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Gerhard von Stumpel peered over his glasses
at the four women who had been paraded before
him. “Delightfully
interesting,” he muttered. He
walked back and forth in front of them several
times. “Yes,” he said
finally. “I think they will
do. Especially these
three.” He singled out the
very Aryan blonde, the slender redhead, and the tall
brownette.
“Perfect specimens,” he added.
“As for this one,” he continued,
moving in front of the stunningly beautiful oriental, “perhaps we can
breed her to one of the lesser races.
She has definite
possibilities.” He seemed
to think for a bit and then added, “Confine her separately from the
others. I may wish to study her
in more detail. Make sure that
they are properly fed and exercised.
I want each of them in top condition.”
Jia Li looked at the bespectacled middle aged
man who was studying her so intently.
She knew something was going on, but did not speak enough German to
understand exactly what was happening.
It was humiliating to be inspected as if she was some slab of meat,
but she held her tongue. Sturm
had made it abundantly clear that they were to be on their best behavior
when he had given them the gray and white prison garb they all
wore.
“You are going to be seen by the
doctor,” the German officer had
explained. “It is more than
you deserve and in order to make you presentable you are going to wear
these.” He had tossed the
prison fatigues at their feet.
“If any of you speak out of turn you will be stripped again and
required to go naked.” The
warning had been enough to convince the already cowed women to remain silent
during the superficial inspection von Stumpel had given
them.
As checkups went, it was pretty
cursory. Von Stumpel had looked
inside their mouths, checked their blood pressure, and inspected their hair
for lice, but that was as far as it went.
Still, there was something about the way von Stumpel looked at each
of them that made all of the women
uncomfortable. More to the point,
it would have been nice to know what the Nazi doctor was writing down in
his little black book, and exactly what he was saying to his assistant, a
tall strikingly, beautiful blonde woman, who looked coldly at them through
a pair of wire rimmed spectacles.
It would have been handy to have Larra to translate for her, but Larra
had not been seen since they had been herded into the concrete building from
the airport.
That plane ride had been a brutal
ordeal. Except for a single fuel
stop she and her companions had flown non-stop for over twelve
hours. During most of that time
they had been forced to sit on the hard wooden bench that lined one side
of the aircraft. Stripped naked
and under the leering eyes of the German guards, they had shivered with cold
at the lower temperatures of the higher
elevations. Only during the fuel
stop had they been allowed off to stretch their legs and refresh themselves,
and for most of the journey they had been deprived of food or
water. But at no time had there
been any sign of Larra. Jia Li
expected the worse. Sturm had
herded Larra into a forward compartment.
It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what had probably
happened to her. The question
was where was she now?
Everything
hurt. There was not a part of
her body that did not protest when she
moved. But she was dying of
thirst. Her eyes told her or
at least one of them did - the other was swollen shut; that there was a sink
only four feet away. The problem
was she didn’t have the strength to reach
it. “That bastard, really
worked me over,” Larra thought.
“Must have kept on hitting me after I blacked
out.”
A loud clang announced the opening of the
cell door. Larra couldn’t
even raise her head to see who it was, but she could see that he wore a white
coat. “Ah I see that you
are awake,” said a voice in High
German. “Perhaps you would
like some water, yes?”
Larra didn’t have the strength to even
nod, but the man didn’t wait for an
answer. She heard the sound of
running water and then a metal cup was held to her
lips. “That’s it
fraulein,
drink. I need you
strong. There is much I want
to learn about you.”
Even swallowing seemed painful, but the water
seemed to revive her somewhat.
Larra managed to raise her head and look at the man who was ministering
to her. He was about forty years
of age and of medium height. A
small gray mustache adorned his upper lip and he peered at her over thick
glasses.
“You should recover quickly,
fraulein.
You are in excellent health, except for some unfortunate
bruising. I am afraid that
Obersturmführer Sturm exceeded his
instructions. He was to bring
you here intact, not take out his frustration on
you. However, I have examined
you carefully and there is no permanent
damage. You should be back to
normal in a couple of weeks.”
Larra wondered why it was so important to the
doctor, if that was what he was, that she be in good
health. What did he want to learn
about her? That particular comment
sounded ominous.
“I will order food be brought to
you. There is no reason why you
cannot manage on your own. Eat
well. I want you to recover as
quickly as possible.”
The white coated man left the
cell. “Should have asked
him who he was,” thought Larra.
She gritted her teeth and tried to sit
up. With some effort and a lot
of pain she finally managed to swing her legs off the edge of the
cot. From there she could reach
the sink and refill the cup the doctor had left
there.
As she drank she studied the
cell. There wasn’t much
to see. It contained a narrow
cot, a sink, a toilet, and a mirror.
That was all. She refilled
the cup, and then shifting her weight, forced herself to stand
up.
She hardly recognized the face in the
mirror. “That bastard
Sturm,” she thought.
“I’m going to enjoy rearranging his
face.”
She looked down at her gray shirt and
pants. It resembled a prison
outfit and fit her rather poorly, being a couple of sizes too
large. She consoled herself with
the thought that it was better than having no clothes at
all. She sat back on the
bed. The simple act of standing
had exhausted her. She might
as well rest. There wasn’t
anything else she could do.
Von Stumpel hummed to himself as he headed
back to the lab.
Excellent. Finally some
worthwhile specimens. All of
the women who had been brought to him were impressive
animals. Beginning tomorrow he
would examine each one more thoroughly and determine how she would be
used. Except perhaps for
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