Copyright © 1986 (revised 12/98), by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

     The Teutonic priests were resplendent in red and black, their robes traced in gold and silver. Platinum eagles' wings rose from top-heavy helmets as they marched around a great circle of standing stones, chanting in a tongue that sounded vaguely Germanic, but which Chris knew was much, much older.
     An altar, carved with gaping dragons' mouths, stood beside a raging bonfire. Smoke rose in a turbulent funnel, carrying bright sparks up toward a full moon. Heat blazed at the ring of prisoners, each chained to his own obelisk of rough-hewn rock.
     They faced southward, looking from a Gotland prominence across the Baltic toward a shore that had once been Poland, and for a little while after that had been the "Thousand-Year Reich."
     The waters were unnaturally calm, almost glassy, reflecting a nearly perfect image of the bonfire alongside the Moon's rippling twin.
     "Fro must be back from Labrador," O'Leary commented loudly enough for Chris to hear him over the chanting and the pounding drums. "That'd explain the clear night. He's the god of tempests."
     Chris glanced at the man sourly, and O'Leary grinned back apologetically. "Sorry, man. I mean he's th' little green alien who's in charge of weather control. Make you feel any better?"
     I had that coming, Chris thought. He smiled dryly and shrugged. "I don't suppose it matters much now."
     O'Leary watched the Aryan Brothers march by again, carrying a giant swastika alongside a great dragonlike totem. The technician started to say something, but then he blinked and seemed to mumble to himself, as if trying to catch a drifting thought. When the procession had passed, he turned to Chris, a mystified expression on his face. "I just remembered something."
     Chris sighed. "What is it now, O'Leary?"
     The beatnik frowned in puzzlement. "I can't figure why it slipped my mind until now. But back when we were on the beach, unloading the bomb parts, Old Loki pulled me aside. It was all so hectic, but I could swear I saw him palm th' H-bomb trigger mechanism, Chris. That means..."
     Chris nodded.
     "That means he knew we were going to be captured. I already figured that out, O'Leary. At least the Nazis won't get the trigger."
     "Yeah. But that's not all I just remembered, Chris. Loki told me to tell you something for him. He said you'd asked him a question, and he told me to relay an answer he said you might understand."
     O'Leary shook his head.
     "Can't figure why I forgot to tell you till now."
     Chris laughed. Of course the renegade Aes had put the man under a post-hypnotic command to recall the message later... perhaps only in a situation like this one.
     "What is it, O'Leary? What did he say to tell me?"
     "It was just one word, Chris. He said to tell you -- necromancy. Then he clammed up. It wasn't much later that the SS jumped us.
     "What'a he mean by that, Captain? What was your question, anyway? What does the answer mean?"
     Chris stared at the funnel of sparks climbing toward the Moon, and pondered. With his last question he had asked Loki about the camps -- about the awesome, horrible, concentrated effort of death that had been perpetrated, first in Europe and then in Russia and Africa. What were they for? There had to be more to it than a plan to eliminate some bothersome minorities.
     Moreover, why had Loki, who normally seemed so oblivious to human life, acted to rescue so many from the death factories, at so great a risk to himself?
     Necromancy. That was Loki's delayed reply to his final question -- told in such a way that Chris might never be able to tell anyone who mattered.
     Necromancy...
     The word stood for the performance of magic. A special, terrible kind. In legend, a necromancer was an evil wizard who used the concentrated field created by the death agony of human beings to drive his spells.
     But that was just superstitious nonsense!
     Light-headed, Chris looked out across the sand at the hulking Aesir seated on their gilded thrones, heard the chanting of the priests, and wished he could dismiss the idea as easily as he once would have.
     Was that the reason the Nazis had dared to wage a war they otherwise could never win? Because they believed they could create such concentrated, distilled horror that ancient spells would actually work?
     It explained much. Other nations had gone insane. Other movements had been evil. But none perpetrated crimes with such dedication and efficiency. The horror must have been directed not so much at death itself, but at some hideous goal beyond death!
     "They... made... the Aesir. That's what Loki meant by thinking that, maybe, his own memories were false. When he suspected he was actually no older than..."
