Tilting the Balance

“Yes Comrade Foreign Commissar. ” Kurchatov licked his lips and went no further.

Molotov frowned. He had been afraid this would happen. The academicians had a habit of promising Stalin the moon, whether they could deliver or not. Maybe the horse will learn to sing, he thought, an echo from some ancient history read in his student days. He shook his head, banishing the memory. The here and now was what counted.

He knew the dilemma the scientists faced. If they told Stalin they could not give him something he wanted, they’d head for the gulag… unless they got a bullet in the back of the neck instead. But if, after promising, they failed to come through, the same applied again.

And the Soviet Union desperately needed a continuous supply of explosive metal. In that Molotov agreed with Stalin. (He tried to remember the last time he had disagreed with Stalin. He couldn’t. It was too long ago. ) He said, “What are the difficulties in production, Igor Ivanovich, and how are you working to overcome them? ”

As if on cue, another man in farmer’s clothes came up. Kurchatov said, “Comrade Foreign Commissar, let me present to you Georgi Aleksandrovich Flerov, who recently discovered the spontaneous fission of the uranium nucleus and who is in charge of the team investigating these difficulties. ”

Flerov was younger than Kurchatov; even in the clothes of a peasant, he looked like a scholar. He also looked nervous. Because he was in charge, he was responsible for what his team did-and for what it didn’t do.

“Comrade Foreign Commissar, the answer to your first question, or to the first part of it, is simple, ” he said, trying to hold his rather light voice steady. “The chief difficulty in production is that we do not yet know how to produce. Our techniques in nuclear research are several years behind those of the capitalists and fascists, and we are having to learn what they already know. ”

Molotov gave him a baleful stare. “Comrade Stalin will not be pleased to hear this. ”

Kurchatov blanched. So did Flerov, but he said, “If Comrade Stalin chooses to liquidate this team, no one in the Soviet Union will be able to produce these explosives for him. Everyone with that expertise who is still alive is here. We are what the rodina has, for better or worse. ”

Molotov was not used to defiance, even frightened, deferential defiance. He harshened his voice as he replied, “We were promised full-scale production of explosive metal within eighteen months. If the team assembled here cannot accomplish this-”

“The Germans are not likely to have that within eighteen months, Comrade Foreign Commissar, ” Flerov said. “Neither are the Americans, though the breakdown in travel has left us less well-informed about their doings. ”

Has played hob with espionage, you mean, Molotov thought: Flerov had a little diplomat in him after all. That, however, was a side issue. Molotov said, “If you cannot produce as promised, we will remove you and bring in those who can. ”

“Good luck to you and goodbye to the rodina, ” Flerov said. “You may find charlatans who tell you worse lies than we could ever imagine. You will not find capable physicists-and if you dispose of us, you may never see uranium or plutonium produced in the Soviet Union. ”

He was not bluffing. Molotov had watched too many men trying to lie for their lives; he knew nonsense and bluff when he heard them. He didn’t hear them from Flerov. Rounding on Kurchatov, he said, “You direct this project. Why have you not kept us informed about your trouble in holding to the schedule? ”

“Comrade Foreign Commissar, we are ahead of schedule in preparing the first bomb, ” Kurchatov said. “That ought to count in our favor, even if the other half of the project is going more slowly than we thought it would. We can rock the Lizards back on their heels with one explosion. ”

“Igor Ivanovich-” Flerov began urgently.

Molotov raised a hand to cut him off. He glared at Kurchatov. “You may be an excellent physicist, Comrade, but you are politically naive. If we rock the Lizards with one explosion, with how many will they rock us? ”

Under the harsh electric lights, Kurchatov’s face went an ugly yellowish-gray. Flerov said, “Comrade Foreign Commissar, this has been a matter of only theoretical discussion. ”

“You need to make it one of the theses of your dialectic, ” Molotov said. He was convinced Stalin had the right of that: the Lizards would hit back hard at any nation that used the explosive metal against them.

“We shall do as you say, ” Kurchatov said.

“See that you do, ” Molotov answered. “Meanwhile, the Soviet Union-to say nothing of all mankind-requires a supply of explosive metal. You cannot make it within eighteen months, you say. How long, then? ” Molotov was not large, nor physically imposing. But when he spoke with the authority of the Soviet Union in his voice, he might have been a giant.

Kurchatov and Flerov looked at each other. “If things go well, four years, ” Flerov said.

“If things go very well, three and a half, ” Kurchatov said. The younger man gave him a dubious look, but finally spread his hands, conceding the point.

Three and a half years? More likely four? Molotov felt as if he’d been kicked in the belly. The Soviet Union would have its one weapon, which it could hardly use for fear of bringing hideous retaliation down on its head? And the Germans and the Americans-and, for all he knew, maybe the English and the Japanese, too-ahead in the race to make bombs of their own?

“How am I to tell this to Comrade Stalin? ” he asked. The question hung in the air. Not only would the scientists incur Stalin’s wrath for being too optimistic, but it might fall on Molotov as well, as the bearer of bad news.

If the academicians were as irreplaceable as they thought, the odds were good that Stalin wouldn’t do anything to them.

Over the years, Molotov had done his best to make himself indispensable to Stalin, but indispensable wasn’t the same as irreplaceable, and he knew it.

He asked, “Can I tell the General Secretary you will succeed within two and a half to three years? ” If he could arrange to present a small disappointment rather than a big one, he might yet deflect Stalin’s anger.

“Comrade Foreign Commissar, you can of course tell the Great Stalin whatever you please, but that will not be the truth, ” Kurchatov said. “When the time passes and we do not succeed, you will have to explain why. ”

“If the Lizards give us so much time for research and engineering, ” Flerov added; he looked to be enjoying Molotov’s discomfiture.

“If the Lizards overrun this place, Comrades, I assure you that you will have no more joy from it than I, ” Molotov said stonily. Had the Germans defeated the Soviet Union, Molotov would have gone up against a wall (with a blindfold if he was lucky), but nuclear physicists might have been useful enough to save their skins by turning their coats. The Lizards, however, would not want human beings to know atoms existed, let alone that they could be split. Driving that home, Molotov added, “And if the Lizards overrun this place, it will be in large measure because you and your team have failed to give the workers and people of the Soviet Union the weapons they need to carry on the fight. ”