I woke up with a start. My neck ached abominably; so did the rest of
me, as soon as I moved. I groaned, dragged my feet down off the desk,
and sat up. There was something wrong. Winter was gone and the humming
had stopped. I jumped up.
"Winter," I shouted. I had a vivid picture of myself marooned in one of
those hell-worlds. At that moment I realized I wasn't half as afraid of
arriving at Zero Zero as I was of not getting there.
Winter pushed the door open and glanced in. "I'll be with you in a
moment, Mr. Bayard," he said. "We've arrived on schedule."
I was nervous. The gun was gone. I told myself it was no worse than
going to one of the ambassador's receptions. My best bet was to walk in
as though I'd thought of it myself.
The two bouncers came in, followed by Winter. One of the two men pushed
the door open, and stood at attention beside it. Beyond the opening I
could see muted sunshine on a level paved surface, and a group of men
in white uniforms, looking in our direction.
I stepped down through the door and looked around. We were in a large
shed, looking something like a railroad station. A group of men in
white uniforms were waiting.
One of them stepped forward. "By Jove, Winter," he said. "You've
brought it off. Congratulations, old man." The others came up, gathered
around Winter, asking questions, turning to stare at me. None of them
said anything to me. To hell with them, I thought. I turned and started
strolling toward the front of the shed. There was one door with a
sentry box arrangement beside it. I gave the man on duty a glance and
started past.
"You'd better memorize this face," I said coolly. "You'll be seeing a
great deal of it from now on. I'm your new commander." I looked him up
and down. "Your uniform is in need of attention." I turned and went on.
Winter appeared at that point, putting an end to what would have been a
very neat escape. But where the hell would I have gone?
"Here, old man," he said. "Don't go wandering about. I'm to take you
directly to Royal Intelligence, where you'll doubtless find out a bit
more about the reasons for your, ah--" Winter cleared his throat,
"visit."
"I thought it was Imperial Intelligence," I said. "And for the high
level operation this is supposed to be, this is a remarkably modest
reception. I thought there would be a band, or at least a couple of
cops with handcuffs."
"Royal Swedish Intelligence," Winter explained briskly. "Sweden will
bring tributary to the Emperor, of course. Imperial Intelligence chaps
will be on hand. As for your reception, we don't believe in making much
fuss, you know." Winter waved me into a boxy black staff car which
waited at the curb. It swung out at once into light traffic which
pulled out of our way as we rode down the center of the broad avenue.
"I thought your scout just travelled cross-ways," I said, "and stayed
in the same spot on the map. This doesn't look like the hilly area of
the Old Town."
"You have a suspicious mind and an eye for detail," Winter said. "We
maneuvered the scout through the streets to the position of the ramps
before going into drive. We're on the north side of the city now."
Our giant car roared across a bridge, and swirled into a long gravel
drive leading to a wrought-iron gate before a massive grey granite
building. The people I saw looked perfectly ordinary, with the
exception of a few oddities of dress and an unusually large number of
gaudy uniforms. The guard at the iron gate was wearing a cherry-colored
tunic, white trousers, and a black steel helmet surmounted by a gold
spike and a deep purple plume. He presented arms--a short and wicked
looking nickel-plated machine gun--and as the gate swung wide we eased
past him and stopped before broad doors of polished iron-bound oak. A
brass plate beside the entrance said Kungliga Svenska Spionage.
I said nothing as we walked down a spotless white marble-floored hall,
entered a spacious elevator, and rode up to the top floor. We walked
along another hall, this one paved with red granite, and paused before
a large door at the end. There was no one else around.
"Just relax, Mr. Bayard. Answer all questions fully, and use the same
forms of address as I do."
"I'll try not to fall down," I said. Winter looked as nervous as I felt
as he opened the door after a polite tap.
The room was an office, large and handsomely furnished. Across a wide
expanse of grey rug three men sat around a broad desk, behind which
sat a fourth. Winter closed the door, walked across the room with me
trailing behind him, and came to a rigid position of attention ten feet
from the desk. His arms swung up in a real elbow-buster of a salute and
held it.
"Sir, Chief Captain Winter reports as ordered," he said in a strained
voice.
