philip_k_dick_-_the_man_in_the_high_castle

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We are approaching the moment of landing, Captain Wegener said to himself. I will almost surely be met by the Sicherheitsdienst. The question is: Which faction of policy will be represented? The Goebbels? Or the Heydrich? Assuming that SS General Heydrich is still alive. While I have been aboard this ship, he could have been rounded up and shot. Things happen fast, during the time of transition in a totalitarian society. There have been, in Nazi Germany, tattered lists of names over which men have pored before. Several minutes later, when the rocket ship had landed, he found himself on his feet, moving toward the exit with his overcoat over his arm. Behind him and ahead of him, anxious passengers. No young Nazi artist this time, he reflected. No Lotze to badger me at the last with his moronic viewpoint. An airlines uniformed official — dressed, Wegener observed, like the Reichs Marshal himself — assisted them all down the ramp, one by one, to the field. There, by the concourse, stood a small knot of blackshirts. For me? Wegener began to walk slowly from the parked rocket ship. Over at another spot men and women waiting, waving, calling . . . even some children. One of the blackshirts, a flat-faced unwinking blond fellow wearing the Waffen-SS insignia, stepped smartly up to Wegener, clicked the heels of his jackboots together and saluted. 'Ich bitte mich zu entschuldigen. Sind Sie nicht Kapitan Rudolf Wegener, von der Abwehr?' 'Sorry,' Wegener answered. 'I am Conrad Goltz. Representing A. G. Chemikalien medical supplies.' He started on past. Two other blackshirts, also Waffen-SS,came toward him. The three of them fell beside him, so that although he continued on at his own pace, in his own direction, he was quite abruptly and effectively under custody. Two of the Waffen SS men had sub-machine guns under their greatcoats. 'You are Wegener,' one of them said as they entered the building. He said nothing. 'We have a car,' the Waffen-SS man continued. 'We are instructed to meet your rocket ship, contact you, and take you immediately to SS General Heydrich, who is with Sepp Dietrich at the 0KW of the Leibstandarte Division. In particular we are not to permit you to be approached by Wehrmacht or Partei persons.' Then I will not be shot, Wegener said to himself. Heydrich is alive, and in a safe location, and trying to strengthen his position against the Goebbels Government. Maybe the Goebbels Government will fall after all, he thought as he was ushered into the waiting SS Daimler staff sedan. A detachment of Waffen-SS suddenly shifted at night; guards at the Reichskanzlei relieved, replaced. The Berlin police stations suddenly spewing forth armed SD men in every direction — radio stations and power cut off, Tempeihofer closed. Rumble of hea-vy guns in the darkness, along main streets. But what does it matter? Even if Doctor Goebbels is deposed and Operation Dandelion is canceled? They will still exist, the blackshirts, the Partei, the schemes if not in the Orient then somewhere else. On Mars and Venus. No wonder Mr. Tagomi could not go on, he thought. The terrible dilemma of our lives. Whatever happens, it is evil beyond compare. Why struggle, then? Why choose? If all alternatives are the same . Evidently we go on, as we always have. From day to day. At this moment we work against Operation Dandelion. Later on, at another moment, we work to defeat the police. But we cannot do it all at once; it is a sequence. An unfolding process. We can only control the end by making a choice at each step. He thought, We can only hope. And try.
