Bitter Seeds mt-1

by Ian Tregillis

  “Excellent. Well, then.” Aubrey crossed the room, toward the door. “I'm having guests tomorrow evening. I presume your convalescence will last longer than that.”

  It wasn't, Will noticed, a question. “Who can say? Perhaps I'll be on my feet sooner rather than later. Whom are you having?”

  Aubrey hesitated. “I think it would be better for all if you indulged in a few days of bed rest.”

  “Ah. You'd prefer if I not make an appearance tomorrow. Is that it?” Will asked.

  “It would avoid unpleasant questions.”

  “Unpleasant?”

  “My own brother in a, a, one of those places. What image do you think that projects?”

  Will ignored the spinning in his head when he sat upright. “I'm frightfully sorry to have inconvenienced you, Your Grace.”

  “Don't be like that—”

  “You wanted to know what had happened to me. Well, I'll tell you this. I've done far more for the war effort than you and your charities will ever manage.” Will's voice cracked. He had to clear his throat before continuing. “I've done things you'd ... I've been fighting a war and I'm exhausted beyond my capacity to express. I couldn't bear it any longer. Just like father.”

  The mention of their father cracked Aubrey's imperturbable facade. Aubrey, being the older of the pair, remembered their father more than Will did. Sadness tightened the corners of his eyes. He shook his head.

  Quietly, he said, “No. Not like father. You'll get better.” His rueful smile diminished, but did not erase, the look of regret in his eyes. “You'll be your cheerful, aggravating self once more.”

  Will couldn't see his brother clearly, because his eyes were watery. “I would like that very much.”

  23 May 1941

  On the road, near Magdeburg, Germany

  They made decent time, rushing east from Bielefeld, but at the cost of rapidly depleted battery stores. The task of clearing the roads fell mostly to Reinhardt, who could vaporize the ice and snow as quickly as their three-truck convoy came upon it. In places they used Kammler, too, for tossing aside downed trees and other detritus, but Spalcke lacked his pre de ces sor's finesse, meaning he couldn't make the telekinetic clear roads on the fly. This panicked, unscripted race wasn't a patch on the Gotterelektrongruppe's perfectly choreographed performance in the Ardennes.

  And it was a race; nobody denied that. Their destination was the point of contention. In the past three hours, they'd received several conflicting sets of orders over the radio.

  Klaus rode in the lead with Reinhardt. He swapped out the other man's battery as their truck plunged through another cloud of steam. The vapor froze to the truck when they emerged onto another clear stretch of road. The windshield wipers rattled quickly across the window glass.

  The driver cleared his throat. “Herr Obersturmfuhrer ...” He trailed off, obviously reluctant to address either Klaus or Reinhardt specifically. The two had been arguing all morning, which made the driver fidgety. Nobody wanted to be stuck in the middle when supermen fought.

  The driver pointed. They were bearing down on a junction where several roads met. A signpost indicated the distances to cities in various directions.

  “East,” said Reinhardt.

  The familiar copper taste filled Klaus's mouth as he angrily called up the Gotterelektron. “South,” he said.

  The driver bit his lip.

  Reinhardt repeated himself. “East. We're going to Berlin.” The air inside the truck became very warm.

  Klaus turned to the driver. “Pull over. Get out.”

  The truck barely skidded to a halt before the driver jumped out.

  Klaus ran a hand over his face. “Reinhardt. There are three of us. Two and a half,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the truck containing Kammler. “You think you're going through the batteries quickly now? How long will they last when you're fighting an army?”

  “That's what we were MADE FOR!” Acrid smoke wafted up from the upholstery beneath Reinhardt.

  Klaus dematerialized, willing his body transparent to the surging heat. He reached forward with one ghostly hand and unplugged Reinhardt's battery. It quenched the supernatural warmth. Klaus released his Willenskrafte.

  Reinhardt's pale eyes frosted over with rage. “Do you know how many ways I've imagined to kill you?”

  “The Soviets were watching us,” said Klaus, attempting to deflect the threat with reason. Over the years, he had likewise imagined countless scenarios for dealing with Reinhardt, and even Kammler, should the situation arise. Few suggested a clear victory for anybody. “They want the doctor's research. They're probably advancing on the farm right now, while there's nobody to defend it.”

