2023 Astounding - Xin Weimu part 2
Sep. 20th, 2023 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraGoogle translation of the second Xin Weimu story from the packet, 明天就出发. About 9700 words.
Content notes: this is a Holocaust story and involves Nazis. Also I'm not sure if it's the POV or Google Translate being unfortunate but there was a word choice in the translation that I found antisemitic and really took me aback.
Set off tomorrow
Xin Weimu (published in "Nebula XI: Seeing Words as Faces" Sichuan Science and Technology Press, August 2021)
"Define" magazine No. 3, Issue 2315
"Witness Game" column: Let's start tomorrow Author: Qin Yi, chief reporter
1
The girl in red stopped and opened her mouth wide at the approaching giant. The giant's stature is less than 1.8 meters, but he is two people wide in the Apollo space suit. The face hidden behind the reflection of the golden coating may belong to an Air Force colonel in his prime, a female explorer sneaking into history in disguise, or it may just be a ball of air trapped in an autonomous drone uniform.
In the busy waiting hall, he was not the most conspicuous person - a group of middle school students who had just returned from the Battle of the Somme tour passed by dejectedly, leaving behind them burnt and bloody footprints; an associate professor's body Sitting in front of the window wearing an Arab robe, flipping through the parchment notes on his lap, he was afraid that the beard under his cheekbones was not glued properly, so he couldn't help but reach out and press it every four or five minutes; a dozen tourists dressed as nobles of the Tang Dynasty were lined up. In front of the counter, the tour guide holding a small flag was gathered in the center, excitedly discussing the next ten days' itinerary; two time agents wearing silver star badges stepped on the steps of soldiers and walked toward the end marked "Earth: The Great Migration Era" "At the special boarding gate, the railings that read "Controlled Area" popped up and returned to their original state behind them.
But the girl's sight was completely occupied by the astronaut at the beginning of the space age. She pulled her mother and ran towards him, as if she had stepped into Barnum's Circus or Ripley's Museum. The mother smiled indulgently and explained to the astronaut that this was her daughter's first trip. The astronaut bent his knees slightly, stretched out his bulky glove, and wrapped the girl's little hand inside. With just a brief touch, he straightened up again and continued on his way. The girl still stood there and looked back at him, her eyes bright, she caught a glimpse of time.
"I like this moment the most, it feels like magic," Greta Günter turned off the laser stove and handed the ancient Margherita pizza to me, her eyes following the little red figure in the crowd. I asked her if it was because that movie had An old movie about the girl in red. She shook her head in confusion and asked me which one it was. I didn't tell her that if she had never heard of it, even if she knew the name, she wouldn't understand its significance. That's probably a good thing for her.
If you read my reports regularly, you've probably been to the Kronos Time Airport at least once, or you've been to the Chronos Time Airport multiple times in your dreams. You've probably seen Greta, waiting at the starting point of each ray of light in that expanding sun-shaped airport. You won't notice her at first. Her blue and white uniform blends into the restaurant's sign and tablecloth. The curves under the skirt are not too bulky, but they still show the outline of her muscles. Her blond curly hair reaches her ears, setting off her blue eyes and soft cheeks. The girl's lightness has faded, but the fatigue of the years has not yet hit her. She stands, she walks, she lowers her head sideways, and every movement is straight and precise, indistinguishable from the service robots that can be seen everywhere in the airport. Then you glance at the automatic translation prompt in the upper right corner of your eye: "20th Century German" and immediately realize that she is not a local. No wonder, you may be thinking, except for people from other countries who have not yet established themselves, who else would work with machines and do such dispensable labor? You won’t say anything more. You are taught from an early age not to question them, just like you are not to litter. "As long as they have passed the customs, they are legally staying. There is nothing to ask. We can't make them feel discriminated against." Social studies teachers said this. "Besides, if everyone asks them where they are from, they will repeat the same thing all day long. If you don't, it's too tiring." When you grow up, you know about the smuggling business, refugee visas and deportation movements, but you have become accustomed to turning a blind eye to those old language labels. In most cases, you listen to the other party's voice with a slightly stiff and artificial voice. Intelligent filtering into Esperanto is enough.
Of course, my job at Freeze magazine often forces me to ask some nagging questions that, if done tactfully, do not cause a queasy conscience. Every time I take a nap at the "Airport Express" restaurant before a business trip, my eyes always fall on this waitress involuntarily. German in the 20th century, the possibilities here are so interesting.
"I'm going to Berlin in 1989 later. Do you think it's better to see it from the east or the west?" I asked Greta once while ordering, and she shook her head: "I'm not sure." When I came back, I wore a newly bought "I am a Berliner" T-shirt and went to the restaurant next door to exchange for extra marks. When I passed her, no special recognition flashed in her eyes. Later, one time, I brought an annotated version of "Mein Kampf" with me and put the book upright on the table with the cover facing out. Greta didn't say a word except for ordering, with a stylized smile on her face. However, several passengers passing by saw the right-hand swastika on the black cover and couldn't help but look at me twice, and some pointed. , frowning and discussing something.
"Sending students to the Somme every day, does that really not arouse suspicion?" Once I set out with my colleagues, I deliberately raised the topic loudly when Greta approached, but she did not stop to look at us. A few minutes later I tried again:
"By the way, are you really going to have a bachelor party in the Weimar Republic? They are warned of the risks there every year. It's no joke." She remained unmoved.
Finally I gave up. Almost every week, I sit down on the one-legged chair at the end of the bar, order one of the day’s specials (clone chicken sandwich, zero-gravity vegetable salad, algae ramen...), spread out my notebook and fill in a few Interview questions, or scribble a few snippets that could be used in the story. Greta comes and goes, just like the gender-ambiguous synthesized announcements on the airport radio, the smooth rolling of the shuttle's tracks, and the cheerful yet distant answering voice of the robot.
Until the last night before New Year's Eve. The hustle and bustle in the terminal building became quiet. Two or three passengers were waiting in front of the only open boarding gate, sitting and lying down. Except for the flight attendant team that had just entered, there were no new sounds or movements. The "Airport Express" was about to close. I closed my book and stood up, but I bumped into Greta who was wiping the bar with a rag. I nodded to her and was about to move forward when I was stopped: "Excuse me...are you Mr. Qin Yi?"
I was stunned for a moment, the mist in her eyes dissipated, her eyebrows raised, and she spoke faster: "Really, I guessed it right! I saw the words in your notebook, so I searched online, and the result I found your column," she paused, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to peek. It's just that time travel is so expensive, but you come here almost every week, holding an old notebook by yourself, with some words in it that are not Esperanto. Symbol. Frankly speaking, at first I thought you were a time agent, what kind of mission were you on..."
No one would casually suspect that someone else is a time agent, unless he wants to hide something. This is something I learned from the only few interactions with the Time and Space Administration. I looked at the two square symbols on the notebook that she regarded as code words. The automatic translation did not immediately jump out of their meanings. It only spelled out the pronunciation in Esperanto, and added a note next to it: "Chinese, 3rd century BC to present".
So, she must have read my "Travel in China". When I first went to the Western Han Dynasty to find my roots, I got the Chinese way of writing my name based on the pronunciation, so I became interested in the civilization of my ancestors. She may have also read the interviews I gave when I won awards or promoted new books. People always ask about this peculiar signature. I said it has become a habit, like a totem engraved in my blood, reminding me that I am not rootless and alone. one person.
No matter what, I have to take advantage of the second before I open my notebook to write down the shape of the name, draw it, and enter it into the terminal search. This kind of mobility is not inferior to that of my top journalist colleagues. "You are very perceptive...Ms. Greta Günter," I spelled out her name tag.
"Just call me Greta," her freckled cheeks turned slightly red, "I read your article, it's so interesting. Those interstellar repairmen, they often come here to order meal boxes, but they come and go in such a hurry that we can't talk. , but you Being able to jump around in a spaceship with them. I often met travelers who were going to Cambridge University in June 2009. After reading your report, I found out that they went there after seeing a party invitation given by British scientists to time travelers, but they could not reveal their existence. There was a party nearby. There is also the film crew who went to film "Warring States" in Chinese history. They had to conceal their identities and equipment, blend in with the locals, and at the same time produce such a big production. The process felt more exciting than the film itself!"
Breaking the barrier of the screen and facing the readers directly, I was a little at a loss: "Thank you very much... But it was also an extraordinary journey for you to come here from the German-speaking area in the 20th century, right?"
She lowered her eyes and didn't answer immediately. The airport announcement rang at the right time: "Passengers taking Mercury Shuttle Company flight 3820, please note that your spacecraft is starting to board at Gate 21..."
"Is that you?" She raised her head, as if she had forgotten my question.
"Yeah." There is no doubt that a good story is under the brim of her hat, but it cannot be revealed in a few words. Under her gaze, I stuffed the notebook into my bag, carried it on one shoulder, and straightened my collar. Let’s talk about it next time, I waved to her, “See you later.”
"Can I ask you another question?" As soon as I stepped out of the restaurant, I heard the voice behind me again. "What?"
"Won't you spend New Year's Eve with your family? Where are you going this time?" Good question, I can't help but ask myself this sometimes. But its answer, the real answer, must be reserved for the key time, in exchange for something more valuable: "When you tell me the story of the German-speaking area, I will tell you."
2
Greta Günter quickly found out about my New Year’s Eve plans. The next day's issue of "Ding Frame" magazine published a New Year's plan that three of my colleagues and I (two single and one who desperately wanted to take a breather from the housework) jointly completed: Choose a place that you are interested in but have never been to. Times, use a thousand words to sketch the New Year scene there. In fact, we don’t need to specially set out on New Year’s Eve, but the editor-in-chief who booked the Internet holiday family gift package early said with a smile that it is more ritualistic to stick to the right time.
In my report, Greta will read about the heat wave and carnival in New York’s Times Square on Millennium Night, and the leisurely time traveler hiding among millions of people. But she won’t read that at the stroke of zero o’clock, men, women, old and young Between hugs and kisses, while I was writing notes with my head down, I thought of the girl closing the stall alone at the Kronos Airport restaurant at midnight.
As soon as I got back, I went to the immigration office to check Greta's entry record - this is the first stop for any outsider's investigation. In an ideal world, it would contain everything from their decision to their current life. But Greta's file only has one thin page: "Date and place of birth: October 30, 1920, Furstenberg, Germany; Departure node: April 1945, Berlin, Germany; Port of arrival: Kronos Space-Time Airport ; Reason for entry: War asylum; Guarantor: Hans Koch." There is another sentence below: "Greta Günter is employed by the Kronos Time and Space Airport Company, and her personal files are kept by the company." Used in Chinese No meaningful results were found for the name of John S. Koch. No wonder, it sounded like a perfunctory pseudonym like John Smith or John Smith.
