“And by 'not mysterious,' you mean it's a perfectly ordinary alien species that just happens to eat gamma rays for lunch?” Frece added. “Christ, Ettore, you're just as weird as those things are.”
The man regarded him down the hook of his brown nose. “Well, we don't know its origins, do we? That certainly isn't part of our job. As for my oddities, I think you should know I have more melanin in my skin than you do.”
Dominik and Ari chuckled, though Frece didn't. The man was a nuclear physicist, one of the only published researchers of his kind. The Reich had plucked him all of the way from Sweden. If he proved useless in their little endeavor, however, his blond hair and blue eyes would not save him. The thought was sobering, and as soon as it entered his head, Dominik stopped laughing.
As a collective, they stood up and went to the glass case where their latest specimen was waiting. It was twice the size since Dominik had seen it last, folded around itself within the air-tight cage.
“It looks like it's going to break through if we don't find it a bigger home,” Ari said.
Ettore's look of curiosity returned. “We'll have to do a vacuum transfer to one of the larger cages and release the air through the vents before we burn it. The air inside this one is toxic now.”
“More of the same?” Dominik asked.
The other man nodded. “Spore count is up with the growth, as is the concentration of carbon monoxide. I found something else in my last effusiometer test as well: traces of arsine gas.”
Dominik grunted, running through his mental encyclopedia of knowledge. When everyone looked at him again, he realized he was mumbling to himself. “Sorry. There are certain types of black molds that do that.”
“Black molds?” Ari asked.
“That's right, some species of the Stachybotrys genus. It's why fungi growing in old houses smell particularly bad. It's the arsine. It's poisonous in high concentrations but just unpleasant in trace amounts. Those fungi, though... well, they're not anything like our boy, here.”
“You stick your head in there, I'd say you'd get more than something unpleasant,” Ari murmured.
The lights flickered, and they all looked up. The door to the room opened, and Doctor Kriege stepped through. It had been weeks, and Dominik still didn't know the man's first name. He knew him well enough to ascertain that Kriege wasn't a bad man, his first encounter was enough to show him that. But he followed the rules like everyone above, and that made him untrustworthy. He followed all the rules, that was, save for rules of punctuality. “Damnable electricity. The flickering keeps me awake at night. But yes, I think Mister Quintus is quite right. Our little pets are very dangerous, are they not? The spores are quite infectious. I will not be surprised if Captain Smit is not the last accident to occur during our development.” He said this casually, as if the man's life had meant nothing. “The question is, why?”
“Why what?” Ari asked.
“Why spores, Mister Quintus! They are not used for reproduction. They are instead unleashing a kind of parasite, are they not?”
The remark caused Dominik to look up. A similar thought had crossed his mind in the preceding week, but it had seemed too far-fetched. “It's a defense mechanism,” he said.
Ettore cocked his head. “If so, the particulars seem rather evolved.”
That was perhaps the greatest understatement Dominik had heard since his arrival.
“So what we're looking at,” Kriege said, “is a creature that borrows particulars from others in the same phylum. And all of these things—the ability to spread rapidly, to convert ionizing radiation into energy, the ability to produce harmful spores—all of these things are suited to protecting itself and spreading as quickly as possible. Yes?”
Another silence followed, and Dominik realized the man was right. These things, these growths... they were a survival machine, more suited to snub any threat, physical or environmental, than the cockroach.
“So, our solution will likely be chemical and not physical. Isn't that right, Mister Frece?” Kriege asked.
The Swede nodded, and Dominik could read the look in his eyes. Great. Perfect. Just tell me I'm useless.
Kriege seemed to sense this as well. “Not to worry. There are plenty of uses for you, still. This will not be the last project we develop here. You needn't worry about that. You are a good man, Doctor Frece, a good man. Very expensive to acquire, I might add.”
“What projects might those be?” Ettore asked with the usual mild curiosity.
