Bitter Seeds mt-1

by Ian Tregillis

  “Dangerous to whom, me or you?”

  “I had your well-being in mind,” said Reinhardt. “Do try to be gracious about it.”

  Klaus fished the spanner from the barrel. The handle had warped, and the jaws had sagged out of true. Reinhardt's stunt had reduced it to so much mangled steel.

  Klaus said, “You've ruined it.”

  “I'll melt it down if they wish to recast it.”

  “What do you want? I'm busy.”

  “Pabst wants to see us,” said Reinhardt.

  “You and me? Now? Why?”

  “I presume he wants to discuss the doctor's plan.”

  “What plan is this?” asked Klaus, sucking at the burns on his palm again.

  Reinhardt put on a wholly unconvincing show of forgetfulness. “Oh, of course, this is the first you've heard of it. The doctor mentioned it over breakfast.”

  You mean after breakfast, thought Klaus. Doctor von Westarp wouldn't tolerate your chatter while he digested.

  “What ever this entails,” he said, “I hope it doesn't delay your deployment. That would be a shame.” Klaus used a clean rag to wipe the metal-and-sweat smell from his hands. It ripped the blisters open.

  “No more a shame than after all these years, your best use is as a carpenter.”

  “Do I have time to wash?”

  “They're waiting now.”

  “Of course they are,” said Klaus.

  He followed Reinhardt to the farmhouse. They passed Heike and Gretel, who were whispering in the niche beneath the stairs. What ever Gretel's grudge against the statuesque blond woman might have been, it seemed to have passed.

  Reinhardt leaned over the balustrade to blow a kiss at Heike. She turned her back to him, shuddering.

  Klaus caught a snippet of the conversation as he followed Reinhardt up the stairs. “ ... disappointment is terribly profound,” Gretel said.

  Heike said, “But my training. I've improved so much.”

  “Perhaps. But in their eyes, it is not enough. They see only failure.” Gretel laid a hand on Heike's forearm. “It is unfair.”

  “What will I do?” Heike moaned.

  The little he heard of this exchange surprised and startled Klaus. He'd gathered that Pabst and the doctor were quite pleased with Heike's recent breakthroughs. He made a mental note to check on her later.

  The second floor housed the rooms where Klaus and the others slept. It was emptier these days. The Twins were gone, and Kammler was off with the wolf packs, peeling apart the hulls of American merchant marine ships and their escorts. The staircase at the front of the building, for the doctor's official visitors, was wide and grandiose. But Klaus and Reinhardt took the former servants' stair instead.

  The parlor hadn't changed since Klaus's last breakfast there, prior to Gretel's failure to warn the fleet. The gaps amidst leather-bound volumes on the shelves had moved around, and now a new set of scribbles covered the doctor's blackboard, but otherwise it was the same. The doctor's sanctorum, his workspace. Where his intellect reigned.

  Pabst and von Westarp stood at the observation window, again speaking in hushed, urgent tones. Pabst turned when they entered. They saluted. He took a seat at the doctor's long dining table. Klaus and Reinhardt followed suit. The doctor remained at the window in his threadbare dressing gown, gazing outside with his arms crossed behind the small of his back.

  Pabst spoke. “The two of you await new deployments.”

  “I'm ready at any time,” Reinhardt said.

  “So am I,” Klaus added. “I proved myself in England.”

  Reinhardt laughed. “I proved myself long before that.”

  “You torched a hotel in a fallen city. Any imbecile with a box of matches could do that. Kammler could do that. I went straight to the enemy's heart and brought Gretel back alive. It wasn't so simple.”

  “You went straight to the enemy's heart and went sightseeing! I would have known enough to strike while I was there. A killing blow, too, had it been me. I—”

  “Enough!” shouted Pabst. “Your deployments have been postponed. We need your combined talents here.”

  Klaus looked at Reinhardt. Please don't make us partners. He wondered, not for the first time, if in a fight he could squeeze Reinhardt's heart, or scramble his brain, before Reinhardt burned him to death.

  Reinhardt was watching him, too. Probably doing a similar calculation in his own head.

  Pabst said, “There are two issues.”

