He released Konrad from his death-grip as he sprang up to his feet, his noxious breath spurting into the air.
Konrad immediately rolled away over the bodies, fearful that this momentarily respite would end and the crazed holy man would resume his attack. His eyes darted towards Lang. Despite his vision being blurred and tinted with blood, he managed to see him reaching desperately for his own dagger that now stood embedded in his shoulder. Elsa stood triumphantly over him with her hand on the ornate hilt.
Satisfied that his agony was over, Konrad slumped against a nearby ladder, his chin resting lazily upon the bottom rung. He seemed oblivious to the childish screams as he gazed up and saw the room’s emergency lighting twinkling above him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The laser moved swiftly across the open gash as its shimmering beam cauterised the knife wound in Lang’s shoulder. Its path, attended by Blomberg, was controlled and logical unlike the ravings that Lang shouted. His cries reverberated around the isolation-room in which Lang was both being treated and being imprisoned. At the same time, as an extra precaution against the cleric’s seemingly poisonous attributes, the doctor was enclosed inside a contamination-suit. The gas-mask and rubber suit also muffled Lang’s voice. By now, his initial sobs of pain had mutated into the shrieks of anger and rage.
‘Let me go, damn you!’ he cried. ‘Time is being wasted! Time I should be spending answering our Führer’s call!’
The doctor pulled his surgical tool away from the wound as Lang violently pulled at the restraints which held him down to the bench. His muscles bulged and trembled with the effort.
‘Keep still, damn it!’ Blomberg said as he wiped the wound clean with a small alcoholic wipe. ‘I’ll end up slicing your arm from your shoulder, if you’re not careful. Now behave,’ he said as he repositioned the laser and pressed the trigger.
Undeterred by Blomberg’s warning, the cleric continued with his warped sermon. ‘How could a fool like you understand my urgency to be free of these crude restraints? Surely you must know that you’ve imprisoned the Überführer’s instrument. He will smite you down as surely as he destroyed the crew!’
Mesler, who had discreetly listened to the conversation between Blomberg and Lang nearby, now made his presence known. He, like Blomberg, was encased in a contamination-suit. He approached the bench and took a gauze-pad from a nearby drawer and wiped the strange crystalline material that was smeared around the cleric’s mouth. Acrid fumes emanated from the blue powder. The same fumes appeared to emanate from the discoloured blood which seeped from Lang’s gaping wound.
‘What do you make of this?’ Mesler asked, gesturing to the colourful gauze on his glove.
‘You must have lived a very sheltered life in the Astrokorp if you can’t recognise that chemical,’ Blomberg smiled. ‘It’s hydrogen cyanide – Prussic Acid – Zyklon-B.’
The scepticism that had gripped Mesler ever since the discovery of the crew’s bodies was now swept away. It appeared that Konrad’s initial assessment was right, after all. The crew had been gassed to death.
‘How did this Zyklon-B poison come to be on Lang? We carried no stocks of that chemicals onboard the Odin.’ Mesler then asked. ‘And shouldn’t he be dead too? That chemical needs to be handled using suits like what we’re wearing.’
‘That’s correct, Herr Mesler, but as you can see, our errant priest is still very much alive,’ Blomberg commented. ‘The biggest paradox is how did this chemical come to be inside his blood stream and inside his body?’ The doctor waved away a small whiff of smoke and steam that rose from the burnt skin. ‘Lang, perhaps you can indulge us with an explanation as to why that is.’
Lang visibly relaxed as he considered Blomberg’s request, and as a consequence, the leather restraints slackened. ‘You truly wish to hear the truth?’
‘I do,’ Mesler said as he moved closer to the bench.
‘Oh, for you to have seen the heavenly aspect whose presence visited this humble module. How can you describe the indescribable, Herr Mesler?’
‘Try…’ Mesler persisted.
‘I was inside the control room praying for our deliverance from the disaster that had befallen us. I prayed to the Überführer to save us, and particular to save the life of our beloved Sturmbannführer,’ Lang said. His excitement then suddenly grew. ‘Then he appeared before me, his magnificence transformed the corridors and rooms into a temple and a cathedral to his glory. He smiled upon me, and then his most holy spirit entered me. It filled my heart and it filled my soul! Then he spoke to me and explained that the crew had been judged and deemed unworthy to participate in his grand plan for this world. They were to be sacrificed for the greater good!
‘To achieve this, he transformed my breath into that most holy of poisons. It was transformed into the same Zyklon-B that had purged and destroyed the Reich’s enemies since its birth.’
As Mesler listened he gazed down upon the angry flesh which surrounded Lang’s wound. ‘Why did you kill the crew?’ he asked quietly.
‘Have you not been listening?’ Lang angrily replied. ‘It was not I who performed that task. It was the Überführer who executed those men. I was but his instrument.’
Mesler stepped closer. ‘You can drop all your religious mumbo-jumbo and give me a clear, concise answer and tell me the truth.’ Mesler pressed his thumb into the cleric’s injured shoulder. ‘Why did you kill the crew?’
A hellish shriek erupted from Lang.
‘Tell me the truth?’ Mesler said.
‘Stop this,’ Blomberg said as he tried to push his colleague away. ‘You’ll get no sense out of him by torturing him.’
Mesler ignored Blomberg and continued to press the wound. It was as if the pressure he wielded was a potent release for all his frustrations and all his fear. ‘Why were our comrades murdered?’ He pressed his thumb deeper into the wound.
The cleric’s screams grew even louder, but mixed amongst the screams was a mocking laugh. He turned towards the officer. Sweat covered his face, while hate filled his eyes. ‘The Überführer murdered no-one,’ he hissed.
Frustrated at the lack of sense from Lang, Mesler released his grip. However, the small act of mercy appeared to have the desired effect upon the crazed priest. Now that his mind was free of the pain, he turned and calmly addressed Mesler and Blomberg.
‘Like I said, no-one was murdered. The crew were simply liquidated. The Überführer deemed them all to be unworthy to participate is what is to come. They were not needed. Why keep those extra mouths to feed alive? Only those who are required for his plan shall breath and suckle in our new Reich. The Überführer knew this, as do I.’
Understandably Blomberg appeared to be puzzled by Lang’s statement. ‘They were the crew, Lang. You talk as if they were sub-humans. According to the Party, only sub-humans wear the striped uniforms, not the swastika.’
‘Even those who have the most holy swastika upon them can have sub-human aspects to them,’ Lang continued. ‘But these traits are hidden; their pollution buried deep within their hearts. You must remember that a single drop of this depraved blood can render one guilty in the eyes of the Überführer, no matter how good a National Socialist he is. I have no doubt that if you were in the control room, Herr Mesler, you would have been judged unworthy too. The same could be said about various members of the penal population. No doubt, there were devout followers of the swastika amongst them, but this foul stain within you negates all the good deeds that you may have done for the Party and for the Fatherland, and it is only the Überführer who can see into one’s heart and see if it is truly pure. Only the pure were chosen.’