Striking the Balance (42 page)

From what she’d heard, not every
Storch
was armed, but this one carried two machine guns, one under the body, one in back of the pilot for an observer to fire. She set her foot in the mounting stirrup, opened the pilot-side door, and climbed up into the cockpit.

So much of it was glass that, although it was enclosed, she had a much better all-around view than she did in the open cabin of a
Kukuruznik.
She wondered how she’d like flying without the slipstream blasting her in the face. Then she brought the candle up to the instrument panel and studied it in amazement. So many dials, so many gauges . . .  how were you supposed to do any flying if you tried to keep track of all of them at once?

Everything was finished to a much higher standard than she was used to. She’d seen that before with German equipment; the Nazis made their machines as if they were fine watches. The Soviet approach, contrariwise, was to turn out as many tanks and planes and guns as possible. If they were crude, so what? They were going to get destroyed anyhow.

“You can fly it?” Ignacy repeated as Ludmila, rather reluctantly, descended from the cabin.

“Yes, I really think I can,” Ludmila answered. The candle was burning low. She and Ignacy started back out toward the netting under which they would leave. She glanced back at the
Storch,
hoping to be a rider worthy of her steed.

Soviet artillery boomed south of Moscow, flinging shells toward Lizard positions. Distantly, the reports reverberated even in the Kremlin. Listening to them, Iosef Stalin made a sour face. “The Lizards grow bolder, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,” he said.

Vyacheslav Molotov did not care for the implication behind the words.
It’s your fault,
Stalin seemed to be saying. “As soon as we can produce another explosive-metal bomb, Iosef Vissarionovich, we shall remind them we deserve respect,” he answered.

“Yes, but when will that be?” Stalin demanded. “These so called scientists have been telling me lies all along. And if they don’t move faster, they will regret it—and so will you.”

“So will the entire Soviet Union, Comrade General Secretary,” Molotov said. Stalin always thought everyone lied to him. A lot of the time, people did, simply because they were too afraid to tell him the truth. Molotov had tried to tell him that, after using the bomb made from the Lizards’ explosive metal, the USSR would not be able to make anymore for a long time to come. He hadn’t wanted to listen. He seldom wanted to listen. Molotov went on, “It seems, however, that we shall soon have more of these weapons.”

“I have heard this promise before,” Stalin said. “I grow weary of it.
When
exactly will the new bombs appear in our arsenal?”

“The first by summer,” Molotov answered. That made Stalin sit up and take notice, as he’d thought it would. He continued, “Work at the
kolkhoz
has made remarkable progress lately, I’m happy to report.”

“Yes, Lavrenti Pavlovich tells me the same. I am glad to hear it,” Stalin said, his expression hooded. “I will be gladder to hear it if it turns out to be true.”

“It will,” Molotov said.
It had better.
But now he began to believe that it would—and so, evidently, did Beria. Getting that American to
Kolkhoz
118 had proved a master stroke. His presence and his ideas proved, sometimes painfully, just how far behind that of the capitalist West the Soviet nuclear research program had been. He took for granted both theory and engineering practice toward which Kurchatov, Flerov, and their colleagues were only beginning to grope. But, with his knowledge, the Soviet program was finally advancing at a decent pace.

“I am glad to hear we shall have these weapons,” Stalin repeated, “glad for your sake, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich.”

“I serve the Soviet Union!” Molotov said. He picked up the glass of vodka in front of him, knocked it back, and filled it again from the bottle that stood beside it. He knew what Stalin meant. If the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union did not soon have an explosive-metal bomb, they would soon have a new foreign commissar. He would get the blame for the failure, not Stalin’s Georgian crony, Beria. Stalin was not allergic to scribbling the initials VMN on the case files of those marked for liquidation, any more than Molotov had been.

“When we have our second bomb, Comrade General Secretary,” Molotov said, resolutely not thinking about what would happen—to the USSR and to him—if they didn’t have it, “I recommend that we use it at once.”

Stalin puffed on his pipe, sending up unreadable smoke signals. “With the first bomb, you advised against using it. Why now the change of mind?”

“Because when we used the first, we had no second with which to back it, and I feared that would become obvious,” Molotov answered. “Now, though, by using the new bomb, we not only prove we do have it, but also give the promise of producing many more after it.”

More nasty smoke rose. “There is method in this,” Stalin said with a slow nod. “Not only does it serve warning on the Lizards, it also warns the Hitlerites we are not to be trifled with. And it sends the same signal to the Americans. Not bad, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich.”

