One Thousand Years

by Randolph Beck

  “We don't get everything at once, Sam,” Dale volunteered. “Some of this stuff is still on the satellites and we won't have that until the Luftwaffe pilots bring it back in.”

  “Yes,” Stern acknowledged. “The satellites must be retrieved for more data to be collected. You see, those satellites cannot use radio signals, especially now that we have totally restricted transmissions.”

  He pointed overhead to another section of the great hall, where the entire corner was a patch of green and blue.

  “Those,” he said proudly, “have been completely charted. See how the intersections are spaced out in waves?”

  McHenry saw the pattern and nodded.

  Stern shouted a command, and the section zoomed in on a patchwork. “Those are one hundred percent mapped out. The wave pattern follows the predictions made by the formulae. There are no breaks. You see where the green merges with the blue perfectly.”

  “That was the entire last year,” Dale said.

  “Last year? How long have you people been here?”

  “Six months,” she replied. “But that's what's so important about the work we are doing. With the small amount of data we already have, we will be able to extrapolate backward as well as forward. We will soon have most of the next two years plotted out, as well as the last five, even without more data.”

  “You seem to be saying that you will be able to predict events,” McHenry noted almost accusingly.

  “Yes, of course,” said Stern. “Taken as a whole, there are patterns and cycles to history. Some of this is already being researched in your time to study cycles in the economy. Have you ever heard about Kondratiev cycles and Elliott waves?”

  “No. My field was engineering, not economics.”

  “You will still understand the basics,” Stern continued. “Nikolai Kondratiev, a Russian, found long-term cycles to the aggregate world economy. Those cycles take decades. Ralph Nelson Elliott was, or is, rather, an American. He found patterns in shorter time periods. They were not the first, nor the last. Men were writing about economic cycles for centuries. But these are men of your time.

  “There are also broader trends. You have heard, no doubt, that we have a rechner operating aboard this ship — a vast number of them, actually. But there are early primitive versions of the rechners today. In your time, presently, the British are using one with banks of radio tubes to decipher secret German codes. For a time, Americans will call them ‘computers.’ But even this was not the beginning. An earlier generation used mechanical relays. The next generation will use silicon, and then technology at the molecular level. It will still improve from there.

  “I am not telling you all this because I think you need a lesson in early technology. My point is that technology, an important facet of society, is ever-advancing at a rate that is quantifiable. Even if I did not have records to show me who will invent a new technology, I could estimate when it will happen. Then, knowing what technology will be available, in conjunction with knowing the world economic situation at that time, I could make projections.”

  “But it's all still approximate,” McHenry noted.

  Stern smiled. “Look around, Herr McHenry. Elliott waves and Kondratiev cycles are as much a part of your era as vacuum tubes. We have moved well beyond that.” He called out another command in German.

  The dome returned to the scale it had shown before. McHenry studied the green and blue section and followed the lines back to the area they looked at first, C25, C26 and P25 — the invasion of France. He desperately wanted to know more about it, but dared not ask, lest he be disappointed further. “What are those red markings?” he asked.

  “Those? You might call them surprises,” Stern answered. “An event was unexpected when the predicted or actual wave patterns did not match our historical records precisely. We are still waiting for more data to fully comprehend these. As it comes in, those surprises are reconciled with the pattern, and change to green or blue. Most of our satellites are retrieved regularly. Some of our most sensitive ones will not be recalled until much later. In those cases, we will have to wait for that to be resolved.”

  “If you want my opinion, you're being just a little too careful about not using radio,” said McHenry. “My people are too busy down there to be listening for what you're all up to.”

  “Oh, we are not afraid of being overheard down there,” said Stern. “Your old equipment would not detect us. We do not need to use the old-style radio bands. It is the Grauen we have to watch for.”

  “You have to understand, we don't dare fight them here,” said Dale, her face revealing a touch of concern. “Their history is also intertwined with ours.”

  Stern stepped onto his raised platform. “Correct. We must allow them to go on with their activities, whatever it was, and no matter how nefarious. There must be no distractions from us.” He turned to address Dale. “Sturmbannführer, perhaps you should show Herr McHenry to the upper storerooms.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said, smiling confidently again. “That is something he would like to see. With your permission, Standartenführer?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Heil Renard!” said Dale, raising her hand.

  “Heil Renard!” answered Stern.

  Dale led the way through another set of doors, and through another long corridor. Everyone they passed in these halls wore SS uniforms.

  “I guess the Luftwaffe doesn't work in this department,” McHenry observed.

  “They run the ship and do flight operations,” Dale replied. “We're the historians.”

  “If you'll excuse me for saying, that doesn't sound like the SS I know about.”

  “And what do you really know about the SS?” she laughed. “Sam, you've got to get over your preconceptions. The SS is primarily responsible for national security. That's an important function for any society. Even the corrupt democracy of your day had its counterparts in the FBI and OSS. This is serious business. Any mistakes here would be a disaster. The Reich can't afford to leave anything to chance. The task demands the integrity and the authority of the SS. Men, women and children of the next thousand years would be at risk if we messed up. Surely, you must be able to grasp this by now.”

