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See my cover story in the August Salon magazine, about new surveillance technologies and some of the stark choices we face in the years ahead. (Government Technology magazine also ran an interview with me about government accountability and the proposal to establish an Inspector General of the United States.)
 
Hear a recent speech (from NPR) about TECHNOLOGICAL NIGHTMARES, by renowned futurist economist Paul Streetn. Prof. Streetn offers exceptionally wise perspectives about future threats and opportunities. (I'm biased. He spends five minutes discussing The Transparent Society.)
 
Salon Magazine recently ran another of my articles about popular culture. This one focuses on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy, Lord of the Rings, and how that famous trilogy has played an important role in the long struggle of romanticism against the modern world. The version on Salon was abridged. The full-length article can be viewed here.
 
The Life Eaters.Now available in bookstores: The Life Eaters! This lavish 144 page graphic novel vividly extends one of my classic novellas into a full-length saga -- a dark but ultimately uplifting tale about an alternate world, offering chillingly plausible insight to what the Nazis might have really been up to, during World War II. DC/Wildstorm calls Life Eaters 'the biggest thing to happen in the graphic novels since Watchmen or The Dark Knight'!
 
More than a dozen organizations, spanning a wide spectrum of interest, have lately engaged me for my specialty -- questioning deep-seated assumptions. One of these 'unconventional' consultations finally was transcribed -- a keynote speech for the Libertarian National Convention (7/02). Beyond some specifics aimed at that group, you may find the general perspectives (e.g., about the way people view past and future) unusual and thought-provoking.
 
Contacting Aliens.Now available in bookstores, Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide To David Brin's Uplift Universe is a fun tour of the many alien races people enjoyed in books like Startide Rising and The Uplift War. I do need to make one correction, however; take a look at my fiction errata page.

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home > science fiction > online novellas & short stories > thor meets captain america 1   2   3   4   5
 
"Thor Meets Captain America"

a novella by David Brin

Copyright © 1986 (revised 12/98), by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

5.

