Mind, Machines and Evolution Part 6

Magus had explained that the torus would generate a s.p.a.cetime singularity in the form of an infinitely thin plane across the hole in the middle, through which every cross section would rotate perpendicular to s.p.a.ce-time like the elements of a smoke ring. But instead of emerging on the other side, the vessel would enter a realm in which s.p.a.ce and time would be interchanged: it would be possible to move freely in time, but in one direction only through s.p.a.ce. That direction had been calculated precisely to connect to the point in s.p.a.ce-a fifth of a light-year away now-that a particular spot on the earth's surface had occupied at the time targeted for Kunz's arrival in the twentieth century.

He had no way of telling how long the dreamy state of changelessness persisted-if, indeed, "how long"

still meant anything at all. But then the panorama of all his mental processes laid out side by side began collapsing in on itself like the pieces of a clock being rea.s.sembled . . . and as the clock came back together, it began running again. The ghostly outlines around him took on their solid forms, the glow dimmed, and the various sounds around the c.o.c.kpit ran down and died. Then all was silent. The moment that Kunz had trained and steeled himself for had arrived. There was no time to be lost. He pressed a b.u.t.ton to open the hatch and stood up from the c.o.c.kpit.

He was outdoors, and it was nighttime as intended, with the air chilly and the moon hidden by clouds.

Sounds of drums and bra.s.s marching bands were coming from the distance, accompanied by singing and cheering. The machine was lying in an open area of ground shadowed by trees. All was still in its immediate vicinity, but a line of large buildings bounded the open area a short distance away, silhouetted against flickering orange light. The music and singing were coming from the far side. It was all uncannily close to what Kunz had been led to expect from his briefings. He was in the Tiergarten in the center of Berlin, the capital of Germany. It was the night of Monday, January 30, 1933.

At noon that day, after driving one hundred yards from the Kaiserhof Hotel to meet the aging President Hindenburg in the government offices on the Wilhelmstra.s.se, Adolf Hitler had been sworn in as the new German chancellor. So had come to power the man who would reject the world's attempts to achieve lasting peace through understanding, compromise, appeas.e.m.e.nt, and reason, and who in the eyes of the world would make them the very cause of war. Just when reason had finally come of age and could have pacified the world, one man's betrayal had caused pacifism to be dismissed as ineffective and ridiculed for a century afterward, thus setting the course for calamity.

Kunz transferred his equipment from the stowage rack to fastenings on his belt and inside his cloak, then climbed up out of the c.o.c.kpit, over the outer torus, and down the short metal ladder on the outside. As he reached the ground, a blue light shimmered briefly in the darkness some distance away out in the park.

He froze for a few seconds, but nothing more happened. Then, taking a tight grip on the a.s.sault laser beneath his cloak, he began making his way stealthily toward the buildings lining the Wilhelmstra.s.se.

The singing of the crowd became clearer as he approached the buildings. They were singing the Horst Wessel song-one of the party hymns of the "Brownshirt" n.a.z.i storm troopers. In the evening of that day, as news of Hitler's appointment spread through the city, tens of thousands of delirious supporters and Brownshirts had gathered and marched in a ma.s.sive torchlight parade, out of the Tiergarten, through the triumphal arch of the Brandenburg Gate, and along the Wilhelmstra.s.se to celebrate their victory.

Hitler himself, after watching the parade for a while from the balcony of the Chancellery, had retired inside for a quiet dinner with Goring, Goebbels, Hess, Rohm, Frank, and a few others of his inner clique.

With the jubilant atmosphere putting everyone off their guard and all the noise and distraction in the streets, this had been judged the ideal moment for not only eliminating Hitler, but decapitating the n.a.z.i apparatus of its entire leadership cadre to ensure its demise. A spot of diffuse, greenish glow flared somewhere across the park. Kunz stopped. The glow died away, and after a moment he moved on.

And then he almost walked into something in the shadows between two trees, where he had expected there to be open gra.s.s. At first he thought it was an automobile or a small building of some kind, but as he pa.s.sed by, the moon shone briefly through a c.h.i.n.k in the clouds and revealed the object to be circular in shape. It was a machine, in the general form of a torus, lying horizontal, ten feet or so in diameter. It had a metal ladder leading up over the outer ring to an enclosure of some kind in the middle. Kunz turned to stare back uncertainly at it, until he was walking fully backward. That caused him to b.u.mp into something else.