  Reinhardt grabbed the loose wire dangling above his battery. “If that were the case”—click—”surely your sister”—snap—”would have given ample warning.”

  He had a point. But Gretel had her own purposes, her own reasons for doing things. It was possible she had foreseen an attack and had chosen to stay silent; perhaps the best outcome came about when Klaus and Reinhardt arrived from the north, rather than being present when the attack came. Klaus expressed this to Reinhardt.

  “You're making excuses for her,” Reinhardt said. “Perhaps she wanted us on the road, so that we could get to Berlin when the invasion came.”

  Klaus didn't voice his suspicion that Gretel worked according to her own plan, a blueprint to which the war was merely a side note. Instead, he said: “My first instinct is to protect the Reichsbehorde. Gretel must know that. I am certain it's what she foresaw.”

  “You can't bear to be away from her, can you?” Reinhardt sneered. “You two always were overly close.”

  The electric tingle of the Gotterelektron surged back into Klaus's mind. “This is perfect. I'm getting a morality lecture from a necrophiliac.”

  The air around Reinhardt shimmered with another surge of heat. Klaus gritted his teeth, grabbed Reinhardt, dematerialized, and pulled him outside through the side of the truck before it went up in flames. They landed in a puddle, which instantly flashed into vapor. The contact with Reinhardt blistered Klaus's hands. It was painful.

  “That's it,” said Reinhardt. “You're going to smolder to death.” Mud bubbled beneath his boots.

  Spalcke, who had been riding with Kammler in the truck behind them, was standing on the road. “What are you two doing? And why have we stopped? I gave no order to halt.”

  To Spalcke, Klaus said, “Shut up.” And to Reinhardt, he said, “Just listen to me for a moment.”

  Spalcke's lips moved silently while he clenched and unclenched his jaw. He appeared to come to the same conclusion their driver had, deciding it wasn't in his best interests to get involved if Klaus and Reinhardt fought.

  Klaus turned his attention back to Reinhardt as the salamander was gearing up for an attack. He held up his hands. “Wait! We're wasting time. This won't achieve anything, and it won't get you to Berlin any sooner.”

  Reinhardt narrowed his eyes. “You agree we should go east, then?”

  “No. I propose we split up. You go to Berlin, and I'll return to the farm.” He pointed. “You take one truck. I'll take another.”

  This settled the matter because it gave Reinhardt what he wanted. After that, they quickly worked out the logistics over Spalcke's vocal but ultimately impotent objections. They split the remaining batteries evenly between the three trucks. Reinhardt took a driver, another one of the LSSAH men who'd been transferred to the Reichsbehorde and who knew how to swap out batteries. Spalcke, Kammler, the radio operator, and the third driver were consigned to the last truck. When Spalcke started to yell about insubordination and tribunals and courts-martial, the air around him shimmered briefly before he doubled over.

  They were ready to depart for their separate destinations within fifteen minutes. As Klaus climbed into his truck—the one that stank of melted Bakelite—he said, “Go find your glory, Reinhardt.”

  “Go find your beloved siste
r.”

  Klaus's driver put the truck into gear. A stack of charged batteries sat piled on the seat between them.

  They turned right at the crossroads, heading south. They were followed by a second truck, which carried Kammler and Spalcke and the large store of depleted batteries. Klaus watched in the side mirror as Reinhardt continued east through the intersection. A few seconds later, the road curved, and Reinhardt's truck disappeared from view.

  The south road was just as icy and snowbound as the roads they'd driven out of Bielefeld. Klaus urged the driver to greater and greater speeds. And to his credit, the driver kept them on the road, though nothing could have been fast enough for Klaus. Rather than clearing the roads as Kammler and Reinhardt had done, Klaus willed the entire truck insubstantial when they encountered snowdrifts, stuck automobiles, and other obstructions. Spalcke and Kammler quickly fell behind.

  The weather improved as they neared the Reichsbehorde. Icy roads became slushy roads, then muddy roads, then roads. Snow-heavy tree boughs became naked limbs popping with green buds. It was as though they had traveled from the depths of winter to a pleasant springtime over the course of a hundred kilometers. Klaus massaged his aching fingers, waiting.

