to the Race, Devlin. Includin’ ten European scientists so good we gave them an’ their families Citizenship in return fo’ workin’ fo’ us, Devlin. Not to mention we’ve lost facilities crucial to the . . . new weapon project, which we’re runnin’ neck-and-neck with the Alliance in even befo’ this happened—they may not take advantage of a one-year lead, but would you care to bet on it?”

Vashon smiled and tapped his fingers on the blotter of his desk: tip-tap, tip-tap, and the Cohortarch gave a nearly visible flinch at each sound. “Anythin’ mo’, Devlin?”

“Suh . . . yes, suh. Nothin’ certain, but . . . ” She glanced at his eyes, returned hers to the windows over his head and continued hurriedly. “We haven’t found some of the bodies . . . well, the acids used fo’ refinin’ the plutonium out of the spent uranium slugs . . . but Professor Ernst Oerbach was completely missin’. He’s over on the . . . new weapons side, but was visitin’, some conference on trigger timers an’ deuterium processin’. No trace ’tall, an’ . . . ”

“Tell me the joyful news, Devlin.”

“Well . . . twelve cylinders of first-stage plutonium oxide from the recovery process are unaccounted fo’ as well. They could have been ruptured an’ scattered in the original explosion, but—”

“Joy.” Vashon dropped his head, supporting his forehead on the splayed fingers of one hand. “Explain, please, Cohortarch, how a man supposedly under twenty-fo’-hour surveillance fo’ the rest of his life would get out. If he wasn’t just dissolved in a bath of acid an’ suspended particles of uranium-238, that is.”

“Suh.” The Cohortarch came to attention. “Suh, the responsibility is completely mine. The, the explosion released radioactive an’ toxic material extensively, suh, and the fires would have released mo’. Extensive contamination outside the restricted area was barely avoided. I authorized all personnel undah my orders to aid in the containment efforts.” More softly: “A numbah of them died doin’ so, suh.”

Vashon was silent for a full minute, then lit a cigarette and considered the glowing tip; it had become dark in the wide office, as the sunset glow faded. “I agree, Cohortarch. And will so note on my report.”

The woman in Security Directorate green managed to convey surprise and relief without movement of face or body. Vashon smiled once more, unpleasantly. “Agree reluctantly, Devlin. Emphasis on the reluctantly. You know the code: there is no excuse fo’ failure, you’re responsible fo’ everythin’ you subordinates do, and so am I. Skull House is on my ass about this, so is Castle Tarleton an’ the Palace . . . shitfire, every agency of every Directorate is formin’ line on the left, tappin’ lead pipes into their palms an’ smilin’ in anticipation!”

He paused. “You know, they’re diggin’ canals to join the Ob-Yenisey system southward to the Aral Sea? Irrigate Central Asia. Need administrators fo’ the labor camps: nice simple work, no technical problems, just plain diggin’. In West Siberia province. Fo’ the next thirty years. If I go there, you join me! Now get you ass back to Le Puy, and find out what happened. I want to know, I want the report on my desk by yesterday. Is that clear?”

“Yes, suh!”

After she left, the two Draka sat in silence while servants came in with a fresh tray of coffee and a cold supper. Vashon moodily buttered a piece of baguette and spoke to the younger man:

“Well?”

“Well, I was beginnin’ to think you were the sort of commander who keeps his subordinates so scared of failure they’re unwillin’ to take risks. Glad to see I’m not”—entirely, his mind added—“right,” Andrew said.

“Thank you kindly,” Vashon replied dryly. “Try the anchovy salad, they do it well here. What I meant, do you think the Yankee you’ve been chasin’ is involved, Merarch?”

“Hmmm.” A moment of impassive chewing. “Not unless he’s an amoeba who can split in two; besides Finland”—for a moment a hungry carnivore looked out through the handsome aquiline face—“we’re pretty sure he was involved in the Hamburg incident. Sparked it, rather. The local bushmen stuck they heads out to impress him, wanted a Yankee link real bad.” A grin. “Foolish of ’em. We chopped a good few off an’ turned the prisoners over to you people there. This hunter-team thing Castle Tarleton came up with is workin’ out surprisin’ well; thought it was a boondoggle, at first, but it’s becomin’ real interestin’, integratin’ and gettin’ the best out of a mixed force. We got real close to him there.”

“Close only counts with fragmentation weapons,” Vashon said. “What trail?”

“Damn little. The ones we caught unfortunately doan’ seem to know much. Last seen at the airship haven. Which is right next to the port an’ the heavier-than-air station; could be anywhere from Archona to Beijing, by now.” He pulled over a file. “Got a physical description . . . tall, fair hair, muscular build, blue eyes, mustache.”

