A RESTLESS couple sat on a blanket on a twisted, rusted
girder, holding hands sadly, occasionally glancing toward
the ancient ship at the pier in the distance, silent love
islanded in a forest of broken steel madness. The girl
moved nervously, stared through the bones of the
shipyard, hating the ship that would take her Kurt away—
Jager, a gray steel dragon specially evolved for the
dealing of death, crouched, waiting beside the Hoch-und-
Deutschmeister pier. Her hand tightened on his. She lifted
it, rubbed her cheek against his knuckles, kissed them, and
moved closer. He slipped his arm around her, lightly. Hers
passed around his waist. The cool, moist fingers of their
free hands entwined in her lap.

They were Kurt and Karen Ranke, married eleven
months, two weeks, and three days, and about to be
parted by the warship—perhaps permanently. Both were
tall and leanly muscular, blond, blue-eyed, almost stereo-
typically Aryan, alike as brother and sister, yet related
only through marriage. Their sadness was for the War, on
again.

A snatch of song momentarily haunted the ruins to
their left. They turned. A hundred meters distant, beside
the shallow, scum-topped water-corpse of the Kiel Canal,
sailors made their ways toward the destroyer; men without
attachments, accompanied by no women. One sang a
bawdy verse. The others laughed.

"Hans and his deck apes," Kurt murmured. "Almost
happy because we're pulling out."

Karen leaned her head against his shoulder, said noth-
ing. Through narrowed eyes she searched the torn iron
fingers surrounding them. Kurt ignored the question, un-
spoken, in her eyes. He understood the need to create
more such ruin no better than she.

A whistle shrieked at the pier, a foghorn bellowed—
Jager testing.

The warship had come through sea trials well, like a
great-grandmother proving capable of the marathon. Her

officers and men had once been delighted as children with
a new toy. But their joy was fading. The toy was ready
for the War, for the Last of All Battles, as the Political
Office had it. A pale specter on a far horizon dampened
all enthusiasms. The games were over, and death lay in
ambush on a distant sea.

Kurt knew Karen doubted the Political Office, and bore
a grudge against the destroyer. Already the two were
responsible for a dozen training separations. Her darkest
fear, and his, was that this one might be permanent.

Karen's fingers, teasing through his hair, quivered. He
tried to ignore it. He was going to the War—she said to
no purpose. He repeated her questions in his mind. The
War had managed without him for centuries. Why must
he go? He had been assigned a good position, and the
same wanderlust which had led him to spend three years
with the Danish fishing fleets demanded he not refuse it.
More than once she had called him a willing victim of
man's oldest madness. If gods there were, Ares was the
most enduring.

A murmur of low voices came from the direction of the
canal. Kurt stopped thinking of Karen long enough to
glance at Chief Engineer Czyzewski and his group of
Polish volunteers. Then came the sound of small bells
ringing. lager's gunnery and fire control people were
making a last check of the gun mounts. The main battery
trained left and right. Flags rose to the starboard yard-
arm. "Half an hour," Kurt observed. Karen said nothing.

More clatter along the canal. They looked. The
officers: Captain von Lappus; Commander Haber; Kurt's
cousin. Lieutenant Lindemann; and Ensign Heiden, the
Supply Officer. Other officers were already aboard—
except one.

He walked alone, a hundred meters behind the others.
Tall, thin, pale, with cold eyes that seemed to stare out of
a private hell in a bony face with skin stretched taut,
skull-like, beneath sand-colored hair, he wore a uniform
unlike those of the others, neither naval, nor of the Baltic
Littoral. This was black, silver-trimmed, bore death's-head
insignia at the collars, grim imitations of an age long
unremembered. A Political Officer.

"Beck," Kurt sighed, shivering.

Karen stirred nervously, kicking a mound of rubble. It
collapsed with a tiny clatter.

Beck stopped, haunted eyes searching the steel bone-
yard. The strangeness of the man projected itself through

10

the hundred meters of ruin. The couple shivered again. He
studied them a moment, then walked on.

"That man ..." Karen sighed with relief. "He makes
me freeze up inside, like a snake. Be careful, Kurt. He's
not old Karl."

Karl Wiedermann was Kiel's resident Political Officer.
He projected the same coldness, had the haunted eyes at
times, but did have a spark of humanness in him. He wore
black and silver only on military holidays, and seldom
invoked his power. Kurt had happy childhood memories
of his little shop on Siegestrasse where he crafted fine
furniture of imported Swedish oak. Old Karl was not a
bad man—for a Political Officer.

Beck—Beck was no Kiel-born man. He had no ties with
the Littoral. He was from High Command at Gibraltar, sent
to Kiel to summon Jager to the War. He appeared a
fanatic, cold as the devil's heart. Perhaps, as Karen had
once opined, there was an association. Kurt, however,
suspected he was as human as anyone, with loves, hates,
hopes, and fears. He could not credit pure evil, as many
believed Beck to be. He had seen strange men and
stranger behavior while with the Danish fishing fleets, and
always, no matter how unusual, a man's actions had been
explicable in terms of human needs.

Kurt's mind, unhampered because Karen was unusually
silent, drifted off to his years with the fishing fleets. A
great adventure they had been, until he came home and
found Karen grown into a lovely woman. He had aban-
doned the sea to court her, had won her, and had let her
talk him out of returning—until Commander Haber
offered him the post of Leading Quartermaster aboard
Jager because of his experience.

More sailors passed in time. Many were accompanied
by tearful wives and lovers and mothers. There were few
men. Kurt watched his sister, Frieda, as she and her
fiance. Otto Kapp, passed, she clinging to his arm so
tightly her knuckles were white. "We give so much to the
War," Kurt murmured. Karen nodded. Their families had
given for generations.

Their fathers had gone to the last Meeting, aboard
U-793, a salvaged submarine, and had not come back—
those who went to Meetings seldom returned. Three of
their grandfathers had sailed on the cruiser Grossdeutsch-
land, decades gone.

"Let's walk," said Karen, rising from the girder, tugging
the blanket. While putting his cap on and hoisting his
seabag to his shoulder, Kurt took a last fond, deep look at

11

the ruin surrounding them. This was his home, this brick,
concrete, and steel desert that stretched a thousand kilom-
eters to the east and south and west. Only the north,
Scandinavia, had been spared the mighty bombs. The
plagues had raged through, but the survivors were left
with livable land, and, in time, had developed a loose-
knit, quasi-medieval, viable culture. Yes, Kurt lived in
the bones of a fallen Germany, but this was his home
and he was loathe to depart, albeit he had been thinking
much of Norway lately, especially the province of Tele-
mark,

They walked beside the canal. Suddenly, Karen revealed

her own Norwegian thoughts. "Kurt, I'm going to Tele-
mark."

The seabag fell from his shoulder, thumped on the

earth. No words of rebuke could he find, though he
opened his mouth to speak. With dreamlike slowness he
turned and took her by the shoulders, held her at arm's
length while staring into the bottomless blue of her eyes.
They reflected the misery of the rusty wreckage around
her, they reflected ruin she must escape—and a crystal
tear. For a brief instant Kurt shared her soul's agony.
Somewhere a lonely seabird called, a stormcari.
"To the colony," she said, her voice soft as meringue,
yet with an edge of steel daring his reply. "I can't bear
Kiel anymore, Kurt. Look!" She swept an arm around,
all-inclusive. "The Fatherland. The best part. We're mag-
gots feeding on its corpse. We steal from the dead, create
nothing new, waste what little we have on this endless
madness—I'll not damn our baby to it! Not just to give
the Littoral another sailor to die at the next Meeting. ..."

There were gray clouds rising, shadows moving, and a
wind come down from the north soughed among the
girders. Perhaps a storm was brewing. Perhaps not. These

could be omens.

"Baby?" Kurt exclaimed, still off balance from the

shock of Norway.

"Yes, a baby."

"You're sure?"

She nodded.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Wouldn't've made any difference, would it?"

Guiltily, he avoided her angry eyes—because it was
true. The War was first in his life, even before babies.

"But Norway?"

'Too much? No. When Kari Wiedennann calls the
refugees traitors, do you have to break your neck agree-

12

ing? No one called you a traitor when you went to
Denmark. Must I love Germany less because I go to
Norway? And why do I want to go? Because there's got to
be something better than getting ready for the next battle—
and I can't have it here. Only in Telemark. Yes, Tele-
mark! Where the weird ones go, the dropouts, the pa-
cifists, the turncoats, the ones who go where there're no
Political Officers to make them think about killing.

"Go to your damned War! No, don't argue. You can't
change my mind. When the shells fly there, wherever,
remember me and tell yourself it's worth it."

He suspected this was a prepared speech, so readily did
her words come. Usually, she was as lame-tongued as he.
"But . . ." Exasperated, he ran a hand through his hair,
forgetting the cap he wore. With a curse, he caught it
centimeters above the earth. The accident sparked anger
he channeled toward Karen. "Why'd you marry me if I'm
such an idiot? Why not Hans?"

She smiled weakly. "Hans is a bigger idiot. He believes.
You're stupid sometimes, Kurt, but I love you anyway."
She slipped her arm around his waist and his anger began
to fade. "Come on. Let's get you to your boat before
Hans comes after you—or Beck."

They walked in silence until they reached the moldering
concrete surface of the Hoch-und-Deutschmeister pier,
where, with Jager's bow looming above them and her
decks ringing with the clatter of shoes, they joined Kurt's
sister and her fiance. They exchanged greetings, but
Frieda began moving around nervously, always keeping
Otto between herself and her brother. Kurt was startled
and a little hurt—although she claimed Otto's enlisting
was his fault, and was still angered by it—until he sudden-
ly realized that Frieda had broken her promise to herself
and had done what she had meant to avoid until mar-
riage. He chuckled, not at all dismayed. Indeed, he was
pleased for them.

Otto, too, seemed withdrawn, uncertain, no longer the
warm companion of childhood, prior to the death of
Kurt's mother, and before Kurt followed his cousin Gre-
gor into the self-imposed exile of the fishing fleets. Three
years' separation had seem them grow from boys into
men, and apart. Common experience no longer tied them
together. Both had striven for the old closeness after
Kurt's return, but soon realized they were trying to catch
the wind. It was gone, fading through their fingers like
gossamer on an autumn breeze. The old, once thought

13

eternal, binding magic had failed, and they could never go
home....

A shout broke Kurt's study. He looked up, saw sailors
preparing to single up mooring lines. Otto and Frieda
were growing increasingly uneasy. With Karen close, he
started down the pier.

A dozen steps onward, Karen said, "Put your bag
down." He did. "Kiss me." He did. "Miss me, Kurt. Miss
me bad." She was fighting tears against his shoulder, and
failing. "Be careful. Come back—please?" She kissed him
again, much harder, one to remember. Above, a boat-
swain's pipe shrieked. "Remember, I'll be in Telemark. I'll
wait. You'd better hurry on."

He kissed her once more, glad she closed her eyes and
missed his own tears. Then he shouldered his seabag and
walked stiffly along the pier, falling into step beside Otto.
Silently, momentarily, they shared, as long ago, their de-
parture despair. Kurt did not look back until they reached
the brow. Lord, he felt guilty.

"Come on, Kapp, Ranke, we can't hold movement for
you," someone shouted from the quarterdeck.

Kurt looked, saw Hans Wiedermann, an old enemy.
Karen had been his loss to Kurt and he had never forgiv-
en, though he had restrained himself well. He could have
gotten revenge through his father, Karl.

Then, as he climbed the brow, Kurt saw Beck watching
from the fantail. Fighting disgust, he jerked his eyes back
to Wiedermann. Hans had something of a similar aura,
but much mellowed. He was no Political Officer himself,
merely one's son. Yet some of the austere aloofness
(monastic? Jesuistic?) had attached itself. Beneath black
hair his face was pale, his eyes were icily blue, narrow—
but crinkle lines lurked at their corners, and about his
mouth. Hans sometimes laughed. Political Officers did
not, except at wakes and executions.

A false, stereotypical notion, Kurt knew, yet one he
thought uncomfortably close to the truth. He had strong,
perhaps exaggerated opinions about Political Officers, but
not much so. They were a cruel and mysterious tribe.

Wiedermann smiled as Kurt started aft, toward his
compartment. "We'll have the same watch."

Kurt felt ice-fingers caress his spine. Nominally, he and
Hans were of equal rank, the senior ratings in then-
departments, but Hans's was the senior rate. Boatswain
over Quartermaster. Kurt silently blessed Hans for the
warning. He would walk carefully for a while, hoping

14

Hans would realize a ship had no room for strong animos-
ities.

Soon, after stowing his gear, he went to the bridge,
looked around. Sea Detail was set. Hans was present, as
were Captain von Lappus, Commander Haber, and Mr.
Lindemann, Captain, Executive Officer, and Officer of the
Deck. Otto Kapp had the helm. Bearing takers were on the
wings, the walkways outside the closed bridge or pi-
lothouse. A messenger stood by, as did telephone talkers.
A full complement, once the lee helmsman arrived.

Outside, on a very light breeze, a drizzle began falling
from the gray sky, into the gray water. It was a dismal
day for beginnings, though no one aboard, or on the pier,
seemed to notice. There was dismay enough already.

Kurt stepped to the chart table, glanced at his charts,
opened his logbook—a handbound collection of scraps
garnered from the ends of the Littoral. After noting the
watchstanders, he went to the starboard wing—he did not
sense the rain—and waved to Karen. Peripherally, he saw
Wiedermann frown. But the Executive'Officer stood near-
by, waving to his own wife, and Hans dared say nothing
unkind. Kurt allowed himself the petty pleasure of a
smirk. He blew a kiss.

Strange. He felt sorry for Hans, never to have had the
love of a woman, neither mother nor wife. Nor had he
ever had close male friends, throughout his younger years
having been shunned because of his father's position. Al-
ways, he had interacted most with Kurt, because so many
of their interests and goals had been similar. What had
most recently flared in fistfights over Karen had begun at
the age of six, in a dispute over a torn and ragged picture
book, of ships, each had wanted to borrow from Kiel's
tiny library. . . .

"Cast off number four!" the Captain growled. Kurt
started, glanced down. Two mooring lines were already in.
He hurried inside to get it logged.

"Hard left rudder. Port engine back one-third." J'dger
shivered as her port screw came to life, a proud old lady
looking forward to another assignation with the sea. The
sea, the sea, the beautiful, lonely, endless sea, Kurt's first
love, which was leading him to forsake his second and
true for its sad, empty, rippled bosom. . . . lager's stem
slowly swung away from the pier.

"Cast off number one." Stay-at-homes scurried on the
drizzled pier as the last mooring line was freed. The
forecastle bustled as the Sea Detail hauled it in and
stretched it for eventual drying. The proud old lady was

15

on her way to her ancient lover,. Neptune, Poseidon,
Dagon, god of a thousand names, who dwelt where shat-
tered towers lie. .. . "Fair Atlantis ..."

"What?"

Kurt blushed when he saw Otto had overheard, embar-
rassed by having his daydreams aired like a lumber-room
carpet. "Nothing." He turned to his chart table, leaving
Kapp bewildered. Otto had grown into a hard, practical
man who was often bewildered by Kurt's lack of change
since childhood.

"All back one-third. Rudder 'midships."

Jager backed down slowly till she reached the center
of the fairway, then stopped and used her engines to swing
her bow to the proper heading for leaving harbor. During
a lull in engine orders and rudder changes, Kurt glanced
up from his log. Karen and Frieda had become tiny
figures waving pathetically, almost indistinguishable for
rain, crowd, and distance. His throat tightened. He sud-
denly feared he would never see them again.

His eyes shifted to the city, ruin forever on, angles and
planes and steel fingers clawing at the sky whence had
fallen the ancient death. Time had worn the sharp edges,
except around the shipyards where the corpses of tremen-
dous cranes and mysterious machines lay like scattered,
corroded, vanquished trolls. The neat little shops and
houses fronting the harbor to the southeast were out of
place and time. Indeed, here, Man was out of place and
time, yet he refused to acknowledge his fall.

Still, Kurt told himself, this was the heart of his civiliza-
tion. All Europe, he knew, lay wasted from Hamburg
south. The descendants of Germans, Poles, Danes,
Lithuanians, and Latvians lived in small, scattered settle-
ments along the Littoral, the narrow remaining band of
tillable coastal soil, scratching out a meager living. This
new country had few cities: Kiel, Kolberg, Gdynia, Dan-
zig, a new port city fifty kilometers southwest of ancient
Riga. Kiel was the largest, the capital, with a population
approaching ten thousand.

Jager gathered speed as she nosed down the channel
toward the sea, until she was making fifteen knots. Soon
she entered the passage between Langeland and Laaland,
occasionally sounding her foghorn as warning to the Dan-
ish fishing boats. The sailing craft scuttled from her path.
Wide-eyed men in foul-weather gear watched the iron
lady pass—Kurt leaned against a bulkhead and stared
back through diamond raindrops on porthole glass, filled
with happy memories—and shook their heads. Another

one off to the War. "There, Gregor," Kurt cried, pointing.
"Dancer!" Near at hand was his own boat. He saw curious
faces he knew. But, when he turned to his cousin, his
enthusiasm died. Once again he had forgotten and let
familiarity carry him across the line between officer and
crewman. Eyes turned his way, anticipating. Kurt turned
back to the sea, but the fishing boat had now fallen far
behind.

Much to his surprise, Kurt found the mess decks
crowded when he went to supper. He had thought most
everyone would be too queasy to eat. Perhaps they wanted
to get a last fresh meal—without refrigeration, Jager could
store only imperishables. Kurt sighed. He should have
come early, to petty officers' mess. He grabbed the seat of
.a man just finished, settled down to his rough meal.

Five minutes later. Otto slipped into the recently va-
cated seat opposite him, said, "Well, we're finally on the
way. It doesn't seem real."

Kurt grunted an affirmative through a mouthful of
strudel. Otto avoided his eyes.

"It's like I'll wake up any minute and find myself at
home." Kapp nervously prodded his food with his fork.
"Uh ... about me and Frieda ..."

Kurt swallowed, said, "She's your problem, not mine.
You got troubles, settle them with her. She's a big girl
now." He hoped Otto would understand that he was
undismayed by the new deepness of Frieda's commitment.

Apparently, Otto did comprehend. The tension faded
from his face. He smiled weakly. "Think we'll catch that
pirate galleon this time?"

Kurt grinned broadly as he remembered raft-borne pi-
rate chases on the ponds of the silted-up Kiel Canal. That
had been his game, imagined into being after reading old
books. Then as now. Otto had gone along because Kurt
was his friend. Which thought killed Kurt's pleasure at the
question. He should not have talked Otto into coming.
Frieda was right in being angry with him.

"What we catch," said Hans Wiedermann, assuming the
seat beside Otto (which, Kurt saw by looking around, was
the only one available), "may be a Tartar, like Hood
catching Bismarck."

Kapp displayed puzzlement. Hans would not expand his
cryptic comment, apparently feeling ignorance was inex-
cusable. Otto looked to Ranke. "Old-time battleships,"
Kurt said. "An ancient war. Hood and Prince of Wales

were after Bismarck. Hood went down almost as soon as

the shooting started."

"History," Kapp snorted. "You two live in the past.

What good is it? Reading books about old times won't put
food in your stomach." He launched a set speech long
familiar to Kurt, who suspected Otto's feelings were based
in envy. He, like many Littoral children, had received only
the rudiments of an education. He could read numbers
and puzzle his way through the simplest primer, but all
else was beyond him, which had to rankle when conversa-
tions went beyond his scope. And, if he were working with
some machine and needed to know how to operate or
repair it, he had to do so by trial and error or knowledge

passed orally by someone more experienced.

Yet, despite no knowledge of theory. Otto was a first-
rate mechanic. Often, when not on watch, he worked in
one of the gunmounts, deftly maintaining hydraulics and
electrical servos whose physics he comprehended not at

all.

The whole of modern technology, Kurt supposed, was

mirrored in Otto Kapp. Very few people knew why things
worked any more, nor did they care. To bang on or fiddle

with a machine until it worked was enough.

It had to collapse. To maintain a technological culture

on hand-me-down skills was impractical ... it had col-
lapsed already, he decided. Jdger was an anomaly, one
of the few functional machines left to the Littoral. The
culture as a whole there operated at the level of the

sixteenth or seventeenth century.

Kurt grew aware that Hans and Otto were engaged in a

spirited argument over the value of studying history. Otto
maintained that the past was dead and useless while Hans
reiterated ancient notions of learning from others' mis-
takes. Said Otto, "Avoid past mistakes? Hans, that's stu-
pid. If it's true, why're we here? This mistakes's already
two centuries old." Otto was, probably, the most openly
anti-War person Kurt knew—with the understandable ex-
ceptions of Karen and Frieda. "You think people're sensi-
ble. That's the silliest idea ..."

Kapp stopped in mid-career. Kurt had kicked him

beneath the table. Beck had appeared. For reasons un-
known, he was eating at crew's mess rather than in the
wardroom. The mess decks were silent as scores of
breaths were held. Everyone waited for Beck to choose a
seat. The groans at Kurt's table were inaudible, but very
real within, when the Political Officer selected the open

place next to Kurt.

18

"Good evening, men," he said as he deposited his tray
on the table, his voice sounding somehow distant and
hollow. "Don't let me interrupt." He hazarded a smile
which was more a grimace. Elsewhere, sailors resumed
conversations, though in hushed, cautious tones.

"Perhaps you're right," said Hans, half turning to Otto.
"Hitler invaded Russia knowing Napoleon had failed. Yet
the first failure didn't automatically guarantee a second.
All indications were for a swift German victory."

"Uhn?" Otto grunted. Kurt chuckled despite Beck's
inhibiting presence. Otto had only the vaguest notion who
Hitler had been, and undoubtedly had never heard of

Bonaparte.

"History?" Beck asked, thin eyebrows rising. "An odd
subject for seamen, though, perhaps, after living with the
Wiedermanns, none too surprising in Hans. The Political
Office has always been interested in history, especially
unusual historical theories." He looked them each in the
eye, as if asking for such theories. No one spoke. Kurt
was afraid to say anything lest Beck take offense. Otto
was subtly insubordinate with a flash of expression, with a
quirk of the lip. Even Hans, who had had to suffer Beck's
presence in his home for a year, and should therefore
have been innured, seemed to suffer dampened spirits.
Beck, who, Kurt felt, had been making an honest attempt
to communicate, soon withdrew into himself, ate mechani-
cally, and became his normal cold, faraway self.

19

SUNSET, lager, moving fast, was 250 kilometers north of
Kiel, past most of the Danish islands. As day faded in    t
orange and violet riot, she slowed for safety's sake. With
no up-to-date charts by which to steam, she must navigate
by notes Kurt and Lindemann had made while with the
fishers. And those did little enough to help seamen travel-
ing this modem strait by night. The bottom of the Katte-
gat had changed considerably during two centuries. Mud-
banks had formed and moved. The tides and currents had
shifted. And there were uncharted wrecks scattered every-
where. The Battle of the Kattegat had been a seafight to
rival Lepanto in magnitude.

The Danes, and Swedish traders at times, marked ob-
structions with lanterns and buoys, and all navigators kept
notes much as had Kurt. Lindemann had also made a
comprehensive list of the lights and buoys of the Norwe-
gian coast, where the Danes maintained salting stations
and trading posts. He had had charge of one of these,
serving vessels working the Norwegian Sea, for two years.
Kurt regretted their paths had crossed so seldom those
days, for, as with Otto, young memories of his cousin
made him fond of the man. Too fond. Once again, Gregor
had had to remind him to avoid over familiarity before
the crew. Their relationship was rapidly growing distant
and strained.

But the lights and buoys, at the mercy of foul weather
and inattention, were untrustworthy. Jager steamed slowly,
with many lookouts.

The Year of Our Lord 2193, and Jager was celebrat-
ing her 250th year. Like other ships which survived
beyond their times, she was cranky. She could sail and
fight, true, but with none of the vigor of her youth.
Countless tens of thousands of sea miles had passed   (
beneath her keel, dozens of battles had been fought about
her, from Iwo Jima to Anambas.

Once, when she was young, she had been U.S.S. Co-well,
and she bore the name fifty years, until Russians captured

her aground in Cam Rahn Bay. Rechristened Potemkin,
she served first in the Soviet, then in the Siberian Fleet,
until Sakhalinski Zaiiv. There the Australians hauled her
shell-crippled body off the Sakhalin rocks and rebuilt her
into Swordftsh. Decades later, after expending all her fuel
at Anambas, German sailors from Grossdeutschland took
her in hand-to-hand fighting, and she became Jager, the
Hunter.

An old lady, she was proud and difficult, with her
arthritis and failing organs, her bad eyes and deafening
ears—but men would not let her retire. She must pass in
line of battle. Her radars worked not at all, her sonar was
sporadic, radio was out forever for lack of spares—
although there were no technicians to make repairs, even
had spares been available.

She was cranky that night, steaming the Kattegat with
her sonar and fathometer down. At midnight, while slowly
crossing a sea spotted with lights like low-hanging stars—
lights of fishing boats or warnings on hazards—still sound-
ing foghorn warnings, she was betrayed. A sleepy look-
out missed the death of a star.

Kurt dreamed of Karen, and snored across memories of
their courtship.

Once again he came from the harbor, from his boat, to
see Frieda, and again she was gone. A neighbor told him
she was out with Otto Kapp. So he washed his face and
left his bag, walked up the street toward Otto's, mind on
making two visits at once. And, while crossing the Bren-
nerplatz, a hand caught his arm and a soft voice asked,
"Kurt? Are you blind?"

How had he missed her? he asked himself, resplendent
as she was in a bright peasant dress of her mother's
weaving and her own sewing. "Karen. I'm sorry. I was
daydreaming."

"You haven't changed." She smiled, meaning no criti-
cism. "Will you come to dinner?"

"I'm on my way to Otto's, to see Frieda."

"They've borrowed a cart and gone for a picnic up the
canal."

Ah, Kurt thought, the same Kiel. Everyone knows ev-
eryone's business. But Karen had changed. The rather
lanky, budding teen-ager of three years earlier had be-
come something of a willowy beauty. "All right. What
time?"

"Now?"

He learned of her engagement to Hans Wiedermann

during the meal. "You don't seem enthusiastic," he ob-
served.

"Oh?" Her blond eyebrows rose questioningly.

"No. You made a face." And, to the side, Karen's
mother made another. Kurt then remembered she had
been planning for him and Karen since before they
reached their teens.

"He's too much his father's son," Karen said, and closed
the subject.

Two nights later, as he walked harborward from a third
supper at Karen's, he met Hans. Hans had little to say,
merely asked if Kurt knew of his engagement. At Kurt's
affirmative reply, the smaller man started swinging. Strict-
ly speaking, Hans won, for Kurt quickly withdrew.

Yet, when Dancer's fish were sold and she put to sea,
Kurt was not aboard. He resisted pressure in his own way,
taking his struggle to its goal, the battlefield of Karen's
mind. Two weeks later, he and Karen married. As the
priest asked, "Do you, Kurt Ranke—"

Metal screamed. Jager staggered as her sonar dome
was torn away. The bhong-bhong-bhong of the collision
alarm reverberated through the ship. She caught again,
aft, more seriously, bucked, shuddered as screw blades
chewed at the obstruction. Kurt bounced from his rack,
hit another, crumpled on the cold steel deck. He woke
during the fall, was out for a second after impact, then
painfully regained consciousness. He struggled to a sitting
position, groaned, grabbed his head. Then, with the sud-
denness of a startled cat, he scrambled from beneath a
pair of descending feet. The compartment lights came on.
Clutching one of the small overhead I-beams supporting
the fantail weatherdeck, he stared down at his undershirt.

Redness. Warm wetness. He was dumbfounded. Oh. His
nose was bleeding. He snapped the shirt up and pinched his
nostrils. It quickly stopped.

The compartment grew crowded with sleepy, frightened
sailors asking sleepy, frightened questions. A few panicked
and scrambled up a ladder to the fantail. Here and there,
unreasoning men scrounged through their lockers, seizing
possessions to take when abandoning ship. The panic
spread, feeding itself. Carried by it, Kurt climbed the
ladder with his division. He wore a cap, but had forgotten
his jumper and trousers.

Metal screamed again. Jager groaned. Kurt tripped as
he stepped through the hatch, but steadier men caught
him. There was little fear on the fantail. It evaporated

22

with freedom from tight, crowded living spaces, and as it
became obvious the ship was not sinking.
"Thanks, Ott. What's happening?"
"Hit something," Kapp replied. "Now they're trying to
back her off."

"Here now, make a hole!" someone shouted. Chief
Engineer Czyzewski, in his underwear, leading a Damage
Control party, pushed through the crowd. "You men move
forward!" the Pole bellowed, shooing them like unruly
chickens. The sailors retreated, clearing the fantail, stag-
gering as the ship again lurched.

"Tell the bridge to stop engines!" Czyzewski thundered.
"They'll rip the hull open!"

A man with head-surrounding sound-powered phones
relayed the message. The boiling beneath the stern died.

Someone muttered, "We're taking water forward. The
sonar dome's gone."

But, before the disclosure could incite new panic, the
telephone talker shouted, "Mr. Czyzewski! Ziotopolski says
he's got the patch on forward!"
"Tell him to get it welded."
"We moving?" someone asked.

Kurt sensed the slight change in the roll of the deck.
Jager was free, drifting.

"Well, Kurt," said another voice, "what happened with
those notes you're so proud of? Looks like you sold us
worthless paper."

Kurt gave Hans Wiedermann a poisonous stare. "It's
more likely the deck ape at the helm screwed up, not
knowing right from left when a steering order was given."

Hans laughed bitterly, teeth glistening whitely in the
glare of newly rigged emergency lights.

Another engineering party arrived, driving the specta-
tors farther forward. Kurt, Hans, and others who thought
quickly enough scrambled up a ladder to front-row seats
atop the aftmost gunmount. Difficult seats. Dead in the
water, Jager was unable to keep her bows to the swells.
She slowly turned parallel to them and began rolling. The
back and forth was hard on some stomachs.

"My, Hans," Kurt said maliciously, "you look green.
How'11 you feel when we hit real waves? Be like Mr.
Obermeyer?" Obermeyer was First Lieutenant, Hans's divi-
sion officer, and had been confined by seasickness to
quarters almost constantly since Jager had cast off moor-
ing lines at Kiel. Hans had been carrying the man's
workload for him and, though he kept it well hidden, Kurt
had begun to see in him a quiet bitterness at not having

23

been given Obermeyer's billet in the first place. Hans,
Kurt decided, was a greener-grass man, always disgruntled
by not being one step beyond his attainments. In fact, he
recalled, he had felt some of the same distress on discov-
ering that Gregor, with less sea experience, had been
chosen navigator over himself.

He decided the engineers would manage quite well
without his kibitzing, so scrambled down from the gun-
mount and returned to his compartment, to his rack
where, in sleep, the throbbing pain in his nose might
gradually fade.

He had hardly fallen asleep when Hans shook his rack.
"Out, smart boy. Mr. Lindemann wants you in the
wardroom, with your charts."

Kurt opened one sleepy blue eye and stared, daring
Hans to be lying. He was not. His sadistic little smile
proved it. Kurt reached out and mussed his curly black
hair. "Yes, dear."

The smile vanished. Hans lifted a fist waist-high,
dropped it. "Five minutes. In the wardroom." He stalked
away rigidly.

Sighing, Kurt rolled out and pulled on a dress uniform,
considered shaving, decided against it—no time. After
quickly combing his hair, he hurried forward to the chart-
house and bridge.

He reached the wardroom a minute past his five, found
Hans glumly waiting in the passage outside. Kurt studied
his dark features closely. Nothing. He knocked on the
wardroom door. It opened and he entered. Hans did not.
Kurt felt mildly frightened on seeing he was the only
enlisted man present.

Commander Haber met him a step inside. The Execu-
tive Officer's brownish-blond hair was disarrayed, his uni-
form was tacky. Unusual. He was fussy about his appear-
ance. And he was more nervous than usual, Kurt saw. His
thin hands quaked.

Beck was there, cold as ever and angry red. Had there
been a scene?

"Come in, Ranke. Take the seat beside Mr. Lindemann.
We've a few questions for you." Haber paused while Kurt
seated himself. "To sum up, we've been discussing our loss
of the port screw and sonar. The latter we can do with-
out. It was touchy at best. The screw, though ..."

"No hope, sir?" He felt pain each time he called Haber
"sir." Haber was another old friend who had become
distant since Kurt had joined Jager's crew. Once the man
had been almost a second father, when courting his moth-

24

r

er. Everyone seemed drifting away, leaving him out of
their lives.

"None. Mr. Czyzewski says it's bent dangerously. We'll
warp the drive shaft if it's used. It tangled with the
masthead of a wreck. The light on the warning buoy had
gone out.

"Now we've a decision to make, to go on or to turn
back. If we do continue, we'll be crippled. If we return to
Kiel for repairs, we may not reach Gibraltar in time for
the Gathering. We'd like to go on, if possible." Haber
paused briefly, touched the thin line of his mustache with
shaky fingers while glancing toward Beck, watchful in
a comer. Kurt had the feeling Haber's last words were for
Beck alone, that Beck was the only man there who actual-
ly wanted to go on. "You're here, Ranke, because you
know Danish waters better than anyone else. How likely is
it that we'll encounter more of this sort of trouble?"

Beck turned his cold eyes on Kurt. Kurt understood
why Haber was nervous and vague. The Political Officer
hovered over the meeting like an eager hangman.

"Sir," Kurt replied, trying to ignore Haber's neck-
scratching and Beck's stare, "it shouldn't be difficult, bar-
ring the steering problem. Wrecks in the Kattegat aren't
all that common—"

"You have a chart of the Kattegat," Beck interrupted.
"The obstructions were marked, and you were to instruct
the watchstanders. What happened?"

Fright. Trying to blame someone? Kurt glanced at
Gregor. Lindemann thoughtfully stared into nothingness,
apparently unworried. Kurt realized the meeting was all
for Beck's benefit.

They were much of the same appearance, Kurt and
Gregor, tall, blue-eyed, fair, though Gregor's hair was a
shade darker than Kurt's golden blond. They might have
been taken for brothers in another age, but not in the
present. The people of the Baltic Littoral all looked very
much alike. They were descendants of a genetic type
immune to a hideous weapon used early in the War, a
virus which destroyed Caucasian chromosomal structures.
Current physical differences were due almost entirely to
environment. Von Lappus was fat because he ate too
much. Haber was thin, small, and nervous because, as a
child, he had been trapped in a collapsing building and
had suffered prolonged starvation before being rescued. Of
all those aboard only Hans and Beck were of truly differ-
ent types, and for the same reason: they were from Gi-
braltar, where different weapons had been used.

25

Lindemarm said, "Explain it, Kurt."

Kurt opened his portfolio and took out the chart Beck
had mentioned. He spread it on the table, looked at the
Political Officer. "Sir, this isn't a chart. It's a pre-War map
of Denmark, southern Sweden, and southern Norway. It
shows political features, not the sea bottom. Even if it was
a chart, it'd be too small a scale. We should have the
largest-scale charts possible when sailing close waters.
But all we've got are old political maps, two ancient
British charts of Scapa Flow, and the anchor chart for
Gibraltar you gave me. I begged for better charts, but the
Council planners ..."

Von Lappus snorted porcinely, shifted his bulk, opened
his small blue eyes, fixed Kurt with his stare. "We've
already heard it from Mr. Lindemann. We don't have
time for repeats just now."

The von Lappus twins, Sepp and Wilhelm, had been
features of Kiel life for as long as Kurt could remember.
Wilhelm was mayor, which was tantamount to being gov-
ernor (or president, or king, or whatever) of the entire
Littoral, and Sepp was commander of the military, such as
it was. And, so Kurt remembered, the twins had always
been fat and old. The only change in them was their
common, increasing baldness.

Kurt hurriedly continued, "The best charts we have
were captured with the ship at Anambas, of Australian
and Indonesian waters. They're only forty years old. Yes,
we can go on. The Kattegat and Skagerrak are safe
enough, with care. Only the Channel should be dangerous.
But I couldn't guarantee there'll be no more accidents. . . ."

"Ranke," said Haber, shaking his head, "we all know
the navigational situation is critical. You'll just have to
make do till we join the Gathering. The High Command'11
take care of us from there."

Kurt forebore telling Haber what he thought of High
Command at that moment. The Beck look of icewater and
doom was standard, but the man had a knack for making
it seem personal.

The Captain shifted again, nodded to Haber, who said,
"All right, Ranke, that'll be all. You said about what we
expected. Oh, don't bother the charts. We'll want them
later."

Kurt returned the portfolio to the table, looked at
Gregor. He took a keyring from his pocket. "Sir?"

"I'll take care of it."

Kurt dropped the keys on the portfolio, quickly left,
sighing once through the door.

26

Hans was still standing outside. His presence surprised
Kurt. Also, his apparent friendliness as he asked, "What'd
they decide?"

Kurt studied his face. Hans seemed frightened. "Noth-
ing yet. But I'll be surprised if we go home."

"Oh."

Kurt was two steps past the boatswain. The dull, flat,
disappointed reply so astonished him that he turned back.
"I thought you'd be happy, Hans."

"Kurt, there's gung-ho, and there's gung-ho," Hans mut-
tered, staring at the deck. Shadows veiled his expression.
"There's the kind you put on in Kiel because your father's
a Political Officer, and there's the kind you feel inside.
There's the kind that makes you march on Victory Day,
and the kind that makes you want to run for Telemark
... oh!"

Wiedermann apparently realized he was speaking dan-
gerously. His eyes widened slightly—hard to see them in
the dark—and he backed a step away. Then he whirled
and hurried forward, to the head of a ladder which led
down to his compartment. Kurt shrugged and started aft.
Though he had been given a powerful weapon, he soon
forgot. He was not one to carry damning tales.

"Go away, dammit!" Kurt growled. It seemed he had
just gone to sleep, yet here was the messenger, telling him
to relieve the watch. And he would not go away. "Dam-
mit again!" Kurt sat up, bumping his head against the
rack above. Its occupant growled and rolled over. Kurt
dropped to the deck, grimacing as cold steel met his feet.
He yanked his work uniform off a hook nearby, donned it,
then went up a ladder to the head, to shave. Minutes later
he passed through red battle-light-interrupted darkness, to
the mess decks for a quick cup of ersatz coffee before
going to the bridge.

Jager was underway, moving slowly, as he had known
since awakening. She was rolling heavily, steaming parallel
to the swells. What direction was she running? North, into
the Skagerrak? Or south, toward Kiel? For one unpatriot-
ic moment, he hoped they were sailing home—but, when
he looked over the helmsman's shoulder, that hope died.
Course, 000°. He fought disappointment as he relieved his
predecessor, Paul Milch.

Hans arrived, relieved the boatswain of the watch. He
too glanced at the steering compass and frowned. Curious,
Kurt watched others of the oncoming watch. Otto showed
the same momentary unhappiness, though Gregor, when

27

he arrived to assume his duties as Officer of the Deck,
merely shrugged. Of course, he had known already.

Man after man, each reacted the same, with disappoint-
ment quickly hidden. It made Kurt wonder. Just one day
earlier many of these men had been eager to sail. Now
they wanted to go home. The adventure was no adventure
at all, once begun. But turning back could not be. No one
dared risk the wrath of the High Command, for High
Command was a jealous god, believed capable of any-
thing—including the destruction of an uncooperative
member state.

Kurt could see, in the battle-light-reddened faces of the
watch, dread of High Command replacing patriotism and
adventure as the forces behind Jager's sailing. He won-
dered if the mood was similar aboard all ships bound for
the Gathering. Would they go just for fear's sake? Or
because they felt there was some purpose in the War?

He wanted to talk to someone, to discover others'
feelings, yet, as he looked around at men who were his
closest friends, he realized they would not share. Time and
circumstance had rendered null their closeness. He seized
a cable overhead as the deck sank away, then rose shiver-
ing beneath him, listened to the sighs of the wind, to the
crump of the seas hitting the bow—all the sounds of
loneliness on a gray and forgotten sea.

He wondered if this unhappy small sample of the crew
were truly representative of the ship's mood. His thoughts
wandered to the engine rooms, the ammunition ready
rooms. Combat Information Center. Would disappoint-
ment also haunt those places when men learned Jager
was going on? What of the officers? The Captain? Haber?

Why was Jdger sailing? Because of the High Com-
mand, that shadow organization at Gibraltar? No one
really knew, except, perhaps, Beck, who had come from
Gibraltar with platitudes, slogans, sentences with no mean-
ing. Kill the enemy. Destroy. Why? According to Beck, to
end the rampant savagery of the East, to drive a shaft of
liberty's light into the slaveholder's darkness of Australia.

Kurt reviewed the old catchwords, epithets, and emo-
tion-laden arguments, and found no solace. Who cared?
Who had ever seen an Australian, or been hurt by one?
How could he hate someone he had never seen?

He drifted back to his tenth summer, the day his father
had sailed to the War. Years of slow, difficult work with
makeshift tools, and a hundred men, had been invested in
£7-793—and she had sailed out of history as finally as if
she had never been. Her story, for the people of the

28

Littoral, had ended the moment she crossed the horizon.
Why?

Another year, another ship. Was Jager's story already
done? Was she a metal coffin staggering off in search of a
watery graveyard?

Gregor put a hand on Kurt's shoulder, startling him.
"Got a posit?"

"Just an estimated." He tapped the chart at Jager's
approximate position.

Gregor nodded. "Come left to two seven zero," he
ordered.

After logging the course change, Kurt went to Hans
and whispered, "You ought to change helmsmen once in a
while." He nodded toward Otto. "Must be a job trying to
balance the screw."

Hans grunted agreement, directed a man to spell Kapp.

"Kurt?"

"Sir?" He returned to the chart table. Gregor was
examining the northern coast of Denmark.

"Do you remember any shoals along here?"

Kurt shuffled through his notes. There was little to be
found or remembered. He shrugged. "None to bother us,
that I know of. You?" When Gregor shook his head, Kurt
continued, "You could send a lookout to the masthead."

"Right. Boatswain!"

Kurt was at the psychrometer, working on a weather
report, when Wiedermann returned. He grew aware of
Hans's presence as he closed the little wooden box.
"What?"

"Kurt ... uh, would you forget last night? I mean ...
well, I guess I wasn't thinking right."

Kurt studied him closely. Hans shuffled nervously, eyes
fixed on the deck. This was out of character. Although
small, thin, and physically weak, Hans had always been
aggressive. For reasons Kurt did not understand, Hans
was forever trying to better him. They had come to blows
several times, especially courting Karen. But there had
always been an unspoken agreement. No outsiders in their
conflicts. Neither had run to parents when little, neither
carried tales to authority now—yet Hans appeared afraid
Kurt would denounce him to Beck.

"Hans, I never heard a thing." Kurt pretended to exam-
ine the seas while noting the nearness of lookouts. "We'll
stop in Norway to cut firewood, you know. Up the Otra
River, they've decided. We'll be only a few days from the
Telemark colony."

29

Wiedennann's eyes widened, then narrowed. He slowly
shook his head.

Kurt leaned on the rail and stared toward Norway,
said, "Know what bothers me, Hans? I don't think there's
anybody, except Beck, who wants to go on. Even the
officers. But we're going anyway, and I wonder why. I
could ask Beck, maybe, but he'd give me the usual crap
about Australia."

"Wonder if he believes, it?"

