Aftershocks

10

Though Atvar had promised him his freedom, Straha found himself more nearly a prisoner in Cairo than he had been in Los Angeles. “Is this how you reward me?” he asked one of his interrogators, a female named Zeshpass. “I hoped to return to the society of the Race, not to be closed off from it forever.”

“And so you will, superior sir,” Zeshpass said soothingly. But Straha was not soothed. Back in the USA, even the Big Uglies who exploited him had called him Shiplord. Whatever he was here, he wasn’t a shiplord, and he never would be again. Zeshpass went on, “As soon as the crisis is resolved, a final disposition of your situation will be made.”

That sounded soothing, too-till Straha turned an eye turret toward it. “What did you just say?” he demanded. “Whatever it was, it did not mean anything.”

“Of course it did.” Zeshpass sounded irate. Like any interrogator, she took her own omniscience for granted, and resented it when others failed to do likewise.

“All right, then,” Straha said. “Suppose you explain to me why my case cannot be disposed of now.”

Most reluctantly, the female said, “I do not have that information.”

Straha laughed at her. “I do. Atvar has not yet figured out what to do with me because he has not yet decided whether I am a hero or a nuisance or both at once. My opinion is that I am both at once, which is bound to make me more annoying to the exalted fleetlord.” As he was in the habit of doing, he laced Atvar’s title with as much scorn as he could.

Her voice stiff with disapproval, Zeshpass said, “It is not for me to judge the exalted fleetlord’s reasons. It is not for you, either.”

“And if no one judges him, how will anyone know when he makes a mistake?” Straha inquired. “He has made enough of them already, in my not so humble opinion. How is he to be held accountable for them?”

“Held accountable? He is the fleetlord.” Zeshpass sounded as if Straha had suddenly started speaking English rather than the language of the Race.

Plainly, the idea that the fleetlord, like any other mortal, needed to be questioned and criticized when he made a mistake had never crossed her mind.

Do you know what has happened to you? Straha asked himself. And he did know. You have become a snoutcounter, at least in part. Living among the American Big Uglies for so long has rubbed off on you.

Of course, he’d had a low opinion of Atvar’s abilities even before fleeing to the United States. If he hadn’t had a low opinion of Atvar’s ability, if he hadn’t tried to take command himself, he wouldn’t have had to flee to the USA. But years spent in a land that institutionalized snoutcounting and made it work had left him even less respectful of the Race’s institutions than he’d expected. We are a stodgy lot, he thought discontentedly.

“He may be the fleetlord,” Straha said aloud, “but he is not the Emperor.”

“That is a truth,” Zeshpass admitted, casting down her eye turrets. Straha had to remind himself to do the same thing. He hadn’t realized how far his habits had slipped in exile till he returned to the society of the Race. Zeshpass continued, “In fact, Reffet, the fleetlord of the colonization fleet, has had frequent disagreements with Fleetlord Atvar.”

“I believe that.” Straha’s voice was dry. As far as he was concerned, anyone who didn’t disagree with Atvar had to have something wrong with him. “What sort of things have they disagreed about? Do you happen to know?”

Given the chance to gossip, Zeshpass didn’t notice she’d gone from interrogator to interrogated. “I certainly do,” she said. “If you can imagine it, Atvar has proposed to levy soldiers from among the males and females of the colonization fleet, to create what would be in effect a permanent Soldiers’ Time on Tosev 3.”

“Has he?” Straha said. That struck him as only common sense. Even Atvar, however much the returned renegade hated to admit it, wasn’t stupid all the time. He sounded even more thoughtful as he asked, “And Reffet disapproves of this?”

“Of course he does,” Zeshpass answered. “We came here to colonize this world, not to fight over it.”

“I understand that,” Straha said. “But if the Big Uglies continue to be ready to fight against us, what shall we do once the males of the conquest fleet begin to grow old and die?”

That plainly hadn’t occurred to Zeshpass. After some thought, she said, “I suppose we shall have to finish the conquest before that happens. This hatching conflict with the United States gives us the opportunity to take a long stride in that direction.”

“Truth-but only to a point,” Straha said. “Even in lands we have supposedly conquered, rebellion continues. That must be one of the reasons you refuse to allow me to go out into Cairo and see for myself what sort of society the Race is building.”

“You have also spoken truth, superior sir-but only to a point,” Zeshpass replied. “The Big Uglies under our rule get arms and encouragement from the independent Tosevite not-empires. If there were no more independent not-empires, how could they continue the struggle against us?”

It was a good question. Straha could not answer it, not at once. After some thought of his own, he replied, “That is a possibility, I suppose. But, given what we of the conquest fleet have seen of Tosevite stubbornness and perversity, I believe it is folly to assume all resistance will die within a generation.”

“We shall consider your opinions, of course,” Zeshpass said. “But we are under no obligation to do anything more than consider them.”

“I understand that.” Straha sighed. “By my own actions, I made certain I would never again help form the Race’s policy here on Tosev 3.” He sounded resigned, even humble. He didn’t feel humble, or anything close to it. He remained convinced he could have done a better job with the conquest fleet than Atvar had. And if Reffet couldn’t see the need for soldiers from the colonization fleet, he was just another male with fancy body paint and with sand between his eye turrets.

Straha crossed the first and second fingers of his right hand, a gesture American Big Uglies sometimes used when they said something they didn’t mean. That gesture meant nothing to Zeshpass, of course. To Zeshpass, Big Uglies were nuisances, annoyances, no more. Despite the war with the Deutsche, she didn’t fully seem to grasp how dangerous they could be and, therefore, how important they were to study.

That gesture also summarized Straha’s feelings about his return to the Race. The meeker and milder he seemed, the sooner his interrogators and those who did lead the Race these days would let him get on with his life. So he hoped, anyhow.

But Zeshpass, though naive about Tosevites, was by no means foolish about matters that had to do with the Race. She said, “When you delivered your information, superior sir, that act helped form our policy.”

“I suppose it did,” Straha admitted, “but that was not why I did it. As I have said before, I did it because my friend, Sam Yeager, had asked me to do it.”

“Friendship with a Big Ugly counting for more than policy concerns of the Race?” Zeshpass said. “Surely your priorities became distorted during your long years of exile.”

“I disagree.” Straha used the negative gesture and added an emphatic cough. “Sam Yeager did a great deal for me while I was in exile. The actions of the leadership of the Race were what drove me into exile. Naturally, Yeager’s wishes and his wellbeing were and are important to me.”

“I shall make a note of that,” Zeshpass said, with the air of a magistrate passing sentence on a criminal. Straha realized he’d been too vehement, too outspoken, too opinionated. So much for meek and mild, he thought. Now more like a hunting beast than a confidante, Zeshpass returned to the questioning: “So you believe it was legitimate for you to hatch friendships among the Big Uglies?”

