Part 2

They could not see each other, but they could talk between the adjoining cells. Kahl was in the cell on the other side of Manning's; he had raved most of the night at the guards and the equally responsive steel walls. The two Americans had slept long and refreshingly; they had long since learned to sleep under any and all conditions. There were no windows to show daylight, but they must have been there most of twenty-four hours.

They hadn't seen much of the world of the future, thought Manning ruefully; only the glimpse of a street filled with shiny silent automobiles and oddly garbed pedestrians, as they had been hustled from a rolling dungeon to a stationary one. But if the town was Freiburg, it had changed a lot since they had last seen it--a skeletonous waste of ruin, with nothing left standing that the American bombers had wanted to flatten.

"We shouldn't of let that Kahl talk so much," resumed Dugan gloomily.

"How could we stop him? Anyway, I have a feeling he talked himself in even deeper than he did us."

Their discussion was ended by a clatter of boots, the arrival of a bristling escort. They were being honored with treatment as dangerous and important prisoners--a distinction less flattering than ominous.

* * * * *

The "People's Court" before which they were being taken was obviously not the extralegal supreme court which Hitler had made into a bogey-man for scaring grown-up consciences to sleep; this was a local affair, in the same building that housed the jail. All four prisoners were herded into a rather small chamber, innocent of audience or jury. Opposite the entrance, beneath a huge hooked-cross banner, three men in black robes sat behind a desk. Two of them were old men who regarded the defendants with dull, incurious eyes; between them, his bulk dominating and shriveling them, sat Herr Schwinzog.

Into the deathly silence a hoarse voice cried, "_Heil Hitler!_"

It was Wolfgang, his conditioned reflexes spurred by sight of the swastika flag. The Americans stared at him; it was the first words they had heard him speak--perhaps they were the only ones he knew. Herr Schwinzog raised his eyebrows.

"What did you say?"

"_Heil Hitler!_" repeated Wolfgang mechanically.

"What does 'Hitler' mean?" asked one of the old men curiously.

"I don't know," said the other old man. "Perhaps he is feigning insanity."

Kahl found his voice. "But this is monstrous nonsense!" he shrilled. "Is this not the _tausendjahrige Reich_ that Hitler promised us--"

"Silence!" snapped Schwinzog, and the scientist quailed. "You are not here to plead or talk gibberish, but to hear sentence. Your case has been decided after thorough investigation." He fixed all the prisoners with a frigid gaze. "You Americans are capable of more cunning than most Germans give you credit for; I know that well, for I was a colonial administrator in your country for ten years. Your attempt to masquerade as 'time travelers' shows originality in the conception and thoroughness in the execution. Needless to say, nothing directly incriminating was found among your effects. The experts report that even the metal identification tags found on the two who call themselves Ray Manning and Edward Dugan are authentic reproductions of those used by the American army at the time of the Conquest.

"However, you made the mistake of using too much imagination in the effort to confuse. Your story is too preposterous to be taken seriously, especially since our best scientists have declared time travel impracticable. Accordingly, we could sentence you to death for unauthorized presence inside the Reich and for evident complicity in the attempted sabotage of a German experimental station.

"In view of the absence of direct evidence of subversive actions, we have decided on leniency. The two prisoners, real names unknown, alias Pankraz Kahl and Wolfgang Muller--your claim to German citizenship has been checked with the central archive in Berlin and found to be false. Therefore I sentence you for the crime of imposture to five years in a concentration camp."

Kahl burst into a desperate, unheard babble of protest. At a wave of Schwinzog's hand the guards closed in. The Herr Doktor was dragged away bodily, shouting disjointedly about the blindness of the Philistines and Hitler's thousand years.

"As for you two," Schwinzog eyed Manning and Dugan with an oddly speculative air, "since you have admitted American nationality, your punishment is limited to immediate deportation--back to America."

They were more staggered than they would have been if he had said they would be executed for failure to wear monocles.