A spokesman for Kronos Airport whispered: "As a private company, we generally do not approve such requests unless we are cooperating with law enforcement. You can try submitting a formal interview request and we will evaluate whether we can provide you with what you need. employee information.” Applying to investigate the origins of a specific employee seemed too deliberate, and besides, I had a more direct way to satisfy my curiosity. Through the heat of the double espresso, I looked at Greta. She was hurriedly running towards the entrance of the restaurant to resolve the dispute caused by the service robot: "Five people are five people. The robot is brainless and won't stop when it sees only four empty seats." Let people in," she said apologetically to a family dressed as Maoris on vacation in Oceania. "It's okay. I'll give you an extra seat. Don't delay your trip." She led a group of five people in and passed by my table. Shi rolled his eyes helplessly to show our mutual friendship that we were no longer anonymous.
Before three business trips after the New Year, I confirmed the known information to her, of course without revealing that I had been to the immigration office: Greta was born in 1920 in a small town on the Havel River, listening to the church bells He grew up running among the shadows of lakes and forests with the sound of sound. Her childhood was dominated by her father's unemployment, empty dining tables and the sputum of tuberculosis, but she survived ("Maybe it was the power of the forest," she said piously, as if speaking of faith) and finished high school.
Family constraints and a certain innate restlessness led her to reject a life centered around "children, the kitchen, and the church." After working as a maid for a wealthy family in Fürstenberg for half a year, she went to Berlin alone, where she worked as a shop assistant, kitchen maid, and restaurant waiter. She never stayed in one place for too long, nor did she enter into any relationship beyond basic social etiquette. Until I met the history scholar named Hans Koch in a cafe. She didn’t go into too many details. Anyway, maybe a week or two later, maybe three or five years later, Hans told her the truth: he came from the future hundreds of years later. The earth (or the human world on earth) was destroyed and no longer suitable for survival. People who migrated in time built a new earth, and Germany will lose the war at hand.
Hans rescued Greta from the Allied air raid on Berlin, settled her in Kronos Airport City, and rushed to witness the last moments of the Third Reich. He will come back to marry her, and when the inspection is over, he will take her out of the port, get her identity settled, and live a stable life. He vowed to each other, but never showed up again. According to the time of the New Earth, it has been five years.
"I probably can't help with this. I can't go to Nazi Germany. Looking at my appearance, you don't know where I will be taken." I faced her gaze bravely. I went to Nazi Germany to do historical research. Because of my skin color, I missed this precious opportunity. But I have done many similar topics - appearing at the most dramatic moments with foresight. This is the privilege that time travel bestows on lucky people like us. There is nothing unusual about rescuing a little person from a disaster and bringing him back to our world, as long as history is not changed and the guarantee fee is paid. But the satisfaction of compassion may not last long. Boredom, busyness, or even lies carefully concocted at the beginning of the trip may be used to explain the mysterious disappearance of some people. Apart from this, it is no surprise that the dangerous years before Germany's defeat are over.
"It's okay," Greta comforted me. "It's been five years, and I know that even if he is still alive, he will not come to me. He can take me out of that hell and live here peacefully." , I am already very grateful...good things will happen, I have this confidence, five seems to be my lucky number."
Greta almost never mentioned the Nazis, and the air raid in Berlin was not much different from London. Just two years ago, a British writer who escaped from World War II published a memoir, which stayed on the global bestseller list for 40 weeks. His first-person narration, coupled with real-life projections created by time and space artists who collected historical materials, make the black smoke on the street rubble, the dining table abandoned half-way through the meal, and the air-raid shelter where human bodies and rats huddle together are deeply rooted in people's hearts. I asked Greta if she had read that book. She shook her head, wrote down the title, and said she didn’t want to dwell on the war.
When I pressed her, she admitted that her parents had voted for Hitler because "everyone did it, and he was the only one who could give her father his job." She also participated in the German Girls' League, and like any girl of that era, she wore double braids, awkward blouses and long skirts, walked in unison, and did housework. She and her friends often secretly laughed at the artificial intonations of others when they raised their right hands in salute, but when the instructor stood in front of her, she still had to lower her voice and pronounce the syllables that later generations regarded as a fatal curse: "Long live victory!"
"Yes, we learned about this book in school. I was shocked when you took it out last time. I didn't expect it could be published here and read so casually in public." She flipped through the pages for me. Mein Kampf, above the Esperanto returned to Old German through the lamellae in front of her corneas. Next to the author's original rough and aggressive sentences, there is a historical note that is twice as long as the original text. "You guys studied it very carefully. When we were studying, the teacher often used this book to test us. He said that the leaders of the empire often come to our town and may come to inspect at any time."
"Leader of the Empire?" My heart contracted violently. Her speech was so smooth that the ominous epithet came out as casually as a conversation about the weather.
She immediately changed her words and said: "Oh, I mean Heinrich Himmler. Sorry, they keep saying that, I'm used to it." She then introduced me to how to recover from tuberculosis, and soon went to greet the new patient. Here comes the guest. But the word "Leader of the Reich" stuck in my mind and couldn't get rid of it. She called Hitler by his first name. Why did she use the honorific title for the leader of the SS and the executor of ethnic cleansing? Along with this, every time she chatted 's opening remarks: "You really won't write this into the report, will you? There are regulations at the airport, and we cannot accept interviews casually."
Of course, I promised her. I would not write about a place I could not go to, and I would not submit this German refugee whom I met by chance as a topic to the editor. But a certain sense of awkwardness still prompted me to take the time to visit Professor Mina Dmitrieva, an expert in the Modern History Department of the School of History at Pan-Asian University who is famous for her research on World War II in Europe.
"Hans Koch? Of course I am familiar with this name." The legendary man who once sneaked into the Auschwitz concentration camp for his doctoral thesis and ushered in liberation as a prisoner did not have much fluctuation in his voice, but his eyes shone with interest. Ray of Light, "Do you remember the Fire Thief organization that was wiped out three years ago?" How could you not know? The number one public enemy who claims to reverse the "Great Migration" and is tracked by the Space and Time Administration has laid a dragnet. It is said that to this day, the "fire" it is trying to steal is still simmering under our surface. So when it was destroyed, the media just sent text messages. The causes and consequences of the pursuit were hidden in the secret files of the Space-Time Administration due to the travel ban during the Great Migration Era.
"The Fire Thief's tentacles have spread throughout all eras. The Space and Time Administration has found many scholars for consultation, and I am one of them. Hans Koch is the pseudonym of Orfeo Zeit, the backbone of the Fire Thief. He went to Nazi Germany served as Himmler's adjutant."
Wait, don’t the Fire Thieves want to reverse the “Great Migration” and leave humans on Earth? What’s their relationship with the Nazis?
"No, it's more complicated than that." Mina leaned on the office chair, not covering up the green and black numbers branded on her arm. "You can't change history, otherwise it will cause endless paradoxes and chaos. This is what allows us to The most important principle to continue the current life. However, the fire thieves always remember the 'Great Migration' more than two hundred years ago, believing that most human beings were To escape the environmental crisis and leave the planet is to murder the few who cannot leave. This is not a very novel point of view, and the ethical issues of the Great Migration are enough to keep the academic community quarreling for another century or two. The problem is that the fire thieves wanted to completely prevent our ancestors from making the decision to make the Great Migration. Even the fire thief himself didn't know what would happen if he changed such a fundamental event, so he sent people to sneak into various key time points in history and make some small changes as an experiment first, such as helping the Nazis win World War II. It's ridiculous, using one massacre to prevent another massacre, but the outcome is likely to be the destruction of all of us. "
"Koch's mission clearly failed."
"Yes, but he tried hard. Where do you think the legendary 'Nazi Bell' project came from? In the name of 'magic', Koch instilled many technologies into Himmler that should not belong to Germany in World War II: large-scale Destructive weapons, intelligent control, and even time travel itself. Fortunately, the agents who tracked him to Berlin assassinated him before the end of the war. However, we probably didn't find out who he had brought to the New Earth for refuge... "Mina paused, suddenly straightened her back, and her eyes sharpened, "Where did that lady say she came from?"
"A small town called Fürstenberg, very close to Berlin. Later she went to Berlin to work... I checked that place, and it seemed nothing special."
"Forstenberg?" Upon hearing the name of this place, the color on Mina's face faded completely within two or three seconds, and her body that had been emaciated due to malnutrition shuddered. "Did she tell you about Forstenberg?" have what?"
I unconsciously speeded up my speech: "She said there is a forest and a church. Her father was unemployed in a factory, so there should be a factory there."
"Did she ever mention a place called Ravensbrück?"
"Raven, what?" Mina sighed: "You men, you always think that history is about you. Hundreds of years have passed since we all left. We opened the earth and invented time and space travel, but you are still like this. When I was just starting my Ph.D., I went to Fürstenberg to do field work and served as an apprentice in a women’s barber shop. I became familiar with the local environment and prepared for Auschwitz. There was a Ravensbrück concentration camp where women were mainly imprisoned, and female guards often came to our place to get their hair done. I heard them talking about the church steeple of Fürstenberg that can be seen from the concentration camp, and the surrounding forest, where prisoners would be sent to cut down trees... The lady must have a deep feeling for the forest, but that What kind of feeling is it?"
Before I could answer, Mina stood up, wandered in front of the bookshelf for a moment, then squatted down, took out an old book from the bottom and handed it over. I couldn't help but sneeze. "Look, I got this when I went back to Germany. A Raven Memoirs of a Sprück survivor. We scholars always fixate on Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka, but there is much more to remember than just that. "
I rubbed the yellowed paper, and the dust from the homeland of the earth was all over my hands. Through automatic translation, the pronunciation of "De Gaulle" on the cover reminded me of the great figures of that era in the textbook, but the "Geneviève" in the front was very unfamiliar. Why did Greta lie and say that Hans Koch was just a historian from the future, and why did she conceal the existence of the entire Ravensbrück concentration camp? I vaguely guessed Mina's answer without asking.
"Did that lady say anything else that bothered you?" Mina continued to ask.
"Once, just once, she called Himmler 'Reich Leader' and said he might come to Fürstenberg for an inspection at any time. Oh, and five was her lucky number."
"Five is her lucky number," Mina murmured, repeating, "Five is her lucky number." "What's wrong?" "Himler visited Ravensbrück in 1940, Just before I left. Our business was good during that time It's true that they were all in a hurry to dress up and kept saying "leader of the empire", hoping that he would bring some handsome lieutenants from Berlin. As for the five, in Ravensbrück, the prisoners lined up five by five. "
3
Most people underestimate how complex time travel is. Whether you are qualified to drag your luggage in and out of Kronos Airport, just like beauty and luck, is often regarded as a gift that you are either born with or never get in this life. No one is labeled a "time traveler" at birth, but the starting gun for the competition has been fired long ago: parents with foresight will send their children to expensive day care classes to teach them to get along quickly with strange children. Adapt to foods with weird tastes and train abilities such as survival and adaptability. Only the best among them can become apprentices of the Time and Space Academy, and together with a few ordinary students (such as me) who are not doing well, they can learn to understand the wisdom contained in the technological revolution a hundred years ago. The Time and Space Academy split the people on this planet into two halves. Half of them can recite three major books of laws governing time and space travel backwards. When it comes to the "Grandfather Paradox" and "Hitler Paradox", they quote from classics and explain clearly. When it comes to business trips or vacations, they can choose at will. The other half are just like their ancestors before time travel was invented, slowly moving forward day after day. Some of them seem to have forgotten the existence of time and space travel, while others have become the most loyal audiences for news, academic works, and literary and artistic works on the subject of time and space travel.
