Tilting the Balance

“Physicists, ” he snorted under his breath, again bullishly. The trouble with them was they were so lost in their own rarefied world a lot of the time that they didn’t always feel the pressure he put on them, let alone yield to it.

He didn’t note anything out of the ordinary about the day until he walked into the Science building and discovered he didn’t recognize any of the soldiers crowding the downstairs lobby. That made him frown; Sam Yeager and the rest of the dogface with the Met Lab crew were as familiar to him as his shoelaces.

He looked around for the highest-ranking officer he could find. “Why have we been invaded, Major? ” he asked.

The fellow with the gold oak leaves on his shoulders saluted. “If you’d be so kind as to come with me, General-” he said in the polite phrases lower-ranking officers use to give their superiors orders.

Groves was so kind as to come with him until he figured out where he was going, which didn’t take long. “Major, if I need an escort to find my own office, I’m the wrong man to head this project, ” he growled. The major didn’t answer, he just kept walking. Groves fumed but followed. Sure enough, they were heading for his office. In front of it stood a couple of men who looked as tough and alert as soldiers but wore medium-snappy civilian suits. A light went on in Groves’ head. He turned to the major and asked, “Secret Service? ”

“Yes, sir. ”

One of the T-men, after checking Groves’ face against a little photo he held in the palm of his hand, nodded to the other.

The second one opened the door and said, “General Groves is here, sir. ”

“Well, he’d better come in, then, hadn’t he? ” an infinitely familiar voice replied from within. “It being his office, after all. ”

“Why the devil didn’t I get any warning President Roosevelt was coming to Denver? ” Groves hissed to the major.

“Security, ” the other officer whispered back. “We have to assume the Lizards monitor everything we broadcast, and we’ve lost couriers, too. The less we say, the safer FDR is. Now go on in; he’s been waiting for you. ”

Groves went in. He’d met Roosevelt before, and knew the President wasn’t as vibrant in person as he appeared in the newsreels: being cooped up in a wheelchair would do that to you. But since the last time he’d seen FDR, a year earlier at White Sulphur Springs, the change was shocking. Roosevelt’s flesh seemed to have fallen in on his bones; he might have aged a decade or more in that year. He looked like a man worn to death’s door.

For all that, though, his grip was still strong when he reached out to shake General Groves’ hand after the engineer had saluted. “You’ve lost weight, General, ” he observed, amusement in his eyes-his body might be falling to pieces around it, but his mind was still sharp.

“Yes, sir, ” Groves answered. Roosevelt had lost weight, too, but he wasn’t about to remark on it.

“Sit down, sit down. ” The President waved him to the swivel chair behind his desk. Groves obediently sat. Roosevelt turned the wheelchair to face him. Even his hands had lost flesh; the skin hung loose on them. He sighed and said, “I wish to God I had a cigarette, but that’s neither here nor there-certainly not here, worse luck. ” FDR sighed again. “Do you know, General, when Einstein sent me that letter of his back in ‘39, I had the feeling all his talk of nuclear weapons and bombs that could blow up the world was likely to be so much moonshine, but I couldn’t take the chance of being wrong. And, it turns out, I was right-and how I wish I hadn’t been! ”

“Yes, sir, ” Groves repeated, but then added, “If you hadn’t been right, though, sir, we’d have been in no position to resist the Lizards and to copy what they’ve done. ”

“That’s true, but it’s not what I meant, ” Roosevelt said. “I wish I’d been right, and that all the talk about nuclear weapons and atomic power and who knows what were so much moonshine. Then all I’d have to worry about would be beating Hitler and Hirohito, and the Lizards would be back on the second planet of the star Tau Ceti where they belong, and people wouldn’t meet them for another million years, if we ever did. ”

“Is that where they’re from? ” Groves asked with interest. “I’ll have to have our liaison man put the question to the Lizard POWs we have here. ”

FDR made a gesture of indifference. “As you like, and if you have the time; otherwise don’t trouble yourself about it. These Lizards are an astonishing intelligence resource, aren’t they? ”

“Yes, sir, ” Groves said enthusiastically. “The ones we have here have been extremely cooperative. ”

“Not just them, General. With what we’re learning from systematic interrogation of all our captives, we’ll leap forward by decades, maybe centuries. ” Roosevelt’s expression, which had brightened, turned cloudy again. “If we win the war, that is-which is what I came to talk about. What I want to know is, how soon will we have nuclear weapons of our own to use against the Lizards? ” He leaned forward in his chair, intently awaiting Groves’ reply.

Groves nodded; he’d expected the question. “Sir, I am told we can have one nuclear bomb fairly soon. England supplied us with enough plutonium that we need to manufacture only a few more kilograms of our own to have enough for a bomb. Within a. year, the scientists here tell me. ”

“That’s not soon enough. ” Roosevelt made a sour face. “It may do, but every day they shave off it will bring the country one day closer to being saved. How long for more after the first? ”

Now it was Groves’ turn to look unhappy. “You understand, sir, that we have to come up with all the explosive material for them on our own. The pile-that’s, what they call it-the Met Lab staff has built here isn’t ideally designed for that, although we are improving it as we gain experience. And one of our physicists is scouting a site where we can build a pile that will give us larger amounts of plutonium. ” He wondered how Jens Larssen was doing.

“I know about Hanford, ” Roosevelt said impatiently. “I don’t need the technical details, General-that’s why you’re here. But I do need to know how long I have to wait for my weaponry so I can make sure there’s a country left when I get it. ”

“I understand, ” Groves said. “If all goes well-if the pile goes up on schedule and works as advertised, and if the Lizards don’t overrun Hanford or wherever we put it-you should have more bombs starting about six months after the first one: by the end of 1944, more or less. ”

“Not soon enough, ” Roosevelt repeated. “Still, we’re better off than the rest. The Germans might have been right there with us, but you’ve no doubt heard about the mistakes they made with their pile. The British are relying on us; we’re passing information to the Japanese, who are well behind us; and the Russians-I don’t know about the Russians. ”

Groves’ opinion of Soviet scientific prowess was not high. Then he remembered the Russians had got some plutonium from that raid on the Lizards, too. “A wild card, ” he said.

“That’s right. ” Roosevelt