The most terrible thing, however, was not the impregnability of their destination, but the fact that the great chasm was within view of the front gate. Whatever he and Ari had imagined as their purpose, they had been wrong. It gave him an awful feeling. It was as if the journey across the Atlantic, as trying as it had been, would be easy compared to what came next.
The half-track stopped at the front gate, and another soldier waved them through.
3
Harald looked over his shoulder and watched Dominik being escorted to his new home. A pair of burly-looking youths had a hold of each arm, practically dragging him across the dirt. That was good; Harald didn't trust Kaminski in the open, not any more. Ari and his daughters weren't far behind, being herded off of the half-track like cattle.
“Walk with me,” Richter said. “I'd like you to meet the other prisoners.”
“Other prisoners?”
“The unskilled labor, as I think of them. This way.”
Harald followed his commander in silence, passing beneath an arch of the monstrous growths Doctor Grey would one day call The Carrion. But where Dominik saw danger, Harald saw only wonderment. This place was unlike anything he had imagined.
“I'd also like to meet the men,” he said. “The soldiers.”
“You know that it's twenty-one thirty?”
Harald looked up, still unused to the perpetuity of gray sunlight. “Ah, excuse me, sir. I'd forgotten. We've been at sea for quite some time.”
“No. By all means, meet with them. We need someone to keep them on their guard. Your predecessor will not be doing it, certainly.”
“My predecessor?”
“Captain Smit,” Richter said, stopping at the edge of the crater. “You did hear what happened to him?”
“No sir, I—”
Richter laughed, and for the first time, Harald felt vaguely unsettled. “You needn't worry about it then, Lieutenant. You'll have enough things to worry about without putting stock in ghost stories.”
“Ghost stories?”
“The men here are a rather superstitious lot. It's nothing you need concern yourself with. So meet them, and see for yourself. Just excuse me if I don't join you. My duties will stretch on into the night.”
A shout echoed from around the corner, and Harald turned to see a gaggle of emaciated figures near the edge of the pit. An S.S. youth stood above them, yelling orders from over top of a rifle. Harald observed with some fascination that the prisoner closest to the drop had a rope tied around his waist, and the others were lowering him into the deep. The spelunker looked half naked and starved.
The commander began walking around the edge towards them, laughing—laughing—as the men strained and heaved with their bony arms. “Lower! Put him lower, you animals!”
The four prisoners, all of whom were seated, barely looked up. It was all they could do to keep the rope in their hands. Richter began to prod one of them with his foot.
“Do you think we should move against Kaminski now?” he called.
It took Harald a moment to realize the question had been directed at him. “Move against him?”
“Yes. Do you think he has the moxie to do the job straight away?”
“What do you mean?”
“You're playing coy with me, Lieutenant. Do you think he can do the job we have set for him without using any leverage?” The man's tone was light, but Harald had no doubt of its sincerity.
“Yes sir, I think he can do it.”
“Very well,” he said noncommittally. “I will trust your judgment, Lieutenant.”
“Yes sir.”
“You don't approve?” Richter asked, reading the other man's expression. “We could always torture him, if his daughters won't do.”
A dozen retorts skipped through his brain, none of which would endear him to his new host. “You know best, sir.”
“That I do, Lieutenant, that I do! The human body is a resilient thing. I've seen it survive many things. You can beat it, burn it, cut off it's limbs... hell, you can cut off its balls and it will find a way to survive.” He stopped then, looking down at the prisoner who was dangling at the end of the rope.
The man had begun to whimper. “Please. Don't lower me any more! There's something down here! I can feel it!”
When Harald looked down, he saw the darkness of the pit had a kind of volume to it. The way the light fell, the shadow became complete just under the man's thighs. He appeared half in, half out of the darkness.
“What's down there?” Richter asked.
“I don't know! I don't know! There's something moving!”
“Well, if you can't tell me what it is, that's no good to us,” the commander said. Then, to the prisoners, “Lower him a little further.”
When they didn't respond, Richter went to the man at the front of the brigade, withdrew a small knife, then pressed it into the man's neck. It was a warning gesture, but it still drew blood. All four prisoners began to lower the rope.
The man on the end cried out, begging them to stop, but by the time they did, he was invisible. The shadows had overtaken him.
“He is very prideful, you know,” Harald said, his voice trailing off as he watched.
“Who?”
“Kaminski. He's very prideful. If we hurt one of his girls, I'm not sure what he would do.”
Richter shrugged. “We did not bring them for nothing, Lieutenant. You'll find that my methods can be quite effective when used properly.”
Harald nodded, beginning to see something very frightening, very unreachable in his new commander. He had never met anyone quite like him in the regular army.
“Lower! Lower, you sonofabitch,” Richter said, kicking one of the prisoners in the ass. “You should get some sleep, Lieutenant. You look tired, and the next few days will be busy. Meet with the men, then have Sergeant Metzger see you to your quarters. I expect full productivity by the end of the week. We should talk about the command structure when you get a chance.”
“Very good, sir.”
Harald continued to stare at the rope. It wasn't moving any more.
