Seeing and guiding the Führer had at last fully brought home to Metzger the loss of human dignity brought about by the Aryan World State. That man should submit to the totalitarian rule of this stupid and decadent dynasty was unthinkable—and equally unthinkable that man should tolerate the institution of just such another rule even under the fresh and vigorous aegis of a Captain Felix Schweinspitzen. Only with what the captain had called the little handfuls of desperate men lay the hope of the future. If Metzger could ever somehow establish contact with one of those handfuls—
Tyrannicide Lyman Harding set the curried chicken in front of the voracious Hitler XVI. A pinch of native poison in the chicken could have turned the trick in safety; but the tyrant needed a more open and sensational removal to arouse the world.
The carefully applied body stain made him and his fellow Tyrannicides indistinguishable from the native servants to the casual glance; and what proudly self-confident Aryan would bestow more than a casual glance on his colored slaves? But he could not quite obtain the unobtrusive skilled movements of the natives. There was an American angularity to his serving, and once he was so awkward as to spill a drop of hot sauce on the neck of one of the Führer’s aides.
For a moment he feared that his slip was the end of the adventure. The aid’s hand rested on his automatic. Harding thought of the many stories of slaves butchered in cold blood for even less grievous offenses. But the officer finally let out a snarling laugh and said something indubitably insulting in German. Then he picked up the outsize glass of brandy that he had been swilling with his food and hurled it in the servant’s face.
Harding’s eyes stung with the pain of the alcohol. He bowed servilely and scurried off. The next course was the shoat stewed in coconut milk, and with that course—
Anton Metzger heard the motors of a plane passing over the open-air banquet. The Führer did not look up from his gorging. Why should he? Strict care was always taken to enforce the regulation that no armed planes could be aloft during his tour of inspection.
This could only be an unarmed transport, Metzger thought, though he wondered why it seemed to be slowing down and circling overhead. It must be the Leo or the Aries—
The Aries! Aries, the Ram! The prophecy—
Suddenly Anton Metzger understood the subversive plot of the pelagic young spark, Captain Schweinspitzen.
Lyman Harding checked with his eye the position of his fellows and of the natives that were helping them. All O.K. On his silver tray lay the knife—the knife that looked like any serving knife which any servant might carry. Only the keenest eye could tell the excellence of its steel or the fineness of its whetted edge.
He took a bowl of shoat from the tray and set it before an Aryan diner. Then as he looked down at the polished silver, he saw his face mirrored in the space left by that bowl. And his face was recognizably white.
The alcohol in that contemptuously thrown brandy had attacked his skin stain. So far the diners were too absorbed in the rijstafel to have noticed him. But that luck could not last. He was in the middle of the tables now. It would take him at least a minute to work his way either to the Hitler’s table or to the protective outer darkness. A minute. Sixty seconds, in every one of which he took the almost certain chance of being recognized for a spy, of being killed—which is not an agreeable thought even to the most venturesome—and—what was far worse—of seeing his whole plan collapse.
The success of the blows planned for today all over the world depended on the success of this venture here in destroying Hitler XVI. And the success of this venture depended absolutely on him, since each man had his duty and his was the prime one of disposing of the Führer.
The transport motor droned over the clatter of the banquet. Harding made his decision. The risks were the same whether he attempted to reach concealment or went on with his plan. He advanced toward the Hitler’s table, serving out the bowls of stewed shoat as he went.
A colonel raised his eyes from his plate to call for more wine. His eyes met the white face of a brown-bodied servant. He opened his mouth.
And at that moment a half dozen shouts went up from as many tables. Men were standing and pointing up. The colonel forgot even that astonishing servant as he raised his eyes to the sky and saw the dim shapes floating down.
The blue-black parachutes were all but invisible—perceptible only as vague shapes blotting out the stars, slowly descending with the deadly quiet of doom.
There was a shrill scream of terror, though there were no women in the gathering. There were barking shots from the officers’ sidearms, answered from above—futilely, at that distance and under those conditions of fire.
Then the rattle of the machine guns began.
Anton Metzger tore his eyes from what he knew must be Schweinspitzen, dangling on high while the “Ram’s in the sky,” and looked at the plump face of Hitler XVI, still aquiver from that terrified scream. Then he saw the unbelievable sight of a native with a gleaming knife charging at the Führer’s table.
The others at the table were staring and firing aloft. Only Hitler XVI, stirred by some warning of personal danger, and Metzger saw the servant’s attack. Metzger’s first thought was the stories of amuck. Then he saw the white face, and understood the truth even before he heard the half-legendary cry of the Tyrannicides: “Sick the tyrants!”
Hitler XVI had drawn his automatic. He handled it with the awkwardness of