As the guards surrounded them, Schwinzog raised his hand, his face adorned by a mocking grin. "One more thing. You will be interested to know that the raid on the Black Forest experimental station missed its objective; the building destroyed was an unimportant storehouse. The actual refining plant is nowhere in the vicinity. The project of which your organization seems to be so well informed goes on as before and will be completed inside a week. You may carry the message to America: _One week to live._"

III

They had little opportunity, during the airplane flight to Hamburg, to exchange impressions or theories; they were constantly under the eyes of two nondescript, expressionless men who sat unblinking, with hands in the pockets of their civilian jackets.

Nor was it better after that; at Hamburg their watchdogs delivered them to another pair apparently shelled from the same pod. One of the first set passed the word laconically: "Two American spies. To be released in Neuebersdorf, by order of Gestapoleiter Schwinzog." And the new guards saw Manning and Dugan aboard a great transatlantic rocket.

It was from the rocket over Hamburg that they got their first real look at a twenty-first century metropolis. Only from twenty miles high could it be appreciated--the immense sweep of city in which straight-line highways connected innumerable village-like centers interspersed among the soft green of parks and woodlands, covering the broad plain of the Elbe mouth and sprawling away to the eastward to join with Lubeck across the base of the Danish peninsula. While they watched it, spellbound, in the mirror-ports, the fairy city sank away and vanished in the mist and shadow of evening; and the rocket ascended steadily and almost soundlessly into thinning layers of stratosphere, and the sun rose up in the west before it.

Manning fell covertly to studying the Germans who filled the seats of the pressure-cabin. Most of them were civilians; they had the subdued worried faces of suburban commuters on a train, and they looked quite oblivious to the wonder of their age, even to the miracle of the machine that was hurling them so swiftly and surely across the ocean. They didn't look like a _Herrenvolk_. Here and there were the color and brass gleam of uniforms, and with them went a tawdry arrogance, an overconscious effort to dominate and impress directed at the gray civilians and most of all, Manning observed, at the half-dozen nondescript women in the compartment.

Had these people conquered the world and planted themselves atop it?

And if so, what had they done with the rest of it? With America, for example--a German colony, Schwinzog had indicated.... Defeated, enslaved....

Then Manning remembered that he had seen with his own eyes evidence that America had not been wholly defeated, even after a hundred years; that someone, somehow, was still fighting on. His heart leaped up.

He addressed one of the guards for the first time: "Where are we bound?"

"Neuebersdorf," said the man curtly. He glanced at his watch, and in lieu of further explanation, leaned forward and twirled a knob beneath the port beside them; the scene mirrored in it shifted and swung to straight ahead, and they could see the coast line that had appeared in the west and was sweeping rapidly nearer. There was a great island and a sound, and at the latter's narrowest point was concentrated a smudge of city, almost as vast as the Hamburg of this time, but dark and jumbled beneath the afternoon sun, lacking the German seaport's ordered spaciousness.

"Hey!" exclaimed Dugan. "That's New York!"

The Gestapoman looked at him in silent contempt.

"It is--or was," amended Manning sorrowfully. As the rocket plunged closer, they see that much of the city was in ruin. The downtown district, in particular, showed an unrelieved prospect of devastation, empty windows in walls standing or fallen, and fields of shattered blocks and debris, testifying to a tremendous destruction and an even greater neglect. Something had toppled the towers that had stood there, and no one had come to clear away their wreck.

* * * * *

Manning turned from the window. Later on he would be curious to learn more of what German rule had meant to America--for the moment a sick feeling in his stomach told him he had seen enough.

On Long Island, however, where the ship landed, the desolation of New York was not in evidence; where Brooklyn had been was a German settlement, and there were fair dwellings, broad green lawns and trees, and smooth-paved streets along which shining traffic moved with the whisper of electric motors.

