The Cusanus Game

  “Who are you?” he shouted, raising the staff over his head. “What do you want?”

  He bared his long yellow teeth, which stuck out horizontally under his upper lip.

  “My name is Fingerhut. I’m reporting on the situation here. Worldwide. Via satellite.”

  “Yes,” said the old man. “Yes, do that. We were attacked.”

  “By whom?”

  The old man spread his arms.

  The roof of the house had obviously been on fire, but it had been extinguished. People had also been wounded; they were attended to by the emergency doctor and his two assistants. Fingerhut saw among the village residents a few bad laser burns. He pushed his way forward with practiced movements and zoomed in on the injured, while he monitored the drone’s wide shot out of the corner of his eye.

  “Tough luck, Mr. Fingerhut,” said a hoarse voice beside him.

  On the stretcher in front of the ambulance helicopter lay a slender young man in a black uniform. He had extremely short-cropped curly hair, dyed light blond, and a thin, suntanned face, which looked gray from the pain he was suffering. He was attached to the drip of a blood bag. The breast of his uniform jacket and black shirt had been cut away and his chest covered with compresses to stanch the bleeding; between them protruded the shafts of two metal arrows, which had pierced his lungs. His narrow rib cage rose and sank in violent spasms. His breath rattled.

  “I had promised you an action interview for your viewers,” he gasped, “but it seems to have come to nothing.”

  “Please don’t speak with him,” said the young doctor, trying to drive Fingerhut back, but the reporter, his neck drawn into his instrument collar, stood as if rooted to the spot and did not budge a millimeter.

  “I just have a few questions,” he insisted.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t allow that.”

  “Let him be, Doctor. I promised him,” said the pack leader. “And what do I have to offer him now? Not even a heroic death.”

  He chuckled. Foamy blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth. With a dove gray suede glove he wiped it off; then he held the glove in front of his face and gazed in astonishment at the smears of blood on it.

  Why is he wearing gloves? Fingerhut wondered, taking a close-up of them. He saw that the light was fading and the color temperature was no longer quite right. The dove gray had a bluish cast, and the bloodred had a tinge of black. He hated these technical deficiencies.

  “I don’t even have a dead camel to offer your viewers,” said the pack leader.

  “Why do you kill those animals?” asked Fingerhut.

  The pack leader laughed and gasped in pain as his chest moved. “I’ll reveal it to you. Have you ever taken a close look at the physiognomy of a camel or dromedary, Fingerhut? They are said to be the descendants of the Jews who didn’t leave with Moses, because they had their reasons to stay in Egypt.”

  “Funny.”

  “I didn’t make it up. A thing like that only a Jew could come up with,” murmured the pack leader; he closed his eyes for a few seconds and breathed shallowly.

  “Please leave him alone. He’s very debilitated,” said the doctor. “I can’t remove the arrows. He will lose even more blood. We don’t have any more blood bags for him, because he has blood factors that are rarely found here in northern Europe. We have to bring him to the hospital in Magdeburg. I’ve requested a helicopter.”

  “Did you see the moon last night, Fingerhut?” asked the pack leader. “It got bigger.”

  “It’s a full moon.”

  The pack leader raised his hand weakly. “No, you don’t understand. It got bigger. It’s getting closer to the earth. A new era is dawning. The era of the high moon is over. Now space must be made for the new man, a new human race. The little things all around have to go. We ASEN have been chosen to prepare the ground for the new race.”

  Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, von Liebenfels, von Sebottendorf, Haushofer, Crowley, Bulwer-Lytton—he’s up to his neck in that mystical swamp of World Ice Theory and the superhuman, thought Fingerhut. Those crazy fantasies, over and over again.

  “You haven’t grasped a thing, Fingerhut,” hissed the pack leader, raising his head. “Admit it. Not a thing.”

  “What haven’t I grasped?”

  “That we’re only dirt on the boots of those who will come after us. You—and I.”

  “He’s hallucinating,” said the doctor.

