One Thousand Years

by Randolph Beck

  “I see,” he said again. Then he got back to his steak and wondered if the day would come when he doesn't need to sleep.

  *

  McHenry spotted Vinson and Barr having coffee in the pilots' mess.

  “I see the prince is back from his tour,” chided Barr. McHenry wondered momentarily about that mustache, and what he needed to do in order to grow one, although it certainly wouldn't be a Hitler mustache. He had already accepted Otto Barr as being both black and a Luftwaffe pilot.

  “Did you see very much?” asked Vinson.

  McHenry nodded and took a seat. “The main watch room.”

  Barr and Vinson raised their eyebrows in unison.

  “You know the watch room?” McHenry asked, seeing their blank expressions.

  “We do not go into that part of the ship,” said Barr. “The SS has their job to do, and we have ours.”

  “So I've been told. Aren't you curious?”

  Vinson looked like he was looking for an answer, but Barr kept the point. “Perhaps a little, but we understand the security considerations. As pilots, we are more susceptible to capture than most people aboard the ship. They cannot tell us more than we need to know for the mission.”

  “I understand that all too well,” McHenry replied. “But what about Dale? She goes on flights.”

  Barr nodded. “We do take an SS officer on most missions. They use a side-panel to access separate information. But I am certain they are told only as much as they need to know to accomplish their tasks. Those who know more don't leave the Göring. It is for the best. As a combat pilot yourself, you know that ours is a profession that demands we focus on the task at hand.”

  “Coffee?” Vinson offered, interrupting before McHenry could respond.

  “I have a better idea,” Barr interjected. “We should take our coffee inside the Tiger, so McHenry can continue his flight training.”

  McHenry's eyes beamed. “Thanks!”

  To his surprise, the men left their unfinished coffee cups on the table when they filed out the door toward the hangar section.

  “You are getting better at this,” Vinson noted as they entered the zero-gee section and floated up the ladder.

  “I can get used to it.” He wondered how they could drink coffee without gravity, but didn't want to say anything that would delay a flight lesson.

  All three Tigers were parked in the hangar. Two men were working near one of the ships. It looked to McHenry as though they were inspecting its nose. Barr, the senior pilot there, took the lead toward the closest of the other two. He entered first. Vinson held out his hand, motioning for McHenry to follow Barr.

  This looked like the same Tiger, although McHenry couldn't be sure. He would find out later that they always looked exactly the same on the inside unless one was specially configured for a particular mission or maintenance procedure. There were never tears in the fabric, cracks in the glass, or other imperfections by which McHenry could learn to recognize each ship.

  Barr had taken a position behind the two front seats. McHenry took the right seat, flinching a bit when the automatic harness grabbed onto him.

  “How do you like your coffee?” Barr asked.

  “Cream and sugar.”

  Vinson explained as Barr ordered coffees for the three of them, “The Tiger's rechner is cleared whenever it goes out on a mission. It cannot always remember how we like our coffee.”

  “You mean the one on Göring does?” McHenry thought about how robots were erased before a mission, and understood this must be common military practice. Security was like a science to the Reich.

  “Yes,” answered Vinson. “Back on Earth, all the machines communicate with each other. You will be able to drink coffee in Berlin and the machines in Brazil will know how you like it.”

  McHenry suddenly stiffened. He didn't want to go to Berlin. Then he wondered whether his lesson would begin after the coffee. The dome was still just a blank test pattern. Neither Barr nor Vinson seemed in a hurry. “What you're really saying,” he mused, “is that the rechner on Göring is always listening to every word we say. And we have privacy on the Tigers.”

  “Don't make it sound nefarious,” Vinson said uneasily. “It is not as though we are planning a mutiny. We are just more at ease here.”

  “Especially since the main rechner on Göring is now running an SS program,” added Barr. He handed out sealed containers with a straw on one end. The coffee was just as good as inside Göring.

  Vinson rotated his seat toward McHenry and Barr — an act McHenry hadn't thought the seat was capable of. He pushed harder on one foot, and his seat swiveled too.

  “Did you have coffee with the SS?” asked Barr.

  “No, I had a cola with lunch.”

  Barr leaned back casually. “Did you eat in the watch room?”

  “We ate in a small separate room. I was only in the watch room for a few minutes.”

  “What was it like?” asked Vinson.

  “Big. Tremendously huge. It was a little bit like a theater except that these motion picture screens were all over the place. The ceiling had a large one of these.” McHenry pointed toward the dome. “It was much bigger than in Kontrolle.”

  “Did you see what was on the screens?” asked Barr.

  “I only saw the lines overhead, and it was covered with charts of some type. They told me it represented history. Everything was leading toward the planned invasion. You guys probably understand it a lot better than me.”

  “We can make guesses,” said Barr. “But this is out of our expertise. The work is tightly classified for good reason, and you should consider yourself lucky to have seen any of it. They are trying to make a good impression on you. Take advantage of your good fortune. See and learn as much as you can.”

  “Did you spend much time with Sturmbannführer Dale?” asked Vinson hesitantly.