  “What issues?” Klaus asked.

  “The first comes from your sister. She has foreseen an assault upon the Reichsbehorde.”

  Reinhardt objected. “Herr Standartenfuhrer. One must point out that neither the threat nor the source are particularly credible. It's hard to believe that anybody would be foolish enough to attack this place. But if they are? Let them,” he said. “And Klaus's lunatic sister is untrustworthy. To the point of treason, if I may say so.”

  “She's done more to advance the Reich's war effort than any other single person,” Klaus said.

  “Is that so? Remind me. How many men died during the attempted invasion?”

  Pabst slapped the table with his open palm. “Quiet.” The doctor's tea service rattled on its platter. “You are here to listen.”

  He collected himself. “Regardless of Gretel's recent performance,” Pabst continued, “we will take her warning seriously. You will stay here until the threat has passed. Kammler has been recalled from the North Atlantic.”

  Reinhardt muttered his assent. Klaus acknowledged the order.

  “After that, the doctor has special plans for the pair of you.” The significance of the standartenfuhrer's wording wasn't lost on Klaus, and he doubted Reinhardt missed it, either. As the head of the REGP, Doctor von Westarp outranked Pabst. If the doctor chose to exert his opinion on military matters, there was little Pabst could do.

  The doctor spoke. “The Reichsbehorde,” he said, “is overdue for a recruitment drive.”

  Klaus kept his expression neutral. He'd been expecting this, of course. The incubators and the new monstrosities meant the doctor expected a wave of test subjects in the near future. It was an open secret.

  Pabst said, “The doctor envisions a second generation of the Gotterelektrongruppe.”

  “My work has grown stagnant,” said the doctor at the window. “I wish to circumvent my previous mistakes.”

  This, however, caught Klaus by surprise. He wondered what that meant.

  “Forgive me, Herr Doctor,” Reinhardt said. “The war will be over many years before new subjects could be ready to join the Gotterelektrongruppe. It will take too long.”

  Von Westarp grew still. A moment passed before he said in a flat, angry voice, “That remains to be seen.”

  So many incubators. How do you plan to fill your crematorium, Doctor?

  Pabst cleared his throat. “The doctor believes”—again, that phrasing, distancing himself from this decision—”that loyal families will gladly give up their sons and daughters when they see your magnificence on display.”

  Ah. No more foundling homes, then.

  Klaus barely remembered how he'd first arrived at Doctor von Westarp's orphanage. He had one hazy, dreamlike memory of riding in a horse-drawn hay wagon. He wondered if they truly had been orphans, or if a mother and father had given Klaus and Gretel to the doctor.

  The meeting devolved into a planning session. Pabst discussed preparations for the attack Gretel claimed to have foreseen. After that, the doctor explained in great detail a touring recruitment effort. The sun was low in the sky by the time Klaus and Reinhardt were dismissed.

  Reinhardt followed Klaus down the narrow stairs. He asked, “He's not planning to replace us, is he?”

  “I suppose that also remains to be seen.”

  Heike's room abutted the stairwell on the second floor. Klaus heard sobs coming through the wall. So did Reinhardt.

  He knocked on her door. “Liebling, are you well?” No response. Only sniffling. �
�I stand ready to comfort you.”

  “Leave her alone,” said Klaus.

  “Call when you need me,” said Reinhardt to the closed door. The sobbing resumed as they went downstairs.

  Klaus took a simple dinner of stew and black bread while mulling the doctor's recruitment plan. He couldn't understand the expectation that parents would willingly give up their children to Doctor von Westarp. He and Reinhardt might have been strong arguments for greatness, but the wires attached to their skulls were bound to alarm parents and volunteers. Klaus's thoughts kept returning to the hay wagon. How had the doctor obtained his subjects the first time around?

  He resolved to discuss these things with Reinhardt. The salamander was an arrogant ass, but he was no fool. And if he remembered how he'd come to be at the REGP, Klaus would want to hear that story. He didn't consider asking Gretel; no matter how much she knew, it would turn into a waste of time.

  That night, Klaus dreamed of the hay wagon and a sickly tow-haired boy.

