One Thousand Years (12 page)

She raised an eyebrow. “We don't.”

“But what about those other rooms near...?”
His voice trailed off, suddenly realizing he may know the answer.

She picked up his meaning. “The other rooms near yours? Those are
for the other people we will be picking up —
more people from the past. You are only the first where we were
successful.”

McHenry
perked up. “Anybody I know?”

“No. If there were, I probably would have told you already.
We check all the backgrounds for convergences.
There are only three other Americans.
The first is a scientist who will be killed in an industrial accident.
But that's a difficult one. We may not be able to do it.
And we don't get him for another six months anyway.”

“When
do you get the next one?”

“Next
week,” she said. “And it's an easy one. He'll be in the
water, just like you were.”

“I
see,” he said. “Another downed pilot?”

“No.
He's an Italian naval officer. His ship is going to sink.”

McHenry
pondered the image in his mind. “Why just one? Won't there be
a whole ship full of people you can rescue?”

“I
wish it were so,” she replied. “It just isn't that
simple. There are a lot of variables we need to consider. He's the
only one we can safely recover.”

“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.”

*

“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)

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 name, 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.