On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components. We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious. The Daimler started with Captain Wegener in the back, a blackshirt on each side, machine gun on lap. Blackshirt behind the wheel. Suppose it is a deception even now, Wegener thought as the sedan moved at high speed through Berlin traffic. They are not taking me to SS General Heydrich at the Leibstandarte Division 0KW; they are taking me to a Partei jail, there to maim me and finally kill me. But I have chosen; I chose to return to Germany; I chose to risk capture before I could reach Abwehr people and protection. Death at each moment, one avenue which is open to us at any point. And eventually we choose it, in spite of ourselves. Or we give up and take it deliberately. He watched the Berlin houses pass. My own Volk, he thought; you and I, again together. To the three SS men he said, 'How are things? Any recent developments in the political situation? I've been away for several weeks, before Bormann' s death, in fact.' The man to his right answered, 'There's naturally plenty of hysterical mob support for the Little Doctor. It was the mob that swept him into office. However, it's unlikely that when more sober elements prevail they'll want to support a cripple and demagogue who depends on inflaming the mass with his lies and spellbinding.' 'I see,' Wegener said. It goes on, he thought. The internecine hate. Perhaps the seeds are there, in that. They will eat one another at last, and leave the rest of us here and there in the world, still alive. Still enough of us once more to build and hope and make a few simple plans. At one o'clock in the afternoon, Juliana Frink reached Cheyenne, Wyoming. In the downtown business section, across from the enormous old train depot, she stopped at a cigar store and bought two afternoon newspapers. Parked at the curb she searched until she at last found the item. VACATION ENDS IN FATAL SLASHING Sought for questioning concerning the fatal slashing of her husband in their swank rooms at the President Garner Hotel in Denver, Mr. Joe Cinnadella of Canon City, according to hotel employees, left immediately after what must have been the tragic climax of a marital quarrel. Razor blades found in the room, ironically supplied as a convenience by the hotel to its guests, apparently were used by Mrs. Cinnadella, described as dark, attractive, well-dressed and slender, about thirty, to slash the throat of her husband, whose body was found by Theodore Ferris, hotel employee who had picked up shirts from Cinnadella just half an hour earlier and was returning them as instructed, only to come onto the grisly scene. The hotel suite, police said, showed signs of struggle, suggesting that a violent argument had . . . So he's dead, Juliana thought as she folded up the newspaper. And not only that, they don't have my name right; they don't know who I am or anything about me. Much less anxious now, she drove on until she found a suitable motel; there she made arrangements for a room and carried her possessions in from the car. From now on I don't have to
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The Man in The High Castle Philip K
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This Berkley book contains the comp
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1 For a week Mr. R. Childan had bee
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'Shall we make arrangements?' Child
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around on Mars, on the red sand whe
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quality and the definite suggestion
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'Yes.' 'You, sir, are of American a
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The radio of the pedecab blared out
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of American popular civilization we
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consciousness of many pinched-nerve
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men reached behind him until his fi
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'Yes, I was in Germany on business.
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'You would not have known,' Baynes
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McCarthy said, 'I don't know that.
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Good fortune. Success. So I ought t
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As he returned to his store he said
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At three o'clock the University cal
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uy, took one look at one of those C
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'No,' she said. 'A story about war.
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''God speaks to man in the sign of
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'During the war,' Mr. Tagomi said,
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way that Bormann got it in the firs
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His brothers had been killed in '44
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Later, in Dresden, where the acting
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'I don't understand you,' she said.
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purposes of informing you of our ev
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Laugh at me, he thought as he saw t
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'Yes,' Mr. Tagomi said. 'They will
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alconies, the soaring yet modern co
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They had finished their drinks, and
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'I have strong convictions on the s
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'No,' Paul murmured. 'Very short bo
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'Thank you,' Reiss said. He seated
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Reiss nodded. Or the old general mi
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Reiss shut the book and sat for a t
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hammers . . . rows of precision equ
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When it gets cold and dark and ever
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ocking her, swinging her back and f
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Maybe I don't actually recall F.D.R
Page 79 and 80: When he next looked up, he saw that
Page 81 and 82: 'A moment, sir.' A very long moment
Page 83 and 84: Mr. Baynes got out his wallet. The
Page 85 and 86: . . . And these markets, the countl
Page 87 and 88: They drove on. Band music from the
Page 89 and 90: completed. All three of us perhaps
Page 91 and 92: 'Hold on.' A long pause, during whi
Page 93 and 94: He could ruin me, Childan said to h
Page 95 and 96: you'd expect from a race that when
Page 97 and 98: 'Yes, from initial design to final
Page 99 and 100: The general inclined his head. 'Mr.
Page 101 and 102: 'The Emperor,' General Tedeki said,
Page 103 and 104: 'What's the matter?' McCarthy said,
Page 105 and 106: Operating through official channels
Page 107 and 108: mind applicable. German totalitaria
Page 109 and 110: 'What's wrong? Did I buy too much?'
Page 111 and 112: 'Oh come on — put on the goddam d
Page 113 and 114: 'I forgot. I'll call down to the ph
Page 115 and 116: there, waiting from now on until th
Page 117 and 118: Juliana said, 'I read his book and
Page 119 and 120: procedure, despite all that had occ
Page 121 and 122: 'You may return it for full credit,
Page 123 and 124: Tall, blue-suited policeman standin
Page 125 and 126: 'Yes,' Mr. Tagomi said. 'But tell m
Page 127 and 128: 'I crave forgiveness,' Mr. Tagomi s
Page 129: But he knew he never would. Just be
Page 133 and 134: She did an extensive brushing job o
Page 135 and 136: 'No it isn't,' Juliana said. Now ev
Page 137 and 138: She began throwing the coins; she f
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philip_k_dick_-_the_man_in_the_high_castle

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