Why our ancestors studied time and space travel, and how this relates to the "Great Migration" and the establishment of the New Earth, there is no proof now. No one can go back to the New Earth one or two hundred years ago and ask them, because their research is the prerequisite for all travel. We can go back to any era, but we cannot go back to the moment when they invented this technology.
The prevailing opinion among academics today is that they view time travel as an interesting challenge. Technology itself is not very profitable. It is driven by the instinctive curiosity of human beings, which has never changed since the first man struck a spark with two rocks.
Another school of thought insists that they are correcting the wrongs of the past. To prevent humans from destroying the earth, so that people do not have to abandon the earth and start from scratch, or to find another evacuation method to avoid the costs of the "Great Migration", these may have driven our ancestors to try to go back to the past over and over again. Extremes such as the Fire Stealers tend to this explanation. They spread the same legend: one of the scientists who initially led the study of space and time was the descendant of a victim in the "Great Migration". However, the red tape on the New Earth that prohibits interference in historical events and prohibits revealing the identity of travelers seems to have made this theory self-defeating.
Regardless, citizens of the New Earth who are not trained by the Space-Time Academy will still have the opportunity to travel. The anti-war travel camp organized by the school is part of the compulsory general courses. As long as the working-class people are willing to spare two years' salary, they might as well choose a favorite era and sign up for a tour group equipped with professional guides to reward themselves. Many tourists I have interacted with regard a travel opportunity as a daily goal and save this special experience for anniversaries.
Greta had no such chance. She mentioned that she wanted to go back to Berlin at the end of the twentieth century and experience the legendary peaceful and friendly motherland, or the Roman Empire of Augustus, to see if the beginning of Western civilization was really as glorious as what was taught in school. China, where my ancestors lived, also aroused her interest. “It feels very exotic,” her Aryan woman’s eyes were clear, “and you are very different from the Far Eastern people I imagined, so I think it’s better to Seeing is believing, maybe what we learned before was wrong?" But all of this is just casual talk. Only citizens of the New Earth have the right to travel in time and space. Besides, for this refugee who works until midnight every day before returning to the airport dormitory It is said that it is not easy to get out the savings for several years.
When there were not many guests, she would guess the identity and whereabouts of the passengers around her as a secret game. My joining gave her an audience: "The astronaut was a doctoral student studying the U.S. moon landing program. When he came for dinner one time, I saw him revising his thesis outline"; "The girl in red must be someone It was the first time for a newly rich child to travel. Seeing her dressed up was like celebrating a festival. A family accustomed to traveling would not make it so grand." "No, the ambulance rushing back to the city did not come off the battlefield. During the war, Passengers who encounter unexpected events will have a space-time medical team on their way back Rescue, those who have time to go to the hospital should be middle-aged and elderly people with chronic diseases." "Oh, it is not difficult to guess that the person just now is a tourist who went to the Middle Ages to cultivate himself. Don't think that a big nose means a Jew. I know European history better than you. , look at her black and white headscarf, it is the typical attire of a Catholic nun..."
Prisoners were once lined up five by five in front of you. With just one glance, you could tell who was capable of doing men's hard work, who had nimble fingers and was good at typing, who was used to cleaning, cooking and washing clothes, and who was a twin and could be sent for research. Those who have reached the end of their lives can only be discarded. It doesn't matter whether your guess is right or not. The wooden stick around your waist, the leather boots under your feet, and the vicious dog beside you ensure that you are always right. You applied this battle-hardened insight to a man who called himself Hans Koch. Maybe you saw that he didn't belong to this world. Maybe you guessed that he could lead you to a new, far away life. A life of truth and punishment. Now, fleeing also allows you to place your life on this moment of non-stop reasoning. You look at everyone who walks past you, trying to figure out if any of them are some time agent in disguise, or some kind person who can help you achieve your next goal. For some reason, you came to me.
But don’t you think that Catholic nun looks familiar? Probably the ironed headscarf covers the black hair that once deceived the Auschwitz guards. Her bamboo-like figure has lost the sharpness she had when she was a doctoral student, but her big nose It did cause a lot of trouble in Forstenberg. In exchange for winning lottery numbers, she persuaded the barber shop owner to guarantee that she was a distant relative from Stuttgart. Five minutes after the nun passed the "Airport Express", I went to the toilet as agreed, and stood side by side with the black figure at the drinking fountain outside the door.
"It's her," Mina said, breathing heavily. "She came and had her hair permed, just before Himmler's inspection. I remember her voice. Look at her apron. You've never seen a smoother one at this airport." Fabric? It’s like she was born to wear the uniform!” "I really want to go out and have a look." When I returned to the bar, Greta was fascinated by a group of long-haired college students carrying guitars on their way to Woodstock. "If possible, I really want to leave tomorrow!"
You have whipped others with a whip, yelled curses such as "bitch" and "lazy pig", kicked women in the stomach with the sole of your boot for no reason, walked past the prisoners digging their own graves with your chin high, and piled them up. The old clothes on the hill are as airtight as a giant coffin, leaving only a small hut with a small opening on the top. No one knows exactly what happened in Ravensbrück, and laws prohibit travelers from returning to a certain point in time, forcing historians like Mina to be prudent and devote large chunks of their time to more high-profile massacre sites. I looked through the encyclopedia entries about concentration camps, and there were only two sentences left for Ravensbrück: "A women's concentration camp located north of Berlin from 1939 to 1945. More than 130,000 women were detained, including Jews, Jeeps, About 30,000 to 50,000 Saiyans, domestic and foreign resisters, etc. were killed." These numbers, combined with Mina's eyes The horror and the memoirs of de Gaulle's niece were enough to touch my imagination, and my own immersive study in the jungles of Vietnam during my college years also taught me how cruel humans can be.
"It's not impossible," I realized that I had to drink water to swallow the tremor in my voice, "From a refugee to a naturalized citizen of the new earth, you have the qualifications to travel, and then you work hard to save money. Everyone is like this. .”
Greta sighed: "Forget it, I don't have time to learn Esperanto. The naturalization process is so complicated, I can't understand it either."
It’s not that I don’t understand. Naturalization means completely confessing your past experience and accepting on-the-spot inspections, but the name Hans Koch in your file cannot withstand scrutiny, and once your former identity is discovered, as long as the immigration bureau knows that you have worked in a Nazi concentration camp, even if Your fingers have never been stained with blood. Even if you just stand and watch silently from a distance, you will be convicted of historical crimes and absconding according to the "Heavenly Punishment Act". Regardless of severity or leniency, death is the only outcome. I wanted to say something, but the muscles on my face twitched twice, and I was suppressed by a large mouthful of ice water again. Didn't she see the irony? The line "20th Century German" hanging next to her face was like the hexagram, cross and sickle-axe of her time, and the "refugee" label at the beginning of her file swept away everything Hesitation trapped her in the repetitive labor of robots, a subsistence wage, and an airport city with many checkpoints.
Or maybe she knew it, because if I didn't know her details, I would have blurted out: "Come with me, pretend to be my assistant, and sneak out for an hour." The first time it came out Ordinary people who travel are always the best companions. They will be shocked by the common time jumps, and will run around excitedly, trying to talk to everyone. Only half-joking threats can make them restrain themselves slightly. I have tried it several times, and I have also expressed such exclamations in my columns. Perhaps this caught her eyes, took root in her heart, and brewed into a good idea.
"I have to report to the Space and Time Administration. This is a rule, especially if it has to do with the Fire Thief." Mina said to me before leaving.
Suspects suspected of absconding in history must be reported immediately, otherwise they will be treated as accomplices. The "Act of Divine Punishment" is clearly written. However, when I heard Greta ask me about my next writing plan, I still lost my appetite. In different places in different eras, I have witnessed countless deaths: those who said goodbye peacefully, those who were bloody and bloody, those who left alone, hundreds of thousands... As a lucky bystander, I also used my hands They have been soaked in hot blood, but not once have they taken someone's life with their own hands.
Until now, facing a suspect who once considered murder as a daily job, my uncontrollable curiosity pinched her heart. I looked towards the end of the airport, the only gate that remained closed. One day I will go there, hopefully as a recorder. Only then will I know whether my choice at the moment is right or wrong.
"If I have the chance, I would like to apply to go to the Great Migration Era and write about my historical responsibility." I decided to give Greta a chance. "The core demands of the extremist organizations that have been hunted down in recent years, such as the fire thieves in the past few years, are It is the responsibility of liquidating the 'Great Migration'. What they did was too crazy, but it has not yet been determined whether it was right or not to leave the weakest people who needed protection most in the disaster-ridden earth and let the young and middle-aged people come out to open up new homes. .So, I want to go back and see with my own eyes.”
"It's been more than two hundred years, do you need to be so serious?" Greta's blue eyes showed no trace of cruelty. "I don't quite understand. If we don't leave behind those old, weak, sick and disabled, no one can survive. Today. Isn't the prosperity of the New Earth based on forced trade-offs? Those who carried out the 'Great Migration' were just obeying orders and doing what they had to do. This has been the case since ancient times." Just like that, she threw away the opportunity.
4
Greta's home is smaller than I imagined, and you can see the end as soon as you enter the door. If the strong lights of the investigation team hadn't flashed in front of our eyes from time to time, the yellow light from the overhead lights would have been warm and cozy on the beds, desks, wardrobes and kitchen counters purchased by the airport company. The airport provides such protection to employees who do not have a fixed residence. They may not live very comfortably, but at least they can have the necessities of life. After leaving work early and returning late, they can have their own place to have a leisurely meal and lie down. Think about your thoughts in bed.
Greta, who works year-round, doesn't stay at home for long. The frozen lunch boxes and fiber supplements in the refrigerator are all labeled "Cronos Airport". There is no decoration on the bed except for the angular quilt and pillows, which makes it difficult to see. Show a little bit of the owner's preferences.
Two uniformed time agents sat in front of a desk that was only an arm's length away, browsing her hacked personal terminal, marking the content that needed further investigation with a red pen, and dragging it into the investigation team's case file. At a glance, the circled content includes my feature collection "In One Second" on the desktop, "Born during the Bombing of London" on the virtual bookshelf, and "Hans Koch" in the browser search history , and a folder named "Los Angeles, USA, 1955".