“Yes, I do,” Straha answered. Of course I do, you addled egg. “After all, I believed I would live among them the rest of my life.” Maybe he could steer his way back toward meek and mild after all.

Zeshpass wasn’t about to make things easy for him. Voice sharp as filed fingerclaws, she demanded, “It was for this reason, then, that you put your individual concerns and the concerns of this Big Ugly friend of yours above those of the Race as a whole?”

“The species of my friend is not relevant,” Straha said, pushing her away from the major accusation and toward something smaller. “Rabotevs and Hallessi are citizens of the Empire, no less than males and females of the Race. If the conquest here succeeds in the end, the same will be true of Big Uglies.”

“That may well be a truth.” Zeshpass admitted what she plainly would sooner have denied. She had to admit it; equality of species under the law and in the afterlife was a cornerstone of the Empire. She tried to rally: “You said nothing, I notice, about your rampant and unwarranted individualism.”

There was the dangerous charge, especially from the viewpoint of members of the colonization fleet. Straha said, “Have you noticed that the males of the conquest fleet show more individualism than would have been common back on Home?”

“I have,” Zeshpass answered. “Everyone from the colonization fleet has noticed this. No one from the colonization fleet approves. Our view is that the males of the colonization fleet have been contaminated by the bizarre ideologies of the Tosevites.”

“We have done what we needed to do to survive and flourish on a world of individualism run wild,” Straha said. “That is the Race’s view, of course. To the Big Uglies, we are hopeless reactionaries.”

“I do not see why the views of the local barbarians should carry any special weight,” Zeshpass said primly.

“Do you not?” Straha said. “I would think the answer fairly obvious, and shown by the recent war with the Deutsche if it was not adequately obvious without that demonstration. What the Big Uglies think about us matters because they can hurt us. They can hurt us badly. Why do you have so much trouble believing that?”

Zeshpass said, “This is not the way things were to be when we got to Tosev 3. This is not the way we were told things would be when we got to Tosev 3.”

“But this is the way things are,” Straha said. “If you cannot see that, if you cannot adapt to that, the colonization effort will face severe difficulties.”

“We are the Race,” Zeshpass said. “We shall prevail. We have always prevailed. We can do it again.”

“We can, certainly,” Straha agreed. “Whether or not we shall… that is a different question. If we act as if our triumph is guaranteed, that only makes it more difficult. The Tosevites present the most severe challenge we have ever faced. Turning our eye turrets away from that challenge, acting as if it does not exist, will make things worse, not better. You may be sure the American Big Uglies, whom I know best, do not believe their triumph is guaranteed. As a result, they work unceasingly to subvert us.”

“Working is one thing. Succeeding is another,” Zeshpass said. “I submit to you, superior sir, that your view of these matters is colored by your having lived among the American Tosevites for so long.”

“And I submit to you that your view is colored by not having lived among any Big Uglies, and by your ignorance of them,” Straha retorted.

They glared at each other in perfect mutual loathing. “Time will tell which of us is correct,” Zeshpass said, and Straha made the affirmative gesture.

It was some time after midnight when the guard named Fred shook Sam Yeager awake. “Come on, pal,” he said when Yeager showed signs of returning to the real world. “You sleep like a rock. Shows you’ve got a clean conscience. I wish to God I did, believe me.”

Sam yawned and rubbed his eyes. Around the yawn, he asked, “What’s going on that won’t keep till morning?” He sounded mushy without his false teeth.

“Somebody wants to see you,” Fred answered. “Come on.”

“Yeah?” Yeager tensed, wishing he hadn’t made that sound quite so dubious. Who’d want to see him in the middle of the night? Were the guards waking him up so they could dispose of him more conveniently?

Fred might have read his mind. “Don’t do anything stupid, Yeager,” he said, and his.45 appeared as if by magic in his right hand. “If I wanted to ice you, I could blow your brains out without bothering to wake you up, right? No fuss, no muss, no bother. But I wasn’t blowing smoke up your ass. Somebody wants to see you, and he’s waiting in the living room.”

Yeager sniffed. The odor of fresh-perked coffee wafted in from the kitchen. As much as Fred’s words, that convinced him the guard was telling the truth. He put in his dentures and slid out of bed, asking, “Who is it? And can I get out of my pajamas first?”

“Don’t bother about the PJ’s,” Fred answered. “As for who, come on out front and see for yourself.”

“Okay.” Sam sighed. Whoever was out there would be in a uniform, or maybe a business suit. Facing him in blue-and-white striped cotton pajamas would only put Yeager at a disadvantage. Well, he was at a big enough disadvantage already. His feet slid into slippers. “Let’s go.”

“Attaboy.” Fred made the pistol vanish as smoothly as he’d brought it out.

Up the hall Yeager went. When he walked into the living room, he wasn’t surprised to see John and Charlie already there. With them stood another couple of men he hadn’t seen before. They wore nearly identical off-the-rack suits, and they both looked jumpy and alert despite the hour. Sam noticed that much about them, but nothing more, for his eyes went to the man in the rocking chair by the far wall. Despite pajamas, he wanted to come to attention. He didn’t, not quite. Instead, he nodded and spoke as casually as he could: “Hello, Mr. President.”

Earl Warren returned the nod. “Hello, Lieutenant Colonel Yeager,” he replied. “Officially, I’ll have you know, this conversation is not taking place. Officially, I’m somewhere else-you don’t need to know where-and sound asleep. I wish I were.” He glanced over to one of the strangers in a suit. “Elliott, why don’t you get Yeager here a cup of coffee? I expect he could use one. I know I’m glad to have mine.”

“Sure,” said the Secret Service man-or so Sam assumed him to be. “You take cream and sugar, Lieutenant Colonel?”

“Both, please. About a teaspoon of sugar,” Yeager answered, for all the world as if this were an utterly normal conversation. Elliott went off to the kitchen.

“Sit down, Lieutenant Colonel, if you please,” President Warren said, and Sam saw that all the guards had left the armchair across the room from the rocker for him. The only reason they were there was to make sure he didn’t strangle the president. He’d asked to see Warren not really expecting anyone would pay any attention to him, but now Warren was here.

Elliott brought him the coffee. Not a drop had slopped from cup into saucer; the Secret Service man had steady hands. “Thanks,” Sam told him, and got a curt nod in return. He sipped the coffee. It was hot and strong and good.

President Warren let him drink about a third of the cup, then said, “Shall we get down to brass tacks?”

“Okay by me.” Yeager pointed to Fred and Charlie and John. “But these fellows have said they don’t want to know why they’ve been keeping me here. Should they listen in?”

