The Gemini Divergence by Eric Birk

mumbled something.”
    The sergeant conspicuously cleared his
throat, then responded,
    “I’m quite sure he’ll have your attaboy ready
and waiting for you in heaven, my dear boy.”
    “Oh… Quite,” sarcastically sassed the
clerk.
     
     
    ~~~**^**~~~
     

     
    The
Big War / Ad Infinitive Deception
     
    Upon exiting the castle and reaching the
court yard, Schwerig could see that no one had left the court yard
yet. He had figured that they would all wait
around to see what had transpired.
    Toelke paused at the top of the stairs, just
outside of the door.
    Schwerig yelled to Sergeant
Stark, “Feldwebel Stark, we will be transporting a prisoner today.
Please retrieve your field arm from the kofferraum of my
auto. “Jawohl, Herr Major”, responded
Stark as he saluted and quickly retrieved his Mauser from the trunk
and chambered a round.
    Schwerig poked his Luger into Toelke’s lower
back and said, “Let’s go HERR Toelke.”
    Schwerig deliberately called him Herr,
purposely omitting Toelke’s rank, as a form of admonishment.
    Toelke descended the stairs to where Sergeant
Stark had opened the rear car door, and was waiting with his weapon
ready. Toelke stepped into the car and Schwerig followed suit,
never lowering his weapon.
    Once they had both been seated, Sergeant
Stark closed the door and stepped into the driver’s seat. He
started the vehicle and drove away as all of the meeting’s
attendees and their drivers watched in dismay as Schwerig’s staff
car rolled away.
    *~*
    Driving down the mountain road now, Toelke
turned to Schwerig and said, “Don’t you think you can put that down
now,” referring to Schwerig’s pistol.
    “Not as long as you are a prisoner in my
charge,” responded Schwerig in a commanding voice. He then
continued in a lower tone, “We must keep up appearances for the
Feldwebel,” as he gestured toward the sergeant.
    “Can he hear us back hear?” inquired
Toelke.
    “Not if we keep our voices down,” said
Schwerig maintaining a low tone.
    Once they had arrived at the end of the
castle drive and came to the main road, just across from the field
where Sergeant Stark had dined a few nights before; Stark looked at
Schwerig in the rear view mirror and inquired, “Begging the Major’s
pardon, but where is it that I am supposed to drive too?”
    “Riese, in Poland,” answered Schwerig.
    “Jawohl, Herr Major,”
responded Stark as he thought to himself, why on earth are we going all the way to Riese to deliver a
prisoner?
    After they had been driving for a while
Schwerig turned to Toelke and asked, “Are you and General Von
Sterbenbach certain that it is not a mistake that we are
deliberately allowing our rocket program to be captured by the
allies?”
    “At first Yes, but still for the most part I
believe it is best because the Americans and the Russians will
divert all of their funds, their intelligence, and their industries
towards competing with each other. They will then lose all focus on
us.” explained Toelke.
    Schwerig queried further, “What do you mean
at first? So you do have doubts… Why?”
    “Well at first I thought that all Von Braun
had been working on was the V-2 vengeance rocket program. After I
got there, I found he had secretly been working on other plans.
Plans that I believe would have greatly aided us at our ultimate
destination, New Swabia, in Antarctica.”
    This is the first time that Schwerig had
heard anything about New Swabia or Antarctica, but he held his
tongue in order to try and pry as much information out of Toelke as
he could.
    Toelke continued, “Once I arrived there to
ready him for his capture, under the guise of being an auditor from
the SS, I discovered that he had a full set of plans for a space
station, with functioning artificial gravity. He also had been
working on a three stage rocket to deliver atomic bombs all the way
across the ocean to New York, and could eventually be used to ferry
human beings to the moon.
    Schwerig thought