“Oh, projects of a more physical nature.” Kriege indicated the cyclotron in the corner. “You do not believe we went to the trouble of constructing a particle accelerator for a one-time use, do you? No, there are many things we can do. Great things. They are things we must do if we are to keep up with the Americans.”
Frece looked pacified, but Dominik could read the subtext. This will not be the last project. He felt a knot hit his stomach, the idea of staying, the idea of watching his daughters age over the months (and years?) sickening beyond words. Would it be a surprise if Dietrich had lied about that, too? Even if the lieutenant believed he were telling the truth, it was ultimately not up to him. It was up to the man's superiors, the ones who would profit from Dominik's results. That, at least, he didn't have to contemplate yet. They had found a thousand things which did not work at controlling their specimens, but nothing yet that did. Nothing that was practical, in any case.
Shortly after, the group broke to conduct further tests. Dominik went to the electron microscope, one of the most powerful in the world, and began looking at new chemical formulae. Ettore and Ari went to measure more of the existing specimens, while Frece, without a single complaint, handled the grunt work of emptying toxins from the central cage and burning the growth inside. Even through the glass of its cage, Dominik could hear the air whistling. Because like any evolved species, he knew it was quite averse to being burned alive.
2
To Lieutenant Harald Dietrich:
I have just received an inquiry from Private Gantte concerning a prisoner transfer from last year. It is with regret I must inform you that no such transfer ever took place. There is no record of a Magdelena Kaminski reaching our camp before the holidays. Our present structure makes it difficult to track the status of individual inmates, though I believe I would remember an outsider amongst the initial Sachsenhausen group.
As I have informed your man, we will not be ready to receive new inmates until later this year, and any transfer requests would not have been approved. I'm afraid we cannot help you. However, as it is my understanding that you are indisposed in one of our great new colonies, I wish to convey holiday wishes, and I hope you have success finding your missing prisoner.
-M. Erikson
Resting his hands on the railing of the tower, Harald forced himself to look towards the sea to calm himself. He had begun to come up here more and more often, volunteering to serve guard duty in short shifts. It wasn't duty fit for a lieutenant, but no one objected, including Richter. Perhaps the man sensed its purpose. Dietrich liked being alone, he liked looking out over the sea. Usually it soothed him, but not today. This new document was the third ill-fated letter he had read in as many weeks. Three letters in three weeks, three pieces of ill news. It was a bad omen. The first was the note from Mieke who, incidentally, he had not heard from since. The second was a notice from the party informing him his stay was to be extended as long as Richter deemed necessary. And here was the third, telling him Kaminski's wife was now missing.
He read the letter again.
For some reason, he began to dwell on that last turn of phrase: I hope you have success finding your missing prisoner. Why had the warden phrased it such? Your missing prisoner. Harald had given a direct order that Magdelena be taken to Neuengamme. If Private Gantte had been unable or unwilling to fulfill that order, Harald had no way of knowing and no way of disciplining him. He was quite confident that if he were back on the mainland, it would take no time at all to
track her down, but... he wasn't on the mainland.
Harald tore the letter into pieces and cast it out into empty space. What would he tell Kaminski? Would he lie? Mieke could always tell when he was lying, and that was usually over insignificant things. “Harry, you're blushing!” she'd said the first time he'd made an excuse for being late. “You're cute when you blush, but you can't lie to me. Right?” She'd laughed, and she'd kissed him.
“And so your wife is probably dead,” he said, tasting the way it sounded. “She never made it to the camp, which means she either died in transit, was abused horribly by the soldiers at the dock and discarded, or has become unreachable within the system. How about that?”
Saying it made it sound like hyperbole, even if it wasn't. But in saying it once, he knew he could never say it again. He would avoid the subject if it ever came up, as it surely would if he continued his visits with the man's daughter.