  McHenry understood her words but was not willing to give in. “A thousand years,” he mused. “Isn't that how long Hitler said the Third Reich would last?”

  She turned a corner and stopped before a numbered door.

  “Adolf Hitler was the greatest man in history,” she replied. Her voice took a more reverent tone, smoothing her Chicago edge. “But even he failed to see how powerful the vision was. The Third Reich will stand for an eternity. You can depend on that.”

  *

  Chapter 10

  “We don't know when an invasion of Europe will begin, but we do know that when it does begin it will be the great test, not only of our men in the field, but of us at home.”

  — Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady, (April 10, 1944)

  The door opened when she gave it a determined glare. “You're gonna like this,” she said.

  The room was full of helmeted twentieth-century SS troops, about two dozen in number. They wore the gray uniforms of the Waffen-SS, and stood rigidly at attention. Every man was about McHenry's height, with some variation. Dale was by far the tallest person in the room, and she stood out in that way.

  “Heil Renard!” said the first man in the line. He was an officer in the twentieth-century uniform, clicking his heels and standing straight at attention with his right arm extended in salute.

  “Heil Renard!” Dale responded, saluting with a raised hand, curtly. “Good morning, Hauptsturmführer. We're speaking English for Herr McHenry here. He is an American of the twentieth-century and does not speak German.”

  “Good morning then,” the man said, speaking with a flawless American accent.

  “Good morning,” said McHenry, eyeing the troops. With the exception of the one who spoke, the rest were too rigid to be normal men, as though f
rozen in place. “May I ask what's going on?”

  “I was not briefed,” said the strange man.

  “Nothing is going on, Herr Hauptsturmführer,” said Dale. “This is Lieutenant Sam McHenry. He's an American pilot. I am giving him a tour of the facilities.”

  “Welcome, Lieutenant.” The man clicked his heels again and reached out to shake McHenry's hand.

  “Thanks,” said McHenry. It was a firm and warm handshake.

  Dale smiled deviously. “Sam,” she said, “the Hauptsturmführer is a robot.”

  McHenry stepped back and let his eyes sweep the room again. “A robot?” he asked, dumbfounded, though not entirely surprised. “I just assumed Hauptsturmführer was another one of your SS ranks.”

  “Yes, Hauptsturmführer is an SS rank.” said Dale. “It would be equivalent to a Hauptmann in the Luftwaffe or a Captain in the American army. But these are our SS troops.”

  “Does that surprise you?” asked the robot. He, or it — McHenry wasn't quite sure — had remained standing with the rigidity of a well disciplined German SS officer, but not that of a machine.

  “I thought I've seen too many surprises already, but yes, I am surprised.”

  “Really?” The robot's expression feigned puzzlement. “But we know that twentieth-century Americans have already discussed the possibility of mechanical men.”

  “Maybe so, but it's different to see one.” McHenry gave another look to the robot's platoon. Unlike the Hauptsturmführer, the rest stood stiff like mannequins. “Are you planning to invade?”

  “We stand ready to follow orders, whatever they may be.”

  “These mechanical troops are here just as a precaution,” said Dale. “It is technically a unit of Fallschirmjäger, the German word for paratrooper. If some kind of accident happened, like a Tiger crash, or anything that might change history, we can mobilize them to set things right again.”

  McHenry turned back to the robot. “Does that mean you can parachute down from orbit?”

  The robot looked to Dale as though awaiting permission to reveal a secret.

  “Yes,” Dale answered, nodding to the robot. “It is more complicated than that.” Then, after a pause, she laughed and pointed a finger down at his chest. “If you're thinking of stealing a parachute, forget it. Humans can't survive that trip with the ones that our Fallschirmjäger use. And you don't have access to the exits. The ship's main rechner will see to that.”

  “You don't leave much to chance,” McHenry said, glumly.

  “Sam, you ought to know by now that we leave nothing to chance.”

  McHenry saw she was beaming with pride. A boastful, Nazi pride. He didn't like it. He would not accept such perfection. He scanned the robot, looking for flaws.

  “Why are the others so rigid?”

  “They are not active,” said the robot. “Their memories are blank. Mine would also be reset if I were sent to the planet's surface.”

  “Reset?”

  “They will be given fresh instructions when needed.”

  McHenry's face expressed shock.

  “One thing you have to realize,” she interrupted, “is that we don't want them to have any more information than necessary. Their memories can be scanned by the Grauen if they're captured.”

  “Yes,” added the robot. “I am alert now only as a backup measure. If Göring and her crew are disabled, I can use whatever means are available to either save or destroy the ship. But my primary function is emergency intervention. If I go to the surface, my memory will also be cleared, and given only the information I need to carry out my mission.”

  “And this doesn't bother you?” McHenry asked, incredulously.

  “Oh, Sam!” Dale laughed. “He's a machine.”

  “But he is...” McHenry searched for the word, wondering what it was that separated himself from this machine. Dale kept grinning, seeming to enjoy teasing him. The robot stood at ease with himself, watching McHenry as though studying him.