"Very good, Winter," said the man behind the desk, sketching a salute
casually. Winter brought his arm down with a snap. He rotated rigidly
toward the others.
"_Kaiserliche Hochheit_," he said, bowing stiffly from the waist at
one of the seated figures. "Chief Inspector," he greeted the second,
while the third, a rather paunchy fellow with a jolly expression and a
somehow familiar face, rated just "Sir."
"'_Hochwelgeboren_' will do," murmured the lean aristocratic-looking
one whom Winter had addressed first. Apparently instead of an imperial
highness he was only a high-well-born. Winter turned bright pink.
"I beg your Excellency's pardon," he said in a choked voice. The
round-faced man grinned broadly.
The man behind the desk had been studying me intently during this
exchange. "Please be seated, Mr. Bayard," he said pleasantly,
indicating an empty chair directly in front of the desk. Winter was
still standing rigidly. The man glanced at him. "Stand at ease, Chief
Captain," he said in a dry tone, turning back to me.
"I hope that your being brought here has not prejudiced you against us
unduly, Mr. Bayard," he said. He had a long gaunt face with a heavy jaw.
"I am General Bernadotte," he went on. "These gentlemen are the Friherr
von Richthofen, Chief Inspector Bale, and Mr. Goering." I nodded at
them. Bale was a thin broad-shouldered man with a small bald head. He
wore an expression of disapproval.
Bernadotte went on. "I would like first to assure you that our decision
to bring you here was not made lightly. I know that you have many
questions, and all will be answered fully. For the present, I shall
tell you frankly that we have called you here to ask for your help."
I hadn't been prepared for this. I don't know what I expected, but to
have this panel of high-powered brass asking for my puny assistance
left me opening and closing my mouth without managing to say anything.
"It's remarkable," commented the paunchy civilian. I looked at him.
Winter had called him Mr. Goering. I thought of pictures of Hitler's
gross Air Chief.
"Not Hermann Goering?" I said.
The fat man looked surprised, and a smile spread across his face.
"Yes, my name is Hermann," he said. "How did you know this?" He had a
fairly heavy German accent.
I found it hard to explain. This was something I hadn't thought
of--actual doubles or analogs of figures in my own world. Now I knew
beyond a doubt that Winter had not been lying to me.
"Back where I came from, everyone knows your name," I said.
"Reichmarshall Goering...."
"Reichmarshall!" Goering repeated. "What an intriguing title!"
He looked around at the others. "Is this not a most interesting
and magnificent information?" He beamed. "I, poor fat Hermann, a
Reichmarshall, and known to all." He was delighted.
"Multi-phased reality is, of course, rather a shocking thing to
encounter suddenly," the general said, "after a lifetime of living in
one's own narrow world. To those of us who have grown up with it, it
seems only natural and in keeping with the principles of multiplicity
and the continuum. The idea of a monolinear casual sequence is seen to
be an artificially restrictive conception, an oversimplification of
reality growing out of human egotism."
The other four men listened as attentively as I. It was very quiet,
with only the occasional faint sounds of traffic from the street below.
"Insofar as we have been able to determine thus far from our studies of
the B-I Three line, from which you come, our two lines share a common
history up to about the year 1790. They remain parallel in many ways
for about another century; thereafter they diverge rather sharply.
"Here in our world, two Italian scientists, Giulio Maxoni and Carlo
Cocini, in the year 1893, made a basic discovery, which, after several
years of study, they embodied in a device which enabled them to move
about at will through a wide range of what we now term Alternative
lines, or A-lines.
"Cocini lost his life in an early exploratory test, and Maxoni
determined to offer the machine to the Italian government. He was
rudely rebuffed.
"After several years of harassment by the Italian press, which
ridiculed him unmercifully, Maxoni went to England, and offered his
invention to the British government. There was a long and very cautious
period of negotiation, but eventually a bargain was struck. Maxoni
received a title, estates, and one million pounds in gold. He died a
year later.
"The British government now had sole control of the most important
basic human discovery since the wheel. The wheel gave man the power to
move easily across the surface of his world; the Maxoni principle gave
him all the worlds to move about in."
Leather creaked faintly as I moved in my chair. The general leaned back
and drew a deep breath. He smiled.