  It took a second for McHenry to figure out that he meant Kathy Dale. He couldn't resist a slight smile. “She gave me the tour,” he said. “We had lunch afterward. Interesting woman.” He half-expected Barr to jibe Vinson again.

  “You will probably be seeing a lot of her,” Barr noted. “I think the SS will want to take an active part introducing you to our time.”

  The word indoctrination flashed into McHenry's mind. He bristled.

  Vinson seemed to sense that. “You are in good hands. She was a teacher before returning to the SS.” He set his coffee cup onto a clasp in the seat and looked to Barr.

  “Time for your lesson,” said Barr. “Orbital navigation.”

  *

  Chapter 12

  “When the President is ill Roosevelt-haters turn pollyanna and dish out oodles of counterfeit sympathy. They whimper that he works hard and carries tremendous responsibilities... They seem to forget that one reason the President gets sick is that he is continually hounded, annoyed and obstructed by their low-blow attacks.”

  — Walter Winchell, newspaper and radio commentator, (April 16, 1944)

  Sunday, April 16, 1944

  McHenry would see Dale almost every day for breakfast or lunch.

  She met him at the border to the SS section, as she had done on previous occasions. It was hardly necessary. The rechner controlled access throughout the ship, and he had learned quickly that the doors only opened when he was authorized to proceed. Having established that the future would breed a superior humanity, he imagined that she might have thought he wasn't capable of remembering the path as all the corridors looked alike here. He hoped this was the case. The idea of proving her wrong pleased him so much.

  “We will have to have a quick breakfast this morning,” she said as they walked through the corridors. “I'm sure you know that we're intercepting the Italian today.”

  “You haven't told me whether you'll be going along.”

  “Not this time. Someone else is assigned to that one.”

  “I noticed Adolf Vinson isn't going either.” He couldn't help watching her for a reaction to hearing the n
ame, but she didn't show one.

  “No, the pilot is named Bamberg. I'm sure you know him already. That reminds me, how are your flight lessons going?”

  “Great,” he replied. That was his first heartfelt response to her in a long time. He realized that there were few in any of their conversations. She didn't seem to understand that he still resented that swastika on her arm.

  They entered the SS officers' mess. He sat down after she did, and then they ordered breakfast.

  “I understand you're becoming a pretty good Tiger pilot.”

  “It's still just in simulator mode — or Flug Spiel,” he answered. “I'm still waiting for someone to authorize a trip for me.”

  “You know that will have to wait until we return to our time.” She watched him for a moment as he took a spoonful of grits. “But I can see you're picking up some German.”

  “Mostly what I see on the Tiger visuals. It's not so easy with everybody speaking English when I'm around.”

  “Everyone wants you to feel comfortable,” she said. She had stopped eating and was still watching him intently. “You know, there are other subjects that you can study while we're here.”

  “Such as?”

  “Something other than space flight,” she said. “There is so much to learn, and all you've done is practice flying.”

  “I'm a pilot,” he said. “That's what I do.”

  “Anything to pass the time?”

  “What else do you expect me to do?” he asked. He noticed that she kept watching him. Her scrutiny made him suddenly conscious of how small he was.

  “You could study the Reich, and its rich history. You have one thousand years of history to learn about.”

  “I've seen its history close up, remember?” he sneered.

  “You know that's not what I mean,” she responded. “But I should say that I am astonished that you haven't tried looking up your friends. You can even look for their future descendants. You know that the rechner is capable telling you everything you want to know.”

  “Not quite everything,” he replied, knowing full well it was a pointless response.

  “Everything you need to know,” she said, rephrasing the point more accurately.

  He knew what she was driving at, and that she was right. He had deliberately avoided trying to find out what happens to his friends and family. He would spend his days in the hangar or the pilots' mess. Every night he went to bed staring out the fake window above the world, allowing its distance to shield him from the question that some of his friends may be dying in the clouds far below.

  He also knew that his new Luftwaffe friends were happy to let him avoid this truth. Why was she, a woman with a swastika on her arm, trying to make him confront it?

  “It's not like I don't think about it,” he finally said, staring at his food. “I think about my friends every day. But as you are so fond of saying, there's nothing I can do about it. I've got to work this out on my own.”

  “That's all right,” she consoled him. “There will always be time for that in the future. You might feel better if you look at the future first. That's why I suggest that you learn more about the Reich. Adolf Hitler was only the beginning. You have so much more to see. Get yourself settled into your new life. Then when you're ready to reflect on the past, you will have a firm footing in your new life to hold onto.

  “We understand you face some difficulties,” she continued. “Everyone here is thinking of you.”

  *

  The rechner played his favorite song when McHenry returned to his room that night. He marveled at the quality of the recording, which made it sound as though the musician was in the room. But his favorite song reminded him of home. His thoughts came back to his friends. Where were they now? And which ones would not survive the war?

  “Rechner!” he called. “Show me a list of the pilots from the U.S. Army Air Force 99th Fighter Squadron who died.” That was the question he dared not ask, and now it came out without his even thinking.

