In the future
, I think,
you will all be dead. And your foul ideology with you.
‘It’s the language of the blood,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘Not evolution so much as
destiny
.’
The language of the blood
. I’ve heard that phrase before, two, maybe three times since I’ve been here, but in his mouth it sounds almost poetic, and I wonder where it comes from. Angossi? I’m about to question him further, when the door on the far side of the room bursts open and three uniformed men march straight in. I’m about to object, when I realise who they are. They’re inspectors, like myself.
‘Meister Scholl,’ their leader says. ‘Forgive the interruption, but we have business of some urgency and I must consult you.’
He looks to Woolf, who is surprised, and just a little intimidated, to see such reinforcements to my cause.
‘Herr Woolf,’ I say. ‘You are dismissed.’
He stands and, with the most marginal of bows, hurries away, glad to be gone.
I turn and look to my superior. He’s a big man, taller than me by a good six inches and broader at the shoulder. Facially, too, he is imposing, with large, almost sculpted features, jet black hair and eyes of an almost sapphire blue.
Aryan
, it makes me think.
A creature of the dark woods
.
All of this in an instant, and then I notice his insignia – Inspector, First Class – and bow my head. ‘Meister …’
‘Sit down, Scholl. And listen. I’ve not had time to contact Breslau and see what you’ve filed, so I’ll need you to inform me what’s going on here – what your brief is and which student is under suspicion. I’ll also need to look through whatever ZA forms you’ve completed.’
‘ZA forms?’
‘Yes. You have them here?’
‘No. In my room. I … I’ll get them.’
‘Good. But meet us back in the main building. At the Doktor’s office. Oh, and bring the official report sheet along, too. I want to see who instigated this. It’s too much of a coincidence that we’re both here at the same time, don’t you think?’
‘Master …?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know my name, but …?’
‘Schultz,’ he says, and puts out a hand. ‘I run the operation at Bremen.’
Zarah goes through it with me.
‘ZA. That’s zygote analysis. The indents … you took notes, I take it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then we’ll use those to mock up some forms. Same with the official report sheet. It won’t take long: an hour or two at most. Get some rest. I’ll come to you when they’re ready.’
‘Thanks.’
I watch her go, then turn, looking about me at the room. I still feel an intruder here. This is still Hecht’s room and always will be. I’ll always see him in my mind’s eye, sat in the depression in the centre of the floor, his long, pale fingers moving quickly across the keys, the Tree of Worlds glowing in the air above him.
Meister? I am not Meister. Meister means something else; requires a different mindset to my own, whatever Hecht believed. I am merely a stop-gap, a …
A fake
, I think, and it makes me wonder about the life I’ve led and just how much of it was real, how much of it actually
meant
anything.
The parts with Katerina. Those last few months in Cherdiechnost
…
And the rest? All those failed attempts to tinker with Time?
Standing there, I feel strangely depressed. Master of Time, I am, but can I change anything – can I
really
change any of it – for the good? Or am I, despite the potential power I wield, as much a victim as any time-bound man?
You see, that’s it. The power I have seems illusory right now. Why? Because I can’t wield it the way I want to. To rescue those I love and …
And put aside the Game.
But how can I do that? How can I ignore the call of duty? Would it be right to abandon my people to their fate? And besides, if I did – if I tried to, that is – then surely they’d prevent me. If I endangered them, they would be perfectly within their rights to stop me, even to kill me if necessary.
And then there’s the Russians, and Reichenau, and Kolya …
No. The time’s not ripe to put away the Game. The Game goes on, whatever my wishes. Meister I might be, but the world will not leave me in peace. It is not my destiny.
Ahead lies the loop, and death and birth and all the in-betweens of life.
The door hisses open. It is Zarah again.
‘Forgive me, Meister, but we need to show you something urgently.’
Behind her, I realise, is one of our agents – Kessemeier, I think it is. He dips his head respectfully, but his eyes are ablaze, his whole body trembling with excitement.
He’s holding a book in one hand, and as Zarah steps aside he almost thrusts it at me.
‘There, Meister! That’s it!’