Three other agents also went in and out wearing gloves and shoe covers, taking photos from every corner, and then sorting and boxing all movable items. In just a few minutes, I passed an old suitcase, three sets of restaurant uniforms and two sets of casual clothes, including towels and sanitary napkins. And I stood stiffly at the bathroom door, trying not to block the way, like "a fly on the wall," as I promised Colonel Josephson. Mina's introduction, coupled with my past works, smoothly knocked on the door of the anti-extremism team led by Colonel Sen.
Colonel Mori stood beside me with his elbows crossed. He was not required to track down a refugee, but it was he who personally directed the hunt for Orfeo Zeit three years ago. He walked around Greta's room and came up with his own reasoning: "Kronos Airport's insistence on private rights is almost paranoid. Although it often cooperates with the government, it has no access to public records, so the pursuit of Zeit When , we missed Günter, who he guaranteed under a pseudonym. The airport is the only way for every time traveler. I estimate that Cait placed Günter here as a signal light. Once He was able to escape in time when the lights went out, but what he didn't expect was that our agents beat him to it in Berlin."
"What about Greta? What will happen to her?"
"Like everyone who tries to play with time and escape history, she was sent back to the end of the Great Migration era...Honestly, if she had stayed in Germany, it would have depended on what she did in the concentration camp. She would have been severely Convicted of war crimes, detained or executed, many people were not held accountable and spent their remaining years in anonymity. But it is different here, and when they are involved with fire thieves, the only result is the death penalty."
I nodded silently, not knowing what else to ask. At the end of the Great Migration era, when human civilization encountered the most profound crisis, those who were able to leave had long since left. Those who remained in place, even if they survived the disasters of plague and famine, were unable to withstand the final revenge of the earth. Time travelers are prohibited from going to that node, so it becomes our garbage dump. The "Act of Divine Punishment" clearly states that mass murderers who fled the fire of revenge, thugs who used past wars to satisfy their bloodlust, and extremists who tried to undermine the historical order and put it into practice will eventually come here. No exception: you want to play with time, right? Then try it at the end of the world.
"Found it!" A young agent shouted in surprise, and Colonel Mori and other subordinates gathered around him. Hidden under the mattress are three photos wrapped in old fabrics: one should be a family photo, the middle-aged woman sitting is like an older replica of Greta, and the girl behind her wearing a black tie, Greta's keenness hidden in shyness can be vaguely seen between her brows.
In the other picture, Greta is older, wearing makeup, her blond hair is styled into a fashionable bob, wearing a gray jacket and culottes with a military hat and leather boots, a Nazi badge on her chest, and several similarly dressed girls. Smile with teeth showing. Mina Having said that, these fashionable and self-reliant female soldiers are the envy of girls in the town. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that attracted Greta to join them.
The last picture is of a young man wearing an SS uniform. At first glance, he looks similar to the Nazi officer in the history book, but after a closer look, he feels that something is not harmonious. Maybe it's because the outline of his chin isn't strong enough, or his back is too straight, or maybe it's because his eyes lack a little faith, and are vaguely cast with a layer of melancholy and aloof indifference as he knows the outcome. No matter what period of attire one wears, one passer-by can always recognize another passer-by. "Offeo Zeit, it's really him," Colonel Sen said with no surprise in his tone. He turned on the intercom, lowered his head and muttered, "It's time to take action."
======
The search was carried out at the same time as the arrest, and I had to go to Greta's house, so I didn't get to see her directly. What happened at the airport that morning? I had no choice but to activate my professional training as a feature reporter. Based on the known clues and the analysis of the Space-Time Administration's psychologists, I returned to the scene afterwards, checked the surveillance, and looked for witnesses. I had no choice but to find out what happened at the airport that morning. Under such circumstances, use the privileges given by this column to develop imaginations that are not too outrageous. What kind of person is Greta? My dear reader, I believe you will make your own judgment——
When ordering, Greta smiled wider than usual. The passenger flow before noon is always the densest. She shuttles between the dining tables and delivers the dishes in time to the travelers who are in a hurry to board the spaceship. She walks lightly, as if she is completing a set of physical gymnastics moves and will jump up at any time. "Please enjoy," she greeted everyone, and her step-by-step voice could not contain her excitement: Tomorrow I will be like you, being served instead of serving others, becoming a time traveler, and accepting the envy of others. .
To be precise, it's smuggling. But the name is not important, what is important is the result. It has been five years. In this lucky year, she will finally get rid of the shackles of a refugee, travel far away, truly become another person, and completely forget.
The reporter named Qin Yi invited her to go out together tomorrow. He lowered his head, as if asking the girl for her first date. The proposal was mixed with repetition and self-denial: I want to go to the opening ceremony of Disneyland in 1955, in the United States. Anaheim, California, is a short travel feature. It’s quite relaxing. It’s a half-vacation. If it’s convenient, would you like to come with me? I can say that you are my assistant. I have an application letter from the magazine and the customs will Release directly. It’s not too expensive. I’ll be reimbursed anyway, and I’ll just pay for yours. It doesn’t matter if you’re not interested, I’m sorry I may have been a bit abrupt...
She had been waiting for this invitation for a long time. Ever since she found out Qin Yi's identity and opened his "One Second", this possibility has stimulated her expectations from time to time. He once led a female clerk from the cafe downstairs of the magazine to sneak into the launch site of the Soviet "Mate" satellite. He once led a female doctoral student studying the Taiping Rebellion to explore the Xianfeng era. He once placed the Japanese female official who wrote "The Tale of Genji" in the Sanatorium on the New Earth... He seems to like to lend a helping hand to women. I don't know if it is out of selfish selfishness that is not elegant, or because he likes to hear their thanks, or because he was unable to save himself from a white phosphorus bomb in college. The female Viet Cong guerrillas never forget. Anyway, when he accused New Earth's refugee policy at the bar of being a form of slavery and isolation, he might have already been planning his next after-work pastime.
See, after five years, she learned how to play here. She showed joy as if she had never been far away, and listened with great interest to Qin Yi listing the iconic Crazy Tea Party, Mark Twain River Boat, and Main Street Movie Theater in the first Disneyland in the universe. She dug out the suitcase she had brought five years ago, and the clothes she brought from Germany were still lying at the bottom of the suitcase - those thick and rough fabrics would be out of place in the new earth, but they should be fine in the United States after World War II.
She would accompany this alien visitor as he gnawed marshmallows and watched the fireworks, explain to him why there were almost no black people in the garden, use her white skin to protect his Oriental face from being pushed, and then disappear when there were many people. The next day, he would embark on the journey back frustrated, and she would start all over again, perhaps in a restaurant outside Paradise, perhaps not too far away in Hollywood. If those Jews could do it, then of course she could.
She still had most of the day to hesitate whether to take those three old photos with her. She secretly smuggled the photos into the customs without telling Hans. Hans taught her to make up a whole set of stories, including her chance encounter with a scholar who studied Nazi Germany, her escape from the Berlin air raid, and in the years after Hans left. , she filled in the details by relying on the memoirs of survivors of the London bombing. Any one of these photos would completely blow the story away. But she was willing to take the risk and drift alone hundreds of years later. At least she would have these remaining memories to accompany her every night.
Going to the United States is different. Without Hans, she had to figure out how to fill the ten years after 1945. How a German girl who survived the bombing set foot on the west coast of the United States could not ask anyone for advice, so she could not let the enemy signs that would touch the nerves of the victor at any time reveal her disguise. She wrapped the photos and stuffed them under her bed, thinking of other options before destroying them when she returned from get off work.
The order pops up on the screen. It's a delivery order, coming from the "Earth: The Age of Migration" boarding gate. In five years of coming to the restaurant, this was the first time she saw someone ordering there. They should be the three middle-aged people who just ran past the door of the restaurant. They had temporary permits for entering the Great Migration period hanging on their chests, and wore the recording glasses commonly used by scholars when they went out for inspections. They were looking around for the boarding gate.
She pressed to accept the order, smoothed the strands of hair hanging from her temples, and smoothed the slightly wrinkled hem of her skirt. What did Qin Yi say? Tracing the origins of the "Great Migration" is the Holy Grail he has longed for. Hans also mentioned with great longing that there is something at the end of time that he has been pursuing all his life. Himmler sent people to search for the Holy Grail again and again, thinking that it was the key to the victory of the Aryans, but he just misunderstood Hans's words literally based on wishful thinking.
Hummus with pita bread, a Jewish favorite. Qin Yi also ordered it once, and while smearing the white mucus on the dry and hard pancake, he asked her if she had tasted it. She held her breath, smiled and answered no, caught a glimpse of the next customer raising her hand and walked away quickly. The New Earth made her see clearly that everything she once believed in was in vain—hundreds of years later, humans have left the earth, and there are still people eating hummus with pita bread.
Greta carried the meal bag and went to the customs with the order. The temporary pass mark on her location information began to count down, and then she ran towards the depths of the airport where she had never dared to set foot. She scanned her fingerprints and pupils, watched the red light turn green, the large characters "Restricted Area" disappeared, and the railings slowly opened. She smiled reflexively, and the gate camera recorded her smile.
Greta doesn't know that she is just a pawn in the Fire Thief's plan, just as she thinks that guarding "enemies of the Empire" is just an order from someone else. The curses and kicks, the execution ground not far from the holiday party, and the sealed tin cans with self-evident uses are just part of her daily life, just like her naturally curly blond hair, the Girls League badge given by her teacher, and the daily greetings Customers are greeted with the same "welcome" message. She prayed for Hans' return, sometimes resented his betrayal, sometimes mourned his death, and finally forgot about this past event. Or maybe she had already guessed something, so she started looking for a way out. What else can she do when she feels trapped in a story she cannot understand and is unable to resist?
She craned her neck to see the hatch open, her feet unable to stop flapping in place. She wanted to write down as much of the furnishings here as possible so that she could compare them with the spaceship to California tomorrow, which made Qin Yi marvel. Until the spacecraft lands, he will be immersed in envy of those three scholars, thinking about how to get permission to interview during the Great Migration Era, and is completely unaware of the footsteps of his traveling companions who can't help but walk out.
The three passengers who had just passed by the restaurant were sitting together and discussing something. When they heard the sound, they raised their heads and one of them asked: "Is it the Airport Express? We are afraid of missing the flight, so please bring it to us."
"Your hummus with pita bread." She crossed the threshold and placed the meal bag on the table at their signal. She noticed that the cabin was empty and they didn't seem to have much luggage. Is there no need to bring anything with me to the Great Migration? She wrote down this question, and maybe Qin Yi would explain it to her tomorrow.
"Please enjoy." When she turned her head, the person who just spoke happened to stand up and block her way. She muttered an apology, but he didn't back down. At the same time, the other two people also stood up. She looked at them doubtfully.
"Greta Günter," the leader said, slightly opening one side of his coat to reveal the silver badge inside. A holographic ID jumped out from the middle of the badge, "We are from the Space-Time Administration. According to the "Act of Divine Punishment," you He is accused of committing historical crimes and absconding. The physical evidence is conclusive. Please come with us. We will tell you the rest on the way... We have plenty of time."
