And Having Writ . . .

by Donald R. Bensen

  "My arm," the Kaiser exclaimed angrily, "was ruined at my birth! It was wrenched from its socket, and by the time it was restored to its place, the nerves and muscles were destroyed!"

  "I thought it might be something like that," Dark said. "You'd want to reestablish the nerve connections, first thing, then get in a supply of protein to build up the muscle tissue. I don't expect you could do very much about the bones at this late date, perhaps add an inch or two onto them, but I don't see getting a really accurate match with the other arm."

  "You can do this?" the Kaiser whispered.

  "Well, yes." Dark looked surprised. "We Captains have got to be ready to maintain all sorts of equipment, and that naturally includes the people on the team. There wouldn't be much point, would there, in having your ship in good order if the crew got bent or broken or something? Mind you," he added, "most of my stuffs on the ocean bottom with Wanderer, so I couldn't do you a brand-new arm or anything like that. But I do have what you might call a first-aid kit in my gear, and that should be enough to let me do a sort of makeshift repair job like that. If you wouldn't object to the trouble, it'd take about three of your days, I'd say—and it would be rather a treat," he added wistfully, "to get back in practice again. I get this feeling that I'm going stale without something to do."

  Ari and I found it quite amusing that someone who valued precision so highly as Dark was so far off in his calculations. (Valmis, as usual, took little notice of what was going on with our endeavor, preferring to watch the Berliners go about their business from his vantage point in a place called Café des Westens; he said they formed Patterns unlike any he had yet seen.) It took not three days to rebuild the Kaiser's arm, as Dark had so confidently stated, but four; a thirty-three and one-third percent error, far beyond what a trained engineer ought to encounter.

  On the Kaiser's instruction, we did not inform Wells or Oxford of what Dark was doing with him. We put it about that they were having extended talks on topics of great import, which did not require the participation of anyone else.

  Wells expressed some perturbation about this supposed state of affairs. "I'm not, of course, taken in by the fiction of nationalism," he told me, as we sat over a couple samples of a local refreshment called Schnapps at the Café des Westens, where we had joined Valmis (who reported that it was quite effective in aiding the Perception of Patterns), "but I'm bound to say that it makes me uneasy that Dark's been en tête-à-tête with the Kaiser for such a time. I'd hate to think that Germany was getting all sorts of plans for long-range guns or land ironclads or things like that that might be used against England. Or for that matter against America—what d'you say to that, Oxford?"

  Oxford, who had contrived somehow to find a glass of his favorite Würzburger so far from home, remarked mildly, "It'd have to be a mighty long-range gun to worry us, I expect. With three thousand miles of Atlantic between us and any worthwhile enemy, I guess we can afford to consider your wars as sporting events we can get good newspaper copy from."

  Recalling Ari's sure prediction of the involvement of all nations in the coming conflict, I once more felt a pang of distress at the dissimulation we were obliged to practice, and ordered a double portion of the Schnapps restorative, which immediately exercised a calming influence on me.

  "Dark wouldn't do a thing like that," I said. "He's as straight as they come, straight as a . . . whatever it is you have here that's very straight. If he knew anything about long-range guns, which I know for a fact he doesn't, and he told the Kaiser about it, which he wouldn't, why, then, he'd tell King Edward the same, if he was asked, and Edison, and Geronimo, and Mr. Hearst, and Captain Thatcher, and that chap who so kindly drove us in the brewery truck, and Mr. Barrymore, and the lady he met on the boat—Dark, that is, not Barrymore, for I'm sure he wasn't traveling with us—and . . ." I went on a bit more, being rather pleased with myself for remembering so many of the very interesting people we had run across during our enforced stay on this planet. But both Oxford and Wells lost interest in the topic of conversation and turned to talk of other subjects, particularly the varieties of evening entertainment Berlin offered.