  Reinhardt proved difficult to find the next morning. He wasn't on the training ground. Nor was he in the mess, the machine shop, the library, the ice house, the gymnasium, the laboratories, the briefing rooms. And it wasn't Sunday, meaning Reinhardt wasn't breakfasting with the doctor.

  Klaus returned to the farmhouse to check Reinhardt's room again. He found Gretel sitting on the stairs above the second-floor landing.

  “Have you seen Reinhardt?” Klaus asked.

  “He's in there,” she said, nodding at Heike's door.

  “Really?”

  “Truly.”

  “How long has he been in there?”

  “Thirty-seven minutes.” She paused. “Thirty-eight.”

  Klaus lifted his hand to knock, but Gretel said, “I wouldn't.” He looked at her. “He'll be out momentarily.”

  And he was. Reinhardt emerged from Heike's room, smiling to himself as he buckled his belt. The smile disappeared when he saw Klaus and his sister waiting outside. His pale eyes widened in alarm. But he straightened his uniform, regained his composure, and went downstairs without saying a word.

  Gretel called after him. “Reinhardt.”

  Reinhardt paused between the first and second floors, his back to them.

  “Happy birthday,” she said.

  Reinhardt trotted down the stairs.

  Happy ... ?

  Reinhardt had left Heike's door ajar. Klaus knocked. “Heike? Are you all right?” No answer. He knocked harder. The door swung open.

  Heike lay sprawled on the bed, naked from the waist down. Her skin had a bluish tint. She stared at the ceiling, unblinking. She'd been dead for hours.

  15 November 1940

  Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

  We have the power to annihilate the Jerries today,” said Marsh. “So why are we pissing about with defensive measures when we could be grinding them into paste?”

  Floorboards squeaked underfoot as he paced. He looked around the table, glaring at each person in turn. Six people had been summoned for this meeting in Stephenson's office. In addition to Marsh and the old man himself, Lorimer was there, as were Will, Hargreaves, and Webber.

  Nobody met his eyes. Not even Stephenson. Marsh knew that his passion made them uneasy, as though they were made witness to things better left private. They treated him like a ghost. Like something that shouldn't be seen. It had been that way since Agnes ...

  Meaningful glances ricocheted through the trio of warlocks. They were a secretive lot. Even Will kept his own counsel more often than not these days.

  All eyes turned to the warlocks. Seated together side by side, they looked like an illustration of the Riddle of the Sphinx. Will, with the dark bags beneath his bloodshot eyes, was morning's infant. Webber's eyes had long ago sunk into his skull; along the way one of them had become a colorless marble. He was the middle-aged man of noon. And Hargreaves, who'd lost more than an eye when fire ruined the left side of his face, was the old man of evening. It was like gazing upon a capsule summary of one man's life.

  Marsh cracked his knuckles while waiting for a response. The bristles of a beard tickled the backs of his fingers when he pressed them to his jaw. It surprised him. He tried to remember how long it had been since he'd last shaved, but couldn't.

  Will opened his mouth as if to speak, hesitantly, but didn't say anything until Hargreaves gave him the nod.

  “It's more complicated than that, Pip.”

  “Complicated? We're at war. Defeating the enemy is our one and only job,” Marsh said. “I fail to see why this is so difficult for you to comprehend.”

  Lorimer said, “Moment ago you said 'annihilate.' Grinding them into paste isn't the same as defeating them.”

  “They're annihilating us!” Marsh kicked his empty chair aside to stand over the Scot. His reflection in the polished cherrywood tabletop was that of a bellowing madman. Perhaps he was just that.

  Stephenson pointed at Marsh. “You. Sit.”

  Marsh tossed the chair upright. “This isn't bloody advanced maths,” he muttered, taking his seat again.

  Stephenson looked at Will and the other warlocks. “You three. The man has a point.”

  Will waited for another nod before answering again. Ever since he had taken it upon himself to recruit the others, he'd been something of a liaison for them. But Marsh had never seen him act so deferentially to them. “There are rules that limit what we can do. Certain actions that must never be undertaken.”