“First priority, as you say, is the Lizards.” Molotov stuck strictly to the business at hand. He had not let Stalin see his fear at the threat he’d received, though the General Secretary surely knew it was there. He did not show his relief, either. Again, sham or not, Stalin could hardly be ignorant of it. He played his subordinates’ emotions as if they were violin strings, and set one man against another like an orchestra conductor developing and exploiting opposing themes.

Now Stalin said, “In remembering the first priority, we must also remember it is not the only one. After the Lizards make peace with the
rodina—”
He stopped and puffed meditatively on the pipe.

Molotov was used to listening for subtle nuances in the General Secretary’s speech. “After the Lizards make peace, Iosef Vissarionovich? Not, after the Lizards are defeated or exterminated or driven from this world?”

“Comrade Foreign Commissar, for your ears only, I do not think this within our power,” Stalin said. “We shall use the bomb—if the scientists deign to give it to us. We shall destroy whatever concentration of Lizards we can with it. They, in turn, will destroy one of our cities: this is the exchange they make. We cannot win at this rate. Our goal now must be to convince the aliens they cannot win, either, but face only ruin if the war goes on.”

“Under these circumstances, what terms do you intend to seek?” Molotov asked.
How long do you intend to honor them?
also came to mind, but he did not have the nerve to put that question to Stalin. The General Secretary was ruthlessly pragmatic; he’d wrung every bit of advantage he could from his pact with Hitler. The one thing he hadn’t expected there was Hitler’s outdoing him in ruthlessness and striking first. Any peace with the Lizards was liable to be similarly temporary.

“I want them out of the USSR,” Stalin said, “beyond the frontiers of 22 June 1941. Past that, everything is negotiable. Let the fascists and capitalists dicker for their own countries. If they fail, I shall not lift a finger to help them. They would not help me, as you know.”

Molotov nodded, first in agreement to that and then in slow consideration of the General Secretary’s reasoning. It fit with what Stalin had done in the past. Rather than trying to foment world revolution, as the Trotskyites urged, Stalin had concentrated on building socialism in one country. Now he would take the same approach toward building independent human power.

“The Lizards are imperialists,” Molotov said. “Can they be made to accept something less than their full, planned scope of conquest? This is my principal concern, Iosef Vissarionovich.”

“We can make the Soviet Union not worth their having.” By Stalin’s tone, he was prepared to do exactly what he said. Molotov did not think the General Secretary was bluffing. He had the will to do such a thing if he was given the ability. The physicists were giving him that ability. Could the Lizard fleetlord match the General Secretary’s driving will? The only humans Molotov had met who came up to that standard were Lenin, Churchill, and Hitler. Could Atvar come up to it? Stalin was betting the fate of his country that the alien could not.

Molotov would have been more confident had Stalin not so disastrously misjudged Hitler. He—and the USSR—had come close to perishing from that mistake. If he made a similar one against a foe with explosive-metal bombs, neither he, the Soviet Union, nor Marxism-Leninism would survive.

How to tell Stalin of his misgivings? Molotov drained the second glass of vodka. He could find no way.

XI

Out to the front again. If it hadn’t been for the honor of the thing, Brigadier General Leslie Groves would have greatly preferred to stay back at the University of Denver and tend to his knitting: which is to say, making sure atomic bombs got made and the Lizards weren’t any the wiser.

But when the general commanding the front ordered you to get your fanny out there, that was what you did. Omar Bradley, in a new-style pot helmet with three gold stars painted on it, pointed from his observation post out toward the fighting line and said, “General, we’re hurting them, there’s no two ways about that. They’re paying for every inch of ground they take—paying more than they can afford. If our Intelligence estimates are even close to being right. We’re hurting them, as I said, but they keep taking inches, and we can’t afford that at all. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir,” Groves answered. “We are going to have to use a nuclear device to stop them.”

“Or two, or three, or as many as we have, or as many as it takes,” Bradley said. “They must not break into Denver. That, right now, is our sine qua non.”

“Yes, sir,” Groves repeated. At the moment, he had one, count it, one atomic bomb ready for use. He would not have any more for several weeks. Bradley was supposed to know as much. In case he didn’t, Groves proceeded to spell it out in large red letters.

Bradley nodded. “I do understand that, General. I just don’t like it. Well, the first one will have to rock them back on their heels enough to buy us time to get the next built, that’s all there is to it.”

A flight of American planes, long hoarded against desperate need, roared by at treetop height. The P-40 Kittyhawks had ferocious shark mouths painted on their radiator cowlings. Wing machine guns blazing, they shot up the Lizards’ front-line positions. One of them took out an enemy helicopter, which crashed in flames.