Andrew laughed, a deep chuckle of unforced mirth. “Oh, wonderful; accordin’ to my recollections of the Eugenics Board survey, the average height fo’ an adult male Draka is 183 centimeters, and about forty percent are blond. Leaves about six million possibles, ’less’n he’s dyed his hair; eighty-three percent have light eyes, that ups it a bit.” He snapped his fingers in mock enlightenment, then swiveled his forefinger inward. “I’ve got it! It’s me!”

A sour smile. “Well, at least we know he’s travelin’ alone.” Vashon slapped his hand on the desk. “Loki’s balls, we’ve got to have more checks on Citizen movements.”

Andrew shrugged. “Strategos, we already restrict movement of people an’ information about as much as practical. We start runnin’ that sort of surveillance on each other, there’d be no time fo’ Citizens to do anythin’ else. ’Sides, Draka don’t like bein’ gimleted all the time, what’s the point of bein’ on top, then?”

“True, but . . . anyway, this thing at Le Puy—provided it isn’t jus’ an industrial accident, the gods know quality-control is always a problem—it’s out of character fo’ the local bushmen.”

“They tamed down?”

“Contrary, sneaky-subtle. Good leadership . . . that’s why I smell you Yankee. It’s even worse than the Hamburg thing, which is goin’ to delay launchin’ that aircraft carrier six months to a year.”

“Blessin’ in disguise.” At the secret policeman’s raised brow, Andrew continued: “We’re never goin’ to have a navy to beat the Alliance, not while we’re forced to maintain a large army, too.” More meditatively. “ ’Sides, Strategos, look at the Alliance powers. Yankees, Britain, Japan too now. Island nations, history of naval war an’ seaborne trade. We Draka, we could build the Domination because steam technology lowered transport costs and times enough to make it possible to unify and develop the continental interiors. We’re a land beast. And finally, aircraft carriers are yesterday’s weapons, in my opinion, like-so battleships thirty years ago. A big surface fleet would be a total waste of scarce personnel; should concentrate on subs and coastal defense. We’re only launchin’ that damned carrier on account the Fritz laid the keel.”

Vashon ground out his cigarette. “Maybe. Anyhow, Merarch, I do have one asset inside the local bushman net.”

“Ah, good. Impo’tant?”

“They pretty tightly celled, but not bad. I’ve been usin’ him fo’ information only, makin’ him look good. But this Le Puy thing is crucial, ’specially if the Alliance is involved.”

“How’d you turn him?”

Vashon laughed. “Fritz technique; y’put the subject and maybe a close relative—we used his father—in opposin’ chairs. Gag the passive subject. Active subject has a switch under his hand. Every time he presses, the current goes through the passive one, an’ every time he lets up, it goes through him—in increasin’ increments, until the passive subject dies. Great fo’ crushin’ the will; the subject’s convinced right down deep that he’ll do anythin’ to save his own skin. We’ve got this one’s momma and sister, too, he’s quite the family man, an’ anxious to avoid their bein’ the next passive subjects.”

“I can imagine,” Andrew said dryly, lifting the goblet. Vashon shot him a quick glance.

“Squeamish, Merarch von Shrakenberg?”

Andrew pursed his lips as he rolled the apple brandy around his mouth. “Fastidious, Strategos, only fastidious. Still, to get the stable clean you has to step in horseshit, as the sayin’ goes. ‘To desire the end is to desire the means necessary to accomplish it,’ ” he amplified, quoting Naldorssen. He hesitated, then continued: “Had any subjects refused to push the switch on they nearest and dearest?”

“Some,” Vashon admitted with a reminiscent smile. “Which provides us with one corpse an’ the valuable datum that that serf would rather die than submit. Neat an’ tidy . . . ”He pressed a buzzer. “I’m controllin’ this particular double myself. A man has to have a hobby, an’ it’s good to go hands-on sometimes, after spendin’ all day readin’ reports.”

A serf stumbled through, pushed by two Order Police who saluted and left him kneeling on the carpet. He blinked about the darkened office, winced as a light speared down from the ceiling, the chain-and-bar restraints holding his arms behind him clanked. A young man with a thin stubbled olive face and an uncontrollable twitch beneath one eye, in a rough gray overall stained with oil and stenciled with the wheel-and-piston insignia of the Transportation Directorate.

“Why, good evenin’, Jean 55EF003,” Vashon said in a voice of mellow friendliness. The serf would be effectively blinded, of course; that was the reason for having the focused spotlight in the ceiling. His hand nudged the control up slightly, to keep the two Draka shadows looming in a deeper darkness.

“Master . . . Master, if they suspect I’m being held, please, I won’t be trusted any more, I’ll be no use—”

“Do credit us with some intelligence, Jean,” Vashon said, chuckling at his own pun. “But you haven’t been much use to us, anyway. How old is you sister, Jean?”

