"The technical term is 'genocide.' They did it with guns and gas and,
when necessary, the atomic dust. It's quite a job to wipe out a whole
nation, and the Germans bungled Russia pretty badly and met a lot of
stiffer resistance than they expected, and a lot of people--such as
Igor's parents--got away to other countries. But since then they've
made improvements in the method.
"Sometime soon, in a few days, maybe--a rocket will take off for
somewhere in Germany and proceed to a point in space about fifty
thousand miles from the Earth. There it will discharge fifteen hundred
metric tons of radioactive dust--a new mixture of ingredients having
a few days' half life, for initial devastating effect, and of others
with a period of about a year--to take care of anybody that tries
to sit it out underground. The dust will drift toward Earth in an
expanding cloud, whose size and shape they've calculated down to the
last decimal, and which, when it falls on Earth's surface, will cover
an area a little larger than the United States. It will be spread thin
by then--about one gram to the acre--but that will be enough."
* * * * *
Manning sat silent. The idea of these new ways of all-compassing
destruction was too much for a mind that had learned to regard high
explosives, machine guns and flame throwers as adequately murderous.
And the plan for exterminating a nation was too monstrous to think
about, unless in the same light as it must be seen by the minds that
conceived it--as something like dusting a field of grain to kill off
insects whose only crime is that they eat what men want to eat.
"And you've known about this, and haven't stopped it?" he asked at last.
"They've been busy making and refining the dust for a year now, and
we've known about it almost that long. And we've tried to stop them.
"We've tried to assassinate the men responsible for the plan. But the
ruling clique, like your acquaintance, Schwinzog, aren't under any
illusions and they aren't going to yield any power. We've tried to get
them and mostly failed.
"Finally, one of our men got inside the Reichministerium fur
Raumschiffahrt and learned that the space ship _Siegfried_ had been
assigned for conversion to the uses of the project. The raid you
stumbled into was trying to locate and destroy it, but they didn't find
it and blew up a building instead. That's our last chance even to gain
time--if we can't wreck the dust ship, I don't know what we can do."
Igor Vzryvov broke his brooding silence. "You will do as we did,"
he proclaimed with flat conviction. "Save what you can of your
organization by flight to other lands, whence you will carry on the
fight--to the death, without the crippling reservations imposed by
millions of hostages."
Kane looked at him with smoldering eyes. "What would be left to fight
for?"
"Wait and see," insisted the Russian implacably. "You will really begin
to fight when there is no more America to be saved, only Germany to be
destroyed."
Manning put in hastily, "Your men didn't locate the--space ship. How do
you know it's even in the Black Forest?"
Kane frowned, then shrugged. "We don't. But there's nowhere else it can
be. We've checked every spaceport in the Reich."
"Maybe it's outside Germany."
"There aren't any ports in the subject countries. And if one had been
built, and the _Siegfried_ landed there--well, it simply couldn't have
been done inconspicuously. We have psychoelectronic communicators
scattered over the whole world, and what's more important, the best
grapevine connections. We'd have heard."
"What about the polar regions? Antarctica?"
"I guess it would be technically possible--though enormously difficult
and expensive--to build a spaceport there. But it just isn't
reasonable. They aren't that scared of our interference."
Manning bit his lip. "One little thing," he murmured, half to himself,
"makes me think that ship isn't in the Schwarzwald at all. Herr
Schwinzog gloated that your raid missed the refining plant; he must
have forgotten for a moment that you're supposed to believe the space
ship is there too...." Abruptly he raised his head. "Listen--maybe
there's one part of Germany you didn't investigate."
"What do you mean?"
"Where Eddie and I were, just this afternoon. Long Island."
* * * * *
Kane and Vzryvov looked at him with wild surmise. "You might be right,"
Kane said jerkily. "There's a field there that would do. But a space
ship landing would have been seen for hundreds of miles--" His eyes
widened with a sudden idea. "They needn't have landed it there, though.
They could have brought it down in the ocean, and towed it in!"
"Sure," said Manning, though he hadn't thought of that. "An amphibious
operation. The island's well-guarded?"
"Suspiciously so, now that you mention it. We don't have a single agent
there--we've been concentrating on the expeditionary force in Europe,
of course, and we've supposed the additional Long Island defenses were
merely installed in fear of an attack on the German colony, when the
people hear--But that could be it! They could have hidden the ship
under our noses!"
He sprang to his feet; he wore a look almost of gaiety, but his eyes
held feverish lights. "If we could only start after it tonight! But
this things calls for preparation. They'll be ready for anything,
invisibility units included.... But we've got to try tomorrow night. If
the ship is there--it may not be much longer."
Manning and Dugan exchanged glances. Manning said pointblank: "Are we
in on this deal? We were soldiers in our own time, and--Americans...."
Reading Kane's face, he realized he hadn't needed to ask.
V
The boat slipped silently, impelled by muffled oars, toward the shore
that lay dark and seemingly lifeless a furlong away. The underground
in New York had a couple of motor launches--but there might be sound
detectors on that shore, which would not be fooled by the powerful
invisibility unit that purred quietly, clamped to athwart amidships. So
they rowed.