  “He’s not hallucinating,” Fingerhut replied with a sigh.

  “I tried, but against an octopus you have no chance,” said the pack leader.

  “Against what?”

  “He knows your intentions exactly. He’s a step ahead of you. But only one. With the second you already have a chance—theoretically. You might be able to catch him and defeat him. But you need a lot of luck.”

  “He’s hallucinating,” said the doctor.

  “I don’t know,” said Fingerhut.

  “What’s he talking about?”

  Fingerhut spread his hands. “A legend,” he said.

  “Not a legend,” whispered the pack leader, exhausted. “They come from the future.”

  “I thought the future belonged to the supermen,” Fingerhut remarked.

  The pack leader furrowed his brow and gave Fingerhut a dull, somewhat feverish look. He seemed to be straining to think.

  “That’s what confuses me,” he said softly, and after a pause he went on, “Goebbels said our end would be the end of the universe. If we die—we, who believe in the supermen—then the universe has no future. They need us to pave the way for them.”

  “I wouldn’t want to live in that universe,” said the reporter.

  The pack leader laughed and screwed up his face in pain. “I would have relieved you of that concern, Fingerhut.” He wiped his forehead with the bloodstained glove.

  “Please leave him alone now,” said the doctor.

  “Do you see the eyes over there?” cried the wounded man, pointing to the wall of the house; his feverish gaze darted back and forth. “He’s moving.”

  Fingerhut and the doctor turned around but couldn’t make out anything.

  “The octopus,” groaned the pack leader. “He can’t fool me. He’s nearby. I sense him.”

  The doctor loaded his injection gun, held it to the pack leader’s neck, and pulled the trigger.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  * * *

  “WHAT’S THE DEAL with that illness the ASEN are supposedly afflicted with?” asked Fingerhut, as they walked along the row of prisoners who had been chained up in the grass on the roadside. The ski masks had been pulled off their heads. Under them the faces of children had been revealed. Some were completely apathetic; one wept; another spat defiantly at the camera. For that he earned a kick from one of the farmers guarding them.

  “You mean the Fenris virus?” asked the doctor. “Some call it an indoctrination virus. I regard that designation not only as misleading but also as dangerous. We still know too little about it. It’s similar to HIV, the immunologists from the Charité say; same ways of spreading: blood, sperm. It could be a genetically engineered product, tailored very deliberately. During the so-called blood rites, they consciously infect one another with it. Loyalty among comrades, blood brotherhood … they’ve been taken in by that mystical nonsense.”

  “And the symptoms?”

  “The virus surmounts the blood-brain barrier and afflicts the caudate nucleus and the hippocampus. It has a paralyzing effect on the amygdala, the anxiety module in the limbic system. The consequence is fearlessness. That is, the fear threshold is lowered and social patterns of behavior are suppressed. The result is blind obedience, defiance of death, and a horrible mercilessness.”

  “Who, for heaven’s sake, would release something like that into the world?” asked Fingerhut.

  The doctor shrugged. “Certain circles of the military must have been delighted about it.”

  “Is there a treatment?”

  “It’s at a p
rimitive stage, at best. No medication so far—it’s going to take time. We’re working, so to speak, with a sledgehammer. Burning it out, literally. The infected person has to be kept for at least eighty hours at a body temperature of 108 degrees. That kills most people. But the boys here”—he gestured to the row of fettered prisoners—“seem to be strong and healthy. A few will surely survive it.”

  The sound of an approaching helicopter could be heard. It came in for a landing next to the two others. The cockpit was painted with a red cross. Two men jumped out and slid the stretcher with the pack leader in. The doctor hurried over and gave them instructions. Then three men and a woman from the village who had suffered burns boarded.

  When the helicopter had taken off, the doctor returned to Fingerhut.

  “A tangential remark,” he said, “if it interests you.”

  “Everything interests me.”

  “The blood analysis of that patient…”

  “The pack leader?”

