Greszak's face froze. Aborted! What had happened to the gate?
His consternation lasted only a moment. Nothing was wrong with the gate itself. Their spell had simply collapsed. I been inevitable, but Kurqosz's calculations had predicted eleven lunar cycles before it happened After a period of dangerous irregularity, it should settle on its natural timing-midnights nearest the full moon. Meanwhile he would salvage the situation on this side; in the absence of the new team, he'd fulfill the agreement using his staff, himself acting as power master. To panic a human army would be no challenge at all. More like entertainment.
Colonel Landgraf had been disturbed at Greszak's news. The Crown Prince's magnetism and power had more than made up for his arrogance, and the colonel had felt assured by his presence. But Greszak had promised that the project would be carried out despite the mishap, and Landgraf did not doubt him.
The buzzer on his desk rasped. "What is it, Kupfer?"
"There is a local farmer to see you, sir, about a matter that seems quite important. I believe he should tell you himself." Landgraf frowned. What would a local farmer have to say that Kupfer couldn't take care of? "Send him in, Kupfer"
A moment later the farmer entered, a middle-aged man of middle-height and sturdy build, in work clothes, his battered felt hat clutched in a thick fingered hand. In the other was a large paper bag. His bald skull was ivory above sun-reddened cheeks, his eyebrows yellow-brown, the eyes beneath them blue. In all, he resembled many of the farmers in Landgrafs home district, though Landgraf knew that when the man spoke, his dialect would spoil the resemblance.
"Guten Tag, Herr Oberst," he farmer said apologetically, and bobbed an almost bow. "I have found something the colonel may wish to know about."
"Let us see it, sir. "
The farmer opened the paper bag and took out a small orange parachute perhaps seventy centimeters across, with a long, orange sack attached, both of some silk-like material.
"It was caught on the wire fence at the north end of my pasture woods," he said. "I do not know how it came there, but it seems to have been deposited forcibly. See how it was torn!" He spread the material to show a ragged tear.
And in its sack I found this." He drew from it what the colonel recognized as either fuse or detonation coal, depending on its origin. The farmer laid it on the colonel's desk, reached in the bag again. `And these," he added. Taking out a drawstring pouch, he emptied it carefully into his hand and gently laid a handful of brass capsules beside the fuse. "I was a sapper in the Kaiser's army," he said. "These are detonators, as for dynamite. "
Landgraf's face went wooden. What did this mean? "In your pasture woods?" he said. "Let me see the parachute."
The farmer handed it to him. Numbers were stenciled along its edge, and in small block letters, "u. s. ARMY. "
Lieber Gott! Landgraf breathed, and looked up at the farmer. "You are to be commended for bringing this to me. What is your name?"
"Gruber, Herr Oberst. Wilhelm Gruber."
Landgraf turned his gaze to the door and stood up. "Hauptsturmfuhrer Kupfer!" he called, "see that Herr Gruber receives a proper commendation for this!"
Kupfer been waiting by the door, and looked in. "Yes Sir, Colonel. "
Landgraf extended a hand. After brief hesitation, the farmer took it, and they shook. "You are dismissed, Herr Gruber. "
"Yessir colonel sir," Gruber replied, did a rusty about face, and left. Kupfer closed the door behind him, then Landgraf keyed the intercom to the watch room and snapped an order. In scarcely a minute, Lieutenant Lipanov arrived with three men. The colonel showed him what the farmer had brought.
"I do not know what this means," Landgraf said, "but you and I are going to visit the magazines."
They marched from his office then, not through Kupfer's, but directly into the hallway, downstairs into the cellar corridor, and down the corridor to the magazines. A corporal unlocked the first magazine door and opened it. To Landgraf's eyes, everything seemed all right.
"Search it!" he ordered, and the three enlisted men entered, all of them for the first time. A minute later the corporal looked apologetically at the commanding officer.
"Sir, I find nothing out of order! "Good. Let us look at the other." They moved to the next room. It too passed.
Landgraf stood frowning. Are there ways into the cellar from outside?
"Yes sir, colonel," Lipanov said. "At the end is a back entrance, with a door that is kept barred. And the coal bunker room has a small door for a coal chute, that a man could crawl through."
"Have them both checked immediately. And Lieutenant, I want two men on guard here at the magazines. At all times. Also one in the furnace room, and double the guards at the front entrance. This finding may have nothing at all to do with us, but we must take no chances."
Then he turned and left the cellar, muttering about phoning Munich. He'd tell them once again that they really needed to remove this high explosive. Since the aliens could not use it, it served no purpose here.
Munich. And after all, he did wear the Iron Cross, the old one that really meant something. At some time in his life he'd been a warrior and a hero.
Meanwhile, Lipanov told himself, I'll set lookouts on balconies during the day. And guards outside at night, in pairs, with orders to shoot anything that moves. American paratroops are all criminals-rapists an murderers released from prisons to fight us-everyone knows that. They scruple at nothing.
Lipanov watched him leave. Was that all? he wondered Three guards in the cellar and two more at the entrance? Who had dropped that parachute? Americans, obviously. And to whom? A demolitions team, of course. As for why. This was the only military installation for many kilometers, so obviously the schloss was the target, the schloss or perhaps the aliens. Yet the colonel was treating the affair as if they were dealing with ordinary criminals. What they should do was request a battalion be sent to hunt them down.
Well. Perhaps he intended to, he'd mumbled something about phoning someone.
36
Crescendo
Macurdy's collapse was cut short by a realization: Kurqosz would have noticed when the gate opening cut short, and be concerned. Guardsmen might be sent. Grunting, he got to his feet and started down the truck trail, still cloaked, though he'd hear any vehicle grinding its way up the steep grade.
He reached the foot of the ridge without seeing or hearing anyone. Meanwhile his legs and buttocks were stiffening from his furious exertions of the morning, and the ends of his toes were sore from his downhill runs. Out of shape again, he thought, and headed back to the schloss, not by the county road, but through the woods, pausing at the edge of the lawn till a cloud obscured the sun.
The cellar's rear entryway was locked, which disappointed but didn't surprise him. Slipping around the comer into the shadow of the north wing, he leaned against the wall and thought for a bit, reviewing plans. He was stiff, seriously now-thighs, buttocks, calves, even tibias. By noon he'd have trouble walking, let alone running if necessary, unless he did some thing about it. And before long, the shortage of sleep would dull him.
Macurdy, old horse, he told himself, it's time to take care of yourself for a change. With that he crossed the lawn again and hiked back into the woods. Feeling thirsty, he reached for his canteen. Empty. He must, he thought, have drunk it all that morning, and in the intensity of his focus, never noticed; only now did he realize his clothes were wet with sweat. So he continued to the lake, where he refilled his canteen, drank deeply from it, and topped it off again.