"That's bothered me for a long time. How does High
Command know the Australians will sail against us next
summer?"

"We'll find out when we get to Gibraltar," Hans re-
plied. "You know, Beck says every operable ship in the
West will be there."

"They said the same thing when my father sailed."

"Well . . ."

"That was the Final Meeting, the Last Battle, the Vic-
tory, too. And then there was Grossdeutschland—isn't
that a joke? She went to a Last Battle too."

"Maybe this time . . ."

"Maybe Karen was right. Maybe there's not supposed
to be an end. Maybe, when we run out of steel ones,
they'll have us build wooden ships and cast brass cannons,
or something, . . ."

"That's a lot of 'maybes,' Kurt. What bothers me,
despite my father's yak, is that I see no reason for this.
Would the Australians notice the difference if we just
stayed home?"

The sun was sneaking up on the eastern horizon, speck-
ling the sky with small orange clouds. Kurt mumbled, "I
try not to worry about it, but I have to. Karen's fault.
She's going to Telemark."

Hans shook his head, startled disbelief on his face.
"Hey!" he suddenly hissed. "Don't look, but snake-eye
Beck's watching us. On the torpedo deck. Bet he's looking
for a traitor to hang. Probably thinks we need an object
lesson."

Kurt glanced that way quickly. Beck was indeed
watching, and with the mesmeric predacity which had led
men to call him "snake-eye." Kurt grumbled, "He'd better
not make a habit of strolling the weather decks at night."

"Quartermaster!"

Kurt turned, saw Gregor at the door to the pilothouse.
"Sir?"

"I need a course for Kristiansand, with a turn in fifteen

minutes." As Kurt stepped through the door, Lindemann
whispered, "Be careful, Kurt. Beck's traitor-hunting."

Kurt nodded as he bent over the chart table, pleased
that his cousin had expressed concern.

m

"SIR, lookout reports lights ahead," said a phone talker.

Kurt leaned out the pilothouse door, had a hard time
finding the lights. Although the sun had set, twilight still
confused the eyes. He finally found them almost directly
over the bow, in a flat triangle which rose and fell slowly—
the horizon appeared in constant motion while Jager
seemed stable. Although he was certain he knew the
lights, Kurt turned to his notes.

"Those are the Lillesand ranges, Kurt," Gregor said.
"The legs of the triangle, extended seaward, mark safe
channels into harbor."

"Thought so. What's there?"

"Salting station, trading post. Let's see, we're about fifty
kilometers northeast of the Otra now. Give me a new
course to Kristiansand."

"Two one zero."

Lindemann ordered the course changed, and the vessel
slowed until she was just making steerage way. She dared
not hazard the river until she had morning's light. "You
know anything about shoals or wrecks there?" Lindemann
asked. "Can't recall anything myself."

Kurt shook his head. "Not about the Otra. It's strictly
a Norwegian river. Never been there."

"When's sunrise?"

Kurt glanced at a note left by Paul Milch of the
previous watch. "Four forty-eight, sir. Milch thinks we'll

have a flood tide."

"Thinks?" Gregor smashed fist into palm, grumbled,
"I'm repeating myself, I know, but how the hell're we
supposed to sail a ship without charts or tables?"

Kurt smiled. If nothing else, Gregor would share their
professional problems. But with that thought he grew
reminded of his alienation and the loneliness came crash-
ing in. Things had been better with the Danes, profession-
ally and personally. He had had tools and friends in
plenty. Tools. Here his complaints were always answered
with tales of famous navigators who had sailed on less

32

r

than what Jager had available. Fine, he thought. So
Columbus steered by astrolabe and the wind behind his
ear. He had known no better.

Such thoughts depressed him. He left the watch feeling
low, and tossed for an hour before sleeping.

Two pasts haunted Kurt's dreams. Awake, he often
daydreamed; sometimes dwelling in medieval glories, not
at all aware the age had been as bitter as his own;

sometimes in the middle decades of the twentieth century,
just before the War, when all the machines and people
had been alive, not just mysterious, rusted, fallen djinn,
and bones found in ancient ruins. By night, his own past
plagued him, his sorrows, errors, and triumphs. While
Jager's bridge watch trolled the Norwegian night for land-
marks, Kurt's soul wandered to a day that had been a little
of each. . . .

At the Ranke home, a month after the wedding, he,
Karen, and Frieda lingered over a late breakfast of salty
pork. Kurt grew aware of Karen hopefully staring—he
felt he should say something kind, yet he had arisen in a
restless, impatient mood, and the meat had been over-
done. . . .

"Well?"

"It's okay, I guess."

Hurt appeared on her face, quickly departed. Kurt
opened his mouth to soothe her, but there was a call from
another room.

"Kurt? Frieda? Karen?" A moment later, Heinrich Ha-
ber walked in. "Let myself in," he said. "Hope it's all
right." Such liberties were common in Kiel.

Kurt's eyebrows rose. Haber wore strange clothing, yet
familiar. Then he recognized it. It was a uniform such as
his father had worn on going to sea in U-793.

"No!" Karen gasped. Kurt tamed, found her pale, on
the verge of tears. He was dumbfounded.

"Can we talk privately, Kurt?" Haber asked. His lean
body seemed somehow fuller, more manly in the uniform.
And his shakes, which were always with him, were much
less pronounced.

"Of course." Kurt always had time for Haber, a man he
and Frieda wished had successfully gotten their mother to
remarry.

As they took seats in an upstairs room, by a window
looking out on the harbor, Kurt discovered the reason for
his morning's mood. He had a restless, urgent need to get
aboard a ship and reclaim the feel of the sea.

33

"Briefly," said Haber, getting straight to the point, "I
came to ask you to join Jager's crew."

"lager?"

"I keep forgetting you've been away, and too busy
lately to notice what's happening. Jager's the old destroy-
er. High Command has ordered us to outfit and man her,
and bring her to a Gathering next summer."

"Oh." He had heard something of it from Otto, had
seen the High Command representative about the city, but
had not been much concerned. "I don't think so. Karen
wouldn't like it."

"None of our wives like it. But there's a job that has to
be done. And I'm not asking you just to be a deckhand.
Your Danish experience counts for more than that. Lead-
ing Quartermaster, top enlisted billet in Operations, is still
open. You're the only qualified man in Kiel. Your cousin
Gregor has agreed to be navigator. He's on his way home
from Norway now."

"Why not a fisherman?"

"Can't find one interested."

"And why a Gathering?"

"The War again. High Command's discovered that the
Australians are putting together a fleet to come against
Europe, summer after next. This time we'll end it for
good. We'll destroy all their ships, then go on and smash
their ports and harbors so they can't ever try again."

Kurt frowned. He had been quite young and disinter-
ested at the time of his father's departure, yet it seemed
he had heard all this before, then. Yet, to go, to see places
about which he could only dream here, to have a major
ship beneath and about him ... His eyes sought the
distant warship, at the Hoch-und-Deutschmeister pier,
where she had been waiting all his life.

"Do you really believe that, Heinrich?" Kurt jerked
around. Karen had come in quietly, unasked. "Or are you
as cynical a liar as Beck? I hope, for your sake, that
you've been honestly taken in."

"Karen!" Kurt was shocked. This was no way to speak
to a close and long-time friend.

"Karen," said Haber, gently, "I do hope you'll not talk
that way in public. Even a lazy old man like Karl Wieder-
mann would have to do something—especially with a
ranking Political Officer here. Beck would probably gun
you down with that ugly pistol he always carries."

"I don't care!" Kurt's wonder grew. This was the first
time he had seen her angry—and he still had no slightest
notion why. Surely, not because of his reaction to break-

34

fast. "I want you to leave," she said. "We don't want your
phony patriotism."

"Karen!"

"Oh, shut up, Kurt. You don't know what's going on.
You'll let yourself get talked into something you'll regret."

He was angered by her implying he was incapable of
rational decision. So, to prove something, he made an
irrational one. "I'll go." He meant to say he would think
about going, but it did not come out so, and, afterward,
Karen forever turned deaf ears to his explanations.

"Kurt!" she wailed, "why? Haven't our families been
hurt enough?"

Then the argument began, their first. As each angry
word took birth and flew, Kurt grew more determined he
would not let Karen think for him. He was by nature a
drifter, a follower, easily manipulated, yet, when accused
of it, became stubborn in proving to himself he was
not—sometimes in support of the stupidest things. ... He
committed himself to Jager so clumsily there was no way
he could withdraw without tremendous loss of face. He
won a sad victory over Karen, and slept that night alone.

"Ranke!" It seemed sleep had just come, but here was
the messenger of the watch, shaking his rack, stirring him
forth from the muzzy depths of memory. "Time to relieve
the watch."

"Goddammit," he muttered, "I just got off."

"It's three-thirty," the messenger said defensively.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Then he chuckled. The
engineers were standing watch and watch, six hours on
and six off. He consoled himself by thinking of those with
a worse lot. "Go on. Get out of here," he told the
messenger. "I'm up."

"Just making sure." The man hurried off to his next
victim.

The Norwegian coast was a vague black line when Kurt
reached the bridge. He relieved Milch, made the log
entries necessary for a new watch, then stepped outside to
stare at the shadowed land. Hans joined him shortly.

"Think we could see the mountains from here?" he
asked.

"No. Maybe when we get upriver."

"When're we going in?"

"When there's enough light." Kurt looked eastward,
astern. The false dawn had begun painting the foaming
wake. Then he saw Beck on the maindeck, amidships,
near an open porthole. "Look. Beck. Hope he doesn't
hang the cooks. They're bad, but they're all we've got."

35

Hans considered Beck at the galley, chuckled. "Pray it's
Kellerman if he does." Kellerman was the officers' cook,
unpopular, considered a lickspittle.

They moved forward where Beck could not see them.
Musingly, Hans said, "It'd be a pity if something hap-
pened to him, wouldn't it? Suppose a tree fell on him?
Anything could happen while we're cutting firewood."

Kurt frowned. There was something wrong about Hans,
something different. He was altogether too friendly, and
the way he was talking, too, was unlike the Hans Kurt
thought he knew. ...

"Captain's on the bridge!"

Kurt's train of thought died as he hurried into the
pilothouse, to the chart table, where he waited until von

Lappus had a question.

"Ranke, what do you know about this river?"
"Not a damned thing," Kurt replied, surprising himself.

Now why had he said that? As an afterthought, "Sir."

Then, "But we should have a flood tide."

The Captain grunted and walked away. He spoke with

Gregor for a moment, assumed the conn, and turned the

ship toward the river.

lager reached Kristiansand an hour after sunrise. The
old town seemed a thriving village of perhaps a thousand
souls, many of whom came out to watch the warship pass.
The men of the Sea Detail, which had been set when
Kristiansand was sighted, waved and shouted. Petty
officers passed among the seamen, growling, toning them
down. There would be no fraternizing with the Kristian-
sander girls anyway. Their fathers and husbands and
brothers were already hustling them home. An ancient

custom, Kurt thought.

Jager crept up the Otra until, near noon, she dropped
anchor off a good stand of timber. Kristiansand, forty
kilometers downstream, was an attraction no more. Kurt
was wolfing a delayed breakfast, wondering about the
Norwegian way of life, when Hans approached his table
with his own morning meal. "You've got boat three," he

said.

"What?"
"You're in charge of boat three, to get wood. You'll

need a dozen Operations men for your working party.
There'll be one from Engineering, two from Deck."

"What about Gunnery?"

"Somebody's worried about the natives. Why, I don't

know."

"I don't feel like chopping wood."

36

"Who does? Want to trade boats?"

"Why?"

"Beck's going over in mine."

"No thanks. Why?"

"To watch for deserters, I guess. It's a golden opportu-
nity, you have to admit. We're awful close to Telemark."

"Two days' walk," Kurt replied, revealing his recent
thoughts.

Hans's eyes narrowed. "You taking off?"

"I thought about meeting Karen there. But I won't."

"Get your tools from the boatswain's locker. Deck-
inger'll have them ready."

"All right." Kurt hurriedly finished his coffee and soggy
roll. After returning his tray to the scullery, he went to
Combat, where he collected a working party.

"Muster the working parties!" was soon piped. Kurt
smiled, briefly wondered why Hans so enjoyed the public-
address microphone—perhaps he achieved a surrogate
feeling of power, of godhead. He reached boat three as
Gregor arrived.

"Everyone here?" the lieutenant asked.

Kurt ticked off names in his mind. "Where's Weber?"

"Here." The sonarman hurried up.

"All present, sir," said Kurt, saluting sloppily. Jager's
crew, often to Beck's dismay, demonstrated little interest
in ceremony.

"Very well. Weber, Hippke, get the tools. The rest of
you stand clear here." Men from the deck force lowered
the boat, rigged a Jacob's ladder. "All right, get aboard,"
Lindemann directed when the tools arrived. "Ranke,
you're coxswain."

"We may need shovels, sir," Kurt observed later, when
they finally managed to get the boat to shore. The bank
was a clifflet six feet tall.

"Mr. Czyzewski's ahead of you." Behind them, the
engineers were loading their own boat. Shovels were
among their tools. Kurt shrugged, made the boat's painter
fast to a sapling, scrambled up the bank.

A hundred meters of gently rising green meadow lay
between river and wood, richly strewn with petaled jewels.
The grass was deep and comfortable. Several men were
lying in it, talking. Kurt breathed deeply of the meadow's
lush perfume.

"A nice place," Gregor observed. Indeed. Here there
was no sign of man or his foibles.

"Yes, pretty," Kurt replied. "Except for that." He
pointed at Jager. The ship, beautiful as a panther is

37

beautiful when moored at Kiel, was a canker here in the
wilderness.

"Uhm," Lindemann grunted. "All right, stand by!" He
went to meet Czyzewski, just coming ashore. They spoke
for a moment, then Lindemann returned. "Kurt, start with
a few of the bigger trees. He wants a raft to float the
wood over."

Kurt nodded, passed the word. Soon sounds of axes, of
spades at the bank, and, later, of sledges hitting wedges,
splitting logs, racketed along the riverside. Jager added
the sounds of chipping hammers and an occasional shout
as someone hailed a friend ashore. The work was hard,
but the sailors enjoyed themselves. Chatter, snatches of
song, high spirits filled the meadow.

But there was always an island of silence, always in
motion, following Beck. The Political Officer prowled con-
stantly, watching, listening. No one remained cheerful in
his presence—Kurt wondered if the power-feeling this
must give Beck, and the sense of alienation which would
attend the silence, might not reinforce the man's cold
aloofness and make him even more of what he was.
Something was bothering Beck, he saw as he surreptitious-
ly studied the man, though he felt it was not connected
with alienation—in his own alienation from friends he
thought should be closer, Kurt felt he could touch Beck's
being at congruent points (and here he also achieved
insight into Hans's growing friendliness, for he, Kurt, was
the only person aboard with whom Hans had a standing
relationship, albeit based in lengthy enmity). The Political
Officer had come ashore accompanied by two armed men,
whose weapons the crew were certain were for use against
deserters. The guns, Kurt decided, were bad tactics on
Beck's part. They undermined an already decaying mo-
rale. If flights to Telemark were what Beck feared, his
mere presence ashore should have been ample deterrent.

Otto was one of Beck's riflemen. Kurt collared him
while the Political Officer was at the nether end of the
work area. "What's Beck up to, Ott? Why the guns?"

Kapp checked Beck's location, then said, "I think he's
hoping somebody'll run. He wants to kill somebody. He
doesn't say it right out, but you can feel it there, like a
maggot in his soul. It's like he has to get somebody quick,
before the thing in him turns and destroys him. Kurt, I've
never met anyone like that. He's like ... like a devil inside
... an eater of souls. But he's human, too. It keeps trying
to get out, tries to make contact, like this morning when
we were getting ready to come over. Out of the blue he

38

asked me about Frieda, and, before I knew it, he was
telling me all about his wife at Gibraltar. A slut and a
dragon, to hear him tell it. Cruel . . . oh-oh. Better move
on. Pass the word to be careful."

Beck was looking their way, wearing a calculating ex-
pression. Otto departed, leaving Kurt with a hundred
questions about Beck. Had his wife beaten him into his
present distorted shape? Did he hate all humanity because
of her, especially women? Certainly he had had nothing to
do with them in Kiel, where liberties were a byword.
Might he be a man who thought he was complete unto
himself? Kurt pounced on the notion, remembering a
similar person met aboard a Danish boat, a man much
like Beck outwardly. And, as Otto had suggested about
Beck, that fisherman had proved an emotional time bomb.
A small incident—the tearing of a net, as Kurt remem-
bered—had triggered him one day; he had gone berserk,
and had distributed injuries liberally before being subdued.

He was jerked from his speculations by Jager's
screaming general alarm. Men ran for the boats. Kurt
looked around confusedly. A hundred meters downstream,
just watching, were a dozen shaggy men clad in the skins
of equally shaggy animals. Norwegians of the semi-nomad-
ic variety Kurt had often seen at the Danish trading posts,
men who farmed the high valleys of the mountains and
hunted, and, someday, might fall into the savage raiding
habits of their ancestors a millennium gone. These men
were armed, as their sort invariably were, but their bows
were unstrung, slung over their shoulders. Why the panic?
he wondered.

The alarm ceased. Bells rang in the ensuing stillness as
Jager's after gunmounts swung around toward the hunt-
ers—who settled on their hams in the grass, laconically
observing the panic.

Mr. Czyzewski began shouting in mixed Polish and
German, driving sailors back to work. Sheepishly, they
returned to their tools. Beck and his riflemen hurried past
Kurt, took up defensive positions between hunters and
sailors. Kurt found this pleasing. Beck would be out of the
way, unable to snoop.

Uneventful days passed. Jager lost her trim, wolfish
look. Stem to stern, rail to rail, from her lowest void to
her highest deck, she was stacked with fuel to drive her
the long three thousand kilometers to Gibraltar. She rode
very low in the water and her center of gravity had
risen—dangerously so if she was forced to face a storm—
and still Mr. Czyzewski was uncertain the fuel was suffi-

39

dent. He claimed the wood would bum too fast, loudly
mourned the lack of coal.

Jager had burned coal thus far—coal brought to Kiel
from Sweden, in driblets over the years, as ballast in the
sailing ships of Swedish traders—but the little store left
was to be saved for combat, when the ship would need its
greater efficiency.

Sailors were loading a last mountainous raft while Kurt
wondered where it was to be stored. A shout came from
downriver. He turned. The Norwegians were striking
camp—why had they spent so many days just sitting and
watching?—and all but one vanished into the wood. The
remaining man unhurriedly approached, smiling. Beck and
his riflemen rose, waited. The meeting took place fifteen
meters from Kurt. All activity ceased along the riverbank.

"What's happening?"

Kurt jerked nervously, then laughed. "Got me, Hans.
Maybe he's bringing the bill for the wood."

"Hey!" Hans stared at the approaching man. "Isn't that
. . . what's his name? Franck? Yes, Karl Franck."

Kurt squinted against the sunlight. "You're right. He
disappeared about the time I went to sea, after those
speeches. ..."

"My father still complains about him, usually when he
wants to make a moral point." Hans grinned. "Prime
example of moral decay. Dad says that, with my attitude,
I'm sure to end up like him."

"Wait!" Kurt said. "Lookslike trouble."

Franck had stopped a few paces from Beck, surveyed
his uniform with exaggerated loathing, said something
softly. Kurt saw color creep up Beck's neck, heard him
mutter. His two riflemen retreated.

"What's happening, Ott?" Kurt asked.

"Don't know. Franck said something about the High
Command, then Beck told us to get the hell out." Kapp
fell silent, turned all his attention to Beck and Franck. An
argument had begun. Beck appeared to be growing angry,
which surprised Kurt. He had never seen Beck get emo-
tional. He thought of his time-bomb notion. Someone
laughed. Beck jerked as if stung, turned, narrowed eyes
searching, promising reprisal, seeing nothing but sober
faces. Growing angrier, he turned back to Franck, growled
something.

Now Franck laughed. He made a megaphone of his
hands, shouted, "Hey, men, thought you might like to
know that High Command and the War are—"

He was unable to finish. Beck broke. He jerked his

40

pistol out and fired. Jager's crew, ashore and at her rails,
watched in dumb surprise as Franck jerked to the re-
peated impact of bullets. Beck emptied his weapon, con-
tinued insanely pulling the trigger.

Berserk, just like that sailor, Kurt thought. He forced
his rising breakfast back with difficulty. Hans muttered,
"Oh, Christ!" and lost his.

Otto, after a silent moment during which the shots
seemed to echo on, gasped, "He's finally done it. He's
killed somebody."

Beck stood staring down at the corpse, shaking, yet
with a beatific glow about him—a look of almost orgas-
mic satisfaction.

Then arrows streaked from the forest. Beck screamed
as one hit his leg, was silenced as a second transfixed his
throat. He took two more in leg and shoulder as he fell.

"Let's get out of here!" a sailor shouted. Everyone
unfroze. Men caromed into one another as they raced for
the boats. Kurt, stunned, walked after them, unable to
hurry. Otto, retaining some presence of mind, snapped off
random rifle shots as he retreated at Kurt's side.

Jager bellowed like an indignant dragon defending
chicks. Three-inch shells racketed over low, with a sound
like nothing Kurt had ever heard. 40mms added their
smaller voices to the uproar. The little shells hummed like
bumblebees in passing. There were rapid explosions in the
woods. Kurt saw a large tree suffer a direct hit. Five feet
of ancient trunk disintegrated. The rest fell slowly, with
the stateliness of a wounded giant.

But there were no more arrows. The Norwegians (or,
perhaps. Littoral refugees) seemed satisfied with Beck's
death. This bothered Kurt as he waded through shallow
water and clambered into his boat. Why Beck alone? And
why had the Norwegians opened fire so quickly—as if
waiting? What had Franck been trying to say? Why had
Beck felt the need to silence him? So many questions.

He sat in the bow of the boat and stared toward the
dead men. They were the first he had seen fall to violence.
He was sickened. Franck lay in a grotesque position, some
bones bullet-broken. Beck lay on his back, staring at
cottony cumulus with cold, unseeing eyes. Kurt was cer-
tain Franck had intentionally baited Beck into his attack,
but without expecting such sudden reaction—and his mis-
calculation had been fatal. Why he thought this Kurt was
not certain, though. Perhaps because the arrows had come
so swiftly, imply the shooting was planned. But to what
purpose? He shook his head and stared around.

41

In the next boat he saw Gregor, pale and stricken.
From behind him came the sound of warning bells as
Jager brought more guns to bear. Cordite smells, sour,
bitter, assailed his nostrils. He saw, on looking back, men
at Jager's rails with rifles and machine-pistols. He looked
back to the wood. A curl of smoke rose from a small fire
started by an exploding shell. Shattered trees leaned
drunkenly in one another's arms. Raw brown wounds,
shell holes, scarred the meadow. It was all so savage, so
quickly come and gone. The feast of blood, he thought,
the curse of Cain. He was grateful when Jager's stem
interrupted his view of the destruction.

Later, when his nerves had settled somewhat, Kurt
eased through a hatch into the after fireroom, which had
been secured since the damage to the port screw.
Czyzewski had decided to use the space to store the last
raftload of fuel, and Kurt's men were to help stow it
because the gunnery people were all on station.

After having made certain his men were at their jobs
and doing them, Kurt began prowling. The engineering
spaces, with their webs of piping, of electrical cables, and
with their huge, looming machinery, oil smells, odd cat-
walks, and such, had always intrigued him. He did not
understand why a man would want to work down in the
heat, stench, and filth of the place, though.

He climbed a ladder to a high catwalk, to examine a
control board with a vast array of valves and meters.
Most were meaningless, as the ship no longer burned fuel
oil, but he enjoyed trying to puzzle out their ancient
functions. A short, half-open doorway caught his atten-
tion. He knew there was a small room behind it, inside
one of the blower shafts which brought outside air to the
fireroom. He thought the room might be a good place to
store wood, if not already filled. He went across and
opened the door. Empty.

No, not quite. There was a damp, muddy uniform on
the floor. He glanced at it, then examined the rest of the
room. Perhaps by stacking the wood crosswise ...

His eyes snapped back to the uniform. Pieces of river
weed clung to it. Something was wrong. He frowned. Why
was it hidden here, as if someone had changed in secret?
Then he grunted as if hit. None of the men who had
gotten wet this morning had as yet had time to change.
And there were no weeds in the river near the loading
place. The nearest were a few hundred meters downriver,
near the Norwegian camp.

A picture popped into his mind, of a faceless man

42

swimming ashore in the night, downstream, where the
weeds grew, to see the Norwegians. Had someone recog-
nized Franck and gone to see him, perhaps to arrange this
morning's disaster? He squatted over the damp uniform,
looking for the name tag inside the waistband—and grew
even more puzzled.

LINDEMANN, G.A. it said. Gregor. And Gregor, if he
remembered right, had once known Karl Franck well.
Had they met last night? And then a new thought entered
his mind. Had they been in contact while Gregor was
stationed here in Norway? Indeed, just what had Gregor
been doing in this country? He had run a salting station,
he said, but would say little more. Kurt began to feel his
cousin was deeper than he had suspected, and that some-
thing unusual was in the wind.

But why wouldn't Gregor share it with his own cousin?
Once more he was on the outside.

43

IV

"You look like a regular snipe, Ranke," said Erich
Hippke, Quartermaster with the watch after Kurt's, as
Kurt climbed out of the fireroom. "You're wearing
enough grease."

Kurt chuckled. "Watch your language, sailor. Nobody
calls me engineer and lives. ..."

A boatswain's pipe, shrill, cut across their conversation.
"Now holiday routine for all personnel not otherwise
directed," Hans's voice boomed over the public-address
system.

"Ha!" said Hippke. 'The rack for me."

"Why? You've been aboard, loafing, the past three
days."

"Carried too much firewood." Hippke leaned on the
lifelines, looking aft at a Damage Control party. "What's
Czyzewski up to?"

"Bringing the bad screw aboard—"

"Kurt!"

He looked up, at Hans on the level above. "What?"

"Meeting in the wardroom, after dinner. Mr. Linde-
mann wants you there."

"All right. Erich, let's wash up. I'm hungry."

"I'll pass. Smelt, ugh!"

"You'll love it someday."

All leading petty officers were at the meeting when it
convened. Von Lappus expressed its purpose. "I want to
know how we get out of here, now we've got our fire-
wood." Once he had uttered those cryptic words, the
beefy man slid down in his chair, folded his hands across
his chest, and appeared to fall asleep. Kurt wondered, for
the thousandth time, why this particular man was in
command. He never seemed to do anything.

Haber expanded the explanation. "We're now eight feet
lower in the water and no longer able to turn the ship.
And we can't back out on one screw. Suggestions?"

Time passed silently. No one asked why they had origi-
nally gotten in that position—the ship could not have

44

backed upstream, either. No one, though, had thought of
the problem until von Lappus had had men sound the
river around the ship. Hurry had its price—in this case,
time lost and labor expended.

Jager had to be backed downstream until she reached
a place where she might turn. But how? Finally, after a
long silence, Hans nervously offered an idea. "Sirs, I read
somewhere that, on sailing ships, when there was no wind,
they sometimes moved a vessel by 'kedging' her."

"And what might that be?" Haber asked. He looked
hungry—for knowledge.

"Well, a boat was put over to carry the anchor to the
end of its chain and drop it. Then the ship was winched up
to short stay."

"I don't see . . ." Haber broke off in mid-sentence. He
did see.

But Hans explained anyway, for the others. "We could
do it backward, alternating anchors, walking ourselves
down."

"Damned slow," someone muttered.

"How much chain do we have?" Haber asked.

"Five shot on the port anchor, six on the starboard,"
Hans replied.

"What's that in meters?" someone asked.

Haber penciled figures on the tabletop. "Roughly—and
this is real rough—a hundred forty-five on the port, a
hundred seventy-five on the starboard."

"We'll be a long time getting out, then," Lindemann
noted, frowning. With his features tight he no longer
looked much like Kurt. Older. Much older.

Haber nodded. "Depends. Ranke, is there a place we
can turn?"

"There's a wide place about three kilometers down.
We'd have to sound first, though."

"What interests me," said von Lappus, coming to life
and folding his hands before his mouth as if praying, "is
how Wiedermann plans to lift his anchors off the bottom.
Our boats would be swamped by their weight. May I
suggest rafts? We've got one already. Wiedermann, build
another. Well, gentlemen, I've declared holiday routine.
We'd better take advantage of it. I'll want the crew at
quarters before sunrise, fed and ready to work. Wieder-
mann, you and Ranke will forego your holiday. Gunnery
Officer, issue the shore party sidearms."

Hans looked frightened. Kurt felt pique. He did not
want to go to that place again.

"Oh, Ranke," said von Lappus as they rose, "take a

45

shovel. Bury Beck and that other fellow." Even in his
dismay, Kurt noticed that Beck was no longer Mr. Beck.
"And see you recover his weapon."

"Yes sir." Greatly depressed, Kurt walked with Hans to
the mess decks, for coffee. Afterward, he drew a shovel
from the boatswain's locker, joined Hans and his men in a
boat, dully accepted the pistol the Boatswain offered him.
He thrust it in his waistband, tried to forget it.

The meadow he found peaceful again, yet Kurt could
not keep his hand from straying to the gun. He was
frightened by this haunted place. A pair of ghosts seemed
somewhere near, mocking. The shell holes in the turf and
the shattered trees beckoned him, like the War itself, to
his own private little unremembered Armageddon. He
threw the shovel across his shoulder, bit his lower Up, and
determinedly walked toward the bodies.

Flies buzzed in that part of the meadow. Franck had
already begun to bloat in the hot Norwegian sun. As he
paused by Beck, a small animal, lean and ratlike, scurried
off through the morning's trampled grass. A lonely bird
mourned in the woods. Tears welled in Kurt's eyes, his
throat became tight and sore. Such peace and beauty this
place had, and horror—like the world. He wanted to hurl
his shovel and pistol from him and run shrieking into the
wood, off to Telemark to wait for Karen....

Sounds stopped him: Hans shouting at his men, axes
striking trees, a groan.

"Hans," he called softly, "Hans. Hans!" This last was a
scream. The shovel fell to his feet. His mouth hung open,
no articulate sounds coming forth. Hans came running,
accompanied by two men with weapons drawn.

"What?"

The words came, though forcing them was next to
impossible. "He's alive. God, he's still alive!" He pointed,
and, as he did so, another weak groan fled Beck's scabby
lips. "He's been here all morning, and we never came to
help. . . ."

"Fritz, Jupp, get Commander Haber." Hans's busi-
nesslike tone sent the seamen hurrying off. "Don't seem
possible. Four arrows in him, one through the throat. He
can't be alive." He was silent a moment. Oarlocks
squealed on the river behind them. Then, thoughtfully,
Hans said, "He can't last much longer. Suppose he died
before Haber got here?" He reached forward to cover
Beck's mouth and nose with his hand.

Kurt slapped his arm aside. "No! I don't like what he is

46

either, but ... well, he's a human being." Was this the
Hans who had thrown up this morning?

"He'd probably thank me, if he was conscious." Hans's
eyes narrowed, his face grew ugly. "If he lives, he'll be a
burden for months, delirious, unreasonable. . . ." He
reached again.

Again Kurt forced the hand away, the while wondering
what was wrong with Hans. Why murder a dying man?
"If he has to die, let him go by himself."

"It'd be so easy, Kurt. Nobody'd ever know...."

"Too late, Hans." Kurt nodded. Hans's men were com-
ing to see what had happened. They could not be ordered
off without questions being asked.

"Well, you want him to live, he's yours."

Kurt tore his eyes from Beck's contorted face, looked
at Hans. The man was pale and shaking. Afraid? Of what?

Commander Haber, carrying the ship's medical kit, ar-
rived shortly, accompanied by Lindemann. Kurt thought
he saw momentary disappointment flash across Gregor's
face. He frowned, turned to watch Haber.

Haber was Jager's approximation of a doctor, though
his skills were limited to knowledge crammed while the
vessel was outfitting. His tools were limited, his anesthetics
and antibiotics almost nil. He examined Beck quickly,
said, "Looks hopeless. The arrows missed the major ar-
teries, but he's still lost a lot of blood. It's a miracle he's
alive."

"Do something!" Kurt pleaded, unable to comprehend
the calmness about him. But, outwardly, he was as calm
as the others. Only his words betrayed his emotions.

"Right. I'll need help. First I'll have to open his throat
so it's certain he can breathe. Kurt, open my bag and . . ."

"Me, sir?"

"You. All right, just hand it to me."

Despite his other emotions, Kurt was sheepish because
of his queasiness, grew guilty because of a momentary
regret at not having let Hans have his way, thereby
sparing himself this.

Haber's cautious, uncertain work went on for an hour.
First he removed the arrows from Beck's legs and shoul-
der—he admitted fear of trying the shaft in the man's
throat. But it came to that eventually, once the other
wounds were cleaned, packed, and bandaged. The last
arrow he carefully cut to either side of Beck's neck, then,
with several men holding Beck firmly immobile, he drew
the shaft with forceps. Luck attended him. It came free
easily.

47

But, for a moment, Beck's weak, rasping, open-throated
breathing ceased. With a frightful grimace, Haber bent to
Beck's throat and forced his own breath into the man's
lungs. The Political Officer soon resumed breathing. Haber
finished his bandaging, wearily said, "That's that, and
probably a waste of tune. A thousand-to-one he's dead by
morning. But I had to try. He'll need a nurse...."

"I think that's a job for Kurt," said Lindemann. Kurt
glanced at his cousin, was startled by the anger in Gre-
gor's face. Lindemann seemed to be thinking, "You want
him saved? Then you do it." Had he not been distracted,
Kurt could have become very angry.

"Get that stretcher over here," Haber ordered men who
had been standing by. "Wiedermann, will you please keep
your men working? This isn't a show. That raft has to be
finished before dark. Ranke, go back to the ship with
Beck. I'll have someone take care of Franck."

Much later, having been relieved of his nursing duties—
there were out-of-work sonarmen with nothing better to
do, and Lindemann's pique had apparently faded—Kurt
stood leaning on the port bridge rail, watching Hans's men
as they put the finishing touches on their raft. Aft, the
engineers were just swinging the ruined screw aboard. It
hit the deck with a clatter. Two of the three blades were
mangled almost beyond recognition. Briefly, he hoped the
drive shaft had not been bent. Then he wondered why.
Silly, worrying about it. It did not matter. There was no
way to replace the screw.

A mound of earth headed by a cross now marked the
place where Franck had fallen. Kurt looked away, not
wanting to be reminded, went down to the maindeck.
After collecting a sandwich from the galley, he wandered
aft, watched the Damage Control party cleaning up, then
went to bed. Soon his mind wandered into a trap of
thoughts of Karen.

Although, from the day he agreed to join Jager's crew,
their marriage had grown increasingly stormy—and the
final week had been a bickering hell as she strove to
overcome his stubborn determination—Kurt wished he
were home and in her arms. He wished there were a little
less of the mule in him, a little more of the horse. Why
did he, these few times he actually took a stand, always
pick a place in the wrong?

It was a moment of lucid, honest self-criticism' stimu-
lated by the morning's disaster and the hard realization
that in days to come others would join Karl Franck in
dole and foreign graves. Until today Death had always

48

r

been a remote acquaintance, more often a visitor to oth-
ers' lives than his own. But now, with fresh earth mound-
ed in a meadow nearby, he knew that pale rider had
promised him closer attention. And he was afraid, afraid
of a thousand things, things not of the world beyond, but
of this, all the grim milestones along the road to his own
dread appointment, all the things he would lose if he went
too young.

The greatest loss would be Karen and a child as yet
unborn. Karen, who had a harpy's beak and talons one
minute, who was his warm Juliet the next, who was his
Ruth and his Delilah, his Lysistrata and Helen. He was an
Odysseus bound for the arms of a Penelope through a
thousand Homeric terrors, by an equally circuituous route
(his mind wandered in a maze of ancient images, the
Peloponnesian War, the thousand ships and Illium, the
horse, those who fell, the small reasons why, and he
wondered at the lack of change in Man over the millen-
nia)—but Odysseus was a hero and inveterate cutthroat.
Kurt could not picture himself the same, a bloodthirsty
swashbuckler eager for perils and plights....

As Karen had said one day, three months past, when
Dancer had again put in at Kiel and Kurt had dragged her
down to meet his Danish friends, he was not the type. She
had had a tongue of bitterness that day, was still plaguing
him for having talked Otto into going to the War. After a
quick tour of the boat, she had said, "I can see why you
felt at home. It's a lot like you, small, antiquated, with no
real goals or purpose, and a rotten stench inside. Real
heroic."

And he had thought, This's the woman I love? Natural-
ly, he had grown angry, there had been a scene, and he
had accused her of being a bigger bitch than her mother,
which had led to one of those arguments about mothers-
in-law.

Yet he missed her. The harsh times quickly lost their
hurting edges and he yearned for good times better
remembered, the hand-in-hand days, the arm-in-arm days.
He wished he could have yielded, could have stayed.

At last, sleep came.

Kurt rose muttering when reveille sounded. He rushed
through his shower, shave, and dressing, and was on his
way to the mess decks in minutes, determined to get one
good meal that day. It would be a long one, with dinner
and supper served on station.

Dawn was but a hint of light in the east, over the
shadowy bones of low mountains. The Captain had kept

49

his promise of an early start. Already the rafts were being
maneuvered into position. Tripods mounting blocks and
tackle had been rigged aboard them. The starboard an-
chor chain began paying out as the sun first broke over
the spine of the mountains. Jager swung slightly when
she neared its end, the current pushing her inshore just
enough to make her officers nervous. Commander Haber,
who had the conn, ordered the port anchor dropped. Once
it was holding, he had the starboard winched in.

Slowly, slowly, alternating anchors, Jager kedged
downriver. A few hundred meters, a kilometer, two, and,
toward sundown, three, into the wide place Kurt remem-
bered. Before she ceased operations for the day, men put
out in boats to take soundings. There was room to turn.

Kurt and Hans, with Haber and Lindemann, watched
from the port wing as the deck force rigged the damaged
propeller for use as a stern anchor, to hold the vessel
while the current turned her end for end. On the forecas-
tle, another party waited to up anchor. The sun had not
yet risen. Wan light, filtered through clouds over the
eastern mountains, barely illuminated the vessel, gray light
on gray, with gray ashore—the perfect world for the
warship. The propeller, attached to a heavy mooring line,
splashed over the stern.

"Take in the bow anchor," Haber directed.

A boatswain shouted, his words ripping the fabric of the
quiet Norwegian morning. Men scurried around and disor-
ganization resolved itself into disciplined cooperation. The
hook was up in minutes, was seated and secured.

Haber called into the bridge, "Tell the engine room to
stand by." Then, "Wiedermann, get your leadsmen in the
chains." Hans hurried off.

Slowly, slowly, Jager swung with the current. Tense
minutes passed. Soon she was beam on to the flow, then
past with sighs of relief.

The ship shuddered, heeled over a few degrees, moved
a little, shuddered again. "Mudbank," Kurt said softly,
hoping the bow would find nothing more solid.

The swing continued. Another shudder and heel, longer-
lasting and accompanied by scraping, made men stagger.
It seemed certain the ship would be caught. But the
current worked, forced the bow on over the mudbank.
Jager's centerline was parallel to the flow a few minutes
later.

"Whew!" Kurt whistled, mopping his forehead and lean-
ing heavily on the rail. "Close, that."

"Cast off aft!" Haber ordered, shouting. Softer, "I

50

sweated blood, there. The men who took soundings
should've found that bank. ..." A man chopped through
the mooring line. It whipped over the stern. Jager jerked,
drifted forward on the current. "Make four four turns for
five knots!" Haber ordered.

Kurt hurried inside to log it. "Hans," he said as he
wrote, "can you put men on the peloruses? I'll need
bearings soon. And I'll need a recorder." He took his
makeshift bearing book from the drawer beneath the
chart table, surveyed bearings taken coming upriver.
Steering by their reciprocals should take Jager safely
back to sea.

Hans shouted graphically at several men who were
doing nothing, apparently unaware that nothing was what
they were supposed to do until needed. He took the
recorder's job himself. "We've got the weirdest ship in
history," he said.

"What makes you think that?"

"Our officers. Can you imagine a more uncaptainly
Captain?"

"He gets the job done."

"Can't argue that. Uh, bearing to ruined silo, one two
zero. What about Haber? He looks like a rat. If he'd get
rid of that mustache ..."

"He's as loud as you are, anyway."

"Course, Quartermaster?" Haber demanded from the
wing.

"You see?" He calculated quickly. "One eight three, sir.
Come left to one seven six about five hundred meters
down."

"Very well." Haber gave Lindemann the conn, left the
bridge.

Hans leaned closer to Kurt, whispered, "Mr. Linde-
mann's the only normal officer aboard. Take Mr. Ober-
meyer ..." Just a hint of bitterness could be heard in his
tone.

"You take him," Kurt chuckled. "I'll grant you, the
Council made a mistake with him. Where is he? He should
be on the forecastle with the Sea Detail."

"The ship's moving. That's all it takes. Maybe we
should feel sorry for him, though. He really does get
deathly sick. But, if I have to do his job, why don't I have
his brass?" This was the first time Kurt had actually heard
him express displeasure at not having won the First Lieu-
tenant's appointment.

"Time to make that turn, sir," he reminded Gregor.
"One seven six. You'd think he'd get used to it."

51

"No. What about Ensign Heiden?" Hans asked. "I
heard he's queer. ..."

"Hans, every man on this ship is queer as a cow with a
pegleg. Up here." He tapped his forehead. "Otherwise,
we'd still be home. You've read as much history as me.
Think of the officers they had in the olden days, especially
the English."

Hans's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Nelson. Maybe it
does take madmen."

Jdger reached the sea without difficulty. The Kristian-
sand girls were cheered again. Kurt sighed with relief as
the town fell behind, as Jager entered deep, reliable
waters. He removed his cap and tossed it into an out-of-
the-way corner of the chart table. "How come we always
get the watch after Sea Detail?"

Hans chuckled and took the hint. Of Lindemann he
asked, "Permission to secure Sea Detail, sir?" Then, "Hold
it!" directed at several seamen about to leave the bridge.
"Come here, Ernst." Pointing down, he said, "See those
rust spots on the forecastle? I want them chipped and
painted before dinner."

Kurt cluck-clucked as Ernst went away grumbling.
"You're a slavedriver."

Hans laughed. "Take the paint away and there wouldn't
be any ship." There was a grain of truth in his words.
Only the most intense, loving maintenance kept Jager
from expiring.

"Quartermaster?"

"Sir?"

"Do you have a track for the Channel?"

"Yes sir. We should come right to two zero zero in a
half hour."

"Inform me when it's time."

"Yes sir." Kurt gathered his weather logs and stepped
outside to see which direction the swells were running.
Hans followed.

"I was surprised," the boatswain whispered. "Nobody
jumped ship."

"Surprised me too," Kurt replied. He winced, still not
wanting to remember Beck and Franck.

"I sort of figured you'd go, what with Karen on her
way. You know, I've been wondering. Why was Beck the
only one they shot?"

"I never seriously considered jumping ship," Kurt said
truthfully, and asked himself why he had not. Karen was
precious to him. "As for Beck, I think someone wanted to
get rid of him." He was about to tell Hans of his discovery

52

in the after fireroom, but thought better of it. "I wouldn't
much miss the man."