  They embarked on an exploration of these, on which I accompanied them, although I have no precise recollection of what happened during it. In different establishments, a number of persons, both male and female, sang or spoke prepared speeches, which aroused generally favorable reactions, but as this was done in the German tongue, to which I was a stranger, I did not attempt to arrive at any opinion about what I saw. Refreshments were available in copious quantities, and I tried several sorts of them. Most were quite good, and I resolved to make a list of the best, but later lost it, or perhaps forgot to write it out.

  It was the next morning, the fourth after our arrival in Berlin, when Dark came to the quarters that had been allotted to me in the Palace. I did not welcome him, as I was once again experiencing excessive fatigue and suffering apprehensions about whether some element in this planet's atmosphere might not be overcoming the protective effects of my implants.

  "Here, you'd better come along," he said. "I'm just finishing off the last bits on that Kaiser fellow's arm, and he's likely to carry on some when he comes to."

  I followed him reluctantly to the Kaiser's study, where Dark had been conducting his repair work. The Kaiser was stretched unconscious on a couch, his upper body bare except for the left arm, which, wrapped in a protective sheath, lay extended on a low table next to the couch.

  "Most of the stuff worked just about as it does on us," Dark said, peeling the sheath off. "Needed a bit more anesthetic, but the tissue materials worked rather faster." Indeed, the Kaiser's arm now looked quite normal, aside from being opened deeply, exposing the bone.

  Dark inspected the cavity with some small instruments and pronounced himself satisfied with the operation of the nerves and muscles, then deftly closed it and sealed the surface.

  "That was quite a job," he observed, as he stowed his implements in his medical kit. "I hope not too many of us need any major repairs while we're here; I've about used up a number of things I doubt I can replace, though I expect I can synthesize the basic stuff locally. Ah, he's coming out of it."

  The Kaiser stirred, then opened his eyes and slowly sat up. "Ah, I'm . . . oh, yes." He looked blearily at Dark and me, as though attempting to focus his eyes.

  "You'll be all right in a minute," Dark assured him. "That stuff wears off fast."

  The Kaiser's repaired arm hung limply by his side, and he reached for it with his right hand as though to position it more comfortably. The left arm twitched, and its lower part struck him smartly on the chest.

  "Lieber Herrgott!" he said, looking at it. He clenched and unclenched the left hand, spreading the fingers as wide as they would go. Then he stretched out both arms in front of him and looked from one to the other, his eyes wide.

  "It takes some managing, since you haven't had the use of it," Dark said, "but you'll get accustomed, once you've run it a bit. I'm afraid it's still a trifle shorter than the other, by not quite an inch, and the flesh is rather firmer than on the other one, but I think you'll find it in quite good working order."

  The Kaiser said nothing, but sat looking at his arms for a moment. Then he reached for a white shirt which was folded over the back of a chair, and, with a practiced motion of his right hand, slid it over his shoulders and inserted his right arm into the sleeve. "If you would be so kind . . ."he said to Dark, then stopped. With considerable difficulty and several false starts, he placed his left arm in its sleeve and drew the garment around him. He was now quite pale.

  He put his hands to the front of the shirt near the top and began fumbling with a button and the hole through which it was meant to go. "If you'd like some help with that . . ." Dark began, but the Kaiser snapped, "No! Do you realize this is the first time I have ever been able to use both hands to do something so simple as button my shirt?"

  "Or will be able to, anyhow, once you get the hang of it," Dark observed.


  It took the Kaiser very nearly a minute to manage the first button, but fastening the others went more quickly.

  His shirt properly arranged, he stood and surveyed us solemnly. "Thanks would be meaningless," he stated gravely. "So would honors or money. I shall not insult you by offering them." I rather wished Ari had been there, as he would have appreciated better than either of us the subtle delicacy and graciousness of the Kaiser's statement.

  He walked to his desk and stood behind it. His white shirt was caught in a flood of sunshine that came through the window, and he seemed almost to blaze with light. "Be assured that you have earned the gratitude of Wilhelm Hohenzollern and his House," he said earnestly. "And perhaps of . . ."

