A Shift in Priorities - Sequel

Thereafter, he had been relegated to desk jobs. Well, he was too intelligent to not advance, but… Supreme supply staff officer for quartermaster material wasn’t exactly a dream assignment. But he still could be promoted to general – on retirement… The bottle was empty. Rokossowski burped. There must be another one in the sideboard. But then he dropped off – and dreamt of colossal tank battles
Oh, if only you knew friend, if only you knew....

Edit: which reminds me,when was the last time there was a massive tank battles happening ITTL on the scale of OTL Kursk?
 
He conquers twice, who shows mercy to the conquered.
(Julius Caesar)

Negroes! Bloody crappy Sambos! Moore, Smith and Beller had carefully advanced during the night, had found a good hiding place – and were now stealthily observing the activities of the enemy. The bastards were foraging, were ransacking – on a grand scale – the debris of Bedford for foodstuffs. There were about two hundred of them – and five lorries. They were well armed, but did not appear to be well trained – or by any chance disciplined. A sodding coon militia!

Okay, one had known that black workers – from Nigeria? – had arrived in Portsmouth. What the dickens had happened down south? Why weren’t those boys toiling obediently in Pompey? Why were they armed? And where were the white masters? – Poor Joe McMurdoc had been shot without warning. That spelled trouble. One needed to catch one of the buggers and interrogate him. Next night…

Moore and Beller did it. It wasn’t really difficult. The niggers were innocuous once attacked from their rear. But of course one had to decamp immediately. You couldn’t pump the bloke within earshot of the other Sambos. – The captured fellow quickly spilled out everything he knew – which wasn’t much. And his English was very poor. But the basic facts were clearer now. Good heavens!

They left the carcass of the captive as a warning for his buddies – and headed for Portsmouth, where the women still ought to be. It was more difficult now; one had to move by night – and hide over the day. The frigging niggers were roaming the countryside, looking for food and weapons. The captive had said there were also white men in London, but no totties. That was unappealing; hence one was going to bypass the former capital.
 
Seems like there's no end to the troubles experienced by the British Isles. First they lost the great war, then the Plague happens, and now this. I doubt they would ever recover back to their Pre-great war levels of economy and power.
 
The moon hangs alien, heavy, like a lock on a door; the door is tightly shut.
(Yevgeny Zamyatin)

Venus bug quarantine had been lifted – at long last. After having been treated a guided tour of the Achinsk NASA facilities, Helga von Tschirschwitz, Georg and Matthias had been flown to Moscow. In the Kremlin, they had been received by Tsar Vladimir IV and been decorated with the Order of Saint Aleksandr Nevsky, Helga as Dame Grand Cordon, Georg and Matthias as Knight Commanders. Of course, a prime time appearance in Russian TV had been unavoidable. Thereafter, they had been repatriated.

Reception in Berlin had been… well, anticlimactic. Georg and Matthias had immediately been transferred to Friedrichshafen. Helga had been interviewed by Director Kammler – and then been sent on holidays until further notice. – The interview had been… interesting. She was to write and submit a detailed report about her little adventure. Instead of picking her brains, Kammler had brought her into the loop on his efforts to restart RRA. And he had enlisted her.

She was on leave now, free to arrange TV and radio performances, deliver speeches, write articles for newspapers and magazines – and whatever more should come to her mind. She was Miss Luna – and she had helped recover the Venergost kosmonauts. In short, she was the best ambassadress for spaceflight Kammler could think of. He wanted her to beat the drum. The German media should be eager to portray her…

Now, compared to Russia, media attention hereabouts was… lukewarm. She was getting some invitations, but true ardour was certainly feeling different. The German public was far less thrilled by the Venergost adventure than the Russians were. The Ivans had started an overambitious project, which had failed tragically. One knew now that men weren’t made for space. So, what the heck!

What Helga was picking up from her compatriots wasn’t encouraging indeed. The lesson they had learnt from the Venergost disaster was that spaceflight had no future. Why waste good money for something that was killing those sent into space? The government had been well advised to close down RRA. Germany had other problems to solve. – Dash it! Landing on the Moon had been no cakewalk, but swaying public opinion ought to become a real steeplechase.
 