  “Such as using the Eidolons to kill,” said Webber. The sound of his voice was surprising, almost alarming, in its normality. Marsh had never before heard the man speak English. Only Enochian. He wondered if warlocks ever spoke Enochian to each other, rather than to the Eidolons.

  “What kind of shite is this?” said Lorimer. “You lot did exactly that in the Channel.”

  Hargreaves spoke for the first time. “Bite your ignorant tongue and choke on it, Scotsman. We did no such thing.” The heat-glazed skin around the side of his mouth wrinkled in unpleasant patterns when he spoke. His voice wasn't quite so normal as Webber's. Enochian had etched itself into the soft tissues of his throat.

  “Eat shit, you plug-ugly—”

  “The Eidolons didn't kill those men,” Will interrupted. “They altered the weather. Changed the wind and the sea. After that, events followed their natural course.” Looking at Marsh, he concluded, “But the important point is that no man died through the direct action of an Eidolon. The Eidolons themselves did not shed a drop of human blood.”

  Stephenson took a long drag on his cigarette. The smoke swirled up to join the growing cloud over the table. “That seems a rather academic distinction.”

  “Oh, it's not, sir. The Eidolons want blood. We mustn't give it to them.”

  Stephenson frowned. “Why blood?”

  “Because blood,” said Will, “is a map.”

  Lorimer: “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Consider this,” said Will. “What do we know about the Eidolons? Very little, but for two things. One: they are omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. And two: they don't like us. Our existence ... offends them in some alien way we can't hope to understand.” Will shrugged. “They're beings of pure volition. Perhaps they're offended by the notion that anything as profoundly limited as we are could also express volition.”

  Marsh thought back to the sensation of overwhelming malice he'd felt, the first time he'd experienced the presence of an Eidolon, the day he'd severed Will's finger. We are pollution. A stain upon the cosmos. And we are not welcome here. And then he understood Will's didactic point. The Eidolons are godlike beings that want us dead.

  “How is it we're still here?” he asked.

  “Exactly!” Will nodded vigorously, pointing at Marsh. “That's precisely the point. They want to erase us. And yet, they haven't. Why? Because they can't find us. They know we exist, but they see every point in the universe. All of time, all of space, all at once. And it's all the same to them. So which point
s are you”— he pointed at Marsh—”and which points are a distant star? They have no way of telling. Weeding us out is a virtually impossible task. Even for them.”

  Marsh thought this through. Furrowed brows told him that Lorimer and Stephenson were doing likewise. The other warlocks looked bored and irritated.

  “It's a problem of demarcation,” said Marsh.

  “Yes. Imagine I told you all our problems could be solved by squashing one particular ant in Britain. How would you find it?”

  “This is all fascinating, I'm sure,” said Stephenson, “but what does this have to do with my question? What does blood have to do with any of this?”

  Marsh nodded, feeling the same irritation. He shifted in his chair, trying to find a posture that eased the ache at the small of his back. Like his beard, he couldn't remember how long he'd had it. Since he started sleeping on the cot. When had that been?

  “Blood is special. The blood coursing through your veins, around every crumb of your body, defines locus points in space and time that bracket your human experience. In other words, blood provides a map that directs the Eidolons to our very limited level of existence. It enables them to focus on us. To see us.”

  Marsh thought back to how the Eidolons noticed him when he severed Will's fingertip. Gretel's nails had drawn his blood. It brought him to their attention.

  They've given you a name.

  Will said, “That's why every negotiation begins with a token. We capture their attention with a combination of blood and Enochian. After that, well, every interaction with the Eidolons is a transaction. Every deed, no matter how small, carries a blood price.” Will raised his hand, displaying the stump where the tip of his finger had been.

  Hargreaves frowned in disapproval. A grievous price for such a trivial negotiation. But then Marsh thought, A fingertip? I'd give so much more than that, and gleefully, if it meant having Agnes back. Expressing that thought sparked something in the back of his mind, but Marsh put it aside as Will continued.

  “We barter for the lowest possible price. Once that's established, we carry out payment, and the Eidolon wills the deed into existence. Its volition shapes reality.”

  “But they've seen plenty of your blood,” said Lorimer. “Why haven't they erased you lot?”