"Who would? But he refuses to die." For a moment
Kurt was afraid he would bring up their brief conflict over
Beck's life, but Hans let it drop. He and Kurt looked
forward, silently watched Jager's bow rise and fall as she
met the swells of the North Sea.

53

v

JAGER wallowed through moderate seas at an unchanging
eight knots, all she could comfortably manage on one
screw, though she was capable of twelve in a panic. There
was ample time to reach Gibraltar. The Gathering would
not sail eastward until mid-July.

The ruins of a city lay three kilometers off the port
beam. Kurt studied an old map, guessed it to be Cher-
bourg. He felt a sadness. This was even more depressing
than Kiel, because it was dead. He suspected the ruins
would glow by night. Calais and Dover had been horrify-
ing, like the impossible, wicked cities of the evil beings of
old folk tales.

The crossing of the North Sea had been unmarked by
significant event. High points had been a fog, a squall, and
a few fishing boats seen in the Dogger Banks, all of which
had run when they spotted Jager's gray wolf silhouette
on their horizons. Kurt did not blame them for their
reactions. The warship was a ghost from a bloody past, a
death-specter, a haunt.

The passage through the English Channel, thus far, had
been equally uneventful. There were dangers, but these
they evaded by careful sailing. The old mudbanks, which
had once plagued Romans, Norse raiders, and the Spanish
Armada in its time, had returned. But someone, probably
fishermen, had kindly marked the banks with lighted
buoys. All in all, Kurt decided, Norway to Cherbourg was
a dull four days' voyage.

He glanced at the map again, frowned. Like most
Jager carried, it was English-language. For the thousandth
time, he wished he could leam the tongue. His work
would be so much easier.

He wondered what had become of the Americans, who
had built Jager so long ago. Word-of-mouth history,
rapidly becoming legend, had that whole nation burned in
the nuclear exchange following the Battle of the Volga.
Kurt tried to picture millions of square kilometers of
radioactive wasteland, and could not. He had been to the

54

border of the vast dead plain south of Hamburg, but that
could not be believed either. It was too big. The entire
concept of the War was too big to comprehend. He took
binoculars from a locker, leaned on the rail. His eyes
watered when he examined the magnified ruins.

He wondered why. Was it because of his father's sto-
ries? Old Kurt had been fond of things French and
fairy-tale adventures based on the deeds of real people:

Napoleon, Richelieu, Jeanne d'Arc, the Black Prince, Ro-
land, and a hundred others, some not French at all. Old
Kurt had not been concerned with accuracy. In his sto-
ries, pre-War times became a Hyperborean paradise where
temporal realities meant nothing. Kurt chuckled, remem-
bering a tale in which Wellington defeated Charlemagne
at Avignon during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Twelve years had passed since U-793's departure.
Young Kurt had stopped missing his father long ago. He
remembered the stories best, his father's tears the day the
submarine sailed, and how, afterward, his mother had
been seized by an endless grief. Life had become her
personal Hell. He felt little sorrow at her passing, for
death had been a blessing finally freeing her from sorrow.

"See anything?"

"What?" Startled, Kurt hastily glanced over has shoul-
der. Hans.

"See anything out there?"

"The hoofprints of Death."

"Poetry I get. Pale Rider home? Let me see."

Kurt gave him the glasses. Wiedermann stared at the
ruin briefly, then swept the entire coast. "You're right.
Nothing. Hard to believe so many people used to live
there."

"Efficient killers, the old-timers. Imagine Jager new,
and she almost a toy to them."

"She's still an iron cobra," Hans replied.

"Now who's poetic?"

"It's true. If nothing else, her fangs are functional.
She'll be a tiger when we find the enemy—if we keep her
afloat."

"The enemy. We've heard that all our lives. What
enemy? I wonder if there'd be an enemy if we just stayed
home."

Hans gave him a strange look, shrugged, said, "You've
got me, Kurt," and returned the glasses. "Did you hear?
Beck came out of coma this morning." He stepped inside
the bridge. Kurt heard him growl at Otto for wandering
off course.

55

Then he shuddered. He had spoken dangerous words.
Sure as death, if Beck were healthy he would have heard.
Such talk could have a man hanging from a yardarm,
though Kurt could not understand why, logically. Emo-
tionally, he knew, anything could have strong meaning.

His mind went howling off after the mystery of the
Political Office. What Was its purpose? Why were its
people so strange? He believed men served and defended
things, ideals, and rules, in which they had a vested inter-
est. Given that assumption. Political Officers seemed still
more mysterious—they appeared to react only when the
War was questioned or damned. Why should they want it
continued? How did they profit? There were just six Politi-
cal Officers on lifetime assignment to the Littoral, and not
a one got anything out of his job except a small local
power. The pay was minimal. Hans's father, for instance,
earned more making furniture.

Once he had asked Hans why his father was a Political
Officer. Wiedermann had simply twirled a forefinger at his
temple. He did not know either.

Crazy? Might be, although, officially, the Political
Office was that arm of the High Command charged with
ensuring that member states made maximum contributions
to the War.

Which again led him to question the purpose of the
War. Was it a vast plot to destroy? That seemed where
everything was bound. Kurt found he liked the theory.
Deliciously insane. Everything was.

Or was there really some foundation to the shadow-
threat of Australia? Was it true that, ten thousand miles
away, madmen were gathering hordes to enslave the
world? He glanced aft, at the ruins of Cherbourg. Destroy
the world? Someone had done a first-rate job already.

Then he considered his thoughts. He was thinking in
terms of conspiracies, a High Command conspiracy. He
grew nervous. His thinking was as crazy as that of the
old-timers, who had seen threats and enemies everywhere.
The first step to madness ... He laughed at himself. His
tenseness eased.

"What?" Hans was back.

"Nothing. Just wondering what strange things might be
hiding under cabbage leaves."

"Babies. But I like the home-brewing method better."

Kurt thought this was too near bringing up Karen's
pregnancy. He and Hans were getting on remarkably well.
No point in chafing old wounds.

Guilt knifed across his thoughts. Karen had been out of

56

mind for several days. Bad. A husband should think of his
wife often. Briefly, he wondered if she had begun her trip
to Norway yet. Probably. It was easy enough. She could
walk north through Jutland, take a fishing boat across the
Skagerrak. It was done all the time. ... He hurt.
Homesickness was worse than seasickness, took longer to
heal.

"Almost time for our reliefs," he said. "Think I'll work
on my track for the Bay of Biscay."

"What's the hurry? You've got till tomorrow night."

"Maybe. But I want to be ready." The charts were the
only excuse he could think of for going away.

Kurt's timing played him false. As he approached the
chart table, Gregor whispered, "Beck wants to see you
after watch." Intense bitterness momentarily marred his
features.

Heart in throat when the watch was done, Kurt went
down to officers' country. His hands were clammy and
shook as if he suffered Haber's disorder. Why would Beck
call for him? He had nothing to do with anything. . . .

Beck's "Come" when Kurt knocked was a ghost of the
ghost his voice had always been. "Sir, you shouldn't be
sitting up. . . ." Nor should he have been talking—though
his speech was confined to a whisper—through such a
savaged throat.

"You found me." It was an almost inaudible statement.
"You kept me alive. I thank you. But why? I'd've thought
you partial to those who prefer me dead."

"Sir?" As pretended disbelief Kurt's gasp rang entirely
false. Certainly, Beck sensed it.

"I know more than you think. I knew Franck, or
someone like him, would appear wherever we refueled.
There were just three stopping places under consideration
when we left Kiel, and they were sure to know them all."
He coughed lightly. "I have my own sources, who predict-
ed the attack. But Franck had done his homework too."
Beck's face turned sour. "He knew just the way to goad
me. . . . There's a man in Personnel at Gibraltar who'll be
sorry."

Silently, Kurt wondered where Beck was leading.

"Why did you save me, Ranke?"

"Sir?" He was still uncertain himself. "I don't know.
You were hurt. It didn't matter who you were. . . ." He
shut up.

Beck coughed again, said, "No need for fear. I want
frank talk. Anyway, I've grown accustomed to dislike. So,

57

you would've done it for anyone? It wasn't a matter of
loyalty?" He seemed disappointed by Kurt's nod.

"Ranke, I've been watching you. Nothing personal, un-
derstand, but Leading Quartermaster's an important posi-
tion. Your knowledge makes you essential to ship's oper-
ations. I've come to think you're a very well-educated,
ignorant young man."

Kurt frowned.

"No insult intended. What I mean is, you've plenty of
book learning, but aren't very world-wise. Will you keep
confidential what's said here?"

Kurt nodded, though he could conceive of no secrets
Beck would willingly impart.

"Good. Have you heard of an organization fighting
High Command?"

Kurt honestly had not. He said as much.

"That's why I say you're not world-wise. There've been
a lot of rumors about it lately. And the organization
exists. It's very small, very secret, with an excellent es-
pionage system in Gibraltar, the Littoral, and elsewhere.
Rumor and subtle sabotage are its weapons. It's based in
Norway, somewhere in Telemark . . ." Kurt's startlement
must have shown. Beck asked, "Ring a bell?"

"Just surprised me, sir. I know people who went to
Telemark."

"Yes, don't you?" Beck's gaze was piercing. He coughed
again, grimaced. "This organization's too small to hamper
High Command, yet its very existence has created a policy
crisis at Gibraltar. The Political Office in particular has
split over what action to take. One party demands swift
suppression. The other, for political reasons, wants to let it
grow. The factions were near blows, last I heard. A power
struggle was shaping up. ..."

Kurt felt lost. He had never thought of the High Com-
mand in these lights, nor had he ever dreamed of an
anti-War underground. Some odd events clicked into
place, made sense.

"Well," said Beck, "your loyalty to your friends is
stronger than to High Command, so it'd be futile for me
to ask you to poke around after underground activity. Oh,
yes, there's a small cell aboard. I'm even fairly certain of
several identities. ..."

Cold fear washed Kurt's soul like the sudden shock of
thrown icewater. He, too, was sure of one man. Gregor.
There could be no other explanation for the curiosity he
had found in that blower room. Gregor, Gregor, he
thought, what are you doing? He was hurt, hurt deeply

58

because a man as close as his cousin, and a woman as
close as Karen, had never had the trust to confide in him.

Sea waves washed the hull, which formed one wall of
Beck's stateroom, with mesmeric regularity. How like this
ship I am, Kurt thought. The waves of the world splash
against me repeatedly, and all the waters of awareness
that enter do so accidentally.

Beck! The Political Officer was suffering a coughing fit.
Blood spume colored his lips. Kurt ran out, found Com-
mander Haber. Before the night was done. Beck once
again owed Kurt his life.

lager rounded Brittany next evening, following a track
from De d'Ouessant to Cabo Ortegal. A bit over fifty
hours' steaming if there was no trouble.

But trouble there was, a small storm which cost an
hour, and a man overboard—perhaps with help.

It may have begun at supper, when Jdger was halfway
across the bay. Kurt, Hans, Otto, and several others were
sitting at a table in the mess decks, grumbling about the
food, and about the rolling of the ship in the last breaths
of the storm. Somehow, Beck's name arose.

"Me," Kapp growled, "I wish he'd bought it. Got no use
for Political Officers." His eyes were angry as he glanced
at Hans. "Nor the War, nor High Command. Maybe
Jdger ought to blast High Command. Makes more sense
than sailing around the world for nothing. At least there'd
be no more War."

Kurt was startled. He had suspected Otto's feelings, but
not that they were this strong. The others seemed equally
surprised, and uncertain if Kapp were joking.

Kurt worried. Frieda would never forgive him if any-
thing happened to Otto. Frowning, he leaned closer, and, as
he had thought several times during the meal, caught a
whiff of alcohol. There had been a rumor about
homemade vodka brewing in an unused fresh-water evap-
orator.

"Ott, take it easy," he whispered.

Kapp was drunker than Kurt thought. 'Take it easy?"
He staggered up, spilled his tray in the process. "Take it
easy? How can I take it easy when you're hauling me off
to get killed like a slaughter lamb? And for nothing. If
there's an almighty War to fight, why doesn't High Com-
mand do the dying?"

Otto shouted, "How many of you want to go on?
What's in this War for us? Where're we going? Why? Just
because Beck told us to? Let's go home. If we have to, we
should—"

59

"Ott!" Kurt snapped, cutting him off before he could
damn himself with a proposal of mutiny. "Shut up!"

"You shut up, Kurt! Don't you want to see Karen
again? Maybe you don't. Beck says there's a War, and you
always let people run you. ... What's the matter with all
of you? You don't want this stupid trip. We'll all get killed
if we go. Why don't we do something about it?"

He was hitting them hard, Kurt saw. They were think-
ing. Trouble would come soon, bad trouble. "Hans, Erich,
Fritz, give me a hand," he whispered. They rose and a
moment later were wrestling Otto forward, down to his
compartment, with Kurt praying he had acted in time to
keep Kapp's head out of a noose. Von Lappus and Haber
seemed to have low opinions of Beck, but they would not
refuse his orders in a mutiny case.

Otto passed out before they heaved him into his rack.
They tied him in, returned to the mess decks, Kurt
thought he had better warn his men off the Polish liquor,
lest they wind up as Otto had, spouting nonsense which
made all too much sense.

Silence reigned on the mess decks. Men stared into their
food, thinking much what Otto had said aloud. The same
thoughts were in Kurt's mind, which made him frightened
and sad; frightened he would eventually follow Otto's
lead, sad because he had not the courage.

After his watch—which was miserable because he spent
it dwelling on Otto's words and the possibility of never
seeing Karen again—Kurt went to his compartment deter-
mined to sleep. But his thoughts would not cease haunting
him. He was hag-ridden. Never again to see Karen, to
hold her. ... After an hour's tossing, he gave up, decided
to take a walk topside.

He found the last of the storm gone, so strolled along
the starboard weather deck, watched the phosphorescent
water rush past and the occasional flying fish flutter away
from Jager's side. These small miracles he never tired of
studying.

He climbed to the torpedo deck and took a seat astrad-
dle the starboard tube, still watching the passing sea and
the rolling stars above. The soft sigh of the water swirling
past, the gentle crump of waves being broken under the
bow, was restful, eased his tension. He gradually regained
peace.

He had been sitting there nearly an hour, thinking,
when he heard angry voices on the maindeck portside.
The sounds of the wind in the rigging, and of the passing
sea, muted those voices, making them unidentifiable, yet

60

left the anger easily detectable. He rose and started over,
curious.

A scream.

Kurt ran, stopped at the port lifelines, looked down.
Aft, a watertight door squeaked shut. Directly below, a
hand clung to the lifelines while another tried for a grip.
The man called for help, weakly. Kurt scrambled down
the nearest ladder, shouting, "Man overboard! Man over-
board! Port side!"

As his feet hit the maindeck, Jager nosed into a heavy
swell. He staggered, grabbed handholds welded to the
bulkhead. The swell hastened along the sides of the ship,
seized the man clinging to the lifelines. His hold broke. He
shouted something as his hands fell out of sight. Kurt
reached the lifelines just in time to see the terrified face of
Otto Kapp disappearing in phosphorescent foam.

A shouted question came from the bridge. Kurt shouted
back, without words. Jager ceased shuddering as her
engines were taken off the line, to keep the man over-
board from being dismembered by the screw. She slowly
swung to port, throwing her stem away from him. Von
Lappus, like a roly-poly teddy bear, appeared in nightshirt
and sleeping cap. No one had suspected—neither did any-
one laugh. No one noticed.

The Captain rumbled, grumbled, asked pointed ques-
tions. Kurt was too distraught to answer coherently, cer-
tain this was all his fault. If only he hadn't talked Otto
into coming. ... Would Frieda ever forgive him?

But he never mentioned his suspicion that Otto had had
help going over. Why? He did not know, though he asked
himself repeatedly.

Von Lappus quickly stopped trying to get anything out
of him. He took command of the vessel, and, after a
Williamson turn failed to bring her back to Kapp, ordered
a search pattern. Searchlights probed the night, pale
fingers caressing silver wavecrests. The few starshells in
the magazines were squandered, floated down the darkness
like tiny, sputtering suns. But there was little hope of
finding a man overboard at night when he had gone
without a lifejacket and flares.

Yet they eventually found him, floating face down, arms
widespread. Kurt had recovered enough to ask himself if
drowned men float, and he seemed to be the only one who
noticed the small bloodstain on Otto's jumper, in the back,
about kidney-high.

There was nothing to be done for Kapp. Von Lappus
said to leave him there, with a prayer. And, among his

61

shipmates, there were thoughts of what he had had to say
in the mess decks earlier.

Jdger resumed steaming. Kurt, knowing he would get
no sleep, went to the charthouse where he and Gregor
both did much of their work. He took a copy of the ship's
muster from his files, studied it a moment, used a pencil to
black out four names: his own, Beck's, von Lappus's, and
Otto's. He told himself there would be a day when just
one name remained. Then there would be a reckoning,
both for Otto and for Frieda, widowed before marriage.
For a few minutes there he was a grim young man his
Karen would never have recognized.

62

VI

JAGER reached Cabo Ortegal on track, two hours late.
K.urt had by that time recovered somewhat from Otto's
loss, although he was still withdrawn from ship's affairs.
She turned and followed the Spanish coast, passing
Conma near midnight, Cabo Tourinan early the follow-
ing morning, and, after turning south, reached Cape Finis-
terre at midmorning. There she hove to.

A ship was on the rocks there, another destroyer. She
had not been aground long—her paint was fresh and her
flags flew untatfered by the wind—but she showed no
signs of life.

Kurt, called to the bridge for consultation, studied her
unfamiliar colors and frowned. He did not know her flag.
She was of pre-War American construction, but otherwise
a mystery.

Von Lappus said, "We'll send a boarding party. She
may have gear we can use."

Commander Haber, speaking to a gaggle of officers,
said, "Each of you pick two men from your department to
look for salvage. First Lieutenant, put a boat in the
water."

Gregor turned to Kurt. "Find Hippke. You two go
over."

Kurt wanted to protest. He had no desire for a boat
ride across choppy seas. He killed it unborn. He could cry
for a week and still have to go—thus things worked in the
Navy.

Soon the boarding party gathered. They climbed down
to the whaleboat, took seats at the oars, rowed. Once
started, Kurt found he was eager to go aboard and ex-
plore this strange vessel—until he actually set foot on her
maindeck.

Bloated corpses were scattered there, bodies perhaps a
week old, bodies invisible from Jager because of the
wreck's cant. Weapons covered with a patina of new rust
lay among them. The dead aft were enlisted men. For-

63

ward they found two mutilated Political Officers, as well
as officers and ratings.

Almost from the moment he stepped aboard, Kurt was
certain of the cause of the mutiny. These men—one
side—had wanted nothing to do with the War. Perhaps
they had had their own Otto Kapp, one who had been
successful in getting men to follow him. And, during the
fighting, the ship had run aground. Or, perhaps, someone
had run her on the rocks intentionally. He thought of
Beck's astounding disclosures.

Gradually, during a cursory examination of the vessel,
Kurt recovered from his initial shock. "Erich," he mut-
tered, "let's get done and get out of here."

Hippke was as shocked, though, in his time, he had seen
some grim sights. He appeared not to have heard. Kurt
took him by the arm.

They found more corpses inside the ship. Each com-
partment and passageway had its bloated tenant. "Let's
find the charthouse," said Kurt, gagging in the interior
fetor.

To reach their goal, they had to climb over a corpse
with its legs tangled in a ladder. The man had been shot in
the head repeatedly. In the closed, narrow space, the
stench was overwhelming.

"It should be on this level," Kurt said. "It was on most
American ships."

"Here, I think this's it. Wrong side, though."

Kurt studied the little plaque above the door. The few
words on it made no sense, but they were the same as
those over Jagefs charthouse door. "Open it."

"It's locked from inside."

Despite a sinking feeling, Kurt braced himself against
the ladder and kicked. The door gave a little. Two more
kicks broke the lock.

"Oh, Christ!" Hippke muttered, gagging.

A man lay on the deck inside. He had, apparently, been
wounded in the fighting, had fled to a safe place, and had
died there. The deck was covered with brown scales of
dried blood.

"All right," Kurt growled, trying to control his stom-
ach, "let's get him out." They grabbed the corpse's cloth-
ing, heaved it into the passageway, held their breaths
against the sudden increase in stench.

The vessel shivered. A small shriek of protesting metal
ran through her as she shifted on the rocks. Hippke
looked ready to panic, which surprised Kurt, considering
the man's past. He fought his own fear.

64

"Let's go through their stuff!" he snapped. "There'll be
plenty of time to get off if she starts breaking up." He
opened a drawer, wishing he were more confident of that.
"Hey! Look here! Notebooks."

He had found a dozen of them. Paper! Invaluable
paper. Jager's records were kept on scraps likely to
crumble at any moment.

"Yeah?" Hippke replied, excited. He opened another
drawer. "Look at this! Ball-point pens. And they work."
He tested one after another with the wonder of a child.

Like children in an attic they pawed through the endless
treasures the charthouse offered: publications lager
lacked, charts, instruments, more ball-points, pencils, pa-
per—a wealth of usable paper.

"Kurt," Erich said after a while, "it's like digging for
treasure and finding it."

Kurt remembered other duties. "We'd better go send
the word."

"Good idea. The sooner they start, the more they'll get
off before she breaks up."

As if on cue, the ship shifted and groaned.

They scrambled up ladders to the signal bridge, too
excited to be bothered by corpses. "See if the lights
work," said Kurt. "I'll look for a set of flags."

A moment later, Hippke called, "No power."

"Didn't think there would be," Kurt replied, coming out
of the signal shack with semaphore flags. "These'll do. See
if Brecht's ready."

Erich looked through the ship's telescope. "He's waiting.
Captain's with him."

"Von Lappus? On the signal bridge? How'd he haul
himself up?"

"Got me. Brecht's seen us. He says he's ready."

Kurt sent for several minutes, finished, read the Cap-
tain's reply, said, "Erich, tell the others it's time to go. Ill
be down in a minute."

He scrounged up a pillowcase and quickly filled it with
plunder, hauled it to the quarterdeck. The others were
waiting. He laughed. The whaleboat rode low in the
water, piled with loot. Kurt tossed his atop the rest. A
moment later they pushed off. There were soft curses as
water washed over the gunwales.

"You men report to the mess decks," von Lappus or-
dered once the boat was hoisted aboard Jager. "Wieder-
mann, post a man at each door. We're not to be both-
ered."

65

Kurt did as he was told, found the ship's officers al-
ready gathered on the mess decks.

"I imagine," said the Captain on arriving, "from all the
excitement, that salvage will be worthwhile. What's she

got? You, Ziotopolski."

One of Czyzewski's engineers replied, "There were
stores of coal, grease, lubricating oil, and gasoline. The
screws were both intact, and of the same type as our

own."

Von Lappus caught the inference, said, "Chief Engi-
neer, thatll be your most important task. Deckinger?"

Deckinger spoke briefly of paint, tools, line, and such,
which were of interest to Deck. Kurt stopped listening,
thought about von Lappus and Haber. They were chang-
ing. The Captain grew steadily sloppier. Rumor said he
was eating poorly. Haber was growing increasingly ner-
vous, and in dress was following the lead of von Lappus.

Gunnery's man spoke mostly of ammunition and small
arms.
"Ranke?"

Kurt was jolted back to the discussion. "Sir, our gear is
primitive compared to theirs. Their bridge, charthouse,
and Combat were all well equipped. There're supplies and
charts we need desperately."

"Mr. Obermeyer, you're to salvage her," von Lappus
told the continually seasick First Lieutenant. "I want all
available boats in the water. We'll work around the clock
till she's stripped."

Kurt went to the bridge that evening to distribute his
loot. Hippke came up, still shaken. Could this be, Kurt
wondered, the same Erich who claimed to have adven-
tured all through the Littoral? Who, supposedly, had
served in Freikorps Flieder, a vicious private army
officially ignored because it performed a valuable service;

to wit, it confined its predations to Russians, who, given a
chance, did the same to the Littoral. Hippke claimed to
have been present at some noteworthy massacres, yet
the mess aboard the wreck had shattered him. He was not
what he claimed, despite his excellent credentials.

Before Kurt could question Hippke, Erich said, "Beck
wants you."
"Now?"
"In his stateroom."

Again with heart pounding, Kurt went down to that
place of fear. As he entered, the Political Officer whis-
pered, "I'm indebted to you again. You must be my
guardian angel. What happened over there?"

66

Kurt lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

"The wreck. Nobody's seen fit to tell me anything. All I
know is what I overhear of conversations in the passage-
way." Beck looked much better now, past his worst days.
He would heal, though it would take a long time.

"Nothing. We just poked around."

"Don't be coy. What happened to her crew?" If anything,
Beck's gaze was more cold and penetrating than when
he had been well. His face was more skull-like.

Kurt shifted uneasily. "Mutiny, I think, sir. They were
too busy fighting to work ship."

"Mutiny? I'd heard it, but not believed. ... Why?"

"Sir, it looked like the crew didn't want to go to the
War." Kurt's words were almost inaudible, so frightened
was he. "They shot the officers and ratings, then tortured
their Political Officers to death."

Beck looked both startled and afraid—the first time Kurt
had seen him express the latter. Perhaps he knew of Otto
and how near Jager had come. "They killed each other
off?"

"The boats were gone. Some got away."

Beck grunted. "Damn! Wish I could go look. I'll have
to file a report. . . . This'll cause a stir, give the extermina-
tion faction a powerful argument in the dispute about the
underground. Tortured, you say?" He was quiet for a
minute. Talking obviously pained him. Kurt waited ner-
vously, hands cold and clammy, heart beating faster than
ever. He wondered if he should have marked Beck's name
off his suspect list—but no. Beck would have taken care of
Otto legally, with a trial and execution.

"Does this give you any ideas about the situation here?"
Beck finally asked. "A mutiny could go hard on you, you
being a senior rating. Have you discovered anything I
should know?" His pale face seemed eager, predatory.

More frightened than ever, Kurt shook his head while
remembering a blower room. Otto's death, and Hippke's
strange behavior. He wanted away from the Political
Officer badly, yet could not walk out unbidden. And he
did feel sorry for the man, alone there day after day now
continual nursing was no longer a must. He stayed another
hour, talking of mundane things—including the harridan
wife Otto had once mentioned—always staying clear of
troublesome topics. Kurt thought he might have liked the
man, had his appearance been more pleasant and his
power lessened.

Kurt had to return to the wreck three days later. He
was in the charthouse filing salvaged charts, when Gregor

67

leaned in the door, said, "Kurt, you'll have to go over
again. I know you don't want to, but Beck insisted. He's
making a report for High Command. He wants the ship's
nationality. Captain's name, home port, things like that."

"But ..."

"You'll have to go."

Knowing further protest was futile, Kurt got a jacket

and cap, then caught the next boat.

He found the wreck's decks clean. "Deckinger," he
asked as the junior boatswain happened by, "where're the

bodies?"

"Deep six. Couldn't work with them around. Gag a

maggot"

"Yeah." Kurt walked forward, looking around. The

progress amazed him. The ship had assumed a gaunt,
skeletal look. Then he groaned as two cooks came from
the galley with a stainless-steel sink, the bowl filled with
a paint locker. Hans's voice, commanding, came from the
firerooms. Above him and aft, there was a clatter and
curse as a man dismantling a 40mm gun dropped a
wrench. Forward, boatswains grumbling like trolls raided
a paint locker. Hans's voice, commanding, came from the
torpedo deck. Kurt wound his way past piles of salvage to

a ladder.

He made a cursory search of the bridge, found nothing.

And the charthouse was clean. He saw nothing to indicate
whence the ship had come, nor why, though that was
obvious. She had been on her way to'Gibraltar and the

Gathering.

He sat in the charthouse and tried to think where the
information might be hidden, stared at himself reflected
badly in the dusty glass door of a bookshelf stripped days

earlier. Where? Where?

He straightened suddenly, smashing fist into palm. It
would be out in the open, simply overlooked. He rushed
to the bridge and went to the chart table, stared at the
chart pinned there. He pulled two tacks with his thumb-
nails, lifted the chart of the Spanish coast.

"Oh, you beautiful!" Beneath the chart was another, of
a smaller scale, showing the coasts of Spain, France, and
parts of England and the Low Countries, which told him
very little except that the ship had come from the north,
following a penciled track almost matching Jager's.

He flipped that chart up, studied the pilot chart beneath
it. The entire track was there, beginning in Iceland.
Iceland! Incredible. He popped the remaining two tacks,
folded the charts, collected the quartermaster's notebook

from nearby, tucked everything inside his jumper, and
caught the next boat returning to Jager.

As he was leaving he watched Hans and his men lower
a torpedo onto a float of rubber liferafts. He found their
excitement difficult to believe.

"I found their charts and notebook," he told Gregor on
arriving. "They'll tell Beck what he wants to know." He
handed the material over, disappeared before he could be
told to do something else.

Three days passed. Relentlessly, around the clock, the
cannibalization continued. Jager became as piled and
ragged-looking as when she departed Norway. In a heroic
battle with the sea, Czyzewski's engineers liberated a
screw and floated it over on Hans's rafts. Commander
Haber kept busy patching battered divers.

All the ammunition, all the fuel, all the stores were
scavenged from the iron corpse. Everything portable was
taken, whether Jager had use for it or not. Work shifted
to heavy machinery. Gun barrels were dismounted and
floated over. Air-conditioning and refrigeration systems
were stripped. An automatic dishwasher and electric pota-
to peeler were rescued by happy cooks. Fire hoses, pipes
and fittings, even a few watertight doors and hatches were
taken. . . .

Then a black little storm blew up. Not a nasty storm,
but one that looked threatening enough as it came
whooping in out of the middle Atlantic. Von Lappus
ordered Jager out, away from the rocks.

And, when she returned, the wreck had broken up, so
she turned south, resumed steaming for Gibraltar.

vn

THE harsh clangor of the general alarm woke Kurt earlier
than customary. He froze for an instant, not believing.
Not a drill! It couldn't be a drill. They were always
announced beforehand. He heard the confused voices of
others. The lights came on. He piled out of his rack,
narrowly missed the man below. Trousers he jerked on
hurriedly, feet he thrust into shoes, then he grabbed
jumper and cap and ran for the bridge.

Training paid. Although this was Jager's first true
general quarters, her men were on station in minutes.
Kurt felt relief as he ran, thankful others knew what they
were doing. How many times had he cursed the endless
drills? Bless von Lappus, the ship might be able to defend
herself.

He hurtled through the pilothouse door, grabbed its
frame to avoid a collision with the Captain. After donning
his jumper, he asked, "What's happening?"

Paul Milch said, "Lifejacket and helmet on the chart
table." Pale, he then pointed out the starboard door.
"Look!"

As he tucked the bottoms of his trousers into the tops
of his socks, Kurt looked, gasped, "What the hell?"

Ships, on the horizon, seven or eight kilometers distant
and closing. Black ribbons of smoke trailed from their
stacks. Kurt seized a pair of binoculars.

"Christ! A carrier! And five ... no, four destroyers. The
other one might be a tanker."

"They show their colors yet?" someone asked.

"Don't see any," Kurt replied.

A telephone talker, repeating a request from Gun Con-
trol, asked, "Permission to free guns, sir?"

"Permission denied," von Lappus replied. "Those fel-
lows are nervous too. Let's not start something."
_ "Ranke," Gregor shouted across the bridge, "get the
signal books from the charthouse. Then get up to the
signal bridge."

Kurt collected the books, donned his helmet and
70

lifejacket, and went up. He found Brecht, the signalman,
studying the approaching ships through the telescope.

"They sending?"

"Yeah. Light. But it's nonsense." He handed Kurt a
copy of the incoming message.

"Certainly not German, but it looks like language." He
glanced aft and up. "Break a new ensign. That one's too
ragged. I'll run up the interrogative pennant. Maybe
they'll get the idea." As the new ensign rose to the gaff, he
bent on the interrogative pennant and hoisted it, then
hurried to the telescope.

The six vessels had closed to four kilometers. Kurt had
no trouble distinguishing their ensigns as they went up.

"What flag?" Hans shouted from the bridge.

Kurt found it in one of his books. "Argentina."

"What?"

"Argentina. Argentina. In South America."

Hans's head appeared over the edge of the signal
bridge. "I know that. But I thought America got blasted."

"South America. The continent. Not the United States."

"If you say so." He went back down.

Kurt picked up Jane's Fighting Ships—1986, salvaged
from the wreck at Finisterre. It was two centuries out of
date and written in English, but he thumbed through
anyway. He found Argentina and, 'as he had expected,
learned nothing. The carrier was not the one listed. The
destroyers were of the American Fletcher class, active in
many smaller navies.

He*again studied the ships through the telescope. They
were a ragged lot, worse than Jager. All wore unrepaired
scars from old battles, scars no one had bothered trying to
heal. Perhaps the Argentines did not care about the ap-
pearance of their future coffins. Perhaps the vessels need
float only long enough to carry them to the dying place.

Kurt was dismayed by his own pessimism. Probably, as
was the case with many of Jager's ills, the Argentines just
had no way to make repairs. Still, the ships could have
been kept neat and painted.

"They're making signals," said Brecht.

Kurt glanced up. "So read. I'll record." He took out
pencil, paper, and a copy of ATP-l(a), tactical signals
current for NATO at the beginning of the War. He wrote,
searched the book, broke signals, shouted down to the
bridge, encoded signals, and relayed them to Brecht. There
were thousands in the book. Communication was slow and
difficult.

Hours later, stories had been exchanged. The Argentine

71

ships, On their ways to the Gathering, had wandered slightly
north of their course during the recent storm. Kurt won-
dered how High Command had sent its summons to the
Americas, but remained too busy to speculate long. Jager
was invited to join the screen around the carrier, Victoria.
He listened as the officers muttered among themselves,
discussing it.

Von Lappus's voice rose above the others. "We need
practice steaming in formation. We'll do it. What station,
Ranke?"

"Station six, sir, at eighteen hundred meters."
"Circular screen?"

"Yes sir." Signal traffic having fallen off, Kurt climbed
down to the open bridge. General quarters was secured.
"Just in time to change the watch," Hans grumbled.
Kurt laughed. "I told you we always get the shaft."
The formation lumbered south at a slow five knots, the
best the stores ship could manage. The journey down the
Portuguese coast to Spain again was uneventful until, four
and a half days later, they reached Trafalgar.

During that time, with little else to do, Kurt concentrat-
ed on scratching names off his list of murder suspects. One
way or another, he learned where men had been at the
time of Kapp's death. By Trafalgar he had eliminated a
hundred possibilities. But it was slow work. He had to be
careful not to attract attention. And the task went slower
and slower as evidence grew harder to find.

Then Trafalgar, site of Nelson's victory, that grim head-
land so important to Napoleon's fall. Kurt was one of two
men aboard who knew the battle had been fought. To
everyone else, this was just another milestone along the
sea road to Gibraltar, and whatever lay beyond.

Idly, he wondered if Jager and this Gathering would
be remembered by even one man four centuries in the
future, if anyone would then care. Trafalgar had shaped
all subsequent European history—though Jager's sailing
could hardly be as significant—yet no one today remem-
bered or was much interested. Only he and Hans, lonely
men out of their times, put any value on that ancient
battle. ... A wave of sadness swept him. He did not want
to go for nothing, to be quickly forgotten.

Trafalgar, the unremembered headland. Sad, Kurt
thought, that so many should have died and had such little
effect beyond their own time. A tear or two in Dover, a
French woman weeping in Nice, and forgotten. Just an-
other landmark on the seapath to an ocean of skulls....

72

Until the carrier launched her aircraft. Then Trafalgar
became memorable as the place where Germans first saw
men take to the sky. The launch was almost laughable,
certainly pitiful. There were just six planes, all sputtering,
prop-driven monsters cobbled together from cannibalized
parts, all as old and weary as the ship carrying them, and
not a designed warplane in the lot.

The fourth plane dropped like a stone off the end of the
flight deck. It hit water in a fine splash, disintegrated, and
was plowed under by the carrier. Wreckage appeared in
her boiling wake.

The other planes circled and climbed, coughing with a
sort of half-life, got into a ragged formation, and stag-
gered off toward Gibraltar. Drunkenly, Kurt thought, or
like tired old men.

Jager's crew watched from launch to departure, daz-
zled. They had heard stories, had seen wreckage, but
flying men remained unreal as kobolds till seen.

The planes returned after dark. Kurt was off watch, but
he had stayed up to see their recovery. Sitting alone on
the signal bridge, he stared at the carrier's brilliantly
lighted flight deck. One by one, the ancient aircraft
dropped from the night and squealed to a halt.

The third down missed the arresting cables with her tail
hook. Kurt expected another fall into the sea, but the pilot
hit full throttle, roared off the angle deck, and came
around again, successfully.

"Really something, isn't it?" someone asked. Kurt
turned, nodding. Behind him was Erich Hippke, who had
the watch.

"Right. Tremendous. Think what it was like in the old
days, with the American supercarriers and jets. Instead of
five grumbly old prop jobs, a hundred jets. What an
uproar they must've made."

Hippke had an imagination as vivid as Kurt's. He ex-
panded the picture. "Think what the Battle of the Katte-
gat must've been like. Hundreds of ships and thousands of
planes." He shook his head slowly, impressed by such
magnitude.

"Big. I was nine when my father first told me about the
Battle of the Volga. I thought he was a liar when he said
it lasted a year and eight million men were killed—there
just couldn't've been that many people in the world."

"It's still hard to believe, Kurt. But I guess the bombs
could do it. How many people in Germany then? A
hundred million?"

"Uhm. About. And now there's a hundred thousand.

73

Eight million men in one battle. That's more than there
are in all Europe now, I guess. Maybe more'n the whole
world."

"Efficient killers, eh?" Turning, suddenly intent, Hippke
asked, "Kurt, why's it still going on? What're we fight-
ing for?"

Kurt shrugged invisibly in the sudden darkness left
when the carrier shut down her lights. "I could give you
the Political Office line. It's the only one I know. Hell, I
don't know why. Maybe nobody ever thought to stop. I
don't think anybody knows any more, unless it's High
Command. Maybe it goes along on its own inertia, and
won't stop-until there's nobody left."

Kurt suddenly shuddered. His talk was approaching
treason. He glanced around quickly, but no one was near.

"Maybe Otto was right. Maybe staying home's the only
way to stop it," said Hippke, speaking cautiously. "Lot of
men been talking about what Otto said, Kurt. Lot of men
think he was right. Lot of men beginning to think of doing
something about it."

Kurt got the impression he was being felt out. He
remembered his earlier suspicions about Hippke. He did
not want to be maneuvered by any underground, no
matter his sympathy for its aim. "Erich, if you hear a man
talking, remind him of that wreck. Men got to thinking on
that ship. None of them'll ever go home. And you be
careful who you try to enlist. Remember Otto. He went
overboard the same night he spoke out."

"What's the connection?"

"Otto was stabbed and pushed, maybe by someone who
believes in the War. I don't know that for sure. Maybe
someone had a grudge. You might find out which the hard
way."

"You don't know who?"

"No. And don't spread that around. I don't want a
witch-hunt. I'm telling you so I don't have to fish you out
of the pond some night."

"All right, I'll shut up. About everything."

"Good." But he was sure he detected insincerity in
Erich's voice. If the man was the undergrounder Kurt
suspected, he would simply be more cautious. "Think I'll
go crap out."

Kurt went down ladders and walked aft slowly, second-
guessing himself about telling Hippke of Otto's murder.
He might not keep quiet. If the murderer discovered he
was being sought ...

74

That night Jager passed through the straits and turned
north. Gibraltar itself became visible at sunrise, rearing
above the horizon like some tremendous, crouched prehis-
oric monster. Slowly, creepingly slow, it drew nearer.

Gibraltar, Kurt thought, the place of Gathering, head-
quarters of the High Command. Inside that mass of rock
was the War Room, fabled, whence all orders came.
Within that stone were the men and women who directed
the War Effort—and the operations of the Political Office.
Kurt, in his mind's eye, saw it as the heart of a vast,
invisible web. There the black-and-silver spiders dwelt,
weaving their complex, mysterious plots, catching "trai-
tors" with their complex, savage snares.

"Good lord!" Hans muttered a while later. "Look at all
the ships! Kurt, will you look at the ships?"

Kurt looked. Hans had a right to be excited. Even from
several kilometers, a forest of masts could be seen to one
side of the Rock, Dozens of ships.

Later, when they were closer, Kurt saw that the nearest
were destroyers. Behind them, better protected, were
larger vessels. Cruisers, he realized. And another carrier—
no, two—behind the cruisers. And beyond those, aux-
iliaries: ammunition ships, stores ships, colliers, ancient
merchantmen converted for War use. And still farther on,
more destroyers.

"Oh, Kurt, come over here," Hans shouted across the
bridge. "See what's coming. Look! Coming around the
Rock to meet us. Isn't she beautiful?"

A ship was steaming to meet them, a titan of a vessel.

"Battlewagon," Kurt murmured. "I thought they were
all gone. What a monster!"

A monster indeed. A killer. If Jager was an iron wolf,
this, then, was Tyrannosaurus rex in case-hardened steel.
Surely the Australians could have nothing like her. Surely
her huge guns would rule the ocean.

"Look it up! Look it up!" Hans demanded.

Kurt got the copy of Jane's. He turned to United States,
where he remembered having seen a similar ship. "Here
it is, Hans." He handed the book over, tapping a picture.

"What does it say?"

"How would I know?"

Hans carried the book to the chart table and bent over
it, as if trying to puzzle out the statistics beneath the
photograph. His -eyes grew big with wonder. "The Austra-
lians can't beat this! Wonder where they found her?" He
bent over the book again, studying the text below the
statistics. "What flag?"

75

Kurt took a look through binoculars. "High Com-
mand."

"Boatswain," said Lindemann, "Set the Sea Detail.
Kurt, get Beck's anchor chart."

As he was fixing the chart to the table, Kurt watched
Victoria start into a channel between the anchored ships.
Like a hen and chicks, he thought, or like duck and
ducklings, with Jager the ugly one coming along last.

There was thunder from the battleship—and distress on
Jager's bridge, confused questions. Kurt leaned out the
door. The huge warship had hoisted an Argentine flag and
was busily blasting the sky with a secondary mount. "Gun
salute," he said, ashamed of his moment of fear.

"I'm glad they've got ammunition to waste," Hans
growled. Kurt saw that he too had been frightened, and
was irritated about it.

There was a pause in the firing after the twenty-first
boom. The Argentine flag came down.

Kurt felt a surge of pride as the red, black, and yellow
of the Littoral replaced the gold, blue, and white. The
thunder resumed.

"This one's for us." He stepped out on the wing. Glanc-
ing down, he saw the Sea Detail waving their caps at the
battleship. They were idiots, he thought. The jaws of a
trap were closing, and they cheered. Green sea slipped
past lager's flanks. Every meter forward made turning
back that much more impossible.

"Hey, Kurt, come over on this side and look." Hans
tugged at his sleeve. He followed the smaller man through
the bridge.

"Look," said Hans, pointing to the anchored ships.
"Portugal." Several ships flew a red-and-green ensign.
"And Spain." Three vessels bore the red-and-gold with the
black eagle. He pointed to other ships. "Nigeria, I think,
and France . . . "He indicated flag after flag, babbling.

Kurt marveled too, for here were men of nations as
fabulous as those of the Arabian Nights. Jager eased into
the channel between ships, her men exchanging shouted
greetings with sailors of other lands. Hans grew more
excited. "Look! Look, Kurt. Britain! ..."

