Konrad skipped through the remaining debris and scrambled up the mound to confront the amorphous mass. He ran his fingers across the contorted metal from which the rain dripped mournfully until he found another, more human, liquid dripping into the soil. He cupped his hands beneath the fold of metal to capture the blood that trickled out.
Sickened by the sight, he snapped to his feet and shook the blood from his hands, which transformed from open palms into tight, clenched fists. These fists now pounded the mud, the blood and the metal. These three elements, so vital and talismanic to the Nazis, bore the brunt of his anger. He wanted to destroy these unholy elements and scatter them to the four winds. The earthy, metallic liquid splashed upon his face, its bitter taste matching his poisonous mood.
After his anger and grief reached its crescendo, a strange calmness then overcame the prisoner, and for what seemed like hours, he knelt before the wreck, his eyes fixed upon the blood-soaked soil. If Elsa was gone, what else was there to keep him on this world? Wasn’t it better to leave this tearful place and end it all? These dark thoughts, the opposite of the feelings of determination he had only felt moments before, reminded him of another item that he had recovered from the rover’s cab. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a vial of poison – the same poison used by Blomberg upon his patients. The skull and cross-bones stared back at Konrad. He rolled the capsule around his palm as he contemplated its use. Then, as he pressed his thumb upon the capsule’s tapered neck, something caught his eye, something that drained the anger from him instantly…
A set of footprints in the mud.
The tracks weren’t his because they led from the wrecked module and zigzagged up the slope towards the spire, where they disappeared out of sight upon the terrace. Intrigued, Konrad pressed his hand into the footprint and racked the soil. At that moment, he knew exactly who these tracks belonged to.
‘Elsa!’ he cried. ‘She’s still alive. She’s still alive!’
He gazed up defiantly at the imposing tower. He would enter the structure and confront the beast within, only then would he have any chance of being reunited with Elsa. At the same time, Konrad knew for sure that destiny had conspired to draw him to this spot. His present situation was the final link of an unseen chain. This chain had been played out and hinted at within his dreams. He concluded that his original conviction was one link, his selection to come to this damn planet another. This chain of events had continued with the explosion upon the Odin and the crash, then finally at this point in time. Some people would have called it providence, some, less romantically-minded would have called it synchronicity, a series of seemingly random events which all direct the observer to one ultimate goal. But whatever its name, and its reasoning for placing Konrad at its command, its power over him was totally overwhelming. He was its willing servant now.
Konrad chucked the vial of poison away, and headed up the slope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Crimson light bathed Elsa as she eased herself up from the cold floor. Unbeknown to her, she now stood at the centre of the spire, in the heart of the hibernation chamber within which the entity had lain in wait for the Nazis to arrive for thousands, possibly millions of years. Looking up, she saw the chamber’s great column suspended above her, but beyond the lip of the great pit was an even greater sight. A great cathedral of light, its scale only imaginable in Albert Speer’s wildest dreams, encircled the centre of the spire. The columns of iridescent light towered far above her, their endpoint lost seemingly in the darkness. Beyond the glare, a giant Imperial eagle, and opposite, a similar-sized swastika, hung in the gloom. The spire had been transformed into a Nazi temple. Elsa was now a pilgrim in an unholy land, a witness to the spire’s new form and purpose. Adjusting to the gory glow, Elsa’s eyes now caught sight of distinct shapes moving around the dark chamber. Blomberg stood at a podium in front of the sea of red, while nearby, stood the solitary figure of Stahl. He was now dressed in full Nazi regalia; black SS uniform, peaked-cap and jackboots – the full works. But at this moment he seemed oblivious to her presence as he stared at the object at the centre of the room and the source of the ruddy glow.
The sight of Stahl also reminded Elsa of the bruises that covered her body, and most especially, the pain that throbbed between her legs. Below the unmoving gaze of the monstrosities in the menagerie, she remembered Stahl wrapping his arms around her, pressing himself against her like he did the first time they met at the camp so long ago. Stahl’s aroused flesh slid messily across her body while his fingers painfully cupped her breasts. His arousal this time was even more animal-like and frenzied as if the pleasure he was partaking was for the benefit of not only him, but also the putrid spirit that had joined with him. Despite all his talk of cleansing the new world, namely by killing what remained of the Odin’s crew, the abomination still lay with her. It was hypocrisy of the highest order; a trait the Nazi fully understood, and so too seemingly the entity that possessed him.
She pulled her tunic tightly around her aching body like a child with its favourite comfort-blanket as Stahl started to address an unseen congregation.
‘Exalted amongst all my worshippers are thee,’ Stahl said, his gaze fixed upon the red shroud before him. ‘Your power slumbers before me, but soon to be released. Soon your efforts will be directed into creating a new Reich here on this world. Your resolve, tempered like Krupp steel, will bend and reshape this barren world into the foundation, a launch-pad, for a new Reich that will stretch far across this universe. The old Reich may, no doubt, last for one-thousand years, but our Reich, our new Germany, will last not one-thousand years, not a million years, but for all time!’
Elsa ignored the Nazi. She looked deeper into the chamber and the object of Stahl’s adoration. A large spherical shape, its outlines obscured by the enormous Nazi flag that was draped over it. Peering closer, she saw ghostly shapes stirring beneath the silken flag. Now even more curious, she crouched down and took hold of the flag and pulled it up to reveal the colonist’s hibernation tank.
A hand suddenly shot from the darkness and snatched the flag from Elsa’s grasp.
Ziegler stepped into the light and carefully replaced the flag. In his hand he held a shining SS dagger which shone eerily in the gloom as it hovered dangerously over her throat. At the same time she noticed the swastika arm-band that now adorned Ziegler’s battered prison tunic.
‘Is that your reward for murdering the crew, and for betraying Konrad?’ Elsa said as she jabbed the Nazi insignia.
‘We all receive a small reward from whatever leader we follow,’ Ziegler smugly said. ‘Some crave wealth, while others the flesh of the opposite sex. My price, Elsa, was quite modest. It was simply to wear the swastika once again.’ He stepped closer. ‘I will also help to create this new Reich. I will endeavour to write the history of this world, and the great deeds we will undoubtedly perform. All that has happened during the last few days, Elsa, is but a foretaste of what is to come.’ He now looked longingly at Stahl. ‘He is no ordinary man. He is beyond such a petty and small concept. He is a god. A true god. Terrible and vengeful.’
Elsa glanced at the doctor as he worked at the podium. ‘I can’t believe Blomberg believed Stahl when he spoke about resurrecting his dead wife and child.’