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  "We're simply spread too thin," he told the Archon. "We can't even scrape up enough troops for a breakout in the Iberian Peninsula. We certainly don't have spare resources for absurdities."

  "Absurdities such as Verwoerd's proposal?" The Archon smiled. "Or such as the Navy?" She leaned back in her chair and fumbled in her jacket for a smoke. "You've of course already explained all this to Admiral Verwoerd?"

  The Dominarch snorted. "Of course not. That's why we have lowly decurion clerks at Castle Carleton sitting at desks with rubber stamps." He slapped the back of his fingers on his folder. "To reject twaddle like this and not waste my time."

  The Archon lit a thin brown cigar and drew on it until it caught. "So actually this is the first time you've seen this."

  The army man flushed.

  She blew a smoke ring. "Admiral?"

  Verwoerd got up out of his chair and walked to the projectamap. He tapped his wooden pointer right on the Spanish beachheads.

  "The Dominarch is quite right. We are stretched too thin." Verwoerd spoke in a clipped Oxford accent. The accent was quite genuine, the legacy of schooling and a youth spent abroad back when the Domination was still but a Dominion of the British Empire.

  "That's precisely the reason for my proposal."

  Heusinger muttered about circular logic.

  Verwoerd ignored him and continued. "The Domination is trying to conquer the whole of Eurasia with an army of four million, roughly ten percent of our free population."

  He nodded in the direction of the Security Directorate liaison, Brekenridge. Erikssen had rated a stategos for a liaison; Heusinger a mere cohortarch. "And that's not counting who knows how many Draka Security personnel—the Order Police, Krypteria, Compound and Camp Guards needed to pacify the areas we already have overrun."

  "Or the Navy," added the Archon.

  "Or Navy," Verwoerd nodded. "Or Air Corps personnel." He lowered the pointer. "There simply aren't enough Draka to go around."

  " . . . Janissaries . . ." Heusinger muttered.

  Verwoerd shook his head. "Ask Brekenridge if he wants a larger serf army."

  It was Brekenridge's turn to snort.

  "I'll take that as a no. Also, we're running short of free Draka to run the homefront. Key industries are limping along—"

  "Like shipbuilding?" Heusinger asked, mocking the Navy's perennial complaint.

  "—And it's only going to get worse."

  No one in the room wanted to argue that. War production shortfalls were at near-critical level. And meanwhile the Americans were pouring out tanks and guns and planes in ever increasing numbers that the Draka could only dream of matching. They weren't at war with the Americans yet, but it was only a matter of time.

  "We're teetering on a knife edge. The slightest reversal in Europe, the tiniest setback and—" Verwoerd cracked the pointer on the table. "It could all come crashing down."

  The Archon frowned. "Don't tell me the problems, Admiral; tell me solutions."

  "The solution? Increase the free Draka population."

  He thumbed a rotary switch on the projectamap. The slide mechanism clacked and slid in a new map:

  Great Britain.

  * * *

  Brekenridge threw up his hands. "Sweet Land of Canaan, no! Not mo' Rationalist sennament for the Mother Country."

  Brekenridge's drawl was sloppier than even the Draka norm. Like most Security headhunters, he was a descendant of bitterenders, poor white trash Confederates who'd fled to Draka rather than submit to Yankee rule. They'd arrived too late to join the hereditary plantation families' land grab, lacked the skills needed for the emerging technocratic class, but were just what was needed to fill the swelling ranks of the Security Directorate. The overseer's whiphandle had nestled comfortably in their palm.

  "Don' know why y'all call yo'selves `Rationalist,' anyway. Anybody with half a lick of sense knows the limeys ain't never goin' a join us."

  "I'm not here to comment on political platforms. This is a military proposal," Verwoerd said stiffly.

  "Shore. Like everybody don' know the Navy ain't nothin' but an adjunct of the Rationalists—"

  "Would that be the same `everybody' who also knows Security is nothing but an adjunct of the Draka League party?" A slight Draka slur crept into Verwoerd's speech, overlaid with a touch of guttural Afrikaans. "Or is it the other way around? I forget."

