Kane grinned. "You told the Germans you came out of the past. At least,
that's what was reported in the camera session of the court which
passed on your case this morning. One of our friends happened to be
there--and at your trial, later on."
"Was there an invisible man _there_?"
"No, he was visible and you saw him. Remember two elderly jurists who
served as a sounding board for Gestapoleiter Schwinzog? One of them is
a friend of ours. We have a good many, even inside Germany."
"He calls them friends," growled Igor Vzryvov. "I say no German can be
a friend."
"So--" Manning was numbed by surprise. "So you've had your eye on us
from the start."
"Just about."
"And you believe our story?"
"Since the Germans didn't, I'm inclined to," admitted Kane. "We know
that more things are possible than German imagination can swallow;
we've got several such things here. Of course, it's always just
possible that you're German spies, using a crazy wheels-within-wheels
stunt to get on the inside. I don't think so, though, and fortunately I
don't have to guess." He turned to Vzryvov. "Got the apparatus set up?"
"Since an hour ago," said the Russian.
Kane slid off the table top. He became brusque. "If you'll just step
into the next room, we'll read your minds and settle all doubts."
* * * * *
Fifteen minutes later, Igor Vzryvov switched off the psychoanalyzer.
Manning glanced up under the spidery hemisphere of wire that gathered
the faint broadcasts of the brain, and met Kane's warm smile. The
underground leader tossed aside the graphs he had been studying, and
extended a welcoming hand.
"You're genuine, all right. No need to examine your friend--your mind
says he came with you out of the past, and that's enough and to spare."
"Swell!" said Dugan. "I didn't much like the idea of having that thing
poking around inside my head."
Kane caressed the machine affectionately. "This is one of the best
achievements of cellar science. Thanks to it, we've got the only
leak-proof organization this sinful world has ever seen. The Nazi party
is one of the tightest setups ever created without benefit of the
psychoanalyzer, and we've got men inside it--but we _know_ that all our
members are loyal and stable." His expression darkened. "Of course,
if this and our other psychoelectronic developments got into German
hands, we'd be sunk. With their resources, they could exploit the field
a lot more thoroughly than we can. For example, Igor here has invented
a death ray that kills by just convincing a man he's dead--but to make
it an effective weapon would take a lot more power. We get a good deal
of leakage here from the Long Island station, but we have to be careful
about antennas."
The four of them sat around the table in the outer room. Harry Clark
had disappeared--literally, and then gone out to pass the word to the
agents scattered around New York that the men they sought had been
found.
"Now," said Kane, "since you're really time travelers, I'm on fire to
hear how you did it. A time machine might be a useful addition to our
arsenal, though it sounds like a tricky thing to use...."
"I'm afraid we can't help on that score," said Manning, and related the
whole story of their experience with Herr Doktor Kahl's _Zeitfahrer_.
Kane rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "So you're stranded in our
time. I feel for you! At least the Germans didn't get the machine,
either--though they have got the inventor. We may have to do something
about that. And what about you? Have any plans?"
Manning met his eyes squarely. "A hundred years ago, we were fighting
a war. It seems we lost it--how or why, I don't know. I don't think we
lost it in the fighting, but probably before it ever began, when we
were complacent and let the Germans get a head start in preparation and
invention. Anyway, for us that's still unfinished business."
"And we'd like the chance to finish it!" stated Dugan bluntly.
Kane smiled with a touch of sadness. Vzryvov said explosively, "The end
may be soon!" and his eyes burned.
In Manning's memory flashed the vision of a mocking face. He asked
abruptly: "What did Schwinzog mean: 'A message for America--one week to
live'?"
The shadow on Kane's face deepened, but he did not show surprise. "I
guess he meant just that. That the Germans are about ready to do to
America what they did to Russia fifty years ago.... But of course you
don't know anything about the history of the last century. If you want
to catch up on the missing chapters, I've got a fair-sized collection
of books on the subject. All the ones dealing with events since the War
of the Conquest are German, of course--English has just about stopped
being a written language--and you'll probably find they don't even
agree on what you know. You said, didn't you, that you were with an
American army advancing into Germany?"
"That's right--and it was only one of several."
Kane grinned wryly. "The books don't even whisper that Germany was ever
invaded in that war. They must have been a lot closer to defeat than
they've ever admitted since. But--" he shrugged, "they won in the end,
so what's the difference?"
"How could they win?" scowled Dugan. "Hell, we had them on the run!"
* * * * *
Kane gave him a pitying look. "You must have left some time before
the Germans suddenly rose from the ashes and struck back at us. They
attacked us with a new weapon--a radioactive dust, by-product of
several big piles--atomic power plants--they had secretly got going by
1949. The occupation forces were wiped out--along with a million or so
of their own people. In no time Western Europe was overrun again. The
whole of Soviet Russia seems to have collapsed about the same time."
He looked down at his hands, clasped on the table in front of him; his
voice went on with the dispassionate recital of the dead past. "There
was an attempt to defend England that folded up when London was dusted
off the map. I haven't been able to find much information on the war in
Asia, but I think they had a long tough fight putting down guerrilla
resistance in Siberia and later on in China.
"Then came the attack on America, and for that they used the dust in
combination with another ace in the hole--their own atomic bombs. The
first one was dropped right here, on New York. It flattened five or
six square miles and killed about half a million people. The defenses
that we'd devised against the dust--inadequate as they must have
been, because there isn't any real defense--were neutralized by the
bomb. America fought for just one month, and after that there wasn't
any United States--just a disorganized mob of survivors, dazed by
the cities' destruction and the sterilization of big stretches of
countryside.
"Germany proclaimed the New Order over the face of the whole
Earth--humanity to submit to the leadership of the German Volk, its
highest evolutionary type. Everywhere the nations surrendered without a
fight.
"Since the Conquest there's been only one serious, organized rebellion
in this country; that was in the year two thousand, fifty-one years
ago. The Germans put it down with bombs and poison; a lot of innocent
people were killed, and for a long time after that it was impossible to
organize any resistance. Since our movement got started twenty years
ago, we've been damn careful not to goad the Germans into making a
wholesale slaughter. Now--" His face twisted in pain.
"They've decided to anyway?" asked Manning with studied calm.
"As a matter of policy, not revenge. You see, for a while after the
Conquest they had a lot of use for slave labor, so the subject peoples
were valuable to them; but now that they have plenty of atomic power,
running nearly automatic factories and mechanized farms to supply all
their needs and luxuries, the rest of the Earth's population looks
to them like so much excess baggage. All they have use for is land,
_Lebensraum_ for their own growing people. They've calculated that the
whole Earth could be covered by Germans by 2500 A.D. As far as they're
concerned the rest of us can rot or starve--and we do; but we don't die
out! So--they murdered Russia fifty years ago--that was what touched
off the rising here--and we're next!"