“What do you see down there?” Richter called. “I say, what do you see down there?” After a few moments, he turned to the lieutenant. “That's all for now.”
Though he was being dismissed, Harald lingered a moment longer. His eyes were still glued to the rope, still watching it sway down in the dark of the crater. The commander called out several more times, all to no avail. Finally, Richter said, “Bring him up.”
And of course, when the four prisoners lifted the rope, there was nothing on the end. The man had disappeared into the darkness.
As quickly as he could, Harald turned and began walking towards the base. He heard a thump and a cry as Richter kicked another prisoner into the dirt, then hurried along even faster when he heard the caw of the genuine laughter that followed.
4
The fate of Captain Smit, as it turned out, would be discovered by the new prisoners long before the good lieutenant.
As Harald made his way back to the base, Dominik and Ari stood outside of the door to the science laboratory. The term laboratory seemed rather generous considering it looked like every other block of concrete at the base, but that's what they had been told. The two of them had been escorted to the lab by a pair of soldiers they did not recognize, and then the soldiers had walked off as if they were no longer needed. It felt exceedingly odd, though Dominik knew they were not alone. From where they stood, he could see the snipers in the towers, the guard at the gate, the engineers in the vehicle depot.
“You think we should knock?” Ari asked.
“Maybe we should just go in.”
“Wait! Do you hear that?”
Dominik grabbed the door and pulled it open. There was no one on the other side. “You're hearing things, Ari.”
“I'm not.”
“Still expecting that cup of tea then?”
“At this point, I'd settle for a friendly hello. It's awf
ully dark in there.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“Don't you?”
“We're supposed to go in. They wouldn't have brought us out here otherwise. I thought you were an optimist, Ari?”
The other man scoffed, but he stepped past Dominik into the hall ahead. They were going, like it or not. Dominik, however, wasn't worried. They were off the ship, and he had seen the bunker where the lot of them would sleep. Their room had been unadorned save for two beds, but this in and of itself was a miracle. They had blankets. They had space and food. They had access to a dry toilet, a sight which had made Lucja weep. They would still be under lock and key, but they would not be given so much just to have it stripped. Of course, Dominik was not immune to how manipulative this was, how he felt more servile now than he had during the entire journey. But he had his wits, and he knew he had to keep them if they were going to survive.
“Are you coming?” Ari asked.
Dominik grunted and stepped after him.
Like the other bunkers, the hall in front of them was narrow and anfractuous. Unlike the others, however, it ended in a narrow stairway leading down beneath the ground. Dominik imagined the earth just over them, imagined he and Ari had already walked over this very spot when they had been above. It did much to explain why the vehicles in the compound were limited to the depot near the gate; the ceiling over such a place could not be very sturdy.
They stepped into the room at the bottom like children in a dark wood. Dominik observed the menagerie of items with something like awe. There were tables, tools, instruments and generators, a collection of metallic odds and ends so bizarre Dominik didn't know what purpose they served. At the end of the room, he could see glass terrariums—almost like prison cells—full of the same bizarre tentacles they had seen on the way in. These were smaller, but of the same origin, he had no doubt. They were wrapped around various objects: small trees, metal framework, and in several cases, animal bones. They seemed to pulse in the dim light, their slimy shapes coiled around their perches like serpents.
“Dominik!” Ari said, pointing. “Look at that!”
He turned to find himself face to face with cylindrical machine in the corner. It had a wide metal base with a device in the center that looked almost like an engine. Like a Hamburg steak sandwich, Dominik thought.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Dominik nodded. “Well, we don't know if it works, but it looks a lot like Lawrence's cyclotron to me.”
“Good God. Here? You think they built it?”
“Well, I don't think they stole one, if that's what you're asking.”
“I wouldn't be so sure,” Ari said. “You've seen what else they've stolen.”
“Even if they did, they would have had to disassemble it and reassemble it, and that means somebody knows what they're doing. I don't think they would have gone all the way to Berkeley, do you? No, somebody built this one.”
Dominik stepped away from the machine, both drawn and repulsed by what else the lab might contain. That was when he saw the body.
Atop a table near one of the glass cages, he saw the outline of what looked like a human corpse. He froze, wondering if the sight would ever cease to startle. He'd seen enough of the faceless and the dying during the last four years in the gutters of his own neighborhood, to be sure, and yet he still found himself in shock.
“What's wrong with him?” Ari asked.
The skin was blotchy, veins standing out in strange spiderweb patterns, the eyes bulging beneath closed lids as if they had exploded in their sockets. Strange grass-like hairs grew from the nose and ears. The body itself was secured to the table with two leather straps, one over the shoulders, and one over the thighs. Had they done this to him while he was still alive?
Fingers of dread began to creep into Dominik's mind. He heard a voice, but it sounded like it had come from inside a drum. “What?” he asked, realizing it was Ari talking.
“I said, 'Are you all right?' It's terrible, Dominik, but you're acting like... like, I don't know.”
“This must be what they want us to do, Ari,” he croaked. “They must want us create some kind of poison. Have you seen his skin? It's like he's been drowned in some kind of... some kind of—”
“Let's get you out of here.”