"Quartermaster!"

"Sir?"

"We'll tie up at buoy thirty-four. Find it on your
chart."

"Yes sir." He went inside and did so, the while thinking

76

that Gregor need not be so glum. He returned to the
wing, told Hans, "We've a good position. Close in."

"You going over?"

Nothing could keep him from exploring this hub of
history. "On the first boat."

77

Vffl

"IT'S not really fair," Kurt told Hans while descending the
accommodation ladder to the liberty boat.

" 'Rank hath its privileges,'" Hans quoted. "One's
liberty every day. Why feel guilty?"

"I don't. But it's not fair, not when the others only get
to go every other day. ..."

"It could be arranged. ..."

"Never mind. Hello, Deckinger."

"I'll trade you, Ranke," said the coxswain.

"Forget it. I'm not that fair." He and Hans took seats
and waited for the boat to fill. The sailors who followed
them were all neatly trimmed and polished, their uniforms
clean and starched. They would return appearing to have
wrestled tigers.

"What'd you do yesterday?" Hans asked.

"Just wandered around. There's not much to do."

"There's a cathouse near the landing. . . ."

"Hippke told me about it. Eight women. He said he was
in and out before he knew he'd unbuttoned his pants. I'd
rather do it myself."

Hans chuckled. "Cheaper, anyway. Cost me three kilos
of potatoes yesterday. And the price'll go up."

Kurt glanced down at the bag in Hans's lap. "So that's
where they're going. Kellerman said they were disappear-
ing fast."

"The women won't take Littoral money."

"What about the taverns?"

"Same thing. They trade liquor for stores, and probably
sell the stores back to the ships, where they're stolen
again. Somebody's getting rich."

The boat pushed off and quickly crossed the five hun-
dred meters to the landing.

"I'll see you later, Kurt," said Hans as he hurried up the

pier.

"Yeah." Kurt slowly walked into a waterfront street
crowded with sailors' from a dozen countries, speaking as
many tongues. He felt lost and alone, more than ever

78

before. It was a great black loneliness like he imagined
that of space. There was no feeling of belonging, as
aboard Jager.

And there were so many Political Officers. Everywhere
he looked, on every street corner, was a man in black and
silver, watching, cold and deadly.

Jager had suffered a plague of them after Beck had
filed his report. In bands a dozen strong, they came to ask
about events in Norway. Kurt feared shipboard resent-
ment might flare into violence if the inquisitions did not
stop.

Gibraltar seemed unchanged from the previous day.
Kurt suspected it never changed. He stopped a few meters
from the head of the pier and considered courses, of
action. The line at the brothel was a block long, so that
was out—even had he been interested. He shuddered
deliciously, wondering what Karen would say if she heard
he had visited such a place.

Stretching away to the right, up a steep street, was a
line of small shops and taverns. The taverns, too, had lines
before their doors.

Well, what else was there? He .looked upward, at the
mass of rock where High Command was hidden. It might
be interesting to walk up and see the center of the spider-
web. He started up the road.

He met a Political Officer on the way, near the en-
trance to the underground fortress. A very old man, and
much more pleasant than any Political Officer he had ever
encountered.

"Can't come in here, son," the old man told him as he
approached a gate in the fence before the entrance.

"What? Why not?" Kurt eyed a negligently held sub-
machinegun.

"Security. Can't have just anybody walking in and out."
The old man seemed accustomed to dealing with would-be
visitors.

"Why not? I just want to look around. We're on the
same side, aren't we?"

The old man smiled a warm, friendly smile, a sort rare
in Political Officers. "Now I don't know that, do I? Far as
I know, you could be the Grand Marshal of the Australian
Empire."

"Oh. Guess you're right." But Kurt felt that was not the
true reason for his being stopped. "Hey! How come you
speak German?"

"Well, son, a man has this job, he's got to know about
every language there is." He pointed toward the fleet with

79

his gun barrel. "I seen you comin' up, and I said to
myself, 'Walter, that boy looks like one of them Littoral
fellows.' Remembered the uniform, see? They don't
change much."

"Oh."

"Pretty bad down there, uh? Crowded till you can't
hardly breathe, and lonely as sin, eh?" He had struck right
to the heart of it. "Same thing, every Gatherin'. Boys
come ashore thinkin' the Rock's goin' to be like home.
And they're disappointed when they find out she isn't."

"Always the same?"

"Yep. Boy, I seen four—no, five, if you count one when
I was four—Gatherin's. They're always the same, except
they've gotten smaller. Reckon there can't be many
more."

Kurt remembered Karen on their last morning togeth-
er, speaking of future Meetings. And he had echoed the
official line, fool that he was. Now he wisely asked no
questions.

"Tell you what, boy. There's a friendly little place I go
myself, when I'm looking for a little excitement—when
my woman's not watching." He gave the location of a
house not yet discovered by the fleet. "But you keep that
under your hat, hear? Else there'll be a line second time
you go."

"That doesn't really interest me. I've got a wife...."

"Well, will you look here now? Just tryin' to help, son."

"Sure. Thanks anyway. You know, what I'd really like
is to find someone who'd teach me English."

"Now what would you want to do that for?"

"I'm Leading Quartermaster on my ship. All my charts,
and most of my publications, are American, Australian, or
English. I can't do my job well because I don't know what
they say."

"Well, let me see," said the old man, cradling his
weapon in the crook of one arm, scratching his chin. A
minute passed. "Don't know where you'd find anyone,
offhand. Wait! There's an old coot that's got an antique
shop down on the waterfront. Crippled fellow. Likes to
play mental games. Might teach you, if you'll teach him.
He's a strange one, though. Lives in the past. Been down
there a few times myself, pickin' up odds and ends to
decorate the apartment. He's got more old junk . . . well,
you'll see."

"How do I get there?"
' "Just go back the way you came. You can't miss the

80

place if you're lookin'. Windows full of junk, right next to
the Ship's Lantern."

"Thanks."

"Sure, boy, sure. Sorry I can't show you around. Been
nice chattin'. Gets lonesome here, sometimes." They part-
ed with smiles.

As he descended toward the waterfront, Kurt worried
questions the old man had stimulated. What did the High
Command have to hide? That talk of spies seemed some-
how false. And the man had seemed certain there would
be more Gatherings. How did he know?

Kurt paused, looked back up the slope. His eyes were
caught by the forest of radio masts at the top of the Rock.
Was that how they had summoned the ships from the
Americas? It presupposed there were long-range radios in
operation around the world. Could they communicate with
the Australians?

There was a booming to seaward. Kurt looked out and
saw the battleship saluting two incoming corvettes of
Liberian flag. He surveyed the neat ranks of ships in the
anchorage. Almost fifty warships were there, and as many
auxiliaries. Where did they all come from, in this battered,
dying world? And where did High Command get the food
and ammunition they were being loaded with?

Well, no point bothering himself about High Command.
No one would tell him anything. To the antique shop.

As the old man had said, the place was easy to find. It
was sandwiched between a roaring tavern and a cafe
exuding abominable odors. Pausing outside, Kurt studied
the dusty window. Just .within was a treasure trove .of the
garbage of history: old books, a Roman helmet green with
age, a few bronze spearheads, a lantern off a sailing ship
which should have gone to the tavern next door, relics of
Moorish Spain, a trio of tattered flags, Royal, Falangist,
and Republican, and faded photographs of the last king,
Carios, of Franco, of Charles de Gaulle, and of Adolf
Hitler, though Kurt recognized only the last. And a hun-
dred other things. European history exuded from the
shop, like a barely perceptible odor. It drew Kurt. The
past had always been his favorite escape. He slipped
through the door, his entry jingling a bell overhead.

At first he thought he had entered an untenanted shop.
Dust lay over everything, as if the place had not been
cleaned in a decade. There was silence, gloom, and count-
less piles of ancient treasure.

Something moved with slow, shuffling steps in the shad-
ows gathered at the back of the place. A little man, not

81

quite a dwarf but bent to the size by a hunchback, came
forward. He moved as if each tiny, shuffling step were an
individual agony. He cocked his head to one side, looked
Kurt up and down.

Kurt shivered, wondering if the man were a mutant.
They were rare at home now, but there had been a time
when . . . But so what?

The cripple's mind seemed agile enough. After asking a
question in English and getting no answer, he shuffled
across the shop to a wall covered with bookshelves. With
a whithered, clawlike left hand, he waved at them.

Carefully keeping his eyes off the bent figure and de-
formed hand, Kurt surveyed titles, shelf after shelf. Noth-
ing. Then a word caught his eye. He blew dust off the
book's spine.

Deutsches-Englisches Englisches-Deutsches Wwterbuch

"This . . ."

The old man rose on tiptoes and peered at the title
closely, claw hand slightly lifting his bifocals. "Ah .. ." He
shifted his cane to his bad hand and used the good to take
the book down. Painfully, he crossed the shop again,
dropped the book on a small, dusty table, sat in a rickety
chair, and motioned Kurt to draw up another. Kurt sat
down opposite him.

The cripple drew the book to him, riffled through,
occasionally paused to stare closely at something. When
finished, he looked up and said, "Mein Name . .. Martin
Fitzhugh."

"Kurt Ranke," Kurt replied.

"Sie ... wilnschenT'

Kurt puzzled that for nearly a minute. Then he took the
book from the old man's hands and thumbed through,
trying to find English words for what he wanted to say. "I
... would ... speak ... English."

The old man shrugged, obviously uncertain what Kurt
meant. He tried again. "I ... desire ... to learn . . .
English."

"Ah." The old man nodded vigorously. Kurt saw he was
delighted. Perhaps he needed company, this old one. The
shop seemed incredibly lonely—yet homey. Kurt felt he
could be happy in a place this rimed with history.

Languages are living organisms, in constant change.
Rate of change is a function of the speed and universality
of the communications system. The faster and more wide-
spread the system, the slower is change. The German and
English of 2193 were the results of two centuries of the
word-of-mouth and hand-carried-letter systems. Learning

82

the languages through the dictionary rapidly proved im-
possible. Kurt could read his language as it had been
written before the War, but could not speak it so.

Fitzhugh tried a new tack, the ancient way. He pointed
to the table. "Name, table."

Kurt frowned his lack of understanding. The old man
pointed out English and German words in the dictionary,
then smashed his good hand against the tabletop. "Diese
1st . . . table!"

Kurt got it. Laughing, he slapped his chair and said,
"Stuhll"

"Chair," the old man countered.

Kurt tried to pronounce it. The old man chuckled at his
mangled "ch" sound. Then, like a gleeful gnome, he
slipped off his seat and hurried round the room, pointing,
naming. "Book . .. sword . . . helmet. . . nail. . . floor . ..
window . . . door . . ." And on and on and on.

Kurt followed, naming a list of his own. "Pfeil... Buck
... Schaufel. . . Mantel. . . Kanone . . ." Cannon? It was
a toy, but a real one poking its snout from a mound of
junk would have been no surprise. The old man had
everything.

The wonder of naming wore off quickly. Kurt and
Fitzhugh returned to the table and laboriously worked out
a systematic way of learning.

He left at sunset, leaving a promise to return the
following day. Although he was mentally exhausted, he
carried the dictionary under his arm and was determined
to study it that night.

Kurt decided he liked Fitzhugh—perhaps because of
their common interest in the past. He certainly looked
forward to seeing the man again.

"What's that?" Hans asked as he climbed into the boat.

"Dictionary. German-English."

"Why?"

"I want to read my charts."

"So what's to read? You've got conversion tables for
feet and yards and fathoms and miles, don't you?"

"Come to the charthouse with me, after we eat. I'll
show you what I mean." Then they chatted of other things
while the boat approached the ship, chiefly of the bizarre
entertainments Gibraltar offered. Kurt whispered the loca-
tion of the house he had learned from the old Political
Officer.

After supper they went to the charthouse. Kurt selected
a chart at random. "All right, tell me what this means."
His finger rested beside a purple circle containing a black

83

dot and depending a purple diamond, beside which was:

R"6" Occ R 3 sec. "Or this." He indicated a purple circle
over a tiny trapezoid which sprouted a vertical, asterisk-
topped line. Beside it was: BRIGHTON REEF Occ 4sec
13M DIA.

"And this would make sense in English?" Hans asked,
chuckling. "Doesn't look like sense in any language."

"If I could read English, I could look these things up in
the books. I can barely tell what ocean we're in now."

"But there's no need to worry. Well let the flag do the
navigating."

"Maybe. But that's assuming we don't get separated."

Hans shook his head slowly, said, "All right. You want
to waste time learning English, go ahead. Me, I'll keep the
black market in business. Think I'll go to the bridge."

"I'm going down to the mess decks to study."

But he did not get much studying done. Someone had
traded parts from the wreck for an ancient movie projec-
tor and a dozen reels of film, from cartoons to stags.
Despite the exigencies of breaking film, a trick sprocket,
and a hand-powered take-up reel, the crew watched mov-
ies—for the first time in their lives.

84

K

"HEY, Kurt," said Erich Hippke as he took a seat across
from Kurt at the breakfast table, "you hear what Damage
Control's doing this morning?"

Kurt swallowed a mouthful of ersatz coffee. "What?"

"They've got a floating drydock coming to lift us out of
the water so they can mount that screw they took off the
wreck. It's behind us now. What a brute!"

The ship shivered slightly.

"Sounds like they're getting started," said Hippke.
"They were bringing the dock up when I came in."

"I saw it this morning, but I didn't know what it was.
Finish eating. We'll go watch."

Hippke ate quietly for a few minutes, then, after glanc-
ing around, whispered, "Beck bothering you any?"

"No, why?"

"Well, he's been calling you down a lot. Almost every
day." This was true. Again and again, Beck summoned
Kurt to his stateroom, where they often talked at length.
"What do you talk about?"

In this Kurt sensed a more than casual question. "Most
anything," he replied. "A lot about his wife. He's a lonely
man. Did you know she hasn't come to visit him, all the
time we've been here? Just because she doesn't like ships?
I'd call that flat cruelty. And he refuses to go to her in a
wheelchair." Beck was able to leave his bed now, but was
still without the use of his legs.

"He's a funny man," said Erich. "There was a machine-
gunner in Freikorps Flieder a lot like him. He killed a
hundred people during the Memel raid—just marched
them into a trench and started shooting—and the next day
didn't remember. . . .".

Kurt's eyes narrowed just the slightest. What was
Hippke after now? This beginning story was another of his
lies, of which he had told many lately. Details of the
Memel thing were common knowledge throughout the
Littoral, and the freecorps had not become involved until
afterward. The killers had been White Russian bandits,

85

and the people massacred Lithuanian citizens of the Litto-
ral. Memel had been the last big raid of the Russian
bandit brotherhoods, for the freecorps had overtaken
them as they retreated burdened with plunder. ... But no
matter. Hippke was the problem, Hippke was the man
who knew so little recent history that he confused the
sides of a noteworthy disaster. Hippke was a liar obviously
from somewhere afar ... from where, and why? Kurt
resolved to catch him offguard sometime with questions
about Telemark.

Kurt shrugged, said, "Let's think about something a
little more pleasant." The ship shivered again. "Finish
your coffee. I want to see this drydock."

The floating dock was already moving in along the
length of the destroyer, sides towering above Jager's
deck. Seamen ran about checking the fenders, shouting at
one another and the men on the dock, confusing every-
thing.

"It's not long enough," Kurt noted. "What're they going
to do?"

"Just lift the stem out. The bow doesn't matter."

"I guess not."

"Kurt?" Hans had appeared. "Beck wants you again."
Kurt could almost believe, from the stress on the final
word that Hans was jealous.

His spirits sank. Though Beck no longer frightened him,
he was in no mood for a visit. Beck would spend the
morning chatting his loneliness away, and Kurt wanted to
get ashore to show Fitzhugh how he had managed three
full chapters in the dull, complex nineteenth-century novel
he had borrowed for the night. But there were no excuses.

Beck was in a rare high good humor when Kurt ar-
rived. "She's finally given in. Coming out this afternoon."
With a smile on and happiness in his face, Beck was not at
all the grim "snake-eye" Kurt remembered from Kiel. He
was quite human, even warm. And this, though Kurt
should have grown accustomed to it, was a surprise—
emotionally, he had long ago decided all Political Officers
were reptiles within, and, each time his preconceptions
were betrayed, he was startled.

More seriously, with the smile fading. Beck said, "Kurt,
there'll be trouble soon."

Kurt's eyebrows rose questioningly.

"No, not here. At least, I see no signs. On another
ship—because political handcuffs keep us from dealing
with rebels. ..."

While Beck paused, Kurt examined his growing convic-

86

tion that the man was of the extermination faction, and
the fact that Beck saw only the logic in a political po-
grom, not the inhumanity.

"Kurt, how would you like to join High Command?
You've got the brains. I could even get you assigned to the
Political Office."

Kurt was taken completely aback. Emotions ran riot
behind his blank face. First, he was both dismayed and
mildly pleased—dismayed because there was nothing he
wanted less than this, pleased because, in his own way,
Beck was telling him he was well liked, was offering Kurt's
friendship what he felt was a great reward. Then Kurt felt
sadness, sadness because this man was so lonely he imag-
ined between them a greater friendship than could ever
possibly exist. For all these reasons, Kurt could not refuse
outright. He could not hurt the man, though he hated all
that man represented.

"I thought you had to be born into it."

"Not always."

"I'll have to think. ..."

"Of course. You've plenty of time. Just let me know
before the Meeting."

Kurt felt relief. Plenty of time. From what he had
heard, it might be a year before the fleet reached Aus-
tralia.

The interview quickly ended. In his excitement over his
wife's visit. Beck was eager to have him gone. And, of
course, Kurt was eager to get to Fitzhugh's shop.

But Gregor, of whom he had seen so little these past
three weeks, intercepted him in the passageway as he was
departing. "Come to my room a minute," he said. Kurt
recognized an order.

Gregor closed the door. "What're you and Beck up to?"

"Sir?"

"Don't 'sir' me here, Kurt. I'm Gregor, remember?"

Gregor, Kurt thought, a cousin I loved as a child, a
mystery of a man, a friend who had become a stranger.

"What're you and Beck doing? Are you going over to
the Political Office?"

"Gregor! No! We just talk, like anybody talks. Women,
history, ships, weather, women. Sometimes we play chess.
He's very good."

"Maybe it's all innocent, then. But you should stand
clear of him more. You're picking up the smell. Some
people think you're spying. ..."

Kurt put a finger on something that had been making
him uncomfortable for weeks. Men he thought were

87

friends had been avoiding him. Not openly, of course, but
just not appearing in parts of the ship he frequented—he'd
been too immersed in his studies to notice earlier. It hurt.
"Paranoia!" he growled. "You, Hippke, and whoever else's
in on your plot are as crazy as Beck."

Shadows surrounded Gregor, who stood near his bunk
at the far wall. He jerked around and away with a startled
exclamation—and Kurt gaped momentarily. For just yes-
terday there had been a furtive man in the shadows at the
rear of Fitzhugh's shop, getting out of sight with sud-
den movement. "Get out, Kurt! And whatever you've
seen or heard, or think you've seen or heard or know,
keep it to yourself." Gregor lifted a hand, hit himself in
the forehead. "Ask Commander Haber to bring me some
aspirin."

How sudden that was, Kurt thought, remembering that
Gregor always suffered severe headaches in time of stress
or fear. Or had he been frightened already? Did he really
think I'd betray him?

Kurt's anger would not fade. He could not resist a
parting shot. "For God's sake, tell Hippke to stop making
an ass of himself with those stories about the freecorps.
He doesn't know a thing about them."

After speaking to Commander Haber, he went topside,
looked aft. Damage Control was still working with the
screw, but he had no time to watch. He had to get off the
ship. The gray walls were closing in. ...

Soon, dictionary under one arm, he entered Martin
Fitzhugh's antique shop. "Hello, Kurt, hello," the old man
said, almost dancing. It seemed he had not expected Kurt
to return. It had been this way every morning, all through
the weeks. Perhaps, Kurt thought, Martin had been aban-
doned before.

"Good morning, Martin," he replied, concentrating on
his pronunciation. "To study?" Kurt's English was still
very rough—it came to him much harder than had Dan-
ish—though he could manage ordinary conversations.

"Not today!" Toward the end of the first week,
Pitzhugh had given up trying to make anything of Ger-
man. Too hard to leam, he had said, with a comment
about old dogs and new tricks. Kurt had laughed and told
him he should try English. "How was the book?" Fitzhugh
asked.

"Not good, what I read. Why do we study not?"

"I want to go outside."

"Ah?"

They had become good friends over the weeks. Kurt

88

had discovered, to his delight, that Fitzhugh was not at all
self-conscious about his deformities—which relieved his
own self-consciousness and made dealing with the man
much easier. And they had common interests.

"Why not? Business is terrible, and I want to see the
fleet before it leaves. That'll be soon now, I think."
"Why think you that?"

"Oh, I hear things here and there. I get around. And I
know people from up there." He jerked his head toward
the heights. His face expressed loathing. Kurt had been
surprised when first he heard the old man express dislike
for High Command, but no more. Gregor might have
been here. Beck said there were spies on the Rock. Who
less likely to be suspected than a crippled old shopkeeper?

"Among other things, boy, High Command's bothered
by the restlessness aboard the ships. They've been squab-
bling over what to do about all the young men who can't
see any reason to get killed in this thing, the ones talking
about going home. Always been those at any Gathering,
but not near so many as this time. Times are changing—
even in the Political Office."
"I had not noticed," said Kurt.

"No, you wouldn't. Not on your ship. And High Com-
mand's covering it up. The real trouble's among the Span-
iards and Portuguese—they're so close to home. If the
fleet doesn't sail soon, there'll be a blowup—they know
that up there. They don't know they're running late."

Kurt frowned, remembered Beck's words to the same
subject. He did not like it—too unpleasant.

"Be a good lad and fetch my wheelchair from the back,
will you? We'll go up and take a look at the fleet—if you
don't mind pushing me, that is."

"I do not mind. But we cannot go up. Once I was
warned already."

"You went to the wrong place. We'll go where they
don't mind."

Kurt returned a moment later, pushing the wheelchair.
Fitzhugh had donned a long, heavy coat in the meantime.
"Get me that blanket there," he said, pointing while
seating himself. Kurt tucked it in around the warped
body, then wheeled Fitzhugh out the door, locked the
shop, and asked, "Which way?"

"Left, and straight up the street to the end."
They wove through crowds of sailors from many na-
tions. The crush had become oppressing. The Gathering
had doubled in size.

An hour later, as they followed a path high up on the

89

Rock, Fitzhugh pulled out an ancient pocket watch and
said, "Hurry! We've got to go faster." Mystified, Kurt
went faster and hoped for an explanation. They reached a
wide, flat place. "Stop here!" Fitzhugh ordered. "Turn me
so I can see."

The fleet lay in panorama below them, rank on rank of
battered ships. Kurt thought it a marvel that some had
survived the trip to Gibraltar. As if reading his mind,
Fitzhugh growled. "They're a sorry lot." He stole a peek
at his watch. "They get worse each Gathering. I expect
this'll be the last made up of steam-powered ships. They
may go back to wooden vessels, sails, and muzzle-loading
cannon soon—unless something's done to stop it."

"What?"

"Watch the Spanish and Portuguese ships!" the old man
snapped, pointing with his claw hand. Kurt stared down at
the little covey of destroyers and corvettes. "Here," said
Fitzhugh. He pulled binoculars from beneath his blanket.
"Look close. And give them back quick if anyone comes
along."

Kurt stared through the glasses. Several minutes passed
before he saw anything of note. "It appears that they are
going to hang someone on one ship."

"Ah?"

"NeM. On each ship! Three men on one. Liebe Gott\
They are Political Officers. . . ."

"Anything else?" As he asked, a faint pop-pop-popping
of small-arms fire reached them. Smoke curled up from
the stacks of the six vessels, grew rapidly heavier. Men
appeared on forecastles, cast off mooring lines. Gun bat-
teries tracked right and left. It looked well-planned and
timed.

"They're going home," Fitzhugh said in early response
to a question Kurt was about to ask.

"Will not the High Command object?"

"Undoubtedly. Look around the point. See what the
battleship's doing."

Kurt turned. High Command sailors were running
aboard the huge warship. "To action stations they are
going."

"Looks like they'll have to shoot their way out."

"They will not escape," Kurt growled. He wished his
English would give his emotions more freedom.

"Maybe, maybe not. You might be surprised. But, win
or lose, they'll've set an example by trying—which is more
than anyone's ever done. Gives an old man hopes of
seeing the War die before he does. Word of this gets out,

maybe nobodyll answer the call to the next Gathering."

"What is your part in this, Martin?" Kurt stared at the
old man, wondering, remembering the dark sailors who
had come and gone from the antique shop during the past
three weeks, the Gregor-man furtive in shadows. He had
thought little of them until today. With pretended inno-
cence, he asked, "Are you an Australian agent?"

Fitzhugh's eyes widened in surprise. Then he burst into
laughter, almost toppled from his seat.

"What is funny?" Kurt demanded. He was growing
annoyed.

"Boy, you wouldn't believe a word if I told you. You
just watch what happens down there."

Kurt lifted the glasses. "You may tell me."

"No, I may not. Not just yet. Maybe later, after you've
seen this. There's your friend, Beck—a problem. Tell you
what. Ill explain if you still haven't figured it out by the
time you get back from the Meeting."

So. Fitzhugh knew of Beck. Kurt had never mentioned
the man. Now he was certain he had seen Gregor in the
shop yesterday. "Tell me, Martin."

Fitzhugh shook his head slowly. "You just watch those
ships. You'll see something I've prayed for all my life—the
first loosening of High Command's grip."

"Why will not you tell me?"

'Time, and Beck. But I'll see that you know what's
behind it all. Eventually. What's happening?"

"The ships are getting underway."

"Any others look like they might join in?"

"I do not see any. Gott verdammteV

A tremendous roar passed overhead. A moment later,
there were almost simultaneous booms from the anchor-
age and the Rock above.

"Holy Christ!" the old man bellowed, excitedly standing
in his wheelchair. "They're doing it. They're really doing
it! Again! Again! Get the antennas!" He shouted some-
thing more, but his words were lost as another salvo
roared overhead.

Through the glasses, Kurt watched as all six vessels
opened up with main and secondary batteries. Gibraltar
shuddered as a ragged salvo exploded around the peak. A
swarm of three-inchers racketed over and hit, too close
for Kurt. "Martin! Out of here we must get."

"Why? They re not shooting at us. You look down there
and let me know what's happening. Let me do the worry-
ing."

The top of Gibraltar now received a steady pounding.

Glancing upward, Kurt saw a salvo fall amidst the forest
of radio masts.

"That'll clog the gears for a while!" Fitzhugh shouted.
Kurt turned back to the ships. They were leaving the
anchorage in line astern, gathering speed rapidly. Around
the point, the battleship was getting her anchor up. Her
guns turned toward the rebels. Nine waterspouts rose a
few hundred meters beyond the destroyer leading the line.
A moment later, Kurt heard a rumble like that of distant
thunder.

"Battleship opening up," said Fitzhugh. "She'll have a
hard time using her main battery, this close in. Wish my
eyes were better."

Kurt watched the lead ship shift her guns from Gibral-
tar to the battleship. Her automatic five-inchers, each
capable of forty-five rounds per minute, snarled defiantly—
like a house cat cornered by a tiger. Destroyer against
battleship at half a kilometer was hardly a match, yet, as
she began running an evasion course, the smaller ship shot
everything she had. There was no missing.

Flashes of light, puffs of smoke, flying metal, engulfed
the giant warship. Most of the shells did little real damage
because they hit massive armor plating, but the super-
structure suffered considerable ruin.

Then the battleship, like a sluggish giant, spoke again,
with the mouths of dragons. The leading rebel stopped
being. The other five ships hurried on, trailing the smoke
of their muzzle blasts.

"Hit her fire control!" Pitzhugh shrieked. "Knock out
her fire control!"

The destroyers and corvettes slipped past. The battleship
tried to get up steam to chase them. Her guns continued
thundering, but with less effect. Perhaps, as Fitzhugh de-
manded, her fire control had been destroyed and they
were now being aimed by optical systems.

Kurt looked back at the rest of the fleet. There was
fighting on one small ship near where the rebels had been
moored, but, otherwise, nothing happening, except that
decks were crowded with curious men, men who could see
next to nothing. The firing was taking place around a
corner of the Rock, out of sight of all but a very few
ships—and the rebels were now making smoke to confuse
the battleship's gunners.

"You'd better take me back down now," said Fitzhugh.
"High Command'11 order all liberties canceled soon. And
I've got something to give you, something to explain
everything."

92

Shaking, Kurt returned the man's binoculars, glanced at
the three surviving ships fleeing to the southeast, then
started down with the wheelchair.

They were halfway down when the guns fell silent.
"Faster now," Fitzhugh commanded. "They'll soon start
thinking, up in the War Room." Under his breath, he add-
ed, "I wonder if they'll make it?"

Crowds of mystified sailors milled in the waterfront
streets. They asked one another wild questions, and gave
the wildest answers: Australians had attacked, but been
beaten off; an ammunition ship had blown up; the Rock's
defensive guns were holding target practice.

"Some ships rebelled against High Command," said a
sailor who seemed better informed than his fellows, in
English, the most common tongue there. "They shot then-
way out, and now they're going home."

This rumormonger was different. Kurt saw it in his
face—a face faintly familiar. Was he one who had come
to visit Fitzhugh recently? Surely he was spreading the
word intentionally. Kurt was certain he winked at
Fitzhugh as he passed.

"Quick! Inside the shop!" the cripple ordered. Kurt saw
he was staring down the street at a party of Political
Officers working through the crowds, apparently searching
for someone. Kurt hustled the old man into his shop.

"Lock the door again."

He did. "Can you not explain what is happening?" he
pleaded.

"No time now, Kurt. But you can figure it out for
yourself." He wheeled his chair over to the table where
they had spent so many hours studying. A stack of books
rested on it. "Take these. They're mostly novels, there to
cover the important one, the one that'll help you under-
stand."

Kurt surveyed the titles.

"Wrap them up." Fitzhugh offered him a large rag.
"Good. Now get back to your ship while there's still
enough confusion."

"Why? What is wrong?"

"Nothing—unless you're caught carrying that copy of
Ritual War. That's a death penalty, son. Go along now,
and beware of Marquis."

"Marquis?"

"Code name for a Political Officer, true name un-
known, on your ship. Not Beck. His code's Charon."

"I will." Confused, yet impressed and frightened by the

93

old man's urgency, Kurt said a hasty farewell, shook
Fitzhugh's good hand, and hurried out.

He reached the pier as one of Jdger's boats was about
to leave. A shout held it long enough for him to pile into a
seat next to a pale, frightened Hans Wiedermann.

"What's the matter, Hans?"

"I don't know. Political Officers came down from High
Command and told everyone to go back to their ships.
What've you got?"

"Huh?"

"What's in the package?"

"Oh. Some books I bought to study. English."

"Can I see?"

Kurt pulled several from the bundle and prayed his
memory had not played him a trick. He remembered the
dangerous one as being at the bottom. He handed three to
Hans. The little Boatswain studied the dull covers, opened
each, glanced at such illustrations as there were, and
asked, "What are they?"

Kurt leaned over and looked. "The red one's a novel.
For Whom the Bell Tolls. The green one's a geography
book. The other one's another novel, A Tale of Two
Cities."

"What else have you got? Anything with pictures?"

Kurt took the three books back and returned them to his
package. "No pictures. Just novels: The Anger Men, The
Guns of August, Andiron Blue."

Hans shrugged, leaned against the gunwale, closed his
eyes, said, "I hope we leave soon. Just sitting here's
driving me crazy."

"Ran out of potatoes, huh?"

"Didn't run out. If you'd wake up, you'd know von
Lappus cut us off. Put an armed guard on the spud
locker."

One of the few extant motorboats roared past, rocking
the whaleboat with her wake. It sped toward the cluster of
aircraft carriers. There were now six of the battered old
queens anchored out, with perhaps a hundred makeshift
planes between them. Not much of a strike force. Kurt
wondered what the Australians had.

A bit later, as the whaleboat eased in to the foot of
Jiiger's accommodation ladder, planes began leaving one
of the carriers. Kurt at first found the launch surprising.
Fuel was too precious to waste on training.

The planes circled up and headed in the direction the
rebel ships had fled. So, Kurt thought, they had outrun the
limping battleship.

94

"What's so interesting, Hans?"

"I've never seen planes like those. Where do you think
they're going?"

Kurt shrugged, said, "Who knows? Why don't you ask
High Command?"

Hans gave him a sharp look, then chuckled. "They
never tell me anything. The other day I went up to look
around. An old man with a machinegun ran me off with-
out even telling me why."

Hans stepped onto the platform at the base of the
accommodation ladder. Kurt was a step behind. He quick-
ly evaded Hans, once aboard, and hurried to the chart-
house. There he mixed his novels in with the navigational
publications. The dangerous book with the title The Begin-
nings of the Ritual War he locked in the safe. There
would be time to look at it later.

95

x

IT was a terrible dream. He was in Norway, with Karen,
running through the mountains of Telemark, fleeing, their
limbs moving with dream-slowness, hand in hand, terror
close behind them. Karen's hair floated behind her like
wind-blown pennons of thread-of-gold, like hair teased out
in underwater currents.

Wolf-howls, close. Behind them were black wolves with
silver collars, with silver death's-head eyes, dark wolves,
hungry wolves, drawing closer as their prey ran with
floating steps. One gray wolf with little form and no head
ran before the pack.

He did not understand. He asked Karen, "Why? Why?"
He looked at her, and her young, fresh face changed,
became that of his own mother buried these many years,
corrupt. ... He shrank away moaning.

She cackled madly and said, "Because."

There never was a better reason.

They fled the hungry wolves, knowing there was no
escape. A malignant god would not permit it. He
screamed as rank wolf-breath seared the back of his neck
... and woke up shouting incoherently.

Then a hand covered his mouth and another seized his
shoulder, held him down. 'Take it easy, Kurt!" someone
growled in his ear.

Kurt jerked free of the controlling grasp, eyes wide
with terror. The ^man who had awakened him was a
shadowy figure beside his rack. He shrank against the
metal partition at the rear of his bunk, his mind painting
the shadow-figure with the pale face, cold eyes, and dark
uniform of a Political Officer.

"Kurt! Come on! Snap out of it!"

Recognition at last, and a vast feeling of relief. "Oh.
Hans. I'm sorry. Nightmare."

Somewhere nearby, someone muttered sleepily, "For
chrissakes-shaddup-willya?"

"My fault, maybe", Hans whispered. "Come on. Get

up."

Still shaking, Kurt asked, "What's up?"

"I'm not sure. They woke me and told me to get you.
Deckinger on the quarterdeck said a group came over
from High Command."

Kurt sat up on the edge of his rack, rubbed his temples.
"Feels like a hangover, I'm so fuzzy. But I didn't drink
anything." What time is it?"

"About three."

"In the morning?"

"Come on. Will you hurry?"

Kurt dropped to the cold steel deck, slipped into the
rumpled uniform he had worn the day before, and pulled
his cap on over uncombed hair. "All right, let's go." They
climbed the ladder to the lighted passageway above.

"You look like hell!" said Hans.

"Tough. That's what they get for hauling me out at this
time of night."

"Hostile this morning, aren't you? Where're you going
now?"

"Mess decks. I need some coffee." He was still a little
fuzzy, and the adrenalin in his system did not help. Exas-
perated, Hans started to growl something. Kurt growled
first. "You could use a cup too. They'll live without us for
a couple minutes. Hell. Why don't we take a pot and cups
down with us?"

"Good enough."

They went to the mess decks. Kurt drew the coffee
while Hans found cups. Then they walked forward, to the
wardroom.

"Ah!" said the Captain as they entered. Kurt immedi-
ately sensed the tension in the room. Von Lappus was
putting on his jolly old Father Christmas act, but it was
doing little to conceal the tired, put-upon bureaucrat he
was. "You see the resourcefulness of our ratings?"

Kurt glanced at the man for whom the words were
intended, a Political Officer at least eighty years old. The
old man stared back, his gaze a sword of ice.

"Over here," said Commander Haber, indicating chairs
at the end of the table. Kurt now counted five Political
Officers, an unusually large gathering. He also noted, as he
set the coffee pot on the table and took his seat, that they
seemed ordered according to importance. The ancient on
the right was obviously senior. Beck sat at his left, then
the other three, all still in their teens, without the iciness
of their elders (they seemed a little awed and frightened,
as if in an unexpected situation), but trying to match it. A
pity youth should be so warped. ...

"Kurt Ranke," the Captain said, making the introduc-
tions, "Leading Quartermaster. Hans Wiedennann, Lead-
ing Boatswain." He did not add that Hans was by now
virtual master of Deck Department, that Mr. Obermeyer
had been relieved of the First Lieutenant's duties because
of his incompetence. Hans, Kurt felt, was now secretly
bitter because no formal commission had come with the
informal investiture of those duties. "Fill them in. Com-
mander."

Haber coughed behind a shaky thin hand, said, "High

Command has sent out an emergency directive. The fleet

will get underway at dawn."

Hans's eyebrows rose. Kurt found he was not at all

surprised. High Command would want the fleet too busy
to think about yesterday. But Haber ... The man's shak-
iness had increased to the point where he had difficulty
holding a pen, and his uniform looked as though it had
gone unchanged for days. The stresses must be overwhelm-
ing, Kurt thought.

"The three younger gentlemen," Haber continued, "will

be working in Operations. They're to handle signal traffic

between ships. . . ."

Cunning, Kurt thought. Rebellions would remain local-
ized if the Political Office controlled communications. He
wondered what else they were to do. A little spying?

Haber spoke on. "We've been given charts for the
Mediterranean with our track laid out. Ranke, you're to
get with Mr. Czyzewski and determine anticipated fuel
consumption. We're lower than we should be. We may
have to refuel underway. Make it during the stop at

Malta, if you can. ..."

Kurt stopped listening. He knew he could catch up

later. Beck and the old Political Officer were more inter-
esting. They were speaking English, softly, unaware they

were being overheard.

"What's that dunderhead spouting off about?" the old

one asked.

"Just explaining about pulling out," Beck replied.

"Light a fire under them, will you? Sooner we're done,
the sooner I can get home and get some sleep. We
wouldn't be here if someone had passed on fleet reports

off those Spaniards."

"Or if the Milhouse faction hadn't gotten the upper

hand," Beck whispered back. His throat still bothered him

some.

"We need more people with common sense, and fewer

idealists. If only that woman had seen what blocking the

report would cost. She didn't want anyone hurt, she told
the interrogators. And now we've got five hundred casual-
ties aboard Purpose. Someone'll get hurt. Her. Milhouse's
throwing her to the wolves."

"Trying to save his own hide, eh?"

"Indeed. But too late. Purpose's half a wreck and the
General Staff's asking how the Political Office let it hap-
pen. Heads will roll. Milhouse's whole lot, if we play it

right."

Kurt fought to keep expressions from racing across his

face. He was hearing the internal problems of the Political
Office, at which Beck had hinted. The old man, he as-
sumed, was a leader of that faction favoring extermination
of the underground. He certainly seemed pleased that a
less savage viewpoint had failed.

Kurt's ears almost pricked up. The subject had
changed. He listened intently.

"Did Milhouse decide what to do about those pilots?"

Beck asked.

"All the way to the opposite extreme. He's having them

shot. Another mistake that'll help topple him. He lost six
planes and sank only one ship, then talked too much—got
angry—when the others came back. We'll soon have a
new chief. Our own man."

"Yourself, sir?"

"Myself, Garfield, any of several others. Anybody, as
long as there's a change in policy. The Office's falling

apart under these idealists."
Beck shrugged. "If he won't die, and he won't step

down?"

"I think, after yesterday, the General Staff will insist.

They're interested in results, not methods, and the Mil-
house system's a disaster. We'll be out of contact with
Bermuda and Corregidor for at least six months, until
they cobble together new radio masts. Oh, for God's sake
man, will you shut that fellow up? I can't listen to these

idiots all night." He rose.

Kurt kept his eyes carefully glued to Commander Ha-
ber, wondered who or what Bermuda and Corregidor
were. People or places? Corregidor sounded vaguely
familiar, though he could not place it. Had he read it

somewhere?

He also wondered about the pilots. What had this Mil-
house person let slip? Certainly something important, if he
was willing to shoot trained flyers to keep it quiet. Kurt
grew more and more curious—and suddenly wished he
had avoided all this by going to Telemark with Karen.

99

"Ranke?"

He looked up hurriedly. "Sorry, sir. Sleepy."

Haber ignored the excuse. "You and Mr. Lindemann
get started. You'll have to be ready by sunrise." He
glanced at the departing Political Officers, then at the
clock on the bulkhead near the door. "That's not much
time."

Kurt nodded and rose. He was glad to leave. More than
enough questions were bothering him already. Gregor
followed him from the wardroom.

"Now, Wiedermann, Deck has to . . ." Haber's voice
faded behind them.

The door to the charthouse slammed shut. Gregor visi-
bly relaxed. "I never thought there'd be a man creepier
than Beck. But that old one..." He shook his head.

"Yes," Kurt replied. "So what're we supposed to do? I
didn't understand all that about getting ready." More, he
did not want to open the safe to get his gear. He was
painfully aware of that dangerous book. ...

"It was nothing." Gregor rubbed his temples, then
rolled his head in a circle. "Just talk-talk so the Political
Officers think we're doing something. We might as well
crap out. I'll match you for the table."

"All right." Kurt took coins from a drawer, gave one to
Gregor, nipped the other, held it against his wrist. Linde-
mann did the same, said, "Heads."

"Tails. You lose." Kurt crawled onto the table and
stretched out on his back. He stared at the ceiling awhile,
finally forced himself to ask, "Gregor, what'd you do in
Norway?"

"Ran a salting station. You know the type." He sounded
displeased.

"What else? How'd you get involved with Kari Franck
and the Telemark people?"

"What're you talking about?"

"Gregor, Gregor, this's me, Kurt Ranke. Family. Do
you have to lie to me?"

Lindemann seemed momentarily distressed. "Why do
you spend so much time with Beck? Why're you with-
drawn and uncommitted? You take no stands."

This was Gregor's reasoning? Kurt thought a painful
moment. He did not like exposing his soul, putting his
beliefs out as targets for any sharp-tongued marksman.
"Beck's a man, whatever else. My conscience wouldn't let
me shun him, or love him, to satisfy his or your politics."
He paused for more than a minute then, carefully, formally
ordering his next words. "I am tolerance, I am moderation,

100

I am the cautious man who weighs rights and wrongs be-
fore jumping into causes. Here I see no causes with rights."
High-sounding stuff, he suspected, but when were moral
issues depictably mundane? "There're more wrongs than
rights in High Command, it's true, yet there's a right
outweighing the others. High Command is a force binding
the West, preventing the fall to bickering feudalism. .. ."

"An evil force!" Gregor's exclamation sounded fanati-
cal.

"A force aimed in the wrong direction, but the one real
power with a real means of dealing with real problems.
From what I've learned of your party, it's bound down the
bloody-damnation road of most fanatic revolutions."

"What?" Now he was growing irritated.