“Nine, Master.” The Frenchman jerked as if struck. “Oh, Mary Mother of God, not the chair, not her, please, Master, I’ll do anything, anything!”

Vashon considered him; the buck was transparently sincere, but also crumbling. A pity if he goes insane, the security officer thought. I was hoping he’d make good in this little bushman network, before we activated him and snapped them up. “We know you’ll do anythin’, Jean—” he continued, in the same friendly tone. “Even kill you own father. Tsk tsk.” The Frenchman began to sob. “Pull youself together, serf, if’n you don’t want to add two more to the list!” A pause. “Nothin’ from you but a few times an’ places fo’ courier drops, an’ two names from you own cell.”

The ragged breathing slowed. “Master, I tell everything I know, everything! Henri is cell leader, he gets the orders, Ybarra and I just do as we’re told, believe me,” Jean said with desperate earnestness.

“You know, Jean,” Vashon continued, “I’m goin’ to do you a favor. Tell you something about me, personal. I don’t like seein’ little girls fucked by dogs. Have a friend who does, though.” He slid a glossy color photograph the size of a placemat from a stack-rack on his desk and flipped it to land face up in the puddle of light by the serf. The young man looked down, then screwed his eyes tightly shut, so tightly that his face trembled, as if he sought to squeeze the information his optic nerves had absorbed back out through the lids. His throat worked convulsively.

“Puke on my carpet an’ you’ll regret it, skepsel,” the secret policeman said with quiet deadliness, using the old word for a two-legged beast. Then in the friendly tone once more: “That isn’t you sister, of course, Jean. No, you momma an sister are safe, workin’ in a canteen. Jus’ washin’ dishes, buck, that’s all.”

The serf was panting, eyes still closed. “Such altruism, from a creature who’d torture his own pa to death. Of course, you family could be better off. Maybe a trip to the sunny Western Hemisphere?”

Jean’s eyes snapped open. “You . . . you would let us go?”

“Well, I’m not promisin’ anythin’, but . . . we do need people ovah there as well, you know. Send you an’ you sister, maybe, nice cover story and a little nest egg.”

“God, Master, thank you, thank you!” The serf’s tears were like a dam bursting this time, of relief and gratitude; his face shone with it. Unseen in the darkness, Vashon smiled like a shark.

“But you’ve got to earn it, Jean. You understand that, don’t you, Jean?” A frantic nod. “Now, we have othah sources in that pathetic little group you call the Resistance,” Vashon continued. “So we know somethin’ . . . of unusual size may be a-happenin’, soon.”

He reached into the desk and tossed a cylinder the size of a single-cigar case toward the serf; it struck him in the chest and fell on the photograph.

“Look at that, Jean.” The buck obeyed, although Vashon could see him blurring the focus of his eyes to avoid looking at the picture beneath. “It’s a fancy little gadget. Yankee components, actually. Radio, inside the case, with attachments so’s you can wire it onto somethin’. If you was to take that along, next time there’s a meetin’ at higher than cell level, I’d be mighty pleased when it was switched on. Or if you could get me somethin’ really useful, like-so a Yankee we feel may be comin’ through, that would make me very happy. Yo does want to make me very happy, Jean, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, Master, of all things I want that most in the whole world, believe me, yes, certainly. Master . . . how shall I carry this?” His voice shook with a crawling eagerness to please.

Vashon laughed again, as he flipped the switch on his desk. “They’ll take you down to the clinic an’ show you right now, Jean. I’d have thought it was obvious.”

The two Order Police troopers came back in, silent helmeted shadows, saluted, picked up the serf and radio with similar lack of effort, left. As the door soughed shut, Andrew rose and stooped to take the print between thumb and forefinger.

“Feh,” he said, studying it for a second with a grimace of disgust before sliding it back onto the Strategos’s desk. “Strange friends you has, Vashon, no offense.”

“None taken,” he said, keying the room lights and holding it out at arm’s length. “It’s a standard print from Gelight’s Erotic Art Sampler. Minority interest, but de gustibus, eh? Actually, I think this is simulated.”

Andrew chuckled reluctantly. “Strategos, you are one evil son of a bitch,” he said.

“Goes with the job, Merarch. Taken as a compliment . . . Your hunters are here in Lyon, aren’t they?”

“Mm-hm. Ready fo’ stand-down; experimental unit, aftah all. Castle Tarleton”—meaning my new aunt—“wants to do an evaluation, befo’ they decide on the program as a whole. I’m goin’ to lay over at my sister’s plantation; there’s a namin’ feast fo’ her newborns comin’ up in a few days.” For courtesy’s sake: “To which I’ve been asked to invite you, of course.”

