Ian Tregillis - Bitter Seeds

This time, it took a closer look.

Marsh's ego crumbled under the scrutiny of a boundless intellect. It fixated on his blood. It looked at him, in him, through him, from within the very space he occupied. He smelled the iron in Will's blood; saw those same atoms forged deep in the heart of a dying star; felt the pressure of starlight on him; heard the quiet patter of a fingertip hitting the floor, Will's sobs, and the popping of novae. It studied the trajectory of Marsh's life, peered into every dark corner... .

The Eidolon withdrew. The fire spoke again.

Will clutched the mangled hand to his chest and coughed out the bit. It dropped past his slack lips, trailing threads of spittle. Will gaped at Marsh, trembling and looking paler than anybody should.

“My God,” he said. “They've given you a name.”

“Will? Are you—?”

Will waved him off. He pushed himself upright. Now his speech didn't sound quite so impossible as it did before, riddled as it was with utterly human sobbing and trembling. But he managed to respond to the Eidolon, and held up the bloodied handkerchief with his undamaged hand.

The suffocating presence focused on the handkerchief, and then oozed across the room to the prisoner. She trembled. The sense of malice loomed over Marsh while the Eidolon inspected her.

The back-and-forth between Will and the Eidolon continued for moments or perhaps millennia. Marsh didn't bother to look at his watch.

Will reverted to English. “No!”

The presence receded from the room. In the eternity between one heartbeat and the next, it was gone. The room returned to normal, but for the blood misted on the floorboards alongside Will's fingertip.

Marsh crouched next to Will again. He took his friend by the shoulders. “Will, we have to get you to a doctor.”

Stephenson came forward. “What happened? What did it tell you?”

“He's going into shock,” said Lorimer, who entered carrying a bottle of brandy, though no ice.

Stephenson held him back. “First things first. What did you learn?”

Will struggled to enunciate through his chattering teeth. “Nothing.”

“It failed? Don't tell me this was all for naught.”

“No ... it worked. But ... the Jerries ... what ever they're doing, the Eidolons have no part in it. It isn't magic. I don't know what it is.” His eyes rolled back in his head. He passed out.

The prisoner let loose with a self-satisfied, “Hmmmph.”

Stephenson motioned at Marsh. “Get her out of here! Lorimer, help me with Beauclerk.”

“Get up.” Marsh took the girl by the elbow as Lorimer and Stephenson draped Will's arms over their shoulders and carried him out of the room.

What a fiasco. Will had lost a finger, and for what? They hadn't learned a damn thing about what the Jerries were doing at von Westarp's farm.

She paused, staring into the room where earlier Marsh had adjusted the blackout curtains. Now the room was properly shadowed. Though it felt like the negotiation had gone for days, it had lasted only long enough for the sun to set. A blackout violation was the last thing they needed.

Marsh pulled the prisoner aside and double-checked the curtains. He took her elbow again.

“Hmmm,” she said, looking pensive.

Marsh frowned. “What?”

“It hasn't worked yet,” she said, almost to herself. “But I understand now.”

Marsh pried, but she said nothing more while he escorted her back to her cell.

13 May 1940

Whitehall, London, England

Klaus arrived in London at Victoria Station, and from there took the Underground.

His counterfeit lieutenant-commander uniform enabled him to slip through crowds as easily as the Gotterelektron enabled him to slip through a French fortress. It rendered him a ghost, or perhaps invisible like Heike. People saw the uniform, not the man within.

Perhaps that meant they didn't notice Klaus's reluctance to speak, or the wig that was entirely too light for the color of this skin. Instead they might have noticed the unusual tailoring around the collar, or the way his uniform rode high across the shoulders as though he were caught in the middle of a prolonged shrug.

The wig and the strange tailoring were, of course, necessary for hiding his wires. But it still felt buffoonish. The wig itched, and caused him to sweat, not just from heat but also for fear it drew attention to him.

Although, in the frenzy of the past few days, there hadn't been time to procure one that looked halfway real. The Royal Navy uniform had been a lucky break, one of the few suitable uniforms available on short notice and which would fit Klaus after several rapid alterations.

Demolishing forest pillboxes in the middle of the night was one thing. But walking through throngs of the enemy while they pointed and laughed? This was different. If the crowds turned on him—and they would, if he revealed himself—his batteries wouldn't last long enough for him to evade capture forever.

Presumably, Gretel had anticipated these difficulties. Presumably, she cared, insofar as they interfered with her own designs. What ever those were.

The Underground screeched to a halt at Charing Cross. When Klaus emerged on the platform, he saw a placard had been pasted to the tiled wall beside the ticket window. SPOT ON SIGHT, it read. ENEMY UNIFORMS. Beneath this, on the left, a color sketch depicted a Reich parachutist accurately down to the soles of his boots. The depiction of the Wehrmacht infantryman on the right was similarly detailed.

A strange, eerie feeling came over Klaus. It was an odd thing to see something so familiar in such a hostile place. But he also felt energized by it. Here he was, walking undetected among the enemy. Reinhardt wasn't the only one fit for his own missions.

Klaus evaded the crowds on the platform and jogged up the stairs to the street above. Until less than two years ago, Klaus had never set foot outside the Fatherland. Now he stood in the heart of the enemy capital.

A short walk took him to a roundabout with a tall column in the center. He used the time to study the city and its inhabitants. London was a dank city, full of dour-looking people plodding along under a colorless sky. Today a per sis tent drizzle had blown in from the Atlantic; the sky had been pissing down rain ever since Klaus boarded the train in Eastbourne early that morning. Mist shrouded everything, branding marble edifices and granite facades with dark blotches. It dripped from cornices and quoins, parapets and posts. Statues wept tears of condensed fog.

Rainwater hissed under the wheels of passing vehicles, amplifying the traffic noise and filling the streets with a per sis tent static thrum. Each auto, he noticed, had been outfitted with a blackout grille over the headlamps. The water penetrated everything; even the sidewalk smelled of damp stone. A cool rivulet trickled under Klaus's collar.

Chest-high stacks of mud-colored sandbags flanked the entrances to buildings. Businessmen carried gleaming metal helmets along with their attache cases and newspapers. A girl selling flowers from a stand on the corner kept the haversack of a gas mask slung over her shoulder. Most people carried such a bag. Even schoolchildren.

This was a nation doggedly clinging to normalcy while it prepared for the worst. Klaus sensed an atmosphere of grim determination, of shared destiny, when he stood among these people.

A man hailed a taxicab across the street. The taxis here were ugly, boxy things. They looked like hearses. Klaus understood the idea, though he'd never ridden a taxi before. He imitated the man across the street, raising an arm and whistling as another of the black cabs sped past. It chuddered to a halt.