Lycanthropos (24 page)

"Yes, there must have been such a time," Kaldy laughed. "There must have been such..." He stopped laughing abruptly and his brow furrowed. "There must have...there must..." He fell into a pensive silence.

"What is wrong, Herr Kaldy?" Louisa asked.

After a few moments he shook his head. "Nothing...
something... I don't know, I don't know. For an instant there
was something...something...after you said...after you
said...there was something..."

"A memory?" Weyrauch asked. "Did you remember something, Herr Kaldy?"

"A memory..." he said quietly. "No, not a memory, not an incident, not an event...a feeling...a very old feeling..."

"What was the feeling," he asked, excitement
growing in him. "What was the feeling?"

Kaldy's eyes seemed to glaze over. "I feeling of hot
wind and sweat...a feeling of fear...of desire...a fear of death...a desire for life..." His lips moved with a slight tremble. When he spoke, his voice was a strained and muddled whisper, and each syllable of the strange words
which came haltingly from his mouth seemed attended by pain.
"
Haitaumash...
kakoshenkar
..." he whispered, grimacing and
beginning to tremble. "...
mashkamash
...
kakosheshkar
..."

"What, Kaldy?" Weyrauch asked, grabbing the pen and
paper from Louisa's hands. "What did you say?"

"Haitaumash...kakoshenkar..." he repeated in a strained,
breaking voice, "....kakosheshkar...mashkamash…"

"What does that mean, Kaldy?" Weyrauch asked as he did
his best to copy down the alien sounds which had come from
Kaldy's lips. "What are you saying?"

"I... I don't know..." Kaldy began to weep. "I don't know, I don't know!" He grabbed his head with his hands and
shook it roughly. "I don't know, I don't know. Please, leave
me in peace for a little time, please." Weyrauch looked over at his wife. She did not return his look. And then he summoned the guard and had Kaldy returned to his cell.

When they were alone, Louisa turned to her husband and
asked, "What was he saying, Gottfried?"

"Hmmm?" He was frowning intently at the sounds he had
transcribed.

"I asked you what he was saying," she repeated.

"I haven't the faintest idea," he replied distractedly.
"I didn't understand the language. I didn't even recognize the sound of the language, though some of the elements seem
similar to Attic Greek."

"That was Greek?" she asked. "It didn't sound like Greek, at least not like the Greek you studied in the
seminary."

"I didn't say it was Greek," he snapped, continuing to look at his own writing. Only when sunk in intellectual reverie would he have spoken to her in so brusque a tone, and she understood and did not get angry. "I said that some of the elements seem similar to Greek." He frowned and began
to mutter to himself. "
Haitaumash...heitaumai
,
possibly?
Mashkamash...maxei
? Could be...could be... It's
Indo-European, at least. I'd wager my life that it's Indo-European..."

"Gottfried," she asked impatiently, "will you please tell me what you're mumbling about!"

He shook his head. "Nothing worth sharing with you, my dear. I have to send this to a philologist. All I can say is
that these words seem similar to certain Greek words, but
that might be coincidental. It might mean nothing at all. It might just be gibberish." He returned his attention to the
four cryptic words, and she left him to his musings. With
Kaldy now back in his cell, she had no further reason to
stay, and she certainly had no particular desire to keep her
husband company.

This, Petra Loewenstein thought glumly as she tossed the pencil down upon the lab table, has not been a very satisfying day. First the battle with Colonel Schlacht just to get permission to absent herself from the Palace on the nights of the full moon, then the failure of the experiment with the test subject, and now these autopsy results. She allowed herself a wry smile. Dr. Weyrauch has been a busy fellow himself, performing an autopsy and then subjecting Kaldy to further hypnotic regression. I wonder if he's
learning anything useful? I wonder how far back he has taken
Kaldy in his buried memories?

Whatever he is finding out, she thought with a sigh, it
cannot be of less value to me than the results of the autopsy. The test subject...what was his name? Rubenstein? Rabinberg? Some Jewish name...had died of poisoning, pure and simple. Other conditions were present and may have contributed to the test subject's demise, malnutrition for example, but the basic factor here was the intrusion into
the subject's system of a toxic substance.

One of the S.S. soldiers assigned to the Palace had brought her a cup of ersatz coffee an hour before, and, not wishing to risk spilling it on the report, she pushed the
now cold drink away from her untouched. She frowned.
I
wonder if Weyrauch is competent to perform an autopsy?
she wondered.
He has a degree in medicine, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he is able accurately to determine the cause of death
. She considered this for a few moments and then rejected it.
No rare tropical disease killed the test subject
, she thought.
No criminal conspiracy exists to attempt to mislead the researcher. We injected the subject with an untested chemical enzyme and it killed him. Any medical school graduate could make an accurate determination
.

"But then how can we discover the nature of the process?" she wondered aloud. The skin cannot be pierced, no blood or tissue samples can be taken...how can we determine what causes the change? How can we control it?

How can such creatures be killed?

A soft knock on the door broke into her thoughts and she turned to the see Festhaller amble cheerfully into the room. The smile on his face had a confident and somehow malevolent quality which disturbed her, and she did not return his smile as she asked, "Yes, Herr Professor? What do you want?"

"Oh, I just thought that we might take a little time
away from our work to get to know each other better, Petra,"
he replied, grinning piggishly. "We seemed to be getting along so well when we met in
Auschwitz
, but we've both been so busy that we haven't had the chance to spend much time
together, alone, that is."