  “Yes. His alleles, the form of his HLA genes for immune defense, indicate a rare genetic enzyme deficiency. It’s known as Mutation A of the G6PD gene.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “The man’s racial roots clearly lie in southern Africa. Herero, I would say.”

  “Oho! I thought it was a suntan.”

  The doctor smiled triumphantly. Fingerhut saw that he was older than he had assumed at first glance.

  “Maybe German Southwest Africa,” he said.

  Fingerhut nodded. “It happens.”

  * * *

  THE STREAM GURGLED. Long gray grass from the previous year hung from the banks. It was still early in the year, but the last remains of snow in the shady spots had disappeared. The alders and poplars were still dreaming, held captive by winter. Only the willows gleamed in faint gold, as if it had wafted over from the fleeting shores over the southwestern horizon, in which the sun sank early.

  The octopus looked around. The camels snorted and rumbled; they scavenged between the trees for the first green and ground the hay that had been strewn for them. Occasionally they raised their heads and looked over at him. But their reaction did not suggest that they were aware of him, that they glimpsed anything but an old willow by the stream. Why shouldn’t a pollard willow have eyes in a lumpy face under the growths of its forehead? A magpie flew up with a squawk and darted away. Had it sensed his presence?

  It had again been a clear day. Rain had not come. In the evening there would be fog. It had also been a successful day.

  Then the octopus sensed the soliton approaching. He felt it like an almost inaudible crackling in his body, as if an electric current had accelerated the molecules in their movement. The crackling swelled to a roar. When it was really close, he shut his eyes. And a fraction of a second later, only the willow remained.

  VII

  Princess Brambilla

  For us believing physicists, the separation between past, present and future has only the significance of an illusion—though a stubborn one.

  ALBERT EINSTEIN

  “Are you sure this isn’t a prison?” I asked Luigi, as the gate in the high chain-link fence sprang open in front of me.

  “It’s the Bahnhofshotel, Domenica,” he explained to me in his humorless manner.

  That was also what an elegant brass sign next to the entrance said.

  Apparently my personal data had obtained admittance for me. My travel chip in my ICom had signaled my arrival. But the hotel seemed more like a row of lockers for bulky luggage, for it consisted of a collection of white-lacquered container homes arranged side by side. A second level accessible via metal steps and walkways had been stacked on top.

  “Is there no reception here?” I asked anxiously as the metal door shut with a resounding clank.

  “No, but I am in contact with an AI; it performs that function,” said Luigi. So I was dealing with one of those high-tech shelters with which the Chinese inundated the world. Here you encountered at most other guests; there was no staff. I already longed to return to the Hotel Altstadt on Rudolfskai and Herr Roblacher, even though the ghosts of Salzburg were still breathing coldly down my neck.

  Number 024 was on the second “floor.” I had to lug my two smart travel bags up myself, for they weren’t among the all-terrain models. My concern about feeling confined in the tube turned out to be unfounded. The bright colors, indirect lighting, and ingeniously positioned mirrors counteracted any hint of claustrophobia. I had the impression of being in the cabin of a modern cruise ship. The accommodations were spacious. I had a living room, a spacious sleeping berth for two people, and a bathroom.

  “Is there anywhere to get something to eat around here?” I asked Luigi.

  “There’s a service through nearby restaurants. May I order you something?”

  “Never mind, Luigi.” To be safe, I had bought a few sandwiches in Ulm; that was all I needed for the evening.

  * * *

  IN THE MIDDLE of the night I was awakened by a sound as if someone were climbing around on my lodgings. Were burglars attempting to break into the containers and rob the guests? Was it mutants from the restricted zone, about whom ghastly rumors were spread, or wild animals that had escaped from the zoos because during the precipitate evacuation the people had not managed to kill them all?

  I asked Luigi to contact the AI. It assured me that its motion detectors had not been set off, that the sounds were completely natural, caused by temperature differences between day and night in the suspension of the containers and in the supply and drain lines.

  “Can I trust it, Luigi?”

  “I think so.”

