Anielewicz spoke for himself: “I’m Mordechai Anielewicz, of Lodz.” He waited to see what reaction that brought.
All Dornberger said was, “I’ve heard of you.” Hitler would have pitched a fit at the idea of talking to a Jew. Himmler, no doubt, would have been quietly furious. Dornberger just asked, “And what can I do for the two of you?”
“We’re looking for our families,” Anielewicz answered. “Drucker’s is missing from Greifswald, and mine was kidnapped from Widawa by retreating German troops.” He’d said it so many times, it hurt less than it had before. “If anyone can order German records examined to help us find them, you’re the man.” He startled himself; he’d almost added sir.
Dornberger’s hand disappeared from the screen for a moment. It came back with a cigar, which he puffed. “How is it that the two of you have become friends?”
“Friends?” Mordechai shrugged. “That may go too far,” he said, to which Drucker nodded. The Jewish fighting leader went on, “But we both knew, and we both liked, a panzer officer named Heinrich Jager.”
“You knew and liked…” Walter Dornberger’s expressions sharpened. “Jager. The deserter. The traitor.”
“Sir”-now Anielewicz did say it-“he saved Germany from getting in 1944 what you got in 1965. He also saved my life, but you’d probably think that was a detail.”
“That may be true,” Dornberger replied. “It doesn’t make him any less a deserter or a traitor.”
“Sir, he was a deserter,” Drucker said, “but a traitor, never.”
“Et tu, Brute?” the German Fuhrer murmured. His eyes swung back to Mordechai. “And if I don’t help you, I suppose you’ll tell your friends the Lizards on me.”
“Sir, it’s my family,” Anielewicz said tightly. “I’ll do whatever I can, whatever I have to, to get them back. Wouldn’t you?”
Dornberger sighed. “Without a doubt. Very well, gentlemen, I will do what I can. I do not know how much that will be. Things being as they are, our records are in no small degree of chaos. Good-bye.” His image vanished.
“Hope,” Mordechai said as he and Drucker left the tent from which they’d spoken with the new Fuhrer.
“I know,” Drucker said. “Is it a blessing or a curse?” He cocked his head to one side. “What’s that funny noise?”
Had he not asked, Anielewicz might not even have noticed the small, whistling beep. But when it came again, the hair prickled upright on his arms and at the nape of his neck. “My God,” he whispered. “That’s a beffel.”
“What’s a beffel?” Drucker asked. But Mordechai didn’t answer. He’d already started running.
Straha watched his driver take the motorcar off on an errand that would keep him gone for at least an hour. The ex-shiplord let out a hiss of satisfaction. He hurried into the bathroom and scrubbed off his body paint with rubbing alcohol, as he would have if he were going to redo it.
But instead of repainting himself as the male of third-highest rank in the conquest fleet, he chose the much simpler pattern of a shuttlecraft pilot. The job he did wasn’t of the best, but it would serve. Neither the Big Uglies nor his own kind would be likely to recognize him at once.
As he carried an attache case of Tosevite manufacture out the front door of his house, he turned one eye turret back toward the building, wondering if he would ever see it again, and if it would still be standing in a few days’ time. A considerable portion of him wished Sam Yeager had never entrusted him with this burden.
But Yeager had, and the Big Ugly must have known the likely consequences of that. Sighing, Straha walked down to the end of the block, turned right, and walked two more blocks. In front of a small grocery store stood a public telephone in a booth of glass and aluminum.
Straha had never used a Tosevite public phone before. He read the instructions and followed them, letting out a relieved hiss when he was rewarded with a dial tone after inserting a small coin. He dialed the number he had memorized back at the house. The phone rang three times before someone answered it. “Yellow Cab Company.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Straha spoke the best English he could: “I am at the corner of Rayen and Zelzah. I wish to go to downtown, to the consulate of the Race.”
He waited, wondering if he’d have to repeat himself. But the female on the other end of the line just echoed him: “Rayen and Zelzah. Yes, sir. About five minutes.”
“I thank you,” Straha said, and hung up.
The cab took about twice as long as the predicted time to arrive, but not so long as to make Straha much more nervous than he was already. The driver hopped out and opened a rear door for him. “Hello!” the Big Ugly said. “Don’t pick up a male of the Race every day.” When he spoke again, it was in Straha’s language: “I greet you, superior sir.”
“And I greet you,” Straha replied in the same tongue. “How much of my language do you speak?”
“Not much. Not well,” the Tosevite answered. “I like to try. Where you want to go?” His accent was indeed thick, but comprehensible.
“To the consulate.” Straha repeated it in English, to make sure he was not misunderstood, and gave the address in English, too.
“It shall be done,” the driver said, and proceeded to do it. Straha had judged his regular driver a Tosevite who cared less for safety on the road than he might have. Next to this fellow, the other male Big Ugly was a paragon of virtue. How the cab driver arrived at the consulate with his motorcar uncrumpled baffled Straha, but it was a fact. “Here we are,” he remarked cheerfully as he pulled up in front of the building.
“I thank you,” Straha answered, though he was feeling anything but thankful. He gave the Big Ugly a twenty-dollar bill, which more than covered journey and gratuity. American money had never felt quite real to him, and odds were good-one way or another-he would never have to worry about it again.
A couple of Tosevites who reminded Straha of his regular driver stood outside the consulate. They glanced at him as he walked inside, but did nothing more. He wondered if his driver had yet discovered him missing. If so, the Big Uglies would be looking for a shiplord, not a shuttlecraft pilot. Straha hurried up to the reception desk.
“Yes?” asked the male at that desk, swinging an eye turret his way. “How may I help you, Shuttlecraft Pilot?” He too saw only what he expected to see, what Straha wanted him to see.
Now, with more than a little pleasure, Straha threw off the disguise. “I am not a shuttlecraft pilot,” he replied. “I am a shiplord: Shiplord Straha, commanding-well, formerly commanding-the 206th Emperor Yower of the conquest fleet.”
His mouth flew open in a laugh at the receptionist’s startled jerk. The other male recovered fairly quickly, saying, “If you are who you claim to be, you must know there is and has been an order for your arrest.”
“I am who I say I am,” Straha answered. “I am certain you have a database with the scale patterns of my snout and palm included in it. You are welcome to take those patterns from me and compare them.”
“To verify such an incendiary claim, we would of course have to do that,” the receptionist said. “But if you are who you say you are, why would you subject yourself to arrest and certain punishment after so many years of treason?”
Straha hefted the attache case. “What I have in here will protect me from punishment. Once he sees it, once he understands what it means, even Atvar will recognize as much.” He had better, Straha thought. Not even his malice against me could withstand this… could it? Half of him wanted to flee the consulate. But he’d already come too far for that. Now he was in trouble with the Americans as well as the Race.
“I do not know anything about that.” The receptionist would not give him his proper title, but was talking into a telephone attachment to the computer. After a moment, he swung his eye turrets toward Straha. “Please go to the Security office on the second floor. Your identity will be ascertained there.”