It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
(Marcus Tullius Cicero)

The ship was rolling and scending as it was steaming through rough sea. In his hidey-hole in the forecastle, Onodosi M’Afikpe was wrapping himself in a blanket. It was cold. He had thought it would get warmer, but it was becoming colder. That was strange. But the ship was steaming south, to Nigeria, wasn’t it?

It hadn’t been easy to get on board. The supply ships were still mooring in Portsmouth Harbour, which the whites were controlling. But on those vessels that came from Nigeria, the majority of the crews used to be black. Getting into contact with them had been half the battle.

Of course, the officers, all whites, knew of nothing. And they mustn’t find Onodosi. Well, his friends on board had said they would take care he wasn’t found. His den was neither heated nor lighted; there was no water tap, no loo. He had a bottle and a bucket. And he was served one meal per day, in the evening, while the captain and his officers were dining in the mess.

It was important that he returned home. British rule had to be ended. He had seen the reality of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. It was a vicious mockery that these people should rule Nigeria. He was going to alert the chiefs to what was really happening in Britain – and how wretched the Britons were in reality.

One had to get rid of them. It wouldn’t be complicated. And the Middle Africans wouldn’t come; they were afraid of having to deal with thirty million aliens. Nigeria might stay united – or fractionalize, it didn’t matter. One was going to be free…
 
How is Aldous Huxley reacting to this britain? his book ended up right just with more africans involved...the irony...

So the british islands abandoned...again?
 
What is all our history, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted?
(Oliver Cromwell)

The Belgian language issue had been solved in a very rude manner. The Flemish were all dead, or nearly; almost only Walloons had survived the pest. Considering the fact that of – formerly – 8.8 million Belgians 5.3 millions had been Flemings, the Walloons had got off lightly – under the circumstances… Almost every fourth Walloon had lived through the catastrophe. Nevertheless, 860,000 people were a rather pathetic crowd for a nation.

Belgium had been the first country on the continent to pick up the industrial revolution started in Great Britain. It had been considered the economic miracle of the nineteenth century, a miracle that had taken place in the Walloon regions. However, the Belgian miracle had already been in decline, before the Germans had ruined it outright in the Great War. After the war, the Flemish regions, hitherto deemed backward in development, had been the ones starting to flourish.

Hence, the surviving Walloons were now confronted with crumbling infrastructure, obsolete factories, broken trade structures, missing neighbours – and the general impossibility to rebuild the nation from so few citizens. It wasn’t so that entire communities had survived; as a rule, only individuals had made it. It was a very mixed lot that had survived – mainly by hiding in the dense forests of the Ardennes.

One was ploughing a lonely furrow. The surviving Dutch were far away. The surviving French were massing in the south of their country and thus even farther away. The dead Germans in the Rhineland had been replaced by Bulgarians, Romanians and other aliens. What should one do? One couldn’t rely for good on aid supplies administered by the Spanish and Portuguese Red Cross societies.

Abandoning home wasn’t acceptable to most, even if they could see that joining the surviving French would perhaps be the most reasonable way ahead. No, after intense debate it was decided – by vote – to form a new community. It was to be based on the triangle Wavre – Namur – Charleroi. Agriculture, the groundwork of all civilization, had to be restarted with highest priority. It meant stepping backwards, this was well understood. But one had to become self-reliant first of all.
 
Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
(Francis of Assisi)

The political decision to target the Moon hadn’t come as a surprise for the NASA staff. One had prepared applicable component plans that could easily be combined – if sufficient funding was made available. In any case, phase one would be the augmentation of NSÒ. This objective could be achieved with the rockets and capsules already in use.

During the time required for the enhancement of the space station, a new carrier rocket had to be tested and finally commissioned. The proven Nosítelnitsa series was adequate for all orbital operations, but not for manned missions to the Moon. Consequently, a new capsule, the Lunobegún, was scheduled to be tested. It was the equivalent of the German Raumkobold and destined to incorporate the lander, which NASA called Kikimora.

The new carrier rocket, Titán was the projected designation, had to lift Lunobegún, Kikimora and a crew of five into orbit, from where Lunobegún would target the Moon. It was an unglossed imitation of the RRA approach, no doubt, but the latter had been successful, hadn’t it? Titán was yet existing as construction drawing only. Building and testing the beast was going to be an expensive exercise, because, of course, one had to best the German A14.