  They were minutes from the farm, sunlight and shadow flashing over their truck as they barreled past oak and ash trees, when Klaus heard the first explosion. The ground heaved. A crack echoed through the forest.

  The driver pushed his foot to the floor. Klaus checked the gauge on his battery, reassuring himself it held a complete charge.

  They emerged onto the Reichsbehorde grounds. The facility hummed with frantic activity. Cargo trucks lined the gravel drive. Mundane troops and white-coated technicians ran between the trucks and the buildings, loading the trucks with crates, filing cabinets, specialized electrical and medical equipment. A row of troop transports had been parked on the training field. Klaus realized they had brought reinforcements to defend the farm, and now the empty transports were being used to evacuate personnel. Klaus saw one of the Twins being pushed into a transport. There was no sign of Gretel.

  They skidded to a halt in front of the ice house. The staccato chatter of automatic weapons fire rippled through the forest on the eastern edge of the farm, along with the rumble of diesel engines and the rattle-clank of tank treads. Klaus saw movement and flashes of red in the trees.

  He jumped from the truck and hit the ground at a dead run. The metallic tingle peculiar to fresh batteries buzzed into that place in his head where his willpower resided.

  Another explosion. More gunfire, closer now. Close enough for Klaus to hear screaming.

  Gretel wasn't in the first transport. Or the second. Or the third. She certainly wasn't loading equipment, and she wasn't advising the reinforcements. Nobody knew where she had gone.

  Klaus found his sister in the barracks that had replaced their sleeping quarters in the demolished farmhouse. She was sitting on a cot, back to the wall, thin legs stretched out before her and ankles crossed, reading poetry. A rucksack lay at her feet.

  “Gretel!”

  The corner of her mouth quirked up. She dog-eared her current page, closed the book, and looked at him. “Welcome home, brother.” The ground shook again. Gunfire chattered outside, followed by the thump of a mortar shell and more yelling. She scratched her nose. “Did you have a successful trip?”

  “We have to leave.” Klaus grabbed her hand and hauled her off the cot. “They're evacuating the facility. We need to get to the training field.” He pulled her toward the outside wall.

  “Wait,” she said. She pointed at the rucksack. “We'll need that.”

  The sack clattered like ceramic or glass when he lifted it. “Don't worry,” she said. “I've packed for you, too.”

  They emerged on the training ground. Klaus half pulled, half dragged Gretel toward the waiting transports. He was just about to grab her waist and hurl her aboard when a line of tanks burst through the tree line. Klaus glimpsed red stars on the tanks as they maneuvered into a semicircle that blocked egress from the field. Their treads churned up clods of earth as they advanced on the evacuees. The Red Army had arrived at the Reichsbehorde.

  Klaus swore. He pulled Gretel in a new direction. “This way! I have a truck.”

  The icehouse stood between them and Klaus's truck. He grabbed Gretel's wrist, invoked his Willenskrafte, and ran.

  Twenty meters from the ice house. Ten meters. Five.

  And then—

  WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

  A chain of muffled explosions circled the facility in rapid-fire succession. They strobed the grounds with flashes of blue and violet like artificial lightning. The odor of ozone washed across the field thick enough to sting Klaus's eyes.

  He recognized these explosions. He'd seen something like them once before, when the British had attacked the Reichsbehorde. Pixies.

  His battery died, leaving the pair tangible and vulnerable. The Communists' operation was well-planned.

  Soviet infantrymen emerged from the tree line. They jogged past the tanks, rifles at the ready. The evacuees raised their arms.

  Klaus tried to slip away with Gretel, but they didn't get far before a trio of soldiers surrounded them. They stared at Klaus's battery harness and the wires twined through Gretel's braids. She squeezed his hand. One of the men called over his shoulder, something in Russian. An officer joined them. He looked the captured siblings up and down, consulted a clipboard, then barked an order.

  The men took Klaus's sidearm and the rucksack, then stripped the siblings of their batteries. He felt naked.

  The sounds of combat faded away as the Soviets established control of the Reichsbehorde. Klaus stood with his arms raised, wondering what would happen next. He knew they wouldn't be shot. Gretel would never expose herself to such danger. Unless it somehow suited her purposes.

