157 N.H. (A.D. 2045):
Captain Felix Schweinspitzen mopped tropical sweat from his Nordic brow and moaned, “Hang it, Anton, I was born at the wrong time.”
Anton Metzger looked up from the meaningless series of letters which he had been jotting down. “We’re all born into a pattern, Felix. We can’t make the design ourselves.”
“Not now, no. That’s just what I mean. There have been times when we could. Look at Napoleon or the first Hitler. They made their own ciesigns. And I keep feeling that in the right world I could, too. I can lead men. That’s demonstrated fact. Look what I’ve done with the natives here in Java.”
“Too much maybe. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Führer was a little jealous on his inspection visit.”
“I can lead men. I could lead the men of the world—I feel it, I know it. But what chance have I? While he rules by virtue of the organization and the rules of succession and—”
“Would you want his job in view of all we’ve been hearing of the Tyrannicides?” Captain Schweinspitzen laughed. “We destroyed Canada and America almost a century ago. What have we to fear from a little handful of desperate men?”
“Little handfuls of desperate men did great things in the death struggles of those nations. I remember my grandfather telling stories of demons called Commandos and Rangers.”
“The Tyrannicides are futile. Tyrant killers, indeed, when all they’ve accomplished so far is the death of a couple of subordinates no more important than you, Anton. Now if someone were to attempt the life of Hitler XVI himself— What are you working on there?”
Metzger smiled. “The American prophecy.”
“Wotan! Why waste your time with foolish—”
“The job of being your interpreter in Dutch and Javanese is hardly an all-absorbing one, Felix. I have to have some interest. And I got a very curious lead today. I heard some natives talking about the coming inspection visit. And you know what they call the Führer?”
“No.”
“They’ve been seeing photochromes of him in those powder-blue uniforms he’s so devoted to. And they call him the Blue Beast.”
Captain Schweinspitzen tore off a string of oaths. “The subversive traitors! They can’t talk that way about him. I’ll have them— Give me their names.”
“I’m afraid I don’t remember who they were. And is this precisely a consistent attitude when you were just speaking of his assassination?”
“That’s different. I’m as Aryan as he is. But these natives— Oh, well. How does that traitorous nickname help you?”
“The Blue Beast is one of the personages in the prophecy. They’ve been speculating for a hundred years on his identity. Now there’s a clue, and if I can figure out the rest—”
“How does the whole thing go?” the captain asked idly.
Metzger recited it:
“Pelagic young spark of the East
Shall plot to subvert the Blue Beast,
But he’ll dangle on high
When the Ram’s in the sky,
And the Cat shall throw dice at the feast!”
The captain nodded. “The English I picked up when I was Gauleiter in Des Moines seems to be good enough to handle that. Only what does pelagic mean?”
“That’s the word that bothers me. It means ‘oceanic.’ Now ‘oceanic young spark’ doesn’t make any obvious sense —if anything, it’s a contradiction in terms. But it makes just as good meter as ‘pelagic,’ so why was the exceedingly uncommon word used instead of the obvious one? That’s why I’m hunting for an anagram in it. I’ve been rearranging letters and I can’t get anything better than—” His voice stopped dead. He stared at the captain, at his paper, and back at the captain.
“Well!” Captain Schweinspitzen barked. “What is it?”
“The best I can get,” Metzger repeated, “is ‘pig lace.’ ”
“And ‘pig lace,’ captain, means ‘Schweinspitzen.’ ”
The officer stared. The interpreter went on hastily, as details clicked into formation: “You are of the East, have been here in Java for years. You were a telecast operator once, weren’t you? Well, ‘spark’—or was it ‘sparks’?—meant wireless operator in twentieth-century American dialect. “Pelagic young spark of the East—’ ”
“ ‘—shall plot to subvert the Blue Beast’,” the captain continued the quotation. “In other words, Schweinspitzen, the ex-telecaster of Java, shall plot to subvert Hitler XVI.” He smiled craftily to himself. “Well, Anton, we are all part of a design, aren’t we? We can’t very well refuse to fulfill the prophecy, can we?”
Lyman Harding wrung out his dripping garments. You didn’t need clothes anyway, here in the damp heat of the jungle. But they’d need these clothes later; they were of bullet-deflecting soteron, and stealing that textile from the closely guarded plastic factory had been the most perilous step in the plot—so far.
“The natives are with us,” Girdy reported to him. “They hate him and his rule over them. Call him the Blue Beast.”
“If only we had planes—” Harding sighed. “Think how directly we could act instead of this swimming in from a mile offshore and lurking in jungles and—”
“We’ll have planes soon enough,” Girdy said confidently.
“If it all comes off according to schedule. If our other men all over the world manage to dispose of his followers according to the rule of succession. Then there’ll be complete chaos in the Party, and those who still love freedom can strike.”
“But ours is the biggest job.” Girdy’s wide ugly face was alight with pride. “When we knock off the Hitler himself— Only have you figured yet how we can crash this inspection reception?”
“I’ve only got a rough plan—” Lyman Harding began.
Anton Metzger did not like the changes that were evident in Captain Schweinspitzen after that momentous discussion of the American prophecy.
The captain had previously seemed unusually intelligent and unusually human for the post which he held. Oh, he was given to ranting about his stifled abilities as a