  The Archon tapped her fingernails on the conference table. "Gentlemen. Could we get back to the discussion at hand?"

  Brekenridge lazed back in his chair and hooked his arm over the high back. "Oh, shore, shore. I got plenty of time to waste."

  "Actually," Verwoerd said, "Cohortarch Brekenridge's objection is very germane to the discussion."

  "I'll say it is," Brekenridge snorted. "We're some Frankenstein monster the limeys created for themselves. They hate us nearly as much as the Nazis."

  "So." Verwoerd faced the security man. "Britain would be as likely to cooperate with us as they would the Nazis?"

  Brekenridge, sensing a trap, kept silent.

  Verwoerd turned the thumbwheel again. This time it showed a portion of the Bay of Biscay and France's Cherbourg peninsula. He pointed to a cluster of dots off the Cherbourg tip.

  "These are the Channel Islands. The northernmost island is roughly sixty miles south of Britain, about eight miles west of France."

  He switched to a close-up of the islands.

  "Four main islands: Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark." He tapped his pointer as he named them. "A duke named William grabbed them in 933—sort of a dry rehearsal for a conqueror named William in 1066. Part of the British Empire ever since—even before Britain proper, as the Islanders are fond of saying."

  The next slide showed Wehrmacht troops marching down a city street, past a Lloyds Bank office. "Since the Fall of France, four years ago, the Channel Islands have been occupied by German troops—excuse me—Pan-European troops."

  Brekenridge feigned a yawn. "Y'all missed yo' callin'—you shoulda been a h'stry profess'r."

  "The sizable German garrison," Verwoerd continued, "is, in a word, starving. In fact, everyone on the islands is starving. Between the RAF, German U-Boats, and our own Air Corps, no supply ships have been able to reach them for months. A Red Cross ship, Swedish, in fact, did try last month. Ended up sunk by one of our planes."

  Draka pilots joked that a Red Cross was really a red crosshair.

  The Archon tapped ashes from her cigar. "If the garrison's so weak, why haven't the British tried taking it back?"

  "Civilian casualties. One thing to bomb French ports and kill a few thousand Frogs. Quite another to kill your own people. Also, Hitler was fixated on defending the islands. Starving or not, Fritz has spent years fortifying them. Rather surprised the islands haven't sunk from all the concrete."

  Verwoerd flipped to a map detailing the island defenses. He pointed out the extensive fortifications, shore batteries, minefields, and trenches.

  Heusinger whistled. Maybe he had learned something from Spain after all. "Where did you get this information?"

  "From the same person who can hand over the islands to us without a shot." The projector clacked again. "Admiral Canaris."

  Brekenridge was on his feet, sputtering. Verwoerd smiled. "Yes, rather a shock, isn't it? It was to Naval Intelligence, too. That charred corpse in the recent newsreel must have been somebody else. Turns out Canaris has been a guest in one of Skull House's countryside inns."

  The corner of the Archon's mouth turned up. "Most likely a simple clerical error on Security's part, wouldn't you say, Cohortarch?" Brekenridge glared at Verwoerd.

  "It might be convenient to have Canaris placed in Naval Intelligence's care," Verwoerd said. "I'd hate to have him wind up dead again before he completes his bargain with the Navy."

  The other corner of the Archon's mouth turned up. "I'm sure he'll be happy in his new lodgings. Continue."

  A slide of a German officer asking a British bobby street directions. "T
he Germans have conducted a `model occupation,' a real kid-glove approach. Particulars are in your briefing documents, but simplistically stated, of all the Nazi conquests, the Channel Islands unique in never having had a Resistance movement. In fact, when the British attempted covert operations on the islands, the locals actively assisted the Germans in countering them. And this despite Cohortarch Brekenridge's assertion that Britons would never cooperate with Nazis."

  Verwoerd brought up the lights.

  "If they'll cooperate with Fritz, they might cooperate with us. We might just be able to find a way to bring the British in on our side."

  He shrugged. "A long shot, I know, but it would cost us very little even if we fail. If we succeed . . ."

  He let the myriad possibilities hang in the air.

  "That small cost you mentioned?" the Archon asked.