His guards and the Secret Service men put their heads together. Then, to his surprise, the fellows who’d ridden herd on him trooped out of the living room and out of the house; he heard the door close behind them. President Warren said, “I think Jim and Elliott should be able to keep me safe.” Yeager nodded; they were bound to be armed. Even if they weren’t, either one of them could have broken him in half. With a sigh, the president asked, “Well, Lieutenant Colonel, what’s on your mind?”

Sam took another sip of coffee before answering. He took a deep breath, too. Now that he had to bring them out, the words wanted to stick in his throat. He wished the coffee were fortified with something stronger than cream and sugar. But he said what he had to say: “Sir, why did you order the attack on the colonization fleet?”

Both Secret Service men started. Elliott muttered something under his breath. He and the one named Jim stared at the president. Earl Warren sighed again. “The classic answer is, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And it did seem like a good idea. It was the hardest blow humans have even struck against the Race, and the Lizards never really suspected the United States. No one did-except you, Lieutenant Colonel. Are you happy to realize that, by being right, you may have brought your country down in flames?”

That made Sam take another deep, anything but happy breath. “Mr. President, I decided a long time ago that whoever launched missiles at the colonization fleet was a murderer,” he answered. “I swear to God, I thought it was the Nazis or the Reds. I never imagined the trail would lead back to us.”

“But you kept looking, didn’t you?” President Warren said. “You couldn’t take a hint. You just kept poking your nose where it didn’t belong.”

“A hint, sir?” Yeager said in real puzzlement. “What kind of hint?”

Warren sighed again. “Wouldn’t you say that the unfortunate things that kept almost happening to you and your family-that would have happened if you’d been less on your guard-were a hint that you were digging in places you shouldn’t be? We even tried to pass that message to you, first through General LeMay and then through Straha’s driver.”

“General LeMay was only talking about the Lewis and Clark,” Sam said, “and I didn’t know just what Straha’s driver was talking about-not till I found out what had happened to the colonization fleet, anyway. And by then it was too late.”

“It may be too late for all of us,” the president said heavily. “What on earth possessed you to give Straha a printout of what you’d found?”

“When I did find it, Mr. President, all of a sudden I understood why I’d been having all the trouble I’d been having,” Yeager answered. “I thought of Straha as a life-insurance policy-if anything happened to me or to my kin, the word would still get out. I guess it has?”

“Oh, it has, all right.” Earl Warren glared at him. “That damned Lizard sneaked out of the USA and into Cairo, and by every sign those documents got there ahead of him. And Atvar has been threatening war against the United States ever since. That is a war you must know we would lose.”

“Yes, sir, I do know that,” Sam said. “I’ve known it all along. I thought you did, too. The Lizards have always said they’d do something dreadful if they ever found out who hit the colonization fleet. I figured Germany or Russia would deserve it. I have trouble thinking we don’t. I’m sorry, sir, but that’s how it looks to me.”

“Do you know what one of the Race’s principal demands has been?” the president asked with an angry toss of the head.

“No, sir. I have no idea,” Sam replied. “I haven’t seen much in the way of news lately. Is my family all right?” They could have held him and done God knows what to Barbara and Jonathan. The guards had said they hadn’t, but still… Doing that would screw up the experiment with Mickey and Donald, but they probably wouldn’t care. They’d figure keeping a secret was more important.

But now President Warren nodded. “Your wife and son are fine. You have my word on it.” Yeager had always thought his word good. Now he knew it wasn’t, or wasn’t necessarily. Before he could do more than realize that, Warren went on, “The Lizards are insisting that you be released unharmed, and that no harm befall your kin. It is a condition we intend to meet.”

God bless Straha, Sam thought. He lived among Big Uglies so long, he got some notion of how important family members are to us. And thank heaven he managed to get that across to the Lizards in Cairo. Aloud, he made his voice harsh: “Is that the reason I’m still breathing? And my wife and son?”

“It is… one of the reasons,” Warren answered. Yeager gave the president reluctant credit for not flinching from the question. “It is also the only condition we find easy to meet. The Race is demanding that we either let them incinerate one of our cities with an explosive-metal bomb or make concessions to them that would permanently weaken us-not quite to the degree the Reich has been diminished, but something not far from that.”

Yeager winced. Sure enough, the Lizards hadn’t been kidding. “And if you tell them no on both those counts, it’s war?”

“That is about the size of it, Lieutenant Colonel Yeager,” the president said. “We have you to thank for it.”

But Yeager shook his head. “No, sir. You were the one who ordered the launch. The Race would have found out sooner or later, and they’d have been just as furious a hundred years from now as they are right this minute.”

“We would be in a stronger position to fight back a hundred years from now,” Warren said.

“Maybe,” Sam said, “but maybe not, too. Who knows what’ll be heading this way from Home now that the Lizards know we’re not pushovers?”

“At any rate, we have to deal with what is happening now,” the president said, “which is to say, with what you’ve wrought. The Russians may stand with us. The thought that they might has given the Lizards pause.”

“Would they?” Sam knew he sounded surprised. After a little thought, though, it seemed less implausible. “If we go down, they know they’re next, and they haven’t got a prayer of fighting off the Lizards by themselves.” He didn’t think the USA and the USSR together could beat the Race, but they’d sure as hell let the Lizards know they’d been in a fight.

President Warren’s big head soberly went up and down. “I believe that is Molotov’s reasoning, yes, although you never can tell with Russians.”

In all his days, Sam Yeager had never imagined he would sit in judgment on a president of the United States. His voice hardly more than a whisper, he asked, “What will you do, sir?”

“What I have to do,” Earl Warren answered. “What seems best for the United States and for all of humanity. That’s what I’ve been doing all along.” What was intended as a smile lifted only one corner of his mouth. “Thanks to you, it didn’t work out quite the way I expected.”

Sam let out a long sigh. “No, sir, I guess not.” He started to add, I’m sorry, but that didn’t pass his lips. Part of him was, but a much bigger part wasn’t.

President Warren said, “I shall of course arrange for your release. I would be grateful for your public silence and that of any loved ones you may have informed until the present crisis ends. I am not going to order it, but I would be grateful for it.”

“How will I know when that is?” Sam asked.

The president looked at him-looked through him. “Believe me, Lieutenant Colonel, you will not be left in any doubt.”

Pshing came up to Atvar and said, “Exalted Fleetlord, the ambassador from the not-empire of the United States is here to see you.”

Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “I will see him. Show him in. No-wait. First bring in a chair suitable for a Tosevite’s hindquarters. I do not intend to insult him in any trivial way.”

“It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord.” Pshing hurried off. He brought in first the chair and then the Big Ugly named Henry Cabot Lodge.

“I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” the ambassador said.