“Ah. Why, thanks kindly, I think I could find the time,” Vashon replied blandly, hiding his amusement at the other’s surprise; it might be interesting to mingle with the Landholders for an evening, and once the full consequences of the disaster at Le Puy avalanched down, there would be little free time in the Lyon office. “Care fo’ a little huntin’, first?”

“Huntin’? I take it you don’t mean wild boar?”

“Another type of swine altogetha. If the local bushmen are involved—still mo’ if it’s you Yankee—we’ll have somethin’ from young Jean, and soon. Hell, maybe tonight!”

“Agreed,” Andrew said, finishing the Calvados. “I’ll alert the watch officer at transit barracks, if you can get us transport fo’ insertion in-city.” The secret policeman nodded briskly. “We’re supposed to be developin’ closer liaison, anyhow; it’ll be good practice.”

He stood, slipping on his gloves and smoothing the thin leather over his fingers. His eyes met the Security officer’s, and Vashon felt a slight sudden impact along his nerves, like a cold brush over the face. “And I hope we meet my Yankee. I sho’ly do.”

The blindfold was snug, and Kustaa resisted the temptation to tug at it. It was sensible, simply the easiest way to make sure he could say nothing even if he broke under interrogation; the same reason he had torn up the slip of paper the serf stewardess had handed him without looking at the number, and flushed it down the commode with the address he had found under his souffle, during dinner. That he had to remember, of course, but it had simply been the point where whoever-they-were had met him. Since then he had moved on foot and in vehicles, indoors and out; presumably discreetly—an armed Draka Citizen being led blindfolded by serfs was a trifle unusual . . . Once through a sewer, he thought, but a dry one.

“Arrête,” the voice at his elbow said.

Halt. He stopped obediently, obscurely glad of the knife and pistol at his belt, the battle shotgun across his back. As irrational as the feeling of helplessness the blindfold engendered, but a useful counterweight. He could sense that he was inside a building from the movement of the air, from its smell—factory smell. It reminded him of the summer he had worked at the National Harvester plant in St. Paul, machine oil and steel and brass, rubber transmission belts and the lingering ozone of industrial-strength electric motors, underlain by a chalky scent like an old school’s. Something else as well, sickly-sweet, a hint of decay.

A hand turned him to his left; he could hear a faint sound from that direction, a tiny wheezing and shifting.

“Take off the blindfold, American. But do not turn.”

A new voice, an educated man’s French, sounding middle-aged. Kustaa obeyed, squinting his eyes against the prospect of light. Even after an hour of blindfold, the interior of the great room was dim. He had been correct: a factory. Dim shapes of lathes and bench presses around him, fading into distance and shadow, a little light from grimy glass shutters far above. Enough light to see what hung on the wall before him. A man standing with his feet on an angle-iron brace bolted to the sooty brick. His weight rested on the steel hooks through ribs and armpits.

Dead, Kustaa thought. That’s the smell of rot. Then he saw the outstretched fingertips flutter, the whites of eyeballs move.

“Hnng-hnng-hnng,” the pinned man said, “hnng-hnnng-hnng.”

The quiet, cultured voice came again from somewhere in the room; there was a hint of movement, but Kustaa’s eyes remained fixed forward.

“You see this thing,” the man said, “and you think, ‘Monstrous, inhuman.’ Do you not, Mr. American?”

“Yes,” Kustaa replied quietly. “At least that.”

“Ah, no, my American friend. I will explain why that is an error. To think of this as the act of inhuman monsters is a step toward thinking of it as the work of devils. Toward thinking of the Draka as not human, as devils: which is a step in turn toward thinking of them as gods. That, my old, is what they themselves think, in the madness of their own hearts, that they are gods or devils, perhaps they care little which. This . . . A Citizen supervisor noted that the output of this plant was too low, or more likely the spot-checks showed too many defective parts. He informed a born-serf manager, who passed it on down the line to a gang boss, probably a Frenchman like myself, who picked perhaps the least popular or most insolent of his gang, and the plant’s serf drivers came and took him from his machine one shift, and put him on the hooks. Men did this, human men.”

Kustaa waited a few moments before replying, in a soft and careful voice. “Why have you brought me here, then, monsieur?”

“Did you not wish to make contact with the Resistance of Lyon? Voila, we are here.” There were rustling noises around him in the darkness. “More of us than have gathered in one place in some time, Mr. American. Ah, to this spot? Because it is as safe as any . . . and for the same reason that our masters put this man on the steel, as an object lesson.”

“Which is supposed to teach—?” Kustaa continued. The pinned man’s eyes might be open, but the OSS agent did not think there was much mind or consciousness left behind them.