It was another machine. This one was in the form of two vertical disks about eight feet high and close together, like a pair of large wheels on a short axle, with a boxlike structure between them. In the moonlight Kunz could make out a black swastika on the outside of the disk facing him, and underneath it in German, the words GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. FORBIDDEN TO TOUCH. The only problem was, it didn't look to him like something that any government of the 1930s should have owned.

Suddenly the air around him began crackling electrically. He dropped to the ground instinctively and covered his head. A tremor ran through the ground beneath him, and he became aware of light and a subdued pulsating sound. He looked up cautiously and found an eerie violet radiance bathing the area around him, centered on a point twenty feet or so ahead of where he was lying. As he watched, a shape materialized in the glow. It was about twelve feet long, and consisted of two pointed cylinders side by side, and in between them a framework supporting a bubble. The light and the sound died together, leaving the machine outlined in the moonlight. Kunz raised himself slowly onto one knee. He was about to stand up, when the top of the bubble hinged open and a head appeared, wearing a Lincolnesque stovepipe hat. The head peered one way and then the other, apparently without seeing Kunz, and then the rest of the figure scrambled out. It was wearing a tailcoat with gold-embroidered front and epaulets, pants with a broad stripe running down the sides, and shiny cavalry boots. The figure turned to hoist something out of the bubble that looked like a weapon, and then jumped down to the ground. That was when he saw Kunz. For a second they both stared. Kunz moved to shift his cloak out of the way of his own weapons. The figure bolted for the shadows, and in the same instant the moon went back behind the clouds. By the time Kunz's eyes had readapted, the figure was gone.

Bemused and bewildered, Kunz resumed heading toward the Wilhelmstra.s.se. But his boldness and determination were ebbing. Something was obviously very wrong. At the back of a building which he recognized as part of the German Foreign Office, he pa.s.sed another torroidal machine, this time tipped at a crazy angle against the wall enclosing the grounds. He didn't even bother stopping to look at it, but now in a complete daze, followed the wall around to an alley leading toward the noise and the commotion, which brought him out onto the Wilhelmstra.s.se itself.

A column of storm troopers was marching down the middle of the road to a thunderous beating of drums, with trumpets blaring, banners flying, and a river of torches flowing away as far as the eye could see. Shouting people lined the sidewalks on both sides, and every window was packed with waving, cheering figures. As the mission planners had antic.i.p.ated, it would have provided the perfect cover for getting into the Chancellery building . . . if it weren't for his dress, he realized as he looked around. He was the only person in sight wearing a cloak. And not only that-all the men were wearing subdued combinations of heavy overcoats, flat caps or conventional felt hats-not one with a feather-and without exception, long pants. Kunz's cloak was only knee length, and his bright red socks seemed like beacons.

Then he saw the two German policemen in flat-topped helmets and greatcoats heading toward him along the rear of the crowd. Suddenly he started to panic. He turned, but a knot of onlookers had blocked the alley that he had emerged from. Desperately he turned the other way, but a crowd coming out of one of the doorways had cut off any escape in that direction. And before he could recover from his confusion, the policemen had drawn up in front of him.

The larger of the two looked Kunz up and down. He had heavy cheeks and a thick black mustache, and a fleshy sausage-neck overflowing from his collar. "Don't tell me," he said amiably in German, "You've come back from a future age to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Fuhrer."

Kunz gulped disbelievingly. "How . . . how do you know?" he stammered.

"Oh, they've been showing up in dozens all night. You'd better come with us. The line starts a block farther along the street."

They took him a short distance along the Wilhelmstra.s.se, and then down a narrow street that opened out into a cobbled court overlooked by high buildings and lit by gas lamps. On the far side was a stone building with wide double doors set behind a columned entrance arch at the top of a set of wide, shallow steps. And stretching out of the entrance in a ragged line three or four deep-like theatergoers waiting for the doors to open, mumbling among themselves and jostling as a cordon of more German policeman strove to form them into some semblance of order-was the strangest collection of characters that Kunz had ever seen.