The intention was to launch a series of landings, at least five, if possible seven. The results of these landings were going to decide the way ahead. Lunobegún and Kikimora were designed to be large enough to also carry bulky equipment – like automated measuring and transmitting stations, a drilling rig or a ground vehicle, the Lunokhod.

Recruiting and training the kosmonauts for the venture had already begun. Enhancement of NSÓ could start immediately, as it was well prepared. The first prototype of the Titán was scheduled to be ready in the first quarter of 1958. Therefore, NASA was currently envisioning the series of moon landings for 1959 and 1960.
 
My soul is in the sky.
(William Shakespeare)

What Helga von Tschirschwitz had told him about NASA’s schemes had fairly surprised Wernher von Braun. Helga was quite good in sounding things out – and she was a competent spacewoman. Therefore, he considered her account to be very likely. – So, the Russians did not plan to utilise Venergost, or a similar space cruiser, for their lunar operation, but were bent on imitating his approach.

Now, Venergost was a powerful craft; it could easily transport a lander, even a lander much larger than RRA’s Hüpfer. Why then had Tikhonravov and his team refrained from using Venergost? It was going to cost them approximately two years. – It certainly wasn’t out of reverence for Yurka, Vovik and Kolya. Had the space cruiser taken more damage than NASA would admit? – Most probably… But what secret were they hiding?

Radiation? As far as von Braun knew, the central cylinder – the habitation module – of Venergost was protected by a lead liner. But the four outer cylinders weren’t. Well, after seven months in space – and the solar storm – they must be radiating like fury. They were large fuel tanks and rocket motors – and must still be workable, or the Russians wouldn’t have been able to catch the ship and bring it back to NSÓ.

How thick was the lead liner? Surely not five centimeters… The stuff was a very heavy load to be hoisted into orbit. And a lesser thickness wouldn’t shield perfectly… Okay, that might explain it. Von Braun was reassured to have found a possible explanation. – The Russians had thus lost their edge and had to start anew.

Nevertheless, they still could build a new space cruiser. Constructing Venergost had been a rather rapid process. And all elements had been lifted with Nositelnitsas. – What game was Tikhonravov playing?
 
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I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
(Mark Twain)

Of course, no Timmy – but several bullet holes in the superstructure. Thank goodness, no one on board had been hurt. But the venture was a failure. Sir Hamilton William Kerr had known it wasn’t going to work. Albeit, it had to be tried, just to affirm he was doing everything to save Timmy. His wife wouldn’t accept anything else. – He had chartered a sturdy ocean-going tug complete with crew. The captain was a German, Paul Klinnemeyer. The crew was a ghastly assortment of Germans, Poles, Danes and Latvians, vicious fellows. But who else would sail to Britain these days?

Kerr had used his excellent ties to the German intelligence community to receive a security update. The whites in Portsmouth were still holding out, but they were under close siege – and their stocks were running out. The suppliers, although well paid hitherto, were refusing to touch at Portsmouth. The blacks had now moved close enough to fire at everything that moved in Portsmouth Harbour. They even had brought up some field guns, light pieces, probably anti-tank cannons. That was enough to discourage the suppliers.

One had lash-up armoured the tug and installed four machine guns – in a Danish port, far away from the attention of the German authorities – and had steamed for Portsmouth. Klinnemeyer was a reserve officer in the Kaiserliche Marine, a Kaleu with experience in handling fast patrol boats. Nevertheless, the lad had never before been under fire. The crew, however, had created the impression they were going to a donnybrook fair. They were extremely well paid – by their standards – and not expecting tedious toil, but a bonny fray.

Going in during darkness should have provided them an edge. But the blacks had large parachute flairs, and the concerto had promptly begun. After two near misses by an AT-gun, Klinnemeyer had decided to abort mission. Kerr had seen the calamity: the Portsea Island with Portsmouth and Southsea was still held by the Brits, but Gosport on the other side of the harbor entrance was in possession of the enemy. Even if you were lucky to get in, there was no telling whether you might make it out again.

The blacks were well established on Hayling Island too; hence every attempt to make contact on the Southsea beaches had been doomed as well. And the Isle of Wight was in black hands too, as one soon had found out. – A military outfit with appropriate equipment might have managed the situation, but the tug was lucky to get away unscathed. – There had been radio contact, with some Royal Navy staff on land. They had cried for help; they needed ammo, fuel and food; things which Kerr couldn’t deliver. In revenge, the navy dudes had had no clue who Timmy was and where he might be.