"I hope that I am not overwhelming you with an excess of historical
detail, Mr. Bayard."
"Not at all," I replied. "I'm very much interested."
He went on. "At that time the British government was negotiating with
the Imperial Germanic government in an effort to establish workable
trade agreements, and avoid a fratricidal war, which then appeared to
be inevitable if appropriate spheres of influence were not agreed upon.
"The acquisition of the Maxoni papers placed a different complexion
on the situation. Rightfully feeling that they now had a considerably
more favorable position from which to negotiate, the British suggested
an amalgamation of the two empires into the present Anglo-Germanic
Imperium, with the House of Hanover-Windsor occupying the Imperial
throne. Sweden signed the Concord shortly thereafter, and after the
resolution of a number of differences in detail, the Imperium came into
being on January 1, 1900."
I had the feeling the general was over-simplifying things. I wondered
how many people had been killed in the process of resolving the minor
details. I kept the thought to myself.
"Since its inception," the general continued, "the Imperium has
conducted a program of exploration, charting, and study of the
A-continuum. It was quickly determined that for a vast distance on
all sides of the home line, utter desolation existed; outside that
lighted region, however, were the infinite resources of countless
lines. Those lines lying just outside the Blight seem uniformly to
represent a divergence point at about 400 years in the past; that is
to say, our common histories differentiate about the year 1550. As one
travels further out, the divergence date recedes. At the limits of our
explorations to date the CH dated is about 1,000,000 B.C."
I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. This seemed to be all
right with Bernadotte.
"Then, in 1947, examination of photos made by automatic camera scouts
revealed an anomaly; an apparently normal, inhabited world, lying well
within the Blight. It took weeks of careful searching to pinpoint the
line. For the first time, we were visiting a world closely analogous to
our own, in which many of the institutions of our own world should be
duplicated.
"We had hopes of a fruitful liaison between the two worlds, but in this
we were bitterly disappointed."
The general turned to the bald man whom he had introduced as Chief
Inspector Bale.
"Chief Inspector," he said, "will you take up the account at this
point?"
Bale sat up in his chair, folded his hands, and began.
"In September 1948 two senior agents of Imperial Intelligence were
dispatched with temporary rank of Career Minister and full diplomatic
accreditization, to negotiate an agreement with the leaders of the
National People's State. This political unit actually embraces most of
the inhabitable world of the B-I Two line. A series of frightful wars,
employing some sort of radioactive explosives, had destroyed the better
part of civilization.
"Europe was a shambles. We found that the NPS headquarters was in North
Africa, and had as its nucleus the former French colonial government
there. The top man was a ruthless ex-soldier who had established
himself as uncontested dictator of what remained of things. His army
was made up of units of all the previous combatants, held together by
the promise of free lotting and top position in a new society based on
raw force.
"Our agents approached a military sub-chief, calling himself
Colonel-General Yang, in charge of a ragtag mob of ruffians in motley
uniforms, and asked to be conducted to the headquarters of the
dictator. Yang had them clapped into a cell and beaten insensible in
spite of their presentation of diplomatic passports and identity cards.
"He did however send them along to the dictator to have an interview.
During the talk, the fellow drew a pistol and shot one of my two chaps
through the head, killing him instantly. When this failed to make the
other volunteer anything further than that he was an accredited envoy
of the Imperial government requesting an _exequatur_ and appropriate
treatment, prior to negotiating an international agreement, he was
turned over to experienced torturers.
"Under torture, the agent gave out just enough to convince his
interrogators that he was insane; he was released to starve or die of
wounds. We managed to spot him and pick him up in time to get the story
before he died."
I still had no comment to make. It didn't sound pretty, but then I
wasn't too enthusiastic about the methods employed by the Imperium
either. The general resumed the story.
"We resolved to make no attempt at punitive action, but simply to leave
this unfortunate line in isolation.
"About a year ago, an event occurred which rendered this policy no
longer tenable." Bernadotte turned to the lean-faced man.
"Manfred, I will ask you to cover this part of the briefing."
"Units of our Net Surveillance Service detected activity at a point
some distance within the area called Sector 92," Richthofen began.
