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46.
As the black car containing Watka, Tedda, Amy, and the two agents barreled through the rainy streets of West Gotha, Tedda had her first opportunity to see her source world. It looked like a grim, threadbare place. It didn't have the orderliness, self-confidence, and culture she'd found in Monopol City. Parts of this place actually looked bombed out. She saw flashes on the horizon that she weren't sure were lightning or enemy missile strikes. At the moment, the legendary rumbling of artillery was still—the fake effects designed to fool her, which she'd heard in the B world, the fortress world.
Watka said: "We'll get you to a safe house where we can detox the great lady and then she'll make a new plan. With Hedrock gone, she'll be heartbroken, but she's now the leader of our movement to save the Gothas from destruction."
"I thought you were an old drunken NCO," Tedda said, squirming and not sure if she should admire him or be outraged.
He grinned at her, quite a handsome looking man, she thought. "Fatherland Academy of Performing Arts," he said, "professional actor. I thought I did my part pretty well, particularly being around when Moss Jr. was around so that he wouldn't feel he could get his paws on you."
"A Hedrock rule shot him."
"Oh good," Watka said happily, "but unfortunately Moss—or Gruen as he was known in the fortress—also was just a rule. The real Moss Jr. is alive and well up here, and about to cause a world war that may well end life on this entire planet."
"So are you now in charge, that Hedrock is gone?"
Watka nodded. "Temporarily. Nobody can replace Amy von Tedda as leader. She managed to tame the savage animal, the seducer, the East Gotha master spy. Who else could have done that?"
"They were in love."
"Oh yes, they were." Watka reflected on that. He said thoughtfully: "I brought him over from the East. I was actually his spy master, his handler. I was afraid he was a loose cannon, at first, but then I began to see his potential. He could have been a great leader, had he lived. I introduced him to Amy von Tedda, whom I knew from social circles where I was cultivating a lot of potential contacts."
"So you have been spying for the East?"
"I was, but like a number of other high level officials, I am now working for the downfall of both sides. You rules have been instrumental in breaking ground for a new world order here."
"What do you mean?"
"Power," he said, "power is good, but when it becomes concentrated too narrowly, that is bad. We had a convenient system of sharing power here among the Junker class. Then, in the last few generations, the Moss Syndicate has taken all power to itself. They dispossessed most of our Junker families, like my own and the von Teddas. A similar thing has happened on the other side with the Gruen Syndicate."
"Gruen!" Tedda said. "You mean, like Confessor Gruen and young Major Gruen down in the fortress?"
Watka chuckled. "Do you get it yet? It's all one big syndicate, one organization masquerading as two enemies. Moss and Gruen are the same families, give or take a few cousins and uncles on either side."
Tedda sat back and let that soak in. "But the war; the battles; the people dying, what about all the suffering?"
He laughed. "It's all a huge dark joke, my dear. It is a war between the Moss and Gruen sides of the same family. Now it has gotten totally out of hand, with Leader Moss in possession of a huge new weapon that has the potential to break the stalemate and actually let the Moss side win. We can't allow that to happen." He added: "Besides, this two-headed syndicate has ruled long enough. The degeneration has set in. The next generation are all half-crazed wastrels who spent their youth doing drugs and playing around. They aren't fit to continue ruling. That was the final insight of Captain Hedrock and Amy von Tedda. It has spread through the top echelons of government like wildfire. I'll tell you more a little later. We'll stay at the von Watka estate for now."
He wheeled the automobile off the road and onto a gravel driveway. A great iron gate with family crests swung open at the hands of half a dozen men—possibly rules, Tedda thought—in white wigs, tri-cornered hats, breeches, and silk frock coats. The car crunched up a long gravel drive at whose end sprawled a great gray mansion with a pillared portico in front and a central cupola bell tower. The car crackled among fountains and leafy labyrinths. Tedda saw rose gardens and tea pavilions. At the end of the road was a circular drive. Watka spoke on his car phone. "No activity at the main door. I forbid it. Meet me around the back." So saying, he turned away from the great circular drive. He took his passengers along the side of the house at a good steady clip. Tedda saw park-like meadows and trees extending as far as the eye could see. Watka rounded the corner and pulled up by a service entrance. There, several men in hunting gear and women in nursing uniforms stood waiting. The men of Baron Watka's private hunting army opened the doors, and the women helped Baroness von Tedda out. A stretcher was waiting, and Tedda watched them carry Amy von Tedda to a private infirmary in the great house. Whatever misgivings bothered her deep down, Tedda was glad to be safe for the moment. If she felt a tugging at her heartstrings, it was for Edgar—or Alton Hedrock as he styled himself.
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