"The use of any means to an end is what I mean. You
want High Command broken—even if the rest of the
world has to tumble down with it. If you'd really known
anything about High Command, you'd've realized you
were better off as a force-in-being, ready to move in if
they failed. You'd've known liberal forces were moving
there, powers that may've favored your own objectives.
Yesterday you killed them. You cunningly planned—your
real enemies let you—and, as you thought you were win-
ning physical and moral victories, you bought defeat. The
liberals were discredited. The hard-liners take over to-
morrow, or soon, with the avowed intention of exterminat-
ing you. And they'll probably manage. They know the
places and names, and have their agents in havens like
Telemark."

(Here Kurt experienced a moment of fear. What if
High Command mounted an operation against Telemark?
What would become of Karen?)

When Gregor gasped, Kurt rolled onto his side and
looked down. His cousin, seated on the floor, was deathly
pale, was beating his temples with his fists. Kurt had never
seen him so bad.

"Was it a game, Gregor? If you thought so, open your
eyes. You've lost a pawn already. How'U I tell Frieda
about Otto?"

"I know!" It was almost a moan. "How do you know
all this, Kurt? How do you knowT'

"A mutual acquaintance, a crippled old weaver of
webs, taught me English, which is the language of High
Command. I eavesdropped on Beck and his superior,
reasoned from what I already knew. They play no games,
Gregor. It's a deadly-serious business for them, and
they're watching you. You and Hippke. And your nemesis

101

won't be Beck himself, but the one called Marquis, who
might have killed Otto."

"Marquis, yes," Lindemann said softly. "Well, we have
our unknown men, then, he his Marquis, me my Brindled
Saxon."

"Brindled Saxon?"

Lindemann shrugged, forced a weak smile against the
pain of his headache. "Do you talk this frankly with
Beck?"

Kurt shook his head. "I talk to you now only because
you're my cousin. I don't favor you. You've shut me out
of your life, and I think it's just as well. All I really want
is to be left in peace." He rolled onto his back again,
closed his eyes and swore he would hear nothing more.
But Gregor remained silent. Kurt fell asleep with his brain
re-echoing all the high wonderful phrases he had meant as
much for himself as for Gregor.

A knock at the door, not much later, woke them. Both
bounced up and tried to put on wakefulness. Kurt scat-
tered papers on the chart table to give it a workaday
appearance. "Who's there?" he asked.

"Executive Officer. You ready?"

"Yes sir."

"Get some breakfast. We'll be starting soon." Haber's
feet clunked on the ladder outside as he climbed to the
bridge.

"Get squared away while you're at it," Gregor said.
Kurt's uniform was rumpled and his cheeks were covered
with blond stubble. Lindemann avoided his eyes.

Kurt left when he heard the bridge door clang shut. He
breakfasted, showered, shaved, got into a fresh uniform,
and returned in time for Sea Detail, which was piped late.
It need never have been. Beck, working on the signal
bridge with his three young underlings, despite his in-
capacity, passed down the word that Jager had to wait
until all the vessels to seaward had gotten underway.

Von Lappus secured Sea Detail and ordered holiday
routine. Kurt took the opportunity to go for a cup of
coffee.

He had been sitting in the mess decks fifteen minutes,
brooding about Karen, High Command, pilots to be shot,
and what was the need of it all, when Erich arrived.

"Got a minute, Kurt?"

"Got all the time in the world, Erich. All the time in
the world. Got a year till my dying."

"Hey! Why so glum?"

"Nothing, really. Just thinking about Karen."

102

"Oh. I didn't know her well. Pretty, though." He looked
around. "What do you think of Beck now?"

Kurt shrugged.

"He's alive and looking for trouble," said Erich. "He
might have more luck than before."

"Only good one's a dead one, eh?"

"You might say. I wanted to ask you what happened
yesterday. You were over. What was the fuss?"

Kurt wondered how much he dared tell. Why not the
truth? He would get it from Gregor anyway. "Some ships
tried to go home."

"Sounds like a good idea." Hippke was elaborately
unconcerned.

"High Command sank them."

Hippke's eyebrows rose, his face paled the slightest.
"How'd it happen?"

Kurt described what he had seen from high on the
Rock.

"Kurt, you ever feel High Command's evil? Like the
Devil runs it, or something?" Hippke's voice was lower,
cautious.

"I doubt it. Evil's a matter of viewpoint, of what side
you're on. We're probably black-hearted villains to Aus-
tralians."

"No. I mean ... I guess so. High Command probably
believes in what it's doing. But the world would be better
off without it."

"Maybe, Erich. But the job's to stay alive. Dead men
make no changes."

"You think there're changes needed?"

"Some. Maybe a new direction for High Command."

"A new direction? Sounds like a good slogan. Kurt, did
you ever think about what you could do?"

In a rare flash of insight, Kurt saw what Erich was
after, read his future words, and retorted, "There's no
point trying to recruit me. I can't see anything your group
has to offer." This was true enough, yet Kurt was unable
to analyze the emotions founding his statement. Fear for
Karen was there, fear for himself, belief that High Com-
mand was the only stabilizing power in the West, knowl-
edge of the corruptness of historical revolutions, a love for
his country and peace which wanted no rebellious devas-
tion there. Yes, the War needed ending, but not at the
cost Gregor and Erich thought needed paying.

"Can it! Beck!"

Kurt looked up. Beck had come in, was surveying the
mess hall. This was his first day afoot. He leaned on a

103

table for support. The place grew silent. Only Beck could
have had that effect.

The Political Officer walked the length of the mess
decks, nodded to Kurt, and drew himself a cup of coffee.
He took a seat to one side, alone.

The mess decks soon emptied themselves. Kurt depart-
ed, wondering what it was like to have people leave when
one entered a room. Did it bother Beck? Did it give him a
feeling of power? He had never probed the matter in his
meetings with the man.

Outside, as they moved to a lazing place on the fantail,
Erich asked, "How much longer do you think he'll last?"

"What?"

"Beck. How long before someone gets him?"

Kurt stopped. "Erich! Be careful what you say—and
who you say it to. Beck's looking for an excuse to hang
you. Be careful around those kids, too. They're not sup-
posed to speak German, but don't bet on it. Not your
life."

"I wasn't planning anything, Kurt. Just curious, that's
all."

Hippke departed. Kurt- strolled aft, leaned against the
empty depth-charge rack. His head swirled with confused
thoughts about Martin Fitzhugh, Beck and his old master,
Gregor and Erich, and Karen. Karen. She often lurked on
the borders of his mind. Had she reached Telemark? How
was her pregnancy coming?

Sea Detail was piped again after dinner. In a better
mental state than earlier, Kurt went to his station. The
last ships to seaward were getting under way. Jager soon
cast off her mooring buoy, slowly turned toward the sea.
Kurt's heart beat rapidly. This time a Meeting, not a
Gathering, was her goal.

"She feels like a new ship," said Gregor, leaning on the
chart table beside Kurt. He now seemed under no strain.

"Uhm. The new screw. The helmsmen'll be happy. I
tried steering on the way down. That was work."

"Where's that station guide? Captain'11 want it soon."

From the drawer beneath the table Kurt took a fleet-
formation diagram High Command had sent days earlier.
He and Gregor examined it for perhaps the twentieth
time, making certain of Jager's station. "This should be
Combat's problem," Kurt grumbled.

"So fix the radars, you don't want to do it," Gregor
growled back. "Where's the stadimeter?"

"You figure it out yet?"

104

"I think so," Lindemann replied. "I've practiced
enough. You try. Get me the distance to that collier. ..."

The hours passed, the sun set, and ships still milled
about, trying to find their stations. Jager had assumed
her own with little difficulty, but others . .. well, some
crews knew nothing about formations. All was confusion.
Jager had several near misses.

The fleet began moving eastward the following day, and
spent the next ten sailing to Malta, where Italian ships
were waiting.

On the fourth morning the barometer plummeted. By
the end of the watch, Jager was taking white water over
her bow. Great spumes of foam heaved into the air as the
shuddering vessel dug her nose into the seas. The howling
wind grew steadily stronger. Rain fell in angry sheets.

The evening watch was worse. The wind blew a whole
gale, force ten, and promised more. The waves ran as tall
as Jager's bridge. She took green water over the bow. Her
stern lifted clear as she crossed each wave, staggering
while her propellers cut nothing but air. Little could be
seen through the haze and driven spray. A small carrier
on the starboard quarter took water on her flight deck. A
corvette on the port beam disappeared at times, as if
spending part of her life underwater. And the wind
screamed.

Watertight doors-and windows soon proved they were
not. Smashing waves, driven by force-eleven winds, pushed
fingers through the seals, gradually soaked interior decks
and passageways. Salt encrusted the feet of equipment,
though sailors labored to keep the water away.

The rolls were murderous, as much as sixty degrees, so
far over the yards almost diddled the crests of waves. Men
had to tie themselves into bed. There were injuries,
bruises, a broken arm, and a fatality when a man fell
from a catwalk in the forward fireroom.

Desperately clinging to a handhold on the overhead,
during the storm's third night, Hans asked, "Wonder how
Obermeyer's taking this?"

Kurt felt compassion for the man. He was sick himself.
"Go put him out of his misery."

"Aw. Tummy troubles? Don't worry about Obermeyer.
He'll probably commit suicide."

Distressed though he was, Kurt still caught the seething
jealousy beneath Hans's words—he probably hoped Ober-
meyer would suicide. Then von Lappus could no longer
deny him a commission—Hans seemed to want that brass
terribly bad.

105

"Would you for crissakes shut up!" someone moaned.

"Mind your helm. You don't have time to worry about
your stomach," Hans growled.

There was in Hans's recent words a veiled gloating, a
secret cry of victory. Kurt had heard it before, each time
Weidermann got the better of him. This for Hans: it was
never open or taunting, just a puffing of the chest and a
heavier charge to his words.

Hans, Hans, Hans. Hans was a lifelong mystery to
Kurt, more unfathomable than Karen, seldom more than
half-real. Like all children, he had at times been exuberant
or sulky, ambitious or lethargic, any of a hundred pairs of
opposites. But in Hans there had also been an unchildlike
reserve, an almost adult lack of imagination, a fondness
for conformity and the established order. His father's
presence, power, and person had hung over him like a
cloud, molding him strangely.

Karl Wiedermann, of an authoritarian, almost monastic
profession, was a stricter disciplinarian in his home than in
his work. After Hans's mother died (he and Kurt had
been four at the time), Karl rapidly became a tyrant of
narrow limits, thunderous at home, almost too lenient with
Kiel's leaders. While the High Command grip gradually
eased on the Littoral, Karl's tightened on Hans (Kurt
suspected the man of secretly blaming his son for his
wife's death), subjecting him to growing terror.

At the age of eight, during one of their periodic spells
of friendship (Otto had the measles and Kurt could find
no other playmate), Kurt went with Hans to his father's
shop. Karl was all smiles for a time, attentive, ready with
snacks, instructive when the boys asked any of their hun-
dred questions concerning the furnituremaker's art.

Then the Wiedermann cat came dashing through. Kurt
seized its upright tail (he had been crueler then), eliciting
a yowl. Hans shoved him to stop the torture. Kurt shoved
back, boy words of anger were exchanged, Hans swung.
Kurt countered and gave him a bloody nose. Hans re-
treated.

Then Karl stepped in, belt in hand. Kurt fled, pursued
by Hans's howls and Karl's bellows about cowardice.

Perhaps Hans does have good reason to dislike me,
Kurt thought. Every time we grew friendly, I eventually
cost him a whipping. Maybe it's in his blood now: if we're
friendly long, he'll suffer.

A groan jerked his attention from his thoughts One of
the Political Office signalmen squatted in a corner, clung

106

desperately to the bulkhead. Eyes closed, he muttered
over and over in English, "Oh, God, make it stop!"

It seemed the storm would never end. The four days of
its duration were individual eternities. But the fifth day
was like entering Paradise. The height of the waves
dropped to six meters, the wind to thirty knots, and the
rolls to reasonable angles.

The "man overboard!" cry reached the bridge that
evening, carried by Gregor, who had gone below for
coffee. Beck was the victim. Kurt looked at Hans, Hans at
another man, and so forth. No one believed it an acci-
dent.

Von Lappus arrived moments later, assumed the conn.
"Which side?" he asked.

"Port side, sir," Lindemann replied.

The Captain ordered a turn to port. The destroyer
rolled terribly as she ran parallel to the seas. They
searched till dark, till even Beck's underlings were satisfied
he was forever lost. As Kurt had suspected, the three now
proved capable of speaking German.

The search was a grand performance. Kurt thought it a
cynical sham (yet every time Beck's name crossed his
mind, he felt relief because he would not now have to give
the man an answer about joining High Command). He
saw, in the faces of his officers during unguarded mo-
ments, that no one cared about Beck, that they hoped he
would not be found.

He was not, so some were happy. Kurt was not. He
knew Beck a little, knew he was real, and could not
rejoice in his destruction. Nor were the three young Politi-
cal Officers, who were suddenly very much on their own.

There was a three-day halt at Malta while the warships
refueled. During the stay, Jager suffered examinations
and investigations. Political Officers from Purpose asked
apparently endless questions, yet Jager finally earned a
clean bill—but, Kurt suspected, only because several ships
had lost men overboard, and Beck had been none too
strong.

No new Political Officer was assigned. That Kurt found
curious. There must be a devious reason. Would the Politi-
cal Office play Jager like a fish, making certain the hook
was well set before she was reeled in?

He cornered Hippke during the pause at Malta, after
trying to catch him for days. Erich had been avoiding him
since Beck's disappearance, speaking only when he re-
lieved the watch, when no weighty matters could be dis-
cussed.

107

"Erich, did you have anything to do with Beck?" Kurt
snapped, surprising himself with his own intensity. Hippke
would not meet his eyes. Nervously, he looked to see if
they were watched. "I was afraid you'd think that after
the way I talked. No, I didn't do it. Really. I swear.
Funny thing is, though, nobody knows who did. Far as I
know, it really was an accident."

Kurt had to be satisfied with that. Hippke refused to
discuss it further. His apparent sincerity in denying re-
sponsibility might have been faked, but Kurt came to a
similar conclusion once he had snooped around. Everyone
thought Beck had been pushed, but no one knew by
whom. This death was a mystery deep as Otto's.

The possibilities frightened Kurt. Was it really coinci-
dence? Accident fulfilling threat? But it did not have the
feeling of accident, no more than the attack in Norway.

Someone had to be responsible.

Kurt suffered attacks of nervousness, compounded by
inactivity. He felt compassion for Haber, whose state was
now pathetic. To fight it, he began reading the forbidden
book from his safe.

108

XI

MALTA to Port Said was uneventful. Kurt spent his time
puzzling out the meaning of the first chapter of Ritual
War. After a day wrestling with words not in his vocabu-
lary, he decided to translate the book on paper. Good for
killing time, if nothing else, and time he would have, for
the Suez Canal was closed, silted up since the last Meeting.

Ten days out of Malta, lager dropped anchor in Lake
Manzala. Von Lappus announced that most of the crew
would go ashore to help clear the canal. With some fast
verbal footwork, Kurt convinced Gregor that Jager could
not manage without him—their being related may have
helped. And there was the translation, which had become
important to him. With his dictionary to explain unfamil-
iar and technical terms, the book soon shook the roots of
his world. As the title implied, it told of the beginnings of
the War.

He had not gotten far yet, but black hints had appeared
like bloodstains on a neolithic altar, hints that, unless the
book was one monstrous lie, everything he knew of the
past two and a half centuries was purest invented history.
He had to continue.

Ritual War claimed to have been written during the
first two decades of the War, and had reached the public
in 2008. It had become, according to the preface, an
immediate international bestseller, popular throughout a
savaged world. And possession soon became a crime.
Production went underground. Kurt's edition was of the
twenty-fourth printing of the second revision, undated,
with a later supplementary pamphlet tucked in behind the
last page.

Briefly, the first chapter explored the ecological-
economic crisis which had set the stage for the War. The
pollution problems of the seventh and eighth decades of
the twentieth century had snowballed and roared into the
mid-ninth decade with the fury of an avalanche as wastes,
and the new microbiology evolved within them, poisoned
and destroyed vast food resources. Worldwide panic and

109

depression, ignoring ideologies, economic controls, and the
efforts of man in general, followed a year of almost
universal cereal-crops failures. The capitalist house of pa-
per had fallen with a muted crump\ The interpreters of
Marx had fled Moscow a step ahead of angry workers and
peasants, their carpetbags filled with yards of worthless
rubles.

The book scarce mentioned human suffering, assuming
the reader had endured the experiences of the time. Kurt
obtained none of the misery of 1986 and 1987. He did not
see the starving billions, the riots, the burning cities, the
dead mounded in Western streets, the cannibalism that
swept the non-Hindu east. He knew not the desperation
that made men murder for a loaf or dried fish. He felt
none of the frantic dismay of a man who, early on, found
his entire life's savings would not buy a tin of cat food. He
could not comprehend the unbalanced ecological equation
initiating the collapse. The numbers, the statistics were
meaningless. He could not encompass their vastness.

There is a way to channel the frustrations of a people, a
way of creating work and concerted effort for a common
end—though then it was certain to worsen the already
disastrous ecological situation—

War.

(Like a drumbeat, its sound, like a trumpet call, like the
tramp of marching men—War! War! Krieg\ Guerre\ A
harsh, short word in any tongue.)

Kurt could not imagine the desperation behind the
Geneva Accord of 1987. He was appalled by the author's
calm, passionless picture of government heads agreeing to
a vast but limited war of recovery, by economists casually
establishing kill-quotas and consumption rates of mega-
deaths per year.

Something had happened to upset the delicate balance
of the engineering war. Something would make the war the
War. The author would explain in a chapter entitled "The
Nuclear Exchange."

This much Kurt learned by Lake Manzala, and, al-
though horrified, he had to leam more. The macabre,
unemotional, committee-report style of the book, dreadful
in itself, drew him on—he knew the author must explode
sometime. He felt like a vulture, perched and waiting for
that explosion.

Kurt stood on the port wing two days after reaching
Egypt, with the feelings of a condemned man as the
gibbet-trap falls away beneath him. Now he knew why
Fitzhugh had given him the book. The old man meant him

110

r

to plunge into Gregor's movement in reaction to that
disaster of the past—a disaster still in progress. And he
was tempted. He had a decision to make. What to do.
Drift with the tide, as he had all his life? Or join some-
thing probably as wicked as what was?

And, as he told himself he would do the latter, he knew
he lied. He would always be a follower, a drifter with the
flood. He did riot like it. It meant he was a nothing. What
had Gregor said? "You take no stands." But—what was
wrong with the middle-of-the-road stand?

"Hey, Kurt. What's the matter? You really look down."

"I don't know, Hans. Just wondering why I'm here—
God, the heat!—and how Karen's getting on. Thinking
about the baby. ..."

"Suppose we change the subject?"

Kurt nodded slowly. So. Hans still had not gotten over
his loss. Best humor him. Their enmity was fading. No
sense tempting it.

His mind slipped off on a tangent, forgetting the present
Hans in a question about Hans of the past. Why had
Karen become engaged to him? It was a question he had
never dared probe deeply, for fear of the answer. Karen
had not had much use for Wiedermann before Kurt had
gone to sea with the Danes—had, indeed, been quite cruel
to him as a child. Why had she changed her mind?

These questions, long suppressed, burst upon him in full
bloom, and from his subconscious—which worried such
things whether he willed it or no—welled glimmerings of
answers. Karen. Telemark. Brindled Saxon. Beck saying
the underground had unusually good information on
Jager's plans. Various other clues too subtle to label.
Given the assumption that Karen was associated with the
underground, Kurt could understand her engagement. She
had wanted to recruit a Political Office family member for
the resistance. And Hans, even without Karen for incen-
tive, had motives for joining that movement. What better
way to avenge himself on a cruel father?

Yes, that would answer several disquieting questions—
but raised more, equally unsettling. Why had Karen mar-
ried himi If for political reasons once, why not twice? All
his relatives were associated with the underground—now
he was lonely, solitary between tribes. Opposite Karen
stood shadowed Marquis, another new question. For Kurt
had gradually come to suspect Hans, because of his family
background, of being that masked unknown. But, by label-
ing Hans Brindled Saxon, his emotions left him with a less

111

likely suspect (assuming Marquis had killed Otto, for
which he had none but emotional evidence): Haber.

It was all so confusing!

Hans was staring at him strangely. He must get back to
the world, say something, anything. "Ho.w long will we be
here?"

"A long time. The ships that were already here—the
Greeks, Turks, and Ukrainians—have been working for
months, and they haven't gotten much done. I heard
about four months to reach Great Bitter Lake, and six
more to Port Suez."

Kurt groaned. "Damn, Hans, I wish I'd jumped ship in
Norway. Or not shown up the morning we left."

"Careful, Kurt. These Political Officers are kids, but
they can still get you hung. There's too much loose talk
now."

"I know. I've had to warn some of my men."

'There's one of yours I've warned myself, but he won't
listen. Hippke."

"Erich? Again? 111 kick his head in. . . ." He suddenly
had a strong impression that Hans was probing for some-
thing. His attitude toward what Erich had been saying?
"You people made a wrong choice in picking up Hippke."
He watched for a reaction, saw none.

"Oh, he hasn't done anything open. Yet. It's his atti-
tude. He's, insolent. Nothing that'll get him hung, but
enough to keep them watching, hoping he will do some-
thing. And he will, if he thinks he can get away with it. I
can't get through to him. Will you try?"

Kurt looked at Hans from the comer of his eye. He
could picture the Boatswain being this concerned for
someone else only if a threat to himself were involved—
which supported his earlier notion about Hans being the
Brindled Saxon. "Ill talk to him. Ah! There he is now,
heading aft. Erich!"

Kurt walked to the rear of the wing, to the ladder
leading down to the torpedo deck. Hippke was about to
start up. "Stay there, Erich." He went down. "Come over
here." They went to the port torpedo tube and sat. "Er-
ich, you've got to be more careful."

"What? Why?" He seemed honestly mystified.

"I hear our Political Officers are watching you pretty
close. So be more careful, eh?"

"What'd I do?" Defensive.

"It's the way you act toward them. You keep antago-
nizing them, they'll keep watching. And, sooner or later,

they'll catch you making one of your organization's
maneuvers. Then goodbye Erich."

Hippke popped up, shouted, "Goddammit, Kurt, am I
supposed to kowtow to those zombies?" A half-dozen
sailors turned to see what was happening. Hippke forgot
himself completely. "Let's stop this idiocy here, now!
We'll cut their throats and go home! You ... Fritz! Want
to see your wife again? Karl? Adolf?"

Fritz averted his eyes, afraid to show agreement. Kurt
groaned, remembering Otto Kapp. "Erich, shut up!" He
tried to pull Hippke back to his seat on the torpedo tube.

Erich shook him off. "Stop it, Kurt! You blind fool.
Don't you give a damn about Karen? Ever wonder who
she's seeing now? I care about my wife." His questions
struck a tender spot. Kurt jumped.

He remembered only impressions of leaping, swinging,
feeling his fists connect, then arms grasping him, pinning
him as he struggled. Four men pulled him to the far side
of the torpedo deck while another bent over Erich, to
help.

Calmness quickly returned, and with it, shame. He
glanced at the bridge, thinking he had seen Hans there as
he began swinging. But no, it must have been someone
else, seen in a flash.

Kurt suddenly realized he might be in a great deal of
trouble. "Let me go. I'll be all right."

The hand on his arms relaxed, but the sailors stayed
close as he walked over to Hippke. "I'm sorry, Erich. I
just went wild."

Erich, with a bloody nose and an eye he caressed
gently, stared for a long moment, then smiled thinly. "I
should learn to keep my mouth shut. Maybe you did me a
favor. I was going after those Political Officers...."

"Stop!" Kurt snapped. He waved everyone back. "Er-
ich, be doubly careful now. A lot of people saw this."

Hippke nodded. "Will do. Only time I'll open my mouth
is to shove food in."

Kurt offered a hand. They shook. "Go clean up. I'm
sorry."

Kurt watched him go down a ladder and aft, to their
compartment, then he turned, went forward and down, to
officers' country. He knocked at the door of Gregor's
Stateroom. A sleepy-eyed Lindemann answered the knock.
Kurt's taut expression roused him. "Trouble?"

"The biggest." He had seldom felt more alone, though
his cousin was here to help him.

"Come in."

Kurt slipped inside. Gregor checked the passage behind
him, then closed and locked the door. "What's happened?"
"I just had a fight with Erich Hippke."
"Oh? Why?"

Kurt explained, then, "It isn't the fight that bothers me.
Just before I jumped him, he was spouting the same stuff
that got Otto killed." He repeated much of what Erich
had said.

"Who heard?"

"No Political Officers. But there weren't any around
when Otto made his speech. And he was killed that same
night—I think by Marquis."
"Killed?"

"I was on the torpedo deck when it happened. You
know that. I never told anybody I saw someone go in a
door aft."
"Who?"

"I don't know. Could've been anybody. And there was
blood on Otto's jumper when we found him, like he'd been
stabbed."

"You noticed, eh?"
"You did too?"

"Yes. And I've been snooping, checking on people. Otto
was one of mine. . . . I've even gone through a few
lockers, looking for the knife—I mean to even this."

"So do I. But I haven't found anything. I've been
checking names off the muster, but I've still got over
forty. Oh, you're clear."

Lindemann chuckled. "Thank you, Kurt. I've cleared
you, too. Just now."

The full import did not sink in then. Later, it would,
and Kurt would understand why Gregor had so long been
cold. "You have a list? Could we compare?" They did so,
eliminating a dozen names each.

"That's better," said Gregor. "But there're still a lot of
people to watch."

"But most of them will go ashore tomorrow," Kurt
replied. "If there were an attempt on Hippke, we'd nar-
row it considerably."

"Speaking of which, you'd better keep an eye on him. If
there's anyone aboard who'd murder him for criticizing
High Command—other than our three apprentice heads-
men—he'll be in danger. And I need him desperately. I'll
tell my Brindled Saxon."'

"I'll go see him now. He's popular. Long as he sticks
with a group, he'll be safe."

"Tell him it's an order from me, that it's too late to

114

take chances. If you just warn him, hell laugh it off. Got
no sense. Keep me posted. I'll be in the wardroom."

Kurt left and went aft, hoping Erich would still be in
his compartment. He wiped sweat from his forehead as he
entered Operations' living spaces. It was ovenlike there.
The Egyptian sun in June....

Everyone was abovedecks. The compartment would be
a good place to talk. "Erich?"

Hippke was not there. Kurt wandered through the com-
partment, climbed the ladder to the fantail. "Anyone seen
Hippke?"

One of the loungers there rolled over, said, "He was in
the head, last I saw. He was going to play chess with
Bodelschwing when he was done showering."

"Thanks." Kurt went back down, walked forward
through the dark, sweltering compartment, and scrambled
up the ladder to the midships passage and head. A shower
was running.

"Erich?" No answer. Must be someone else. "Hey! You
seen Hippke?" Still no answer. He shrugged and turned
away. His eyes passed over the foot of the canvas shower
curtain. He froze. Redness. Blood. He crossed the head in
three quick steps and jerked the shower curtain aside.

Hippke, curled in a fetal position on the floor of the
stall, dead, wrists slashed, face empty, pale, unsouled. The
shower ran on, washed the last of the blood down the
drain.

There was a small, almost unnoticeable bruise on the
back of Hippke's neck, at the base of his skull. He had
been struck before being cut. Kurt saw it only by acci-
dent, as he insanely tried to shake Erich back to life. He
knew. No suicide.

He rose, stared for a long moment, taking in details
with sudden calm. But the detachment was brief, the eye
of an emotional storm. It passed. He kicked open the door
to the weather deck, grabbed the nearest man, ordered,
"Horst, get the Captain. Get Commander Haber. Tell
them to come to the after crews' head." His words were
spoken softly, but with an intensity which startled.

"What?"

"Just do it! Now!"

Eyes wide, the seaman ran forward. Von Lappus, Ha-
ber, and Gregor arrived as a group hardly a minute later.

"Secure this head!" von Lappus snapped, suddenly and
startingly coming to life. Even horrified, Kurt marked
again the disparity between the Captain's buffoon appear-
ance and his hard, practical actuality.

115

r

"You men get back," Haber ordered a gathering crowd.
"Everyone lay to the forecastle. Not you, Ranke." The
man's nervousness was temporarily gone. Perhaps all he
needed was a problem.

The three young Political Officers arrived like an
officious squad of vultures. "Get forward!" von Lappus
thundered. Seamen scrambled. The Political Officers ap-
peared uncertain. "That means you too, gentlemen!" The
three joined the retreat. "All right, Ranke, what hap-
pened?"

Quick as he could, with a stumbling tongue and the
shakes, Kurt explained how he had gone looking for
Hippke after telling Gregor of their fight, and had found
him in the shower.

"Here, what's this?" Haber had found something
beneath Hippke's toilet kit.

"Well?"

"Suicide note. 'I cannot bear the thought of my wife's
infidelity any longer. . . .'" Haber read a number of
thoughts which might well have been in Hippke's mind—
thoughts he had certainly been discussing with the men,
desperate thoughts which might cause an unstable person
to take his own life.

"Well, Kurt? You said he was upset," said Lindemann.
"Was he this upset?" Gregor seemed shaken to the roots
of his being, was certainly battling one of his headaches.

"He was worried about his wife, sir. He might've done
it, except.. .."

"Except what?"

'This, sir." He showed them the bruise. "May I see the
note. Commander?"

Haber handed it over. Kurt read it all, though the first
few words told him what he wanted to know. "Erich
didn't kill himself." He was certain. Then he was dismayed
by the look which had entered von Lappus's eyes. He
knew he was the prime suspect. "This isn't his handwrit-
ing. His was ornate, and he was a much better speller." In
fact, the handwriting looked like a poor imitation of his
own. "Compare this with the log entries."

"Lindemann, check it," von Lappus ordered. "Heinrich,
search the ship's records and compare hand writing." He
turned to Kurt. "Ranke, we'll pretend this's suicide for
now. We know it's not, but we don't want the murderer to
know we know, and I don't want the crew spooked—and
I want to keep you from getting the same."

"Sir?" The unexpected words were like a physical blow.

"You had a fight with him, right? So who'll be the

116

logical suspect to the common mind? What might they
do?"

Kurt looked from one officer to another, trying to read
their expressions. He was certain von Lappus suspected
him. Did the others? But the suspicion should lessen—
unless they really thought that note was in his handwrit-
ing. He was in a bad spot, circumstantially. Twice now he
had been the first man to a murder victim. He had a
feeling of walls closing in, of slowly being bound in an
invisible straitjacket. Was someone after him? Why this
complicated method? So much easier to stab him in the
back....

"Kurt!"

"Sir?" He had been on the verge of something, but it
now fled before other concerns.

"Come to my stateroom when you're done here," said
Gregor. "Commander?"

"We'll put him over the side. Full muster. A show. A
little spe'echmaking, or something, to divert the crew so
they don't start brooding. Ranke, take a couple of men
and get him ready."

The shower still ran, washing the body. The blood,
except the stain on the shower curtain, was gone.

Kurt gathered several of Erich's friends for the burial
detail. Two sweating, fear-filled hours passed before the
ceremony—fear-filled because no one accepted the suicide
story. Anger surged through the vessel, rumbled just short
of volcanic explosion.

But, to his amazement, Kurt found no one questioned
his innocence. All the anger was directed at the Political
Officers. Something had been happening of which he was
unaware—Erich's propaganda! He had seen only a little of
what Hippke had been doing, cautiously developing a
general antipathy toward the Political Office and lager's
mission, recruiting, organizing. Those who had become his
followers automatically assumed he had been silenced be-
cause of his actions.

Kurt worked hard to prevent the outbreak of violence
he expected—so near, so near," he could almost hear a
fuse sputtering toward a powderkeg—reminding everyone
of the nearness of the High Command battleship. Perhaps
because of his efforts, perhaps for some other reason, the
anger crested short of combustion and gradually subsided.
By funeral time the danger was past, though a lesser anger
would still be there, hidden, ready to explode at any new
provocation.

117

The ceremonies were brief, with a short prayer by the
Captain and a eulogy by one of Erich's friends.

Kurt reached Gregor's stateroom five minutes after the
funeral ended. "It could get ugly," he said. "The men
won't buy the suicide story. They think the Captain's
covering up for the Political Officers."

"Not their doing—not directly. They were in the
wardroom all afternoon. Haber and I went through the
records. The note doesn't match anyone's handwriting."
Kurt sighed with relief as Gregor took the note from his
pocket. "Here. Read it again. Don't bother with the sense,
just the spelling."

Kurt read. "A lot of misspelled words. But most people
just put down whatever sounds right."

"Correct. I've studied that almost since we found it. I
think there's a pattern to the errors. Look. Every sch is
spelled ch. And k where ch should be. Study it. You'll see
others."

Kurt examined it carefully. For some reason he could
not at first comprehend, Martin Pitzhugh came to mind.
Then it dawned on him. "Gregor, it looks like this was
written by someone who speaks, but has a hard time
writing, German. Someone who thinks in another lan-
guage. English, I'd guess."

"I thought so too. The errors were too regular. And I
think I know the errors the Poles would make. That left
the Political Officers as the other bilinguals."

"But you just said they were in the wardroom. . . .
Marquis."

"Yes. One of them could've written it for him earlier.
The meeting with the Captain was at their request. They
needed an alibi. Kurt, they've beaten me. I couldn't win
against even their most inexperienced players. It was
tonight ... tonight we'd seize the ship, at midnight when
the watches change and men moving around wouldn't be
suspicious. Too late. I can't do it without Hippke's help
... and tomorrow everybody goes ashore. They knew, and
they played cat with me until the last minute...."

Kurt was afraid Gregor would grow hysterical—was
amazed by the depth of the plot his cousin had put afoot,
and how well he had been fooled. He had had no idea it
had ripened, not to within hours of action. The failure, for
Gregor, was shattering. "Do you want some aspirin?" he
asked.

"In my desk drawer. Haber gave me a packet."

Kurt opened the desk, found the aspirin—for a mo-
ment his eyes were caught by a black leather notebook

118

r

embossed with the Political Office seal, and he frowned
deeply, wondering—took two to Gregor.

"I'm alone now, Kurt, and I'm frightened. You told me
it wasn't a game. I couldn't believe it, deep inside. But
those kids've proved there're no games being played.
Kurt, you've got to help. The whole program'll collapse if
they get me."

Frightened himself, Kurt shook his head, said, "No,
Gregor. I'm out. No matter what, I'm out. You've got to
work inside the system. That's always been true. Even the
best systems strike back hard when you don't play by the
rules. And here you're not only defying High Command,
you're fighting your own people. You're more likely to
succeed if you have Haber's and von Lappus's cooper-
ation. .. ." Yes, his only interest in this whole mess was ia
finding Otto's killer.

Lindemann visibly pulled himself together. "I still have
Brindled Saxon. I'm not as alone as I thought." His
expression was proud, and damned Kurt for not coming to
his aid. "I'll have him start a rumor that there's an
ununiformed Political Officer aboard. You find out where
our suspects were when Erich died."

"There's one benefit we'll get from this," Kurt said,
frowning. "The men will learn to keep their mouths shut."
He opened the stateroom door and stepped into the pas-
sageway. "Suppose the killer thought we had some evi-
dence? He might try to recover it. .. ."

"I hope that happens, Kurt. That's why I want a rumor,
why I want to push. If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to
flush Marquis."

119

xn

MARQUIS seemed unshakable. He remained undiscovered
despite the frantic witch-hunt following Hippke's death.
Jager's mood gradually deteriorated from angry hunt to
sedentary apathy. Two months later the mark of remem-
brance existed only in the careful way men thought before
speaking.

Kurt's vigilance, too, relaxed as the long, boring, intense-
ly uncomfortable Egyptian weeks passed. He spent much
of his time working on his translation. Though the book
was inordinately dull—the  government-report style
clogged and bogged the flow of a truly exciting content—
each surprising bit of information drew him on.

The chapter entitled "The Nuclear Exchange" needed
two translations—he could not believe it first time through.
It was nothing like the history he had been taught.

The War had been started by the shadowed Australian
Empire, to the satanic purpose of enslaving the world; this
was the gospel he knew.

Ritual War, speaking from a different past, claimed
Australia had been allied with the West. Many current
allies—most of the Littoral, Bulgaria, Romania, the
Ukraine—had belonged to the enemy entente. It seemed
someone, sometime, had decided the alliances should be
reorganized along geographical lines. So the War was a
lie. Top to bottom, misty beginnings to unforeseeable end,
all a carefully fabricated lie.

The book gave no indication—Kurt spent days search-
ing for clues—of how or when the false history had
been introduced. It had been written too early. High
Command was undoubtedly responsible. Again Kurt
resolved to stop drifting, to take a part in ending this
endless insanity. And again he lied to himself. He knew he
lied, was angry with himself because he lied—and would
do nothing to change.

The chapter entitled "The Nuclear Exchange" outlined
the first years of war, before it had become the War, told
of the Western military, gradually waxing enthusiastic,

120

r

breaking the planned stalemate and plunging deep into
Soviet territory. Spread along a two-thousand-kilometer
front, southern end anchored on, and the fighting keyed
on, Volgograd (Stalingrad, where Luftpanzer Armee 11
requited the destruction of the Sixth Army forty-seven
years earlier), the Battle of the Volga raged for months.
Counterattacking Eastern armies were slaughtered by
massed Western firepower in a tactic called "the killing
pocket." An Eastern collapse appeared imminent. As
fighting peaked along the Volgograd-Moscow line, Anglo-
American, German, and Turkish forces descended on "im-
pregnable" Rostov from land, sea, and air, destroyed a
crack Guards Army in days. Unopposed American and
German armored columns crossed the Volga and raced
for Astrakhan. ...

The Soviets, in desperation, unleashed the hounds of
atomic destruction. Within a day, all nuclear arsenals
were empty, cities were gone, millions were dead. But
then Kurt discovered that the bombs had been less mur-
derous then he had supposed. Very few had been deliv-
ered—wise men, foreseeing the possibility of their use, had
begun dismantling those brutal weapons on agreeing to
found the War. The real murderer of humanity had an-
other and more terrible name. A chapter, "The Bio-War,"
calmly related details.

To ravage Asia, Western invaders used an aerially
sprayed, laboratory-evolved disease of amazing proper-
ties: in its first generation, this bacteria was harmless; in
its second, almost universally fatal; in its third, unable to
reproduce. It did not spread, killed fast, and left human
works undamaged, and troops could with impunity occupy
the area of application within days.

The Chinese had had their own weapon, a virus which
attacked chromosomal material—only in Caucasians—and
caused widespread sterility. A weapon of longer term, but
effective. Only its limited use and natural immunities had
prevented the disappearance of one human race.

While dredging crews doggedly pushed toward Great
Bitter Lake, Kurt slogged through a catalog of gruesome
biological weapons. He was revolted by the excesses of his
ancestors—yet was drawn on because the book made
sense of some contemporary insanities. He finished the
first half of the book, which concerned itself primarily
with military events, the day the word came that the canal
had been opened to Great Bitter Lake. Christmas Day,
2193, a day dedicated to peace on Earth. Jager celebrat-
ed the holiday, and ignored the meaning.

121

That day Kurt stood on the. signal bridge, watching a
sandstorm over Sinai. Several men on camels, specks in
the distance, were outlined against the dark rising cloud.
Bedouins. They came and went, watched the ships, never
interfered, never tried to communicate. Perhaps they were
sane men making certain madness would not penetrate
their deserts.

Kurt ignored most of this. His thoughts were north-
bound-winged, toward Karen and the baby. There was a
good chance the child had been born. Seven lonely, terri-
fying months had passed.

Was she now in Telemark? Was there someone to care
for her when her time came? He suffered an oppressive
guilt. What would she say when he returned? Because he
had a man's faith in his own immortality, he could not
deep down believe that lager would be destroyed. Other
ships, yes, but not his own. He feared his homecoming
more.

He paced the port-side wing, staring at but not seeing
those Arab riders, smashing fist into palm, smashing fist
into palm, muttering.

"Kurt?"

He missed it the first time because it was softly spoken.

"Kurt!"

He spun. "Oh. Hans. Sorry. I was thinking."

"You'd daydream your way through the end of the
world. You all right?"

"I guess. I was worrying about Karen and the baby."
He ignored Hans's frown. "It's due about now. I should be
there."

"Mr. Lindemann's about to become a mother, too—I
think. He's in a panic. Wants to see you."

"Why"'

"He'll explain. Commander Haber told me to send you
down. That's all I know. Guess because we're supposed to
move to Great Bitter Lake."

"We don't have any fuel."

"Maybe that's his problem. Why don't you go see?"

Kurt went below, knocked at Gregor's door.

"Kurt?"

"Yes sir."

"Inside! Hurry!"

He stepped through and turned as Gregor hastily re-
locked the door. "What's the matter?"

"Did you hear my rumor? That I know who Hippke's
killer is?"

122

"Yes. I didn't believe it. It's been four months. I as-
sumed you let it out as a trap."

"I did, and somebody was touched."

"What?"

Lindemann peeled his shirt off and turned his back.
Kurt gaped at bruises and abrasions. "That was one bril-
liant idea I wish I hadn't had." Gregor knelt and fished
something from beneath his bunk. "This's what he hit me
with."

"A sextant box?" A stainless-steel box taken from the
wreck at Finisterre, it weighed nearly eight kilos, made a
nasty weapon.

"Someone threw it off the bridge. If it'd hit me on the
head, it would've brained me." Lindemann forced a banter-
ing tone, but Kurt saw hints of the raw fear he was hiding.

"Did you see who did it?"

Gregor shook his head wearily. "No, of course not. The
man's damnably cunning.. . ."

Just then Kurt realized that he must have been on the
bridge when it had happened—and he had seen not a
thing! What had Hans said? "You would daydream through
the end of the world." A black Christmas present for
Gregor. Who, he realized, was still talking.

"All three Political Officers were conveniently on dis-
play on the fantail. Only good to come out of it is that we
can scratch Kellerman off the list. He was serving the
Captain in the wardroom."

Kurt scowled. "And now we're down to ten. If we've
got to have someone killed or hurt for each name we cut,
we'll soon be hip-deep in blood. By now, though. Marquis
knows you were baiting a trap. Otherwise, you'd've had
him arrested."

"I think he knew all along, Kurt. The box was a
warning to mind my own business. How well did you learn
English from Fitzhugh?"

"What?"

"Martin Fitzhugh taught you to read and speak English.
How well?"

"Well enough. I'm translating a book. Why?"
"Just curious. Here. I want you to take care of this."

He took a slim, leatherbound book from his desk, the

black notebook he had seen earlier.

"What's this?" Kurt asked, turning it over in his hands.
"I don't know. It belonged to Beck. It was important to

him. He never let it out of sight. Neither have I. But

they're after me now. I have to trust someone else. You.

123

Keep it hidden, and give it to Commander Haber if I get
killed."

Haber, Kurt's prime suspect? He tucked the book into
his waistband, fought back the flood of questions he
wanted to ask. The fact that Beck had never let the book
out of sight implied that he had carried it with him.
Which, in turn, implied that it had been taken from him.
Which implied ...

Kurt refused to follow the chain of logic, though it
explained something that had mystified everyone. Namely,
who had pushed Beck overboard. He should have suspect-
ed from the beginning.

As Kurt thought, and Gregor studied him, there was a
soft, stealthy sound in the passageway. Both heard. Linde-
mann pulled a pistol from beneath his pillow—good God,
Kurt thought, where did he get that? Gregor signaled that
the door be opened. Kurt unlocked it silently, opened
quickly. Gregor jumped through. Kurt followed.