     "What was that, Cap'n?" O'Leary leaned as far as his chains would allow. "I couldn't follow..."
     The procession stopped. The High Priest, carrying a golden sword, held it before Odin's throne. The father of the "gods" touched it and the Aesir's rumbling chant could be heard, lower than human singing, a hungry sound like a growl that trembled within the Earth.
     One of the chained Allies -- a Free Briton -- was dragged, numbed with dread, from his obelisk toward the fire and the dragon altar.
     Chris shut his eyes, as if to hold out the screams.
     "Jesus!" O'Leary hissed.
     Yes, Chris thought. Invoke Jesus. Or Allah, or God of Abraham. Wake up, Brahma! For your dream has turned into a nightmare.
     He understood now why Loki had not told him his answer while there was even a chance he might make it home alive.
     Thank you, Loki.
     Better America and the Last Alliance should go down honorably than be tempted by this knowledge... by this horrible way out. For if the Allies ever adopted the enemy's methods, there would be nothing left in the soul of humanity to fight for.
     Who would we conjure? Chris wondered. If we ever used those spells? Superman? Captain Marvel? Oh, they'd be more than a match for the Aesir! Our myths were boundless.
     He laughed, and the sound turned into a sob as another scream of agony pierced the night.
     Thank you, Loki, for sparing us that test of our souls.
     He had no idea where the renegade "trickster god" had gone, or whether this debacle was only a cloak for some deeper, more secret mission.
     Could that be? Chris wondered. Soldiers seldom saw the big picture, and President Marshall didn't have to tell his OSS captains everything. This mission could have been a feint, a minor ploy in a greater scheme.
     Lasers and satellites... they may be just part of it. They might have a silver bullet... a sprig of mistletoe, still.
     Chains rattled to his right. He heard a voice cursing in Portuguese and footsteps dragging the latest prisoner off.
     Chris looked up at the sky, and a thought suddenly occurred to him, as if out of nowhere.
     Legends begin in strange ways, he realized.
     Someday -- even if there was no silver bullet -- the horror would have to ebb at last. Perhaps when humans grew scarce and the Aesir were less well fed on the death manna they supped on from charnel houses.
     Then a time might come when human heroes would count for something again. In secret laboratories, or in exile on the Moon, or at the bottom of the sea, free men and women would toil to build armor, weapons, maybe the heroes themselves...
     This time the scream was choked, as the Brazilian ranger tried to defy his enemies, only breaking to show his agony at the last.
     Footsteps approached. To his amazement, Chris felt feather-light, as if gravity were barely enough to keep him on the ground.
     "So long, O'Leary," he said distantly.
     "Yeah, man. Stay cool."
     Chris nodded. He offered the black-and-silver-clad SS his wrists as they unchained him, and spoke to them softly, in a friendly tone of voice.
     "You know, those costumes make you look pretty silly for grown men."
     They blinked at him in surprise. Chris smiled and stepped between them, leading the way toward the altar and the waiting Aesir.
     Someday men will challenge these monsters, he thought, knowing that the numb, light-headed feeling meant he wouldn't scream... that nothing they could do would make him take more than casual notice.
     Loki had made certain of this. It was why the Trickster had spent so much time with Chris, this last year. Why he insisted that Chris come along this time.
     Our day will come. Revenge will drive our descendants. Science will armor them. But those heroes will need one more thing, he realized.
     Heroes need inspiration. They need legends.
     Approaching the humming Aesir, they passed before a row of human "dignitaries" from the Reich. A few of the aging Nazis wore faces glazed in excitement, but others sat numbly, as if lost. He felt he could almost read the despair in those darkened, mad eyes. They knew that something they had wrought had gone far out of their control.
     Thor frowned as Chris flashed him a smile. "Hi. How'ya doin'?" he said to the Aesir, interrupting their rumbling music. Where curses and screams had only resonated with the chant, good-natured sarcasm broke up the ritual in a mutter of surprise.
     "Move, swine!"
     An SS guard pushed Chris, or tried to, but stumbled instead on empty air where the American had been. Chris ducked underneath the jangling, cumbersome uniform, between the Nazi's legs, and swatted the fellow's behind with the flat of his hand, sending him sprawling.