There were several wearing military camouflage smocks, and a number of others in hooded, bodytight Ninja suits. One, in silver coveralls and something that looked like a football player's helmet, was arguing with two others, one of whom was wearing a pink cloak with emerald-green knee breeches, and the other a German fireman's uniform, but with a field marshal's helmet. Nearer the door, a bronzed, muscular Adonis in what looked like ballet tights and a fencing blouse was shivering beneath a greatcoat that one of the policemen had evidently lent him, while a few places back, another man with leather shorts and a Tyrolean hat similar to Kunz's was waving his hands and jabbering at a woman with a long tweed skirt, motoring bonnet, and fleece-lined flying jacket. One had an aviator's cap with goggles, another a Napoleon hat and tunic, and another an American Stetson with pantaloons. Here was a Louis XIV wig, there a diamond tiara worn with a raincoat, and farther along, a Cal. State T-shirt stretched over the bodice of a crinoline dress.

Kunz could do nothing but stare numbly. He was barely aware as the two policemen relieved him of his a.r.s.enal, frisked him for concealed items, and added the collection to a pile of rifles, submachine guns, revolvers, automatics, pistols, bombs, grenades, blasters, flamethrowers, hand lasers, beam projectors, bayonets, daggers, knives, axes, cudgels, clubs and weapons of every description acc.u.mulating on the far side of the court, guarded by more policemen. Then the two who had brought Kunz in escorted him to the end of the line, behind the Louis XIV wig and a huge bearded man in a sailor suit with paratrooper's jump boots. "Wait here," the amiable sausage-necked policeman said. "It shouldn't be long."

"What's happening?" Kunz asked, finding his voice at last.

"Why, the Fuhrer is coming here to talk to you. He's heard all the terrible things you people are saying about him, and he's very upset."

Just then, two more policemen appeared from the direction of the street, steering between them the figure in the Charlemagne coat and the Abe Lincoln hat that Kunz had glimpsed briefly in the Tiergarten.

The figure stopped dead, looking as stunned as Kunz had been, while the policemen took charge of the plasma-bolt beamer, two sidearms, machete, and four subcritical fission grenades that he had been carrying, and then they led him over to join the line alongside Kunz.

"They're still coming in like homing pigeons back there," one of them said to the two policemen with Kunz. "We need all the help we can get."

"It won't be long now," the sausage-neck said to Kunz again. He indicated Kunz to the Abe-Lincoln-hat man with a nod of his head. "Just stay close to Pinnochio here until they move you inside." With that, he turned away to head back toward the Wilhelmstra.s.se after his three colleagues.

Kunz and Abe-Lincoln-hat eyed each other suspiciously. At last Kunz ventured, "I, er . . . guess it wasn't such a unique idea." Abe-Lincoln-hat stared at him. "Where did you come here from?" Kunz asked him.

"The year of the Lord, 2124."

"The Pacifist cause must really have been catching on by then, eh?"

"Pacifists?"

"Isn't that why you're here-to get rid of Hitler, the man who got pacifism a bad name?"

Abe-Lincoln-hat's eyes glared. "Pacifism is Satan's design to disarm the hosts of the righteous, and Hitler is his agent! For by renouncing all war, the world shall deny the just war that is G.o.d's instrument."

Kunz's expression hardened. "There can be no just war," he said.

"It is written, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.'"

"What's a Bible freak doing here?" Louis-XIV-wig demanded, turning in front to face them. "Religious fascism is no different from n.a.z.i fascism. Hitler invented the techniques of ma.s.s propaganda that gave the Fundamentalists the presidency in 2080."

"Arghh! You . . . secular humanist!" Abe-Lincoln-hat grabbed him by the throat with both hands.

Sailor-suit-and-paratrooper-boots was also glowering back. "Who did I hear was a pacifist? They were the b.u.ms who lost us white supremacy and let the Asiatics take the twenty-first century."

"I am," Kunz said, thrusting out his chin defiantly. "So why are you here? Hitler was on your side, wasn't he?"

"He blew it. If it wasn't for his war, the colonial empires wouldn't have broken up, see. And I say all pacifists are wimps."

"Oh yeah?" Kunz punched him in the mouth.

"All right, all right-enough of that." Three policemen moved in to break up the fray. Just then, the doors at the top of the steps were thrown open. The murmuring and arguing in both directions-already a number of more recent arrivals had joined on behind Abe-Lincoln-hat-died away, and the line began shuffling forward.

