The Baltic War(37)

Finally done with his laughing, Gustav peered at Mike. "And you are willing to be the bait? Well, I can see that. She is a very beautiful woman. And not unfaithful, like that wretched Helen. What was Menelaus thinking, the idiot?"





Chapter 9





Magdeburg


Thorsten found the office easily enough. After he entered Government House, for the first time since he'd settled in Magdeburg, he discovered a big plaque posted right next to the entrance that listed every office in the building and specified which floor they were on and even gave the room they were using a number. Then, once he reached the third floor, there was another plaque facing the stairwell that listed the offices on that floor—with arrows pointing either to the left or right, along with the name and number of the office. Only a village idiot could not have managed to find their way.



He found it all rather amusing. The term Amerikanisch had many connotations in Amideutsch, most of them quite positive. But one of the prominent connotations was "fussy, obsessed with detail, precise to the point of absurdity." Those neat plaques and arrows were a perfect illustration of the trait. Everything must be in order!



What was amusing about it was that Gunther Achterhof had told Engler that in the universe the Americans came from, they perceived themselves as "rugged individualists"—whatever that might mean, exactly—and it was their accepted mythology that Germans were the world's natural bureaucrats.



Germans! Who squabbled about everything, including even the language they spoke, and were notorious throughout Europe for the production of religious sects, mass rebellions, mercenary soldiers—everything except order.



So, getting to the right office was easy. And, sure enough, there was another precise plaque on the door:



Room 322

United States of Europe

Department of Social Services



When it came time to enter, though, he found himself hesitating. Unlike Gunther, he'd had very little contact with up-timers—and that, only with male Americans. But this office was reputedly run by Americanesses, and the stories about them were enough to make any sane man pause.



Incredible women, by all accounts—although the stories Thorsten had heard rarely agreed with each other from that point forward. Some legends claimed they were the most lascivious creatures in the world, practically outright succubi. Others claimed they could find an issue concerning sex over which to take offense that no one else could possibly discern. The deadliest females in the world, and the most fragile females in the world. Sorceresses and fools at the same time, who could undertake chemic wonders but had no more sense than a chicken when it came to a multitude of practical matters.



Thorsten didn't know what to think—and was not at all sure he wanted to find out.



He paused with his hand on the door handle for a while. Finally, he decided to open it. They couldn't possibly be any more peculiar than his great-aunt Mathilde, after all. So, fortifying himself with the image of Mathilde's fierce eyes—badly crossed and nearsighted, but always fierce—and her constantly disheveled hair and the bizarre utterances that issued from a mouth whose teeth were about the worst anyone had ever seen, he entered the office.



And found himself staring at a young woman seated behind a desk, looking up at him with a smile.



About his age, he thought, somewhere in her mid-twenties. Hard to be sure, though. One of the things Americanesses had a reputation for—most accounts agreed on this—was that they seemed to have a peculiar resistance to aging. Some pointed to that as a sign of witchcraft, but most people ascribed it to their well-known chemic skills.



It was certainly impossible to imagine this woman as a witch, whatever her age. If someone had set Thorsten to the task of picturing a woman who was the exact opposite of his great-aunt Mathilde, he didn't think he could have come up with anything better.



To begin with, where Mathilde had always been very short and became shorter as she grew old—shorter and hunched—this woman was tall. That much was obvious, even seated as she was. Secondly, every hair was in place. True, the style of the hair was perhaps a bit strange, cut short the way it was, but not really all that much. More important, the hair was colored a rich brown, almost chestnut, and very healthy looking, where his great-aunt's hair had gone from an ugly black to a still uglier gray without ever once losing its most distinguishing characteristic, which was looking like a sheep that had gone unshorn since it was a lamb—but had had many an encounter with briars and thorns. Family legend had it that small animals and birds were occasionally spotted nesting in Great-Aunt Mathilde's hair. Even as boy, Thorsten had had his doubts, but . . . you never knew.