"Meaning no disrespect, Herr Professor," she said, meaning as much disrespect as possible, "but I find that I spend just about as much time in your company as I can stand.
"

His smile shifted to an angry glower and his face grew red. "We had something of an understanding, as I recall,
Petra
," he said, coming closer to her. "You may remember that Dr. Mengele had many chemists whom he could have transferred to this project. It was only my support for
your request which..."

"I was transferred here by Dr. Mengele, not by you," she
interrupted.

"I could easily have countermanded that transfer." As he came to stand beside her, she could smell him, could smell the unbathed body and the unwashed clothes. "And I think you will find yourself in dire need of an ally very soon."

She lifted her head haughtily as she replied, "I doubt very much that I shall ever find myself in need of anything from you. Were I a cannibal, I suppose that I might avail myself of your abundant fat,
but..."

He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, squeezing them tightly and shouting, "I do not appreciate being insulted,
Petra
, and I do not enjoy being used!"

He was pressing her back against the lab table, and she
reached behind her and grabbed a scalpel. She whipped it around and held it in front of his face as she spat, "Get your filthy hands off me, you stinking cow! And get out of here before I slice you up and feed you to
Kaldy."

He stepped back and released her. They stared at each other for a few moments and then he muttered darkly, "You'll
regret this,
Petra
, very much and very soon!" Then he stormed
out of the laboratory.

She tossed the scalpel back down onto the table
and, shaking her head and cursing Festhaller under her breath, returned to her musings. A half hour passed, and then the door of the laboratory swung open and Corporal Vogel entered. "Fräulein Loewenstein, Colonel Schlacht wishes to see you immediately."

Petra
disliked having her thoughts interrupted, and she
shot Schlacht's underling an irritated look. "Tell Colonel
Schlacht that I am in the middle of... "

"Fräulein, Colonel Schlacht is not making a request," Vogel snapped. "You will accompany me."

Petra
contemplated pointing out to Vogel that she was a civilian and thus not subject to anyone's orders, but then thought the better of it. As Schlacht had pointed out
earlier that day, there are no civilians in a nation at war;
and in any event, the S.S. were accustomed to being obeyed.
Petra
repressed her annoyance and followed Vogel out of the
laboratory.

She entered Schlacht's office to find the S.S. officer sitting behind his desk, his hands folded pensively in his lap. Something about the expression on Schlacht's face made
Petra
slightly apprehensive. Looking around the room she saw Festhaller sitting near the window, appraising her coldly. On the other side of the room Weyrauch and Louisa were standing in tense silence, he with his customary look of nervousness on his face, she with an expression of unusual sympathy and concern.
Petra
sat down in the chair in front of the desk and waited, dreading whatever the Colonel's
summons portended. Schlacht watched her enter, watched her take her seat, and then stared at her for a few long, tense
moments.

And then he asked, "Do you think that I am a fool, Fräulein Loewenstein?"

Petra
's heart sank.

Schlacht pounded his fist down upon a sheaf of papers
which rested on the surface of his desk. "Did you think that
your background would never come to my attention? Did you think I would never learn of the personal motives behind your interest in this project?"

"I...I don't... I really don't know
what...
what you're
referring to, Herr Colonel,"
Petra
mumbled.

"Oh, well, I really should not allow you to wallow in this
incomprehension," Schlacht spat. "Let me share this report with you. Professor Festhaller ordered a full check on you as soon as Mengele sent you here. Perhaps I should have asked to see this material earlier instead of waiting for
him to give it to me,
but..."
He waved away his own
self-criticism. "Imagine my surprise at learning that you
grew up in an orphanage."

"What of it?" she asked, attempting to sound unconcerned. "Many people lose their parents at an early
age. It isn't a crime."

"Of course not, Fräulein," he said. "But the report on your background contains a copy of the police report on the death of your parents." He glanced down at the pages in front of him. "Both parents, mother and father, torn to shreds and partially devoured by a
wolf
?"

Her face grew red. "Whatever personal tragedy I and my family may have suffered is certainly no business..."

"A
wolf
, Fräulein?" Schlacht interrupted. "A
wolf
? A wolf that, according to your childhood testimony, stood on
its
hind legs? A wolf that your parents' neighbors shot,
not once, but dozens of times without apparent effect?"

"Yes," she shouted, "that's right, that's right, a werewolf! Does it give you some perverse satisfaction to
hear me say it?"

"It would give me a perfectly logical sense of satisfaction. Fräulein Loewenstein," he said darkly, "if my underlings would not attempt to keep things from me!"

"My private motives are my own affair, Herr Colonel," she snapped back. "I am doing exactly what you want me to do, am I not? I am seeking to discover why this process occurs and how it can be controlled, and if I also wish to discover how these creatures can be killed, what of it? Do you intend to keep Kaldy alive forever? Is he not earmarked for the crematorium like all of the others?" She paused slightly as if awaiting the reply which did not need to be spoken, and then went on. "You know as well as I
that if he is locked in a gas chamber, it will not kill him,
and if he is thrown alive into the furnace, he will not
burn."

"That is not the point, Fräulein," Schlacht said.

"It is precisely the point," she contradicted him. "Does
it matter that your reasons for wanting to understand and then kill him are not the same as my reasons for wanting to
understand and then kill him?"