The building turned out to be an auditorium, with rows of seats facing a raised stage. In the center of the stage was a speaker's rostrum, and behind it a row of chairs on which a dozen or so men in suits were already seated. They looked like government officials. Some remained quiet and were looking concerned, while others whispered agitatedly among themselves. A line of German policemen stood below the stage, facing the audience, and others were stationed at intervals along the walls. As the entrants dispersed among the seats, Kunz moved as far away as possible from the three that he had tangled with outside. He found himself a place halfway to the back on the extreme left of the auditorium, next to the side aisle. The murmuring and muttering had risen again, and already more arguments were breaking out in several places. As Kunz sat down and leaned back in his seat, he became aware of a man's voice behind him, speaking in a suave English accent. "I mean to say, the b.u.g.g.e.r ruined our empire for us. Up until then, we hadn't been doing too bad a job of civilizing the world."

"He ruined U.S. isolationism, you mean," an indignant American voice that sounded as if it was from Brooklyn retorted. "If we hadn't had ta come in and bale youse guys out for a second time, we'da had it made. We never wanted ta be no policeman for da whole woild."

"Yes, and a fine mess you made of things, I must say."

"A fine mess you left us, you mean."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Waddaya mean? So, what da you know about anything, then, huh, a.s.shole?"

"Tch, tch. Colonials!" The sounds of scuffling came from behind, and something thudded against the back of Kunz's seat.

"Cut that out!" One of the policemen said, moving forward from the wall.

"The man's a complete savage," the English voice protested.

"I ain't stayin' next ta him. Everyone knows they're all gay."

And then a hush descended on the auditorium as a figure with a face familiar to all, wearing a brown Party uniform with Iron Cross and swastika armband, walked out from the wings and crossed the stage to the lectern. He surveyed the rows of faces before him and pursed his lips for a moment below his narrow, clipped mustache. "I'm given to understand that I seem to have made myself rather unpopular with some people," Adolf Hitler said. He waited, but there was no immediate response. "But that's terrible. I have made plans for straightening out-with all due respect to my predecessors-the bungled job that's been made of the Weimar const.i.tution, and for getting the country onto a sound democratic footing at last. The League of Nations hasn't been working out as well as was envisioned, and I've been giving some thought to that, too. . . . But what are all these awful things about me that I've been told? I need to know what the complaints are before we go launching into anything new. Well, you've come all this way. Somebody must have something to say."

A man near the front leaped up to reveal the slogan NO NUKES written across the back of his sweater in large red letters. "It was because of you that the nuclear nightmare was unleashed across the world,"

he shouted. "World War II was the cause of the Manhattan Project, which produced the Bomb. That led to everything else, and then everyone got ahold of it." He pointed an accusing finger. "Radiation! Fallout!

Genetic diseases! Deformed babies! Because of you, the world will end with universal cancer!"

Hitler stared at him incredulously. "Radiation? Genetic dis-"

Suddenly, the spell broke. "Industrial pollution of the planet!" a woman near the back shrieked, rising.

She was wearing an EARTH FIRST b.u.t.ton on a black leotard painted with a white skeleton. "Your war brought about the decline of Europe. Unchecked capitalist greed in the postwar U.S.A. resulted in-"

"You call yourself National Socialists," a man in a black opera cape yelled out. People were on their feet all around the room by now. "But you destroyed socialism! If it hadn't been for your treachery in 1941, Russia would have ruled the world."

"That's not true!" a voice called from near where Kunz was sitting. "If they hadn't rallied against the n.a.z.is, the Soviets would have disintegrated. Stalin was a lunatic. Hitler saved Communism."

"But you destroyed Germany, on the eve of what should have been its era of greatness," a man in a kaiser helmet and trenchcoat shouted out.

Voices were shouting from all sides.

"Ma.s.s murderer! What about the camps?"

"n.a.z.ism was to blame for the rock cult and drugs!"

"It caused p.o.r.nography, teenage pregnancies, and evolution!"

". . . belief in astrology and the paranormal . . ."

"And liberals and gays and AIDS!"

Hitler smiled tolerantly and raised his arms in an appeal for order. Slowly the hubbub subsided. "My dear people . . . really, this is all most bewildering. I know we do have some outstanding ideological differences to resolve, but it is my firm belief that the Western civilization that has arisen in Europe is about to enter its golden age of prosperity and culture. With confidence in reason and the creative potential of the human mind, we have it within our power as a species to eliminate universally and permanently the evils of hunger, disease, poverty, oppression, and ignorance that have plagued humanity for as long as humanity has existed. To let you into a secret, we have some scientists working on rocket propulsion for vehicles which, they tell me, might one day enable us to leave this planet entirely. And as for the political differences between ourselves and our Russian neighbors, well, I know there have been problems in the past. But those problems stemmed from shortages of resources, and in the new age I see coming, with new technologies that will end such shortages, I am optimistic that eventually, with better education and as tensions relax, we will come to see . . ."