"Nothing," he whispered.

Lindemann signaled for silence. The stealthy sound
came from the ladder leading out of officers' country.
They ran, arrived too late again.

"Damn!" Gregor snarled. "There'll be trouble now, if
they know we have the book."

For a moment Kurt considered the notion that Gregor
was maneuvering him, trying to force him into the resis-
tance, "Aren't you jumping to conclusions?" He scuffed
the carpeted deck with his toe, listened to the sound. "For
all we know, someone just walked by. You'll be in big
trouble if you get paranoid."

"You're right. I'm too jumpy." He rubbed his temple
with the gun butt. "But there're two men dead already—
we have to be paranoid."

Kurt shrugged. Suddenly, he brightened. "Gregor, why
don't we send the suspects to the working parties? That
might get the man out of our hair until we find some-
thing."

Still rubbing his temple, Lindemann replied, "Can't do
it. Most of them have to stay aboard."

"No ... no. What happens if we catch the man and he's
someone we can't do without?"

"I see. We'd have to replace him anyway. All right. I'll
talk to the Captain. Take care of the book."

Kurt turned and started up the ladder.

"Kurt? Would you ask Commander Haber to come to
my stateroom? I'm out of aspirin."

He went to the charthouse after leaving Gregor in

124

Haber's care, locked the black book in the safe. An
obvious place, but how would anyone get to it, even
knowing it was there? Then he went prowling, just walk-
ing the ship and thinking of Karen.

He noticed a Political Officer leaning on the signal-
bridge rail, staring landward. The sandstorm was wander-
ing south now, an impressive range of darkness in the
east.

"What do they do up there?" Kurt realized he had
spoken, looked around, saw no one had heard. It was a
good question. What did the three do up there, other than
stay out of the way? He decided to sneak up and see.

The inside route took him to the pilothouse unnoticed.
Removing his shoes eliminated noise as he crept out on
the wing. He reached a position where he could hear the
murmur of voices, low, in English. An argument.

"—think we ought to call in!"

"So do I. If they've got his notebook, we might be in
trouble."

"There's no need to worry! These dunderheads couldn't
read it." Two against one?

"Wrong! That Quartermaster ... picked up some at
Gibraltar." The voices faded in and out. Kurt's imagina-
tion filled in a lot.

"How do you know?"

"Marquis told me."

"You're certain?" the dubious one asked.

"I'm sure. I'm sure. Report it."

"If you're wrong, they'll raise holy hell."

"What if we're right and don't report? You want to
sweep floors the rest of your life?"

Kurt felt a sudden urge to laugh. Irrationally, he
remembered characters from a Shakespeare translation in
the ship's meager library. Characters on a deserted heath,
over a caldron: "Double, double, toil and trouble ..."

Kurt set a foot on the second rung of the ladder leading
up and carefully lifted himself until he could see. They
were in the signal shack, gathered over their caldron-
substitute. A radio, Kurt assumed. One talked into it, and,
at times, a muted voice replied.

He eased back down. So. He had learned something of
value. The three could contact their masters at will, which
meant those masters were, in all probability, getting run-
ning reports. Did it matter? Kurt wondered.

He returned to the charthouse and locked himself in.
His thoughts turned to Karen again. He stretched out on
his back on the chart table, stared at the overhead while

125

daydreams ran across his mind—thoughts of home, fears
for the future.

The fleeing dream again, with wolves, little change,
except that Karen's face seemed clouded. Even walking he
had a hard time picturing that face. Time erosion.

A pounding at the door woke him. "Kurt? You there?"

"Huh?" Growing muzzily aware, he sat up. "Gregor?"
He staggered to the door. Lindemann stepped inside and
seated himself on the stool. Kurt returned to the table.

"I convinced the Captain," said Gregor. Kurt saw he
was rubbing his head again. "Our suspects leave tomor-
row, all but Commander Haber. We'll be getting under-
way in an hour."

"What?"

"We're moving to Great Bitter Lake."

"At night? With no fuel?" He glanced at the clock.
"Whoops!"

"Where've you been?"

"Asleep. Drifted oil, I guess."

"There's a collier alongside now. We've been bringing
fuel aboard for two hours. How'd you sleep through the
racket?"

•Talent."

"This'll be rough. Everybody on watch all the time,
here to there. Twenty hours. Know your buoys, lights, and
ranges?"

"I dream about them. Red buoys on the right, black on
the left. Black and white stripes mark the fairway on the
lake itself. Red lights right, green left, white in the fair-
way. The ranges ..."

"All right. Go clean up."

"Okay. By the way, you were right about that noise
yesterday. Somebody was listening. I heard the Political
Officers telling their bosses about the notebook."

"Oh? How?"

"They've got a radio up there."

"Interesting. And you've got the notebook in the safe?
Too obvious. Hide it." Gregor seemed to be thinking very
hard, possibly searching for some advantage to be had
from this new knowledge.

Kurt did not understand, but did as he was told.

The Political Officers, though, apparently did nothing to
find the notebook. Other than Jager moving from Lake
Manzala to Great Bitter Lake, nothing noteworthy hap-
pened the following four months. Kurt toyed with his
translation, but could work up little interest in the dull

126

political and economic chapters. He worried about Karen
quite a lot.

The killer apparently had gone ashore. In any event, he
did nothing to disturb vessel or crew.

127

xin

THE dredging crews completed their work on May 1,
2194. Jager got under way on the third and moved to
Port Suez, where those of her surviving crewmen re-
turned. The privation and heat had been deadly for the
working parties. Jager had lost seven men and one
officer—Lieutenant Obermeyer (Obermeyer's death could
only be deduced—he had gone for a walk one night and
never returned). Seven Littoral graves served as milestones
down the borders of Sinai, poorly marked memorials to
insanity.

Kurt was on the quarterdeck to greet friends as they
returned. Among the last was Hans, a browned, thinned
Hans. "You look rough," Kurt told him. "Lost five or six
kilos, I'd say."

"That wonderful sun and exercise," Hans replied,
showing his darkness and callused hands. "Just what the
doctor ordered." Less lightly, "It was rough. I couldn't've
made it the whole time. I'm surprised we only lost eight.
What's happening here?"

"Nothing. Spent most of the time wishing we were with
you. Let's have some lemonade."

"What's that?"

"You wouldn't know, would you? Well, we traded some
stuff off that wreck to a Turkish ship anchored beside us
in Great Bitter Lake. We talked our Political Officers into
handling it through theirs. We got five crates of lemons—
it's a little fruit, so big, and sour—three hundred kilos of
real coffee, some fresh meat, and a bunch of other stuff.
Lemonade's made from lemons."

They entered the mess decks. "It's cool in here!" said
Hans, wonderstruck. "How? ..."

"Oh, another trade. There was a Liberian ship with a
man who knew refrigeration. He fixed our air conditioning
and reefers. We fixed their fire control."

As Kurt drew two glasses of lemonade, Hans said, "I
thought nothing happened. What else?"

Kurt shrugged. "Not much. What do you think?"

128

Hans puckered, surprised. "Not bad, after being out-
side."

A man came to their table as they were settling in.
"Kurt, Mr. Lindemann wants you."

"Be there in a minute, Fritz." He hurriedly finished his
drink. "Talk to you later, Hans. I want to hear all about
digging the grand canal." He went down to officers' coun-
try. Gregor waited at the door of his stateroom.

"Come in. I thought we'd better talk before things get
too hectic." Kurt settled himself on the edge of Gregor's
bunk. "Business first. We sail for Bab el Mandeb tomor-
row, about seventeen hundred kilometers. We'll anchor off
Perim while the stores ships return to Cyprus and Turkey
to load up. We'll have to stack wood on in piles like we
did in Norway. There're no forests between Perim and
India, almost four thousand kilometers. We'll refuel un-
derway. Get with Mr. Czyzewski and Wiedermann on
that. I suppose he'll get Mr. Obermeyer's job. Get the
refueling points figured as soon as possible."

"Got them already. We haven't had much else to do."

"Good. They should've given you a commission, Kurt.
But I suppose you're too young." He rubbed his right
temple with his fingers, rolled his head.

Kurt, stimulated by the statement, wondered just how
Gregor had managed to win the navigator's appointment.
He, Kurt, certainly had the edge in experience, though his
cousin was older. He began to wonder just how much
influence the underground had in the Littoral's Bundestag.
He wondered if Hans would have been First Lieutenant if
Obermeyer's father had not been president of that assem-
bly.

"About our killer," Lindemann continued. *Two sus-
pects didn't return. That leaves eight names—we need
evidence. They all seem unlikely." He used both hands to
rub his temples. His headache had been almost constant
since the day he had been attacked, and grew stronger
whenever he and Kurt discussed the murderer. Aspirin
helped, but never drove the pain completely away.

Kurt shrugged. "Every one of those men is a friend.
That pains me." As he spoke, he considered the cruise's
effect on Jager's officers. Gregor had the constant
headache. Obermeyer was dead. Haber, though fighting it
gamely, was on his way to a breakdown. He now shook so
much he dared not touch anything breakable. Von Lap-
pus's suffering was apparent only in the rapidity with
which his little hair was graying, and in his loss of weight.

129

He was at least twenty-five kilos lighter than a year
earlier. The others suffered in ways uniquely their own.

"One's no friend," said Lindemann. "But we've got
another problem. We're getting a new Political Officer—I
imagine because of that notebook."

"Oh?"

"Well, I'm not sure. The English you've been teaching
me wasn't up to the job. ... I've been listening in on those
kids. Yesterday they ran Brecht off the signal bridge. I
wondered why, so I went up and listened while they were
talking on their radio."

"And?"

"The battleship will, if I understood right, send a man
over when we get to Bab el Mandeb. They want someone
here who can overawe us. We're on their list of unrelia-
bles—probably thanks to Marquis. Those three kids are
easy to fool."

"I don't know. They seemed pretty sharp when we were
trading with the Turks...."

"Maybe. Point is, we've got to be even more careful if
our killer survived—and we've got to assume he did."

"Right." Kurt raised the hem of his jumper, exposed the
sheath knife he had begun carrying. It had been a gift
from Karl Wiedermann for excelling in Boy Volunteer
activities.

"Good. There's something else. You've been reading the
book you got from Fitzhugh, haven't you?"

Suddenly wary, Kurt replied, "Just some dull novels."

"I'm talking about the one in the safe, the one you've
been translating. Ritual War. It's like a Bible to the
resistance. I've never read it because I've been unable to
locate a German edition. I'd like to."

"It's a pretty rough translation, and I'm not finished."
He wondered if Pitzhugh had meant that he do so, and
see others read it.

"How much left?"

"Two chapters, a summary, and a supplementary pamph-
let that was added later."

"Finish it. Don't worry about polish. Oh, just a caution-
ary note. The Political Office imposes the death penalty
for possession."

"Martin told me."

"We'll talk about him sometime. Bring the book when
you're done."

"Okay." Kurt rose and started for the door.

"Oh, I almost forgot. We're rotating watches. We'll
have the midwatch."

130

Inwardly, Kurt groaned. Midnight to four in the morn-
ing. Bad.

"And you'll stand with Brecht part time, too, until he
knows what he's doing." Brecht, the signalman, otherwise
out of a job, was taking Hippke's place.

Kurt returned to the mess decks.

"You look glum," said Hans, chuckling. "What'd Mr.
Lindemann say?"

"Work. Piles and mountains of work. And we're rotat-
ing watches. We now have the midwatch. And, on top of it
all, I've got to stand watches with Brecht, who's taking
Hippke's place. How'd you like to be a Quartermaster?
Why don't you throw one of your Boatswains overboard
and let me have his job? There's never been a Boatswain,
since they invented ships, who's ever done any work."

"Bitch and gripe. This lemonade's good stuff." Hans
held his glass high and stared into it.

"You tried the coffee yet? Better, before it's gone. No
comparison with ersatz. Look, I've got to get to work.
Maybe we can talk later, at supper."

"Sure. Got work of my own. Have to straighten out the
mess Adam made while I was gone."

"What mess?" Kurt asked. "He didn't do anything."

"That's what I mean. Have you seen the rust on the
forecastle?"

Kurt went to the charthouse, labored over his transla-
tion the rest of that day, and during the few free moments
he obtained during the passage to Bab el Mandeb.

The summary chapter was incredibly dull. It took all his
will to keep plowing through the rehash. All the way
through the book, Kurt had expected the momentary
collapse of the author's reserve, a sudden explosion of
emotion and outrage. That, as much as content, had kept
him going. Now, at the end, he was left disappointed and
wondering if he who had written had been truly human.
But the supplementary pamphlet, written much later by a
more excitable author, proved highly interesting, once he
started. It sketched the founding of High Command.

High Command, in concept, was a clandestine military
United Nations, a joint council of general staffs. The
foundations of such an organization had been laid the day
the War began, but it did not become reality until the
post-Bio-War era—the War could be divided into two
major phases; the first, that undertaken to solve the
economic problems of the pollution-initiated famines and
depression; the second, the war undertaken to recover
from the ravages of the first phase gone mad: the latter

131

was the only phase truly deserving the name "the War."
The council was meant to determine and negotiate the
levels of violence needed to keep national economies ex-
panding, and was to act as an umpire in the fighting.
Insanity. As far as Kurt could see, a better effect could
have been achieved with a planned program of recon-
struction (thinking back to the Bio-War, he wondered if
the West now fought itself because the East had been so
effectively destroyed).

Yet the establishment of a ritualized war for economic
reasons seemed a logical step forward from the earlier
situation, moving from a stopgap to a permanent mea-
sure. Typically bureaucratic. But God! The blood and
miseryl

And it seemed two logical steps forward from the situa-
tion extant prior to the great depression—the endless
attention-getting, uniting, balance-of-power-maintaining,
economy-stimulating, contrived wars of the sixth, seventh,
and eighth decades of the twentieth century.

Perhaps the planners of the past had been unable to see
another way out. Or, another perhaps, warfare had been
the easy way.

What had gone wrong? The fighting was no stimulus.
The world was too exhausted, was slipping back toward
barbarism—albeit slowly.  Had the violence been
maintained at a level too high for success? Did High
Command keep stepping it up as they saw their program
failing? Certainly, Kurt thought, too much energy was
being spent on the War in the present, right or wrong.
There was little left for rebuilding.

He slammed a fist against the chart table. Why? he
asked himself. Why was there always violence to prevent
progress? He wished, for perhaps the thousandth time,
that he had gone to Norway with Karen.

He also realized that he had gotten something valuable
by coming. Knowledge. Not necessarily truth, but another
viewpoint on history. But how to use that knowledge?

He penned the last line of his translation a short time
before Jager anchored off Perim. Arabia lay on one
hand, Ethiopia and Somalia on the other, legendary lands.

When the hook dropped and the hecticness of Sea
Detail faded, Kurt left the bridge. He collated his transla-
tion and notes, took the book from his safe, and gave the
lot to Gregor. Lindemann immediately took the material
to his stateroom.

Kurt joined Hans on the port wing. They stared toward
the Arabian Coast.

132

"How long do we stay here, Kurt?"

"I don't know. Until they bring enough fuel from Tur-
key. Maybe a month."

"The middle of June?"

"About. Why?"

"I'm getting nervous. We're awful close to the Meet-
ing."

"Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever get there," said Kurt,
a faraway look on his face. Past, present, future melted
and mixed in his mind, and he was all at sea, without time.
This journey seemed timeless, endless, like Earth itself, its
beginnings lost in mist, its end hidden in unreachable
shadows beyond the rising sun.

"Why?"

"We've been at it a year already, and we're not halfway
there, not if we're going to Australia."

"I guess. It doesn't seem like a year to me, though.
Yet, if it keeps going this way, we'll be old men before it's
done." Hans chuckled. "Maybe we'll meet the last Gather-
ing coming home."

Entirely serious, Kurt replied, "No. The last Gathering
returned years back. That Turkish ship we traded with ...
it went to the last Meeting too. I couldn't learn much
because the Political Officers wouldn't let me ask, but our
side lost."

"Find out anything about U-7937'

"Not much. The Turks had heard about it, but knew
only that it didn't come back. They fought two battles,
one off India that they won, where U-793 was last seen,
and another at Malacca that they lost."

"Sad, your father not coming home," said Hans. "He
was a lot of fun. A good father."

Kurt sensed unspoken envy. His father had been more
interested in his children than had Hans's. Karl Wieder-
mann's usual reaction to Hans had been to tell him to go
away, he was too busy—or he had brought out the belt.
But he had had a great concern for outsiders.

"I don't know, Hans. Your father was a bit heavy-
handed, but not vicious. Blind, maybe, setting standards
adults couldn't attain. He was good to me. I learned a lot
from him." Strangely, Karl Wiedermann had been Lore-
master of Kiel's Boy Volunteers, a Scout-like organization
to which most boys belonged. He had been an excellent
leader, had taught many youths many things—much of
Kurt's early sea lore had originated with Karl.

As Kurt finished his comments, he saw a wicked expres-
sion flicker across Hans's face. Jealousy? And he suddenly

133

felt, without any evidence to anchor his feeling, that he
had intuited much of the cause of Hans's old dislike—and
the reason for their getting on well aboard lager. Mem-
ories returned, of Boy Volunteer activities. Karl, in view
of other boys, had often upbraided or beaten Hans for
trifles, had more often and cruelly demanded he be like
Kurt, well-behaved and attentive. Indeed, though he had
not paid much heed, nor had really cared at the time,
Kurt now realized that Karl had treated him far better
than his own son. Perhaps the older Wiedermann just had
not realized what he was doing, slashing Hans's soul with
dull razors. Hans had been terribly shortchanged.

But not here. Here Hans was an equal, under no pres-
sures, able to compete on his own, to be his own man.
Here, out of the shadow of his father's person and power,
he was a true individual for the first time. He now had
friends, was increasingly popular. Sad that one man could
so beat another down.

"He might've been easier to -please," Hans said distant-
ly, "if he hadn't been a Political Officer. ... Hey, speaking
of Political Officers ..." He pointed to a boat ap-
proaching J ager. It flew the High Command ensign. An
old man in Political Office black sat in the stern, wiping
sweat from his face with a rag.

"Looks like our new man," Kurt mumbled. "Let's hope
he's less trouble than Beck."

"Why? He never hurt anybody."

"Only because he never got the chance. Anyway, just
having him aboard was bad. You could smell fear wher-
ever he went."

They watched as the old man was helped from the boat
to the quarterdeck. There he was greeted by von Lappus,
Haber, and the three young Political Officers, and imme-
diately hustled off to the wardroom.

"Now there's an idea," said Hans.

"What?"

"Let's go somewhere where it's cool. Mess decks."

"All right. I'll see if Brecht's got everything secured."

134

XIV

THE new Political Officer was no Beck. He had the
coldness and penetrating stare, but was an old man, pri-
marily interested in his own comfort. He spent most of his
time in his stateroom, with the air conditioning. His name
was de 1'Isle-Adam. The Germans called him Deal Adam.

The heat and humidity at the mouth of the Red Sea
might have been borrowed from Hell itself. Jager's men
endured it as little as possible. The ship's air-conditioned
spaces were often so crowded the machinery did little
good.

Refueling, a daylong high-lining of bundles of wood,
was pure torture. Once it was completed, however, there
was nothing to do but wait for the supply ships to return
from Turkey (those ships had been hauling all along, but
warships burn fuel even while at anchor, to provide steam
to power generators and to make fresh water), and try to
keep cool.

A week after refueling, in the heat of the afternoon,
Kurt was summoned to the wardroom. He hastily exam-
ined his memory as he went, wondering what he had
done—for it was the day and time for Captain's Mast.

Surprises awaited him. The first came when he stepped
through the wardroom door and found the entire officer
complement, with the exceptions of the Political Officers,
awaiting him. General court-martial?

"Sit down, Ranke," said Gregor, indicating a chair at
one end of the long table there. The seat faced von
Lappus, which made Kurt even more nervous—and the
Captain's stare did nothing to calm him, the more so when
he noticed his translation beneath the man's heavy hands.
General court-martial indeed. He glared accusingly at
Gregor, seated on his right.

Haber spoke first. "You translated this Ritual War
thing, Ranke?"

Kurt thought a moment. What had he gotten himself
into? He had better tell the truth, since they had him
anyway—yet it was hard. These men were authority, the

135

powers with death in their hands. That some were old
friends and relatives might be a weight in the balance
against him. "Yes sir." Weakly.

"Take it easy, son," von Lappus rumbled. "There's
nothing to worry about. We're not Political Officers, this
isn't a tribunal, and we're not going to hang anyone."

"Now then," said Haber, "is your translation accurate?"

"It could be better, sir. I'm unfamiliar with English
idioms."

"What do you think of the validity of the work?"

Kurt struggled with fear of answering. When his pause
grew uncomfortably long, he forced, "I'd say it's the truth
as the author saw it, sir. I felt it was sincere."

"Commendably cautious. Well, for the sake of argu-
ment, let's assume the thing's valid. Where'd you get it?"

"Gibraltar, sir."

"Yes, I know. How? Where?"

Kurt bit his lower lip, stared down at the table top,
tried to decide how much he dared tell. "From an old
man who ran an antique shop, sir."

"The man who taught you English?"

Again Kurt gave Gregor an accusing look. "Yes sir."

Haber leaned back in his chair, folded his hands before
his mouth. Thoughtful, he looked like a giant squirrel.
"Tell us something about him." A nervous squirrel. His
shakiness had lessened, but was still there.

Kurt told them a little about the cripple.

"His name?"

"Martin Fitzhugh, sir."

"You spent twenty-two afternoons with this man. I'm
sure you learned more about him than. that he liked
history, was crippled, and was a kindly old crackpot."

"Excuse me. Commander," said Gregor, interrupting.
"Kurt, you're not on trial here. They're after information
which could be important to Jager's future. Your future.
Fact is, they're trying to decide whether or not to leave
the fleet." His words were intense, commanding. His gaze
was heavy, yet, surely, he was trying to be reassuring.

"You could've told them," Kurt mumbled. "You knew
Fitzhugh." He pondered the situation. He had already
earned a death sentence by accepting Ritual War. The
officers would too, if they did not report him. He shrugged
fatalistically. Talking might do some good. "Fitzhugh op-
posed High Command—quite cautiously, of course." He
told of his last day with Martin, when the Spanish and
Portuguese ships had made their breakout. "He was some-
how involved, perhaps the organizer," he finished.

136

"That's damned obvious," von Lappus grumbled. "Oth-
erwise, would he have known of the breakout before-
hand?"

Haber shook his head, mystified. "But that would, it
seems to me, imply the existence of an organization oppos-
ing High Command."

"The organization exists," Kurt said. "During our talks,
Beck told me a lot about it. It's a growing movement,
especially strong on Gibraltar and in the Littoral." He
ignored Gregor's warning frown. They would see who
would expose whose secrets. "It's headquartered in Tele-
mark ..." He paused to savor their surprise. "... and
was once well represented on this ship. Kapp and Hippke
were agents."

"I don't believe it," said Haber.

"Beg your pardon, Heinrich," said von Lappus. "He's
right. Consider the situation at home. My brother's been
witch-hunting for years—for such I thought his search for
an underground behind the kids running away to Tele-
mark. And Karl Wiedermann was certain there was an
underground. He's been after it for a decade. Maybe we
shouldn't've laughed."

"An organization like that couldn't exist without making
itself known," Haber protested.

"Pardon me, sir," said Lindemann, "but I'm sure there's
no such organization—unless it's something like early
Christianity, people giving other people the message, with-
out being organized."

"No," von Lappus grunted.

Ha! Kurt thought. Trying to smokescreen.

"All right, picture Kurt's friend at Gibraltar. He can't
be the old kind of revolutionary, can he? He's more the
passive sort. Just passes the word on to a few selected
people, hoping they drop out, hoping they pass it on to a
few more. That's revolution too, but slow, until everyone's
stopped obeying...."

"I think I like Ranke's theory," said von Lappus, chuck-
ling. "Really, Lindemann, I'm not blind. Your efforts
have, at times, been anything but subtle. Nor do I think
you really want to hide. You want attention. Else, why
bring me this?" He slapped Kurt's translation. "This's the
real underground, Lindemann. An idea, not people with
guns, not espionage, not secret plots of mutiny. Ignoring
High Command would be tantamount to overthrowing
it—because it's an idea, too. It has little real physical
power."

"Which raises a good question," said Haber. "What

137

motivates High Command? The book tells us what did two
hundred years ago. What does today? We'll probably nev-
er know, but consider: institutions change, forget their
original purposes. Look at the Church. . . . Say, I think
there's an analogy. Aren't Political Officers priests of a
fashion?"

"Comments, Ranke?" the Captain asked.

Kurt avoided his eyes. "I've been thinking something
similar. High Command's dedicated to the perpetuation of
the War—my opinion. What was once a means is now an
end in itself. The level of violence, though decreasing with
time, has risen above our social and technological capaci-
ty. What I mean is, while the Meetings get smaller, each
requires a bigger portion of our manpower and machin-
ery. It's gotten to the point where the Littoral has little
time for anything but training men and fixing ships. Ev-
erything else's maintained at a subsistence level. Look at
what happened after Grossdeutschland sailed...."

Here Lindemann interjected, "Wrong, Kurt. This's the
biggest Gathering ever. All the ships left in the West." But
everyone ignored him.

"A point," said Haber. "I was a child at the time.
Putting the cruiser in service took so many men, and so
much material, out of Kiel, that we almost went under."

"Maybe High Command is a religion," said the Supply
Officer. "Like religions, it seems to ignore the problems of
the present because of an overwhelming concern for the
future."

"I'd rather compare it to a machine with a broken
Off-switch," von Lappus growled.

"Excuse me," said Haber, "but I seem to've led us off
the subject. We're here to discuss the book, and to find
out if Ranke knows anything about an organization oppos-
ing High Command. We have his statement. I suggest we
proceed. Ranke, you can go. Thank you."

Kurt rose hastily, excused himself, and slipped out. His
immediate reaction was relief at being free. He went up
to the charthouse, to do a little reading in the novel The
Anger Men, and to be alone, to think.

He pushed his key into the padlock—it would not go.
He looked down, frowning. He had the right key. The
lock? He looked, snorted. He was trying to push it in
wrong side up. Curious, though. He always closed the lock
with the open side of the catch toward the door, but it
was closed the other way, contrary to habit. He frowned
again, trying to remember the last time he had closed it. It

138

seemed he had done so according to custom. He shrugged
and opened the lock.

Something was indefinably wrong in the charthouse.
Without being conscious how, he knew someone had been
there. How? Why?

The how he recognized quickly enough. The padlock on
the door was a standard Navy lock. There were a dozen
others aboard which took the same key. Anyone who
wanted to examine the pattern numbers on enough keys
could find one to fit.

He knelt before the safe and ran through the combina-
tion quickly. Despite the fact that the charthouse was now
air-conditioned, sweat dribbled down his temples. He
swung the door open. Yes, someone had been inside. The
navigator's copy of the signal book was on the wrong
shelf.

He chuckled nervously. Luck had saved him some tall
explanation. He had given Gregor the damning Ritual
War material just in time, and he had long ago hidden
Beck's notebook.

But a threat existed. Someone was snooping. Sooner or
later they were bound to find something. He was being
pushed, perhaps unconsciously, into the underground
camp. If Gregor wasn't his cousin—damn him! This had
to be countered.

He locked the door, went to the communications box,
called the wardroom. "Wardroom, charthouse. Mr. Linde-
mann, please."

A momentary pause, then, "Mr. Lindemann. What is
it?"

"Someone went through the safe this morning."
"Was it locked?"
"Yes sir."

"Anything missing?"
"No sir."

"Good." Muttered talk, incomprehensible, Lindemann
presumably asking advice. "Still there, Ranke?"
"Yes sir."

"111 be right up. Get the classified material out so we
can check it."

"Yes sir." He switched off, then rechecked the classified
charts and publications. He did not need the custody log
to tell him they were all present.

Gregor knocked shortly. Kurt let him in.

"Anything missing?"

"No. There wasn't anything worth taking. They were
after the notebook."

139

"Notebook?"

"The one that belonged to Beck."

"Oh, damn! Forgot about it. Meant you should find out
what was in it. What'd you do with it?"

Kurt started to tell him, then had an unpleasant
thought. He glanced toward the door, opened a drawer,
and took out memo pad and pen. He wrote: "Combat.
Air search repeater. Inside access panel." Meaning he had
hidden it inside a radar repeater in the Combat Informa-
tion Center, as safe a place as he could imagine. The
repeaters, because they were dead, were furniture every-
one ignored. No one had bothered them since a vain effort
at repairs made following the salvaging at Finisterre.

"Good," said Gregor. He took the pad and pen and
wrote: "Get it. Translate it." Aloud, he added, "And be
careful."

Kurt nodded. Gregor slipped out. After shredding the
note and making certain everything was locked up, Kurt
followed. Once he was sure no one watched, he slipped
through the door to Combat.

No one was there. No one would be on such a day. The
sun made it an oven. Moreover, there was no point in
anyone's presence. Half the gear did not work, and the
other half need not be operated while the ship was an-
chored.

Kurt locked the door, then hurried to the repeater
containing the notebook. He loosened wing nuts and
slipped the access panel off the back of the blockish
gadget. "Ah," he murmured. Right where he had left it,
hanging in a tangle of dusty wiring. He slapped the dust
off and tucked it inside his waistband.

He was replacing the last nut when someone tried the
door. Finding it locked, the person knocked. Kurt rose
and quietly passed through the heavy curtains screening
the sonar room from the remainder of Combat. A key
turned in the lock behind him. Taking care to make no
sound, he undogged a watertight door opening on the
torpedo deck.

Someone crossed the room beyond the curtain. Kurt
peeped through, saw one of the young Political Officers.
While he watched, the youth went through books lying
atop the dead-reckoning tracer. Grinning, Kurt slipped
into the bright sun beating down on the torpedo deck. He
took the long way back to. the charthouse, and immediate-
ly set to work translating.

140

XV

THE fleet departed Bab el Mandeb on the fifteenth day of
June.

"Where are we now?" Hans asked days later, as he and
Kurt leaned on the rail of the port wing, staring land-
ward.

"Ras al Hadd. We'll begin crossing the Gulf of Oman
soon."

"It's like living a fairy tale. Ever since we left Perim,
I've been expecting magic carpets, or something. Aden,
Oman, Hadhramaut ... it's a downright black-sad world
that's too serious for magic."

'Uhm," Kurt agreed. The past ten days had been a bit
like living an episode of the Arabian Nights—two hundred
ships full of Sinbads sailing for an Eastern Doom, bound
to fail Serendip's mystic shore—though there was no real
reason for his feeling, other than a wish to believe.

"Quartermaster!" Magic carpets unbraided.

"Got work to do, Hans." He turned. "Sir?"

"I need an anticipated course."

"Zero three eight." He tamed back to Hans. "I was
wrong. He irritates me sometimes. He could've looked at
the damned chart."

"He wants everybody to feel part of the team. You
could've had Obermeyer, instead."

"Speaking of Obermeyer, have they made up their
minds yet?"

"About my commission? No." The sudden anger and
bitterness in Hans's voice was -frightening. He wanted that
brass terribly. "Never will, I guess. Tomorrow, if the seas
are right and you're ready, I want to refuel."

"It'll have to be soon. We're low. I was talking to
Ziotopolski this morning, and we could be in trouble.
There might not be enough wood to get us to where we
can cut more."

"Ziotopolski worries too much. Anyone can look at the
chart and see it's only sixteen hundred miles from
Gwadar."

141

"Kurt?"

He turned. Brecht, his relief, had come to the bridge.
"That time already?" He went to the log, signed it over.
"Seems time's rushing past, now we're getting close."

Brecht nodded, a little pale. The crew were growing
increasingly tense.

Kurt went down to the charthouse and returned to
translating the notebook taken from Beck.

For days he had plodded through the pages of a dull
life, from Beck's initiation into the Political Office through
fifteen gray years to his assignment as agent for bringing a
Littoral vessel to the Gathering. Here and there there
were comments concerning the growing underground, or
an occasional bland word about Office policy (Beck,
strangely, would not editorialize), but little to indicate the
author was other than a human zero. His first fifteen years
were covered in a mere fifty pages of crabbed handwrit-
ing.

Later, as he touched the high points of his Littoral
assignment, Kurt found him more interesting. He exam-
ined Karl Wiedermann briefly, stating the man could do a
better job. Then Beck mentioned meeting High Com-
mand's chief agent in Telemark. He recruited a new
agent, designated Marquis, but gave neither name nor
description. Here and there Kurt encountered names of
shipmates—and his own—always accompanied by cryptic
little comments concerning loyalty.

The pages of Beck's life turned, JSger sailed, the
Norwegian event took place. There were empty weeks
between entries. Beck's handwriting changed, grew shaki-
er, fear seeped oilily up through the earth of his words.

Kurt turned a page and found his name suddenly prom-
inent. He proceeded with renewed interest. "Ranke is a
gullible, apathetic, romantic daydreamer," Beck noted at
one point, "easily maneuvered through manipulation of a
stableful of overly human ideals he is too lazy to
defend." Kurt frowned at this, but was little bothered. He
had heard it from other sources. However, a bit later,
when Beck, with a delight Kurt imagined as fairly reeking
from the page, described him as an unwitting, unwilling
Office agent, useful because he revealed all he knew
through his evasions, he became righteously indignant,
and, as he read on, saw that Beck had repeatedly played
him for a pawn. He grew increasingly angered and hurt—
this was a rapier-thrust to his ego. That Beck often ex-
pressed a strong regard for him, and several times men-
tioned he might be a candidate for Political Office em-

142

ployment, ameliorated the pain not at all. Each reference
to his having been used plunged him deeper into despair
until, at last, they birthed hatred—not so much of Beck as
of himself, for being what he was, for allowing himself to
be so easily played for a fool.

And hatred's child was a foolish decision, as when he
had joined JSger to spite Karen. He would commit him-
self to the underground, tear down this wicked system that
had used him so. Later, when he had to rationalize an
explanation for others, he claimed his decision had been
spurred by his readings in Ritual War. Eventually, he
believed the lie himself.

He knocked at Gregor's door when done, entered, an-
nounced, "I'm ready to join. Just tell me what to do."

Lindemann's eyebrows rose, but he asked no questions.
Such might have reversed his good fortune. "What'd you
leam from the notebook?"

"Very little." Kurt gave the highlights.

"So he did know us, all but Brindled Saxon. That's it?'1

"No." Kurt had saved the best. "Some about Marquis.
No name, but a way to find him." For one of the final
pages told of Marquis going into High Command's under-
ground fortress to be formally indoctrinated, quickly
trained, and given an identification code. This latter was
the means by which Kurt expected they would catch him,
for the code was described as a tattoo on the left arm,
death's head and serial number, invisible except under
ultraviolet light.

"But Jager hasn't any such light!" Gregor protested,

Kurt explained. Beck had gone into detail because fate
had provided High Command's enemies with a means of
identifying their man. Marquis's tattoo had become infect-
ed shortly after application, festered, and left a scar in the
death's-head shape, the size of a small coin, on the man's
left arm. Beck felt he should not be assigned anywhere
that the mark was known.

"We've got him!" said Lindemann.

"I've seen the mark on somebody." Who? Kurt felt
close, so close, to the killer he had been hunting so long.
But, damned! Though he could picture the scar, the face
of the man wearing it refused to focus. Did he not want
to know?

By lurking around the showers—strange behavior, duly
noted by others—he managed to eliminate four of his eight
suspects by the time Jager reached Gwadar. But the other
four he could not catch bathing.

The midwatch, two nights after refueling in the Gulf of

Oman, and the night after passing the mins of the Pak-
istani city, Gwardar: Kurt and Gregor were on the port
wing, ostensibly taking star sights.

"We'll get Deneb, Kurt." Gregor sighted on the star.
adjusted the sextant, said, "Mark!"

Kurt noted the time on his stopwatch, quickly wrote it
down. Then he jotted down the star's altitude as Linde-
mann held the sextant before him.

While Kurt wrote, Gregor whispered, "We had an
officers' meeting tonight. Von Lappus decided to leave the
fleet."

Kurt glanced up, surprised.

"Trouble is, we can't do anything while we've got Politi-
cal Officers aboard. And we don't dare do anything to
them. Marquis would radio the battleship and ... boom!
No more Jageri"

Someone approached the nearby door to the closed
bridge, looked out.

"Now Capella."

They took the sight and dithered over it until no one
was near.

"We could throw both the Political Officers and their
radio overboard. . . ." Kurt stopped, aghast. He had been
seriously suggesting murder. What had this mad voyage
done to him?

"Wouldn't do any good," said Gregor. "Suppose we did?
As soon as we left station, the battleship would radio. And
they'd open fire when they got no answer. Where does
that leave us?"

"We can run faster."

"Paster than a shell? But assume we got away. What
then? We'd run out of fuel somewhere off the coast of
Arabia. We're too late, Kurt. We should've left a long
time ago. We're past the point of no return. The only fuel
source inside our steaming range is India."

"That we've been told of." He felt too late also, though
in a different way. It had been too late for him since the
day he agreed to join the crew.

"Yes, that High Command let us know about. We
might find something on the Persian Gulf coast, but we
don't know. The Captain's working on it, anyway. You
told me to operate inside the system. I tried, and the
results have been amazing. ..."

"Can you get Dubhe, sir?"

Lindemann glanced at the sky. "Not now. There's a
cloud. I've a good shot at Alphecca, though it's low." He

144

lifted the sextant to his eye. The breeze 'whispered, the
seas whispered around Jager while they waited.

Kurt glanced at the door. Clear again. "What'll we
do?"

"We'll try to smoke Marquis out. I'm pretty sure who
he is now. Here, let's get one more shot, then you go
figure our posit. Bring the notebook when you come back."

"What?"

"Just do it. Then keep a close watch." Lindemann
rubbed his temples, a sure sign his headache haunted him
with redoubled savagery.

Kurt did not like it. Flashing the notebook was certain
to cause trouble. But that seemed what Gregor wanted.

"Regulus?"

"Good enough." Gregor shot it. Kurt noted the time
and altitude, then went to the charthouse. He spent a
while working the fix, a while dithering, and finally forced
himself to take the notebook from hiding inside the inop-
erative loran receiver. He returned to the bridge, was
surprised to find Haber there, observing the watch.

Kurt flourished the book as he handed it to Gregor,
who slipped it into a hip pocket, left a third plainly visible.
Haber frowned.

"Sir, did you notice which sextant you used?"

"No, why?" Lindemann asked.

"Near as I could narrow it down, we're in the Arabian
Sea. You must've used the one with the wiggly mirror."

Gregor retrieved the sextant. "So I did. Well, it doesn't
matter. We'll get a sun shot tomorrow. Why don't you get
this thing off the bridge? Take it down to the charthouse."

A bit later, with a hint of false dawn coloring the
horizon to the east, the watch reliefs came up. Kurt,
exhausted as always after the midwatch, signed the watch
over to Brecht and started for his compartment.

He walked aft along the starboard weatherdeck,
watching the phosphorescent waters whisper past. He
paused near a door, before going below, to look out at the
galaxy of running lights marking the presence of the fleet.
Water murmured along the hull, the engines muttered like
dwarfs hammering in caves beneath his feet. An aircraft
carrier was a shadowy leviathan a half kilometer away.
Flying fish darted from JSger's side like fluttery green
sparks.

The world was always so peaceful early in the morning.
A man could forget he was living on and in a killing
machine, moving inexorably toward an appointment in Sa-
marra. On a ship running down the quiet seas of the

145

night, he could forget he was the blood and soul of that
machine, an acolyte of destruction. He could feel one with
creation, a part of God; and could understand the emo-
tions which made some flee to Telemark. Telemark.
Karen ...

A light flashed on the carrier's signal bridge. Idly, Kurt
read the message, sent in English. An escort was being
berated for moving too close.

There was a sharp sound from up forward. Frowning,
Kurt turned. He listened. It was repeated—the choking
cry of a man in pain.

He ran, for the moment forgetting he was on a ship.
The deck sank away beneath him. He lost his balance,
fell, rolled into the lifelines. One hand thrust through and
hung over the side, getting splashed as a swell rolled along
Jager's flank. Shaking because of the nearness of person-
al disaster, Kurt scrambled to his feet. Moving more
carefully, he hurried forward.

A groan came from the darkness just inside the open
door of the 'thwartships passage. Kurt stopped, crouched,
felt the cool tingling of hair rising on the back of his neck.
His hand stole to the hilt of his knife.

Nothing stirred in the dark passageway, though he
waited a full minute. Just a low moaning. Crouching
lower, he felt inside the bottom of the door for the
battery-powered emergency light. He flipped the switch
with shaking fingers. A weak fan of light illuminated the
passage and the man at the foot of the ladder to the
bridge. Gregor, in a fetal position, the back of his shirt
glistening wetly, scarletly—just where Otto Kapp had
suffered his wound.

Kurt visualized: a man waiting at the foot of the
ladder, hidden by darkness, moving in from behind, clap-
ping one hand over Gregor's mouth, stabbing with the
other.

The light reached Gregor's mind. He lifted himself
slightly and turned a pain-contorted face toward Kurt,
then fell back to the bloodied deck. Kurt glanced around.
No one in sight. Shaking, heart constricting as though in
the grasp of a strongman, he sheathed his knife and knelt
beside his cousin. "Gregor?" softly.

Lindemann's eyes opened, fluttering, as if this were a
major effort. "Kurt?" Blood-foam from his punctured lung
dribbled from the comer of his mouth. He forced a sickly
grin. "Looks . . . like ... he moved . . . too fast ... for

us."

"Who?" Kurt clenched his hands, to control his shaking.

146

Gregor's mouth opened and closed several times before
he was able to say, "Don't know. . . . Couldn't see. . . .
Came from . . . behind. . . . Got the book . . . Kurt . . .
you have to ... take over."

"Take it easy. 111 get Commander Haber." Futility.
Haber's skills certainly were not up to repairing a punc-
tured lung—if he had not been the one to puncture it
originally.

Kurt's shakes grew worse. He had trouble controlling
himself as he went down the ladder to officers' country,
slammed through the door closing off the passageway
leading between staterooms, and ran to Haber's door.

He lost all control, began pounding and shouting, un-
aware he was doing so. Several doors opened. Von Lappus
came from his cabin, antique in a nightshirt—Kurt missed
it.

Haber opened his door. "What the hell's going on?" He
was, still dressed from having been to the bridge. The
anger in his voice was icewater to Kurt's emotions, calmed
him till he could speak coherently. He managed, "Gregor's
been stabbed!"

"Stabbed? How?"

"With a knife, dammit! He's dying!"

"All right. Let me get the bag." Haber ducked back
iato his stateroom, pulled the medical kit from beneath his
bunk. "Where to?"

Kurt led the way back. He pointed. Haber dropped to
his knees, felt Lindemann's wrist, bent and placed his ear
against the man's back. Kurt dropped down beside him.
Other officers crowded around, waiting expectantly. "He's
dead."

Silence. For minutes, perhaps.

Kurt slowly raised his eyes until his gaze crossed that of
de 1'Isle-Adam, standing behind the others. His hand stole
toward the hilt of his knife.

Von Lappus's fingers settled on his shoulder, lightly but
sobering. Kurt glared a moment, then let his hand fall.
The anger went the way of his panic. His motions became
mechanical, his verbal responses zombie-like. His eyes
locked on a small pool of blood a half meter from the
corpse, shifting back and forth with the roll of the ship.
Von Lappus's grip on his shoulder tightened painfully,
lifted. Kurt rose, but his eyes did not leave the blood.

