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temperature and lighting
simply by calling out to the ship's main machine. “ Rechner,
Fenster.” The back wall dissolved into a window. Unlike the tactical view in Kontrolle , this looked like a clear window without the embedded
graphics. They were evidently passing Asia and heading out over the
Pacific.
    “Wow!”
McHenry exclaimed, startled. “Is that a real window?”
    “No,
there are no windows on this ship. The rechner is just giving us a
view from one of the outside sensors. This can also show maps and
pictures and even books. I am certain you will use it a lot.”
    McHenry
remained awestruck, and was pleased that he would be able to have
such a view in his room. The picture gave a perspective of depth
with perfect clarity. “I'll have to remember the word Fenster .”
    “Ah,
do not worry. The rechner understands English perfectly well. Tell
it what you want. It will ask for clarification if there is any
chance of confusion. I think you will find some advantage to living
in our time.”
    *
    A nearly empty officers' mess was just down the hall from
McHenry's quarters. He would come to find out this was the officers'
mess reserved for the pilots — those who pilot the ship, and
those who pilot the smaller spacecraft. The door opened
automatically.
    From
the doorway, McHenry could see the room was clean and efficiently
designed with three large portraits on the opposite wall. He
recognized Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring in two of the
pictures, with likenesses appearing more muscular than the original
twentieth-century men. The center portrait, slightly larger than the
others, was that of a blonde woman, short-haired, and wearing a brown
uniform. There could be no doubting who she was.
    This Führer had a beautiful face, with the distracting
exception of a piercing and determined stare. Had he not known
better, and had she not had that stern, resolute expression, McHenry
would have thought that the most powerful woman in the
thirtieth-century was also in her mid-twenties.
    Dr.
Evers paused at the door with McHenry. “May we enter?”
    “Yes, certainly,” answered one of the men inside.
There were only three men in the room,
although it could easily accommodate two dozen.
One of them was Vinson.
    “Let
me introduce two of our other pilots,” Vinson said as McHenry
and the doctor came in. “Here is Otto Barr and Lars Bamberg.”
Each stood as they shook McHenry's hand, and all of them towered
over him even though they were bending slightly.
    The
three Luftwaffe pilots shared the superhuman build and height now
standard in the thirtieth-century. They all seemed very much alike
but for the fact that Barr was a black man, evidently a naturally
jovial man, despite the fact that he sported a Hitler mustache.
McHenry was still getting used to the idea of seeing the mixture of
races in the Reich. He was intrigued that this society had evolved
to a point where their very equality had become unremarkable.
Indeed, the more obvious difference between the three was that Barr
and Bamberg had Iron Crosses under their collars, and Vinson did not.
    “Have
you eaten yet?” asked the doctor as they took their seats
around a circular table. A thankful McHenry took the chair facing
away from from the portraits. It raised itself for his shorter
stature automatically.
    “We
thought we would wait,” Bamberg said. “Adolf thought you
would be coming by. Are you ready for some of the best food you ever
tasted?”
    “What's
for dinner?” asked McHenry.
    “We
shall see.” said Vinson. He spoke a command to the rechner
again. The pad in the center of the table opened and five trays
appeared with piping hot food. “Pork with rice. What would
you like to drink?”
    “Have
you got a Coke?”
    “Coke?”
    “Cola,”
Barr said. “I
will have one too.”
    “Same,”
Bamberg said, and the doctor nodded, raising his thumb.
    “Rechner,
five colas,” Vinson ordered. Five drinks appeared.
    The
sodas were not quite cold enough