“And I greet you,” Atvar replied. “You may sit.” As far as he was concerned, the wild Tosevite didn’t really deserve the privilege, but the fleetlord had grown used to diplomatic niceties since the first round of fighting stopped. The USA and the Race were theoretically equals and were not at war-not yet. Not offering Lodge a chair would have been an insult: a small one, but an insult nonetheless. No, Atvar did not intend to offer the United States any small insults.

“I am here, Exalted Fleetlord, among other reasons, to bring you the apology of the government of the United States for the unfortunate incident involving the colonization fleet,” Lodge said.

“I am here to tell you, Ambassador, that no apology is adequate,” Atvar replied. “No apology can be adequate. I am here to tell you that the Race will have compensation for what the United States did.”

Henry Cabot Lodge’s gray-maned head bobbed up and down, the Tosevite equivalent of the affirmative gesture. “I am prepared to negotiate such compensation if you truly require it.”

“If we truly require it?” Atvar sprang to his feet. His mouth opened, not in a laugh but in a way that suggested his ancestors had been carnivores. He held out his hand so his fingerclaws were ready to tear. Had he been standing erect instead of leaning forward, had his crest risen, he would have looked ready to fight a mating battle. “We have said from the moment this outrage occurred that we would require it, once we learned who the guilty party was. You may be grateful that we have not already embarked on war without limits.”

In the abstract, he had to admire the American ambassador. The Big Ugly sat there as calmly as if he hadn’t embarked on his tirade. When he finished, Lodge said, “One reason you have not, of course, is that we could hunt you badly if you did. If the Russians join us-and we are no more certain about that than you-the damage to the Race and the lands it rules will be even greater.”

He was all the more infuriating partly because he stayed calm, partly because he was without a doubt correct. But Atvar would not admit that no matter how obvious it was. He said, “Regardless of what you can do to us, we can do far more to you.” That was also a manifest truth. “And we shall, to avenge the murder of males and females in cold sleep, before they ever had the chance to come down to the surface of Tosev 3.”

“Unless I can negotiate some other solution that would satisfy you and my government at the same time,” Lodge said.

“You know what our demands are.” Atvar made his voice hard as stone, hoping the Big Ugly would grasp his tone. “Return of the Lewis and Clark and the new ship from their present location among the minor planets. No further expeditions to those planets. American orbital forts to have their explosive-metal weapons removed to prevent further unprovoked attacks. American ground-based missiles to be reduced in number. American submersible-ship-based missiles to be eliminated. The Race’s inspectors to go where they please when they please in the United States to make certain these terms are carried out.”

“No,” Henry Cabot Lodge said. “My instructions are specific on that point. These terms are unacceptable to the United States. President Warren has not given me permission to deal with them even hypothetically.”

“You also know the other alternative,” Atvar said. “To let one of your cities be incinerated, as our colonists were incinerated.”

“No,” the American ambassador said again. “That is also unacceptable.”

“When the weak propose something, the strong may say it is unacceptable,” Atvar told him. “When the strong propose something, the weak may say only, ‘It shall be done.’ Who here is strong? Who is weak? I suggest you think carefully on this, Ambassador. If you reject both these demands, we shall have war. Regardless of the damage it may do us, it will destroy you. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Exalted Fleetlord,” Lodge said, still calmly.

“Then I dismiss you,” Atvar said. “You had better make sure that your not-emperor understands. Unless he complies with the Race’s just demands-and they are just demands, without the tiniest fragment of doubt-we shall visit ruination on his not-empire.”

Henry Cabot Lodge rose and bent at the waist-not the posture of respect, but about as close to it as wild Big Uglies came. “I shall convey your words to President Warren. Shall we meet again in two days’ time?”

Atvar glared at him. “You are using this delay to increase your armed forces’ readiness to resist us.”

“No, Exalted Fleetlord.” Lodge shook his head. “We have been at maximum readiness for some time. The only way we could be more ready would be to start the fight ourselves. That, I assure you, we do not intend to do.”

“Of course not,” Atvar snarled. “We would be ready if you did. You could not strike a stealthy blow this time.”

Lodge bowed again and departed without another word. That left the fleetlord feeling vaguely punctured. As soon as the Tosevite had left, Pshing came into the office. “Any progress, Exalted Fleetlord?” he asked.

“None.” Atvar made the negative gesture. “None whatsoever.” He sighed. “We shall be fortunate to avoid another war, and this one far worse than that which we fought against the Deutsche. The American Big Uglies refuse to give up their clawhold on space, and they also naturally refuse to yield up a city to our wrath.”

“Did you expect them to yield one?” Pshing asked.

“No,” Atvar answered. “I intended to use that threat to get them out of space and to reduce their weaponry, which would let us dominate them hence-forward even if they stay nominally independent. But they plainly perceive the long-term danger in that course of events. If they refuse us, however, the danger is not long-term but short-term.”

His telephone hissed. Pshing hurried out to answer it in the antechamber. A moment later, he called, “Exalted Fleetlord, it is Fleetlord Reffet.”

Atvar wanted to speak to the leader of the colonization fleet about as much as he wanted to have an ingrown toeclaw cut free without local anesthetic, but realized he had no choice. With another sigh, he said, “Put him through.”

Reffet looked angry. That was Atvar’s first thought when he saw his opposite number from the colonization fleet. Reffet sounded angry, too: “Well, has that cursed Big Ugly caved in to our demands yet?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Atvar answered.

“All right, then,” Reffet said. “We just have to blow his stinking not-empire-stupid name for a piece of land, if anybody wants to know what I think-clean off the surface of Tosev 3. Those Tosevites deserve whatever happens to them, after what they did to us. A bite in the back, that is what it was. Nothing but a miserable, treacherous bite in the back.”

“Truth,” Atvar agreed. “If we fight them now, however, they will without a doubt bite us in the front several times. Their not-empire is far larger and is also more populous than that of the Deutsche. Their military preparedness is not to be despised. And, if we get heavily involved in fighting them, the Russkis may indeed bite us in the back.”

“And whose fault is that?” The question from the fleetlord of the colonization fleet was rhetorical. He was convinced he knew whose fault it was: Atvar’s, and no one else’s.

With a sigh-how many times had he sighed on or in orbit around Tosev 3?-Atvar answered, “If you must blame anyone, blame the planners who sent a probe to this miserable world sixteen hundred years ago and assumed it would not change in the meanwhile. A probe a hundred years before we set out would have warned us and saved us much grief. I have already recommended that this be made standard practice in planning any future conquest fleets.”

“Wonderful,” Reffet said. “This does us exactly no good now, of course.”

“I agree,” Atvar said. “Have you any constructive suggestions to make, or did you call just to complain at everything I am doing?”