  "Initial resources would require a bribe for a French politician and a cargo ship full of food. If you will turn to the second tabbed section in your briefing . . ."

  * * *

  The Archon had insisted on taking Verwoerd back to his office at the Admiralty Building in her private autosteamer.

  Light rain clattered on the roof and streaked the windows, adding to a sense of gloom the Archon carried along with her.

  She took a long pull on her cigar and slowly exhaled. "Army and Security might squawk a while longer," she said, "but I'm approving your project.

  "Not," she held up a hand, "because I think it has any hope in succeeding." She shook her head. "Huesinger's idiocy in Spain has gone on far too long. We'll have to take Gibraltar; when we do, we'll need some leverage on the limeys. Something a little less coarse, I think, than the threat of atomics."

  "I . . . see."

  "I'm sure you do. I really should have you running Skull House instead of this harebrained project. Or perhaps not. You're too clever by half; you know that don't you?"

  She sighed. "Keeping those islands of yours, that's a given, no matter what. Too much mischief can be made that close to the French coast." She drew a last puff on the cigar. "The inhabitants will serve nicely as hostages, though. Might as well keep them happy with your silly project until we're ready to use them for Gibraltar."

  "I don't want Security forces anywhere in my jurisdiction. They can have Alderney island and play prison guard with any Germans we capture, but all locals are to be sent to me first."

  "Security will have spies among your people, you know that."

  "Fine. They can spy all they want. Just as long as they stay away, otherwise."

  The Archon stubbed out the cigar and turned to face him. "Tell me, Admiral. Why do you Rationalists care so much what the rest of the world thinks of us? Why are you so desperate the Draka be liked?"

  "The Superman shouldn't care what the ondergeskik thinks of him, you mean? `I teach you the Superman.' " He shook his head and fell silent for several moments.

  "Maybe," he said at last, "in terms of education, physical training, wealth, eugenics, perhaps soon even genetics—maybe by some standards we Draka have become Nietzsche's superman. We certainly like to flatter ourselves into thinking we have."

  He shook his head. "But one would think that a superman shouldn't have to fear. And we do. We fear everybody else on the planet."

  "With good reason," the Archon said. "Everybody else on the plant fears us. Hates us, too. It's destroy them first before they can destroy us. The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog only one—one big thing. Our fear—and the ferocity it feeds—is that one great thing we've learnt well. If we try to become a fox at this stage . . ."

  The autosteamer hissed to a stop as it passed through the Admiralty compound gates. The Archon grumped. "If you want to be liked, Admiral, I suggest you get a dog."

  Verwoerd gave a thin smile as he reached for the door handle. "I prefer cats myself. A dog will lick anyone's boot. When a cat shows affection, it means something somehow."

  The Archon sniffed. "Cats are far too independent for me. Think themselves their own masters. They claim cats are domesticated, but most days I have my doubts."

  Verwoerd opened the door and began to get out. The Archon laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  "Admiral, remember: it's taken millions of years to domesticate cats," she said. "You've considerably less time."

  * * *

  Soon after that Draka armed forces fought their way into Flanders. Soon they would be rolling across France.

  Time.

  Verwoerd pulled out a thick stack of binders from his safe. The folders were delivered to Signal Ops. Encoded messages began to flash across the Domination. "Initiate Operation Hedgehog."

  Verwoerd then went to dinner. He ate as usual at a restaurant frequented by Naval officers and Rationalist party officials. Verwoerd finished his meal and left. Tucked inside the used linen napkin he'd tossed on the table lay a handwritten note in no code the Navy used:

  "Initiate Operation Fox."

  * * *

  Early August 1944

  St. Peter Port, Guernsey Island

  Channel Islands

  The British airship R 100 settled over the airfield. A hundred Draka sailors manned the drag ropes, pulling the lumbering beast to the docking tower.

  The old ship was barely airworthy. Her canvas cover sagged and drooped. Her covering rippled from stem to stern with the slightest forward motion Her aluminum-colored reflective paint had all but flaked away.

  She was old and she'd been mothballed for twenty years, but she was all Britain had for the job. She could fly over the still lurking U-boats, and she could carry fifty-one tons of cargo: badly needed foodstuffs, medicine, clothing, blankets, shoes, and children's teddies.

