One Thousand Years (10 page)

“Not
like this. Not with such obvious incompetence. They should have
known this was going to happen. There will be a practice invasion
next month on a small British island. The defenses for the exercise
are inadequate. A thousand men will be killed when German ships come
upon them. Your politicians keep those deaths a secret until after
the war.

“Then more horrors in the days leading up to the invasion.
English and American forces are already conducting massive bombings
on the French coast right now.
Tens of thousands of innocent French civilians will
be killed — including women and children. And when the actual
invasion begins, more bombs miss their targets. Parachute troops
land in the wrong place. Thousands die on the beaches. The very
first wave of soldiers is wiped out almost entirely — nearly
every man dead. But the generals continue sending in more men, even
when the weather worsens.

“All this is for what?
England only started this war to prop up Poland's government when it refused
to let German-speaking lands become part of Germany —
which is what the people in that region wanted.
Even if you thought it was important to deny them
self-determination, you can't tell me it's
that
important.

“Anyway, your President Roosevelt has his stroke the next day.
Vice President Henry Wallace becomes the new President while your
Congress calls for hearings into the fiasco.
You know they're still pointing fingers over the Pearl Harbor attack.
Hitler, once again, offers to negotiate.
You didn't know about the earlier peace offer last year;
they kept that from you.
It will be leaked to the press, but too late,
and relegated to the back pages.

“President Wallace makes a show of refusing the new peace offer.
But a few days later, just one week after the failed invasion,
London is showered with unmanned flying bombs called the V-1.
The English people will then regret what that warmonger Churchill led them into.
In America, the ice breaks when mothers of soldiers meet with
President Wallace.
Adolf Hitler, again, offers an honorable peace, and that will be the
end of the alliance against the Germans.”

McHenry fell silent again, brooding over her words.
It wasn't just the mistakes in battle.
That was normal throughout the war.
But he detested her detached attitude.
Your President Roosevelt
, she had said.
The words hurt, grating on his sense of patriotism.
He couldn't help but think that he should have been
her
President Roosevelt, too.
Her voice sounded so much like an American,
particularly since he had resisted looking at her SS uniform.
Staring at the wide view screen, he could see Europe,
Great Britain and the east coast of the United States.
The world looked so much smaller from here,
and the United States so vulnerable.

He
turned his thoughts to the expected invasion. It was a subject he
had been well aware of. Newspapers were often talking about it.
His squadron was to play no direct part in it, as they'd
have their hands full in Italy. Yet, he felt a pang of regret that
his squadron would not be covering the men on the ground in France.
He wanted to be there himself, all the more if it was going to fail
when one more set of wings might make the difference. But Dale would
have none of it.

“The
European Civil War was over in weeks,” she said. “The
people had tired of it. Even before the invasion attempt, four out
of ten Americans admitted in a poll that they didn't have a clear
idea what the war was really about. Unlike the thousand soldiers
killed in the practice run, the politicians will not be able to cover
up this failure. Adolf Hitler will propose a way out, and the people
will finally listen. Its resolution saved hundreds of thousands —
maybe even millions — who might have been killed if the war
continued. Hitler's peace overture was a humanitarian gesture
appreciated by the entire world.”

McHenry
wanted to scoff at that but Dale continued: “I might even say
that Hitler and Wallace had saved my own life. More of my ancestors
would have been drafted, and possibly killed, if President Wallace
hadn't ended this immoral war when he did. I wouldn't have been
born.”

“What
about the Russians?,” McHenry asked. “I can't see them
giving up.”

“They
didn't want to be alone fighting Germany. It was only Roosevelt's
promises of this invasion that had kept Stalin from making a separate
peace. He had been waiting for the invasion since 1942. It was
supposed to force Germany to face a true second front. Your Africa
and Italy campaigns were a poor substitute.”

After
a long interval, McHenry looked up again. “And the Jews?”

“What
do you mean?” she asked blankly.

“The
Jews. What happens to them? Aren't they being killed off?”

She
shook her head. “That was English and Bolshevik propaganda,
Sam. It's true that a great many died from disease. There was a
serious problem with typhus. But most were resettled as part of the
peace deal. It was just as Hitler had always planned.”

He
was going to sneer but she cut him off. “You will see.”

She
didn't let him brood. “We've been sitting here too long,”
she said, releasing herself from the seat. She sprang up to the rail
above them and grabbed on with one hand, floating in midair. “Let's
go to the watch rooms. I'll show you some of the work we're doing.”

He
nodded and she led him back through the tube toward one of the upper
decks where he would stand under gravity again.

Once he straightened up, it was obvious that she was almost a foot taller.
“Why is everybody so damned tall!” he blurted
out.

“Oh,
you have so much to learn,” she giggled. “Everyone can
be tall, strong, healthy, and intelligent. There is no disease in
the Reich. You will never be sick again. And we have no pockets of
poverty amidst great wealth as you had in the America of your day.
There is real equality here. After you get by all your old
prejudices, you will love national socialism.”

*

INVASION CASUALTIES ESTIMATED 150,000
The first month
of the invasion of Europe will cost the U.S. forces a maximum of
150,000 casualties, about three times the losses announced incurred
in current operations, says Chairman Andrew May (Dem., Ky) of the
House of Representatives Military Committee....
He scoffed at publicly expressed fears of casualties as high as 500,000 when the
Allies plunge into Europe. In Mr. May's opinion, there probably will
not be more than 75,000 killed in that first 30 days.
—
Edmonton Journal, (April 10, 1944)

Just as the view from
Kontrolle
had been exhilarating, the main watch room was mystifying. Much
larger than
Kontrolle
,
McHenry guessed it to be almost as large as a football field. On its
great dome was a projection of charts and symbols. All of it was
simply beyond McHenry's understanding. He dropped his eyes from the
expanse above him to survey the occupants of the area. Once again he
felt like a dwarf.