  The result was devastating. The entire wall filled with names. McHenry stared in shock. He could hardly read the list, his eyes filling with tears. There were so many, he dared not look for the most familiar names.

  “How did they all die?” he asked, his voice a mere whisper.

  The machine responded without emotion: “Seventy-nine percent attributed to illness or other natural causes. Five percent accidental deaths. Fifteen percent killed during wartime service. One percent list no record of death.”

  The dry recital made no sense. Slowly, he realized the error. “Do you mean that most of these men died of old age?”

  “Yes. Fifty-seven percent died of old age.”

  He sank back into his chair, relieved but angry. Of course, he thought, everybody he knew would be dead after one thousand years. He wondered whether the machine could have foreseen his reaction, and asked himself why it would allow him to make such a heart-rending mistake.

  Correcting the error would have been easy now. All he needed to do was ask for a list of those killed in combat. But he wasn't ready for that now.

  “Rechner, show me the Fenster again.” The Earth appeared and the names were gone. The music kept playing.

  He thought he would feel better. He didn't. He wondered what Parker would do, and then he wondered whether Parker survives the war. That was something that couldn't wait. He needed to know now.

  “Tell me what happens to Captain Joseph Parker,” he ordered, his voice firm. “Same unit. What happens to him?”

  He knew the answer even before the machine spoke.

  “Captain Joseph Charles Parker was killed in combat during wartime service.”

  *

  McHenry decided to miss breakfast with the pilots that morning. Most of the pilots would be in training anyway, and yesterday's Tiger mission wouldn't return until mid-afternoon. It seemed the perfect opportunity to sulk.

  A chime sounded. It was a familiar sound, but he couldn't remember where he heard it before. Looking around his room, he saw a message displayed on the window.

  SS-SF Kathy Dale

  “Rechner, what was that?” he called.

  “Sturmbannführer Dale is waiting at your door.”

  “Then, that's a doorbell?” he asked absentmindedly, getting to his feet.

  “Yes.”

  He straightened himself, checking that his shirt was taut. He was still not used to the fact that his clothing seemed to know when to relax and when to firm up.

  “Well, open the door.”

  “I was worried about you,” said Dale as she stepped inside. “I heard that you missed breakfast this morning, and all I could think about was the conversation we had yesterday. Please tell me you didn't get some bad news.”

  McHenry studied her face. She seemed genuinely concerned, but that swastika on her arm was so ugly to him. Especially now. He almost wanted to blame her for Parker's impending death.

  “My flight leader is going to die,” he said. “He's my best friend.”

  “Oh Sam, I'm so sorry.” Dale took a seat that seemed to slide out of the wall and tapped his chair, beckoning him to sit beside her. This timeless gesture hadn't changed in a thousand years.

  “Sam,” she continued softly. “Let me tell you something I really only understood a few years ago. As you know, I am a lot older than you are. Much, much older. One of the differences with our immortality is that people can live for many years without ever losing anyone they love. You have lived a very short life and have already seen death many times.”

  “That doesn't make it any easier,” said McHenry, almost instantly regretting the sour tone. He could see tears forming in her eyes.

  “Sam, I lost two of my grandchildren once.”

  Those words startled him. He remembered, again, she wasn't the young woman she appeared to be.

  “It was an accident,” she explained. “They could have easily survived if they had been on Earth, or on any starship, or any one of a dozen planets. You know th
at doctors can repair anything. But they died on another world far from here.”

  “I'm sorry,” said McHenry. It was the first time he saw her in despair, having shed her cloak of Nazi pride.

  “I have five children, and now six other grandchildren. That didn't make it any easier for me. I lived the first hundred years of my life without ever losing anyone who was truly close to me. Not an uncle; not a grandfather; and certainly not a child. This happened fifteen years ago, and I'm still not over it.”

  “I don't mean to take away from your loss.”

  “That's okay, Sam. You see, I do understand. You won't ever forget your friends and family either.”

  “He just meant a lot to me, that's all,” said McHenry. “He's the one who stood by my side whenever I had problems, and now I won't be there for him. He was the last man I saw before I...”

  He sunk his head down and closed his eyes. He had wanted to show strength but gave in to the emotion.

  Dale waited a moment before she spoke. “This war was such a terrible thing. I look at the casualty rates every day in my work. I need these numbers for our history equations. But I'm still a human being. I just can't get out of my mind that every one of those men had somebody who cared about them. I have to keep telling myself that the war will end. Sam, the war will end.”

  *

  Chapter 13

  “There are today hundreds of thousands of British soldiers who will cease to live during the attempt to invade Western Europe. They are prepared to sacrifice their lives, but for what? For their country? Demonstrably not! Britain has only the stark prospect of poverty before her. For the rights of small nations? Certainly not. What British politician wants to hear of Poland today? For what, then, are these men to die? They are to die for the Jewish policy of Stalin and Roosevelt. If there is any other purpose to their sacrifice, I challenge Mr. Churchill to tell them what it is.”

  — William Joyce, Nazi propaganda broadcaster, (April 17, 1944)