Open Writing

Berlin Reality 1395
The Fourth Reich

“My God, listen to this!” Steve said.

Jonathan and Joe were listening to the suite’s radio, with Trotter providing translation, and Professor Seartell came from the bathroom as Steve walked over to one of the couches and sat. When all were seated, Steve read from an English translation of a history of the war, by a noted German historian.

“Following the defeat of the British army at Dunkirk in June 1941, and the subsequent successful invasion of the British Isles in September, the Wermacht troops and their Russian allies ran through England like a hot knife through butter. The ease with which the occupation of Britain was achieved was largely due to the heroic sacrifice of Deputy Reischfuhrer Rudolph Hess. His gallant action paved the way for the invasion, and surely shortened the war by many months, perhaps even years.’”

“By his single act of assassination, the British bulldog was demoralized and defeated, and the resistance went out of its people virtually overnight. Some stronger resistance was encountered in Ireland, and particularly, in Scotland, where some villages fought to the last inhabitant, but by November the war was over in all but name. The final mopping-up took only three more months, and the official ceremony of surrender was held at Southampton on February 14th, 1942. Germany was victorious, all of Europe now held in her grasp.

“The Americans, who had wisely stayed out of the conflict, initially resisted giving formal recognition to the German government’s sovereignty over Britain and its Commonwealth, but eventually, by the middle of 1942, they acquiesced. Germany was triumphant; the thousand-year Fourth Reich had begun.

Into the shocked silence, Trotter asked, “Assassination? Whose?”

“Well, I think that’s fairly obvious,” Jonathan said. The others turned to him; they had learned to listen when the former Oxford Chair in Mathematics spoke.

When Joe had made the introductions, after they had settled into the suite, Trotter gaped at Jonathan with undisguised awe.

“Jonathan Edge?” he exclaimed, his voice little more than a squawk. “Professor Jonathan Edge? Oxford Chair in math?”

“You know Jonathan, do you, Trotter?” Joe smiled.

Trotter blushed. “Well, not personally, but, I mean, everyone knows of the Professor. They call me smart, but this guy,” he gestured at Jonathan, “this guy takes the flamin’ biscuit. IQ can’t be measured, they say.” He went over to Jonathan and held out this hand; Jonathan took it, and Trotter shook vigorously. “An honor and a privilege, Professor. With you on our side, we’ll be un-bloody-stoppable.”

“Thank you, Trotter,” Jonathan said, and resumed his explanation. “It’s Churchill, of course. I can think of no other figure in wartime Britain whose death would so demoralize the people.”

Seartell said, “I don’t know, what about the King? Or any others of the Royal Family? Wouldn’t killing one or more of them achieve the same result? Perhaps even greater?”

Jonathan nodded. “Possibly, Professor, but someone like Hess wouldn’t be permitted to get anywhere near them. No, I believe it had to be Winston Churchill.” He drank of the tea he’d made from the tea leaves he found in the suite’s kitchen.

“I would guess, without reading the volume Steve has found, that Hess made his historic flight to Britain in this world, just as he did in ours. Except here, his mission was to kill Churchill. If he succeeded, that would account for the reverence in which he is held in this world, and would also explain the great number of statues of him we saw.”

Joe turned from the window where he watched the street. “You think that the loss of one man, even Winston Churchill, could make such a difference?”

Jonathan nodded. “Yes. Churchill wasn’t just one man, he was the embodiment of all that was stubbornly British. The bulldog spirit, as it were. As the book says, ‘the British bulldog was defeated’, reference to his physical appearance. An unkind, but accurate analogy.”

Steve, still holding the volume open on his knees, said, “What about the Pope? John Paul the Second, I mean. It says here that he was a resistance fighter during the war, and was the only survivor of the massacre at the Katyn Forest in 1940. The Germans have tried to pass it off as a military engagement here, but it was actually a massacre, at least in our world. Over a thousand Polish officers just gunned down and buried. In this world, John Paul, or Karol Wojtyla as he was then, was there. Somehow, he survived and became a priest, and a thorn in the Germans’ side ever since.

“If it’s the same man, then he’s going to be Pope one day. Let’s hope he gives them hell.”

They sat in silence, each reflecting on the slim hope provided by an as-yet insignificant Polish priest, and a world without Britain, its people and its heritage. Then Jonathan spoke again, his voice grave.
“We have to go back, you know.”

Steve looked up from the book. “Back? Back where?”

“To Hitler’s office, of course. To the device.”

“But Jonathan, we’ve got the return widgets. They’ll get us back, at least to the stone room. From there, we can get to the ship,” Joe said.

Jonathan nodded. “Yes, Joe. We can. But what about our three companions?”

Joe looked at the others. “Well, maybe we could, I don’t know, piggyback them somehow. You know, join hands and all go together.”