Briefed against heroics that would get them killed, the pilots quickly turned for the run home. Two exploded in midair in quick succession, the second with a blast louder than the other racket on the battlefield. The rest made it back into American-held territory.

“Nice to see the Lizards on the receiving end for a change instead of dishing it out,” Groves said.

Bradley nodded. “I hope those pilots can get down, get out of their planes, and get under cover before any Lizard rockets follow them home.” He had a reputation for being a soldiers’ general, for thinking of his men first. Groves felt a vague twinge of conscience that he hadn’t done the same.

As if to show how the job should be done, a Lizard fighter dove on the American lines like a swooping eagle. Instead of talons, it used two pods full of rockets to rend its foes. Men—and a few women—with red crosses in white circles on helmets and arm-bands ran forward to take the wounded back to aid stations.

“The Lizards don’t shoot at medics on purpose, do they?” Groves said. “They’re better at playing by the rules than the Japs were.”

“You can’t say things like that any more. Japan is on our side now.” A dry tone and a raised eyebrow warned that Bradley did not intend to be taken altogether seriously.

Another Lizard fighter pounded the American positions, this one close enough to Groves and Bradley that both men dove into a dugout to escape bomb fragments and cannon fire. Groves spat out mud. That wasn’t the taste of war he got in his usual theater of operations. He wasn’t used to looking down at himself and seeing a filthy uniform, either.

Bradley took it all in stride, although he wasn’t used to real live combat himself. As calmly as if he were still standing upright, he said, “We’ll want to site the bomb in an area where the Lizards are concentrating troops and matériel. In fact, we’ll do our best to create such an area. The tricky part will be doing it so the Lizards don’t notice what we’re up to till too late.”

“You tell me where you want it, sir, and I’ll get it there for you,” Groves promised, doing his best to match Bradley’s aplomb. “That’s how I earn my salary, after all.”

“No one has anything but praise for the way you’ve handled your project, General,” Bradley said. “When General Marshall—Secretary Marshall, I should say; his second hat takes precedence—sent me here to conduct the defense of Denver, he spoke very highly of you and of the cooperation I could expect from you. I haven’t been disappointed, either.”

Praise from George Marshall was praise indeed. Groves said, “We can get the bomb up to the front either by truck with reinforced suspension or by horse-drawn wagon, which is slower but might be less conspicuous. If we have to, I suppose we can send it up in pieces and assemble it where we’ll set it off. The beast is five feet wide and more than ten feet long, so it comes in a hell of a big crate.”

“Mm, I’ll have to think about that,” Bradley said. “Right now, I’m inclined to vote against it. If I understand correctly. If we lose any of the important parts, we could have all the rest and the thing still wouldn’t work. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir,” Groves answered. “If you try to start a jeep without a carburetor, you’d better hope you’re not going farther than someplace you can walk.”

Bradley had dirt all over his face, which made his grin seem brighter and more cheerful than it was. “Fair enough,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can to keep from having to use it—we’ve got a counterattack laid on for the Kiowa area, a little bit south of here, for which I have some hope. The Lizards had trouble on the plains southeast of Denver, and they still haven’t fully reorganized in that sector. We may hurt them.” He shrugged. “Or, on the other hand, we may just force them to concentrate and become more vulnerable to the bomb. We won’t know till we try.”

Groves brushed clinging dirt from his shirtfront and the knees of his trousers. “I’ll cooperate in any way you require, sir.” The words didn’t come easy. He’d grown used to being the biggest military fish in the pond in Denver. But he could no more have defended it from the Lizards than Bradley could have ramrodded the Metallurgical Laboratory project.

Bradley waved for his adjutant, a fresh-faced captain. “George, take General Groves back to the University of Denver. He’ll be awaiting our orders there, and prepared to respond to the situation however it develops.”

“Yes, sir.” George looked alarmingly clean and well pressed, as if mud knew better than to stick to him or his clothes. He saluted, then turned to Groves. “If you’ll come with me, sir—”

He had a jeep waiting. Groves had hoped he would; his office was most of a day’s ride away by horseback, and he was so heavy that neither he nor most horses enjoyed the process of equitation. He glanced skyward several times on the way back, though. The Lizards made a point of shooting at motor vehicles and those who rode in them. He managed to return to the university campus unpunctured, for which he was duly grateful.

That evening, a great rumble of gunfire came from the southeast, with flashes lighting the horizon like distant lightning. Groves went up to the roof of the Science Building for a better view, but still could not see much. He hoped the barrage meant the Army was giving the Lizards hell and not the other way around.