One was now returning to Ringkøbing in order to civilize the tug again – and have the bullet holes spackled and painted over. Then one would proceed to Hamburg. It had been a waste of time and effort – and it had almost ruined Kerr.
 
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
(Oscar Wilde)

Cancer! Not just some isolated cases, as would perhaps be normal. No, one might call it an epidemic, if cancer was contagious. The most recent arrivals from home were worst afflicted. They were folks coming mainly from the Chongjin region, where the Japanese enterprises were laying off staff by the score. The high overlords hadn’t elucidated why they were disengaging from Chongjin, which always had been a focal point of their industrial effort in Korea. – Might it be they were recoiling from an increased number of cancerous sickness cases?

Choe Kyung–jae was seriously worried. Cascadia’s health system wasn’t bad, but it was hardly apt to properly deal with mass cancer. The one large hospital available in Vancouver was clearly overstretched. The physicians could perchance diagnose the malady, but not really cure all the cases. And, of course, the picture was most diverse: lymphatic cancer, breast cancer, bone cancer, hepatitic cancer, pancreatic cancer, you name it… What in blazes was going on here?

Well, not here but rather at home, evidently. Chongjin hadn’t been affected by the disaster of the Japanese nuclear sites in Korea. This debacle had happened in the south. The north, however, had been hit by fallout from the Chinese super bomb. Was the cancer a consequence of this contamination? It would seem so… The stuff was still around, it was impossible to clean up the mountainous terrain of the north. – The Cascadian authorities weren’t really enthralled to have allowed in sick people. They were now demanding repatriation and compensation by healthy folks.

The bosses back home were ready to comply, that went without saying. New personnel were already in transit. – But Korea was contaminated in the north and in the south. And the sickness took time to develop, as far as Choe knew. You were absorbing radiation for months and years, until the cancer finally hit you. How healthy were the new folks really going to be? And what would happen to the sick people sent home? The Cascadian health system, as small and limited as it was, still was splendid if compared to the Korean one…
 
So Korean got cancer now..and japanese escaped it? very lucky those rascals here
They wouldn't exactly have escaped it. Radiation from nuclear bombs falls off sharply with time as the created range of radioactive isotopes decays - radiation emissions being a consequence of how quickly they decay. So the more radioactive an isotope is is the quicker its radiation falls off.

The point being that while the Japanese wisely pulled out they likely still got high doses from the initial fallout. They caught the peak just like their subjects. The Koreans would just have absorbed an even higher lifetime dosage over time as they had no choice but to keep living in an environment polluted by the remaining contaminants with longer half-times.

So, the repatriated Japanese would still suffer from a cancer epidemic - just not quite as severe as the Koreans.
 
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.
(Robert Louis Stevenson)

It was ignoble and degrading. He had believed he was going to be an important man, a ruler of men – or at least a manager of power. But he had not even become the lieutenant of a powerful master – instead, he had been appointed the loo tenant of Number Ten Downing Street. – Okay, someone had to do it. And he happened to be the youngest bloke hereabouts. Tough! Nevertheless, it was degusting.

Timothy Charles – Timmy – Kerr simply couldn’t get used to the stench. No flush was working in all of London, and no water main. One was operating with buckets. It was his task the carry the buckets out – and to empty them into the Thames. Saint James’s Park Lake was closer by, but it was reserved for extraction of water to be boiled and consumed. At least there was no lack of firewood. One was currently burning the furniture of Banqueting House; War Office would be next.

It was a charade. Today, Timmy could plainly see this. This alleged government was governing nothing. They were debating endlessly and composing grandiose directives, but there was nobody left to carry them out. One was cut off. Marauding bands of Negroes were even now roaming through the outskirts of London. Supplies were rapidly running out. – What the hell was he still doing here? For a moment, he stood there and mulled over his situation. Then, he dropped the buckets and ran away.
 
The Stone Age didn’t end because the world ran out of stones.
(Niels Bohr)

The northwesterly winds stemming from the hibernal Siberian High had ensured that the Japanese home islands had received their due share of Fēilóng fallout. However, the Great Honshu Earthquake had promptly diverted all attention to other – more urgent – calamities. One had been glad that all domestic nuclear sites were located in Korea – and had tried to organise disaster relief and reconstruction for Nippon. When, short time later, one had been compelled to attack and destroy said nuclear sites, the authorities’ wisdom to have placed them in Korea had been evident to all.

