‘What’s unreal and what’s real? To me she’s more real than anything else; than you, even. Even than myself, my own life.’
‘Holy smoke,’ Al said. He was impressed. ‘Well, at least you have something to live for.’
‘Right,’ Ian said, and nodded.
‘We’ll see what Superb says on Friday,’ Al said. ‘We’ll ask him just how schizophrenic — if at all — it is.’ He shrugged.
‘Maybe I’m wrong; maybe it isn’t.’ Maybe it’s Luke and I who are the insane ones, he thought. To him, Luke for example, was much more real, much more an influencing factor, than Nicole Thibodeaux. But then, he had seen Nicole in the flesh, and Ian had not. That made all the difference, although he was not sure quite why.
He picked up his jug and began practising once more.
And, after a pause, Ian Duncan did the same, joining in.
Together, they puffed away.
10
The Army Major, thin, small and erect, said, ‘Frau Thibodeaux, this is the Reichsmarschall, Herr Hermann Goering.’
The heavily built man, wearing — incredibly — a toga-style white robe and holding on a leather leash what appeared to be a lion cub, stepped forward and said in German, ‘I am glad to meet you, Mrs Thibodeaux.’
‘Reichsmarschall,’ Nicole said, ‘do you know where you are at this moment?’
‘Yes,’ Goering nodded. To the lion cub he said severely, ‘Sei ruhig, Marsi.’ He fussed with the cub, calming it.
All this Bertold Goltz watched. He had gone slightly ahead in his time, by use of his own von Lessinger equipment; he had become impatient waiting for Nicole to arrange the transfer of Goering. Here it was now; or rather, here it would be in seven more hours.
It was easy, possessing von Lessinger equipment, to penetrate the White House despite its NP guards; Goltz had merely gone far back into the past, before the White House existed, and then had returned to this near future. He had done such a thing several times already and would do it again; he knew that because he had run on to his future self, caught in the act. It amused him, that meeting; not only was he able to observe Nicole freely but he could also observe his past and future selves — the future, at least, in terms of possibility.
Of potentiality, rather than actuality. The vista spread out for his inspection of the perhaps.
They will make a deal, Goltz decided. Nicole and Goering; the Reichsmarschall, taken first from 1941 and then from 1944, will be shown the ruined Germany of 1945, will see the end in store for the Nazis — will see himself in the dock at Nuremberg, and, at last, will view his own suicide by a poison carried in a rectal suppository. This will rather influence him, to say the least. A deal will not be difficult to hatch out; the Nazis, even normally, were experts at deals.
A few miracle weapons from the future, appearing at the end of World War Two, and the Age of Barbarism would last — not thirteen years — but, as Hitler had sworn, a thousand. A death ray, laser beams, hydrogen bombs in the 100 megaton range … would assist the armed forces of the Third Reich considerably. Plus, of course, the A-1 and the A-2; or, as the Allies had called them, the V-1 and V-2. Now the Nazis would have an A-3, A-4, and so on, without limit, if necessary.
Goltz frowned. For, in addition to this, other possibilities, murky and dense, spread out parallel with an almost occult darkness surrounding them. What did these less-likely futures consist of? Dangerous, and yet surely better than the clear one, the track laden with miracle weapons. ‘You, there,’ a White House NP man called, suddenly catching sight of Goltz, as he stood partially concealed in the corner of the Bog Orchid Room. The guard instantly whipped out a pistol and took aim.
The conference between Thibodeaux, Goering, and four military advisors, abruptly terminated. All turned towards Goltz and the NP man.
‘Frau,’ Goltz said, a parody of Goering’s greeting. He stepped forth, confidently; after all, he previewed this with his von Lessinger gear. ‘You know who I am. The spectre at the feast.’ He chuckled.
But of course the White House possessed von Lessinger equipment, too; they had anticipated this, just as he had.
This exposure had in it the element of fatality. It could not be avoided; no alternate tracks branched off, here … not that Goltz wished for them. Long ago he had learned that ultimately there was no future for him in anonymity.
‘Some other time, Goltz,’ Nicole said with distaste.