Content notes: this is a Holocaust story and involves Nazis. Also I'm not sure if it's the POV or Google Translate being unfortunate but there was a word choice in the translation that I found antisemitic and really took me aback.
Set off tomorrow
Xin Weimu (published in "Nebula XI: Seeing Words as Faces" Sichuan Science and Technology Press, August 2021)
"Define" magazine No. 3, Issue 2315
"Witness Game" column: Let's start tomorrow Author: Qin Yi, chief reporter
1
The girl in red stopped and opened her mouth wide at the approaching giant. The giant's stature is less than 1.8 meters, but he is two people wide in the Apollo space suit. The face hidden behind the reflection of the golden coating may belong to an Air Force colonel in his prime, a female explorer sneaking into history in disguise, or it may just be a ball of air trapped in an autonomous drone uniform.
In the busy waiting hall, he was not the most conspicuous person - a group of middle school students who had just returned from the Battle of the Somme tour passed by dejectedly, leaving behind them burnt and bloody footprints; an associate professor's body Sitting in front of the window wearing an Arab robe, flipping through the parchment notes on his lap, he was afraid that the beard under his cheekbones was not glued properly, so he couldn't help but reach out and press it every four or five minutes; a dozen tourists dressed as nobles of the Tang Dynasty were lined up. In front of the counter, the tour guide holding a small flag was gathered in the center, excitedly discussing the next ten days' itinerary; two time agents wearing silver star badges stepped on the steps of soldiers and walked toward the end marked "Earth: The Great Migration Era" "At the special boarding gate, the railings that read "Controlled Area" popped up and returned to their original state behind them.
But the girl's sight was completely occupied by the astronaut at the beginning of the space age. She pulled her mother and ran towards him, as if she had stepped into Barnum's Circus or Ripley's Museum. The mother smiled indulgently and explained to the astronaut that this was her daughter's first trip. The astronaut bent his knees slightly, stretched out his bulky glove, and wrapped the girl's little hand inside. With just a brief touch, he straightened up again and continued on his way. The girl still stood there and looked back at him, her eyes bright, she caught a glimpse of time.
"I like this moment the most, it feels like magic," Greta Günter turned off the laser stove and handed the ancient Margherita pizza to me, her eyes following the little red figure in the crowd. I asked her if it was because that movie had An old movie about the girl in red. She shook her head in confusion and asked me which one it was. I didn't tell her that if she had never heard of it, even if she knew the name, she wouldn't understand its significance. That's probably a good thing for her.
If you read my reports regularly, you've probably been to the Kronos Time Airport at least once, or you've been to the Chronos Time Airport multiple times in your dreams. You've probably seen Greta, waiting at the starting point of each ray of light in that expanding sun-shaped airport. You won't notice her at first. Her blue and white uniform blends into the restaurant's sign and tablecloth. The curves under the skirt are not too bulky, but they still show the outline of her muscles. Her blond curly hair reaches her ears, setting off her blue eyes and soft cheeks. The girl's lightness has faded, but the fatigue of the years has not yet hit her. She stands, she walks, she lowers her head sideways, and every movement is straight and precise, indistinguishable from the service robots that can be seen everywhere in the airport. Then you glance at the automatic translation prompt in the upper right corner of your eye: "20th Century German" and immediately realize that she is not a local. No wonder, you may be thinking, except for people from other countries who have not yet established themselves, who else would work with machines and do such dispensable labor? You won’t say anything more. You are taught from an early age not to question them, just like you are not to litter. "As long as they have passed the customs, they are legally staying. There is nothing to ask. We can't make them feel discriminated against." Social studies teachers said this. "Besides, if everyone asks them where they are from, they will repeat the same thing all day long. If you don't, it's too tiring." When you grow up, you know about the smuggling business, refugee visas and deportation movements, but you have become accustomed to turning a blind eye to those old language labels. In most cases, you listen to the other party's voice with a slightly stiff and artificial voice. Intelligent filtering into Esperanto is enough.
Of course, my job at Freeze magazine often forces me to ask some nagging questions that, if done tactfully, do not cause a queasy conscience. Every time I take a nap at the "Airport Express" restaurant before a business trip, my eyes always fall on this waitress involuntarily. German in the 20th century, the possibilities here are so interesting.
"I'm going to Berlin in 1989 later. Do you think it's better to see it from the east or the west?" I asked Greta once while ordering, and she shook her head: "I'm not sure." When I came back, I wore a newly bought "I am a Berliner" T-shirt and went to the restaurant next door to exchange for extra marks. When I passed her, no special recognition flashed in her eyes. Later, one time, I brought an annotated version of "Mein Kampf" with me and put the book upright on the table with the cover facing out. Greta didn't say a word except for ordering, with a stylized smile on her face. However, several passengers passing by saw the right-hand swastika on the black cover and couldn't help but look at me twice, and some pointed. , frowning and discussing something.
"Sending students to the Somme every day, does that really not arouse suspicion?" Once I set out with my colleagues, I deliberately raised the topic loudly when Greta approached, but she did not stop to look at us. A few minutes later I tried again:
"By the way, are you really going to have a bachelor party in the Weimar Republic? They are warned of the risks there every year. It's no joke." She remained unmoved.
Finally I gave up. Almost every week, I sit down on the one-legged chair at the end of the bar, order one of the day’s specials (clone chicken sandwich, zero-gravity vegetable salad, algae ramen...), spread out my notebook and fill in a few Interview questions, or scribble a few snippets that could be used in the story. Greta comes and goes, just like the gender-ambiguous synthesized announcements on the airport radio, the smooth rolling of the shuttle's tracks, and the cheerful yet distant answering voice of the robot.
Until the last night before New Year's Eve. The hustle and bustle in the terminal building became quiet. Two or three passengers were waiting in front of the only open boarding gate, sitting and lying down. Except for the flight attendant team that had just entered, there were no new sounds or movements. The "Airport Express" was about to close. I closed my book and stood up, but I bumped into Greta who was wiping the bar with a rag. I nodded to her and was about to move forward when I was stopped: "Excuse me...are you Mr. Qin Yi?"
I was stunned for a moment, the mist in her eyes dissipated, her eyebrows raised, and she spoke faster: "Really, I guessed it right! I saw the words in your notebook, so I searched online, and the result I found your column," she paused, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to peek. It's just that time travel is so expensive, but you come here almost every week, holding an old notebook by yourself, with some words in it that are not Esperanto. Symbol. Frankly speaking, at first I thought you were a time agent, what kind of mission were you on..."
No one would casually suspect that someone else is a time agent, unless he wants to hide something. This is something I learned from the only few interactions with the Time and Space Administration. I looked at the two square symbols on the notebook that she regarded as code words. The automatic translation did not immediately jump out of their meanings. It only spelled out the pronunciation in Esperanto, and added a note next to it: "Chinese, 3rd century BC to present".
So, she must have read my "Travel in China". When I first went to the Western Han Dynasty to find my roots, I got the Chinese way of writing my name based on the pronunciation, so I became interested in the civilization of my ancestors. She may have also read the interviews I gave when I won awards or promoted new books. People always ask about this peculiar signature. I said it has become a habit, like a totem engraved in my blood, reminding me that I am not rootless and alone. one person.
No matter what, I have to take advantage of the second before I open my notebook to write down the shape of the name, draw it, and enter it into the terminal search. This kind of mobility is not inferior to that of my top journalist colleagues. "You are very perceptive...Ms. Greta Günter," I spelled out her name tag.
"Just call me Greta," her freckled cheeks turned slightly red, "I read your article, it's so interesting. Those interstellar repairmen, they often come here to order meal boxes, but they come and go in such a hurry that we can't talk. , but you Being able to jump around in a spaceship with them. I often met travelers who were going to Cambridge University in June 2009. After reading your report, I found out that they went there after seeing a party invitation given by British scientists to time travelers, but they could not reveal their existence. There was a party nearby. There is also the film crew who went to film "Warring States" in Chinese history. They had to conceal their identities and equipment, blend in with the locals, and at the same time produce such a big production. The process felt more exciting than the film itself!"
Breaking the barrier of the screen and facing the readers directly, I was a little at a loss: "Thank you very much... But it was also an extraordinary journey for you to come here from the German-speaking area in the 20th century, right?"
She lowered her eyes and didn't answer immediately. The airport announcement rang at the right time: "Passengers taking Mercury Shuttle Company flight 3820, please note that your spacecraft is starting to board at Gate 21..."
"Is that you?" She raised her head, as if she had forgotten my question.
"Yeah." There is no doubt that a good story is under the brim of her hat, but it cannot be revealed in a few words. Under her gaze, I stuffed the notebook into my bag, carried it on one shoulder, and straightened my collar. Let’s talk about it next time, I waved to her, “See you later.”
"Can I ask you another question?" As soon as I stepped out of the restaurant, I heard the voice behind me again. "What?"
"Won't you spend New Year's Eve with your family? Where are you going this time?" Good question, I can't help but ask myself this sometimes. But its answer, the real answer, must be reserved for the key time, in exchange for something more valuable: "When you tell me the story of the German-speaking area, I will tell you."
2
Greta Günter quickly found out about my New Year’s Eve plans. The next day's issue of "Ding Frame" magazine published a New Year's plan that three of my colleagues and I (two single and one who desperately wanted to take a breather from the housework) jointly completed: Choose a place that you are interested in but have never been to. Times, use a thousand words to sketch the New Year scene there. In fact, we don’t need to specially set out on New Year’s Eve, but the editor-in-chief who booked the Internet holiday family gift package early said with a smile that it is more ritualistic to stick to the right time.
In my report, Greta will read about the heat wave and carnival in New York’s Times Square on Millennium Night, and the leisurely time traveler hiding among millions of people. But she won’t read that at the stroke of zero o’clock, men, women, old and young Between hugs and kisses, while I was writing notes with my head down, I thought of the girl closing the stall alone at the Kronos Airport restaurant at midnight.
As soon as I got back, I went to the immigration office to check Greta's entry record - this is the first stop for any outsider's investigation. In an ideal world, it would contain everything from their decision to their current life. But Greta's file only has one thin page: "Date and place of birth: October 30, 1920, Furstenberg, Germany; Departure node: April 1945, Berlin, Germany; Port of arrival: Kronos Space-Time Airport ; Reason for entry: War asylum; Guarantor: Hans Koch." There is another sentence below: "Greta Günter is employed by the Kronos Time and Space Airport Company, and her personal files are kept by the company." Used in Chinese No meaningful results were found for the name of John S. Koch. No wonder, it sounded like a perfunctory pseudonym like John Smith or John Smith.