“A different lesson, my old. This man, perhaps he is my brother, perhaps my son, perhaps my closest friend. Here am I, one of the leaders of the best organized Resistance group in all France, perhaps all Europe . . . and what can I do for him? Nothing, not even to end his agony, not unless some means can be found utterly untraceable.”

“Why not?” Kustaa said.

“Because then, there would be two men on this wall. You see, Mr. American, Mr. Secret Agent, I think you seek to make contact with us for certain reasons. To call us to valiant action, perhaps? This man here, he was active: now he is less so. There were other groups here, in the beginning, more daring than we. Some of them believed, for example, that we could deny the Draka the fruits of their conquest with the weapons of class struggle. Strikes.” There was an ironic wonder in the man’s next word: “Strikes. Can one believe it? Others thought of sabotage, assassination, very active measures. Now these other groups are corpses, or lobotomized in chain gangs . . . and very much less ‘active’ than our network. Like the maquisards in the countryside, the last of whom are being hunted down like starving animals.”

“The Finns—” Kustaa began.

“Ah yes, the heroic Finns. The extinct Finns, very shortly. Mr. American, there are always those who would rather die on their feet than live on their knees; if you seek to make contact with such, you had best hurry. If there is one thing under heaven at which our masters are experts, it is for arranging for such to have their wish, and die.”

“You are running a very considerable risk by having an organization,” Kustaa said. “If you don’t do anything with it, what is the point?”

“Very true . . . Mr. American-whose-family-is-far-away, we do take this risk. Because we are not content to live as cattle, between our work and our stalls and our fodder, to be bred and sold as cattle, slaughtered when it suits our owners with as little thought as a chicken is killed and plucked. Why does this organization exist? For memory’s sake. To preserve that discontent, not simply as sullen beast-hatred, but as knowledge. That once there was something different, that there may be again. That we are a nation . . . perhaps no longer the nation of France, but still a people.

“Thus we organize, we recruit, we organize . . . in tiny groups, with cutouts at every stage. We pass on information; occasionally we can help individuals who suffer more than the common lot. Simply to tell a kinsman where his family has been sent, that is victory. Very occasionally we take direct action, against a foreman perhaps; even the Draka cannot make massacres at every accident. And we wait. We were conquered by an enemy more patient than we, more far-sighted, more ruthless; by conquering us they offer lessons, and we learn. Do you know how many Draka there are in Europe?”

“We estimate no more than a million.”

“Too high, I would say . . . many times that many born-serfs, of course. The great strength of the Draka is that they are skilled at using others; thus they accomplish feats far beyond their own raw power. Their great weakness, exactly the same, that they must use others. These born-serfs, the Draka bring them to teach us obedience. They are just beginning to suspect, I think, that such learning can be a two-way process. Always before they have smashed the societies they conquered, killed their elites and reduced the survivors to isolated human atoms, to be refashioned as they wished. Here as well, to a certain extent, but not completely. And that is the central purpose of this organization. To exist, simply to exist. So long as we do, their victory is not complete.

“What we have done—are trying to do—is build a brotherhood that they can wound but cannot kill. Strong and hard they are; if we try to match their strength, we will be smashed. Instead we must be as soft as water and as patient. Enduring, that wears away the rock slowly, but, oh, so surely. Perhaps you Americans and your allies will come and liberate us; if that is so, we will welcome you with tears and flowers and as much gratitude as humans can find in their souls to give. But we are those to whom the worst has happened, and we must prepare for the worst, that they destroy you in the end as well. Then our quiet war must last, who knows, perhaps a thousand years, to ensure that their ‘Final Society’ joins so many lesser tyrannies in the grave.”

“That,” Kustaa said with a slight chill in his voice, “sounds very much the sort of plan a Draka might conceive.”

“If they had the flexibility, my old, which they do not.” A laugh. “Perhaps we become like that which we fight.”

Perhaps, Kustaa thought, looking at the man on the wall, if you have to fight an enemy too closely, too long, perhaps that is so. “You refuse to help me, then?”

“Did I say this?” The same even, almost monotone voice. Control would be something living at the bottom here would teach, Kustaa thought.

“No, we will aid you, Mr. American, on our terms. Information, yes, provided it can be conveyed without serious risk. The Draka are no fools, but sometimes they forget we have ears . . . and sometimes they are too eager to believe a serf has knelt in his heart and accepted chains upon his soul. Although, God in His mercy knows, that is true often enough. Sometimes, rarely, very rarely, we will be prepared to take direct action on your prompting. None of us is essential; they could take everyone in this building, and what we have built will continue. Wounded, but that is the virtue of an organism so simple and diffuse as ours, it regenerates. And endures if need be, generation after generation, until . . . in the end, if nothing else, they will become lazy . . . ”

“Information is what I’m mostly after,” Kustaa said. And getting. Not information that will make Donovan or President Marshall particularly happy, but then, just because these people are allies doesn’t mean they have identical perspectives or interests. “Specifically, here, information about the Draka weapons program at Le Puy.”

