Schultz looked and saw an iron beast cresting a hill. Yes, just another tank. Nothing special. They worked with tanks all the time. And then, as the tank drew closer and the rumbling stronger, his eyes made out a tiny something, projecting from the top of the turret.
“Liebe Gott im Himmel!”[24]
From atop the Tiger III, as if on parade… as if on parade before a universe he personally owned, Hans Brasche, late of 5th SS Panzer Division (Wiking), tossed a crisp salute at his future tank crews.
Interlude
As was fitting for a junior Kessentai, Ro’moloristen took an obscure position towards the back of the oddly designed, auditoriumlike, assembly room. The floor, to the extent an Aldenata-based ship could be said to have permanent floors, swept upward as it swept back, allowing the young Kessentai a full view of the assembling God Kings and the central raised dais against the far wall.
While himself relegated to the rear by his junior position, the young God King’s betters — elders, in any case — took more prominent positions towards the front. Centered at the very front, right against the cleared semicircular area that had been left around the raised dais, stood Athenalras, armed crossed before the massive equine chest in the posture of supplication and serenity.
The thousands of other God Kings present in the auditorium likewise matched Athenalras’ pious posture as an elderly Posleen, a Kenstain — Bin’ar’rastemon — a once prominent Kessentai who had given up the Path to become a very special form of Kessenalt. No mere castellaine was Bin’ar’rastemon, no mere steward for another God King. Once the toll of years and wounds had begun to tell, he had turned his clan and its assets over to his senior eson’antai, or son, only keeping control of sufficient to support himself in a modest style as he entered the Way of Remembrance.
Something between historians and chaplains, the Kessenalt of the Way of Remembrance served to maintain and remind the People of their history, their values, their beliefs… and the very nasty way of the world unwittingly inflicted upon them by the Aldenata and their one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter, philosophy.
Clad in ceremonial harness of pure heavy metal, Bin’ar’rastemon — old and with the Posleen equivalent of arthritis creaking every joint — ambled up the steps of the dais, ancient scrolls tucked into his harness.
Though Kenstain normally received little respect as a class, except perhaps from the God Kings they served directly, the followers of the Way of Remembrance were widely and highly valued. As Bin’ar’rastemon centered himself upon the dais, he ceremonially greeted the assembled God Kings, who ceremoniously answered, “Tell us, Rememberer, of the ways of the past, that we might know the ways of the future.”
Bin’ar’rastemon unrolled a scroll formally, placing it upon a frail-seeming podium. On this he placed a hand. Yet he was a Rememberer, still in full possession of his mind, however much his body may have aged. In any case, he needed no scroll for this tale.
“From the Book of the Knowers,” he began…
Chapter 4
Sennelager, Germany, 14 July 2005
The base had been chosen for the assembly of the 47th Panzer Korps because of its central location. From all over Germany’s hundreds of small Kasernen, new, old and refurbished, poured in the thousands of newly trained troops and their veteran cadres.
Convenient for assembly of a large Korps as it might have been, the base was also too close to Hamburg, too close to Berlin, too close to Essen and Frankfurt for comfort. Another way of saying this was that it was altogether too comfortable and easy for the left of center of German politics, at least of that part which answered to those leaders of the left who had secretly sold out to the Elves, to find their way to the place.
And they did. In their thousands… in their tens of thousands.
“Must be fifty thousand of the bastards,” muttered Mühlenkampf, standing at his office window overlooking the main gate to the Kaserne. “Where the hell did they all come from? And why aren’t the boys out there in the army instead? Why aren’t the damned girls in the army, for that matter?”
He knew the answer, of course. Despite the threat of the Posleen, the idea of alternative service was too deeply ingrained in German political and social culture even for the threat of annihilation to overcome fully. Curiously, Great Britain and the United States, without a long or stable tradition of peacetime conscription or “compulsory social service,” had done better by far in dragging in their young people. There, the old age homes and the like had never become dependent on low-paid slave labor. Private always — or at least not fully governmental, they could remain so. In Germany? No such luck.
Wherever the protestors had come from, there was little doubt where they intended to go. Mühlenkampf watched without the slightest trace of amusement as the protestors, forming a human phalanx, made their first, barely repulsed, effort at storming the gate. He was even less amused to see a protest sign — “Friendship to our alien brothers,” said the sign — come smashing down across the head and shoulders of a policeman.
From the desk behind the general came the ringing of a telephone. He turned his eyes away from the protest to answer the nagging device. “Mühlenkampf,” he announced.
The chancellor’s voice came from the receiver. Though still unused to modern conveniences the sound seemed distant, and a bit muffled. A speakerphone, the general guessed, uncertainly.
“This is the chancellor. I have Günter sitting here with me in my office and listening. What is your situation, General?”
“My situation? I have forty or fifty thousand protestors outside my installation. Half of them are unwashed, long-haired young men who ought to be in the army and are not. They are storming the gates even as we speak. And the local police cannot hold them.”
There was a brief silence from the other end before the chancellor resumed. “I have two battalions of special riot control police en route to you by bus. They should be there in two hours at most.”
Unseen by the chancellor, Mühlenkampf shook his head. “That will be far too late. For that matter it would be far too little even if they were here now.”
“It is all I have, General.”
Absently, the old SS man said, “I have more. I have a half-strength armored Korps.”
A new voice spoke up, a voice tinged with rage. It was Günter’s, Mühlenkampf was quite certain, despite the distortion. “SS man, you may not use your Korps on those civilians; the public relations aspects would be disastrous.”
Holding in a snarl, the general decided to try a different tack. “Excuse me, Herr Kanzler. There seems to be some distortion in this connection. I can’t make out what you are saying. Did Günter say something? I will hang up and try again.”
Replacing the receiver, Mühlenkampf shouted out to his secretary, “Lucy, the Kanzler or perhaps some other flunkies are going to be calling here again in moments. Make all the lines busy, would you? And send someone to bring me my division and brigade commanders.”
Berlin, Germany, 14 June 2005
The Tir’s group of human underlings sat again in a semicircle before the desk. The Tir’s eyes were closed, though his ears were open. His breathing was shallow but steady. His lips moved in a mantra in his own tongue.