A spokesman for Kronos Airport whispered: "As a private company, we generally do not approve such requests unless we are cooperating with law enforcement. You can try submitting a formal interview request and we will evaluate whether we can provide you with what you need. employee information.” Applying to investigate the origins of a specific employee seemed too deliberate, and besides, I had a more direct way to satisfy my curiosity. Through the heat of the double espresso, I looked at Greta. She was hurriedly running towards the entrance of the restaurant to resolve the dispute caused by the service robot: "Five people are five people. The robot is brainless and won't stop when it sees only four empty seats." Let people in," she said apologetically to a family dressed as Maoris on vacation in Oceania. "It's okay. I'll give you an extra seat. Don't delay your trip." She led a group of five people in and passed by my table. Shi rolled his eyes helplessly to show our mutual friendship that we were no longer anonymous.
Before three business trips after the New Year, I confirmed the known information to her, of course without revealing that I had been to the immigration office: Greta was born in 1920 in a small town on the Havel River, listening to the church bells He grew up running among the shadows of lakes and forests with the sound of sound. Her childhood was dominated by her father's unemployment, empty dining tables and the sputum of tuberculosis, but she survived ("Maybe it was the power of the forest," she said piously, as if speaking of faith) and finished high school.
Family constraints and a certain innate restlessness led her to reject a life centered around "children, the kitchen, and the church." After working as a maid for a wealthy family in Fürstenberg for half a year, she went to Berlin alone, where she worked as a shop assistant, kitchen maid, and restaurant waiter. She never stayed in one place for too long, nor did she enter into any relationship beyond basic social etiquette. Until I met the history scholar named Hans Koch in a cafe. She didn’t go into too many details. Anyway, maybe a week or two later, maybe three or five years later, Hans told her the truth: he came from the future hundreds of years later. The earth (or the human world on earth) was destroyed and no longer suitable for survival. People who migrated in time built a new earth, and Germany will lose the war at hand.
Hans rescued Greta from the Allied air raid on Berlin, settled her in Kronos Airport City, and rushed to witness the last moments of the Third Reich. He will come back to marry her, and when the inspection is over, he will take her out of the port, get her identity settled, and live a stable life. He vowed to each other, but never showed up again. According to the time of the New Earth, it has been five years.
"I probably can't help with this. I can't go to Nazi Germany. Looking at my appearance, you don't know where I will be taken." I faced her gaze bravely. I went to Nazi Germany to do historical research. Because of my skin color, I missed this precious opportunity. But I have done many similar topics - appearing at the most dramatic moments with foresight. This is the privilege that time travel bestows on lucky people like us. There is nothing unusual about rescuing a little person from a disaster and bringing him back to our world, as long as history is not changed and the guarantee fee is paid. But the satisfaction of compassion may not last long. Boredom, busyness, or even lies carefully concocted at the beginning of the trip may be used to explain the mysterious disappearance of some people. Apart from this, it is no surprise that the dangerous years before Germany's defeat are over.
"It's okay," Greta comforted me. "It's been five years, and I know that even if he is still alive, he will not come to me. He can take me out of that hell and live here peacefully." , I am already very grateful...good things will happen, I have this confidence, five seems to be my lucky number."
Greta almost never mentioned the Nazis, and the air raid in Berlin was not much different from London. Just two years ago, a British writer who escaped from World War II published a memoir, which stayed on the global bestseller list for 40 weeks. His first-person narration, coupled with real-life projections created by time and space artists who collected historical materials, make the black smoke on the street rubble, the dining table abandoned half-way through the meal, and the air-raid shelter where human bodies and rats huddle together are deeply rooted in people's hearts. I asked Greta if she had read that book. She shook her head, wrote down the title, and said she didn’t want to dwell on the war.
When I pressed her, she admitted that her parents had voted for Hitler because "everyone did it, and he was the only one who could give her father his job." She also participated in the German Girls' League, and like any girl of that era, she wore double braids, awkward blouses and long skirts, walked in unison, and did housework. She and her friends often secretly laughed at the artificial intonations of others when they raised their right hands in salute, but when the instructor stood in front of her, she still had to lower her voice and pronounce the syllables that later generations regarded as a fatal curse: "Long live victory!"
"Yes, we learned about this book in school. I was shocked when you took it out last time. I didn't expect it could be published here and read so casually in public." She flipped through the pages for me. Mein Kampf, above the Esperanto returned to Old German through the lamellae in front of her corneas. Next to the author's original rough and aggressive sentences, there is a historical note that is twice as long as the original text. "You guys studied it very carefully. When we were studying, the teacher often used this book to test us. He said that the leaders of the empire often come to our town and may come to inspect at any time."
"Leader of the Empire?" My heart contracted violently. Her speech was so smooth that the ominous epithet came out as casually as a conversation about the weather.
She immediately changed her words and said: "Oh, I mean Heinrich Himmler. Sorry, they keep saying that, I'm used to it." She then introduced me to how to recover from tuberculosis, and soon went to greet the new patient. Here comes the guest. But the word "Leader of the Reich" stuck in my mind and couldn't get rid of it. She called Hitler by his first name. Why did she use the honorific title for the leader of the SS and the executor of ethnic cleansing? Along with this, every time she chatted 's opening remarks: "You really won't write this into the report, will you? There are regulations at the airport, and we cannot accept interviews casually."
Of course, I promised her. I would not write about a place I could not go to, and I would not submit this German refugee whom I met by chance as a topic to the editor. But a certain sense of awkwardness still prompted me to take the time to visit Professor Mina Dmitrieva, an expert in the Modern History Department of the School of History at Pan-Asian University who is famous for her research on World War II in Europe.
"Hans Koch? Of course I am familiar with this name." The legendary man who once sneaked into the Auschwitz concentration camp for his doctoral thesis and ushered in liberation as a prisoner did not have much fluctuation in his voice, but his eyes shone with interest. Ray of Light, "Do you remember the Fire Thief organization that was wiped out three years ago?" How could you not know? The number one public enemy who claims to reverse the "Great Migration" and is tracked by the Space and Time Administration has laid a dragnet. It is said that to this day, the "fire" it is trying to steal is still simmering under our surface. So when it was destroyed, the media just sent text messages. The causes and consequences of the pursuit were hidden in the secret files of the Space-Time Administration due to the travel ban during the Great Migration Era.
"The Fire Thief's tentacles have spread throughout all eras. The Space and Time Administration has found many scholars for consultation, and I am one of them. Hans Koch is the pseudonym of Orfeo Zeit, the backbone of the Fire Thief. He went to Nazi Germany served as Himmler's adjutant."
Wait, don’t the Fire Thieves want to reverse the “Great Migration” and leave humans on Earth? What’s their relationship with the Nazis?
"No, it's more complicated than that." Mina leaned on the office chair, not covering up the green and black numbers branded on her arm. "You can't change history, otherwise it will cause endless paradoxes and chaos. This is what allows us to The most important principle to continue the current life. However, the fire thieves always remember the 'Great Migration' more than two hundred years ago, believing that most human beings were To escape the environmental crisis and leave the planet is to murder the few who cannot leave. This is not a very novel point of view, and the ethical issues of the Great Migration are enough to keep the academic community quarreling for another century or two. The problem is that the fire thieves wanted to completely prevent our ancestors from making the decision to make the Great Migration. Even the fire thief himself didn't know what would happen if he changed such a fundamental event, so he sent people to sneak into various key time points in history and make some small changes as an experiment first, such as helping the Nazis win World War II. It's ridiculous, using one massacre to prevent another massacre, but the outcome is likely to be the destruction of all of us. "
"Koch's mission clearly failed."
"Yes, but he tried hard. Where do you think the legendary 'Nazi Bell' project came from? In the name of 'magic', Koch instilled many technologies into Himmler that should not belong to Germany in World War II: large-scale Destructive weapons, intelligent control, and even time travel itself. Fortunately, the agents who tracked him to Berlin assassinated him before the end of the war. However, we probably didn't find out who he had brought to the New Earth for refuge... "Mina paused, suddenly straightened her back, and her eyes sharpened, "Where did that lady say she came from?"
"A small town called Fürstenberg, very close to Berlin. Later she went to Berlin to work... I checked that place, and it seemed nothing special."
"Forstenberg?" Upon hearing the name of this place, the color on Mina's face faded completely within two or three seconds, and her body that had been emaciated due to malnutrition shuddered. "Did she tell you about Forstenberg?" have what?"
I unconsciously speeded up my speech: "She said there is a forest and a church. Her father was unemployed in a factory, so there should be a factory there."
"Did she ever mention a place called Ravensbrück?"
"Raven, what?" Mina sighed: "You men, you always think that history is about you. Hundreds of years have passed since we all left. We opened the earth and invented time and space travel, but you are still like this. When I was just starting my Ph.D., I went to Fürstenberg to do field work and served as an apprentice in a women’s barber shop. I became familiar with the local environment and prepared for Auschwitz. There was a Ravensbrück concentration camp where women were mainly imprisoned, and female guards often came to our place to get their hair done. I heard them talking about the church steeple of Fürstenberg that can be seen from the concentration camp, and the surrounding forest, where prisoners would be sent to cut down trees... The lady must have a deep feeling for the forest, but that What kind of feeling is it?"
Before I could answer, Mina stood up, wandered in front of the bookshelf for a moment, then squatted down, took out an old book from the bottom and handed it over. I couldn't help but sneeze. "Look, I got this when I went back to Germany. A Raven Memoirs of a Sprück survivor. We scholars always fixate on Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka, but there is much more to remember than just that. "
I rubbed the yellowed paper, and the dust from the homeland of the earth was all over my hands. Through automatic translation, the pronunciation of "De Gaulle" on the cover reminded me of the great figures of that era in the textbook, but the "Geneviève" in the front was very unfamiliar. Why did Greta lie and say that Hans Koch was just a historian from the future, and why did she conceal the existence of the entire Ravensbrück concentration camp? I vaguely guessed Mina's answer without asking.
"Did that lady say anything else that bothered you?" Mina continued to ask.
"Once, just once, she called Himmler 'Reich Leader' and said he might come to Fürstenberg for an inspection at any time. Oh, and five was her lucky number."
"Five is her lucky number," Mina murmured, repeating, "Five is her lucky number." "What's wrong?" "Himler visited Ravensbrück in 1940, Just before I left. Our business was good during that time It's true that they were all in a hurry to dress up and kept saying "leader of the empire", hoping that he would bring some handsome lieutenants from Berlin. As for the five, in Ravensbrück, the prisoners lined up five by five. "
3
Most people underestimate how complex time travel is. Whether you are qualified to drag your luggage in and out of Kronos Airport, just like beauty and luck, is often regarded as a gift that you are either born with or never get in this life. No one is labeled a "time traveler" at birth, but the starting gun for the competition has been fired long ago: parents with foresight will send their children to expensive day care classes to teach them to get along quickly with strange children. Adapt to foods with weird tastes and train abilities such as survival and adaptability. Only the best among them can become apprentices of the Time and Space Academy, and together with a few ordinary students (such as me) who are not doing well, they can learn to understand the wisdom contained in the technological revolution a hundred years ago. The Time and Space Academy split the people on this planet into two halves. Half of them can recite three major books of laws governing time and space travel backwards. When it comes to the "Grandfather Paradox" and "Hitler Paradox", they quote from classics and explain clearly. When it comes to business trips or vacations, they can choose at will. The other half are just like their ancestors before time travel was invented, slowly moving forward day after day. Some of them seem to have forgotten the existence of time and space travel, while others have become the most loyal audiences for news, academic works, and literary and artistic works on the subject of time and space travel.
