The thread has broken.
The Empress is gone forever, but in her place grows the Otherness, an expanding bubble of spacetime in a lower vacuum state, devouring the universe one star system at a time. Earth was its first meal. Fleeing before the wavefront of the Otherness, the remnants of humanity have found refuge in the far reaches of the galaxy. Hope has appeared in the form of a forgotten world embryo constructed by the Mad Emperor Pangloss. Some believe that it contains the central dogma of Earth itself.
They are right.
But it is the wrong Earth.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Niels Paasche shifted uncomfortably on his hard metal chair. It was the only furniture in the bare concrete room where he was sequestered, captive yet unbound. The only other objects in the room were a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and a small, dark woman guarding the door. She did not look a day over twenty, and probably did not weigh fifty kilos in her birthday suit. The tight cuffs of her peculiar black jacket and pants accentuated the slimness of her wrists and ankles. Paasche was a sturdy man of about forty, lean and battle hardened.
Despite his considerable physical advantage, he did not consider attacking his captor. She was Himmelvolk. A Himmelvolk girl no bigger than this one had ripped the turret off his panzer with her bare hands. To fight with Himmelvolk was to die.
The Himmelvolk had appeared the night that the sky changed. In no time at all, they had taken control of every major city in Europe, and everywhere else, too. Nothing could move without their permission. The Reich had fought back, of course. Paasche’s panzer company had engaged them at Krakow. Even though he outnumbered the enemy a hundred to one, the battle was over before it began. A handful of Himmelvolk tore the lead panzers to shreds to seconds. The survivors fled in disarray, but Paasche’s platoon had bravely–or foolhardily–stayed behind to cover the retreat. They were annihilated. But for some reason when the enemy found Paasche, they took him alive.
He had no idea why.
The door swung open. A woman entered, carrying a black valise. She was striking, with short, brushy red hair, a pixie’s face and penetrating eyes of emerald green. Her clothing was unusual: a brown jacket topping a form–fitting stocking covered with pockets, and mannish ankle boots flecked with mud. But more importantly she was slight, and her imprecise movements marked her as an ordinary woman, not Himmelvolk.
She would make a fine hostage.
The newcomer spoke to Paasche. Her voice was melodic, but her words were gobbledygook. Her speech reminded him a little of English, or maybe even Russian, but it was not quite either one. She scowled, and produced an object that looked disturbingly like a pistol. After a hushed word with his captor, she approached.
Paasche waited passively, carefully concealing his intentions. When she grabbed his collar and pressed the pistol against his neck, he swept out his foot to knock her legs from under her.
His kick found nothing but empty air.
An instant later, he was prone on the floor, decisively pinned beneath the sharp knee of his prey. Her fingers were at his neck, and cold metal touched his carotid artery. He braced for the shot, but there was nothing but a faint click, and a slight prick on his skin. Misfire? he wondered, sweating.
Suddenly his head was on fire. It was the sort of pain he associated with eating ice cream too quickly, and it felt like his brain was being stretched like taffy. The sensation faded as quickly as it had come. The redhead released him. He sat up on the floor, blinking dumbly in the dim light.
“Can you understand me?” she asked.
To Paasche’s surprise, he could. “Yes. What did you do to me?”
“Besides kicking your clumsy ass, I injected you with a wetload of Galactic Standard so we can talk. Now, get back where you belong, or I will have Clotilde do it for you.”
Paasche scuttled painfully back to his chair, lest she carry out her threat. “I suppose that I must thank you for sparing me, Fraulien..?”
“Karina Winter. Are you Neils Paasche of Bergen, the son of Hermann and Hilde?”
“I am.”
She studied his face intently. “Yes. There is a resemblance. I cannot believe what that son of a bitch did to me,” she muttered to herself while rummaging in her valise.
Paasche was intrigued. “Who, Fraulien Winter?” he prompted.
She thrust a crumbling sheaf of papers into his hands. It was an SS–Soldbuch. Judging by its appearance, it had been buried and dug up again.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Open it.”
He did, and laughed. The sullen face of his younger brother Jørgen stared out of the ghostly photo on the flyleaf, accompanied by the familiar scrawl of his signature. But the book had to be a forgery. His brother hated the Nazis. There was no way that he would join any German unit, let alone the SS.
“I’m afraid someone is pulling your leg,” he said. “This is my brother, but he is not an SS–Mann.”
“The hell he isn’t. He was conscripted into the SS-Ahnenerbe two months ago in your time. The bastard deserted on the First Day. Nobody’s seen him in weeks.”
Paasche reasoned that the First Day must be the day that the sky changed. It was possible that Winter was telling the truth. He hadn’t heard from Jørgen since the occupation began. “How do you know my brother, and what do you want with him?”
Winter rolled her eyes. “Have you got a month? That’s how long it would take me to tell you how your brother fucked up my life, the people I care about, and the whole goddamn galaxy! As for what I want with him, I want him to fix it.”
“Ah, the scorned woman. My sincerest apologies. Jørgen’s morals were always a source of concern to our mother.”
“Do you think it’s that simple?” she spat. “Yeah, we slept together. I won’t deny it. But that’s just the beginning. You don’t know it yet, but your brother’s no longer a man. The Ahnenerbe commingled him with part of a dead god. For three thousand years he ruled the entire galaxy. The Earth isn’t big enough to hold all the people who have a score to settle with him.”
Paasche was dubious. “Three thousand years? My brother is thirty–three. He cannot be the monster you are describing.”
“I’ve got news for you, Niels. This isn’t 1941. This is year 2045 of the Universal Era, or year fourteen of the Pax Imperatrix, or day twenty of the fucked–up new thing, however you choose to reckon it. The war’s been over, and you dead and buried, for millennia. Twenty days ago, you were resurrected, along with the whole planet. Welcome to Ersatz Earth, brought to you by your crazy brother’s quest for a do–over. He somehow recaptured his final day as an ordinary man. It’s not living up to anyone else’s expectations, but I’m going to do something about it. You are going to help me.”
The absurdity of his predicament notwithstanding, Paasche had nothing to gain by arguing. “What do you want?” he asked.
“Help me find your brother. He can’t have escaped this planet. We’ve got the nearspace environment locked down tight. I’m positive that he is hiding somewhere in Scandinavia. I need somebody who understands this era and knows him very well. That someone is you.” She gestured toward the dusky guard. “Clotilde will give you some street clothes. I can’t have you stomping around in a Nazi costume.”
“This is my uniform,” Paasche protested.
“Not any more, it isn’t. You work for me now,” she replied, and turned for the door.
“Who are you?” he called after her, but she was already gone.
Clotilde approached, bearing a bundle of drab work clothes and a pair of battered brogans in her slim arms. “Herr Paasch, you will wear these,” she said.
He took them without resistance. Clotilde stood close while he unbuttoned his blouse. It was clear he could not expect any more privacy than he could choice in the matter. But it occurred to him that he had a right to know who he was betraying his oath for. “Who was that?” he asked.
“That,” said Clotilde with a beatific smile, “was Her Majesty Winter, Dread Sovereign of the Sundered Kindreds of Man, Warqueen of the Loyal Host of the Arzenekoi, and Perpetual Regent of the Lost Empress.”
Paasche paused in his undressing. “That’s quite a title.”
“She is quite a woman. You are lucky she needs you alive. She is undefeated in single combat. She was trained by the Lost Empress herself.”
“Is she from outer space?” he asked.
“Not at all. She was born in Oslo, before the Old Earth was destroyed.”
More madness, then. Paasche shrugged off his shirt. “I must stop asking questions,” he mumbled.
Clotilde nodded. “Yes. You must.”
###
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