They saw this last outpost of the master race briefly as they were whisked through in a chauffeured car that had met the rocket; their destination lay across the river, where eroded heaps caricatured the skyline of Manhattan. Guards with machine guns passed them onto a narrow span that had replaced the vanished Triborough Bridge; and inside five minutes the car halted on the American shore. It stood with motor running, and one of the Gestapomen ordered, "Get out."

Manning and Dugan got out, feeling numb in mind and body, and looked at the waterfront. From the air nothing had been visible except the colossal ruin of the world's once greatest city; but from close by could be seen that which was far worse--the dwellings of its present inhabitants, sprung up among its rubble like the grass through the cracks of its pavements. The houses were less than peasant huts, built of stone and concrete fragments and rotting lumber, sometimes against the still-standing wall of a shattered building.

Some distance away a small crowd had collected and stood dumbly watching the activity about the gleaming vehicle that had come over the guarded bridge. Others peered from the doorways of the nearer huts. All were ragged and soiled and in their faces was the dull resignation of a beaten inferiority.

Those were the American natives of Neuebersdorf, which had been New York, U.S.A.--_magni nominis umbra_.... Manning wondered, with a surge of horror and pity, what made them grub here to construct their dens on the edge of the desolate city, whence they could look across the water and see the abodes of German pride and power and luxury--was it merely envy, or the need to nourish an undying hatred? The blankness of the watching faces gave no answer.

The car door slammed. The machine swung about and purred swiftly away up the bridge approach.

Dugan stared after it and said softly, "What the hell!" And when Manning failed to answer: "Well, Ray, what now?"

The other passed a hand across his forehead. "I don't know. But maybe we'd better start looking for invisible men."

"Fine," said Dugan. "When I see one, I'll yell."

Manning glanced toward the ragged crowd that had watched their arrival; it was already beginning silently to disperse, losing interest. Most of the two soldiers' clothing had been given back to them, but minus such items as leggings and steel helmets their 1945 combat dress looked sufficiently unmilitary and nondescript.

"No use just standing here," said Manning. They started to walk, turning at random into a narrow street that crooked among the ruins. Then Manning began to talk in a lowered voice. "If I'm not badly off, we're going to be followed and watched. Obviously the Germans have taken us for somebody else, and they didn't ship us across like ambassadors out of the kindness of their hearts. They think we belong to an American underground, and what we do now--they figure--is lead them to it. I wouldn't be surprised if--Uh huh." He pulled a hand out of the pocket of his field jacket with a small bundle of paper--money. It was marked, stamped _Ausland_. "They even slipped us a stake to make sure we didn't have any trouble in getting to underground headquarters--with the goon squad on our heels."

"Well, at least we can eat. And I guess we can wander around, looking as ignorant as we are, and lead them a wild goose chase.... That sounds like a hell of a life," Dugan appendixed glumly to his own description.

"You and me both. Sooner or later we've _got_ to get in touch with whoever's still carrying on the war. Because the war's still going on, in spite of--this." He didn't gesture, and Dugan knew he meant more than the broken buildings around them--the broken look they had both seen in the eyes of the people.

"Sure we've got to," said Dugan fiercely. "But how?"

* * * * *

Manning shrugged. Their footsteps echoed, died away, echoed again in the deserted street, which here, in what must be the heart of the destruction, was hardly more than a tunnel between leaning walls where tons of masonry still hung in the twisted steel frames. From behind them the trick echoes brought briefly the sound of other footsteps. They were being followed, all right.

"If the Gestapo just knew it," muttered Dugan, "they'd come nearer what they're looking for if that guy was leading us."

Manning nodded somberly; then he drew sharp breath and looked at his companion with kindling eyes. "Maybe that's the answer to our problem, Eddie."

"What answer?"

"Just an idea--maybe there's nothing in it. But if I'm right, we'll meet the underground--and soon!"

"Okay," said Dugan. "Anything you say. But what do we do?"

"I think we can concentrate on digging up something to eat," said Manning judiciously. "The sun's still up here, but it's been all of eight hours since we had dinner."