The fleetlord of the colonization fleet glared at him. “I have already made my suggestion: punish these Big Uglies with every means at our disposal.”

“I asked you for constructive suggestions,” Atvar replied. “That is a destructive suggestion. How destructive it turns out to be, we will know only after the fighting ends.” He held up a hand before Reffet could speak. “You will tell me it is more destructive to the Big Uglies. Again, I agree. It had better be, anyway. But it will hurt us, too. However much you may wish to scratch sand over it, that also remains a truth.”

Reffet hissed in frustrated fury. “Will you let these Tosevites get off without punishment for their crime, then?”

“By no means.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “I am trying to arrange a punishment for them that will not involve damage to the Race. If I can do that, well and good. If I cannot… I will take whatever other steps I deem necessary.”

“You had better,” Reffet said. “If you fail here, the effort to depose you that Straha led will look like a hatchlings’ game.”

Atvar supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised at a threat like that. Somehow, he still was. Having gone through such humiliation once, did he really want to face it a second time? Did he have any choice? If he did botch this negotiation with the Americans, wouldn’t he deserve to be overthrown? He said, “I hear you, Reffet. Since you admit you have nothing constructive to contribute, I bid you good day.”

“I admit nothing of the-” Reffet began. Atvar took savage pleasure in breaking the connection and cutting him off in mid-squawk.

After that, he had to deal with minutiae: the eternal rebellion in China, the equally eternal rebellion in India, a new outbreak in the subregion of the southern part of the lessen continental mass called Argentina. All of those would eventually be solved, and none of them, even unsolved, was more than a nuisance to the Race. Atvar issued directives confident that, regardless of whether they were right or wrong, the world would go on. He had margin for error.

He had none with the American Big Uglies, and he knew it. He had to keep the pressure on them, and had to do so in such a way that he resisted the pressure from his own extremists. Two days later, as promised, Henry Cabot Lodge returned to his office. “I have a proposal for you from President Warren,” Lodge said, and set it forth.

When he’d finished, Atvar said, “Are you certain you understood him correctly? Is he certain of what he is doing?”

“Yes and yes, respectively,” Lodge replied. “He requests one additional item: personal foreknowledge-not much, but a little-of the precise timing. Your intelligence resources will be able to make sure that the United States does not use this for any untoward purpose.”

“I had not expected-” Atvar began.

Lodge cut him off: “Does this proposal meet with your approval or not? If not, I see no way to avoid war.”

Atvar had never imagined that a Big Ugly could squeeze him. But he felt squeezed now. He stared at Lodge. The Tosevite kept his face very still. His impression after pondering was the same as it had been at first scent: he would never get a better offer from the Americans. His left hand shaped the affirmative gesture. “I accept,” he said.

Jonathan Yeager had never been so glad to sit on the couch in his own front room watching a baseball game. Having his father sitting there beside him made all the difference in the world. Sam Yeager had his legs crossed. He took a swig from a bottle of Lucky Lager, then returned it to its resting place on top of his upper knee. It stayed there quite happily; the hollow in the bottom of the bottle fit the curve of his knee very well. Whenever Jonathan tried such things, he spilled beer or soda on his pants.

The Kansas City batter lashed a double to the gap in left-center. Two runners scored. “That makes the score 5–4 Blues, as the Yankees’ bullpen lets them down again,” Buddy Blattner shouted from the set.

“They overthrew the cutoff man,” Jonathan’s dad said. “If they hadn’t, the Yankees might have nailed Mantle as he rounded second-he was thinking triple, but he had to put on the brakes.”

Barbara Yeager said, “You pick apart ballgames the way I was trained to analyze literature.”

“Why not?” Jonathan’s dad said. “I was trained to hit the cutoff man on a throw from the outfield, no matter what. I didn’t have the talent to make the big leagues-especially after I tore up my ankle-but I always knew what I was doing out there.”

Before anybody could say anything more, the baseball game disappeared from the TV screen, to be replaced by a slide with the words URGENT NEWS BULLETIN. “What’s this?” Jonathan said.

Chet Huntley’s long, somber face replaced the slide. It looked even longer and more somber than usual. “In an assault apparently launched without any warning to U.S. authorities, the Race has detonated a large explosivemetal bomb above Indianapolis, Indiana,” he said. “Casualties, obviously, are as yet unknown, but they must be in the tens, if not in the hundreds, of thousands.”

As the picture cut away from Huntley to show a toadstool cloud rising above some city or other-it might have been Indianapolis, or it might have been stock footage-Jonathan and his parents all said the same thing at the same time: “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

“They’ve paid us back,” Sam Yeager added. “It was this or get out of space forever and turn oven most of our weapons. Those were the terms Atvar set. I didn’t think we’d do it this way, though.” He emptied his beer in a couple of long, convulsive gulps.

Chet Huntley reappeared, but only to say, “Now we’re going to Eric Sevareid in Little Rock for the administration’s response to this unprovoked attack.”

It wasn’t unprovoked, as Jonathan knew only too well. And when Sevareid came onto the screen, his face, normally as dead a pan as any newsman’s, was wet with tears. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, President Earl Warren has just been found dead in a Gray House bedroom. He appears to have died by his own hand.”

Again, Jonathan and his father and mother said the same thing at the same time: “Oh, my God!”

Eric Sevareid said, “The presidential press secretary has before him a statement that he will read to the nation. We will also be hearing from Vice President-excuse me, from President-Harold Stassen as soon as he can be found and informed of the dual tragedies of the day. The vice president-excuse me again, the president; that will take some getting used to-is on a fishing trip in his home state of Minnesota. And now, Mr. Hagerty.”

The camera cut away from Sevareid and over to the briefing room of the Gray House. James Hagerty blinked under the bright lights. He licked his lips a couple of times, then said, “As what seems to have been his final living act, President Warren wrote by hand the statement I have before me. He set it where it would surely be found when he was sought after the destruction of Indianapolis. He was, by that time, unfortunately deceased. These are, then, the last words of the president of the United States.”

“I never thought he’d do this,” Sam Yeager said. Jonathan and his mother both hissed for him to be quiet.

“ ‘My fellow citizens, by the time you hear these words, I will be dead,’ ” James Hagerty read. “ ‘The demands the Race has made upon the United States of America have left me in a position where I could not in good conscience accept either of them, but where rejecting them would have resulted in the destruction of our great nation.’ ”

Hagerty blinked and licked his lips again. He’s getting all this for the first time, too, Jonathan realized. Poor bastard. The press secretary went on, “ ‘And yet, there was justice in the Race’s demands upon us, for it was at my order that rocket forces of the United States launched explosive-metal-tipped missiles against twelve ships of the colonization fleet not long after it took up Earth orbit. I and no one else am responsible for that order. I still believe it was in the best interest of mankind as a whole. But now my role has been discovered, and my country and I must pay the price.’ ”

Jonathan’s father cursed and grimaced. Jonathan’s mother patted him on the shoulder. Jonathan himself hardly noticed. He was staring, transfixed, at the television screen.

