"She informed the Führer she is not feeling well," Dorsch said, "and will not be dining this evening."

Hi, sitting by Dorsch, had expected Eva to use that excuse, which was why he didn't use it himself. He would have to try something else, and was nervous about it. He couldn't wait, though, to see these guys drinking this blood, which he knew came from one of the bottles he had spiked just an hour before. The other two bottles were being consumed at that moment in the Gebäude Zwei drink hall.

Hi looked at Müller and Frankel, seated across from him, as Spitz sat the first glass before Hitler at the head of the table. Hi figured his friends Müller and Frankel wouldn't be hungry, and no matter. He wondered if they felt anything yet.

"It's too bad about the señora," said Kegel, as Spitz served him his glass of blood. "The blood tonight looks--so rich."

Müller indeed wasn't hungry, and he felt nothing yet. But as he looked at Kegel, then Dorsch, he pitied the two pompous asses for not knowing the secret of the dragon's palm. Similarly, as Kegel looked at Müller, Kegel felt sorry for the ruthless nerd for not knowing the secret. Kegel felt no sympathy for Frankel for not knowing the secret, as Frankel was suspected of pilfering blood. Frankel, thinking he knew a secret they didn't know, felt superior to Kegel and Dorsch. Dorsch, who had been told the secret by Kegel so that Dorsch could decide how he knew, felt kind of sorry for Müller, but thought Frankel deserved to know zilch. What Kegel and Dorsch didn't know, but Müller did, was that Frankel knew better than to steal blood from Müller.

As for how Dorsch knew the palm's secret, he and Kegel agreed that Dorsch had been told by the Hauptsturmführer, who had happened to learn the secret, they decided, from Nova Dolencia's know-it-all shopkeeper, after mentioning the plant in his shop. It was then necessary for Kegel to tell the Hauptsturmführer the secret and how he knew it, in case Hitler asked him. Should the Hauptsturmführer tell the secret to anyone else, Kegel promised him a dip in the pool.

With everyone served, they were all free to drink, since there was never any blessing. Hitler sat at the head of the table. Kegel, seated closest to Hitler's right, raised his glass first. Hi watched intently as Kegel put the glass to his lips and, to Hi's inner delight, drank almost a third of the glass with one backward tilt of his head.

"Ahhh," Kegel said, as he sat down the glass. "Plasmatic."

Hi watched as Dorsch, seated closest to Hitler's left, began drinking his glass of blood next. After the first big swallow, Dorsch gave a nod of approval to Müller. "Hemoglobinous," he said.

Hi felt almost victorious. He had Dorsch and Kegel, as he already had Müller and Frankel, who were only sipping their blood. But the big one remained. Hi was waiting for Hitler to drink. The Führer, ever since they first sat down, had been silent and pensive.

Hi watched now as Hitler picked up his glass of blood, and moved it slowly toward his mouth. Under the table Hi tapped himself quietly, rhythmically on the thigh with a fist, as if saying "Go, go" to Hitler. But the glass never reached Hitler's lips. To Hi's chagrin, Hitler sat it back down. Hitler seemed too preoccupied to drink.

"I have good news, my Schutzstaffel führers," Hitler said. It was the first words he had spoken that evening. "I have almost finished my memoirs."

The Nazis all exchanged glances, there were audible exhalations. "That is good news, mein Führer," Dorsch spoke for them all.

"We shall be laying plans," Hitler said calmly. "It is time to write a new chapter in the history of the thousand-year Reich."

Hitler's eyes fell upon Hi, then dropped to Hi's full glass of blood. Uh-oh, Hi thought, here it comes.

"Oberschütze Hickenlooper, you have not touched your blood. What is wrong?"

Hi cleared his throat. His excuse, he knew, was not going to sit well with Hitler or with Müller. He would just have to take the heat. In a few more hours, after all, there would hopefully be no heat to take.

"I'm afraid I'm not hungry, mein Führer," Hi said. "I had a snack, about an hour ago, at Obersturmbannführer Müller's." Hi saw Hitler start to frown; from the corner of his eye he saw Müller's jaw drop. "I was checking on the plants, and--"

"You had a what at Obersturmbannführer Müller's?" growled Hitler. There was stone silence at the table. Hitler's voice rose to a shout: "One does not snack at one's leisure on the blood supply of the Reich!"