I take it and study the beige cloth cover a moment. I recognise it. It’s one of the books I had sent to the library. The language looks like German, only it isn’t. Nor is it a sister-language. It’s an altered version, the product of an alternate timeline.
‘
Abwechseindrealitisch
,’ Kessemeier says, giving it its proper, German term. ‘I’ve done a transcript, if you want to read it for yourself.’
I notice now that Zarah too is excited, but I’m still confused as to why it should be so important. ‘Just tell me what it is,’ I say. ‘If I need to, I’ll—’
‘It’s
him
,’ Kessemeier says, unable to contain himself. ‘Kolya!’
That sends an electric jolt through me. ‘
What?
He’s
mentioned
in it?’
‘Mentioned? It’s all about him, Meister! It’s
his
history. How he rose, how he fell …’
‘Wait. Slow down a second. His
history
?’
Kessemeier goes to speak again, but Zarah beats him to it. ‘Our friend Kolya was a great leader. An emperor, you might say. Until we changed things. Until we took it all away from him.’
For the next six hours I am absorbed, reading about Kolya and his world and his struggle to reach the top and stay there. A world so similar and yet so different from our own, ruled by that proud, fierce eagle of a man. Until we came along and sucked his world into the Game, destroying it piece by piece, and then discarding it, like a broken, rusting machine shunted off on to a weed-strewn side-track of time.
Kolya. Undoubtedly Kolya from the portraits of the man. Ruler of an empire vaster than any other in human history, an empire that contained Europe and Asia, and most of Africa, and that was industrialised a good three centuries before its time.
And the agent who was in charge of all of this? Myself, of course. Not that I remember
any
of it. But who else could it have been? Why else would such hatred smoulder in his eyes?
Only how did he find out it was me? More to the point, how, if he was born in 2343, did he come to rule this other world nine centuries before that date?
And when did Kolya discover how to travel back in Time?
But that’s the trouble with this. Exciting as it is, it begs more questions than it answers. But at least we know
something
about him now. At least we have a possible motive for why he’s doing what he’s doing. All the more reason, then, to find him and confront him.
Closing the book, I look up at Zarah. ‘I’m going back,’ I say. ‘I need to find out how it’s all connected.’
I jump back to the room above the kitchens, then hurry to meet the others at the Doktor’s office, the file of mocked-up forms in one hand, my head full of questions.
If the answers aren’t here, then where are they? Back in 1952? At Krasnogorsk?
One thing’s for certain: I can’t go back to Kolya’s world. That timeline was snipped off long ago, and is now as inaccessible as any fantasy. Whatever happened there – whatever he did and I did – is veiled in mystery now. Unless …
And this is the thought that has been nagging me the last hour or more. What if Hecht kept a record of it, back at the Haven? After all, he kept copies of everything else back there. If I could go there, then maybe I’d get my answers.
Only if that’s so, then why didn’t Hecht uncover it? Or is it just that he didn’t think to look?
After all, why should he? His memory – like all of ours – changes from time to time to accommodate major alterations in the timestream. So, while a record would have been kept – a copy – there would have been nothing in Hecht’s mind to set him off – even to suggest that somehow Kolya had already crossed our tracks.
No. I’m convinced of it. He wouldn’t even have thought to look.
Yes, but what about his brother? Surely he’d have cross-referenced it somewhere?
Surely they had some kind of index, to make all that information more accessible?
But then again, why? If those timestreams were done with and left to rot …
Maybe that’s why he evaded us. Why he was such a mystery all that while. Not that he’s any less of a mystery now.
I arrive breathless at the Doktor’s door, to find the other three waiting for me patiently. Schultz even smiles at me as I hand him the files.
‘Thanks, Otto. Leave this to me from now on. It’s time we taught these insolent bastards a lesson.’
I’m surprised, because it’s almost certain that the Doktor, seated in his room the other side of the door and looking on via his camera, hears what Schultz says. But if so, he doesn’t react to it, because when the door swings back and we enter, it’s to find him crossing the room with his hands outstretched, as if to greet an old friend, a beaming smile on his face.