It was not so that one had forgotten the quandary. The experts had well monitored nuclear pollution all over the country – at least those whose equipment had survived the tremors and the tsunamis. But: they had not been able to offer a cure. The stuff was inextricably amalgamated with the debris left by the earthquake – and Nippon’s difficult terrain was impossible to clean even without earthquake. The authorities had finally decided to neglect the problem. There was no immediate danger arising from these minuscule corpuscles. One had more pressing needs to address…

Today, though, one was reaping the results of this policy. Cancer was on the increase. And the increase was a steep one. One out of three Japanese was likely to die from cancer, said the scientists. – There was no reason to argue about this in public. It would only unsettle the populace. In fact, non-disclosure was declared ministerial policy – off the record… Cancer was no English Pest; people wouldn’t die suddenly and en masse. Many folks might die some years earlier, but until then they could still work – and propagate.

It was a national disgrace, for certain. But it wouldn’t show. It was a silent taint. National pride demanded to take it with equanimity – and not to speak about it. One would have to invest massively in cancer research, but that didn’t show as well. Japan had to keep face.
 
A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed to the light.
(Leonardo da Vinci)

NASA’s moon offensive necessarily had to start with mapping the objective. RRA had done this before, but these data weren’t accessible for the Russians. The German way had been to send up photographers and let them do the work. NASA decided to send out automatons. – Upgrading NSÓ would have to occur in parallel. This task was going to require quite a lot of kosmonauts. Hence, automatising the moon survey was a question of economy.

However, the quality required would foreclose wireless data transfer. The latter process had worked reasonably well in the case of Venera-2 and Venergost, but the level of detail available was not what was needed for identifying potential landing sites on the Moon. Instead, the capsules would have to return to earth orbit, where the kosmonauts busy with enhancing NSÓ would extract the negatives. When returning to the ground, they then would carry along the negative films.

It certainly was a circuitous procedure. Yet, it appeared feasible with the knowhow gathered hitherto. And it should stretch NASA’s edge in automation even farther. Albeit, the cameras to be used were going to be German Zeiss instruments from Jena, there was nothing better available around the world.
 
There is no law governing all things.
(Giordano Bruno)

Visiting İstanbul was a spellbinding experience. The capital of the Ottoman Empire, a metropolis of almost two million inhabitants, was a fantastic amalgam of everything. Of course, there was a terrible lot of old stuff, but also new things, like the colossal Bosporus Bridge of the Intercontinental Railway and the ultramodern Enver Paşa Airport. On the Asian side, beyond Üsküdar, glitzy skyscrapers were emblazoning the horizon. They said the city was the fastest growing capital in Europe – and in Asia.

Well, that could be called exemplary Turkish hyperbole. It might still be true for Europe. But for Asia? The Ottoman Empire wasn’t as heavily populated as India or China. In fact, the small population base was assessed to be its major weakness. – Here in İstanbul, though, this lack of people wasn’t apparent. The streets were congested, not only by motor vehicles but also by carts and pedestrians. The taxi driver was working hard to deliver his passenger in time.

They were merging towards the Bosporus Bridge, which was not only a double track railway bridge but also a six lane road bridge. The OŞU headquarters was located in Beykoz on the Asian side, not far away from the strait. – As no answer to his efforts to get in contact had been forthcoming from Fedrock, Wernher von Braun had decided to play the Ottoman card. The successful test of Gökyüzü Atılgan Bir – Sky Charger One – had convinced him that the Turks were farther advanced in rocketry than he had previously believed.

Today, he had an appointment with Mirliva Şengör Bey, Director Ba’Mansur and Doctor Fırıncı at OŞU HQ. Tomorrow, one would drive to Sakarya, which wasn’t that far away from İstanbul. He was keen to see the production facilities of GAB. The Turks had also offered to show him the future launching site at Ras Fartak on the Gulf of Aden, but down there construction had hardly begun. Inspecting building pits really wasn’t worth the while. – Well, Hans Kammler knew where he currently was and what he was about to do. As long as RRA was seemingly dead, he simply had to look for another place where to build his rockets.
 
2 Million vs 15 of current days, wonder if we going to get the green revolution and the demographic boom after so much depopulation bombs.

Still the Ottoman Empire is so lovely
 
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