  He did not conclude his statement, but looked down at his left hand, which lay upon the desk in a patch of sunlight. He lifted it somewhat and contorted it, studying the shadow it cast. "My word," he murmured. "That's quite a good rabbit. And how do you . . . yes, that's it, a goose, no doubt about it. And here comes a wicked wolf to eat him up. . . . Excuse me, gentlemen, I was distracted for a moment."

  He brooded awhile (keeping his hands still), then looked up at us. "Though you, Herr Dark, and I have been occupied with other matters these last days, the words and arguments of Professor Doctor Ari have not been absent from my mind. I have tried to make myself consider them nonsense, but the knowledge he has shown of the forces of history have made it impossible to dismiss them so easily. I do not accept what he says completely—if I did so, it would be difficult to continue living, even with . . ." He glanced again at his left hand.

  "However, it is his and your wish to bring your theories to the attention of other world rulers, and I cannot deny you this. It shall be arranged that you go to St. Petersburg and talk with my cousin the Czar. I know not what may come of it, but . . ."

  He moved from behind the desk and paced slowly across the room. When he spoke, it was so quietly that I could hardly hear, as though he addressed himself rather than any audience. "It was the scorn that was hardest," he murmured. "The electric treatments and such, they hurt, really hurt, but she couldn't stand her first-born not being perfect, and she let me know it early and often. . . . When Papa knelt before Grandpapa at Versailles and gave him homage as Emperor—the first of our line, newly crowned in the heartland of the foe he had defeated!—it came to me that I should one day have that crown . . . and that my arm was a sign of my own destiny and my people's." Though his voice had risen, he did not yet seem to be talking to us directly. "The strength to overcome misfortune—the strength to deny weakness—the strength to fight for a rightful place in the sun—the strength to weld a stiff-necked people into a joyously obedient instrument of the racial will—I drew that from my withered arm! It was God's sign to me that He had touched me as He did Jacob at Peniel, and threw his thigh out of joint, that he might be no more Jacob but Israel, and would prevail. . . ."

  He stopped his pacing and looked once more at his left arm, turning the hand over slowly. "And now I am as other men," he said, again so softly that he could hardly be heard.

  19

  It was quite comical to see the expression on Wells's and Oxford's faces as the Kaiser bade us good-bye that afternoon, coming to each of us in turn and grasping our right hands in both of his. They responded in an absent manner to his wishes for a good journey to St. Petersburg and to his expression on his regard for the great nations they represented, or at least came from; as we walked to the carriages that were to take us to the railway station, they kept glancing at their right hands in apparent bewilderment.

  "You saw that, too, Wells?" Oxford asked, once we were in the train and leaving Berlin.

  "And felt it," Wells replied. "It hardly seems fair that Raf should have tried to drink Berlin dry last night and it's us that gets the hallucinations. Only," he went on, looking at Dark, "it's not a hallucination, is it? You mended his arm somehow, didn't you, during those 'talks' you put it out you were having? Or did you graft a new one onto him, like some Frankenstein? I don't know if you realize what you've done. . . . I'm not in fact sure that I do, either. . . ."

  Dark shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, it seemed to me something that wanted doing, so I did it. What's the harm in that? Look, it cheered him up enough so that he's sent us on to this Czar person, which is what Ari wants, and what you're along for a look at, so it's all worked out right, hasn't it?"

  Neither Wells nor Oxford seemed totally satisfied with this, but neither did they appear able to find any adequate further comment on it, and the conversation became desultory.

  The trip was almost as devoid of incident as the landscape was of interest; both were in the main flat and featureless. There was a moment of near-excitement when we were obliged to change conveyances at the border between the Russian and the German empires, owing to both nations' inability to agree on how far apart a train's wheels ought to be and the determination of each to have its own way on the matter within its borders.

  At this halt, many passengers stood about on the platform and were questioned by Russian officials before being allowed to proceed to the next train. As we bore letters requiring our free passage, we were not so examined, and proceeded toward the waiting Russian train without hindrance. I heard a hubbub behind us and turned to see Captain Thatcher and Sergeant Olson being surrounded by shouting Russians.