“ ‘Fleetlord Atvar presented us with a dreadful choice,’ ” Earl Warren’s press secretary read. “ ‘Either withdrawal of our weapons and installations from space and the great reduction of our ground- and sea-based weapons systems-essentially, the loss of our independence-or the destruction of a great American city. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” If neither of those, then war, war we could not hope to win.’ ”

Hagerty paused to wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket. “Excuse me,” he said to the millions watching. Then he resumed: “ ‘I could not, I would not, sacrifice our future by reducing our installations as the Race demanded. And I could not lead us into a war where, however much we might hurt the foe, the United States would surely suffer the fate of the Greater German Reich. That left me with no choice but to sacrifice Indianapolis to the vengeance of the Race.’ ”

“Jesus,” Jonathan muttered. He wondered what he would have done in Warren’s shoes. The devil and the deep blue sea…

“ ‘Having made that decision,’ ” the press secretary continued, “ ‘I also decided that I… could not live when the men, women, and children I had sacrificed were dead. I hope I may find forgiveness in the hearts of the living and in the sight of God. Farewell, and may God bless the United States of America.’ ”

James Hagerty looked up from the podium, as if about to add a few words of his own. Then he shook his head. His eyes overflowed with tears again. Fighting back a sob, he hurried away. The camera lingered on the empty podium, as if unsure where else to go.

“Are you all right, dear?” Jonathan’s mother asked his father. For a moment, Jonathan had no idea what she meant. But then he saw that, if the blood of the people of Indianapolis was on Earl Warren’s hands, it was also on the hands of his dad. If the Lizards hadn’t found out who’d attacked the colonization fleet, they wouldn’t have destroyed the city. He too looked anxiously toward his father.

“Yeah, I’m okay, or pretty much so, anyhow.” Sam Yeager’s voice was harsh. “Warren couldn’t live after he had to throw Indianapolis into the fire. Okay, but what about all the Lizards he killed? He didn’t lose a night’s sleep over them, and they hadn’t done anything to anybody, either. They couldn’t have-they were in cold sleep themselves. If Lizards aren’t people worth thinking about, what are they?”

Slowly, Jonathan nodded. “Truth,” he said-in the Lizards’ language.

At last, the TV screen cut away from the podium with nobody behind it. But when it did, Jonathan wished it hadn’t, for what it showed were the ruins of Indianapolis. Chet Huntley’s voice provided commentary: “These are the outskirts of the city. We cannot get closer to the center. We are not altogether sure it is safe to come even so close.”

A man walked into the camera’s line of sight. The right side of his face looked normal. The left, and his left arm, had been dreadfully burned. “Sir,” called a newsman behind the camera, “what happened, sir?”

“I was watering my lawn,” the man with half a normal face said. “Watering my lawn,” he repeated. “I was watering my lawn, and the whole god-damn world blew up.” He swayed like a tree in a high breeze, then slowly toppled.

“Flash must have got him,” Jonathan’s dad said. “If he’d been turned the other way, it would have been the other side of his face. Or if he’d been looking right at it…” His voice trailed away. Jonathan had no trouble figuring out what would have happened then. His stomach lurched. The camera panned across devastation.

The telephone rang. He sprang up and ran to answer it, as much to escape the images on the TV screen as for any other reason. “Hello?”

“Jonathan?” It was Karen. “My God, Jonathan…” She sounded as ravaged, stunned, disbelieving as he was.

“Yeah,” he said, for want of anything better. “This is what we were sitting on.”

“I know,” she answered. “I never imagined it would turn out like this.”

“I didn’t, either. I’m just glad they turned Dad loose and he got home okay.” Looking at some tiny private good in the midst of general disaster was a very human trait. Maybe that thought impelled what came next: “Karen, will you marry me, dammit?” She hadn’t said yes and she hadn’t said no.

It was the wrong time. It couldn’t have been a worse time. Maybe it couldn’t have been a better time, either, though, for she answered, “Yes, I think we should do that.” And then, before he could say anything else, she hung up.

Dazed, he walked back into the living room. He still didn’t get a chance to say anything, because his mother told him, “They’ve caught up with Vice President-President-Stassen.”

Sure enough, there was Harold Stassen, with the words THIEF LAKE, MINNESOTA superimposed on his image. He wore a fisherman’s vest that was all over pockets, a floppy hat, and an expression as sandbagged as everybody else’s. Jonathan thought it was cruel for a reporter to thrust a microphone in his face and bark, “In light of the present situation, Mr. President, what do you intend to do?”

Stassen gave what Jonathan thought was about the best answer he could: “I’m going to go back to Little Rock and find out exactly what happened. After that, with God’s help, I’ll try to take this country forward again. I have nothing else to say right now.”

In spite of that last sentence, the reporter asked, “Mr. President, were you aware that the United States launched the attack on the colonization fleet?”

“No,” Stassen said. “I was not aware of that, not until you told me a moment ago. Some officers will have some things to answer for. I expect to find out which ones.”

“You can start with Lieutenant General Curtis LeMay,” Jonathan’s father said, and then, thoughtfully rather than in anger, “I wonder if he’ll have the decency to kill himself. Too much to hope for, unless I’m wrong. And I wonder just how many know. Not a lot, or the secret wouldn’t have stayed secret this long.”

“Dad, Mom,” Jonathan said, “Karen just said she’d marry me.”

“That’s good, son,” his father said.

“Congratulations,” his mother added. But neither one of them heard him with more than half an ear. Almost all of their attention was on the TV screen, which cut away from the most unpresidential images of the new president to new scenes of the ruin that had without warning overtaken Indianapolis. Jonathan would have been angrier at them if his own eyes hadn’t been drawn as by a magnet to the television set.

“I was in orbital patrol when that satellite launched on the ships of the colonization fleet,” Glen Johnson said in the galley of the Lewis and Clark. “I figured it had to be the Nazis or the Reds. I never imagined the United States would do such a thing.”

“Now that you know better,” Dr. Miriam Rosen said, “what do you think of what President Warren did?”

“Falling on his sword, you mean?” Johnson said. “The country would have strung him up if he hadn’t.”

But the doctor shook her head, which made her dark, curly hair flip back and forth in a way that would have been impossible under gravity. “No, that’s not what I meant. What do you think of his sacrificing a city instead of everything we’ve done in space?”

