"Either that," Karlsbach added, "or the colonel will give you to the foreigners for punishment." His aura indicated now that he was lying-no doubt playing with the newcomer.

"Foreigners? What will they do to me?" The answer was a shrug and smirk.

Then Montag was taken to the second floor main, to the men's quarters-the room where the male psychics were quartered. It held eight steel-framed army cots with mattresses, pillows, and blankets. Several had linens, and were made up for use. Connected to the sleeping room was a latrine, with commodes, urinals, washbasins, and an attached shower room with eight showerheads. He was also shown a door, diagonally across the corridor, which the corporal identified as quartering the female psychics. "I think they are very lonely in there," he said. "Perhaps they will invite you to visit them some night." Again he smirked. From there, Montag was shown the psychics, messroom, also on second-floor main, to which their food was delivered from the enlisted men's kitchen. An unoccupied classroom, on third-floor main, was equipped with tables, chairs, a blackboard, and large cabinet, but nothing else. There wasn't a clue as to what might be taught there.

The tour finished, Montag was returned to Captain Kupfer's office. The most interesting things he'd learned were the offlimits rules. Enforced rules: The foyer guard would see anyone attempting to visit the cellar, while a sentry stood at each corridor ell to each wing.

Kupfer was a Schwabe, a Swabian, gangling, nervous, forty-six years old, with large eyes suggesting hyperthyroidism-certainly not in the SS image. At first his Schwdbisch speech was difficult for Montag to follow, nor was Montag's Baltic German much easier for Kupfer. Nonetheless, Kupfer gave him the standard interview for psychic newcomers to the project, typing Montag's responses with quick index fingers. The interview required that if possible, the newcomer demonstrate his talents. Montag lit the captain's cigarette of course, but his invisibility spell, and ability to cast plasma charges, he kept carefully to himself. The written tests took longer. Kupfer hadn't been sure Montag could read well enough, but he managed, though laboriously. Or so it seemed. His most conspicuous difficulty was inserting the carbon paper right side up.

He is more ignorant than innately stupid, Kupfer decided; perhaps the Voitar will find him teachable. What Kupfer didn't consciously articulate in his mind was an underlying hope that this unlikely seeming young man, who had surely been more at home manhandling cargo on the Lubeck docks, might actually prove to be what they'd been striving for, thus validating Reichsfuhrer Himmler's hopes for the proct.

At the same time validating his own hopes for psychic phenomena, for Kupfer, though lacking psychic talent, was a true believer. Just having his cigarette lit had given him a considerable boost.

By the time Montag had plodded through the written tests, classes had let out for the psychics in the third-floor classrooms. Kupfer pressed a button on his desk, and a minute later a private arrived from the duty room. He took Montag to the men's quarters, delivering him, along with a carbon copy of the interview form, to the civilian in charge-the psychic who was senior to the others.

Briefly the guardsman waited until the senior psychic had scanned the form and handed it back. Then, fixing Kurt Montag with a hard gaze, he said, "You will do as the Herr Doktor Professor orders, or it will go badly for you here." With that admonition, he turned and left.

Herr Doktor Professor Edouard Friederich Schurz had taught psychology at the Jesuit University in Karlsruhe. Here he was a trainee, not a teacher, his titles honorific. Forty-one years old, he was rather tall and still somewhat spare, a bachelor who, as a student, had been the star of his university's tennis club. As a graduate student, he'd been suspected by a professor of influencing the minds of others psychically, an ability more common than generally realized. Schurz himself hadn't realized he did it, but when included in a study of psychic dynamics, his ability had been superior at the 0.001 probability level.

That is, there was almost no chance that the results were accidental-coincidences. It was through that study he'd come to Landgraf's attention, years before there'd been an Occult Bureau, or even an SS. Hindenburg had been president, and Hitler an obscure radical not long out of prison.

Schurz also read auras. Not in much detail, but enough to indicate somewhat about a person and their frame of mind, and he used it more or less automatically. In no more time than it had taken for the guardsman to introduce them, Schurz knew that Montag was not dull-wilted, or even slow-wilted, regardless of his facade, or anything his personnel form might say.

The simple fact of pretense was interesting. And worrisome. He needed time and observations to evaluate this newcomer. As he introduced the other male psychics-Herr Jensen, Herr Steinbach, Herr Eich-his mind worked on the problem. What might motivate Montag's pretense? Two possibilities occurred to him. It might be simply a means of staying out of the military, or he might be a spy from Berlin, sent to gather evidence that das Weutische Projekt was a useless waste of men and resources.

He hoped it was the former. Although he himself no longer had faith in the project, he'd hate to see it shut down. That would leave him vulnerable to military service, a gruesome thing to contemplate.

From Schurz's aura, Macurdy quickly realized the man saw through him. Was he telepathic? If so, this was a deadly situation. But by the time the introductions were completed-thirty seconds at most-Macurdy had rejected the thought: A telepath would have reacted more strongly. Perhaps Schurz simply read auras.

Then Schurz took him to the SS orderly room for an issue of bed and bath linens, and two suits of cheap, ill-fitting civilian clothes. On the way back, he showed him the psychics' recreation room. It was a bit like an army dayroom-a place where the psychics could spend their off hours reading, playing cards, talking, perhaps writing a letter. Just now, no one else was there. Schurz gestured toward a chair. "Sit down, Herr Montag," he said, and when Macurdy was seated, took a chair facing him, pulling it close.

"It might be well," Schurz said quietly, "if you knew something about your roommates. Otto Jensen is a sixty-year old peasant smallholder from Schleswig, who developed a local reputation as a blood-stopper. And for healing in general, both of farm animals and humans. Reportedly he also sets bones without traction, simply by stroking the limb. Unfortunately the Project is not interested in healing powers, and drills have not elicited the sort of abilities hoped for."

"Philipp Steinbach, as perhaps you have guessed, is mentally retarded-what is called an `idiot savant.' He is thirty-one years old, but his intellectual age is about six, and he is, of course, emotionally crippled. On the other hand, he can compute complex mathematical problems in his head, particularly of calendar dates, and on occasion produces poltergeist phenomena. It is the latter which brought him to Colonel Landgrafs attention. Unfortunately for the project, he has so far been unteachable. He simply does what he does."

Schurz grunted, a sort of humorless half chuckle. "As for Manfred- Herr Eich is a compulsive bully. He would bully physically if allowed to-I can imagine what life must have been like for his more susceptible school mates-but here that is forbidden him, so he bullies Otto and Philipp psychologically when he can. But not in front of me, because I have authority and do not put up with it. And remarkably, he is afraid of me physically; I can read it in…" Schurz waved a hand as if to cancel what he'd started to say. "He outweighs me by at least twenty kilos, but he fears physical strength, even strength no more than mine. Of course, he has only recently passed his eighteenth birthday; in time his confidence may increase, making him a more serious menace."