That was another headache. Their meetings were becoming increasingly difficult under the scrutiny of the commander. Why Richter took an interest, he didn't know. It was not as if Harald shared any connection with the girl. It was simply a matter of gathering information, an inside source into—
An explosion rocked his train of thought, and Harald ducked, thinking he was under attack. Then he looked beyond the north wall and spotted the source. The hunting duo were at it again. The slow kid Hans Wägner was drilling holes into patches of ice, and Seiler was dropping a live grenade into each one. They were running like school kids, drunk as lords, laughing as the ice blew to smithereens and an army of dead fish floated to the surface.
For whatever odd reason, the Gestapo agent had latched himself onto the kid. Boredom, perhaps, had become its own devil. The commander certainly had no use for either one of them, and the days here were long. Every so often, the two of them would drink and hunt and use whatever living thing they could find as target practice. Seiler was the brains (God help us, Harald thought), and Hans was the worker. They could spend hours rigging up animal traps or drilling holes in the ice like psychopaths. Maybe that's the attraction, he thought. Sheer psychopathic behavior. Hans, being young and dim-witted, had an excuse. Seiler did not. In the absence of structure and true work—the work that allowed him to hunt people—he needed an outlet.
It was getting worse by the day. Seiler had begun keeping trophies in his room. Trophies of the animals he and the retard had killed. Just in the past week, he had collected the skull of a sea leopard and the beak of a penguin. This latter had been the product of an all-day expedition in which Boris and Hans had replaced one of the bird's eggs with an explosive ordnance. They'd waited hours until the thing returned and settled its belly over it before setting it off. Amidst the pile of guts and parts that followed, the beak was the only thing left intact. Seiler hadn't been able to recount the story without laughing.
Christ. Jan was ready to murder him in his sleep.
Harald himself was sleeping little these days, and when he did, he found himself dreaming of the pit. His dreams were getting worse, and was it any wonder?
It had to stop. Richter was becoming anxious with respect to Kaminski, and a single incident within his unit could set him off.
The pair began to walk back towards the main gates, their hunting done for the day. They began to deviate before they got to the barracks, the kid leading them towards the prisoners' bunker.
“What the hell?” Harald went to the tower ladder and began to descend, sensing someone was about to have a bad day, and it wouldn't be him.
The boy stumbled up to the bunker and unzipped his pants.
“What are you doing?” Seiler asked. The fat man put one hand against the wall for support, but he was clearly amused.
By way of response, Hans began to piss, his yellow stream splashing into the steps beneath the bunker door.
Harald paced towards them. This was too far. Too goddamned far.
The boy sang, “Männer umschwirr'n mich, Wie Motten um das Lich,” but that was as far as he got. Harald grabbed the back of his head and smacked it into the side of the bunker. The kid dropped face down in his own piss, unconscious. Harald hadn't hit him very hard, but Hans was halfway there from the liquor.
“This ends today. No more pranks. No more hunting outside of the walls.”
Seiler stumbled. “We were just having fun, Lieutenant. Fun is allowed.”
“The commander has ordered no more foolishness. If he catches you, he will have both of our heads on a platter. Do you understand me?”
“Yes but... he is not here now.”
“I want everything in top shape. I want this foolishness stopped.”
The fat man pointed. “You... you cannot order me.”
Ah, and finally the predictable defiance. “I give the goddamned orders around here!” Harald shouted. “I will not have the grunts pissing on things! Further, I will not have you wasting explosives on fish. If Richter finds out they are not being used for live drills, there will be repercussions.”
“We can say we needed them for target practice,” Seiler said sulkily, but he looked different. Maybe some of this was getting through.
“Enough. Take him,” Harald said, pointing at the boy. “For God's sake, pull him out of his own piss and get him cleaned up. I don't care what you do until tomorrow morning as long as I don't hear about it, and as long as it doesn't involve our prisoners. Do you understand?”
Seiler nodded. He knelt and began gathering the boy from the ground.
“Good. Make sure he understands when he wakes up.”