‘Auguste, it’s been a long time.’
And I realise with a start just what this means. Schultz was a student here. He is a product of the Akademie.
‘Herr Doktor,’ Schultz says, and bows low, even as we three, standing behind him, do the same.
‘What do you want?’ the Doktor asks as he straightens up, giving Schultz the respect he never showed me. ‘Is it bad?’
‘It isn’t good,’ Schultz answers him. ‘It’s never good. But I must have them all gathered. They must see this. Remember it.’
The Doktor nods, subdued. ‘It shall be done. But come now, let’s share a drink. To olden times …’
So it is, with the taste of brandy in my throat, I find myself standing up on the stage once more, only this time behind Schultz and his two assistants, as he looks out over a sea of shaven heads. There is an atmosphere of fear now in that massive space between the buildings, and as Schultz steps forward a chill silence falls.
When he speaks, his voice is strong and deep. It carries to the very back of that gathered crowd, echoing back from the walls of the buildings.
‘I stand before you today not as a single man – not as an individual, acting as an individual – but as a representative of the State. A servant of the Fatherland. Indeed, we are all of us here servants of the State, and as such fulfil perhaps the highest purpose to which we might aspire. Today, however, we are here on a matter of the most serious nature; a matter that touches the very core of our social being.’
Schultz looks about him, his cold, clear gaze raking them like the brightest, most penetrating light.
‘As a society we must always look to one another. Always recognise that while each has his task, his role within the greater fate of the nation, there is a common goal, a unity, to all our efforts. When that unity is broken – deliberately,
maliciously
– then it is our duty, one might almost say our sacred task, to root out the source of that breach, that
corruption,
and, by whatever means,
cleanse
the social being. Should we fail, should we even hesitate to act, then, like a disease in the very marrow of the bone, that disease will spread. The bone will rot and the body will fall.’
Schultz pauses, hovering on the edge now, close to revealing who is to be punished and why, and the mass of boys below him know that, and there’s a kind of dark expectancy among them. They have heard this speech before and have seen what follows, and though some are fearful, many more are secretly excited at this moment, for the great, all-encompassing power of the State is about to be expressed, corruption rooted out and the unjust punished.
Schultz nods slowly. ‘Have no illusions. We must have no mercy for those who transgress our laws. As a society, we cannot afford to be merciful. Mercy is only for the weak. For the feeble-minded who lack clarity of vision. Mercy is the tool of our enemies. And so we must not think of being merciful. We must think only of cleansing the race. Of how, through this act, the
volk
grows stronger and more certain of its ultimate victory.’
Schulz makes no sign or gesture, yet as he says those words, so his two assistants step out, away from him, heading for the steps that lead down into the massed ranks of the boys, one to the left, one to the right, moving with a determined gait.
Schultz’s voice booms out. ‘Francke, Roland Francke, where are you, boy?’
There’s a moment’s silence, and then a hand goes up near the front, over to the left, and a voice, frail, struggling to be brave, answers him.
‘I am here, Meister!’
‘And Baeck, Leo Baeck, speak up!’
Again a hand goes up, further back, somewhere in the middle. ‘Here, Master!’
‘Good. Make yourselves known to my men.’
I swallow, my mouth dry, knowing suddenly what’s to come.
Their fathers are traitors – caught passing secrets to the Russians – and as the boys are led, their hands manacled behind their backs, up on to the stage, so Schultz speaks on, spelling out their wickedness, such that the two boys half stumble up the steps, their faces shocked and bewildered, and on to the stage, unable to believe that it is
their
fathers Schultz is speaking of.
Traitors. Enemies of the State. And therefore, by association, their sons are also traitors, for it is all genetic, after all. The rottenness is in the genes.
Ineradicable
. Best then to cauterise it, to
remove
the genes from the racial pool.
The boys – sixteen-, seventeen-year-olds – are half pulled, half pushed towards Schultz, his two assistants brutal now, forcing the young men down on to their knees before the Inspector. Necks are craning now, down there in the mass below us. There’s a low buzz and boys are breaking their neat ranks, straining to get a better view.