They emerged at last, tired and hungry, from the labyrinth of total devastation into a more populous district--a squalid village sprung up amid the ruin of New York. Along the edges of its dusty main street, where no lights were lit against the descending dusk, stood or squatted the people, talking listlessly in low voices or merely staring at the passers-by. Before one of the larger groups Manning halted.

"There's a joint down the street says 'Eat'," Dugan nudged him.

"Wait." Manning faced the bunch of idlers and raised his voice. "Were any of you folks ever in Germany? It's a wonderful place. We just got back from there. They have beautiful cities with paved streets, millions of automobiles and helicopters and airplanes, with broadcast power to run them--"

"What are you giving us?" demanded a deep voice, its owner a blur in the twilight. "We know all that. And who the hell are you, anyway?"

"I know," insisted Manning. "I was in Germany only this morning."

A little, wrinkled man scurried out of a doorway and laid a protesting hand on Manning's arm. "You'd better shut up," he said sharply. "That's inflammatory talk, and it can get you in bad trouble."

"He's crazy," suggested another voice.

"I'm crazy," agreed Manning affably, and turned to go. Out of the tail of his eye he saw the little man go back inside, and he felt unreasonably optimistic.

"Now we can see about that chow," he told Dugan.

IV

The inside of the "eat" was not attractive, nor was the food the slovenly waiter brought them. Dugan ate fervently. It didn't matter to him that America was no longer America, or that American coffee was no longer coffee.

But Manning dawdled. He had sat down with his back to the wall, so that his eyes could rove freely over the whole cramped interior; and he was all taut expectation. He was waiting for a sign.

Within ten minutes after their entry, three men had come in and sat down, two of them together. They might have been ordinary customers, but to Manning's covertly searching gaze they did not look sufficiently undernourished to be twenty-first century Americans. They looked like Germans.

The next arrivals were a youthful couple, and then for a while no one came in. Manning ordered another cup of "coffee." Then he got a shock.

For when he looked down, reaching for his cup, it was gone. He blinked, and it was there, solid, chipped and stained. He glanced briefly up at the unnoticing Dugan, then back to the cup--and there was no cup. And then there was, and he sat and squinted at it, struggling with a glimmer of understanding that this was what he had been waiting for.

Their table was for four. Out of the corner of his eye Manning thought he saw somebody sitting in the chair at his right. He turned his head quickly, and there was no one. The chair was empty. Too empty. His brain tried to crystalize that intuitive conviction, but failed.

He glanced sidelong at the suspiciously well-fed men. They sat morosely over glasses of what looked like beer, and paid no attention. But Manning knew that there was an invisible man in the room.

He sat hesitating over his next move, when a voice screamed in his ear. It was a tiny thread of voice, not a whisper; it sounded like someone shouting frenetically over a bad telephone connection.

"Don't move," it commanded urgently. "I see you know I'm here beside you, and that you're being followed. Are you willing to follow instructions? If so, lay your right hand on the table."

Manning did so. The gnat-like voice shrilled, "All right. You leave here, turning left. Follow your nose and don't look back. About five minutes' walk will bring you to a bridge. Further instructions then. Act natural!"

Despite the final injunction, Manning hardly knew how they got out onto the street. Out of possible earshot of their shadows, he explained hurriedly to Dugan. "I thought they'd try to contact us. We have the Gestapo itself to thank for that, I'll bet. Even if it can't put the finger on the underground, it must know enough about them so that we were dumped off here for bait, it could let the word go out so that the underground would hear about us and grab at the bait right away. They didn't lose any agents on that raid in Germany, so they must have been pretty curious to learn that a couple of their men had been picked up on the scene and sent to New York! Now things are going to break."

The bridge loomed out of the darkness ahead. It was a wooden structure, crossing a narrow creek. Midway of the echoing span, they paused, and Manning pricked up his ears. He was not disappointed. The invisible presence said, "Good. I trust you can both swim? All right--drop over the railing, and swim straight back to the shore you just left, only come out under the bridge. I'll meet you there. Good luck!"