"Mr. Heiden, take care of this," von Lappus ordered.
His voice was a monotone as he carefully controlled his
emotions. "Ranke, Heinrich, go to my cabin."

147

De 1'Isle-Adam asked something plaintive, speaking in a
tongue no one understood.

Von Lappus glared at the Political Officer. "I have
nothing to say to you, sir." Again the hard, carefully
controlled tone. He followed Kurt and Haber down the
ladder to officers' country.

The Captain became less unimpassioned once they en-
tered his cabin. Kurt grew more zombie-like.

"What happened?" von Lappus demanded, his sagging
face reddening with anger. With much of his bulk now
gone to worry, his loose skin made him appear half
empty.

"I don't know," Kurt replied duUy.

"Tell what you know."

"I was on my way to my compartment. I heard a cry.
When I arrived, he was on the deck, bleeding."

"Did he say anything?"

"Just that Marquis had moved quicker than expected.'

"Why?"

"Sir?"

"I want to know why he expected the attack."

"He was carrying a notebook that belonged to Beck. A
diary. The other Political Officers have been trying to get
a hold of it."

"I know. Why was he carrying it? To force things?"

"Yes."

"Heinrich?"

"He did it on his own authority." Haber was now pale,
shaking worse than usual. He was trying to take notes, but
could not keep a grip on his pencil. "In fact, I specifically
forbade it when he asked earlier."

"I wonder. Why is it that Ranke's always first to these

murders?"

Kurt, mind dulled, did not catch the implication.

"Ranke, give me the knife!"

Numbly, he handed it over. Von Lappus examined it
closely. "Ah, well. I didn't think so. Too logical. Or
illogical. If they wanted the book and Kurt was their man,
there'd've been no need for the killing. All right, Ranke,
why was the notebook important? What was in it?"

"You don't know, sir?"

"No, I don't." He sounded exasperated.

"He has the translation in his stateroom, sir. But there
wasn't much to it." He was too numb to feel the pain that
notebook had cost him. "He thought they wanted it back
because they weren't sure what it said."

"Nothing at all?"

148

"Just a diary." He was coming to life, the shock reced-
ing. "The only thing important was a description of an
identification tattoo they wear, here on the left arm. A
skull and a number, but they only show in a special light.
Marquis's mark is supposed to be scarred."

"That would be important to someone looking for
him."

"If I were Marquis," said Haber, "I might kill to keep
that secret."

"Yes sir," Kurt replied, "except how could he have
known what was in the notebook?"

"Does anyone have this scar?" von Lappus demanded.

"Not that we could find, but we didn't get a chance to
check everybody. Gregor was afraid to be too open. Said
we'd have a whole battleship load of Political Officers
here before we could get started. ..."

"He knew more than you. We've more trouble with the
Political Office than you think. They know damned well
Beck's death was no accident. This Deal Adam told us in
so many words that if we so much as raise a hand against
another Political Officer, we'll be blown out of the water.
I expect that includes their undercover man."

"We can't do anything, even if we find out who killed
Gregor?"

"Right. From the Political Office viewpoint, he's not a
murderer. He's a man doing his duty. Duty's always been
a shield for abominations."

Kurt had been caressing a coffee cup sitting on the
Captain's desk. He hurled it across the cabin.

"Ranke"

"Sorry, sir. It's just... well, like ... like being in a cage
with an open door, but you get shot if you step out."

"An apt description. We have to divert the gunman's
attention. You and Lindemann kept lists of suspects?"

"Yes sir." Nervously, he took the list from the pocket
of his jumper, handed it to von Lappus. He wondered
what the Captain would think on seeing Haber's name
underlined. Kurt noted that, as von Lappus examined the
four names, sweat ran down his sagging jowls. He finally
realized the man was as angry as he, but better controlled.
Much better controlled.

"Explain what you two were doing tonight. Every-
thing."

Kurt talked for fifteen minutes, telling all he could
remember. Speaking made him feel better, as if all rage
and sorrow departed via his mouth. He finished. Von
Lappus extended the list to Haber. Kurt, staring into

149

nothingness, missed a bit of silent byplay. Von Lappus
indicated a name with his thumbnail. Haber nodded.

The Captain turned back to Kurt. "Ranke, move your
gear into Lindemann's quarters. This Marquis, once he
discovers what's in the book, may assume you know too
much. You'll be safer in officers' country. Heinrich, stay
with him when he goes above. We'll commission him
Ensign, Navigator."

"Sir. . . ." Haber was to protect him? He felt the first
light caress of the high terror Gregor must have endured
for months.

"Be quiet. Heinrich, help him all you can. Between you,
you should get Lindemann's work done. You should be
capable, anyway, Ranke. You've had the experience. Who'll
replace you?"

"Horst Diehn? He doesn't write well, but he knows the
simpler things, log keeping and weather reports."

"Fine."

"Wiedermann won't like this," Haber said softly. "He's
wanted Obermeyer's commission for two years, and we
haven't promoted him... ."

"To hell with Wiedermann's ambitions," von Lappus
rumbled.

"A thought, Sepp," said Haber, looking thoughtful.
"Suppose we release the word that the killer has this scar.
There'd no longer be a secret for him to save. Kurt'd be
safe."

"That'll start a witch-hunt. ... Uhm, do it. Might flush
the man. But take care the men don't get carried away.
No more trouble with Political Officers. That'll be all for
now. Help Ranke move."

Later. The sun was well up. Time to be up and about
ship's work, Kurt thought. The ship was abuzz with talk
about Lindemann's death and his promotion. Still some-
what dazed, he ignored the questions and congratulations
and Hans's bitter stare as he moved.

Once the move was finished, he stretched out on his
new bunk and stared at the overhead, wrestling with
himself. Illogically, based on little evidence, he had de-
cided that Haber was the killer—only two suspects had
known Gregor had the notebook in time to move so
swiftly. But he had no proof beyond emotional certainty.
He fought an urge to vengeance.

To divert himself he sorted Gregor's effects, put the
intimately personal aside, the useful out to be distributed
where they could be used—such was custom in a world
where once common items were so difficult to obtain.

150

Gregor's uniforms he passed over, certain they were to be
given to him. His cousin's footlocker contained little:

mementos, the most noteworthy being a pine cone—from
Telemark, Kurt thought. The desk held only what one
would expect, things a navigator would need. Only when
he began on Gregor's safe—which had been left open—
did he receive a surprise.

In prominent view was a sheaf of papers, punched, tied
into a volume with twine. A letter was straight-pinned to
the first page.

Kurt, it said, if you read this, 1 will be speaking
from. the grave. I am frightened. Marquis is getting
close, as I am getting close to him. Our courses will
converge, and only one will survive. If he kills me,
you have to take over. Trust the Captain. He is on
our side. He has promised to take Jager out of the
fleet when he can. Attached are notes I have kept.
They will tell you something about the resistance. Do
not let the Political Officers get them.

I am sorry we have not gotten along better. I knew
when I left Norway that there would be a Marquis
aboard. For too long I thought you were he, trying to
take advantage of our relationship. I apologize. Be
careful.

Your cousin, Gregor

Kurt went on to read Gregor's notes. They were not
unlike Beck's; rather personalized accounts of the activi-
ties of a small human cog in a large, impersonal human
machine. He got very little from them except the names
of some underground leaders, the names of trustworthy
men aboard ship, and confirmation of his theory that Hans
was Brindled Saxon.

He did not know what to make of that. If Hans was
angry that he had not gotten a commission first, how
would he feel when he learned he was still second-best in
the ship's underground?

Gradually, Kurt sank to the depths of a great despair,
mourning Gregor, Otto, and Erich. Again he fought him-
self on a battlefield of pain, wanting revenge so badly, not
certain who should suffer the arrows of his hatred. Haber,
he thought, but Heinrich was so hard to hate. Too many
childhood happinesses stood as a shield before him. ...

Time passed, the seconds, minutes, hours. Each second
was a bitter assassin, thrusting cruel knives into his guts
and twisting. The minutes were great angry birds, and he

151

Prometheus bound, feeling their beaks and talons ripping
the flesh from his soul. The hours had the mocking humor
of the universe, black and eternal....

He was so engrossed in himself he did not hear the
knocking till the knocker shouted, "Kurt!"

Haber, he realized. He opened the door. "Sir?"

"Chow. Have you tried the uniforms yet?"

Kurt shook his head slowly. "Makes me feel like a
vulture."

"He doesn't need them. You do." He leaned closer,
searching Kurt's face. "Snap out of it. We haven't time for
self-pity."

Ensign Heiden passed. "Hold it,!" Haber growled.

"Commander?"

"Have you spare insignia to loan Ranke?"

"Yes sir."

"Bring them around, will you?" Haber turned back to
the stateroom.

Kurt had disrobed and was about to step into a pair of
Gregor's trousers. "It seems like someone's trying to cut
me off from the world." He buttoned the trousers. "Loose
around the waist, but the length's right."

"Use the belt. What do you mean, trying to cut you
off?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a wild notion. The three people
killed were about the closest to me, here on the ship.
Which made me think you or Hans may be next."

"The shirt fits well enough. Try the cap. I don't know if
I should feel that's a compliment. Anyway, the dead were
all underground. I'm not." Haber's shakes increased visibly
while he spoke.

"Not a serious theory. All three gave reason for Politi-
cal Office action." He pulled Gregor's battered hat down
on his head. "Too tight."

"Loosen the band." Sotto voce, he added, "I pray your
theory's stardust."

After fumbling a moment, Kurt got the hatband
loosened. "There. How do I look?"

"Like a sloppy edition of Lindemann. Ah. Heiden.
Thank you. Kurt, put these on, then come to the
wardroom."

"I'm not hungry," Kurt said as he tamed to the mirror.

"I don't care. You'll eat anyway. Get a move on. We go
on watch soon."

Kurt frowned thoughtfully as the door closed behind
Haber. They were not going to let him ease out of
}Sger's affairs. And there was nothing he wanted more

152

than to drop out of everything, to escape—especially
Haber.

Then he realized how much better he felt because of
Haber's visit. In fact, he was ready to plunge back in. He
decided, as he was pinning the last piece of insignia in
place, that he was hungry after all.

Dinner in the wardroom was singularly quiet. Kurt had
no familiarity with wardroom procedure, but was certain
the stillness was not the normal state. The point of the
rapier-silence seemed directed at de 1'Isle-Adam. And the
quiet accusation bothered the old man. Kurt could see his
agitation, suspected he was as shocked by the murder as
anyone else.

Kurt wondered how it would feel to be completely
surrounded by hating men. He tried to picture himself
aboard the High Command battleship, in a position com-
parable to de 1'Isle-Adam's. A bad vision. He considered
himself a loner, but that much alienation would soon have
driven him mad. Perhaps such had helped make Beck the
cold man he had been.

Kurt's first watch as an officer, understudying Haber,
proved socially awkward. His old watchmates were uncer-
tain how to treat him, were more than cautiously respect-
ful. The bridge remained silent, with none of the soft
joking and easy reminiscing which had characterized Greg-
or's watches. Kurt, still somewhat withdrawn, did not
notice. He tried to teach his replacement, and to pay
attention to Haber's advice. Hans he let be as much as
possible. The Boatswain seemed extremely sullen about
the promotion.

lager moved steadily eastward, never increasing speed,
never slowing, each minute closer to that point where her
course intersected the path of Fate.

153

XVI

INDIAN coastline lay off the port beam. Kurt stared at
it, in a mood for contemplation. He had recovered from
his depression, had almost forgotten Gregor's death—in
the way evil memories are hastily abandoned, dread lum-
ber to be shed—and had temporarily laid his suspicions to
rest. Now, though, he sometimes shook like Haber. The
Meeting ... it could not be far in the future.

The watch had recovered too. Kurt was an officer
much like his cousin. As long as the men did their jobs, he
paid them no heed. That is all he felt he could expect.

India had been on the left hand for three days. Behind
laser lay the Rann of Cutch, the Gulf of Cutch, the Gulf
of Cambay. The ruins of Bombay could not be far ahead.
Kurt's eyes continually sought the dark line where land
met sea, searching—for what he did not know. Perhaps
some of the wonder gone the way of the tales of innocent
childhood. Somewhere behind that coast lay the northern
end of the Western Ghats, but he never could find their
purple breasts.

"Quartermaster," he called into the pilothouse, "have
you got that fuel estimate yet?"

"Yes sir," the new Quartermaster replied. "Mr.
Czyzewski estimates thirty hours minimum. Should last
longer. He's steaming maximum economy."

"Very well. Boatswain."

"Sir?"

Kurt felt warm inside each time Hans called him "sir."
Their feud was a thing almost forgotten, yet he still got a
wonderful feeling of power. . . . Hans was very polite,
though his jealous anger was never entirely concealed. He
avoided speaking of Karen more carefully than ever.
"Send the messenger to the wardroom. Ask Commander
Haber when he'll be up."

"Yes sir."

Karen. Kurt felt guilty when his mind turned to Karen,
because he thought of her so little. No matter that he had
little time for thought. His mind should be on her often.

Yet he knew others had the same problem. Wives, home,
children, childhood, were things no longer real, had gradu-
ally become dulled silver images of memory. Faces were
rose nebulosities, memories with the fuzzy quality of
dream. The bad times had been forgotten and the good
romanticized into more than they had ever been.

In the early days, with memories fresh and the battle
distant, men had talked of home and plans for the future.
No one had looked beyond the horizon to that grim
reckoning called the Meeting. But now the days, weeks,
and months of waiting were gone. The Meeting loomed
tall, a few days, a week, surely no more than a month
away. Each man, from Captain to lowest seaman, grimly
knew. No longer did they speak of the future, nor often
did they speak. When they did, they talked of the present,
as ship's work demanded, and of the past. Rosy, rosy
pasts, with childlike dreams and fantasies, half-forgotten
adult hopes, haunted the ship, phantoms from. fairyland
minds.

And yet, poised on the borders of battle, each man
insisted there was no time for dreams—no time for the
dreams of others. The ship must be made ready. A specter
stalked the metal passageways, invisible, but known by all:

Fear.

Kurt hit the rail with his fist, hard enough to hurt. He
turned, hitched his trousers, strode into the pilothouse. He
glanced at the log and charts of his replacement, compli-
mented the man, recrossed the bridge, climbed into the
Captain's chair. He leaned forward, chin on fists, rocked
as the ship rocked, watched the green seawaters part
around the bow, and thought.

The messenger returned. "Commander Haber will be up
shortly," he said.

"Very well," Kurt replied. He turned back to his prob-
lem.

Nothing was happening. As had been the case after the
first two murders. Marquis bode bis time, waiting for the
anger, indignation, and caution to die. Or, perhaps, there
was nothing more he needed do.

Why should the man do anything? Kurt asked himself.
The notebook had been recovered. Its only secret was
common knowledge. If Marquis had half the brains Kurt
believed, he would now do nothing unless directly threat-
ened.

The watch ended, with Bombay still below the horizon,
and the Indian forests farther, lager could exhaust her

fuel in as little as twenty-eight hours. The situation, he
knew, was as bad on other ships.

Next noon fuel estimates were more optimistic, but the
bunkers were emptier than ever. Twelve hours' steaming.
Other ships were paired for highlining, sharing the remain-
ing fuel. The carrier Victoria had launched a recon flight
an hour earlier, looking for a forest. Signals between ships
told of desperation.

Imagine, Kurt thought, an entire fleet dead in the water
in the middle of nowhere, able to do nothing but drift like
so many wood chips, at the mercy of wind and sea—and
of their crews. Life depended on fuel, fuel to heat the
boilers providing steam to the turbines driving the ships,
fuel to make steam to drive the generators of electric
power so necessary aboard Jager and her like, fuel to
heat the water in the fresh-water evaporators. Kurt pic-
tured two hundred derelicts, two hundred Flying Dutch-
men, patrolling the Malabar Coast.

He grew aware of sudden tension on the bridge, looked
up, found all the men staring to starboard. Victoria was
recovering aircraft. The clunk-clunk of feet overhead told
him the Political Officers were preparing to receive mes-
sages.

A half hour passed before anything came in. One of the
young men brought it down. Kurt read it quickly, sur-
veyed the intensely inquisitive faces of his watch, smiled.
"They found a forest. Not far." Only fifteen kilometers
south of the leading elements of the fleet. Five hours'
steaming for Jager, she being kilometers back in the for-
mation. She would make it with fuel to spare.

Kurt called the Captain's cabin. "Officer of the Deck.
Signals from the flag, sir. Stop for refueling off Rotnagiri.
Five hours, sir." A pause. "Yes sir."

Kurt turned to Hans. "The Captain said to have all boats
and tools prepared before securing ship's work."

"Yes sir."

Kurt again felt that little twinge of pleasure at having
power over Hans, though it stirred some of the old en-
mity.

Although he objected strenuously, Kurt had to remain
aboard while the bulk of the crew went ashore. He was
willing to endure the tiresome work for the feel of earth
beneath his feet—it had been a year—but von Lappus
denied him on grounds of safety. He would not be allowed
to risk the assassin's knife.

Two of the three days spent at anchor were hell. The
third proved both amusing and informative. Early that

156

morning one of the boats came out with an odd, skinny
little brown man perched atop a small mountain of wood.
An Indian.

Kurt had the quarterdeck watch at the time, looking
officious and trying to stay out of the way of ship's work.
Then came the native.

"What've you got there, Deckinger?" Kurt shouted as
the boat came alongside.

The native jumped up, saluted in magnificent parody,
and, with an abominable accent, shouted, "Hallo, Unter-
leutnant!" There followed a flood of speech, of which
Kurt caught perhaps a third, mangled German mixed with
the dregs of a half-dozen tongues. Kurt recognized some
Polish and English.

"Deckinger! Can't you turn him off?" The Indian shut
up. "What's going on? Who's this?"

The coxswain shrugged as his boat nudged the accom-
modation ladder. His oarsmen chuckled. "Near as we can
figure, he ran into survivors from the last Meeting.
Must've been a rare mixture. German and Polish I speak,
English I recognize. He mixes all three with as many
others. Name's Boroba Thring. Be good to him. We
fought a French corvette to get him."

The Indian galloped up the ladder, grinning, snapped
another remarkable salute, promptly disappeared through
the nearest door.

Kurt's mind ran like a dog chasing its tail. He knew
there had been but one ship at the last Meeting carrying
men who spoke German and Polish. He hurried after the
Indian, found him below, in the after crew's quarters,
cheerfully poking through everything loose.

Hours later, after questioning by the team of von Lap-
pus, Czyzewski, de 1'Isle-Adam, and Kurt—because he
spoke Danish, though the Indian did not—the man's story
became clear. A party of survivors of the last Meeting had
camped near Rotnagiri while recovering from an epidemic
fever, passing several months there before continuing their
march to Europe. How long ago? Close to ten years.

And that was all they had from him, hopes raised and
crushed. Germans and Poles had survived the Meeting,
but, almost certainly, not the march home—or they would
have arrived. Kurt spent the remainder of the day in
depression. It had been a long time since his father had
weighed so heavily on his mind.

The Indian announced he was there to trade. He offered
fresh food for tools and medicines. Von Lappus turned
him down. No time. High Command wanted the fleet

157

moving before nightfall. They let the Indian stay aboard
until the last boat departed.

Jager recovered that last boat on the run. The leading
elements of the fleet had been underway for an hour. Sun
setting, boat being hoisted out of the water, the ancient
lady began the last leg of her journey to her date with

Fate.

Six eventless days passed. Signals flew increasingly thick
during that time, until lager's Political Officers were
almost continually busy. Flags festooned the vessels by day,
flashing lights winked like hundreds of low, twinkling stars
by night. In her wardroom, lager's officers spent long
hours over the messages, and battle assignments which had
been delivered during the refueling pause—von Lappus
still had not broached his plan for escape.

lager's battle assignment was minimal. When the fleet
divided into fighting and support groups, she would be left
to convoy the auxiliaries. Kurt suspected this was because
High Command did not trust her in the battle line. He was
pleased, as was von Lappus. This seemed to fit well with
something building in the Captain's mind. Late on the
afternoon of the sixth day, signals went up directing all
ships to the second degree of battle readiness. Watertight
doors were secured, hatches were battened, life preservers
and helmets were hauled from their racks and lockers and
checked. Ammunition was prepared, nervous gunners la-
bored over their weapons, making certain they were in
perfect order. The cooks prepared cold foods for when
men would be unable to leave battle stations. The tension
built, soon became overwhelming.

It redoubled when, on the morning of the seventh day,
off Trivandrum, the signal came for general quarters, the
first degree of readiness. The flag expected contact soon.
Kurt wondered, briefly, how anyone could know, but was
too busy for deep speculation.

When there was sufficient light, one of the carriers
launched a recon flight. Grumbling like tired old men
disturbed, the aircraft staggered into the sky and chugged
away across the southern tip of India.

An hour later, lager's men were startled by the sound
of guns kilometers ahead. Black puffs spotted the sky.
Soon four aircraft—jets by their speed and racket—came
darting down the length of the fleet, trailing a rolling
barrage of anti-aircraft fire. They were come and gone so
quickly Jager managed but a single salvo. The tension was
a violin string twice too tight scraped with an unrosined
bow....

158

Kurt, watching the silver darts climb and turn behind
the fleet, overheard a muttered, "This's it! This's really it.
After all this time ..."

And, "They're real! I never thought..."

And, "Christ, we're in for it if all their planes are like
those...."

The wing markings of the planes burned in Kurt's
mind. Australian. The Enemy. He, too, had never com-
pletely believed . . . but there they were, trailing thin white
as they raced eastward.

The bridge was ahum with subdued, frightened talk.
Jets. The hope was that those were all the Australians
could put in the air. The hope was that the Australian
carriers would be sunk before planes like those could
strike.... They hoped.

Hours of nothing followed, until the recon planes re-
turned. Then signals soon flew.

Twenty-eight enemy ships, cruisers, destroyers, and two
carriers, had been found in the Gulf of Mannar, steaming
southward at fifteen knots. The division of the fleet, which
had begun at dawn, hastened.

As evening drew near, powerboats raced through the
fleet, collecting Political Officers. They were carried to the
battleship.

"This looks strange," Haber observed as the bridge gang
watched lager's four clamber into a boat.

"Wouldn't be surprised if they didn't come back," Kurt
growled. 'They're rats deserting a dead ship."

"How're we supposed to get battle signals?" a seaman
asked plaintively.

"Oh, they've given us a very good battle plan," Haber
replied sarcastically. "We don't have to communicate."
Signals could, though, be made via the signal books.

The man missed the mockery, Kurt saw. He simply
nodded and returned to work, reassured. Kurt wished he
felt the same—sure of anything.

"Not all the rats have left the ship," the Commander
said in a lower voice. Kurt searched his face. He had been
waiting for some comment on this, wondering how Haber
felt about being left behind.

"Why didn't they take him with them?" Kurt asked, not
really expecting an answer from the man.

Haber shrugged. "Maybe they don't want him either."
Was that a bit sour? "More likely, though, they feel
there's still work for him here. Every ship probably has an
undercover man who's being left behind."

"A gruesome thought." But he got no rise from Haber.

159

More wearying hours passed. The battle group formed
and pulled ahead of the auxiliaries. Both forces were well
into the turn around the tip of the Indian subcontinent.

By twilight the fighting force was beyond the horizon,
position marked by a pall of black smoke. All was quiet.

Near midnight, when most of the men were asleep at
their stations, there were light flashes far ahead, in the
clouds. Not a surface engagement. A night attack from
the air. Kurt worried. The Australian technology appeared
more and more formidable. A night attack would have
been impossible with the rickety Western aircraft.

The flashes and subdued, thunderiike mutterings contin-
ued for almost two hours.

Morning came. The cooks served sandwiches on station,
with vast quantities of coffee. Soon the auxiliaries reached
the scene of night-battle. Wreckage. Floating corpses.
Men in liferafts who were rescued by the larger support
ships. A few prisoners, downed flyers.

The sun, following some retarded timetable, took eons
to reach the zenith, lager and her convoy entered the
Gulf of Mannar. The sun, after an eternal pause, started
down its path to the west. Tension mounted, though that
seemed impossible.

The first attack came from the south, low, so swiftly
that bombs were falling by the time Jager's gun started
around. There were less than forty planes, all—thank
God!—prop jobs as sickly as their Western opponents.
Aircraft cannon shells were racketing off the forecastle
when Jager's guns first spoke.

Inside the death machine, men scrambled here and
there, to little purpose, doing themselves and the ship little
good.

Steel, fire-tipped fingers tracked aircraft across an angry
sky, hurling fifty-five-pound packets of death as fast as
men could load.

Kurt dove for cover as aircraft cannon shells hit the
bridge. Supposedly bulletproof windows exploded inward.
One shell screamed through, exploded in the Captain's Sea
Cabin. The mattress there smoldered. Kurt, in a daze,
unaware of risk, staggered out the portside door.

The sky was speckled black with the puffs of exploding
shells. A bomber scored a hit a thousand meters away. An
ammunition ship became a tremendous fireball, exploding
and re-exploding. Off the port quarter a destroyer took a
torpedo at the waterline amidships and became two. One
half sank in seconds. Kurt leaned on the rail and pitched
his breakfast over the side.

A scream. "Get in here, you idiot!" Hans Wiedermann.
Kurt half turned, saw the little Boatswain charging, was
seized, hurled into the pilothouse. Hans leaped in after
him, centimeters ahead of the deadly debris of an explod-
ing bomber.

A dull roar ran through the ship, Jager's gunners cheer-
ing their kill.

Another aircraft, unseen but felt and heard, dying,
screamed over on a kamikaze run. A wingtip brushed the
maintruck, ripped 'away useless radar antennae. It hit
water three hundred meters on, skipped like a flat stone,
spinning, sailed another hundred meters, and broke up in
midair.

Then came a strange quiet. The enemy fled, leaving a
quarter of his strength behind, his planes low silhouettes
on the southeastern horizon. Jager's bridge gang got to
their feet and stared at the tortured sea, at the flames
rolling from the corpses of ancient ships. Overhead, imag-
ined Valkyries wailed in a black mackerel sky of past
explosions, and black oil smoke veiled the watching faces
of the disturbed gods of the deep.

Faces pale, guts taut, men studied sea and sky, the mad
waterfield of their first sea battle—so quickly come and
gone....

xvn

IT got easier, the shooting and killing. Less panic, more
professionalism, if thus it may be said. The threat of death
spurred men to faster, more efficient reactions—though
weariness sapped some of the improvement. More kills,
fewer casualties, except for the Australian aircraft, whose
numbers rapidly dwindled.

During the long night after the first attack, and in the
interims between the two attacks the following day, Haber
kept busy. The mess tables became operating tables; engi-
neers' quarters, the best protected, became a convalescent
hospital. Deaths were gratifyingly few, fewer than the
thirteen paid for passage to the Meeting.

During the interlude separating attacks three and four,
Jager heard the big guns muttering in the north, a
surface engagement in Palk Strait. Those ships with oper-
able radios received progress reports, passed the news by
signal flag. Both sides had expended their aircraft. The
Australians, outnumbered, were losing, but were tena-
ciously holding the strait. The fighting was a hundred
kilometers distant, but scores of five- and eight-inch trolls'
mouths were bellowing in chorus there. Their cruel song
rippled down the ocean, serenaded the auxiliaries with
atonal sounds of mortality.

The fourth raid came during the night.

Psychedelia: orange flashes with yellow, the green sea
sparkle suddenly exposed by gun-light, and phosphores-
cence in the waves; poor tiny confused fishes jumping;

the gun barrels with their flames talons tearing at the
night; brief dots of light which crackled in the sky;

screaming aircraft engines, screaming shells, screaming
bombs, continual explosions, screaming men; a burning
ship, a burning plane. Kurt grew dizzy trying to follow it
all.

A plane hit water a hundred meters before Jager and
escaped being overrun only because she was in a high-
speed turn. The pilot, inexplicably surviving the crash,
scrambled from his cockpiit and dove into the sea. Some-

162

one, with unusual presence of mind and even more unusu-
al compassion, dashed out onto the maindeck and snagged
the man with a boathook as Jager drove past.

Kurt saw the man being hauled aboard. He studied the
sky, looking for aircraft betrayed by moonlight. Nothing
coming in. He ran along the starboard wing, down two
ladders, and reached the pilot just as he rose with the help
of two sailors.

Snarl of an aircraft engine, climbing in pitch and vol-
ume. "Get him inside!" Kurt ordered. "Mess decks." The
sailors supported the pilot, half carried him to the mess
decks door. Kurt pulled it open.

The roar came in low, amidst bursting shells, blazing a
trail with tracers. Kurt threw himself inside, as did the
others. A swarm of shells accompanied them. There were
screams....

Kurt rose, jerked the watertight door shut. "You all
right?" he asked. Stupid question. The sailors were broken,
ruined, chopped meat. The Australian, whom they had
pushed ahead of them and thus shielded with their bodies,
groaned weakly. Kurt, with the reluctance of one touching
a poisonous snake—the pilot was that mythical Enemy he
had his life long been conditioned to fear and hate—
placed his fingers against the man's cheek. The Australian's
eyelids fluttered. Kurt looked at him closely, surprised.
This was an old man, at least sixty, from his brass almost
certainly a high-ranking officer. Such an ancient flying
combat?

"Got by my own mates." He coughed. A rough smile
tugged the corners of his mouth. "Three Meetings now,
thirty-four missions, shot down three times. And finally
scragged by my own wing man." He laughed weakly. Kurt
sat silently over him—said nothing because he felt the
man would not want him to—stared as blood trickled over
his fingers—Australian blood, yet warm, red, human.

"Ah, but it's the Enemy's fault, isn't it?" the pilot
murmured. "Oh, Billy, my admiral brother Bill, you'll play
avenger for me, won't you?" He coughed gurglingly, spit
up red foam. "Neatly tucked them in, didn't we? Bottled
them up. ... Maybe this's the true Last Meeting. . . .
Molly!" Suddenly he was frightened, terribly frightened.
Though he was as suddenly no longer an enemy, Kurt
jerked his hand away, frightened himself. This could not
be far in his own future....

"Molly!" the Australian gasped again—then seemed
deflated when his soul departed.

Kurt rose slowly, suffering overpowering sadness. He

163

had so wanted to talk to this man, even if only in anger,
to make contact with a fragment of the other side. But
the fellow had evaded him, died without saying anything.

Or had he? Halfway to the bridge, in midstride, he
jerked to a halt, finally grasping the sense of those dying
words. Bottle? A picture of Ceylon, India, and the sea
between flashed across his mind, and he considered the
odd fact that air attacks always came from the south. And
he knew

What seemed an easy victory at Palk Strait was but a
small gambit in a huge defeat a-making. Almost certainly,
another Australian force had hidden east of Ceylon and
was now closing the Gulf of Mannar behind the Western
armada. It had to be. . . . The northern force would hold
while the southern took the auxiliaries from the rear,
wolves into sheep poorly shepherded, destroying, and the
Western fighting units would be without supplies. They
would be easy killing once their ammunition was gone. He
ran on to the bridge, reported his suspicions to von Lappus
and Haber.

While he talked, he watched Haber patch a deathly
pale Hans's arm. A shell fragment had taken a chunk
from it. Shock, plus the depression he had been suffering
of late, had raped away the last of Wiedermann's cock-
iness. His expression was that worn when his father was
about to descend on him with a belt. But the punishment,
this time, would be final.

The night marched slowly on. Enemy aircraft—less
than a dozen now—came and went, concentrating on the
escorts. Kurt wondered if this was the prelude to a surface
engagement. Made sense, if his theory were correct.

Jager received her share of attention, but, by zigzag-
ging, changing speed, and luck, she remained relatively
unscathed. Plenty of holes from strafing; nothing interfer-
ing with ship's operations.

Von Lappus paced. Any plan he may have had had to
be scrapped, now Jager was in a trap. His face was pale
and tired, his weight seemed to pull him down. "How far
to the Indian coast?" he asked.

Kurt went to the chart table. "Excuse me, Paul." He
studied the charts. "Fifty kilometers, sir."

"And Ceylon?"

"The same. We're right in the middle."

"We'll head for the mainland. If we can't hide, we'll
beach her and walk."

Kurt's mind rushed back to the visitor of a week ear-
lier. Others had tried walking home.

"Left full rudder. All ahead standard. Tell the engine
room to stand by for emergency maneuvers. I want all
boilers on the line, burning coal. Ask how long they'll
need to get full steam."

The helmsman, lee helmsman, and telephone talker did
as they were directed. All eyes were on the Captain,
expectant.

"Captain," said the phone talker, "they say they'll need
a half hour to get superheat on the standby boilers. ..."

"Tell them to get those fires burning, and to call as soon
as they can put the boilers on the line." Von Lappus
resumed pacing. "How long till sunrise?"

"About two hours, sir," said Kurt. "But we'll have light
before then."

"Lookout reports flashing light from the screen com-
mander, sir," a phone talker announced.

Kurt grabbed a memo pad and stepped out on the
starboard wing. "Brecht, get up to the signal bridge and
tell them we're ready to receive. Take your time."

Haber grabbed the signal book as Brecht scrambled up
the ladder to the signal bridge. The commodore's message
soon arrived. Kurt noted the groups. Haber, looking over
his shoulder, searched the signal book for their meanings.

"Should've known," Haber said shortly. "He wants to
know where we're going. Captain?"

Von Lappus shrugged. "Send some nonsense. 'Proceed-
ing independently to air bedding, run a degaussing range,
and attack with missiles and depth charges.' By the time
he figures that out, we'll be clear. I don't think he'd shoot,
anyway."

Haber encoded the message, taking his time. Kurt
handed it up to Brecht. Brecht sent it slowly, as if unfa-
miliar with the light. All the while, the range between
ships opened at a relative twelve knots.

That range opened to four kilometers. The commodore
requested a repeat. Brecht sent the message again, with
minor changes. Before more was heard, JSger could no
longer read the incoming.

She ran a point off parallel with the seas. The rolls were
bad. Her bows rose high, she yawed, her bows fell, and
the phosphorescent waters rushed past to make a sparkling
silver trail behind. A tinge of false dawn smeared the
horizon line east.

"The seas are running high," von Lappus observed. "Is
a storm too much to hope?"

Kurt looked around. A deeper darkness loomed to the

south. "Looks like a squall there, sir, but we'd be steaming
right into the Australians."

"Forget it."

There were flashes behind them, and a few ships silhou-
etted, as the fleet's guns opened up on a new wave of
aircraft, lager hurried on, ignoring the fighting. Kurt
suffered a moment of guilt and regret for thus abandoning
others to their fates.

"Engine room reports all boilers on the line, sir," a
phone talker announced.

"Very well. Tell them to give me every possible turn."

Soon lager was shuddering. She surged forward. Kurt
watched the indicator on the pitometer as it crept past
twenty, toward twenty-five knots. The destroyer bad not
run this fast in decades—perhaps centuries.

"Oh-oh," someone muttered, "they've found us."

Aircraft noises approached. Half a dozen planes gathered
like vultures gleeful at finding a lone and staggering man
in a desert, happy to have a target outside the anti-aircraft
umbrella of the fleet.

lager corkscrewed across the waters, dodging the
bombs. Her guns tore the dawn with flaming orange
claws. Her frame shuddered time and again as salvos left
her main battery. Kurt and others held hands over their
ears, trying to keep out the deafening crack of the five-
inchers. The sound jarred the teeth and rattled the bones.
It could be felt with the skin. Beside the main battery, the
three-inchers and 40mm mounts were chattering children.

"Tell the engine room to give us more speed!" von
Lappus bellowed. A bomb hit water just fifty meters off
the starboard bow, drowning the threats with which he
punctuated the command.

While the waterspout from the bomb burst was still
falling, the phone talker replied, "Mr. Czyzewski says he
doesn't dare put on any more turns, sir. She's shaking too
much now."

lager rattled like a Skeleton in a windstorm. Her
frame groaned. The old lady was too tired to sprint as
when she was young.

"If he can make another turn, tell him to make it!" von
Lappus thundered. "Down!" Shells rang against the pi-
lothouse. A man groaned, hit by a fragment, lager shud-
dered even more. Kurt watched the pit log climb slowly,
so slowly, toward thirty knots.

"Sir," the phone talker cried, "we're taking water
around the patch where we lost the sonar dome."

"Very well."

166

A plane burned across the lightening sky, right to left,
like a comet, exploded like a holiday rocket half a kilome-
ter ahead. The gunners cheered, but weakly. Their fourth
kill was much less exciting than the first, and they were too
tired to waste the energy.

A small bomb from a plane unseen tumbled from the
sky and hit the number one gun mount. Kurt saw the
result, as in slow motion, while throwing himself under
the chart table.

The bomb hit. The turret rose on a small ball of fire
and, intact, arced into the sea to port. Then concussion
from the explosion shattered glass, bounced men around,
and everything loose became a vicious missile. A cloud of
acrid TNT smoke swept past the bridge, filled the pi-
lothouse with its stench. The warship heaved and groaned
and, for a moment, Kurt thought the explosion had
reached the magazines. But no, the firestops had held.

He looked down to the forecastle again as he rose, then
turned away fighting his last meal. The mount was gone.
In its place was a hole surrounded by bumed-metal flower
petals. The upper handling room, ammunition miraculous-
ly unexploded, lay open to the air. Men and parts of men
were scattered about its walls. Streamers of smoke drifted
out.

"Get Damage Control!" the Captain bellowed. "Get
the men out of that lower handling room! We've got to
flood that magazine." And all the while the surviving guns
thundered their defiance.

The helmsman, frozen to the wheel, followed his zigzag
course with zombie-like precision. No one else moved. A
' mountain of water hurled up by a near miss drenched the
bridge through broken windows. Haber tended the wound-
ed amidst blood and seawater sloshing on the deck.

The phone talker spoke up. "Captain, forward fire room
reports they're taking water around a buckled hull plate."

"How much?"

"Just a little. The pumps are handling it. Damage Con-
trol's putting a patch on now."

"Very well."

Kurt looked back to the forecastle, saw water filling the
hole where the mount had been. The liquid was scarlet in
the morning light. Human carrion mingled with pieces of
ship.

The guns spoke on, and the bombs replied.

"How far to the coast?" von Lappus demanded.

Kurt tried to estimate. "Twenty kilometers."

"What speed are we making, helmsman?"

167

"Twenty-four knots, sir."

Kurt glanced at the pit log. Jager was losing speed.
Too much for the boilers?

Haber looked up from the man he was tending. "Got to
keep her going for a half hour. Can we?"

The guns never slowed, nor did the bombs.

A napalm canister hit water portside amidships, spray-
ing Jager with flaming jellied gasoline. One of the 40mm
mounts was in its path. Screaming men died before the
washdown system could save them.

Von Lappus risked looking out a door. The washdown
system was unable to flush the napalm. He whirled.
"Wiedermann! Man some hoses. Get rid of the torpedo in
that port tube! If the fire reaches it. ..." He did not need
to describe what a ton of TNT could do.

Hans took several men and ran down to the torpedo
deck. While some brought hoses into action, two stripped
the canvas covers from the tube, and Hans readied the
firing box. He hit the fire button. The torpedo left the tube
with a whoosh, dove through fire, hit the sea—and did not
go anywhere. The propellers were dead. Bullet holes along
the tube told why. As Jager hurried away, the torpedo's
nose sank. Its aft portion stood out of the water like a
milepost along a doom-time road.

Another plane came in, cannon fire sweeping the hose
crews and Hans's two helpers off the torpedo deck. A
three-inch mount evened things as the plane pulled up,
going away.

Hans crawled from beneath the torpedo tube and
sprinted forward, up the ladder to the bridge. Kurt hauled
him through the door. His wound was bleeding again.

"Damn! You were lucky!" Kurt said, patting him on the
back. His mind slipped right off thoughts of the unlucky
ones.

"Not finished yet," Hans replied as Haber replaced his
bandage. "Fire's still burning."

"Ranke, get some men from Combat and reman those
hoses!" the Captain ordered.

Swallowing his adam's apple, Kurt said, "Yes sir." He
hurried down the inside ladder, into Combat, and selected
a half-dozen men whose jobs were least important. They
went out the sonar-room door, caught the flopping hoses,
turned streams of water and foam on the napalm.

They killed most of the fire during a lull. There was just
one small pool in the maindeck, a ways aft. Kurt ordered
the hoses moved that way.

Something spanged off the deck near him as he watched

168

the work. A second something whined by, then a third
ricocheted off his helmet, spinning him around and down.
On hands and knees, he took cover behind a ruined potato
locker and looked for the plane.

He saw none.

The nearest was just banking in for an attack. He
searched the ship around him, saw nothing. His heart
suddenly doubled its pace as full terror struck. Marquis
was in action once again, for what reason he could not
imagine. It was madness to shoot at a man here where
Death was already establishing his throne.

The last of the napalm washed over the side. "Get those
hoses secured!" Kurt shouted. "Down!" The attacking plane
roared over, strafing the bridge. "Get back to Combat"
Once they were gone, he sprinted to the ladder leading to
the wings.

He reached the bridge level panting and started for-
ward, but something caught his eye. Scattered on the deck
aft the closed bridge, where the mainmast and a small
locker for keeping cleaning gear provided a good hiding
place, were several brass cartridge cases. He knelt and
touched one of the casings. Still warm. He glanced toward
where he had been standing on the torpedo deck. Yes,
Marquis had crouched here to do his sniping.

He heard the scream of air over wings, the gossip of
cannons, hit the deck. Shells played tattoo on the bulkhead
nearby. One shattered the wooden box housing the psy-
chrometer. A pistol hit the deck near Kurt's head. He
glanced up. Hidden inside the psychrometer box? He
sniffed the muzzle. It had been fired recently. He rose,
tucked it inside his waistband.

And almost instantly threw himself down again. Anoth-
er plane coming in. But it passed over aft, leaving a
horrendous roar and the scream of metal torn like paper.
A ball of fire boiled up from the fantail.

Kurt scrambled to and through the door of the closed
bridge. "A hit aft!" he gasped as Hans pulled him in.

Across the bridge, in the Captain's chair, Haber was
patching a wound in his own left leg. "I'll have to go to
the mess decks then," he gasped.

At the same moment the helmsman shouted, "Rudder
doesn't respond, sir."

Von Lappus growled, "Shift your engine and cable."

"Aye, sir. Shifting to port steering engine and port
cable." A few seconds passed. "Rudder still doesn't an-
swer, sir."

"Shift control to after steering."

169

"Sir," a phone talker said, "Engineering reports after
steering heavily damaged. Damage Control is there now.
Some flooding, and a small fire."

Von Lappus swore vitriolically, asked, "What's your
rudder angle, helm?"

Ten degrees starboard, sir."

Glancing out the door, Kurt could see Jager was running
a large circle. Smoke poured from the hole in the fantail.
"We could steer with our engines," he said.

Van Lappus nodded. He let Jager finish her circle,
gave the orders. The vessel shuddered, slowed as her
engines fought to balance the frozen rudder. "How far to
the coast now?"

"Fifteen kilometers!" Kurt shouted. But his words were
lost as a stick of bombs exploded before the bow. Jager
staggered into falling spray. "Fifteen kilometers!" he
shouted again.