  "What's all that?" said Wells—who, it will be recalled, had not encountered either of the pair of far-traveled Marines—and ran down the platform to see.

  When he came back, he said, "They've caught a pair of anarchists—fellows trying to sneak into Russia whilst carrying pistols. What a damn fool thing to do—even if they're not anarchists, they ought to know that the Russians won't take 'em for anything else, if they're armed."

  Oxford and the four of us exchanged glances. Evidently Mr. Edison had not given up on his plans to retake us.

  Nicholas Romanov, Czar of All the Russias (I had not been told there was more than one Russia, but that seemed to be his official title, all the same), was not nearly so impressive a specimen as his two royal relatives that we had met. He was a shortish, slight man, with a moustache and beard which, unlike King Edward's, appeared to be designed to conceal rather than to adorn his features. He was also, after we had gone through the by now familiar preliminaries of being closeted with him in his place of work—these emperors appeared to spend a lot of their time behind desks—a good deal less attentive to what Ari had to say.

  "It's really too much for me," he said peevishly. "I can't think what Willy and Uncle Edward were about, asking me to receive you. I have the Duma, "and the Court, and the peasants, and the Army, all at me all the time, and now you people, with this talk of wars and so on. I don't want a war, and I don't know anybody who does. We had one with the Japanese a few years ago, and it was most distressing, most; it very nearly meant the end of the monarchy, and I don't propose to have that happen, no matter what anyone says. No, no; it won't do, and it's really too bad of the Kaiser and the King to send you on to upset me this way. My family and I come out here to have a little peace and quiet, and next thing you know, I'm expected to listen to beings from another world tell me I'm supposed to go to war for some reason I can't at all understand. It's not the way to do things, and I'm not at all pleased."

  This interview occurred at a place called Tsarskoye Seloe, some distance from St. Petersburg, where the Czar and his wife and children frequently retired to enjoy what they considered a simpler manner of life than that obtaining in the capital city. The palace they inhabited seemed to me fairly elaborate, but emperors doubtless look at these things differently. Wells and Oxford had not taken too kindly to being excluded from our deliberations, but the Czar, on hearing that his cousin the Kaiser had made the same proviso, insisted on the point. "I don't see the reason myself," he had said, "but William knows about these matters, so I'd best be guided by his example."

  Now he clearly appeared to regret having agreed to see us at all; he was cer
tainly looking at us in a most unfriendly manner and moving papers about on his desk as though he wished us to leave but had not quite worked up the resolution to ask us to do so.

  Ari was beginning to look rather discouraged, but he still persisted. "The findings of Metahistory, Your Majesty, leave no room—"

  "Don't plague me with your Metahistory, sir! I won't be hounded in my own palace, not for the King or the Kaiser or anyone! It's really not fair to—"

  The Czar's complaint was interrupted by the opening of his study door and the entrance of a small boy, who rushed toward him, calling impatiently, "Papa!" Then he saw us and stopped. "Everybody must stand up when the Heir to the Throne comes in," he announced importantly.

  "But we are standing," Dark said, as we were, since the Czar had not invited us to do otherwise.

  "Then sit down and then stand up," the boy advised. "I like it when people have to stand up."

  "Alexei," the Czar said fondly, reaching for the lad. "You know you're not supposed to come in when Papa is talking business. However, I suppose it doesn't matter; I believe we have concluded our talk. It was good of you to come to see me, gentlemen, but I must not presume on your valuable time any longer. You may—"

  At this point, the boy Alexei, in attempting to climb into his father's lap, slipped and struck his head a glancing blow on the desk. He gave a snort of pain and impatience, and a trickle of blood began to flow from his nose.

  I understood this to be a common enough reaction to a minor injury, but the effect on the Czar was startling. He turned pale, grabbed the boy up, and darted over to a couch at one side of his study, yelling loudly enough to be heard outside the room, "Send for Grigori immediately! Grigori must come! The Czarevitch . . ." His voice broke. He laid the boy tenderly on the couch and began dabbing helplessly at the continuing flow of blood with a handkerchief.