And, under Reinholt, Neues Einige Deutschland had played dirty pool from the start. But no one was really surprised; East and West were busy erecting tents where major popcens — population centers such as Chicago and Moscow — had existed, and hoping to god that the Sino-Cuban wing of the C.P. did not, taking advantage of the situation, move in and entrench... .

It had been the secret protocol of Reinholt and his N.W.G. that it would not be neutral after all. On the contrary.

New Whole Germany would take out China.

So this was the unsavory basis on which the Reich had re-obtained unity. Its Waffen technicians had devised, as instructed, weapons which had, in 1997, dealt a ter­minal punch to People's China. Matson, examining the folio, very rapidly scanned this part, because the Reich had come up with some show-stoppers, and even the abominable U.S. nerve gas had seemed like a field of daisies in comparison — he did not wish to see any men­tion of what Krupp u. Sohnen had devised as an answer to China's thousands of millions who were spilling as far west as the Volga, and toward the U.S., were cross­ing from Siberia — taken in 1993 — into Alaska. In any case the compact had been agreed on, and even Faust would have blanched at it; now the world had no People's China but a New Whole Germany to contend with.

And what a quid pro quo that had proved to be. Because, correctly and legally, Neues Einige Deutsch­land had obtained control of the sole planet-wide and hence Sol system-wide governing structure, the UN. They held it now. And the former member of the Reinholt Jugend, Horst Bertold, was its Secretary General.