A laugh startled him, full and mellow. “Well, after all my eloquent preaching of the virtues of inaction, I must confess that something along those lines has already been done. The facility at Le Puy was largely destroyed a short time ago.”

“Judas Priest!” Kustaa said, grunting as if a fist had driven into his belly. Donovan will shit his pants. “You did that?”

Another laugh. “No, no, au contraire. It was done by one of the scientists themselves; we merely took advantage of the confusion.” More soberly: “And thousands were nearly killed, as well . . . remember that we live here, Mr. American; and our families. And atomics were used on our soil. Our feelings concerning the good professor are, how shall I say, mixed. You may turn, monsieur.”

Kustaa swiveled, thankful for the opportunity to take his eyes from the thing on the wall. A man was standing close behind him, a tall cadaverous-looking man in middle age, dressed in badly-fitting servant’s livery. Still no sight of the Resistance people, he thought. Good.

“Ernst Oerbach, at your service, Mein Hen,” the man said, offering his hand and inclining his head with a gesture that somehow suggested a heel click. The face was too expressive for a Prussian’s, though, now showing mostly exhaustion and a bone-deep melancholy. “Late of the Imperial University in Vienna, physics department.” Kustaa took the Austrian’s hand, a dry firm grip.

“I’m going by the name Frederick Kenston, just now,” he said in reply. “You were in a position to sabotage the plant? I’m surprised the Draka let a serf that close to critical equipment.”

“Ah, Mr. Kenston, I was not a serf, you see. I was given Citizenship after the war, in return for my services. “

“What?” Kustaa managed to restrain himself from jerking back his hand, or wiping it on the side of his jacket.

Ernst Oerbach smiled sadly. “A natural reaction, Mr. Kenston. One I have felt myself, often enough . . . but though my son was dead by then, my daughter-in-law and grandchildren were alive, and included in the offer.” His eyes went over the American’s shoulder, to the figure on the wall. “You can imagine the alternatives. The Draka considered me valuable enough, for my genes as well as my self.” Another of those gently self-deprecating smiles. “I was fencing champion of Lower Austria in my youth, I suppose they decided my descendants would be desirable . . . The children were taken away, of course. Helge and I would be Citizens by courtesy, only: a sort of second-class Citizenship, always closely watched. The children were to be adopted into Draka families who could not bear, and would forget.”

Kustaa’s eyes narrowed. It fit with what the OSS had been able to learn from European scientists who had made it out in the chaos toward the end; the Draka had contacted some of the ones who decided to chance a try for the Alliance instead. Not many—this would be a one-in-a-million arrangement—but there weren’t that many first-rate creative brains. Others could be forced to work by more immediate pressures, but for a few Citizenship made sense. Hell, it’s only a generation since they stopped accepting selected immigrants, he mused.

“Why did you change your mind?” he asked.

“I could not stomach it any longer,” Oerbach said simply. “Even in luxurious isolation, I saw too much of what I was giving the power to destroy the earth.”

Kustaa grunted again. That bad, whatever it is, he thought. “Your grandchildren?” The man winced, but it was necessary to be quite sure.

“There the Draka made a mistake,” he said. “Citizenship would mean nothing if it could be withdrawn. Citizens can be killed, yes . . . but I have come to believe that a clean death might be preferable, even for little Johann and Adelle. And they will not kill them, because there would be nothing to gain from it once I am out of their power, and two members of the Race to lose.” A shake of his head. “I have come to . . . understand them, somewhat.”

Kustaa turned his head sharply. The faceless voice spoke confirmation: “A major disaster. Hundreds killed. They have been flying in decontamination teams and doctors around the clock. This is being kept very secret, you understand, Mr. American. But continue, professor, you have not told our friend what other gifts you bring beside yourself.

“Ah, ja,” he said, patting at his pockets like a movie-version absent-minded professor. “Ja, the microfilm of my research results on the threshold temperatures for deuterium-lithium fusion.”

A spool of translucent tape, and a masked face wheeled a green steel box beside them on a dolly, let the stand-bar come down with a thump that told of considerable weight. “Well, it was not my department, you understand, the plutonium refining. Plutonium for the triggers, you see. But it was there. You must understand I had been thinking of doing something for some time, but the opportunity was fleeting.” A bleak grin, over in an instant. “You might say Satan whispered in my ear, and I fell. It probably even looks like an accident, and this unprocessed material was there; plutonium is a considerable bottleneck, so . . . ”

Kustaa took a half-step back and leaned against a lathe, heedless of metal angles digging into his back. “Judas Priest,” he whispered again, this time almost as a wheeze. “Tempted by Satan? More like divine inspiration, Professor Oerbach! Maybe you should have been in my line of work.”