Before Johnson could answer, Mickey Flynn said, “If the United States survives as an independent power, he’ll go down in history as a tragic hero of sorts. If we don’t, he’ll be a villain, of course.”

Johnson ate another mouthful of beans and diced peppers. The peppers provided essential vitamins. They were also hot enough to make his eyes cross. In a way, that was a welcome change from the blandness of most of what he ate aboard the spaceship. In another, more immediate, way, though, it made him drink from his plastic bottle of water before he could speak. When he did, he said, “Winners write history, sure enough.”

Flynn had another question: “What do you think of the fellow who let the Lizards know what we’d done?”

“That’s a funny thing,” Johnson said. “I watched those ships blow up. I don’t know how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of Lizards were in them. They never had a chance. They never even knew they died, because they never woke up out of cold sleep. If I’d known whether the Germans or the Russians launched on them, I’d’ve told the Race in a red-hot minute. I wouldn’t have felt bad about it. I’d have figured the bad guys were getting what they deserved.”

“It’s different when the shoe is on your own foot,” Dr. Rosen observed.

“Ain’t it the truth!” Johnson’s agreement was wholehearted if ungrammatical.

“If I had to guess-” Flynn began.

Johnson cut him off: “If I know you, Mickey, that means you’ve analyzed it seventeen ways from Sunday.”

“Not this time,” the second pilot said with dignity. “Not enough data. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, if I had to guess, I’d say Warren took the Race by surprise when he gave them Indianapolis instead of everything out here and everything in Earth orbit.”

“Congratulations,” Miriam Rosen said. “Second-guessing a dead man from a couple of hundred million miles away isn’t just a world record. If it’s not a solar system record, it’s got to be in the running.”

Flynn gravely inclined his head, which, since he floated perpendicular to the doctor, made him look absurd. “Thank you kindly. I’m honored to have such a distinguished judge. Now I shall elucidate.”

“That means explain, right?” Johnson asked-more harassing fire.

But Flynn gave better than he got, remarking, “Only a Marine would need an explanation of an explanation. Now if I may go on?” When Johnson, licking his wounds, didn’t rise to that, the second pilot did continue: “On the surface, giving up the installations is the easy, obvious choice. It costs no lives, it costs no money-in the short term, it looks better. And the Race is convinced we Tosevites live in the short term.”

“But in the long term, it would ruin the United States,” Johnson said. “It would put us at the Lizards’ mercy.”

“Exactly.” Flynn nodded again. “Whereas losing Indianapolis does us very little harm in the long run-unless, of course, one is unfortunate enough to live in Indianapolis. The Fleetlord probably threw in the destruction of a city as a goad to make us do what he really wanted. But when President Warren took him up on it, he had no choice this side of war but to accept, and the United States is and will be a going concern for some time to come. That’s why I say President Warren has a decent chance of being remembered kindly.”

“All that makes a good deal of sense,” Dr. Rosen said. “What do you think, Glen?”

“The last time you asked me that, Mickey got up on his soapbox,” Johnson replied, at which Flynn sent him an injured stare. Ignoring it, Johnson found himself nodding. “But I think it makes sense, too. Warren took a big chance, he got caught, and he paid the price that hurt the country least. Going on living after that… I guess I can see how he wouldn’t have wanted to.”

“He’d have been impeached and convicted as soon as the story broke,” Dr. Rosen said. “I wonder if we would have handed him over to the Lizards after that. Maybe it’s just as well we don’t have to find out.”

“Probably,” Flynn said.

Johnson couldn’t quarrel with that, either. He said, “When we did give him to the Lizards, he’d have been covered with tar and feathers. He almost screwed up everything he’d been building-everything we’ve been building-for years and years.”

“And yet…” Flynn said in the thoughtful tones he used whenever he was going to go against conventional wisdom. “And yet, I wonder whether that one blow he got in against the colonization fleet before the Lizards were expecting anything hurt them more than losing Indianapolis hurt us. Five hundred years from now, historians will be arguing about that-but will they be our historians or males and females of the Race?”

“To be or not to be, that is the question,” Dr. Rosen said.

“I wasn’t joking, Miriam,” Mickey Flynn said.

“Neither was I,” she answered.

Slowly, Johnson said, “By doing what he did, Warren made sure the Lewis and Clark and now the Columbus would stay out here. He made sure we wouldn’t lose whatever space stations we build in Earth orbit and the weapons we’ve already got there. The Race still has to take us seriously. That’s not the smallest thing in the world. Twenty years from now, fifty years from now, it’s liable to be the biggest thing in the world. Five hundred years from now, it’s liable to say who’s writing the history books.” He raised his water bottle in salute. “Here’s to Earl Warren-I think.”

Flynn and Dr. Rosen also drank, with much the same hesitation he’d shown in proposing the toast. The PA system chimed the hour. As if he couldn’t believe it, Johnson’s eyes went to his wristwatch. It said the same thing the chime did.

He said something, too: “I’m late. Walt’s not going to be very happy with me.”

“An understatement I would be proud to claim,” Flynn said. “I am also late-for my rest period. To sleep, perchance to dream…”

“Perchance to soak your head,” Johnson said over his shoulder as he pushed off to deposit his dishes in their boxes before heading for the control room. He thought he saw Flynn and the doctor leaving together by another exit, but was in too much of a hurry to escape the chief pilot’s wrath to be sure.

“So good of you to join me, Lieutenant Colonel,” Stone said in frigid tones when Glen did fly into the control room. “It would have been even better, of course, had you joined me four minutes and, ah, twenty-seven seconds ago.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Johnson said. Then he broke a cardinal military rule: never offer an excuse to atone for a failure. “Mickey and Miriam and I were trying to figure out what the devil’s going on back on Earth, and I just didn’t pay any attention to the time.”

And, for a wonder, it worked. Walter Stone leaned forward in his seat and asked, “Any conclusions?”

“Either Earl Warren is a hero or a bum, but nobody’s going to know for sure for the next five hundred years,” Johnson answered; that seemed to sum up a lunch’s worth of conversation in a sentence. He added a comment of his own: “Only God or the spirits of Emperors past can tell now, anyhow.”

Stone grunted laughter and said, “Truth,” in the Lizards’ language, tacking on an emphatic cough for good measure. After a couple of seconds of silence, he fell back into English: “He may be a hero for what he did, if you look at things that way. He may be. But I’ll tell you one thing, Glen-he’s the biggest bum since Benedict Arnold for letting himself get caught. If he was going to give those orders, every one of them should have been oral. If anybody did write anything down, he should have burned it the second the launch happened. Then there wouldn’t have been anything for Nosy Parkers later on. Am I right, or am I wrong?”

“Oh, you’re right, sir. No doubt about it. Nosy Parkers…” Johnson’s voice faded.