  Fifty-one tons of cargo, including the official British observer the Draka themselves had requested.

  The R 100 finally settled into place. The gondola hatch opened up, and the airship's captain and its single passenger stepped out onto the tarmac.

  Verwoerd, resplendent in his dress uniform, waited to greet them. Behind him, lined up along the airfield, were captured German flak wagons, their deadly barrels aimed at the giant hydrogen-filled airship—a gentle Draka reminder that they, not the British, were in charge of these islands now.

  The airship captain, Nevil Norway, saluted Verwoerd. Norway, like his ship, had been taken out of mothballs. Most of the British airmen who had worked on the British dirigibles in the 1930s were long since killed in the war.

  Beside him stood a young woman in her early twenties. She wore a Royal Air Force uniform. The ribbons on her jacket marked her a combat pilot—Britain was running desperately short of soldiers, too.

  "Good afternoon, Admiral." Norway said, frowning at each word. "May I present Flight Lieutenant Sally Perkins. She's to be our official observer, as per your request."

  "Flight Lieutenant," Verwoerd saluted.

  "Admiral."

  "I understand you were born and raised here in St. Peter Port."

  "Of course you do. Isn't that why you requested me?" Contempt dripped from her voice.

  Verwoerd sighed and turned to an aide. "Would you please escort Flight Lieutenant Perkins to my staff car?"

  "Shoving me out of earshot already, Admiral? Is this how I'm going to spend my time as an observer?"

  "Goodbye, Lieutenant," he said.

  He turned back to Norway. "Captain, if you would be so good as to remove your crew from the ship while we unload the cargo?"

  Norway bit his lower lip, then turned and called out to his executive officer. Soon the British crewmembers marched off the ship to a designated spot several hundred feet away. Draka sailors began swarming aboard.

  "You seem unhappy, Captain," Verwoerd said.

  "She was a good ship," he said stiffly.

  Verwoerd started, wondering as anyone familiar with Draka airships would how anybody could possibly think that British monstrosity a "good ship."

  Then it dawned on him. "Oh," he said with a chuckle. "You think we're going to keep that
bucket of bolts. Captain Norway, the Draka are not in the habit of keeping what isn't theirs."

  Norway turned on him. "Really? I remember hearing about a little tea party called the Versailles conference. I remember a spot of land on the map called Turkey."

  "So do I," Verwoerd replied. "I remember both of them quite well. I was there." Above his chest hung among all the Draka ribbons was a series of British Navy ribbons dating from the Great War, including one for Gallipoli. "Mesopotamia was bought with Dominion blood. It was only right we keep it."

  "Just as it's only right you keep this?" Norway swept his hands to include the whole of the island he stood on. "You spilled no blood here. It isn't yours to keep; it's ours. It's British."

  "The plebiscite—"

  "Null and void!" Norway shouted. "A fraud and you know it! How do you think starving people are going to vote with a freighter full of food in the harbor, the Frenchie who proposed the vote standing on the dock?"

  "Nevertheless," Verwoerd shrugged, "the plebiscite took place. If the Channel Islands' inhabitants vote to sever ties with Britain, our ally, and vote to be annexed into the Pan-European Union, our enemy—what are we supposed to do?"

  Norway fumed. "Trumped up legal technicalities—"

  "Trumped up they may be, technicalities they may be, but legal they are: your government has agreed to honor them until final ownership of these islands has been adjudicated by an international tribune."

  Norway muttered something about atomics and blackmail.

  Verwoerd shrugged. "You and I—we're only simple soldiers. We just follow the orders we've been given."

  They watched in silence as Verwoerd's men unloaded the cargo into waiting lorries.

  "Captain," Verwoerd said quietly, almost in a whisper. "I give you my word that the Islanders will be humanely treated."

  "As if the word of a Draka slaver meant anything!"

  Verwoerd pointed to the Victoria Cross pinned above his battle ribbons.

  "I served in the Royal Navy during the Kaiser's War back when we Draka were British subjects. The Islanders are our kin. How could we not treat them humanely?"