"This was a contingency against which we had been on guard from the
first. A heavily armed MC unit of unknown origin had dropped into
identity with one of our most prized industrial lines, one of a group
with which we conduct a multi-billion pound trade. The intruder
materialized in a population center, and released virulent poisonous
gases, killing hundreds. Masked troops then emerged, only a platoon
or two of them, and proceeded to strip bodies, loot shops--an orgy
of wanton destruction. Our NSS scout arrived some hours after the
attackers had departed. The scout, in turn, was subjected to a heavy
attack by the justifiably aroused inhabitants of the area before it was
able to properly identify itself as an Imperium vessel."
Richthofen had a disdainful frown on his face. "I personally conducted
the rescue and salvage operation; over four hundred innocent civilians
dead, valuable manufacturing facilities destroyed by fire, production
lines disrupted, the population entirely demoralized. A bitter
spectacle for us."
"You see, Mr. Bayard," Bernadotte said, "we are well nigh helpless to
protect our friends against such forays. Although we have developed
extremely effective MC field detection devices, the difficulty of
reaching the scene of an attack in time is practically insurmountable.
The actual transit takes no time, but locating the precise line
among numerous others is an extremely delicate operation. Our homing
devices make it possible, but only after we have made a very close
approximation manually."
"In quick succession thereafter," Richthofen continued, "we suffered
seven similar raids. Then the pattern changed. The raiders began
appearing in numbers, with large cargo-carrying units. They also set
about rounding up all the young women at each raid, and taking them
along into captivity. It became obvious that a major threat to the
Imperium had come into existence.
"At last we had the good fortune to detect a raider's field in the
close vicinity of one of our armed scouts. It quickly dropped in on a
converging course, and located the pirate about twenty minutes after
it had launched its attack. The commander of the scout quite properly
opened up at once with high explosive cannon and blew the enemy to
rubble. Its crew, although demoralized by the loss of their vessel,
nevertheless resisted capture almost to the last man. We were able to
secure only two prisoners for interrogation."
I wondered how the Imperium's method of interrogation compared with
those of the dictator of B-I Two, but I didn't ask. I might find out
soon enough.
"We learned a great deal more than we expected from our prisoners. They
were the talkative, boastful type. The effectiveness of the raiding
parties depended on their striking unexpectedly and departing quickly.
The number of pirate vessels was placed at no more than four, each
manned by about fifty men. They boasted of a great weapon held in
reserve, and which would be used to avenge them. It was apparent from
the remarks of the prisoners that they had not had the MC drive long,
and that they knew nothing of the configuration of the Net, or of the
endless ramifications of simultaneous reality.
"They seemed to think their fellows would find our base and destroy it
with ease. They also had only a vague idea of the extent and nature of
the Blight. They mentioned that several of their ships had disappeared,
doubtless into that region. It appears also, happily for us, that they
have only the most elementary detection devices and that their controls
are erratic in the extreme. But the information of real importance was
the identity of the raiders."
Richthofen paused for dramatic effect. "It was our unhappy sister
world, B-I Two."
"Somehow," Bernadotte took up the story, "in spite of their condition
of chaotic social disorder and their destructive wars, they had
succeeded in harnessing the MC principle. Their apparatus is even more
primitive than that with which we began almost sixty years ago; yet
they have escaped disaster.
"The next move came with startling suddenness. Whether by virtue of an
astonishingly rapid scientific development, or by sheer persistence and
blind luck, one of their scouts succeeded, last month, in locating the
Zero Zero line of the Imperium itself. The vessel dropped into identity
with our continuum on the outskirts of the city of Berlin, one of the
royal capitals.
"The crew had apparently been prepared for their visit. They planted
a strange device atop a flimsy tower in a field, and embarked
instantly. Within a matter of three minutes, as well as we have been
able to determine, the device detonated with unbelievable force.
Over a square mile was absolutely desolated; casualties ran into the
thousands. And the entire area still remains poisoned with some form of
radiation-producing debris which renders the region uninhabitable."
I nodded. "I think I understand," I said.
"Yes," the general said, "you have something of this sort in your B-I
Three world also, do you not?"
I assumed the question was rhetorical and said nothing.