Hitler's glaring eyes turned to Müller. The Obersturmbannführer was speechless. Hickenlooper was lying in a way, but then, in another way, he wasn't.

Hitler said ominously, "Obersturmbannführer Müller--"

"It was my fault, mein Führer," Hi jumped in. "I drank the blood before Ober-stupid-führer Müller--"

"Obersturmbannführer," Müller corrected him. They were speaking in German, but in German the word "stupid" meant "stupid."

"I drank it before Herr Müller knew," Hi rephrased it. "It won't happen again. I can guarantee that. I'm sorry, mein Führer. Forgive me, Obersturmbannführer."

For a moment there was silence. Hitler's anger could be seen to subside. He settled back in his chair, and gazed off into space for a moment. He began thinking about the order of business. Kegel and Dorsch, as Hi noted, resumed drinking their blood. But Hitler had yet to touch his.

"Obergruppenführer Dorsch . . . "

"Yes, mein Führer?"

Staring off, Hitler spoke measuredly, in pauses, thinking aloud. "I will soon send you to Peru. . . . What you will do . . . is spend an evening or two . . . giving General Belzu . . . a complete overview . . . of what he may accrue . . . as reward for a coup."

Hi looked at Hitler with amazement. Unless Hi was mistaken, almost everything the Führer had just said would rhyme if spoken in English.

"A coup in Peru!" said Kegel, proposing a toast.

"Here's to!" said Dorsch.

All had raised their glasses, set to drink, except Hitler and Hi.

"Drink up, mein Führer," Kegel said politely. "You have not touched your blood either."

They waited for Hitler, deep in thought, to respond. Finally he said, "This evening I shall fast."

Hi felt his heart sink.

"I always think best when I fast," Hitler said. He picked up his glassful of blood, and poured it back into the punch bowl.

Kegel was annoyed. His toast was still in suspension. He looked across at Hi.

"Oberschütze," Kegel said, with that false smile of his, "will you not at least join us for a toast?" Kegel demonstratively lifted his glass, his eyes still on Hi. "To the coup in Peru."

Hi didn't know what to do. He saw all eyes, including Hitler's, upon him. He looked at his glass of blood. A glass of death. There was only one thing he could do. He picked up the glass, and poured the blood back into the bowl.

"I am fasting," Hi said, "with the Führer."

The Nazis were taken aback. Then Kegel said, "Not so fast. How can you fast? You have already snacked. You said so yourself."

"That is right," Dorsch said. "Simply not being hungry, that is not fasting."

"It certainly isn't," Frankel said.

"But I'm fasting right now," Hi explained.

"That is not a fair fast," Kegel said.

Frankel agreed, "It is not fair at all."

"We should have been told," Dorsch said. "We could all fast. But now we've partaken."

"Herr Hickenlooper, too, should partake," Frankel stated.

"He certainly should," Müller said.

"There is no way he can fast," Dorsch opined.

"He is pulling a fast one," said Kegel.

"That is right," Frankel said, "he--"

"Enough!" Hitler screamed.

Banging his fist on the table, Hitler rose to his feet. He was almost shaking with wrath, the officers cringing.

"Stop behaving like children! How am I to conquer the world," Hitler raged, his eyes bulging, "if I am surrounded by such silly persons?" Jerking his head left and right as he shouted, Hitler pointed a shaking finger at Hi. "What difference does it make, you dim-witted twits, if this piddling planter is fasting?!"

"Why, none, mein Führer," Kegel said. "It makes no difference at all."

"Of course not," Müller said.

"Let him fast," Dorsch said with a wave of his hand.

"Who cares if he fasts or he doesn't?" Frankel asked.

"He is only a piddling planter," Kegel obsequiously echoed the Führer.

Hitler's anger was hardly assuaged. He headed for the door, the others rising. At the door, Hitler stopped and turned, for a parting shot: "Sometimes I wonder why I left that Berlin bunker."

Hitler left. Müller and Frankel followed him out.

Kegel finished his blood and set down the empty glass. With a smug look at Hi, Kegel left. Only Dorsch and Hi remained. Dorsch finished his glass of blood, then picked up Frankel's, which was still half full, and downed that one too. Dorsch smiled contemptuously at Hi. "You don't know what you're missing, Oberschütze."

"I can live without it," Hi said.

Dorsch wiped his mouth with a napkin and left. Hi lingered, muttering under his breath the bad news of the evening: "The Führer is fasting."