“Consider him gone, sir,” Alise said.
They moved on to look into the next lab, where a small, dark-eyed Slavic girl named Evelina stood over a gray, gunshot corpse, touching it and talking while a young typist took notes. The corpse had recently been a leader of the Communist party in Germany, which had been outlawed but continued underground. Evelina was meant to learn about any secret plots the Communists might be planning.
“This is an interesting case,” Ward said. “The Slav seems to have a genuine power, but of course she may not be acceptable for breeding. She doesn’t look Aryan at all. I don’t think the Fuehrer would accept her as an example of advanced human evolution.”
“Then what should we do with her?”
“Keep her, study her, use her. But we can’t introduce such racial inferiority into our supernormal program. It’s bad enough we have an Italian girl.”
At the next lab, they looked down on the American girl, Juliana, small and pale with long, dark hair. She was currently stripped to the waist, also hooked into loud, thunking monitoring devices, making sores and blisters appear and disappear on her skin while a biologist in gloves and a gas mask examined her.
“Her power is clearly real,” Ward said. “But her background...does she look Jewish to you?”
“Greek,” Alise said.
“I suppose if we’re taking Italians, we’ll take Greeks,” he said in a resigned voice. “We can always make reference to the empires of antiquity, if pressed by the Party leadership.”
“Clearly, the Hellenes and the Romans must have had much Aryan in them, to conquer so much and build such a culture,” Alise said.
“It seems obvious to me that she should be bred with the other American, the healer boy,” he said. “Anyone else who touches her will die, and we should assume the same about their genetic material.”
“Juliana is already pregnant,” Alise said.
“She is? Why was I not informed?”
“Because I told them I wanted to inform you myself.” She gave him a stunning, radiant smile. “I knew it would please you, and you know I like to please.”
“Is Sebastian the father?”
“I believe so, based on their intimacy when I met them,” Alise said. “Unless she is a slut, he must be the father. And, as you just said, who else could touch her?”
“We must find out for certain.”
“I will speak with her for you. She’s more likely to speak freely about such things to another woman.”
“And now we must discuss you,” he said.
“You want to talk about me, Gruppenführer Kranzler? Don’t you know that’s the direct path to any woman’s heart?” Alise giggled, touching his hand, setting off another fiery wave of desire inside him.
Ward understood that his name was now Kranzler, at least within this strange dream.
“We must breed you like the others,” he said. “We may have to cross you with Sebastian as well. We have a shortage of males in our stable.”
“Ugh, after he’s been with that diseased girl?” Alise asked. “I don’t want to catch an infection from her.”
“He is immune to her. He will not transfer any disease to you.”
“How can we be sure? I don’t want to be the test subject for that experiment, Herr Kranzler.”
“You and your cousin Niklaus are clearly the most Aryan of the supernormals we’ve identified, the most racially pure.”
“Thank you, Herr Kranzler.” She gave him an alluring smile.
“I proposed breeding the two of you together, but Dr. Wichtmann says there are too many risks, you’re too closely related.”
“What about you, Gruppenführer Kranzler?” Alise touched his hand again and leaned closer to him.
“You must be bred with a supernormal. That is our program.” The girl’s touch did stir certain hungry, aggressive feelings inside him, but he tried to resist them.
“And are you not a supernormal, Herr Kranzler?” She batted her eyelashes, playing at being extra-innocent. “I have seen you draw information from people many times. They don’t even have to say it aloud—you just touch them and know. I have seen you work your magic, Herr Kranzler. I am a careful observer.”
Kranzler looked around the crowded corridor to see whether anyone appeared to be listening to them, but everyone was busy, and the room was loud with clanging typewriters.
“We should not discuss this here,” he replied in a low voice.
“Perhaps in your office, sir?” Alise suggested.
He took her arm and marched her out of the observation deck, toward a suite of offices in the northeast quadrant of the underground complex. His office was the largest. He closed the door tightly behind them, while Alise crossed to his desk and leaned against it, in a manner clearly intended to make her breasts and hips prominent inside her tight black uniform.