     The other guard reached for him, but crumpled openmouthed as Chris bent his fingers back and snapped them. The third guard he lifted by a belt buckle and tossed into the bonfire, to bellow in sudden horror and pain.
     Hysterical strength, of course, Chris realized, knowing what Loki had done to him. In rapid succession, four onrushing underpriests went down with snapped necks or spines. Of course no human could do these things without being used up, Chris knew distantly. But what did it matter? This was more fun than he had expected to be having, at this moment.
     A golden flash warned him. Chris whirled and ducked, siezing Odin's spear with a sudden snatch.
     "Coward," he whispered at the hot-faced "father of the gods."
     Flipping the heavy, gleaming weapon around, Chris held it in two hands before him.
     God, help me...
     With a cry he broke the legendary spear over his knee. Pieces fell to the sand.
     Nobody moved. Even Thor's whirling hammer slowed and then dropped. In the sudden silence, Chris distantly realized his femur was shattered -- along with most of the bones in his hands -- leaving him perched precariously on one leg.
     Yet his only regret was that he couldn't emulate an aged Jew he had heard of from one of the concentration camp survivors. Standing in front-of the grave he had been forced to dig for himself, the old man did not beg, or try to reason with the SS. Nor did he slump in despair. Instead, the prisoner had turned away from his murderers, dropped his pants, and said aloud in Yiddish as he bent over --
     "Kish mir im toches..."
     "Kiss my ass," Chris told Thor as more guards finally ran up and grabbed his arms. As they dragged him to the altar, he kept his gaze on the red-bearded "god."
     The priests tied him down, but Chris met the Aesir's gray eyes.
     "I don't believe in you," he said.
     Thor blinked, and the giant suddenly turned away.
     Chris laughed out loud then, knowing that nothing in the world would suppress this story. It would spread, at first in whispers, then rumors and tales. There would be no stopping it.
     The death-manna from tonight's ceremony would not nourish monsters. It would be a poison. A medicine.
     Loki, you bastard. You used me, and I suppose I should thank you.
     But rest assured, Loki, someday we'll get you, too.
     He laughed again as he watched the dismayed High priest fumble with the knife. A wide-eyed assistant jiggled and dropped his swastika banner. Chris roared.
     Behind him, he heard O'Leary's high-pitched giggle. Then, another of the prisoners barked, and another. It was unstoppable.
     Across the chilly Baltic, an uncertain wind began to rise. And overhead, a new star sailed swiftly where older ones merely drifted across the sky.

THE END

Afterword by David Brin

     The parallel-world story is another mainstay of SF. It explores the old question: "What would have happened if...?"
     If a fly buzzing above a bowl of soup had dipped too low, getting caught, disgusting a Roman centurion, who took his wrath out on an underling, sending him out on an extra patrol, which detected Hannibal's army in the Alps early enough to catch it far from Rome... You see the point.
     Sometimes we like to frighten ourselves. The most frequent "what if' seems to deal with alternate realities in which the Nazis won World War II. Something about that loathsome possibility just invites a horror story.
     Trouble is, I never could believe it. Mind you, Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle is a classic, a great work. But its premise -- that an early assassination of Franklin Roosevelt would have led to an inevitable Axis victory -- is hard to swallow.
     They were just such schmucks!
     I mean, it's hard to think of any way a single altered event would have let the Nazis win their war. They would have needed an entire chain of flukes even to have a chance. In fact, it took quite a few lucky breaks for them to last as long as they did, and to have the time to commit such atrocities.
     I said as much to Gregory Benford when he invited me to write a piece for his upcoming anthology of parallel world stories, Hitler Victorious. Greg's reply? A dare.
     "I'll bet you could think of some premise that'd work, David.
     How unlikely can it be?"
     It can be preposterous, as long as it sings.
     Greg was my collaborator on a far larger large novel. I trusted him. But once the story was started, it took off in directions I never expected. I don't know if the story "sings," but it does tie together several curious things about the Nazi cult.
     Why were the Nazis so evil? Why did they do so many horrible, pointless things? What was behind their incredible streak of romantic mysticism?
     Maybe the bastards really believed something like this was possible.