Ari threw his arm around his companion and turned them towards the stairwell from whence they'd come. But standing in their path, blocking the light, was a man. Dominik noted with no surprise at all that it was one of the ugliest men he had ever seen.
The figure raised a hand, and with it, the barrel of a pistol. It was pointed straight at them, its metallic glint unmistakable.
A snapping sound came from behind them, and with it, a roar so terrible that it split the two men apart. The thing on the table was alive! It snapped through one of its leather restraints, bolting upwards and clawing. Dominik could hear it hissing and spitting in its blind rage, its mouth chomping and its teeth clacking.
He looked backwards and was suddenly sure of something else: the thing coming at him was no man. Maybe it had been, once. Maybe it had been an animal with a brain and a purpose, but now it was only... it was only a thing. It shrieked at him, the sound conveying a hate so black it matched his skin.
“Dominik!” Ari cried.
The pistol fired. The thing on the table fell backwards with a hole in its head. It lay still, dead for real this time, or so it appeared.
Five long seconds passed. In them, Dominik could feel the weight of an eternity bearing down on the pair of them. When it was over, he squinted towards the stairwell and saw the newcomer standing with the smoking pistol in hand. The man had not been pointing it at the pair of them after all. He tucked the weapon into his holster and sighed noisily. It was an oddly clumsy gesture, and as he began to walk towards them, Dominik could see his gait was just as awkward.
The man helped Ari to his feet, then extended a hand to Dominik. Dominik took it, and the man slapped him on the back.
“Make more like this? Ha! Mister Kaminski, you are most amusing. Of course we would not bring you here to make more like this. More like Captain Smit? The enemy is a different story, but not our own people!” He laughed at his own joke. “I am Doctor Kriege, Mister Kaminski, and I assure you this is not a weapon of our design. We are here simply to study it, to find where it came from, maybe. But as for you, Mister Kaminski, what we want is very simple. What we want is for you to help us destroy it.”
5
At the same time her father was exploring the laboratories, Lucja was being escorted across the grounds by one of the young soldiers. She wanted to tell herself that all the new men looked alike, but she couldn't; she knew his name just as surely as he knew hers, and that made things worse. Putting a human face on them would make her weak. It would make her hesitate, like her father had done on the deck of the ship. And she did not want to be like her father. Their chances of escape were worse than ever, thanks to him. But when you got right down to it, would she have done differently? Would she have really brought the ax down on top of that fat man, as disgusting and inhuman as he was? She didn't know. All she did know was she had been thinking about the moment nonstop since their arrival.
“You all right?” the boy asked.
She thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat. She could feel one of them had unraveled on the inside, allowing her to touch the shirt beneath. Beneath that, she could feel the bone outline of her ribs. In her other pocket, she could feel the screwdriver she had found in the bunker. It was not a good a weapon as an ax, but it would do. “I'm fine.”
“I don't mean to bother you. You just looked pretty, is all.” He was a strange one, this boy. Hans, she thought. Hans is his name.
His eyes peered at her through glasses too big for his face. His smile seemed genuine enough, but there was something off about it too. Maybe he was just slow.
In the guard tower, she could see the silhouette of the lieutenant standing at the top. Motionless,
he blended into the gray light, as unassuming as a predator. Like a lizard, she thought, not quite remembering the word for the reptile that could blend into its surroundings. A lizard is all you are, Dietrich. Maybe he was a nice enough young man, and he hadn't ignored her pleas for help back on The Adalgisa, but she didn't have to like him, not after all that he'd done.
Hans stopped and pointed up the tower, smiling a strange smile.
The prisoners' bunker was hidden from her line of sight now, and it made her uneasy. Zofia was all alone back in the room. Little Zofia, who had managed to hold it together just as well as her. Maybe even better.
“Go on,” the boy said.
She moved one foot up on the ladder, then the other. The young man walked to help, and she suddenly found herself climbing at full speed, anxious to escape before his hands could touch her. Before she knew it, she was at the top. Then, a hand did grab her. She squealed, but Harald held onto her by the scruff of her coat and hauled her the rest of the way up.
“Careful. You almost fell.”
“I'm sorry, I... thank you.”
To her eyes, the lieutenant looked tired. He was wearing a hat—a new one, she supposed—but it seemed to shadow his face more than add to his height. “I'm sorry to bring you up here, but this place has eyes and ears. I suppose I'm not used to it.” He laughed bitterly. “I'm certain no one can hear us up here, though. Maybe we're not free from prying eyes, but this is the best I could do. The fact that others can see us is a good thing, I think. Certainly I am,” he searched for a word, then found it, “professional. Surely you know that.”
When it looked like he was waiting for a response, she nodded.
“I have something to ask you. You asked me for help once, and now I demand,” he stopped himself. “I'm sorry. And now, I'd ask for your help in return. This is very difficult for me, but I'm afraid this is not something I can share with anyone else.” He reached out and handed her what looked like a letter. She took it more out of instinct than anything else.
The Aeschylus Page 18