The next morning, an aide woke him before the sun rose. “Sir, General Bradley on the telephone for you.”

Groves yawned, rubbed his eyes, ran his hands through his hair, and scratched at his unruly mustache, which was tickling his nose. By the time he’d picked up the telephone, perhaps forty-five seconds after he’d been awakened, he sounded competent and coherent, even if he didn’t feel that way yet. “Groves here.”

“Good morning, General,” Bradley said through static that came from the telephone rather than from Groves’ fuzzy brain—or so he hoped, anyhow. “You remember that package we were discussing yesterday. It looks like we’re going to need it delivered.”

What felt like a jolt of electricity ran up Groves’ spine. All at once, he wasn’t sleepy any more. “Yes, sir,” he said. “As I told you, we’re ready. Ahh—will you want it all in one piece, or shall I send it by installments?”

“One piece would be sooner, wouldn’t it?” Without waiting for an answer, Bradley went on, “You’d better deliver it that way. We’ll want to open it as soon as we can.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll get right on it,” Groves said, and hung up. He threw off his pajamas and started scrambling into his uniform, begrudging even that little time wasted. When Groves said he’d get right on something, he didn’t mess around. He bulled past his aide without a
Good morning
and headed for the reprocessing plant, where the latest atomic bomb was stored. Soon enough, part of Colorado would go into the fire.

Liu Han’s heart pounded as she approached the little scaly devils’ pavilion that so marred the beauty of the island in the midst of the lake in the Forbidden City. Turning to Nieh Ho-T’ing, she said, “At last, we have a real victory against the little devils.”

Nieh glanced over to her. “You have a victory, you mean. It matters little in the people’s fight against imperialist aggression, except in the propaganda advantages we can wring from it.”

“I
have a victory,” Liu Han conceded. She didn’t look back at Nieh. As far as she could see, he put ideology and social struggle even ahead of love, whether between a man and a woman or between a mother and a child. A lot of the members of the central committee felt the same way. Liu Han sometimes wondered if they were really human beings, or perhaps little scaly devils doing their best to impersonate people but not quite grasping what made them work.

Nieh said, “I hope you will not let your personal triumph blind you to the importance of the cause you also serve.” He might have less in the way of feelings than an ordinary person—or might just keep those feelings under tighter rein—but he was far from stupid.

A little scaly devil pointed his automatic rifle at the approaching humans. In fair Chinese, he said, “You will enter the tent. You will let us see you bring no concealed weapons with you. You will pass through this machine here.” He pointed to the device.

Liu Han had gone through it once before, Nieh Ho-Ting many times. Neither of them had ever tried sneaking armaments through. Nieh had Intelligence that the machine made a positively demonic racket if it did detect anything dangerous. So far, the People’s Liberation Army hadn’t found a way to fool it. Liu Han suspected that would come, sooner or later. Some very clever people worked for the Communist cause.

The machine kept quiet. Beyond it, another armed little devil said, “Pass on.” His words were almost unintelligible, but no one could mistake the gesture he made with the barrel of the gun.

Inside the tent, the little scaly devil called Ppevel sat behind the table at which Liu Han had seen him before. Beside him sat another male with much plainer body paint: his interpreter. Ppevel spoke in his own hissing, popping language. The interpreter turned his words into Chinese: “You are to be seated.” He pointed to the overstuffed chairs in front of Nieh and Liu Han. They were different from the ones that had been there on Liu Han’s last visit, and perhaps implied higher status for the envoys of the People’s Liberation Army.

Liu Han noticed that only peripherally. She had hoped to see Ttomalss sitting at the table with Ppevel, and had hoped even more to see her daughter. She wondered what the baby would look like, with her for a mother and the foreign devil Bobby Fiore for a father. Then a really horrible thought struck her if the little devils wanted to substitute another baby of the right age and type for the one she had borne, how would she know?

The answer to that was simple and revolting: she wouldn’t, not with any certainty. She muttered an inaudible prayer to the Amida Buddha that such a thought had not occurred to the devils. Nieh Ho-T’ing, she knew, had no more use for the Amida Buddha than for any other god or demon, and did not think anyone else should, either. Liu Han shrugged. That was his ideology. She did not discern certain truth in it.

Ppevel spoke again. The interpreter translated: “We will return this hatchling to the female as a token of our willingness to give in exchange for getting. We expect in return a halt to your guerrilla attacks here in Peking of half a year. Is this the agreement?” He added an interrogative cough.