Why our ancestors studied time and space travel, and how this relates to the "Great Migration" and the establishment of the New Earth, there is no proof now. No one can go back to the New Earth one or two hundred years ago and ask them, because their research is the prerequisite for all travel. We can go back to any era, but we cannot go back to the moment when they invented this technology.
The prevailing opinion among academics today is that they view time travel as an interesting challenge. Technology itself is not very profitable. It is driven by the instinctive curiosity of human beings, which has never changed since the first man struck a spark with two rocks.
Another school of thought insists that they are correcting the wrongs of the past. To prevent humans from destroying the earth, so that people do not have to abandon the earth and start from scratch, or to find another evacuation method to avoid the costs of the "Great Migration", these may have driven our ancestors to try to go back to the past over and over again. Extremes such as the Fire Stealers tend to this explanation. They spread the same legend: one of the scientists who initially led the study of space and time was the descendant of a victim in the "Great Migration". However, the red tape on the New Earth that prohibits interference in historical events and prohibits revealing the identity of travelers seems to have made this theory self-defeating.
Regardless, citizens of the New Earth who are not trained by the Space-Time Academy will still have the opportunity to travel. The anti-war travel camp organized by the school is part of the compulsory general courses. As long as the working-class people are willing to spare two years' salary, they might as well choose a favorite era and sign up for a tour group equipped with professional guides to reward themselves. Many tourists I have interacted with regard a travel opportunity as a daily goal and save this special experience for anniversaries.
Greta had no such chance. She mentioned that she wanted to go back to Berlin at the end of the twentieth century and experience the legendary peaceful and friendly motherland, or the Roman Empire of Augustus, to see if the beginning of Western civilization was really as glorious as what was taught in school. China, where my ancestors lived, also aroused her interest. “It feels very exotic,” her Aryan woman’s eyes were clear, “and you are very different from the Far Eastern people I imagined, so I think it’s better to Seeing is believing, maybe what we learned before was wrong?" But all of this is just casual talk. Only citizens of the New Earth have the right to travel in time and space. Besides, for this refugee who works until midnight every day before returning to the airport dormitory It is said that it is not easy to get out the savings for several years.
When there were not many guests, she would guess the identity and whereabouts of the passengers around her as a secret game. My joining gave her an audience: "The astronaut was a doctoral student studying the U.S. moon landing program. When he came for dinner one time, I saw him revising his thesis outline"; "The girl in red must be someone It was the first time for a newly rich child to travel. Seeing her dressed up was like celebrating a festival. A family accustomed to traveling would not make it so grand." "No, the ambulance rushing back to the city did not come off the battlefield. During the war, Passengers who encounter unexpected events will have a space-time medical team on their way back Rescue, those who have time to go to the hospital should be middle-aged and elderly people with chronic diseases." "Oh, it is not difficult to guess that the person just now is a tourist who went to the Middle Ages to cultivate himself. Don't think that a big nose means a Jew. I know European history better than you. , look at her black and white headscarf, it is the typical attire of a Catholic nun..."
Prisoners were once lined up five by five in front of you. With just one glance, you could tell who was capable of doing men's hard work, who had nimble fingers and was good at typing, who was used to cleaning, cooking and washing clothes, and who was a twin and could be sent for research. Those who have reached the end of their lives can only be discarded. It doesn't matter whether your guess is right or not. The wooden stick around your waist, the leather boots under your feet, and the vicious dog beside you ensure that you are always right. You applied this battle-hardened insight to a man who called himself Hans Koch. Maybe you saw that he didn't belong to this world. Maybe you guessed that he could lead you to a new, far away life. A life of truth and punishment. Now, fleeing also allows you to place your life on this moment of non-stop reasoning. You look at everyone who walks past you, trying to figure out if any of them are some time agent in disguise, or some kind person who can help you achieve your next goal. For some reason, you came to me.
But don’t you think that Catholic nun looks familiar? Probably the ironed headscarf covers the black hair that once deceived the Auschwitz guards. Her bamboo-like figure has lost the sharpness she had when she was a doctoral student, but her big nose It did cause a lot of trouble in Forstenberg. In exchange for winning lottery numbers, she persuaded the barber shop owner to guarantee that she was a distant relative from Stuttgart. Five minutes after the nun passed the "Airport Express", I went to the toilet as agreed, and stood side by side with the black figure at the drinking fountain outside the door.
"It's her," Mina said, breathing heavily. "She came and had her hair permed, just before Himmler's inspection. I remember her voice. Look at her apron. You've never seen a smoother one at this airport." Fabric? It’s like she was born to wear the uniform!” "I really want to go out and have a look." When I returned to the bar, Greta was fascinated by a group of long-haired college students carrying guitars on their way to Woodstock. "If possible, I really want to leave tomorrow!"
You have whipped others with a whip, yelled curses such as "bitch" and "lazy pig", kicked women in the stomach with the sole of your boot for no reason, walked past the prisoners digging their own graves with your chin high, and piled them up. The old clothes on the hill are as airtight as a giant coffin, leaving only a small hut with a small opening on the top. No one knows exactly what happened in Ravensbrück, and laws prohibit travelers from returning to a certain point in time, forcing historians like Mina to be prudent and devote large chunks of their time to more high-profile massacre sites. I looked through the encyclopedia entries about concentration camps, and there were only two sentences left for Ravensbrück: "A women's concentration camp located north of Berlin from 1939 to 1945. More than 130,000 women were detained, including Jews, Jeeps, About 30,000 to 50,000 Saiyans, domestic and foreign resisters, etc. were killed." These numbers, combined with Mina's eyes The horror and the memoirs of de Gaulle's niece were enough to touch my imagination, and my own immersive study in the jungles of Vietnam during my college years also taught me how cruel humans can be.
"It's not impossible," I realized that I had to drink water to swallow the tremor in my voice, "From a refugee to a naturalized citizen of the new earth, you have the qualifications to travel, and then you work hard to save money. Everyone is like this. .”
Greta sighed: "Forget it, I don't have time to learn Esperanto. The naturalization process is so complicated, I can't understand it either."
It’s not that I don’t understand. Naturalization means completely confessing your past experience and accepting on-the-spot inspections, but the name Hans Koch in your file cannot withstand scrutiny, and once your former identity is discovered, as long as the immigration bureau knows that you have worked in a Nazi concentration camp, even if Your fingers have never been stained with blood. Even if you just stand and watch silently from a distance, you will be convicted of historical crimes and absconding according to the "Heavenly Punishment Act". Regardless of severity or leniency, death is the only outcome. I wanted to say something, but the muscles on my face twitched twice, and I was suppressed by a large mouthful of ice water again. Didn't she see the irony? The line "20th Century German" hanging next to her face was like the hexagram, cross and sickle-axe of her time, and the "refugee" label at the beginning of her file swept away everything Hesitation trapped her in the repetitive labor of robots, a subsistence wage, and an airport city with many checkpoints.
Or maybe she knew it, because if I didn't know her details, I would have blurted out: "Come with me, pretend to be my assistant, and sneak out for an hour." The first time it came out Ordinary people who travel are always the best companions. They will be shocked by the common time jumps, and will run around excitedly, trying to talk to everyone. Only half-joking threats can make them restrain themselves slightly. I have tried it several times, and I have also expressed such exclamations in my columns. Perhaps this caught her eyes, took root in her heart, and brewed into a good idea.
"I have to report to the Space and Time Administration. This is a rule, especially if it has to do with the Fire Thief." Mina said to me before leaving.
Suspects suspected of absconding in history must be reported immediately, otherwise they will be treated as accomplices. The "Act of Divine Punishment" is clearly written. However, when I heard Greta ask me about my next writing plan, I still lost my appetite. In different places in different eras, I have witnessed countless deaths: those who said goodbye peacefully, those who were bloody and bloody, those who left alone, hundreds of thousands... As a lucky bystander, I also used my hands They have been soaked in hot blood, but not once have they taken someone's life with their own hands.
Until now, facing a suspect who once considered murder as a daily job, my uncontrollable curiosity pinched her heart. I looked towards the end of the airport, the only gate that remained closed. One day I will go there, hopefully as a recorder. Only then will I know whether my choice at the moment is right or wrong.
"If I have the chance, I would like to apply to go to the Great Migration Era and write about my historical responsibility." I decided to give Greta a chance. "The core demands of the extremist organizations that have been hunted down in recent years, such as the fire thieves in the past few years, are It is the responsibility of liquidating the 'Great Migration'. What they did was too crazy, but it has not yet been determined whether it was right or not to leave the weakest people who needed protection most in the disaster-ridden earth and let the young and middle-aged people come out to open up new homes. .So, I want to go back and see with my own eyes.”
"It's been more than two hundred years, do you need to be so serious?" Greta's blue eyes showed no trace of cruelty. "I don't quite understand. If we don't leave behind those old, weak, sick and disabled, no one can survive. Today. Isn't the prosperity of the New Earth based on forced trade-offs? Those who carried out the 'Great Migration' were just obeying orders and doing what they had to do. This has been the case since ancient times." Just like that, she threw away the opportunity.
4
Greta's home is smaller than I imagined, and you can see the end as soon as you enter the door. If the strong lights of the investigation team hadn't flashed in front of our eyes from time to time, the yellow light from the overhead lights would have been warm and cozy on the beds, desks, wardrobes and kitchen counters purchased by the airport company. The airport provides such protection to employees who do not have a fixed residence. They may not live very comfortably, but at least they can have the necessities of life. After leaving work early and returning late, they can have their own place to have a leisurely meal and lie down. Think about your thoughts in bed.
Greta, who works year-round, doesn't stay at home for long. The frozen lunch boxes and fiber supplements in the refrigerator are all labeled "Cronos Airport". There is no decoration on the bed except for the angular quilt and pillows, which makes it difficult to see. Show a little bit of the owner's preferences.
Two uniformed time agents sat in front of a desk that was only an arm's length away, browsing her hacked personal terminal, marking the content that needed further investigation with a red pen, and dragging it into the investigation team's case file. At a glance, the circled content includes my feature collection "In One Second" on the desktop, "Born during the Bombing of London" on the virtual bookshelf, and "Hans Koch" in the browser search history , and a folder named "Los Angeles, USA, 1955".