     "You are a Dane, are you not?"
     Chris stood tied to a pillar in front of a crackling fireplace. The Gestapo official peered at Chris from several angles before asking his question.
     "Danish by ancestry. What of it?" Chris shrugged under his bonds.
     The Nazi clucked. "Oh, nothing in particular. It is just that I never cease to be amazed when I find specimens of clearly superior stock fighting against their own divine heritage."
     Chris lifted an eyebrow. "Do you interrogate a lot of prisoners?"
     "Oh, yes, very many."
     "Well, then you must be amazed all the time."
     The Gestapo man blinked, then smiled sourly. He stepped back to light a cigarette, and Chris noticed that his hands were trembling.
     "But doesn't your very blood cry out when you find yourself working with, going into battle alongside, racial scum, mongrels... ?"
     Chris laughed. He turned his head and regarded the Nazi icily.
     "Why are you here?"
     The fellow blinked again. "See here. I am in charge of intelligence and party doctrinal -- "
     "You're a jailor. The priests of the Aesir run everything now. The mystics in the SS control the Reich. Hitler's a tottering old syphyllitic they won't let out of Berchtesgaden. And you old-fashioned Nazis are barely tolerated anymore."
     The officer sucked at his cigarette. "What do you mean?"
     "I mean that all that racial claptrap was just window dressing. An excuse to set up the death camps. But the SS would've been just as happy to use Aryans in them, if that was the only way to..."
     "Yes?" The Gestapo man stepped forward. "To do what? If the purpose of the camps was not the elimination of impure races, then what, smart man? What?"
     There was a brittle, high-pitched edge to the man's laughter. "You do not know, do you? Even Loki did not tell you!"
     Chris could have sworn that there was disappointment in the officer's eyes... as if he had hoped to learn something from Chris, and felt let down to find out his prisoner was just as much in the dark.
     No, I wasted a question. Loki didn't tell me about the reason for the camps.
     Chris glanced at the other man's trembling hands, that had doubtless wreaked more hell on broken bodies than bore contemplating. All in a cause that was no longer even relevant to the winning side.
     "Poor obsolete National Socialist," Chris said. "Your dreams, mad as they were, were human ones. How does it feel to have it all taken over by aliens? To watch it change beyond recognition?"
     The Gestapo man reddened. Fumbling, he plucked a truncheon from the wall and smacked it in his gloved left hand.
     "I will change something else beyond recognition," he growled. "And if I'm obsolete, at least I am still allowed the pleasure of my craft."
     He approached, smiling, a thin film on his lips. Chris braced himself as the arm swung back. But then the leather curtains parted. A large shadow fell across the rug. The officer paled and snapped to attention.
     Red-bearded Thor nodded briefly, shrugging out of his fur cloak.
     "You may go," he rumbled.
     Chris did not even look at the Nazi as the interrogator tried to meet his eye for the last time. Chris watched coals in the fireplace until the curtains swished again and he was alone with the alien.
     Thor sat cross-legged, joining Chris in contemplating the flames. When he used his hammer to prod the logs, heat brought out fine, glowing designs in the massive iron head.
     "Fro sends word from Vineland... from the sea thou callest Labrador. There has been a slaughter of many brave men. Those cowards tools -- 'submarines' -- did frightful harm to our fleet. But in the end, Fro's tempests were masterful. The landing is secured.
     Chris controlled a sinking feeling in his stomach. This was expected. Worse would come this winter.
     Thor shook his head. "This is a bad war. Where is the honor, when thousands die unable even to show valor?"
     Chris had more experience than most Americans in holding conversation with gods. Still, he took a chance by speaking without permission.
     "I agree, Great One. But you can't blame us for that."
     Thor's eyes glittered as he inspected Chris.
     "No, brave worm. I do not blame you. That you have used your flame weapons as little as you have speaks well for the pride of thy leaders. Or perhaps they know what our wrath would be, if they were spent wantonly."
     I never should have been allowed on this mission. I know too much, Chris realized. Loki had been the one to overrule High Command and insist that Chris come along. But that made him the only one here who knew the real reason the H-bombs had been kept leashed.
     Dust from atom blasts, and soot from burning cities -- those were what Allied High Command feared, more than radiation or Nazi retaliation. Already, from limited use of nuclear weapons so far, the weather had chilled measurably.
     And Aesir were much stronger in winter! Scientists verified Loki's story, that careless use of the Allied nuclear advantage would lead to catastrophe, no matter how badly they seared the other side.
     "We too prefer a more personal approach," Chris said, hoping to keep the Aes believing his own explanation. "No man wants to be killed by powers beyond his understanding, impossible to resist or fight back against."
     Thor's rumble, this time, was low laughter.
     "Well said, worm. Thou dost chastize as Freyr does, with words that reap, even as they sow."
     The Aes leaned forward a little. "You would earn merit, small one, if you told me how to find the Brother of Lies."
     Those gray eyes were like cold clouds, and Chris felt his sense of reality waver as he looked into them. It took an effort of will to tear his gaze away, replying with a dry mouth.
     "I... don't know what you're talking about."
     The rumbling changed tone, deepening. Chris felt a rough touch as Thor brushed his cheek with the leather-bound haft of his great war hammer.
     "Loki, youngling. Tell me where the Trickster may be found, and you may yet escape your doom, you may even find a place by my side. In the world to come, there will be no greater place for a man.
     This time Chris steeled himself to meet the hypnotic pools. Thor's eyes seemed to reach hungrily for his soul, as a magnet might call to native iron. Chris fought back with a savage heat of hatred.
     "Not... for all the Valkyries in your pathetic alien pantheon," he whispered, half breathless. "I'd rather run with wolves."
     The smile vanished. Thor blinked, and for a moment Chris thought he saw the Aesir's image waver just a little, as if... as if Chris were looking through a man-shaped fold in space.
     "Courage will not save thee from the wages of disrespect, worm," the shape warned, and solidified again into a fur-clad giant.
     All at once, Chris was glad to have known O'Leary.
     "Don't you dig it yet, daddyo? I don't fucking believe in you! Wherever you're from, baby, they probably kicked you out!
     "You Aesir may be mean enough to wreck our world, but everything about you screams that you're the dregs, man. Leaky squares. Probably burned out papa's stolen saucer just gettin' here!"
     He shook his head. "I just refuse to believe in you, man."
     The icy gray eyes blinked once. Then Thor's surprised expression faded into a deathly cool smile.
     "I did not ken your other insults. But for calling me a man, you shall die as you seem to wish, before the morning sun."
     He stood and placed a hand on Chris's shoulder, as if emparting a friendly benediction, but even that casual touch felt viselike.
     "I only add this, small one. We Aesir have come invited, and we arrived not in ships -- even ships between the stars -- but instead upon the wings of Death itself. This much, this boon of knowledge I grant thee, in honor of your defiance."
     Then, in a swirl of furs and displaced air, the creature was gone, leaving Chris alone again to watch coals flicker slowly and turn into ashes.

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