They looked at each other. "I heard him," Dugan said, and without more words placed a hand on the rickety railing and vaulted out over the black water. Manning gave him a few seconds to get clear, and followed. He came up clinging to his orientation, and struck out; when he splashed ashore, Dugan was already shaking himself on the narrow strip of sand below the bank.

* * * * *

And a third man emerged abruptly from the shadow of the bridge piles. He was an ordinary-looking man in a worn leather jacket and patched trousers, but his face was masked by a dark hood, blank save for eye-slits, and on his back he carried something like a small pack with two small levers protruding. In his right hand was a pistol, and in his left a bundle; he dropped the latter on the ground and stepped back.

"Put those on," he hissed. "Quick, before they get here!"

The bundle was two outfits such as the stranger wore. They donned them as instructed; the hoods were stiff with wire, and connected by a flexible cord to the packs. Manning eyed the gun speculatively; the masked man explained softly, "It's not that I don't trust you, but those gadgets are too valuable to take _any_ chances with. They're invisibility units. Start them by pressing here." He pulled down one of the levers on his pack; he seemed to blur slightly, but they could still see him. "The headgear insulates you pretty well from the effect. Go on, start those units!" Heavy feet were thundering overhead on the bridge planks.

They obeyed; the packs made a faint hum. The stranger relaxed visibly. "Now we're okay," he said in a normal voice. "By the time they catch on, we'll be a long way from here."

Directly above, an angry snarl: "_Sie sind grade ins Wasser gesprungen! Wer hatte erwartet--_"

Somebody else answered, "_Vielleicht wird ein Boot dort unten gelegen haben_."

"Good guessing," approved the masked man cheerfully. He motioned Manning and Dugan toward where a small skiff lay beached between the piles. "Help me launch this. First, though, turn your units up to full power--like this--so they'll cover the boat."

Manning was startled at the man's bravado; as all three laid hold of the boat, he whispered anxiously, "Won't they hear--"

"Not if we shouted our heads off," the other answered. "With these units going, we're not only invisible, but inaudible and practically intangible. I've walked through a cordon that was closing in on me with linked arms." He sprang nimbly into the bow of the boat. "Grab an oar, you two, and make yourselves useful. I've been through a lot of trouble on your account." He seemed to decide that introductions were finally in order. "My name's Jerry Kane. At any rate, it's my favorite alias."

Manning and Dugan named themselves and fell to rowing. "Downstream," said Kane, and he gazed back at the bridge with interest as they pulled away. Manning glanced back over his shoulder; there were dark figures swarming on the bridge, and lights, and a car had stopped there; even as he looked a searchlight beam swayed out across the water, moving systematically back and forth. For a moment it fell full upon the rowboat, and Manning ducked involuntarily; but the light passed on and there was no outcry, no shots came.

Manning said hoarsely, "That light was on us! It didn't go through us, or anything of the sort. A body that reflects light is visible. So how the devil--"

"We're not optically invisible," answered Kane amusedly. "So far as I know, that's a physical impossibility. Actually, those Germans saw us, but they didn't notice us. Ever catch yourself looking right at something and not seeing it, because it was too familiar or because you were thinking about something else? That's the effect the field has. Anything in the middle of it hides behind a psychic block in the mind of whoever looks at it. That's why it works on hearing, too, and even on touch. It's not perfect; if you set off a magnesium flare in front of somebody, or punched him in the nose, he'd notice something was up--but hardly before. When you get acquainted with the effect it makes you feel like a ghost. Back in that cafe, I had to shout in your ear till I deafened myself before I could make you hear."

* * * * *

They glided down the current, and the lights and voices around the bridge receded rapidly. As Manning bent to his oar, his imagination was busy with the first item of twenty-first century technology which went completely beyond his twentieth-century knowledge. In Germany he had seen the evidences of a mighty and advanced civilization, but everything had been the logical perfection of inventions already known....