Norman Spinrad - The Iron Dream

As the command-car driver brought the vehicle to a halt outside the high fence, Feric was presented with a spectacle as revolting as any he had ever been forced to witness. Crammed together behind the barbed wire was a seemingly endless throng of grotesque creatures of every nauseating description. Thousands of Parrotfaces clicked their beaks at each other. Humpbacked dwarfs of every variety scuttled about like herds of monster crabs. Creatures with arms longer than their bodies shambled about aimlessly like jungle apes. Skins were of every cancerous hue: green, blue, red, brown, purple. Pinheads rubbed shoulders with loathsome Toadmen. Moreover, dung, offal, and filth were everywhere in evidence, and the stench that arose from the Camp was nothing short of terrific.

“I wanted you to experience the reality of the problem firsthand, my Commander,” Remler said. “We’ve rounded up every last Borgravian, and the SS is more than equal to the task of confining them to the Camps, and even a blind man would have no trouble separating the true human stock from the genetic rubbish provided he still had use of his nose. But what are we to do with all these sordid creatures? We hold millions in the Borgravian Camps, and the situation in the other conquered provinces is no better.”

Beyond the barbed wire, Parrotfaces, Blueskins, Toadmen, and all varieties of other monstrosities picked through dung and filth with their fingers for morsels of edible material which they transferred directly to their mouths. Feric’s gorge began to rise.

“It’s obvious that they must all be sterilized and then exiled into the wildlands,” he said.

“But my Commander, what is to prevent millions of the wretches from simply wandering back to their former habitations? You’ve seen the wonders we’ve worked here; in a few months, this land will be indistinguishable from the rest of Heldon. But how can this be accomplished with hordes of pauperized mutants shambling about the countryside?”

There was no denying that Render had raised a cogent point. What a contrast between the civilized air of Bridgehead and the surrounding countryside and the fetid sty the same environs had been when rabble such as was confined behind the wire infested the area! How would it be possible to encourage Helder to colonize the new provinces if they were presented with the foul spectacle of degenerate vermin at every turn?

“Perhaps it would be better to confine the creatures to the Camps for the duration of their lifespans,” Feric said, as a dull-eyed Toadman not ten yards from the car dropped his pants and proceeded to defecate.

“Such is my feeling, my Commander,” Remler replied.

“But the expense of feeding and housing millions of such useless wretches for decades staggers the imagination, and to what useful end?”

“I see your point,” Feric said. “From my own experience among the Borgravians, I know that they lead uniformly sordid lives of great misery; they are genetically incapable of anything better. No doubt euthanasia would be a humane service to the wretches as well as our most pragmatic course. But I absolutely insist that the task be carried out with a minimum of pain and as efficiently and cheaply as possible.”

“Of course, my Commander!” Remler said. “SS scientists have developed a gas which saps the subject of consciousness and then of vitality without so much as a trace of discomfort. Moreover, it is effective in very small doses, and not unduely expensive to manufacture. We could process the inmates of every Camp within the new territories in this manner for the cost of maintaining the Camps as they are for six weeks.”

The stench of the massed Borgravians lay heavily in Feric’s nostrils like the miasma of some unimaginably vast manure pile. Clearly the program that Remler bad suggested was the most practical way of dealing with the former denizens of the new territories; the Helder people could hardly be expected to expend vast sums for decades on the upkeep of these wretched monstrosities, and to let such creatures run wild on true human soil was equally unthinkable. Moreover, these poor creatures certainly had the right to expect that their true human superiors would put them out of their misery as quickly and as painlessly as possible, rather than leave them to rot in their own offal. On this question, the dictates of pragmatism and absolute morality coincided. The humanitarian duty of the Helder people was identical with the economic necessity.

“Very well, Remler,” Feric said. “You will procure the necessary materials and complete the processing of the Classification Camp inmates within two months.”

“Within six weeks, my Commander!” Remler promised fervently.

“You’re a credit to the Swastika, Remler!” Feric exclaimed.

Although he knew full well that the struggle for the preservation of the true human genotype was hardly over as long as the Doms and their minions brooded in the vastness of Zind, Feric felt that the Helder people had more than earned a celebration. He therefore declared a day of national rejoicing one week after the fall of Kolchak completed the final victory of the Swastika over the last remaining mongrel state in the west.

All over the Domain of Heldon, Party rallies were scheduled; in Heldhime itself, Feric determined to put on the largest and most inspiring spectacle of all time, which would be televised to the far corners of the expanded nation as a treat and an inspiration for all.

In an open field not far from the city, an enormous reviewing stand had been erected. As the sun began to sink toward the western horizon, this construct by itself presented a sight of considerable grandeur to the hundreds of thousands of Helder who crowded the field around it as far as the eye could see. The reviewing stand was erected as a series of cylinders of ever-decreasing diameters, one atop another. The base of the tower was a circular grandstand of steps fifty feet high upon which stood a thousand SS purebreds, the absolute cream of the elite: none under six and a half feet tall, all with flaxen hair and piercing blue eyes, and decked out in spotless tight black leather uniforms, the chrome fittings of which had been polished to the point where the setting sun flashed orange fire off thousands of diamondlike facets. Each of these superhuman specimens held a flaming torch, the crimson brilliance of which matched the hue of their flowing swastika capes.

Atop this giant pedestal of flame was a smaller cylinder draped with scarlet swastika bunting upon which stood the high Party officials—Waning, Best, Bogel, and Remler—magnificent in their black Party uniforms. Finally, the central spire of the reviewing stand was a long narrow shaft of bright scarlet a full fifty feet tall at the summit of which stood Feric in heroic black leather and scarlet cape, the Great Truncheon of Held, newly polished and dangling from his wide leather belt. He was lit from below by a hidden electric globe with a subtle reddish tint that gave him the appearance of a living heroic bronze as he stood there looking down upon the endless sea of his followers from a height of more than a hundred feet.

Across the wide expanse of open parade ground outlined with torches which cut an arrow-straight path through the watching multitude, Feric faced an enormous wooden swastika a hundred and sixty feet tall.

At the precise moment that the bottom edge of the solar disc touched the western horizon line, casting a rich red dusk over the countryside, twenty sleek black aerial dreadnaughts roared over the parade ground not five hundred feet in the air; the echoing thunder of their swift passage merged with the mighty cheer of the crowd. At this spectacular signal, the giant swastika burst into flame with an explosive roar that set the soul humming.