Three other agents also went in and out wearing gloves and shoe covers, taking photos from every corner, and then sorting and boxing all movable items. In just a few minutes, I passed an old suitcase, three sets of restaurant uniforms and two sets of casual clothes, including towels and sanitary napkins. And I stood stiffly at the bathroom door, trying not to block the way, like "a fly on the wall," as I promised Colonel Josephson. Mina's introduction, coupled with my past works, smoothly knocked on the door of the anti-extremism team led by Colonel Sen.
Colonel Mori stood beside me with his elbows crossed. He was not required to track down a refugee, but it was he who personally directed the hunt for Orfeo Zeit three years ago. He walked around Greta's room and came up with his own reasoning: "Kronos Airport's insistence on private rights is almost paranoid. Although it often cooperates with the government, it has no access to public records, so the pursuit of Zeit When , we missed Günter, who he guaranteed under a pseudonym. The airport is the only way for every time traveler. I estimate that Cait placed Günter here as a signal light. Once He was able to escape in time when the lights went out, but what he didn't expect was that our agents beat him to it in Berlin."
"What about Greta? What will happen to her?"
"Like everyone who tries to play with time and escape history, she was sent back to the end of the Great Migration era...Honestly, if she had stayed in Germany, it would have depended on what she did in the concentration camp. She would have been severely Convicted of war crimes, detained or executed, many people were not held accountable and spent their remaining years in anonymity. But it is different here, and when they are involved with fire thieves, the only result is the death penalty."
I nodded silently, not knowing what else to ask. At the end of the Great Migration era, when human civilization encountered the most profound crisis, those who were able to leave had long since left. Those who remained in place, even if they survived the disasters of plague and famine, were unable to withstand the final revenge of the earth. Time travelers are prohibited from going to that node, so it becomes our garbage dump. The "Act of Divine Punishment" clearly states that mass murderers who fled the fire of revenge, thugs who used past wars to satisfy their bloodlust, and extremists who tried to undermine the historical order and put it into practice will eventually come here. No exception: you want to play with time, right? Then try it at the end of the world.
"Found it!" A young agent shouted in surprise, and Colonel Mori and other subordinates gathered around him. Hidden under the mattress are three photos wrapped in old fabrics: one should be a family photo, the middle-aged woman sitting is like an older replica of Greta, and the girl behind her wearing a black tie, Greta's keenness hidden in shyness can be vaguely seen between her brows.
In the other picture, Greta is older, wearing makeup, her blond hair is styled into a fashionable bob, wearing a gray jacket and culottes with a military hat and leather boots, a Nazi badge on her chest, and several similarly dressed girls. Smile with teeth showing. Mina Having said that, these fashionable and self-reliant female soldiers are the envy of girls in the town. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that attracted Greta to join them.
The last picture is of a young man wearing an SS uniform. At first glance, he looks similar to the Nazi officer in the history book, but after a closer look, he feels that something is not harmonious. Maybe it's because the outline of his chin isn't strong enough, or his back is too straight, or maybe it's because his eyes lack a little faith, and are vaguely cast with a layer of melancholy and aloof indifference as he knows the outcome. No matter what period of attire one wears, one passer-by can always recognize another passer-by. "Offeo Zeit, it's really him," Colonel Sen said with no surprise in his tone. He turned on the intercom, lowered his head and muttered, "It's time to take action."
======
The search was carried out at the same time as the arrest, and I had to go to Greta's house, so I didn't get to see her directly. What happened at the airport that morning? I had no choice but to activate my professional training as a feature reporter. Based on the known clues and the analysis of the Space-Time Administration's psychologists, I returned to the scene afterwards, checked the surveillance, and looked for witnesses. I had no choice but to find out what happened at the airport that morning. Under such circumstances, use the privileges given by this column to develop imaginations that are not too outrageous. What kind of person is Greta? My dear reader, I believe you will make your own judgment——
When ordering, Greta smiled wider than usual. The passenger flow before noon is always the densest. She shuttles between the dining tables and delivers the dishes in time to the travelers who are in a hurry to board the spaceship. She walks lightly, as if she is completing a set of physical gymnastics moves and will jump up at any time. "Please enjoy," she greeted everyone, and her step-by-step voice could not contain her excitement: Tomorrow I will be like you, being served instead of serving others, becoming a time traveler, and accepting the envy of others. .
To be precise, it's smuggling. But the name is not important, what is important is the result. It has been five years. In this lucky year, she will finally get rid of the shackles of a refugee, travel far away, truly become another person, and completely forget.
The reporter named Qin Yi invited her to go out together tomorrow. He lowered his head, as if asking the girl for her first date. The proposal was mixed with repetition and self-denial: I want to go to the opening ceremony of Disneyland in 1955, in the United States. Anaheim, California, is a short travel feature. It’s quite relaxing. It’s a half-vacation. If it’s convenient, would you like to come with me? I can say that you are my assistant. I have an application letter from the magazine and the customs will Release directly. It’s not too expensive. I’ll be reimbursed anyway, and I’ll just pay for yours. It doesn’t matter if you’re not interested, I’m sorry I may have been a bit abrupt...
She had been waiting for this invitation for a long time. Ever since she found out Qin Yi's identity and opened his "One Second", this possibility has stimulated her expectations from time to time. He once led a female clerk from the cafe downstairs of the magazine to sneak into the launch site of the Soviet "Mate" satellite. He once led a female doctoral student studying the Taiping Rebellion to explore the Xianfeng era. He once placed the Japanese female official who wrote "The Tale of Genji" in the Sanatorium on the New Earth... He seems to like to lend a helping hand to women. I don't know if it is out of selfish selfishness that is not elegant, or because he likes to hear their thanks, or because he was unable to save himself from a white phosphorus bomb in college. The female Viet Cong guerrillas never forget. Anyway, when he accused New Earth's refugee policy at the bar of being a form of slavery and isolation, he might have already been planning his next after-work pastime.
See, after five years, she learned how to play here. She showed joy as if she had never been far away, and listened with great interest to Qin Yi listing the iconic Crazy Tea Party, Mark Twain River Boat, and Main Street Movie Theater in the first Disneyland in the universe. She dug out the suitcase she had brought five years ago, and the clothes she brought from Germany were still lying at the bottom of the suitcase - those thick and rough fabrics would be out of place in the new earth, but they should be fine in the United States after World War II.
She would accompany this alien visitor as he gnawed marshmallows and watched the fireworks, explain to him why there were almost no black people in the garden, use her white skin to protect his Oriental face from being pushed, and then disappear when there were many people. The next day, he would embark on the journey back frustrated, and she would start all over again, perhaps in a restaurant outside Paradise, perhaps not too far away in Hollywood. If those Jews could do it, then of course she could.
She still had most of the day to hesitate whether to take those three old photos with her. She secretly smuggled the photos into the customs without telling Hans. Hans taught her to make up a whole set of stories, including her chance encounter with a scholar who studied Nazi Germany, her escape from the Berlin air raid, and in the years after Hans left. , she filled in the details by relying on the memoirs of survivors of the London bombing. Any one of these photos would completely blow the story away. But she was willing to take the risk and drift alone hundreds of years later. At least she would have these remaining memories to accompany her every night.
Going to the United States is different. Without Hans, she had to figure out how to fill the ten years after 1945. How a German girl who survived the bombing set foot on the west coast of the United States could not ask anyone for advice, so she could not let the enemy signs that would touch the nerves of the victor at any time reveal her disguise. She wrapped the photos and stuffed them under her bed, thinking of other options before destroying them when she returned from get off work.
The order pops up on the screen. It's a delivery order, coming from the "Earth: The Age of Migration" boarding gate. In five years of coming to the restaurant, this was the first time she saw someone ordering there. They should be the three middle-aged people who just ran past the door of the restaurant. They had temporary permits for entering the Great Migration period hanging on their chests, and wore the recording glasses commonly used by scholars when they went out for inspections. They were looking around for the boarding gate.
She pressed to accept the order, smoothed the strands of hair hanging from her temples, and smoothed the slightly wrinkled hem of her skirt. What did Qin Yi say? Tracing the origins of the "Great Migration" is the Holy Grail he has longed for. Hans also mentioned with great longing that there is something at the end of time that he has been pursuing all his life. Himmler sent people to search for the Holy Grail again and again, thinking that it was the key to the victory of the Aryans, but he just misunderstood Hans's words literally based on wishful thinking.
Hummus with pita bread, a Jewish favorite. Qin Yi also ordered it once, and while smearing the white mucus on the dry and hard pancake, he asked her if she had tasted it. She held her breath, smiled and answered no, caught a glimpse of the next customer raising her hand and walked away quickly. The New Earth made her see clearly that everything she once believed in was in vain—hundreds of years later, humans have left the earth, and there are still people eating hummus with pita bread.
Greta carried the meal bag and went to the customs with the order. The temporary pass mark on her location information began to count down, and then she ran towards the depths of the airport where she had never dared to set foot. She scanned her fingerprints and pupils, watched the red light turn green, the large characters "Restricted Area" disappeared, and the railings slowly opened. She smiled reflexively, and the gate camera recorded her smile.
Greta doesn't know that she is just a pawn in the Fire Thief's plan, just as she thinks that guarding "enemies of the Empire" is just an order from someone else. The curses and kicks, the execution ground not far from the holiday party, and the sealed tin cans with self-evident uses are just part of her daily life, just like her naturally curly blond hair, the Girls League badge given by her teacher, and the daily greetings Customers are greeted with the same "welcome" message. She prayed for Hans' return, sometimes resented his betrayal, sometimes mourned his death, and finally forgot about this past event. Or maybe she had already guessed something, so she started looking for a way out. What else can she do when she feels trapped in a story she cannot understand and is unable to resist?
She craned her neck to see the hatch open, her feet unable to stop flapping in place. She wanted to write down as much of the furnishings here as possible so that she could compare them with the spaceship to California tomorrow, which made Qin Yi marvel. Until the spacecraft lands, he will be immersed in envy of those three scholars, thinking about how to get permission to interview during the Great Migration Era, and is completely unaware of the footsteps of his traveling companions who can't help but walk out.
The three passengers who had just passed by the restaurant were sitting together and discussing something. When they heard the sound, they raised their heads and one of them asked: "Is it the Airport Express? We are afraid of missing the flight, so please bring it to us."
"Your hummus with pita bread." She crossed the threshold and placed the meal bag on the table at their signal. She noticed that the cabin was empty and they didn't seem to have much luggage. Is there no need to bring anything with me to the Great Migration? She wrote down this question, and maybe Qin Yi would explain it to her tomorrow.
"Please enjoy." When she turned her head, the person who just spoke happened to stand up and block her way. She muttered an apology, but he didn't back down. At the same time, the other two people also stood up. She looked at them doubtfully.
"Greta Günter," the leader said, slightly opening one side of his coat to reveal the silver badge inside. A holographic ID jumped out from the middle of the badge, "We are from the Space-Time Administration. According to the "Act of Divine Punishment," you He is accused of committing historical crimes and absconding. The physical evidence is conclusive. Please come with us. We will tell you the rest on the way... We have plenty of time."