  I listened anxiously to the thumping and creaking around me, but didn’t dare to look out the windowpane on the door or even to unlock it to take a peek around. Eventually I must have fallen asleep again.

  The AI woke me with the music of a local station. Outside on the metal walkway clattered footsteps; then something was pushed into my door slot. I got up and looked through the tiny lens that allowed a wide-angle view. It was already daytime. I saw a man in a white uniform wearing a yellow crash helmet with a dragon emblem—a dark-skinned man delivering breakfast packages. He got into the electric vehicle and drove along the road in front of the containers. Outside the chain-link fence jostled begging children in ragged clothing. The man paid no attention to them. A baton dangled from his hip. Probably he had to defend his cargo when he left the enclosure.

  I took the cardboard carton from the slot. It contained a self-heating drinking nut of miserable coffee, a limp croissant with packaged “Butterfäßle” brand butter, “Sonniges Reichenau” apricot jam, and a paper napkin printed with an imposing castle ruin and the inscription “O Heidelberg, dear city” and “We wish our guests a pleasant meal.” Who was “we”?

  I poured the remainder of the coffee into the sink, stuffed the drinking nut into the carton with the other things, and after a shower headed to the train platform. Luigi had in the meantime settled the bill with the AI.

  No sooner had I walked through the gate than I was surrounded by a horde of children. I handed them the breakfast carton. A small boy snatched it from me and ran away quick as a flash. A whole pack charged after him, screaming. But some had stayed behind and stretched out their hands toward me, whimpering grovelingly. Farther away a few older children gave me furtive looks. They were all terribly dirty and unkempt, had long tousled hair, and some of them displayed physical defects from genetic disorders. The death zone was close.

  “Hey! You can earn some money if you carry my luggage to the train,” I called to them. They did not react, merely stared at me uncomprehendingly.

  “Or not. Maybe it’s better that way,” I murmured, turning off the servos of my travel bags and grabbing them with a firm grip by the hand straps.

  * * *

  HEIDELBERG HAD BEEN a border city for twenty years and was often embattled. Plunderers would penetrate into abandoned Mannheim and the region on the left bank of the Rhine i
n the belief that after their raids they could plunge back into the streams of refugees and, without being identified, bring their spoils into the unrestricted areas. Upon being discovered, they would frequently take hostages and engage in shoot-outs with the border troops. The structure spanning the tracks had been destroyed by grenades and replaced with a makeshift bridge made of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic. All around the train station ruins could be seen, buildings gutted by fire, which had not been restored.

  On the walkway and the platform, scores of young beggars roamed around, stretching out their hands toward me and exhibiting their deformities. A small girl held out her hand to me. From her right wrist sprouted another tiny hand, bent and black like a talon.

  The train was to depart at seven o’clock, but the passengers had to be there by six to take their reserved seats. RHEINEXPRESS was written on the cars of the sleek gray articulated train, the paint of which was badly scratched. The electric current collectors of the two power cars were folded down. At the back and front a diesel locomotive was attached.

  First class was barely occupied as the passengers crowded into the remaining cars. Sitting in the window seat in my compartment was a delicate older woman, who greeted me with a nod and a brief scrutinizing look. She wore a light blue linen suit over an openwork white blouse, and had on a broad-brimmed dark blue hat, the band of which was studded with little metal plates the size of a one-euro coin. From her ICom, which she wore on her wrist, hung half a dozen special modules like piglets from the teats of a sow. The woman was electronically armed to the teeth. That might have indicated that she was a photojournalist or filmmaker, also because she didn’t conceal her lavish equipment, though she apparently unintentionally spread her light gray shawl over her hand, which rested in her lap. I furtively eyed her profile as she looked out the window.

  She had on glasses adorned with little round mirrors, equipped with flip-down monitors and barely balanced on her small snub nose. The tale of Princess Brambilla came to my mind, who, with her magic glasses that enabled her to look behind reality, set off in search of her Assyrian Prince Cornelio.