Beside Kurt, Hans muttered, "Don't they ever run out
of bombs?" He stared at a plane coming in low from
starboard. A five-inch shell scored a direct hit, shattered
the aircraft five hundred meters out. There was a tremen-
dous fireball as aviation fuel exploded. A tongue of hur-
tling fire almost reached the ship.

"Maybe that was the last one," Kurt said. "I don't see
any more."

He was correct. Air and sea soon grew quiet. Fighting
her rudder, Jager staggered landward.

"Boatswain, pass the word that the men can leave their
stations to go to the head, or get sandwiches—after battle
reports reach the bridge."

A half hour passed. The sun rose. Kurt walked the wings,
looking at the ship. She appeared wrecked, yet damage
reports were optimistic. The rudder was almost clear.
Most all flooding had been stopped. Men were clearing the
topside wreckage. A miracle—Jager was still afloat. Not
a man aboard had expected her to survive the concerted
attack of a half-dozen Australian planes.

Kurt returned to the pilothouse and slumped against the
chart table, exhausted. He had had, finally, time to think.

Haber, after finishing his work in the mess decks, with a
covey of boatswains and junior officers, limped off to
inspect the worst damage. Once his party cleared the
bridge, Kurt turned to von Lappus and whispered, "I'm
sure I know who Marquis is now." He began shaking. "He
took a couple shots at me while I was getting the napalm
off the torpedo deck."

The Captain's eyebrows rose. Kurt gave him the shell

170

casings and pistol. He considered them a moment,
frowned, asked, "Who? And what do you think we should
do?"

Kurt rubbed his temples, thought, finally replied, "I dont
know. ... I always thought Heinrich was my friend. . . ."
His eyes caught something, his shoulders slumped forward
in despair. "It doesn't matter now." He pointed.

Far away, on the horizon, was a line of silhouetted
masts, and dark smoke hanging low. The trapping force
he expected, coming from the south.

"How far?" von Lappus asked, pointing to the Indian
coastline ahead.

"Maybe two kilometers." Estimating was difficult. It
was a jungled coast, ragged, indefinite in its meeting with
the sea.

"Can't make it." Von Lappus grabbed a phone. "Engine
room!" he shouted. "Secure your boilers!" A pause. "I
don't care if you'll have trouble firing them again! I don't
want any smoke." The stacks were soon clear. Jager
quickly lost way.

Von Lappus returned to the phone. "Engine room? Get
Mr. Czyzewski." A pause while the Chief Engineer was
located, then, "Ski? Trouble coming up. Give me a twen-
ty-degree list to starboard. Yes, you heard right. Rood the
voids, the bunkers, whatever you have to do. No! Just do
it. You got that fire out in after steering? Good. Forget
the repairs. This's more important. I want this ship to look
dead." He slammed the phone down. "Boatswain, I want
every man below the maindeck, hidden. Hoepner! Where's
Lieutenant Hoepner?"

"Here, sir."

"Break out the small arms. Issue them to the landing
party."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. Do it." He turned to Kurt. "Ranke,
you stick with me. How long till those ships get here?"

Kurt looked toward the Australians. He shrugged. "Half
an hour, I suppose. They're probably running all out."

"Thank you. You men, clear the bridge. Get below the
maindeck. We'll organize later." He paused, thinking.
"Wiedermann, launch the boats. Drag the liferafts below.
We may need them later. Dress the dead in lifejackets and
put them over with the boats. Anything we can afford to
throw away, do it."

"Sir?"

"Why does everyone ask questions? Do it."

Hans hurried away. Within minutes he had men scurry-

171

ing here and there, working. Soon J'dger was surrounded
by boats, corpses, and debris. With help from Engineering,
she had taken on a pronounced list to starboard. She soon
appeared a badly wounded ship whose crew had abandoned
her for the nearby coast.

"Good!" the Captain rumbled, surveying her from the
bridge. "Now, if we get the 'if's' working our way, we
may get out of this."

"Sir?" Kurt asked.

"// they're interested in capturing salvageable ships,
and ;'/ they're not willing to waste a warship to do the
work, we may get home yet." He would add nothing
more.

xvm

THE enemy cruisers came within firing range. One lobbed
a tentative shell which fell half a kilometer short. Kurt,
half asleep against a bulkhead, awakened. Von Lappus
studied the Australians through binoculars. Minutes
passed. Another shell fell, again at a distance. "Ah," said
the Captain. "They're interested. A destroyer's turning out
to look us over."

Kurt studied her, was dismayed. Even unharmed,
Jager would have been outgunned.

Far to the east, beyond the horizon, a rumbling com-
menced. Little guns and big made their forceful argu-
ments, cried, Mannerdammerung!

In the north, defying High Command orders, the admi-
ral of the Western fleet withheld the final blow of an easy
victory, turned his ships and raced to the aid of his
beleaguered auxiliaries.

"They've caught the fleet," the Captain muttered.
"Come on." He went to the inside ladder and down.

Kurt collected his machine-pistol and followed, tired,
fighting the urge to drop and fall asleep. He stumbled,
caught himself. The ladder was difficult because of the
list.

Von Lappus led Kurt to the ship's laundry, puzzling him
until he saw the shell holes in the outside bulkhead, just
above the deck, facing the approaching destroyer. They
lay on their bellies and watched the Australian rush
closer.

"What if we drift inshore while we're waiting?"

"A chance we have to take. We're gambling big." Von
Lappus smiled thinly. "We can always walk home. Might
do me good, help me lose a little weight."

Shortly, one of the destroyer's guns belched fire. The
shell fell two hundred meters short, woke Kurt.

"Stay awake, boy," von Lappus growled.

Kurt rubbed his eyes. "I'm so tired I don't really care
any more," he mumbled. "I want to hurt them because

they're keeping me awake. But I never wanted to hurt

anybody."
Von Lappus looked at him narrowly. "Take it easy, or

you'll earn yourself the big sleep."

The destroyer came on. Three kilometers. Two. One.
She wasted no more ammunition, but did keep her guns
fixed on Jager. She slackened pace as she drew nearer,
until, at a distance of a few hundred meters, she was just
making steerage way. She stole past her wounded relative
mere meters away, increased speed, turned, came back for
another pass. This time, as she drew abeam, the doors of
her bridge opened and a half-dozen men with rifles

stepped out.

"What? ..."

"Get down!" von Lappus snapped.

Kurt dropped and buried his head in his arms. The
chatter of small arms and the whine of ricochets lasted

perhaps a minute.

"Hope the men keep control," the Captain muttered.

The destroyer turned again and made a third pass. The
small arms again, worse, then water foamed under her
stem and she sped after her fellows, by this time well on
their ways north. The sound of distant firing had become a
constant grumble.

"What now?" Kurt asked.

"We wait, and hope the salvage ship's unarmed. You

can sleep now."
Kurt made a pillow of his arms and weapon, slept.

Others prepared, were given their parts in detail. Jager
was ready when the salvage ship appeared three hours

later.

She was not unarmed, being a tanker with a three-inch

mount on her forecastle deck.               ;

Von Lappus woke Kurt and gave him his instructions—
he was to lead the operation about to begin. He felt no
better for his sleep, nor for the charge placed on him. The
latter depressed him. He hoped he would not fail. His own
survival would depend on his betraying his ideals. ...

The oiler approached as cautiously as had the destroy-
er, but wasted no time making passes. She stopped along-
side. Her deck force put fenders over to keep the vessels
from injuring each other. She eased closer.

"She must have a full load," Kurt whispered to von
Lappus. "Look how low she's riding."

"This's more than I'd hoped for," the Captain replied.
"She'll have enough fuel to get us home—assuming we
take her and get away clean. She'll be slow."

"They're ready." A dozen Australians jumped to
lager's maindeck, immediately set about making the two
vessels fast. "Now?" Kurt asked.

Von Lappus shook his head. "A couple minutes yet. Let
them tie up first. Don't want them to be able to pull
away. Oh, hell!" A wish for tears was in his voice. Some-
one had opened up with a machinegun. "Too soon," von
Lappus moaned. "Too goddam soon!" Firing broke out all
along Jager's starboard side. Men were falling and fleeing
aboard the Australian. "Go!" the Captain thundered. "Try
anyway. Get the wireless room first."

Kurt studied the tall superstructure built over the tank-
er's stem, spotted what he thought was the wireless room,
nodded. Then he was on his feet and running. He burst
through a door, sprinted to the side, and, exhilarated,
leaped aboard the Australian. Others rushed with him.
Small arms chattered, clearing the enemy decks, lager's
main battery swung around, but remained silent.

"Wieslaw! Fritz! Adolf!" Kurt shouted at three men
nearby. "Stick with me!"

He sprayed a ladder with his machine-pistol, climbed it,
did the same with another and another. Then he stopped,
jerked a door open, plunged through.

Terrified sailors inside were desperately preparing a
radio message. Kurt shot the man at the transmitter.
Someone shot back, missed Kurt, hit Adolf. Kurt threw
himself back out, to one side. Wieslaw chucked a grenade
in. A moment later, the wireless and several operators had
been silenced forever.
Then up another ladder, to the bridge level.
Someone there had had time to react. Several shots
whined past Kurt and his two men. They ducked behind a
ventilator. More shots. Kurt fired back, emptying his
weapon. He slipped a new clip in. "Cover me, Wes," he
told the nearer of the two.

Wieslaw fired at the door. Kurt crawled toward it,
beneath the bullets.

Whang! Something hit the bulkhead a foot above him.
He scrambled for the ventilator.

"Over there!" said Wieslaw, pointing. He and Fritz fired
several wild shots. Kur^ looked. A figure in Littoral white
leaned around the signal shack and snapped off a shot
The bullet narrowly missed Kurt's hand.

"Damn! Wes, give me a grenade!" Strangely, he felt
none of his earlier fear. He pulled the pin, stood, hurled
the grenade across the space between ships. It arced
down, wide of its mark by a half dozen meters, plunged

into a flag bag. A cloud of torn fabric exploded upward,
drifted like holiday confetti.

The gunman quit before Kurt could throw again, a
white flash as he slipped over the far side of Jager's
signal bridge.

"All right, let's try these people again."

The Pole resumed shooting, with Fritz doing his load-
ing. Kurt crawled forward until he was beside the door of
the Australian pilothouse. "Captain?" he called in English.
"To surrender this ship you had best."

No answer.

lager spoke. Kurt jumped to his feet, startled, saw that
the remaining forward five-inch mount had fired on sailors
trying to man the oiler's anti-aircraft guns. The mass of
smoking wreckage on the tanker's forecastle deck seemed
convincing proof of who had whom....

But no. The Autralian, still shuddering from the ex-
plosion, jerked underfoot, rolled, yawed swiftly. Mooring
lines parted with loud reports. Water boiling behind her,
the tanker began to pull away.

"Mr. Ranke," Wieslaw called, "they're free. We've got
to get off!"

Kurt considered hastily, decided he could not take the
ship with the few men already aboard. "Jump!" he
shouted.

Wieslaw and Frifz hesitated. "What about Adolf?" one
asked

"Jump!" He fired at the bridge door, turned, hurried to
the lower level, where they had left the wounded man.
"Adolf, we've got to jump for it. How's your arm?"

"Ill make it—with a little help."

Kurt helped him to his feet. "A long way down," he
said, looking over the rail. "Scary."

Shots from above whined past them. Adolf jumped.
Kurt leaped behind him, weapon held high.

It seemed an eternity before green water smacked his
feet. Below, bullets sent white splashes reaching toward
him. ... He hit poorly, lost the machine-pistol. The wind
exploded from him. He nearly drowned as he fought
taking a breath, surfaced sputtering, coughed up bitter
seawater, struggled in panic—until he remembered Adolf.

Treading water, he looked around. Bullets fell like rain-
drops, it seemed, though in reality they were few. Others
jumped from the tanker. Jager covered them with her
lighter weapons. A 40mm mount systematically wrecked
the Australian's bridge. The oiler strained desperately at
the hopeless task of escape. She was dead, and probably

176

knew it. Surely, when she opened to a range where fires
and explosions would no longer endanger Jager, she
would receive a fatal shelling.

Blood stained the water in places. As Kurt located
Adolf, trying to swim one-armed, he realized sharks would
soon gather. Lent strength by sudden fear, he seized
Adolfs hair, quickly towed him to Jager's side. Risking
Australian fire, sailors tossed them a line. Kurt looped it
beneath Adolf's arms, treaded water while awaiting his
own turn to be hoisted up. Above, riflemen already stood
by, watching for the first gray, dark-finned torpedo shapes
to come gliding in for the feast.

40mm mounts and machineguns nagged the Australian
endlessly. Return fire died—the tanker was beyond the
range of her small arms. Then, as Kurt drippingly ap-
proached the man to explain his failure, von Lappus
ordered, "Main battery, fire!" The five-inchers interrupted
lighter natter with fiery exclamations. The oiler had
managed almost a kilometer, her last. The big shells ripped
her open, fired her cargo. Kurt, suddenly ashamed, watched
mites of men leap into the sea, only to be received by
floating, burning oil. He turned away, forced his mind to
business—so much death, so many at his own hand, and
he the man who always insisted he would hurt no one. ...

"Ski, get steam as fast as you can." The Captain's voice
betrayed none of his disappointment. Kurt glanced
around. The officers had gathered while he brooded. Von
Lappus was planning a new move already—in the light of
the burning ship he appeared demonic. "Heinrich, see to
the wounded. Hoepner, clean and check the guns. Inven-
tory the small arms, see how many we lost." Far, scarcely
audible over the noise of the dying tanker, the Meeting's
rumble suddenly redoubled. The Western fighting units
had come to rescue the auxiliaries, though for most it was
too late. "Ranke, you and I will take us to shore. Heiden,
inventory stores. Separate the essentials, especially salt.
It'll be a long trek through hot country...." This last was
weary, more to himself than his listeners.

As they reached the bridge, Kurt said, 'Tin sorry I
couldn't manage." Emotionally numbed by what he had
done—the shooting, the killing—he had not as yet recog-
nized the full depth of Jager's plight. The walk home was
a matter of theory no longer. The destroyer was too
gravely wounded to hazard the sea journey—even provid-
• ing she evaded Australian capture.

"No matter," said von Lappus, now a sad old man.

177

"You did your best. If only I could find the man who fired
that first burst...."

Kurt had a sudden grim suspicion that Marquis was
responsible, then decided the man could have no motive.
Yet the notion was less insane than High Command oper-
ations as a whole. Even after Ritual War, he had no idea
of the true, modern end toward which that organization
worked.

Two hundred quiet, gloomy men labored listlessly to
bring Jager inshore, into a cove where she anchored and
hoped to be invisible against the jungled background. The
guns yet rumbled on the sea, and smoke made a cloud in
the north. Dawn's slow-moving rain arrived. In the wet,
weary sailors filled the liferafts with stores. Some, unen-
thusiastic about the long walk ahead, insisted the ship was
hale enough to make it home.

On the watery battlefield, Western ships expended their
last shells. They had fought bravely in an, uncommonly
long and savage engagement, and still had numbers in
their favor, but could do nothing with empty magazines.
One revived the ancient practice of striking colors. Others
followed suit, for all escape routes were closed. Gradually,
the Australians bunched them up, forced them southward.

Steaming independently, out of sight, Purpose and a
smaller sister waited for the end. When the battleship's
radar repeaters portrayed the disposition of forces direct-
ed and desired, she would turn toward the waning battle.

Unaccountably, to Kurt, the sun set that dying day. He
had not expected to see its rising, let alone outlive its
passage west. Should he thank the Fates for his survival?
In those few free moments he obtained during the day,
when he was not too busy to think, he dwelt upon what he
had done, on faces which had abandoned life before him.
All he could do to soothe his conscience, at first, was
repeat .a silent formula that he had had to do it for his own
survival. Yet a small monster with a Karen-voice gleefully
mocked in the dungeons of his mind, down in the deep
darkness where the evil was imprisoned, loudly reminded
him he need not have been here at all. As a consequence,
he worked harder than necessary, drowned his conscience
in a dizzy wine of fatigue.

And, as men have shown a nearly universal knack for
doing, he soon managed a transference of guilt. The true
culprit, he convinced himself, was High Command. With-
out High Command, none need have died, none need have
spilled blood to the pleasure of Ares. Thus he reinforced
his developed hatred, grew increasingly determined to see

the spiders of Gibraltar fall prey in their own web—no
matter that he was fifteen thousand kilometers distant and
a lone man unequipped to drag them down. As, on leaving
Kiel, he had not believed in Jager's mortality, neither
could he accept his own death as a possibility of the
journey home.

In weariness, with his conscience temporarily appeased,
he slept soundly that night. Not even the threat of Mar-
quis bothered him. Because he feared so much and this
interfered with his blithe advance into the future, he had
tried to ignore the dangers of the day. By nightfall he had
almost forgotten. The wardens of his subconscious kept
him in van Lappus's company, or in a crowd, always
armed, but at levels of awareness he abandoned the mat-
ter to Fate.

In fact, when Marquis did cross his mind, he welcomed
the possibility of confrontation. He had things to say to the
man, things which had brewed and boiled within him since
Otto's death.

Day dawned fair, and Kurt had hopes he might soon set
foot on land. As at Rotnagiri, von Lappus had kept him
aboard for his own safety. Darkness ashore was too much
Marquis's ally, the beachhead too widely dispersed and
confused. ... His hope was stillborn.

Just six kilometers distant, a vast mass of battered ships
milled. Through Jager's telescope, Kurt saw they were of
both sides. Western ships shepherded by a handful of
Australians. Almost every vessel was terribly wounded.

"What's happening?" Hans asked breathlessly, climbing
onto the signal bridge.

Kurt turned from the telescope, saw that most of the
dozen men aboard had gathered. "I don't know. Strange
business. Hope they don't spot us." He did not think they
would. Lying parallel to the coast, Jager blended well
with her background.

"Look, Kurt!" Hans pointed.

Kurt looked, was too startled to note Hans's renewed
familiarity. The High Command battleship, with a smaller
cruiser in company, had appeared in the north, perhaps
twelve kilometers from the formation. "What now?" Kurt
mumbled, turning to Hans.

Wiedermann was pale beneath his tan. He stumbled
over his tongue several times, fighting some fierce internal
battle, before managing, "Get down from here! Every-
body get inside the ship. Engineers' quarters."

His reward was questioning looks, then slow compliance
as sailors heeded his urgency. Kurt bent to the telescope

again, turned it toward Purpose. That vessel's guns swung
slowly, toward the ships. . . .
"Kurt, come on! Let's get out of here!" Hans seized his

arm, pulled him toward the ladder.

Bemused, Kurt wondered why the excitement, supposed
Hans had his reasons. He did not like those that came to

mind.

As they reached the maindeck, smoke belched from one
of the battleship's guns. Hans ran. Kurt followed, ducked
inside, went down the ladder to engineers' quarters....

Color faded from the passageway above. It was flooded
with raw, overwhelming light. Even several times reflected
as it was, it hurt Kurt's eyes. When, after a few seconds, it
faded, he found the afterimages almost as blinding. And it

was hot, so hot....

"Grab something!" Hans shouted. He threw himself to
the deck, braced his body between partitions. Kurt and
the others followed his lead, though all faces wore ques-
tioning frowns....

There was a roar like all the guns of time firing in
salvo, a thunderclap followed by the grumble of a cosmic
waterfall, lager leaped, heeled over, groaned. Air pres-
sure changed radically. Kurt's ears were pits of agony.

"Hang on!" Hans cried. "Tidal wave ..." It hit, lifted
the destroyer, bounced her like a cork, passed on. Kurt
started to rise. "Not yet!" said Hans. "Back blast." That
came shortly, a fierce wind from the direction opposite the
earlier shocks, though not nearly as bad.

Then Kurt climbed to his feet. He had a dozen bruises
and abrasions; a trickle of blood ran from his nose. "This's
where it started," he mumbled. Memories came back. "But
natural weather. A bird's cry. A cool north wind. And
Man, who would be a god, what hath he wrought?" He
suspected, oh, he suspected the worst of evils. He rushed
up the ladder, out onto the maindeck.

His worst suspicions were confirmed. A mighty, wicked
tower it was, standing where a hundred ships had died, a
tombstone tickling the clouds, a huge, phallic mushroom,
the thing not seen these past two centuries of War. . . .
"Atomic bomb!" he gasped. The ultimate horror, the
bleak black wicked thing of such hated history, such
conditioned dread, that even the hardest, most uncaring
man watching was permanently turned against High Com-
mand.

"Oh, no!" someone cried in a voice of angry tears. Kurt
turned, glad someone shared his outrage and dismay. But,
he immediately saw, the cry was not for the bomb. It was

the eulogy of the crew, the two hundred men who had
been camped on the beach—flash, heat, wind, wave had
done what the Australians had failed to do, destroyed
them utterly. A dozen blinded, dazed, burned men wand-
ered the wrack- and corpse-strewn beach, the holocaust's
few survivors. Smoke from seared trees drifted on now
still air, a veil for ruin. Kurt noticed how all Jager's
paint, facing the blast, had been blackened and blistered.

He checked his men. Of the dozen who had been
aboard, all but two stood with him, staring at the dying
mushroom. "Where's the Captain?" he asked. Drawing no
response, he shouted, "Captain!"

"Up here." Looking up, Kurt saw von Lappus leaning
against the bridge rail. "Mueller's here, too."

"Shall I send the raft ashore, sir?"

"What raft?"

Kurt looked aft. Not only the liferaft, but the accom-
modation ladder as well had been lost to the wave. They
would have to swim.

"Look!" Hans gasped. Kurt turned again. The atomic
cloud had begun to disperse, but another event had
claimed Wiedermann's breath. Limned by the cloud, a
ship staggered landward. She was many times more dam-
aged than lager. Her masts and stacks were gone, much
of her superstructure was destroyed. Her pace was terribly
slow, barely steerage way. Though she was little more
than three kilometers offshore, it might take her an hour
to reach the beach—if she made it at all.

In her grim, determined try for life, Kurt saw an
allegory of the struggling race. Mankind was, these days, a
ruined, dying vessel in its last desperate hour, grasping for
anything to save it from following the dinosaurs into
oblivion.

There was little allegorical significance, for Kurt, in the
High Command battleship's getting up steam and charging
toward the mortally wounded ship. He had, though uncon-
sciously, been expecting something of the sort. From all
he had learned since departing Kiel, this was High Com-
mand's function: destruction. Once again, the mystery of
that organization's purpose plagued him.

The game was hare and hounds—with the hare already
half dead. Or cat and mouse, for Purpose ignored the
quick kill of which her guns were capable. Rather, with
her smaller sister tagging kilometers behind, she raced to
cut the vessel off. Though this seemed cruelest torture,
Kurt suspected there was good reason—perhaps to make

certain there were absolutely no escapees. Which bode ill
for Jager.

The events of the past few days, of the whole cruise,
were coming to a head in Kurt's soul, he hated, and
needed to cause pain. His "How?" in response to Hans's
"We've got to help them" was cold, deadly serious. His
whole existence, briefly, was bound toward one object,
destruction of that battleship.

Hans thought. Obviously, the guns were useless. They
would be mosquito bites to that steel leviathan. "The other
torpedo!" he declared.

"It's all shot up."

"How do you know? Let's look, at least." Hans grew
excited, much as Kurt remembered him when he had
gotten a chance to lead in their childhood games—so long
ago, that age of innocence, so happy even in gray times.
So much he had lost by coming: wife, child, youth ... He
caught Hans's enthusiasm, raced with him to the torpedo
deck. Both ignored von Lappus's shouted orders to aban-
don ship and get far inland before Jager was discovered.

Purpose came implacably onward, would intercept the
wounded vessel little more than a half kilometer offshore,
would do so in less than fifteen minutes.

"No holes," said Hans, after a quick check of the tube.
"You pull the covers. I'll check the firing circuits."

Kurt bent to his task ferociously. The minutes hurtled
past. A small, sane part of his mind screamed that this
was madness, thai he was risking his life on an impossible
venture, that he should swim for safety as fast as he
could. He ignored that voice. For once he would stand
and fight. He tried to forget how he had played the tool in
previous stands, ignored the fact that he fought only for
anger and hatred—twin heads of a dragon, the same that
had gotten this War rolling in the first place.

Hans shouted angrily, inarticulately. Kurt yanked the last
of the canvas free, went to his side, discovered the cause
of his rage. An aircraft cannon shell had punched a neat
hole through the firing box. The test circuits said it was
dead. "Kurt, I've got to sink that ship!" said Hans. His
intensity was tremendous. "I have to. ..."

As a symbol of his father, like his secret rebellion, his
joining Gregor's movement? Or something else? A kalei-
doscope of notions swirled through Kurt's mind. From
odds and ends came shape, at first fuzzy, then solid cer-
tainty: atonement. And Kurt, who had seen Hans suffer so
much, for the moment forgave. He had no time, then, to

weigh in the balance and see how it tipped. "Open it," he
suggested.

Hans did so. The damage was instantly apparent. Two
thin wires, color-coded, had been cut by the passing bul-
let.

"Twist the ends together," said Kurt. He glanced at the
battleship, looming huge now. "Hurry. We haven't long."
Maybe five minutes if they meant to save the cripple. That
vessel continued landward unswervingly.

"I've got the blue ones," said Hans, "but there isn't
enough slack in the red."

"Oh, damn!" Scarcely thinking, Kurt dashed to the
other tube, ripped its firing box open, yanked out a hand-
ful of wire.

"Hurry up!" Hans demanded.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" As he crossed the deck, he
used his knife to pare away insulation. "Hera."

Hans snatched the wire, quickly bridged the gap in the
circuit. He closed the box. "How deep does her armor
run?"

Kurt shrugged. "I don't remember. Try six meters."

"She draws about eleven. I'll go for eight. Contact
detonation?"

"Best hope, old as the torpedo is. I'd guess she's doing
fifteen knots."

"The circuits are clear. Air pressure up ..."

"Shoot!" Kurt cried. Something told him the battleship
was about to open fire. Worse, he had just seen sudden
activity on this side of the warship. Jager had been
discovered.

"Go!" Hans shouted. Compressed air whooshed the
torpedo from the tube. It hit the sea with a great splash
and vanished. For a long moment nothing happened, Kurt
and Hans felt their hopes toppling—then a trail of bubbles
boiling surged toward Purpose. The two danced, howled,
hugged one another. This was the first time they had done
something together and carried it to fruitful conclusion.

The battleship spoke. On her far side, at no more than
two hundred meters, the flying dutchman abandoned her
unnatural life, disintegrated.

"Hans, we've got to get off!" said Kurt. Purpose's sec-
ondary mounts were turning toward them.

The torpedo struck. An immense veil of water rose
and momentarily concealed the forward half of the bat-
tleship. Water-bom concussion and sound hit Jager with
almost the fury of the atomic blast. The destroyer

r

groaned. . . . Purpose's bow lifted clear of the sea, fell

ponderously back.

K-urt waited to see no more. He ran, leaped from the
torpedo deck on the landward side, fell, fell. He was still
struggling upward when Hans hit nearby. They surfaced,

swam hard.
Something roared, something hit them with a million

fists. Agony. A moment later, gasping for breath, Hans

said, "Must've been her magazines."

"Swim!" Kurt gasped in reply. He remembered Pur-
pose's smaller sister, now surely dashing in for revenge.
They reached land, lay panting on the beach, listened to
the ongoing explosions. Kurt rolled onto his back, saw,
though lager blocked part of the view. Purpose slowly
turn belly upward like some monstrous, dying fish. Her
entire bow section had been torn free, stood nose out of
the water a short distance off. She was surrounded by
swimming men, some of whom tried to climb onto her
corpse, some of whom started for the beach. "Hans, we've

got to run. . .."

Something roared overhead and fell into the blasted
jungle, exploded. To the north, Purpose's Eastern sister
bore down like a fiery dragon, trailing smoke of muzzle
blasts. Kurt and Hans staggered to their feet.

"Where're the others?" Hans demanded.

After a thunder of exploding shells, Kurt replied, "Al-
ready gone. Grab something to take. Anything."

Without real thought to future needs, they chased about
the beachhead, seizing anything portable. Kurt took an
abandoned pistol, a rifle, an ammunition box, some loose
clothing, his soggy seabag—found lying beneath a decapi-
tated tree. Staggering under the unwieldy load, he hurried
into the jungle. Hans was close behind with an equally

difficult and inappropriate burden.

Behind them, a salvo fell squarely astraddle Jager.
With only a sigh, which might have been for her long-
delayed release, she settled to the bottom. Only her mast-
heads, stacks, and signal bridge remained visible.

The High Command cruiser, which had directed the
Australian Gathering, eased to a stop nearby. Some of her
men set about rescuing Purpose's crew. Others armed
themselves to go ashore. High Command wanted no single

lay survivor of this Meeting.

In the jungle, Kurt and Hans, both in pain, hurried
along the trail left by Jager's fleeing survivors. "It's
finally over," Kurt gasped. "We're free." But, inside, he
knew it was not. There were still a few last moves in the

game.

XIX

THEY lay close, behind a fallen tree, as the High Com-
mand landing party passed. Kurt shivered, his teeth chat-
tered, as he peered down the moonlit barrel of his rifle.
He tried to convince himself he was cold, but the lie
would not stick. The jungle was sweltering. At least fifty
men were out there, and he was afraid. He and Hans
would have no chance against those numbers.

All day they had vainly sought von Lappus and his
party, all day they had listened to the hunters moving
close behind them. Finally, unable to continue, they had
hidden. Kurt hurt inside. He had wanted to warn the
others of the pursuit. His body had failed him. Hans,
though wounded, had been able to go on, but had refused
to leave him.

As the noise of the High Command rear guard faded,
Kurt noticed Hans's breathing was deep and regular.
Moving closer, he saw Wiedermann sleeping, cheek against
rifle stock. He should keep watch, but he was just too
tired.... Yet sleep would not come, once he surrendered—
because now he had an opportunity to think, and bleak,
sad thoughts kept him awake.

He thought mostly of Hans Wiedermann, this strange
little man beside him, who had shared so much of his life,
yet who was such a great unknown. Hans, who had saved
his life more than once, and who had tried to take it as
often. Hans, he had sadly decided, was Marquis, the killer
he had sought so long. Marquis and Brindled Saxon, part
of two worlds. And, Kurt suspected, he had played both
parts to the hilt, for Hans was that way—yet how had he
managed two loyalties?

Though the evidence had been before him for months,
Kurt had refused to surrender his suspicions of Haber—he
wanted Hans to be innocent, wanted Hans as his friend,
wanted for Hans the human things so long denied him—
till this morning. Proof of Haber's innocence had come
during the assault on the tanker. The sniper, then, had
worn enlisted white, not officer's khaki. Then the atomic

185

shell. Only a Political Officer could have expected it, had
been intended to survive it.

After fleeing his thoughts through mind-jungles for an
hour, he could resist no longer. He shook Hans.

Wiedermann was instantly alert. "What? They spot us?"

"No, they're gone." There was a period of deep silence
between them. Hans knew his thoughts. Kurt asked,
"Why?"

Hans accepted the question without emotion. Kurt
thought he had been misunderstood. Then Hans said, "I
really don't know, Kurt. I seem to be two people. What's
the word? Schizophrenia? I don't always know what I'm
doing, but I know what I've done—though I don't always
know why." His words were soft, neither contrite nor
defiant. "I don't understand me. If this were the Middle
Ages, I'd call it possession. This morning, for instance.
Something hit me, I fired the burst that warned the
tanker. Why, I can't explain. I just had to. I could've
killed myself once I did. I went to the signal bridge, then,
to cover you. You were my friend. I didn't want you hurt.
And, as I lay there shooting through their pilothouse door,
I thought about Karen. I wondered if she'd have me back
if you didn't make it. Next thing I knew, you were
throwing a grenade at me. Kurt, I don't know why I did
it! I must be sick." He tapped his temple.

Kurt found he could not be angry—Hans's flat tone
somehow made his explanation acceptable—nor could he
hate. Perhaps the emotion and killing that day had burned
him out—yet there were scores of long standing to be
settled. "What about the others? Otto, Erich, Gregor?"

"And Obermeyer. Can't forget Obermeyer. He hurts the
most. The others, at least, I can justify to myself."
"Justify? Go ahead."

"Should I start with Otto? Otto was an accident. He
was drunk, wouldn't stay down in the compartment. He
woke up after we took him down—several times, in fact.
He'd start toward Operations' quarters, to get Hippke—
those two hotheads could've ruined the whole resistance
program that night—would pass out, and I'd carry him
back to bed. The last time, though, he wouldn't pass out.
We argued. He called me traitor, pulled a knife, we
wrestled around. Then something took control of me.
Next thing I knew, Otto was hanging on the lifelines, I
had his bloody knife in my hand, and someone was run-
ning on the torpedo deck. You. I panicked, ran. I didn't
think anyone would believe it was an accident, not with

my father a Political Officer and Otto talking like he did
at dinner."

Uncertain whether or not to believe, Kurt made no
comment. It sounded logical, plausible, and Hans ap-
peared to be making no excuses. On the other hand, he
had had more than a year to put together a good story.

"Erich was planned. I didn't go crazy killing him, not
till afterward. I didn't want to do it, but they made me."

"Who?"

'The Political Office. They took me to the signal bridge
the day before, told me they knew I was in the under-
ground, and, if I wanted to stay alive, I would do what
they said. I doubt they cared if I got caught—so long as
Erich died. They knew the mutiny was due, wanted it
stopped. Erich was the weak spot in the plan. It couldn't
work without him. They put every pressure on me pos-
sible, even fixed up a radio link, through the battleship and
Gibraltar, to Kiel. They made me listen to my father
telling me what a disappointment I was. Finally, I gave in.
They gave me the note, which was supposed to look like
you had written it—they thought the crew would jump
you 'cause some men thought you killed Otto, and they
wanted you out of the way because, knowing English, you
were a threat—and told me to set you up for an argument
with Erich. That was easy. Erich was jumpy because the
mutiny was so close—he was a coward, never mind all his
lies about the freecorps—and you were both short-
tempered because of the heat. We all were. But I really
wished you no harm. Even though I once hated you for
taking Karen, you're the best friend I've got."

Kurt doubted. Now Hans's story did not fit what Beck's
notebook said of Marquis. Yet, surely, Hans must know
that. He could have prepared something better. So much
uncertainty...

"Obermeyer ... that was another mad fit. He went
walking one night. I followed him, like a fool asked if he'd
resign his commission. He said no. A few minutes later, I
came around with a strangled man at my feet. It was just
like with Otto, and I panicked again. I covered him with
sand and stones, sneaked back into camp, and tried to
forget. I don't think anyone ever suspected—but his
death's the hardest for me to live with. So pointless ..."

"And Gregor?" Kurt caressed the trigger of his rifle,
mildly tempted, though he suspected he could never use it.

"And Gregor. His was the only death I wanted. I was
compelled. You see, he was pretty sure I'd killed Otto and
Erich—I could sense it by the way he acted whenever we

discussed resistance problems. He was very distant, very
careful not to tell me anything he didn't want the Political
Office to know. At the same time, they were putting on the
pressure to get me to betray the underground. I knew they
were terribly interested in finding a notebook that had
belonged to Beck. They were afraid of what was in it, that
you might read it. When I saw you give it to Gregor that
night, I saw a way out of both my predicaments. I could
kill Gregor, saving myself from him, and the notebook
would buy me peace from the Political Office.

"There was trouble, especially with Deal Adam, but it
worked out. Everything went fine till this morning, when I
thought about Karen and shot at you. They'd even ac-
cepted me as a trainee, of sorts, which was how I heard
about the atomic shell—though I wasn't supposed to
know. They spoke English the day they discussed it.
You're surprised? It was always my secretest secret, the
one thing I had that you didn't, something I had that you
couldn't win away. It was one of the few things my father
ever gave me, back when he thought I'd follow him into
the Office."

Kurt sadly listened. He did not know what to do. For
more than a year, now, his hatred, his search for Otto's
murderer, had sustained him through trials and boredom.
Without it. Ritual War, and the futile search for meaning
in High Command, he might have sunk into the semi-
comatose, total apathy characterizing many of the jour-
ney's-end crew.

He had found his killer and discovered he did not care
as he thought he should. Only feelings of duty, and debt to
Otto and Gregor, kept him from that fall. They, at least,
deserved avenging in payment for the days of their lives
laid waste.

Yet logic and emotion bid him let Hans be. Logic: he
would need help and companionship traveling home from
this weary night—dawn now, for wan gray light filtered
through the leaves above. A gray sky sometimes could be
seen, when the branches moved in the growing breeze.
Emotional: he wished Hans no harm because he owed the
man something in return for taking from him. Curious, he
wondered at the bond laid upon them. Never had they
been friends, not in the deep way he and Otto had been
friendly, yet, in lucid moments, when not trying to hurt
each other, they were close as men could be.

He pondered it. Hans sat silently, waiting. Finally Kurt
abandoned the problem. Put it off. Maybe it would resolve
itself. Always, this was his way. . . . Nothing made sense.

188

He returned to the inconsistencies in Hans's story. He was
about to ask a question....

Heavy firing broke the jungle stillness, far, small arms
and grenades ... like, Kurt thought, one of the mighty
battles of old. It was scarcely a skirmish by ancient
standards, though.

"Come on," said Hans, "let's follow the noise."

Kurt was no less tired than when they had stopped, yet
the pause had refreshed his will. He shouldered the pack
he had made of his seabag, followed Hans.

Nearly an hour passed. The firing died. Only voices
heard kept them from walking into the midst of High
Command sailors gathered in a clearing.

"Get rid of your pack," Hans whispered. Both did so,
checked their weapons. Then, as learned in games of Boy
Volunteer days, they crept toward the voices. But this was
no game of steal the flag, and if you're caught, you go to
jail. Nor were there any bases. Life was the prize, and all
the jungle the playing field. They stopped near the edge of
the clearing. There were a dozen High Command sailors
in a knot there, and perhaps half as many of lager's
men, seated, hands atop heads. Those were the living. The
dead, mostly in black, were everywhere, much more nu-
merous.

From all appearances, von Lappus—who was nowhere
to be seen—had pulled a desperate maneuver, had turned
on and ambushed his pursuers, and had failed, though
three-quarters of the hunters were dead or badly wound-
ed. Kurt did not know how many of Jager's men there
had been, though he doubted there were many more than
those visible from his hiding place. Von Lappus was the
only man he knew to be missing. Most likely, the Captain
and others lay dead in the surrounding jungle.

"How should we hit them?" Hans asked.

"What if they're not all here?" Kurt realized he had no
question as to the rightness of attack. Strange, Here,
violence seemed somehow appropriate. Perhaps because it
was a dying place.

"We've got to do something. ..."

Indeed. The High Command sailors were discussing
execution. Kurt shrugged. "Just shoot, I guess." The
group, standing separate for their planned bloody purpose,
left shipmates out of the line of fire.

"All right. Make sure you're on full automatic," said
Hans. "You go from right to left. I'll go the other way."

Shivering as if a sudden coldness had come into the
breeze, Kurt glanced right for reassurance—great tower-

189

ing black doubts assailed his mind with burning power.
Hans was shooting left-handed, favoring his wounded right
arm....

"Hans, take your jumper off."

"Why?"

"Please?"

"Kurt, there's no time for games." Nevertheless, he rose
carefully and did as he was asked.

Kurt stared at his unmarked left arm. All these hours
he had thought Hans's wound intentional, to destroy the
Political Office ID mark. . . . The wrong arm. At sea,
suddenly smitten by the fact that Hans was not Marquis—
uncertain even if he had committed the murders con-
fessed—Kurt tried to banish his confusion in the press of
business at hand. Down deep, the wish to believe inno-
cence, the need for Hans, and motives he could never
understand, mixed, swirled like pinwheel colors, and from
them came, unrecognized then, forgiveness.

They fired, emptying magazines in long, dread bursts.
High Command sailors jerked, danced, fell like marionettes
with tangled and broken strings. They reloaded, paused,
saw they had done their murderous task well. The enemy
was fallen, some groaning—stunned shipmates came to
belated life, seized dropped weapons.

Too late.

Fire came from the far side of the clearing, doing unto
as had been done. Littoral sailors fell among their captors.
Kurt and Hans shot back, lacing the jungle with death.
One man in black appeared briefly, staggering. But three
live weapons remained.

They exchanged fire for several minutes, to no effect.
Bullets tore the vegetation above Kurt, showered him with
twigs and leaves. His rifle jammed. Cursing softly, he
fought it. No matter what he tried, he could not eject the
bent cartridge. He pushed the weapon aside, drew his
pistol.

As he did, a submachinegun came to violent life near
the enemy position—friendly fire, apparently, for two
High Command rifles were quickly silenced. Sounds of a
man fleeing followed. Soon, from the far side of the
clearing, von Lappus stepped into the open, smoking
weapon in the crook of his arm.

Kurt and Hans crossed that graveyard field to meet
him. Small it seemed—just large enough to contain the
dead and dying. Of the latter there were few, mostly High
Command sailors. With a dreamlike feeling of slow mo-
tion, of floating, Kurt stepped over blank, familiar faces,

shipmates who were strangers now, gone to distant lands.

• • •

The day had never been more than gray. Now a drizzle
began falling. They stood there, the three, just looking
down at the dead and soon-to-die, silent. Surprisingly, von
Lappus made the sign of the cross.

"And this's where it ends?" said Hans. It was barely
perceptible as a question, purely rhetorical.

The jungle was very still. Only the raindrops made any
sound, pitter-pattering on earth and leaves.-Kurt watched
drops trickle down the cheeks of a seaman named Karl
Adolf Eichhom, like Nature's given tears for the folly of
man. Somewhere a jungle bird called tentatively, perhaps
seeking a mate lost in the flight from the fighting.

"Well," said Hans, "one long journey done. Must we try
another?" The gloom behind his words was as gray as the
morning. "Why not end it here?"

Kurt understood. Why prolong their misery by a futile
effort to reach home? "No," gesturing with his pistol.
"Nothing else matters, but I do have to try to get back to
Karen." He turned to fetch his pack.

"Kurt!" von Lappus bellowed, falling into a sudden
crouch, lifting his weapon....

Something hit Kurt from behind. He staggered forward,
fell, rolled as von Lappus's weapon fired. He aimed, pulled
his trigger three times, wildly. Hans had time for a single
shrieked "No!" before a bullet smashed his skull.

"You idiot!" von Lappus thundered through tears, "you
goddam rock-headed beetle-brained idiot!" He hurled his
weapon to the earth. "Not Wiedermann." He fell to his
knees beside Hans. . . .

Kurt finished rolling—and there, at the edge of the
clearing, trying vainly to push entrails back inside a ruined
abdominal wall, was Heinrich Haber, shirtless. Slowly, he
toppled forward—and Kurt spied the scar on his left arm.
. . . Here was the source whence Hans's killing orders had
come.

Killing. He'd killed Hans. He'd killed Hans. It ran
through his mind in an endless chain, and suddenly he
knew what Hans had been living since Otto's death. Tor-
ment. Mad wanderings through the Dantesque hells of
his mind. He wanted death himself. "Hans!" he moaned.
"I'm sorry. I thought it was you. ..." But Hans was not
listening. How do you explain to the dead? How do
you tell them, how do you make them understand? He
threw himself on Hans as though the corpse were a lover.
"No, no, no ..."

Von Lappus turned away, to see if any of the wounded
could be saved, though he knew the search was futile.

Kurt wept a bit, then looked north through rain and
tears. Small hope that way, but Karen, and at least a
chance for a future.

192