He walked off, leaving the pair of them to sort it out amongst themselves. He felt flushed, his heart racing from the confrontation. Harald never questioned himself when dealing with the men though. It was the one time when he allowed his instincts to rule, and so far, they'd served him well.
The only thing left to do was have a word with Kaminski. There would be no more excuses, not from the prisoners, and not from his men. Richter was getting too impatient.
3
When Harald arrived at the laboratory, the men had already gone home for the evening. Is this how they expected to get things done? Perhaps they just needed the proper motivation. That, certainly, would be the attitude of the commander.
Perhaps he was right.
Harald squatted next to the largest cage and looked at the tentacle growing inside. Predictably, it sensed him, and it opened. A small creature climbed out of the folds as if being birthed. The lieutenant took a step back, then found himself leaning closer. The creature was a bird, a tern with a wounded wing Ettore had found on the grounds. It was a small thing, frail and pulsing black.
Then the thing screeched and launched itself at the glass. It smashed into it full force, reset, and then hurled itself again. In moments, the glass was smeared red. When it had crippled itself, the bird thing crawled as close as it could and began snapping its beak. Harald had no doubt that it wouldn't stop until it was dead.
Carefully, he reached up and began to undo the top of the cage. “Methods,” he said to himself. “You want effective methods, Commander? Maybe we should teach Kaminski to stop leaving his things unattended.”
The bird could do no damage by itself, that was clear. Of course, the good lieutenant had no idea the real danger was not in the bird, but in what it carried.
Leaving the top undone, he walked out of the lab and out of the bunker, feeling a little better for the mischief. On the way out, he bumped past Kriege and berated the man to watch where he was going.
4
The boy stumbled into the cave, holding his jaw. He hurt, but he knew that he would be better soon. His Thinking Place always made him feel better.
Always.
He had discovered the place some time ago, and now it was simply his. He had thought about showing his new friend Boris, but he was glad now that he hadn't. Boris had not protected him from the lieutenant. He could still feel the bruise on his forehead. He could still taste the nasty on his lips. The lieute
nant had hit him while he was peeing, and that wasn't fair.
Hans liked peeing outside. There had been a time when he had trouble hitting the bowl as a child. “If you don't quit making that mess in here, Hans, I'm going to cut that thing off!” his mother had yelled. That had made him mad. She had no right to make fun of his thing, even if he did miss the bowl. He always cleaned up his mess.
Some time later, he had sneaked into his mother's room while she was away at the night shift and peed in her bed. That had been fun, even if she caught him when he tried it a second time. Even if she burned him down there so he wouldn't do it again.
Maybe that was all right, because when his thing healed, he peed better than ever. He had no problem hitting the bowl. Peeing outside just felt good, so he did it when he could. It was especially good when you were sauced on whiskey or bourbon. He liked to get sauced. It helped pass the time. And passing the time was something he had done a lot of growing up, with his mom gone. On the night shift.
His room at home had been small, but he been able to fashion a Thinking Place in his closet. It was where he kept all of his friends. When he went to the army, he had wrapped the Thinking Place in a sack and buried it outside; he knew his mother would not understand if she found it. When he came back, he would dig it up and have it again. At first, it had been very hard without it, and he had been afraid he would never have another. There was no privacy in the army. Go here with the unit, and go there with the unit, and sleep with the unit in a hundred bunks all side by side.
Then, he had come to the island. His Thinking Place here was even better than the one he had at home. In fact, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to leave it, even if it meant his old sack had to stay buried in his back yard. Even if it meant he wouldn't see his momma again.
Sitting in the middle of the cave, he reached up to pet Hans Junior. Little Hans was his favorite, which is why he had given him his own name. The little guy had stopped moving the day before, which made it all the better to pet him. He had been the biggest of the baby seals Hans had been able to find. It was very difficult getting him onto the stake, but he had managed. Little Hans hadn't liked it when Hans had sawed off his flippers, but it made him easier to pet.
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