The boat was laden with men, weapons, and explosives. The men were
monstrous-headed shapes, for they wore gas masks under the featureless
hoods; but the poised alertness of Kane's figure, upright in the bow
as he scanned the black shore and called soft directions to Vzryvov at
the steering oar, expressed all their eager anxiety on the threshold of
decision. Manning and Dugan sat side by side; in front of the former
was lanky Clark, and beside him a chemist named Larrabie, who clasped
between his knees a box full of bombs of his own making--canisters of
a versatile compound which with a detonator had the violence of TNT,
without one was an excellent substitute for thermite.
Manning had to remember that he had once taken part in another landing
on a conquered shore--Normandy in 1944, when the air had been full of
planes and the sea of ships, and the invasion had rolled ashore like a
resistless juggernaut.... If those millions had failed, what could six
men in a rowboat do?
The night before, in the room Kane had given them, Manning had lain
long sleepless, and passed the time turning through Kane's books of
history--titles like _Aufstieg Deutschlands zur Weltherrschaft_,
_Eroberung der Erde_, _Das deutsche Jahrhundert_.... One thing about
the oddly twisted story they told had piqued his curiosity, and he
had sought earnestly before he found mention--in a footnote--of the
fact that one Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) had occupied the civic office
of Reichskanzler (later abolished) at the time of the Conquest. But
the leaders of that period, according to the histories, had been the
generals and military men such as Rundstedt, Rommel, Keitel and Doenitz.
The future had obviously not gone according to anybody's plans made
prior to 1949. A new factor had come in--the monstrous reality of
atomic weapons, which had suddenly made it possible for a few men in
one nation to hold the threat of death over all life on Earth. America
had had them first and had used them to subdue Japan. But the German
onslaught had been too swift; the combination of atomic dust and atomic
bombs had paralyzed the U.S.A. before she could strike back.
"Up oars," whispered Kane. The boat glided forward the last few yards
as the dripping oars rose over the water, then sand crunched under the
keel.
Cautiously they sloshed ashore. Vzryvov knelt in the boat for half a
minute, working with wires and one of Larrabie's compact bundles of
death--booby-trapping the priceless invisibility unit against possible
discovery.
Each man carried a slung automatic rifle, three bombs, and a long
knife. An invisible man could kill with a knife in the midst of a crowd
and walk away before anyone noticed.
They started moving without time wasted in consultation or casting
about. All had studied the available maps of the area until their eyes
smarted; and the moon was up, which for them was a special advantage.
* * * * *
This stretch of shore was occupied by the sea-side villas of the German
masters; it was a good hour's walk from the main colony and the rocket
port. The Germans could hardly have protected the whole coastline with
automatic alarms.
As they topped the seaward slope, though, from not far distant, where
a house bulked in the shadow, exploded the barking of a watchdog. The
raiders froze; Kane swore perfunctorily and said shortly, "Push on.
Dogs can see us, or at least scent us. That one doesn't seem to have
raised anybody yet--"
They pushed on, tramping across meadows and through woods, steering
clear of the roads that might be watched by electric eyes--as the
rocket port must be without doubt, if the dust ship was there.
Half a mile from the German colony, in sight of its lights and their
glimmering reflection in the water of the East River, a high fence
barred their way. It was plain wire, stretching to right and left out
of sight--probably across the whole island.
"That wasn't on the map," said Dugan.
"Of course not," responded Kane. "That's the first line of defense.
Touch it, and you'd alert the whole place." He didn't look unhappy
about it, judging by the flash of his grin in the moonlight. "Brother,
I think we've come to the right address!"
Vzryvov remarked imperturbably, "The road must pass through it yonder."
He gestured to where an occasional moving light picked out the highway.
"Right," said Kane. They set out along the fence, keeping at a
respectful distance from the wire.
The highway entrance was floodlighted and visibly protected by movable
arms like those used at grade crossings. These, together with the
sleepy squad of German soldiers that stood guard beyond the fence,
would not have given pause to the invisible men. But there had to be
invisible defenses too.
They waited on the shoulder of the in-going traffic lane. Manning and
Dugan could scarcely quell the jittery feeling of being exposed in
plain view of the enemy, but the others were unconcerned.
"We've got to hitch a ride," explained Kane softly. "Just passing
through behind a vehicle wouldn't be good enough, you can bet...."
A car came rushing out of the darkness and swooped to a stop with
screaming tires. It was a gleaming pleasure machine, transparent
plastic top flung back to let the night air cool the heated faces
of three young couples that occupied it, evidently on their way to
continue in town a party that had outgrown the facilities of the
countryside.
"Get a good look at their admission procedure," said Kane.
The guards bestirred themselves; one operated the gate mechanism, the
rest surrounded the car, grasping shining steel blades on long shafts,
barbed like medieval halberds. They swung their archaic weapons around
and over the car, hacking the air viciously. The girls in the car
squealed and snuggled as the driver eased forward under an interlocked
arch of steel.