‘Now,’ Goltz said, walking towards her.
The NP man glanced at her for instructions; he appeared highly confused.
Nicole waved him irritably.
‘Who is this?’ The Reichsmarschall inquired, studying Goltz.
Goltz said, ‘Just a poor Jew. Not like Emil Stark, who I notice is not here, Nicole, despite your promise. There are many poor Jews, Reichsmarschall. In your time and ours both. I have nothing of cultural or economic value which you can confiscate; no art work, no Geld. Sorry.’ He seated himself at the conference table and poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher at hand.
‘Is your pet, Marsi, feral? Ja oder nein?’
‘No,’ Goering said, petting the cub expertly, He had sat down, placing the cub on the table before him; it curled up obediently, its eyes half-closed.
‘My presence,’ Goltz said, ‘my Jewish presence, is unwanted. I wonder why Emil Stark isn’t here. Why not. Nicole?’ He eyed her. ‘Did you fear to offend the Reichsmarschall? Strange … after all, Himmler dealt with Jews in Hungary, through Eichmann. And there is a Jewish general in the Reichsmarschall’s Luftwaffe, a certain General Milch. True, Herr Reichmarschall?’ He turned to Goering.Looking peeved, Goering said, ‘I wouldn’t know about Milch; he’s a good man -I can say that much.’
‘You see,’ Bertold Goltz said to Nicole, ‘Herr Goering is accustomed to dealing with Juden. Right, Herr Goering? You don’t have to answer; I’ve observed it for myself.’
Goering glared at him sourly.
‘Now this deal — ‘ Goltz began.
‘Bertold,’ Nicole interrupted savagely, ‘get out of here! I’ve let your street fighters roam at will — I’ll have them rounded up if you interfere with this. You know what my objective is here. You of all people ought to approve.’
‘But I don’t,’ Goltz said.
One of the Army advisors snapped, ‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ Goltz said, ‘once the Nazis have won World War Two by your aid, they will massacre the Jews anyhow.
And not just those in Europe and White Russia but in England and the United States and Latin America as well.’ He spoke calmly. After all, he had seen it, had explored, by means of his von Lessinger equipment, several of these dreadful alternative futures. ‘Remember, the objective in the war for the Nazis was the extermination of World Jewry; it was not merely a byproduct.’
There was silence.
To the NP man, Nicole said, ‘Get him now.’
The NP man, pointing his gun, fired at Goltz.
Goltz, timing it perfectly, at the same instant the gun was pointed at him made contact with the von Lessinger effect surrounding him. The scene, with its participants, blurred and was lost. He remained in the same room, the Bog Orchid, but the people were gone. He was alone, yet now in the midst of the elusive ghosts of the future, summoned by the device.
He saw, in deranged procession, the psychokinetic Richard Kongrosian involved in weird situations, first with his rituals of cleansing and then with Wilder Pembroke; the Commissioner of the NP had done something, but Goltz could not make out what. And then he saw himself, first holding vast authority and then abruptly, unaccountably, dead. Nicole, too, drifted past his range of vision, altered in various new ways which he could not comprehend. Death seemed to exist everywhere in the future, a potential awaiting everyone it seemed. What did this signify? An hallucinosis? The collapse of certitude appeared to lead directly to Richard Kongrosian. It was an effect of the psychokinetic power, a distortion of fabric of the future produced by the man’s parapsychological talent.
If Kongrosian knew, Goltz thought. Strength of this sort a mystery even to the owner. Kongrosian, tangled in the maze of his mental illness, virtually unable to function and yet still imposing, still looming vastly on the landscape of the tomorrows, of our days ahead. If I could only penetrate this, Goltz realized. This man who is — will become — the cardinal enigma for all of us … then I would have it. The future would no longer consist of imperfect shades, blended in configurations which customarily reason — mine, anyhow — can never manage to untangle.
In his room at Franklin Aimes Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Richard Kongrosian declared aloud, ‘I am totally invisible now.’ He held up his hand and arm, saw nothing. ‘It’s come,’ he added. And he did not hear his voice; that, too, was imperceptible. ‘What should I do now?’ he asked the four walls of his room.