“No.” He looked up at the tone, and saw tears glitter behind the spectacles. “A temptation to mass murder and I fell. Hundreds . . . thousands could have been killed, Mr. Kenston. Thousands of innocents, women, children. The earth itself for hundreds of square miles, that was what I risked. I am a murderer, Mr. Kenston, I who never harmed a living soul before that day. That is what the Draka have done to me!” Softly: “And the alternative was to give them a power for murder beyond conception. What I did will delay it, at least. If I have no part in it, perhaps some of the guilt will wash off me, perhaps . . . that I must believe.”

Qualms later, Kustaa thought, and turned to speak to the faceless shadow voice. “This you have to help me with, by God,” he said.

“We agree. For this, we agree. What do you need?”

“A place within a hundred miles of the Atlantic, where an aircraft can land and take off. A grass field a hundred meters clear would do. Some manpower, if possible.”

“You have the means to signal?”

“In that leather case your man took from my car.”

“Ah. Tell me no more, I may guess, but . . . ” The voice withdrew, and there was a murmur of conversation, footsteps returning. “Mr. American, another will come to stand where I am. Approach closely, but do not attempt to make out a face. A name will be given you, a location, a password. But first . . . do you, by any chance, know the Cartwright system?”

“Sign language? Yes, why?” One of a number of bizarre skills Donovan insisted his field men learn.

The Austrian looked up sharply, shaken from thoughts that his expression said were less than pleasant.

“Excellent, so does the good professor here. With your so-ingenious cover story—do not be disturbed, only two know of it and I am one—it will account for his presence. I suggest you pass him off as your servant in the medical sense as well; we have applied an appropriate tattoo. You will grasp that this is a facility useful to us . . . And now another will impart the information you seek. A place within the distance you specify; about guards and helpers, I will have to think. Perhaps.”

Chateau Retour, Kustaa repeated to himself. Sister Marya Sokolowska. The escargots of Dijon are very fine. That last brought a slight smile; he supposed food codes were natural in a continent that had been hungry for some time.

“Now, you will be returned to your autosteamer,” the voice said. “Please, the blindfold—” A masked man had come to stand beside the dolly with its so-ordinary looking box of green-painted steel; Kustaa sensed he was young from his stance, could smell fear and another odor, fecal. He wrinkled his nose slightly. What the hell, I hope he hasn’t shit his pants, the American thought. Oh, well, they’ve been efficient so far.

“Shit!” The green-uniformed serf technician ripped the earphones from her head with a violence that set the van rocking slightly on its springs, clutching at her ears.

“Report!” Andrew von Shrakenberg snapped from the map table, and the tech’s spine stiffened, shaven head locking in eyes-front despite the pain that crinkled her eyes almost shut in an involuntary grimace. Above on the roof the motors of the directional loop antenna whined, searching.

“Mastah, signal irregular, compatible with movement through built-up areas an’ steel-frame buildin’s, stable fo’ the last five minutes, then, ah, shit, sorry Mastah, blast a’ static an’ lost signal.”

The Draka’s lips peeled back in a snarl, but his finger stayed steady on the map, resting on the last spot where the lines from the two vans crossed.

“Cause?” he barked.

“Power line, anythin’ givin’ off strong radio impulse, tha’ thing would’ve shut down to prevent surge burnin’ out circuits, Mastah, I doan’ know.”

Specialized training, Andrew thought bitterly. Necessary, but it did not give the sort of broad base of knowledge from which intuitive leaps spring. Well, the creative intelligence is supposed to be your job! he told himself as his hand stabbed down on the send button.

“All Strike units, all Strike units, execute Downfall on last position posted. Now! Do it people, let’s go!”

His hand swept the Holbars from the table, and he dove through the open rear doors of the van, rolled, came up running.

“FREEZE! THIS IS SECURITY! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP OR YOU DIE!”

Kustaa dropped to the ground in instant combat reflex as the amplified voice roared in their ears, like the shout of an angry god. Hard concrete thumped at him, ignored in a surge of adrenaline that brightened the murk as it flared his pupils wide. Multiple echoes, as if it was sounding throughout a complex of buildings, broadcast from half a dozen sources. The skylights shattered, and round objects fell through, to burst hissing. Tendrils of mist snaked through the gloom, then sprang into brilliant blue-white as searchlights played on the roof and reflected electric-arc glare within.

Voices shouted, there was a rapid thudding of feet, and Kustaa felt a swift tug at his heel as he snaked forward and yanked the Austrian off his feet and behind a lathe. Hands reached out and dragged the man away, and someone called in French, in Lyonnaise dialect: “American! We have him! This—”

A stab of tracer went by above, the light bullets pinging and whining off metal and stone. The OSS agent’s hand went over his shoulder and stripped the shotgun free with a surge of cold elation at the thought of targets. A Draka voice, shouting, “You headhuntin’ fools! Take ’em, boys! Bulala! Bulala!”