Jonathan nodded again. “Perhaps being in physical contact with them might work, and it might not. If it doesn’t, then we’ll be back on that awful planet, while our new friends will still be here. And, to forestall your next objection, Joe; those badges only work one way, from one place to another. They would get us back there, all right, but we would have no way of returning here if we find we hadn’t brought the others with us.”

Joe nodded slowly. “Right. So we’d be there, and they’d be here, with no way of meeting up again.”

“Exactly,” Jonathan said. “Hence my original observation. We will have to use the device in Chancellor Hitler’s office to all get back together.”

Trotter leaned forward. “How are we going to do that? That office is guarded by heavily armed goons, as well as the streets between here and there.”

Joe shrugged. “We’ll have to trust our luck. I know that’s not ideal, but it’s the best I can come up with at short notice.” He glanced around the room. “If nobody has a better idea, I think we should wait until dark, then go back to that alley behind the Chancellor’s building.” He looked around. “Any objections?”

The others looked at each other, then back at Joe without comment. Joe nodded. “Okay, I guess that’s what we’ll do. Our luck has been good so far; it only has to hold a little while longer.”

* * * *

The city was dark when Joe led the other four travelers along the rear wall of the building that held the device on which all their hopes lay. Behind him, Jonathan walked quietly, followed by Trotter and Seartell, with Steve bringing up the rear. As they approached the door by which they had exited the building the last time they had been this way, Joe signaled for them to stop.

“Okay,” he said quietly, “now for the hard part.” He approached the door while Steve and Trotter kept watch, each looking towards opposite ends of the alley. “All right,” said Joe. “Let’s see how far our luck will carry us this time.”

Joe stepped up to the door, hesitated, then reached out and grasped the handle. Uttering a silent prayer to the Great Spirit, he turned the handle and was rewarded when the door opened a crack. Motioning the others to wait, he slowly pushed the door open and looked inside; the stairwell was dark. Gently, he pulled the door closed again and turned to those behind him.

“Can’t see a thing,” he said. “I guess we’re just going to have to go ahead. Ready?”

The others nodded nervously, and Joe opened the door again; he paused, then entered the darkness, the other three hard on his heels. This time, they went up the stairs. Joe estimated they had descended about five or six floors from Hitler’s office to the cells, which would put the office on the floor below the top of the building. As they climbed higher, they moved more and more slowly, ever watchful for any sight or sound of guards.

They reached the top without incident, and Joe led the way along the corridor towards Hitler’s office. As they approached the double doors, Joe signaled for them to slow down. They halted five yards from the doors and waited while Joe listened, all his senses alert for any sound from within. After a few minutes, he turned to the others and beckoned them to follow him. Turning away, he took hold of the door handle and turned it, gently pushing the door open. Gun in hand, Joe entered the Fuhrer’s office.

The room looked the same, so they entered quickly and closed the doors. Trotter and Jonathan moved to the desk and found the controls for the portal. The Germans had seen no need to conceal their access to the device, and so had incorporated it into the desktop computer. Trotter, fluent in German, translated for Jonathan, who hacked into the system in less than a minute.

After another minute or so, he looked up, “Where do you think we should go?”

Everyone smiled and Joe asked, “Is there any way we can get the co-ordinates of Rigel from our return badges?”

Jonathan nodded. “I don’t see why not. We’d better fire up the portal.” He and Trotter busied themselves at the keyboard for a moment; then, with a sudden hum, like a sound system being switched on, the portal materialized in a corner of the office. Then Jonathan took out his return device and began entering data into the computer. Suddenly, the portal began to flash.

Alarmed, Trotter said, “What’s happening?”

Jonathan stared, then said. “Someone, or something, is trying to come through! It looks like we’re about to have company.”

They stood rooted as the portal flashed, its bright surround winking on and off like a tavern sign, with startling suddenness, two figures stepped through, then a third. They all stared at each other, then the third figure said, [It is good to see you again, Jonathan.]

No one moved, until Jonathan stepped forward and embraced the man.

“’tau, by all that’s holy, it’s good to see you. But how can you be here?”

‘tau smiled. [As Bill might have said, it is a long story.]

The two men stood in the middle of the room, clasping each other by the elbows, then Jonathan looked at the man’s two companions. “Good to see you, too. I was getting concerned.”

Cal and Karen smiled. “We were…delayed,” Cal said.

“Not to mention sidetracked,” Karen added.

They all embraced in an awkward huddle, and Jonathan turned to the others in the room and made introductions. When he came to ’tau, he introduced him by his full and proper name, much to the alien’s surprise and delight.

[But you may all call me ’tau] he sent to them.

Their varied reactions to being addressed telepathically were amusing to see. Trotter, in particular, couldn’t take his eyes off the tall alien.

“Are you really from, y’know, another world?” he asked breathlessly.

’tau turned to him, his face grave, and Jonathan intervened. “That’s a long story, too, Trotter. It might be best not to mention it until I’ve had a chance to fill you in, as it were.”

He turned to Cal. “How did you get here? And from where?”

Cal smiled. “Jonathan, believe me, this is going to blow your mind.”