  He looked at her. As always, she observed the unfolding scene with perfect sangfroid. She noticed his attention, and winked.

  A low drone echoed across the facility. It was so faint at first that Klaus mistook it for the rumble of idling engines. But it quickly grew louder, and soon his captors seemed to notice it, too.

  Klaus looked up, searching for the source of this new noise. He found it in the western sky.

  British Halifax bombers. The Royal Air Force had arrived at the Reichsbehorde.

  23 May 1941

  Reichsbehorde fur die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials

  In a strange way, it felt like Williton all over again.

  An eerie sense of deja vu prickled Marsh as he sped toward the Reichsbehorde. This time, it was a German road cratered by British bombs, rather than the other way round. But it was so similar: the cratered landscape, the smell of cordite, plumes of oily smoke rising in the distance.

  Marsh's stolen truck teetered around the edge of a crater and seesawed over another rut. The transmission groaned in protest. The farther he went, the slower he had to proceed, and the worse his frustration.

  Milkweed's plan appeared to have worked. The RAF had flattened the REGP, if the condition of the surrounding area was any indication.

  Grand job.

  It was a good plan, but they'd formulated it before they fully understood their enemy. A sick feeling had taken root in the pit of Marsh's stomach.

  The girl's a bloody oracle.

  Gretel was no fool. Mad as a hatter, but no fool. She wouldn't have stayed for the bombing. She'd have an escape hatch. He knew it with a certainty deeper than the marrow in his bones.

  Marsh parked his stolen truck on the outskirts of what had once been the family farm of the von Westarp clan. The truck wasn't designed for this kind of terrain. Taking it any farther risked getting stuck, tipping over, or even snapping an axle. And he wasn't about to lose the files he'd worked so hard to obtain.

  With Walther P38 pistol in hand in case he encountered survivors, he toured the ruins. It took an exercise of imagination to reconcile his memory of the layout, based on a single dark night in
December, with the charred debris strewn across the clearing. What the RAF lacked in numbers it had made up for with munitions. They'd even dropped incendiaries. The smell of kerosene and phosphorus lay thick on the still air, overlaying the odors of burnt pork and hot stone.

  Bricks. Bodies. Tongues of flame licking at shattered timbers. Just like Williton.

  But there was other debris, other things that he and Liv hadn't seen on their fruitless search for Agnes. Dismembered Waffen-SS soldiers. Flattened trucks and heavy equipment. Dead men in white laboratory coats. Half a troop transport. A mangled tank turret, its paint blackened ...

  ... but faintly visible, the suggestion of a sickle and hammer. Another dead soldier, his body and uniform torched beyond recognition. So, too, the rifle in his hands. But ... the length of the stock, the shape of the magazine ... Had he been carrying a Tokarev?

  The devastation was so complete, he hadn't noticed at first. But once he knew what to look for, he found subtle hints strewn everywhere. An officer's cap with a red star badge. Fragments of Cyrillic lettering.

  Oh, no. No, no, no. You grotty little monster.

  The sick feeling in Marsh's gut became an oily dread. He shivered, afraid that he'd found Gretel's escape hatch.

  Simply leaving before the bombs fell, before the Soviets arrived, didn't suit her style. It was simple, but she leaned toward the baroque. The information in her file suggested as much.

  Handing herself over to old Joe might have been a crazy thing to do, but it also ensured Marsh couldn't find her. And she knew he was looking for her. He knew this, felt it, with a certainty that he couldn't voice.

  Some of the ruins still crackled with fire. Behind a toppled wall, Marsh found mounds of shattered glassware partially melted into slag and a metal gurney with what looked to be wrist or ankle restraints. This might have been a medical ward, or a laboratory; the dead here wore lab coats. These had died under falling debris when the roof collapsed, or perhaps from shrapnel when the windows blew.

  Marsh checked every dead body for wires in the skull, or a battery at the waist. But he found none. His census of the dead turned up dozens of Germans and Soviets, but also a large number of bodies either in pieces or burned beyond recognition, or both. If those men and women had once worn battery harnesses, it was impossible to know.