The Heirs of Babylon Read Free Page B

resumed
    conversations, though in hushed, cautious tones.

    "Perhaps you're right," said Hans, half turning to Otto.
    "Hitler invaded Russia knowing Napoleon had failed. Yet the first failure didn't automatically guarantee a second.
    All indications were for a swift German victory."

    "Uhn?" Otto grunted. Kurt chuckled despite Beck's inhibiting presence. Otto had only the vaguest notion who
    Hitler had been, and undoubtedly had never heard of

    Bonaparte.

    "History?" Beck asked, thin eyebrows rising. "An odd subject for seamen, though, perhaps, after living with the
    Wiedermanns, none too surprising in Hans. The Political
    Office has always been interested in history, especially
    unusual historical theories." He looked them each in the eye, as if asking for such theories. No one spoke. Kurt
    was afraid to say anything lest Beck take offense. Otto
    was subtly insubordinate with a flash of expression, with a quirk of the lip. Even Hans, who had had to suffer Beck's
    presence in his home for a year, and should therefore
    have been innured, seemed to suffer dampened spirits.
    Beck, who, Kurt felt, had been making an honest attempt
    to communicate, soon withdrew into himself, ate mechani-
    cally, and became his normal cold, faraway self.

19
    SUNSET, lager, moving fast, was 250 kilometers north of
    Kiel, past most of the Danish islands. As day faded in t orange and violet riot, she slowed for safety's sake. With
    no up-to-date charts by which to steam, she must navigate
    by notes Kurt and Lindemann had made while with the
    fishers. And those did little enough to help seamen travel-
    ing this modem strait by night. The bottom of the Katte-
    gat had changed considerably during two centuries. Mud-
    banks had formed and moved. The tides and currents had
    shifted. And there were uncharted wrecks scattered every-
    where. The Battle of the Kattegat had been a seafight to
    rival Lepanto in magnitude.

    The Danes, and Swedish traders at times, marked ob-
    structions with lanterns and buoys, and all navigators kept notes much as had Kurt. Lindemann had also made a
    comprehensive list of the lights and buoys of the Norwe-
    gian coast, where the Danes maintained salting stations
    and trading posts. He had had charge of one of these,
    serving vessels working the Norwegian Sea, for two years.
    Kurt regretted their paths had crossed so seldom those
    days, for, as with Otto, young memories of his cousin
    made him fond of the man. Too fond. Once again, Gregor
    had had to remind him to avoid over familiarity before
    the crew. Their relationship was rapidly growing distant
    and strained.

    But the lights and buoys, at the mercy of foul weather
    and inattention, were untrustworthy. Jager steamed slowly,
    with many lookouts.

    The Year of Our Lord 2193, and Jager was celebrat-
    ing her 250th year. Like other ships which survived
    beyond their times, she was cranky. She could sail and
    fight, true, but with none of the vigor of her youth.
    Countless tens of thousands of sea miles had passed (
    beneath her keel, dozens of battles had been fought about
    her, from Iwo Jima to Anambas.

    Once, when she was young, she had been U.S.S. Co-well,
    and she bore the name fifty years, until Russians captured

    her aground in Cam Rahn Bay. Rechristened Potemkin,
    she served first in the Soviet, then in the Siberian Fleet, until Sakhalinski Zaiiv. There the Australians hauled her
    shell-crippled body off the Sakhalin rocks and rebuilt her
    into Swordftsh. Decades later, after expending all her fuel at Anambas, German sailors from Grossdeutschland took
    her in hand-to-hand fighting, and she became Jager, the
    Hunter.

    An old lady, she was proud and difficult, with her
    arthritis and failing organs, her bad eyes and deafening
    ears—but men would not let her retire. She must pass in
    line of battle. Her radars worked not at all, her sonar was sporadic, radio was out forever for lack of spares—
    although there were no technicians to make repairs, even
    had spares