Montag’s features reflected confusion. “Yessir, colonel sir!”
“How might you do that?”
Montag stared blankly.
“No matter. Now I want you to imagine someone very bad. Can you imagine shouting angrily at him?”
“Yessir, colonel sir!”
“What is the worst thing you can imagine shouting at him?” There was a long pause. “Pig.”
“Nothing worse than that?”
Montag swallowed, seeming visibly troubled. “Cow turd?”
“Very good, Herr Montag. If you could shout something at them them that would make them roll on the ground screaming, would you do that? for your Fuhrer?”
“Yessir, colonel sir!”
“Good. We will give you a chance to do that.”
Kupfer had left the door open between the two offices, the usual procedure, and Landgraf raised his voice instead of pushing the intercom button. “Hauptsturmfuhrer Kupfer, came in here please.”
Kupfer stepped in, and Landgraf told him to take Montag to “Baron Greszak.” They’d left then, Kupfer steering Monta with a hand on the arm. When they were gone, Landgraf shoo his head tiredly Here we have someone who tries hard to be civilized, and it is my duty to de-civilize him. What kind of world are we trying to make?
Kupfer led Montag up to third-floor main. As they went, Macurdy considered what he’d read in Landgrafs aura. The colonel was a discouraged man, and Montag’s demonstration had not noticeably changed that. Perhaps some of the others had also given good demonstrations, then failed to improve sufficiently.
They stopped at an unmarked door, and the captain knocked. “Kommen Sie rein,” called a voice, and they went in. Inside stood easily the tallest man Macurdy had ever seen, intimidating not only by his height, but by presence and strangeness. He wore a semi-fitted black coverall that emphasized his rawboned slenderness. A tall, bag-like black cap with red splints and a knit, dark-green band covered his forehead, accentuating an almost albino-white face. His piercing eyes were as green as Varia’s, but their resemblance ended with their color. These eyes were cold, impersonal. Macurdy felt like a bug on a pin.
“Good Morning, Baron Greszak,” Kupfer said. There was no Heil Hitler. “We have a new student for you. This is Herr Montag, from East Prussia.”
This giant was one of the reported foreigners, that was obvious. A German might conceivably have that build, those features, perhaps even that name, but the aura was distinctive; different than any human aura Macurdy had seen before, ever. Different in kind.
Greszak didn’t trouble to acknowledge Kupfer’s greeting. Instead he examined Macurdy thoroughly. “And what is it, Herr Montag, that causes you to be considered psychic?”
“I can start fires. I can light your cigarette. With my finger!”
“Hmm. Show me. Light Captain Kupfer’s cigarette.” Grimacing sourly, Kupfer took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Then Montag created a brilliant bead of glowing plasma an inch from his fingertip, and a minute later the cigarette was smoking.
The Voitu did not change expression. “What else can you do?”
“If someone is cold, I can warm him with my hands.” Greszak stepped around his table and reached out a very long hand. “Warm it,” he ordered, and Montag did. Greszak regarded him for a moment, then without speaking, turned and went into a connecting room, closing the door behind him. “Arrogant swine!” Kupfer muttered. Macurdy wasn’t sure how much of Greszak’s attitude was arrogance, and how much simply foreignness. He looked toward the two stacks of books on the table-from their spines, all were in German-and wondered if Greszak intended actually to read them. And if he did, how far he’d gotten. Certainly his German seemed fluent, what little he’d heard.
The door opened again in half a minute, and Greszak gestured him in, closing it after him, leaving Montag alone with a man almost a head taller than Greszak, more than seven and a half feet, Macurdy guessed. He had the same pale skin and green eyes, the same black coverall that might be a uniform. The same slender build, the same peculiarities of aura.
“Kurt Montag,” he said, “I am Kronprinz Kurqosz. Baron Greszak told me what you showed him. What else can you do?” Montag simply stared. Suddenly Kurqosz pulled off his strange cap, tossing it on the table–the move uncovering his ears, like two goat’s ears, perhaps six inches long and pointed, covered with the same copper-red hair that, stiffened, covered his skull and formed a sort of crest on its meridian. “Now perhaps you have something to say.”