Shots were flickering through the half-lit immensity of the factory shed, and Kustaa could see the flash and sparkle of ricochets running across the motionless machines like sun flicker on moving leaves. Men and women dodged, fired, screamed. Boots slammed on concrete, and a shadowy figure loomed, helmet bulking, bulbous-nosed with its gas mask. Kustaa rolled up to one knee, snaked the battle shotgun around the drill press which sheltered him, fired.

Crung. The heavy weapon bucked against the muscles of his wrists and forearms, lost. The solid slug hammered through the fleshy part of the uniformed man’s thigh, spinning him around in a circle before he pitched to earth; the last wild burst sent rounds close enough to the American to sting with spalls flicked out of the pavement, nearly killing him by chance where aimed fire was useless. The wounded man thrashed in his small square of open space.

“Ah’se hit, Ah’se hit!” he screamed, the first half of the shout muffled by the mask he ripped off before pressing both hands to his thigh, as if trying to squeeze shock-shattered bone and flesh back together. His blood flashed from red to black in the strobing light, as the searchlights played back and forth above.

Bullets flicked at the prostrate figure, and struck; his second scream was shrill, wordless. Another man followed him, but this one leaped over the lathe the soldier had blundered into; headfirst, landing in a perfect forward roll just beyond the writhing casualty. He was masked, but there was no helmet on the bristle-cut red hair, and he had a machine pistol in each hand, firing at muzzle flashes and glimpsed movement.

“Get him out, get him out!” the man shouted through rubber and plastic. Branggg and a burst hammered the machine by Kustaa’s ear, brangg, and a scream as a Resistance fighter pitched back, brangg and another dropped without sound. Behind the Draka the thrashing Janissary was being dragged away, as the submachine guns snapped their three-round bursts with killing precision and the hands behind them moved like oiled metronomes.

Kustaa’s second round took the man in the stomach. At close range the heavy buckshot did not have room to spread much; it pulped a circle of chest and stomach the size of a small dinner plate. Even then, the muzzles wavered up toward the target that had killed him before the second charge let the Draka’s intestines spill forward into his lap. One, the American thought, with chilling satisfaction, his mind seeming to move in layers like the leaves of a book. Behind him the voice was shouting in gutter argot.

“Jean, drop that dolly, drop it; Ybarra, you two, get that box and out. American, this way!”

Kustaa had never felt less like a berserker, or himself. There seemed to be an infinity of time for thought: They are dying to buy me seconds. On hands and knees, he followed the voice into the gun-shot dark.

“Well, here’s our tracer,” Vashon said, nudging the brown-streaked metal casing that was wired to the underside of the overturned dolly.

Andrew grunted in reply, watching as the stretcher with the shrouded bundle passed by. “Always were a little reckless, Corey,” he murmured. Around him the factory lights had been reconnected, and Security techs were swarming with their cameras, measuring cords, fingerprint kits. Busy locking the door on the empty stable, he thought.

“But why wasn’t it functioning?” the Strategos asked the senior technician, who had opened the feces-streaked container with gloved hands.

“Damned if I know,” the man replied, frowning at the circuit board with its black transistor beads. “Have to take it to the lab.” He spoke loudly to override the wailing scream of a field interrogation going on a few yards distant.

“Don’t—don’t—don’t—”

“Would close contact with a, oh, an X-ray machine’ve done it?” Andrew asked.

“Yes, even a fairly light dosage; nothin’ that would do a human bein’ any harm. These-here bitty things is sensitive to any sort a’ energetic particles. Scarcely likely here, Merarch.”

Andrew locked eyes with Vashon. “Well. Pull in you double?”

The older man ran a hand through the dense sable cap of his hair. “Nnnno, Merarch, I don’t think so. No, he’ll try really hard; be difficult fo’ him to make contact, of course . . . but worth waitin’ fo’. They’ll go to earth, of course . . . ”

“And we’ll dig them out.” Andrew smiled. “Oh, Mr. Yankee, I’m beginin’ to dislike you.” His eyes went up to the man pinned to the wall. The Holbars was across his chest on its assault sling; his hand found the pistol grip, squeezed. Two dozen muzzles pivoted toward him, then wavered away in puzzlement or indifference.

Andrew looked up at the slumped corpse with the neat line of holes across its chest, wondering why he had killed the serf. He felt the answer roll through the undersurface of his consciousness; it was there, but his mind refused to analyze it.

“Enough,” he said. “Tomorrow, then, Strategos.”