Bernadotte continued. "Crude though their methods are, they have
succeeded already in flaunting the Imperium. It is only a matter of
time, we feel, before they develop adequate controls and detection
devices. We will then be faced with the prospect of hordes of ragged
but efficient soldiers, armed with the frightful radium bombs with
which they destroyed their own culture, descending on the mother world
of the Imperium.
"This eventuality is one for which it has been necessary to make
preparation. There seemed to be two possibilities, both equally
undesirable. We could await further attack, meanwhile readying our
defenses, of doubtful value against the fantastic explosives of the
enemy; or we could ourselves mount an offensive, launching a massive
invasion force against B-I Two. The logistics problems involved in
either plan would be unbelievably complex."
I was learning a few things about the Imperium. In the first place,
they did not have the atomic bomb, and had no conception of its power.
Their consideration of war against an organized military force armed
with atomics was proof of that. Also, not having had the harsh lessons
of two major wars to assist them, they were naive, almost backward, in
some ways. They thought more like Europeans of the nineteenth century
than modern westerners.
"About one month ago, Mr. Bayard," Bale took over, "a new factor was
introduced, giving us a third possibility. In the heart of the Blight,
at only a very little distance from B-I Two, and even closer to us than
it, we found a second surviving line. That line was of course your home
world, designated Blight-Insular Three.
"Within seventy-two hours one hundred and fifty special agents had been
placed at carefully scouted positions in B-I Three. We were determined
to make no blunders; too much was at stake. As the information flowed
in from our men, all of whom, being top agents, had succeeded in
establishing their cover identities without difficulty, it was
immediately passed to the General Staff and to the Imperial Emergency
Cabinet for study. The two bodies remained in constant session for over
a week without developing any adequate scheme for handling the new
factor.
"One committee of the Emergency Cabinet was assigned the important
task of determining as closely as possible the precise CH relationship
of B-I Three with both B-I Two and the Imperium. This is an extremely
tricky chore as it is quite possible for an amazing parallelism to
exist in one phase of an A-line while the most fantastic variants crop
up in another.
"One week ago today the committee reported findings they considered to
be ninety-eight per cent reliable. Your B-I Three line shared history
of the B-I Two until the date 1911, probably early in the year. At
that point, my colleague, Mr. Goering, of German Intelligence, who had
been sitting in on the meeting, made a brilliant contribution. His
suggestion was immediately adopted. All agents were alerted at once to
drop all other lines of inquiry and concentrate on picking up a trace
of--" Bale looked at me.
"Mr. Brion Bayard."
They knew I was on the verge of exploding from pure curiosity, so I
just sat and looked back at Bale. He pursed his lips. He sure as hell
didn't like me.
"We picked you up from records at your university--" Bale frowned at
me. "Something like aluminium alloy...."
Bale must be an Oxford man, I thought.
"Illinois," I said.
"At any rate," Bale went on, "it was a relatively simple matter
to follow you up then through your military service and into your
Diplomatic Service. Our man just missed you at your Legation at
Viat-Kai."
"Consulate General," I corrected.
It annoyed Bale. I was glad; I didn't like him much either.
"You had left the post the preceding day and were proceeding to your
headquarters via Stockholm. We had a man on the spot; he kept tabs on
you until the shuttle could arrive. The rest you know."
There was a lengthening silence. I shifted in my chair, looking from
one expressionless face to another.
"All right," I said. "It seems I'm supposed to ask, so I'll oblige,
just to speed things along. Why me?"
Almost hesitantly General Bernadotte opened a drawer of the desk and
drew out a flat object wrapped in brown paper. He removed the paper
very deliberately as he spoke.
"I have here an official portrait of the dictator of the world of
Blight-Insular Two," he said. "One of the two artifacts we have been
able to bring along from that unhappy region. Copies of this picture
are posted everywhere there."
He passed it over to me. It was a crude lithograph, in color, showing
a man in uniform, the chest as far down as the picture extended
covered with medals. Beneath the portrait was the legend: "His Martial
Excellency, Duke of Algiers, Warlord of the Combined Forces, Marshal
General of the State, Brion The First Bayard, Dictator."
The picture was of me.