About
fifty men and women had staffed his end of the huge chamber, and
there must have been hundreds more in the distance.
Most that he could see were sitting at consoles, and all wore SS uniforms.
A few men and women,
not focused on the activity they monitored, turned to watch Dale and
McHenry enter.

Stern
stepped off the center platform and barked a command in German to one
of the men beside him.

“Entering
with permission,” said Dale.

Stern
appropriated a smile. “And so you are,” he said curtly.
“It is good to see you here, Herr McHenry.”

“Very
impressive. What is this?” The meaning behind the charts and
symbols wasn't intuitively obvious.

“This
is our main watch room,” said Stern, raising an arm. “There
are also several smaller ones, each specializing in a particular
aspect of the main task.”

“And
what, exactly, is that task?” asked McHenry.

“We
are historians. We have sensors collecting and recording images of
the events unfolding below. Some are on this ship, looking downward,
and others are on probes positioned in orbit around the Earth. They
monitor every detail so that we may have a full recording of history
as it actually transpired.”

“You
mean, you're looking down on people?”

“Yes,
we are looking at everything and everybody. Or rather, the sensors
peer down, collect and interpret the information, and our rechners
compile it into these quantified streams of events.”

He
stepped to the left and pointed up to a heavy patch of lines and
symbols on one side of the dome.

“Do
you see the thicker lines?” he asked.

“Yes,”
McHenry said, looking up to a region where many of the lines had
converged, mostly green and blue with some red and white.

“Those
main lines, C25, C26 and P25, are our designators for your coming
invasion of France.”

The
topic took McHenry by surprise. His heart leapt but he tried to
appear cool. “That doesn't look like the coast of France,”
he said.

“This
is not a map,” said Stern. “Or rather, it is not a
geographical map. You may think of it as a map of time — of
events in history.” Stern's arm moved back down along one
axis, “The blue and green section represents the events that
have already transpired as the forces prepare the way. Some of these
other lines have still not happened yet, in current time, and most of
that is marked in green. But our machines have already acquired
sufficient data to fill in the events we do not yet have. You see,
we are making projections as to what will happen as we analyze the
course of history.”

“Hold
just a second,” said McHenry. “What do you mean, making
projections? You mean, as in predictions? If you guys are from the
future, don't you already know what's going to happen?”

“Not
in such detail. In a battle, for example, we know which men are sent
out on a particular mission, but not necessarily who shoots whom.
Some of the work we are doing now will become clearer when we have
all the reports.”

“We
don't get everything at once, Sam,” Dale volunteered. “Some
of this stuff is still on the satellites and we won't have that until
the Luftwaffe pilots bring it back in.”

“Yes,”
Stern acknowledged. “The satellites must be retrieved for more
data to be collected. You see, those satellites cannot use radio
signals, especially now that we have totally restricted
transmissions.”

He
pointed overhead to another section of the great hall, where the
entire corner was a patch of green and blue.

“Those,”
he said proudly, “have been completely charted. See how the
intersections are spaced out in waves?”

McHenry
saw the pattern and nodded.

Stern
shouted a command, and the section zoomed in on a patchwork. “Those
are one hundred percent mapped out. The wave pattern follows the
predictions made by the formulae. There are no breaks. You see
where the green merges with the blue perfectly.”

“That
was the entire last year,” Dale said.

“Last
year? How long have you people been here?”

“Six
months,” she replied. “But that's what's so important
about the work we are doing. With the small amount of data we
already have, we will be able to extrapolate backward as well as
forward. We will soon have most of the next two years plotted out,
as well as the last five, even without more data.”

“You
seem to be saying that you will be able to predict events,”
McHenry noted almost accusingly.

“Yes,
of course,” said Stern. “Taken as a whole, there are
patterns and cycles to history. Some of this is already being
researched in your time to study cycles in the economy. Have you
ever heard about Kondratiev cycles and Elliott waves?”

“No.
My field was engineering, not economics.”

“You
will still understand the basics,” Stern continued. “Nikolai
Kondratiev, a Russian, found long-term cycles to the aggregate world
economy. Those cycles take decades. Ralph Nelson Elliott was, or is,
rather, an American. He found patterns in shorter time periods.
They were not the first, nor the last. Men were writing about
economic cycles for centuries. But these are men of your time.

“There
are also broader trends. You have heard, no doubt, that we have a
rechner operating aboard this ship — a vast number of them,
actually. But there are early primitive versions of the rechners
today. In your time, presently, the British are using one with banks
of radio tubes to decipher secret German codes. For a time,
Americans will call them ‘computers.’
But even this was not the beginning. An earlier
generation used mechanical relays. The next generation will use
silicon, and then technology at the molecular level. It will still
improve from there.

“I
am not telling you all this because I think you need a lesson in
early technology. My point is that technology, an important facet of
society, is ever-advancing at a rate that is quantifiable.
Even if I did not have records to show me who will
invent a new technology, I could estimate when it will happen. Then,
knowing what technology will be available, in conjunction with
knowing the world economic situation at that time, I could make
projections.”

“But
it's all still approximate,” McHenry noted.

Stern
smiled. “Look around, Herr McHenry. Elliott waves and
Kondratiev cycles are as much a part of your era as vacuum tubes. We
have moved well beyond that.” He called out another command in
German.

The
dome returned to the scale it had shown before. McHenry studied the
green and blue section and followed the lines back to the area they
looked at first, C25, C26 and P25 — the invasion of France. He
desperately wanted to know more about it, but dared not ask, lest he
be disappointed further. “What are those red markings?”
he asked.