Read Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity for Free Online Page B
Authors: David Adams
did.
Wernher von Braun was on record as having opposed such measures. In any event, he had contributed directly and indirectly to any number of war engines and to a large amount of death, misery, and pain.
Ben had done much worse things to a much greater number of people, and his position was far less defensible. But could Ben, too, serve a post-war purpose? His intimate, first-hand knowledge of the special jump drive he had stolen, a device which bypassed the typical restrictions of jump technology and allowed him to travel anywhere outside of gravity wells, would be a powerful weapon if reproduced and used correctly.
Yet even von Braun, when arrested on suspicion of having a ‘defeatist attitude,’ had been personally protected from prosecution by Hitler himself as long as he remained indispensable.
The comparison between her and Hitler was unwelcome, to say the least.
In von Braun’s case, truly he was indispensable. His knowledge was unparalleled. Even long after the war ended, it was not enough to have von Braun be simply a consultant on the American rocketry programs—he needed to be deeply involved, building them, directly contributing.
How indispensable was Ben? Not that essential, certainly. He had useful skills and a massive debt to pay in blood—little more than that.
Perhaps she was John Rabe instead. Another card-carrying Nazi, Rabe had lived in Nanjing when the city fell to the Japanese. As someone who had grown up in the People’s Republic, Liao’s schooling had included an in-depth study of the horrors that had taken place during the Rape of Nanjing, of the barbarism of the Imperial Japanese soldiers, of the prime example of man’s inhumanity to man.
Rabe had opened his doors to the Chinese—a people very different from himself and whom he had no real vested interest in protecting—and saved countless lives from the Japanese, at significant risk and sacrifice to himself. He wrote imploring letters to Hitler and Imperial Japanese commanders, begging in vain to cease the brutality, for no other reason than it was not right and he could not stand to see the wholesale slaughter of innocent people occurring often literally right outside his front door.
People from Nanjing in particular, and from China in general, regarded him as a hero, someone who did the right thing, not for personal gain or philosophical commitment, but because it was simply the right thing to do—someone who sacrificed for the greater good of another people. Rabe was someone she had been brought up to admire, and she would prefer, very much, to be remembered like him.
Even so, Liao didn’t like being compared to a Nazi.
How often, it seemed, that the choices she had to make were less than ideal, and no matter what path she took, it was always fraught with peril.
Liao mused on that as another round of drugs passed through her system and sleep returned to her once more.
C HAPTER II
Scarecrow
*****
Medical Bay
TFR Rubens
Location Unknown
A FEW HOURS ’ NAP , OR so she had thought. When Liao woke, the lights of the ship were dimmed, and it was ‘night,’ Saeed’s subtle nudge that she should continue sleeping.
The presence of a figure had woken her up, not a nurse—a tall, European woman with blond hair and an unfamiliar uniform bearing a German flag on the shoulder. It seemed like a long time since Liao had seen someone with blond hair.
“Yes?” she asked, which came out more snappy than she had intended.
“Captain Liao, my name is Oberleutnant zur See Hanna Keller, Marinestützpunktkommando Kiel. I’m with the Marines on the Rubens . Saeed said I could speak with you if you were awake.”
“I wasn’t, but I’m awake now.” Liao pushed off the bottom of the tank, letting herself float back down to the ground. “What’s on your mind, Oberleutnant?”
“Ma’am, I wanted to talk to you about Ben and the Toralii prisoners we have in our care—over thirty from the Washington ’s engagements
Wernher von Braun was on record as having opposed such measures. In any event, he had contributed directly and indirectly to any number of war engines and to a large amount of death, misery, and pain.
Ben had done much worse things to a much greater number of people, and his position was far less defensible. But could Ben, too, serve a post-war purpose? His intimate, first-hand knowledge of the special jump drive he had stolen, a device which bypassed the typical restrictions of jump technology and allowed him to travel anywhere outside of gravity wells, would be a powerful weapon if reproduced and used correctly.
Yet even von Braun, when arrested on suspicion of having a ‘defeatist attitude,’ had been personally protected from prosecution by Hitler himself as long as he remained indispensable.
The comparison between her and Hitler was unwelcome, to say the least.
In von Braun’s case, truly he was indispensable. His knowledge was unparalleled. Even long after the war ended, it was not enough to have von Braun be simply a consultant on the American rocketry programs—he needed to be deeply involved, building them, directly contributing.
How indispensable was Ben? Not that essential, certainly. He had useful skills and a massive debt to pay in blood—little more than that.
Perhaps she was John Rabe instead. Another card-carrying Nazi, Rabe had lived in Nanjing when the city fell to the Japanese. As someone who had grown up in the People’s Republic, Liao’s schooling had included an in-depth study of the horrors that had taken place during the Rape of Nanjing, of the barbarism of the Imperial Japanese soldiers, of the prime example of man’s inhumanity to man.
Rabe had opened his doors to the Chinese—a people very different from himself and whom he had no real vested interest in protecting—and saved countless lives from the Japanese, at significant risk and sacrifice to himself. He wrote imploring letters to Hitler and Imperial Japanese commanders, begging in vain to cease the brutality, for no other reason than it was not right and he could not stand to see the wholesale slaughter of innocent people occurring often literally right outside his front door.
People from Nanjing in particular, and from China in general, regarded him as a hero, someone who did the right thing, not for personal gain or philosophical commitment, but because it was simply the right thing to do—someone who sacrificed for the greater good of another people. Rabe was someone she had been brought up to admire, and she would prefer, very much, to be remembered like him.
Even so, Liao didn’t like being compared to a Nazi.
How often, it seemed, that the choices she had to make were less than ideal, and no matter what path she took, it was always fraught with peril.
Liao mused on that as another round of drugs passed through her system and sleep returned to her once more.
C HAPTER II
Scarecrow
*****
Medical Bay
TFR Rubens
Location Unknown
A FEW HOURS ’ NAP , OR so she had thought. When Liao woke, the lights of the ship were dimmed, and it was ‘night,’ Saeed’s subtle nudge that she should continue sleeping.
The presence of a figure had woken her up, not a nurse—a tall, European woman with blond hair and an unfamiliar uniform bearing a German flag on the shoulder. It seemed like a long time since Liao had seen someone with blond hair.
“Yes?” she asked, which came out more snappy than she had intended.
“Captain Liao, my name is Oberleutnant zur See Hanna Keller, Marinestützpunktkommando Kiel. I’m with the Marines on the Rubens . Saeed said I could speak with you if you were awake.”
“I wasn’t, but I’m awake now.” Liao pushed off the bottom of the tank, letting herself float back down to the ground. “What’s on your mind, Oberleutnant?”
“Ma’am, I wanted to talk to you about Ben and the Toralii prisoners we have in our care—over thirty from the Washington ’s engagements