As. .h.i.tler spoke on, the atmosphere around the room changed. One by one, those of the audience who were on their feet sat down. Many of them exchanged puzzled looks. Something was very wrong. Was this the fiend who had gone down as one of the arch-villains of history?

"I must confess to being somewhat bemused," Kunz heard the English voice whisper behind him. "He seems to be quite a decent sort of chap, really."

"Yeah," the Brooklyn voice breathed in reply. "Dis ain't de way I hoid it. Dat guy's okay."

Kunz frowned, trying to make sense of the situation. He'd seen the newsreels and read the speeches. He recalled Magus's warnings about Hitler's cunning, and the skillful way he deceived his opponents to lull them into a false sense of security. Then it came to him suddenly that it was all a trap. He looked around at the rows of placid faces, some nodding unconsciously as they listened. They were falling for it, all of them-soaking it up.

But not Time Commando Kunz!

He looked away, and saw that the policeman who had quietened the pair behind was still standing a mere couple of feet from Kunz's seat. The policeman's arms were folded, and he was off guard as he listened. He was wearing a belt over his greatcoat, and hanging from the belt on the side nearest to Kunz was a revolver in a holster. The flap of the holster was unfastened. Kunz looked furtively around.

Everyone's attention was on what Hitler was saying. And then Kunz's hand was reaching out stealthily toward the b.u.t.t of the revolver. He was aware of it in a strangely detached kind of way, as if his arm had initiated the motion of its own accord, with the rest of him a spectator. And before he had fully realized it he was on his feet and leveling the gun between both hands. He was dimly aware of voices shouting and heads turning in alarm, and then Hitler was staring straight at him through the sights, white-faced and openmouthed. . . . He didn't remember firing, or the blow on the back of his head after the third shot.

The next thing Kunz knew was that he was stretched out in his seat, and his head hurt. There were policemen on either side of him and in front of him, and a pandemonium of blurred voices all around. He raised his head, and several hands immediately clamped down on his shoulders from behind.

Up on the stage, two medics in white smocks were in the process of lifting an inert form covered by a sheet onto a stretcher. The officials who had been sitting behind were gathered in a huddle, wringing their hands in consternation and talking nervously. Two shiny black jackboots protruded from beneath the sheet as the medics lifted the stretcher and carried it off the stage. As Kunz's head cleared, the voices of the officials floated through into his consciousness.

"Stone dead-no doubt about it . . ."

"Oh dear, oh dear . . ."

". . . three bullets, dead center. Didn't have a chance . . ."

A tired but triumphant smile crept onto Kunz's face. It was done! It didn't matter what happened to him now. The future was saved.

"He was doing such a splendid job of restoring the nation's pride and self-confidence after Versailles and everything. . . . We can't let the people know that this has happened."

"Oh no! That would ruin everything."

"And especially after his achievement today . . ."

"We mustn't let anyone know."

"Then there's no choice. We'll have to use the double."

"But he's so unstable. Do you really think-"

"We have to risk it. There's no choice."

"He's on his way here now."

Kunz sat bolt upright in his seat as the meaning percolated through.

Double?

And then the tramp of jackboots on cobblestones and orders being barked sounded from the court outside. Moments later, two lines of storm troopers entered and surrounded the auditorium, while from the midst of the group of uniformed officers who had appeared inside the entrance, a figure of familiar appearance emerged and strode purposefully down the center, up the side steps onto the stage, and across to the lectern. But not of totally familiar appearance, Kunz saw as the figure glowered out over the hushed audience. The features, forelock, and mustache were similar, but the mouth was grim and determined, and the eyes held a fierce, tempestuous rage.

"Fuhrer, we have decided-" one of the officials began, but the newcomer shut him up with a curt wave of his hand.

"You no longer decide anything. This babbling has gone on long enough. We have work to do and a lot of lost time to make good." He raised his head to address the officers at the rear and indicated the audience around the room with a wave. "Get this rabble out of here for a start and lock them up, and clear away all that junk in the Tiergarten. Then we have the last ten years of records to rewrite. Oh yes, there is much to do, indeed." A wild gleam came into his eyes. "Ein Reich! Ein volk! Ein fuhrer!" he shrieked.

"Sieg Heil!" the storm troopers chanted.