  And then it hit him. They were studying each other. This machine was aware of itself — aware of himself. It wasn't a machine at all in McHenry's mind, and yet it wasn't upset that it might have its memory cleared. “He is aware,” McHenry finally said to Dale, and then turned to the robot. “You know what's going on. They shouldn't be able to just erase your memory like you're some kind of a radio.”

  “He's still a machine,” said Dale.

  The robot stood there, now grinning like Dale, but it didn't say anything. McHenry couldn't think of it as a machine. He wondered what it was thinking.

  “There's no use in arguing with you people,” he conceded. Neither Dale nor the robot said anything for the moment. He had no hope of knowing what the robot was thinking, but Dale's smirk led him to assume she was relishing this victory. She looked every bit the victor, towering over him with her imposing physique, and flashing her perfect white teeth. The word arrogance crossed his mind and it stuck. He had thought this about her before, and about many of these people, particularly Mtubo the SS, but the word fit her in this moment in time.

  He finally understood. These people hadn't merely advanced their physical bodies. Their brains must have been advanced as well, presumably by Nazi science. And then there was the all-too-easily forgotten fact that she was old enough to be a great-great grandmother. There was no telling how much smarter they were. Her arrogance may have been justified—

  No, he was wrong. It wasn't arrogance at all. It was confidence. The word fit all of them like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle. He never had a chance to overpower them, and he now knew that outsmarting them was out of the question. That realization was like a stake into his heart.

  “Don't feel bad,” said Dale, her grin fading into an expression of concern. “You're learning.”

  “Not fast enough,” he replied.

  “You have all the time in the world.”

  He wanted to contradict her. He did not have all the time in the world. He had a war to fight.

  “Let's have lunch,” she said. “That's one thing I'm sure you'll enjoy.”

  *

  Chapter 11

  SCHOOLS TO FINANCE P-51 MUSTANG

  In February, boys and girls of the schools of Washington County financed the purchase of a Flying Ambulance, buying $182,000 worth of War Bonds and Stamps. The goal was $110,000. Bond and stamp sales in March totaled $75,000. This month, April, the schools of the county are being asked to finance a P-51 Mustang Fighter, which has the “highest ceiling and the highest speed of any fighter in existence.” These fighters cost $75,000 each.

  — The Washington Reporter, (April 10, 1944)

  The SS officers' mess was not at all like the Luftwaffe pilots' mess. The food could be the same, but they sat in an alcove rather than a large open room. McHenry sat across from Dale at the small table that could seat six at most.

  He was also surprised that he could ask for any food he wanted. “Why do the Luftwaffe pilots all eat the same thing?” he asked.

  “Tradition,” Dale explained. “It goes back to the early days of space flight when everyone ate together. It's like a social exercise to them. It probably helps to pass the time when they're in transit. But we're on a different schedule. And we don't have the same traditions. Now, what would you like?”

  “What are my options?”

  “The rechner can serve anything you want.”

  “Steak,” he answered. “With potatoes, greens, gravy and a cola.”

  Almost immediately, the food emerged from the dispenser in the center of the table. But he was less surprised than he would have been the previous day.

  Dale ordered something in German, which looked like a salad.

  “Where is everybody else?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Most of us eat at our stations, but there are also several break rooms where we can relax.”

  “You guys must work a lot.”

  “We do.”

  He was still surprised. “Every single day? All you people do is wor
k from morning to night?”

  Now she was surprised. She looked in his eyes. “Don't you know? We work twenty-four hours a day — with breaks, of course.”

  McHenry eyed her warily. “You don't sleep?”

  “Not since we were teenagers. Nobody does unless there is a special medical need.”

  He looked down at his steak and wondered if it was real, then cursed himself for even thinking that it could be.

  “Don't fret so,” said Dale, consoling him. “Hasn't your sleeping gone well?”

  “Only too well,” he said, very conscious of the odd way she said that. He continued eating, no longer caring whether it could ever have been real. “Just tell me one thing...”

  “What's that?”

  He set his fork down and straightened up. “If I'm the only one who sleeps around here, then why does everyone need their own quarters?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “We don't.”

  “But what about those other rooms near...?” His voice trailed off, suddenly realizing he may know the answer.

  She picked up his meaning. “The other rooms near yours? Those are for the other people we will be picking up — more people from the past. You are only the first where we were successful.”

  McHenry perked up. “Anybody I know?”

  “No. If there were, I probably would have told you already. We check all the backgrounds for convergences. There are only three other Americans. The first is a scientist who will be killed in an industrial accident. But that's a difficult one. We may not be able to do it. And we don't get him for another six months anyway.”

  “When do you get the next one?”

  “Next week,” she said. “And it's an easy one. He'll be in the water, just like you were.”

  “I see,” he said. “Another downed pilot?”

  “No. He's an Italian naval officer. His ship is going to sink.”

  McHenry pondered the image in his mind. “Why just one? Won't there be a whole ship full of people you can rescue?”

  “I wish it were so,” she replied. “It just isn't that simple. There are a lot of variables we need to consider. He's the only one we can safely recover.”