boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

210 Anthony Boucher
useful servant of Hitler XVI chiefly because he had been reared in the AWS and
never known directly any other concepts of life. But he knew himself for a misfit
and groped faintly toward something else.
He had sometimes in the past sensed a similar groping in Captain Schweinspitzen,
but no more. Not since his captain had become convinced of his identity with the
pelagic young spark. Now, when he saw his dream of leadership approaching fulfillment,
humanity dropped away from him like an outworn robe, and the naked body
beneath it was strong and beautiful and cruel and masterful.
Metzger learned little of his plot to subvert the Blue Beast. The captain retained
enough of his understanding of people to know that Metzger might want the destruction
of Hitler XVI, but certainly not the instating of Felix Schweinspitzen as
a new and greater Hitler.
Metzger gathered only the fringes of the plot, only enough to know that the
crucial moment would come at the reception and State banquet which would be
the ritual high point of the inspection tour.
And then he inadvertently contributed the key element to the pelagic plot. This
came about on the day that he entered the office just in time to see the captain put
a bullet coolly through the forehead of a man in the blue uniform of a personal
messenger of the Führer.
Schweinspitzen showed no embarrassment at the presence of a witness. He said
coldly, “He brought me bad news. This is how the great leaders of old have always
rewarded such messengers.”
Metzger realized now how fully the madness of leadership had come to possess the
man who had once been almost his friend. Quietly he said, “What news, Felix?”
“You said that the Blue Beast might be jealous of my success here. You’re a prophet
yourself, Anton. He is. He has forbidden my presence at the banquet.”
Metzger felt something like relief. “It’s better this way, Felix. Such an attempt as
you’ve been plotting is too dangerous. And if you must be guided by the American
prophecy, remember its middle couplet:
“But he’ll dangle on high
When the Ram’s in the sky.
“The State hasn’t executed a man by hanging for a hundred years, but the Hitler
might very well reinstate the archaic punishment for a great traitor.”
“Am I afraid of your prophecy? Don’t be a fool.” But he looked perplexed and
reflective for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. “What are the names of those
two paratransport planes we use for the outlying islands?”
“The Aries and the Leo.”
Captain Schweinspitzen laughed. “Very well, my dear Anton. Be sure to attend
the feast. You’ll see me dangling on high all right. And what is the last line of your
prophecy?’
“ ‘And the Cat shall throw dice at the feast.’ ”
“Throw dice? Mete out justice by lot, it might mean. That will do. And the
Cat— I picked up bits of American folklore in Des Moines, Anton. See if that clue
enables you to decipher your prophecy.”
Felix Schweinspitzen had left the office before Anton Metzger placed the apposite
bit of American folklore. Then at last he recalled the comic black figure in