Stone thought he knew why, and laughed at the junior pilot. “You don’t think that’s so funny, because you were a Nosy Parker yourself, and look what it got you.”

“Yeah.” But Johnson remained abstracted. He’d known another Nosy Parker, a fellow named Yeager out in California who’d been as curious about what the hell was going on with the space station that became the Lewis and Clark as he was himself. And Yeager was a hotshot expert on the Race, too. If he’d been snooping, and if he’d found stuff that would have been better off gone, who was more likely to run and tell stories to the Lizards? Johnson almost spoke up, but he didn’t know anything, not for sure, and so he kept quiet about that. Instead, he said, “There’s almost always a paper trail in that kind of business. There shouldn’t be, but there is.”

“Well, I won’t say you’re wrong, because you’re not,” Stone said. “Even so, you’d think they’d be more careful with something that important. We’re goddamn lucky we didn’t have to pay anything more than Indianapolis.”

“Yeah,” Johnson said again. “It’s not like we lost an important town.” The two men eyed each other in perfect understanding. They were both from Ohio, where Indianapolis was often known as Indian-no-place.

Stone said, “The one thing I do give Warren high marks for is keeping us in space. You know the concept of a fleet in being?”

“Sure.” Johnson nodded. “We’ve got enough stuff that they have to pay attention to us whether we do anything or not.”

“That’s it,” Stone agreed. “If we’d had to give up everything, what would we be? An oversized New Zealand, that’s what.”

“But now we get to go on,” Johnson said. “It cost us. It cost us like hell. But we’re still in business. And one of these days…” He looked out through the glare-resistant glass at the seemingly countless stars.

“One of these days.” Like him, Walter Stone spoke the words as if they were a complete sentence.

“I wonder what kind of funeral they’ve got planned for Warren,” Johnson said. “A big fancy one, or just toss him in a trash can with his feet sticking out?”

“Me, I’d take the second one, and some hobo could steal his shoes,” Stone said. “But he was the president, so odds are they’ll do it up brown.” He paused. “Dammit.”

The last place on Earth Vyacheslav Molotov wanted to be was in Little Rock, Arkansas, for a state funeral. He hated flying, but Earl Warren wasn’t going to keep till he could cross the Atlantic by ship. He’d had a measure of revenge by ordering Andrei Gromyko to come with him.

To his annoyance, the foreign commissar was reacting philosophically rather than with annoyance of his own. “Things could be worse,” he said as he and Molotov met in the Soviet embassy before heading for the gathering procession.

“How?” Molotov was irritable enough to let his irritation show. He hadn’t slept at all on the airplane that brought him to America, and even a long night in bed at the embassy left his body uncertain of what time it was supposed to be.

“If this had happened a couple of months ago, it would be forty degrees centigrade outside, with humidity fit to swim in,” the foreign commissar answered. “Washington was bad in the summertime. Little Rock is worse.”

“Bozhemoi!” Molotov said. Good Communists weren’t supposed to mention God, but old habits were hand to break. The general secretary went on, “I am given to understand Dornberger came in person to represent the Reich, and Eden from England. Is Tojo here also?”

“Yes,” Gromyko answered. “If the Lizards wanted to hurt all the leading human states, they could throw a missile at Little Rock.”

“Heh,” Molotov said. “Losing Eden would probably help England. And Doriot, I notice, is conspicuous by his absence. He collaborated with the Germans so long and so well, he had no trouble collaborating with the Lizards when they became the leading foreigners in France.”

Gromyko clucked. “Such cynicism, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. Officially, the government of the Race has sent its condolences to the government of the United States, so everything is correct on that score.”

“Correct!” Molotov turned and twisted, trying to help his back recover from sitting in the airliner seat for what felt like a month. He wasn’t a young man any more. He seldom felt his three-quarters of a century back in Moscow; thanks to iron routine, one day usually went by much like another. But when he was jerked out of his routine, he took much longer recovering than he would have twenty years before. He had to pause and remember what he’d just said before continuing, “Relations are at their most correct just before the shooting starts.”

“Warren seems to have avoided that,” Gromyko said. In a lower voice, he added, “For which we may all be thankful.”

“Yes.” Molotov nodded emphatically. “That would have been a pretty choice, wouldn’t it? We could have joined the United States in a losing war against the Race, or we could have waited for the Race to finish devouring the USA, and then faced a losing war against the Lizards.”

“By putting things off, and by keeping the USA in the game, humanity has gained a chance.” By Gromyko’s tone, he didn’t think it a very good chance.

Molotov’s private opinion was much the same, but he wouldn’t have told himself his private opinion if he could have avoided it. He kept up a bold front to Gromyko: “Moscow seemed on the point of falling first to the Germans and then to the Lizards. But the hammer and sickle still fly above it.”

Since that was nothing but the truth, the foreign commissar couldn’t very well disagree with it. Before he had the chance, the protocol officer came in and said, “Comrades, the limousine is waiting to take you to the Gray House.”

“Thank you, Mikhail Sergeyevich.” Molotov had made a point of learning the young man’s name and patronymic; by all reports, he was able, even if inclined to put form ahead of substance. Well, if ever there was a protocol officer’s failing, that was it.

The limousine was a Cadillac. Seeing as much, Molotov raised an eyebrow. Gromyko said, “Impossibly expensive to import our own motorcars to all our embassies. In the Reich, we use-used-a Mercedes. I don’t know what we’re doing there now.”

“Did we?” Molotov hadn’t concerned himself with the point before. He shrugged as he got inside. If he was going to worry about it, he’d worry after he got back to Moscow. For the time being, he would simply relax. The automobile was comfortable. But he wouldn’t let it lull him into a false sense of security. To Gromyko, he said, “No substantive conversations here. Who can tell who might be listening?”

“Well, of course, Comrade General Secretary.” The foreign commissar sounded offended. “I am not a blushing virgin, you know.”

“All right, Andrei Andreyevich.” Molotov spoke soothingly. “Better to speak and not need than to need and not speak.”

Before Gromyko could reply, the limousine started to roll. The Soviet embassy was only a few blocks from the Gray House. One thing that struck Molotov was how small a city Little Rock really was, and how new all the important buildings were. Before the Lizard invasion, before it succeeded Washington as a national capital, it had been nothing to speak of, a sleepy provincial town like Kaluga or Kuibishev.

Well, had the Nazis or the Lizards broken through, Kuibishev would have had greatness thrust on it, too. “This place seems pleasant enough,” Molotov said: about as much praise as he would give any town.

“Oh, indeed-pleasant enough, barring summer,” Gromyko said. “And with air conditioning, even that is a smaller problem than it would have been twenty years ago.” Almost silently, the car pulled to a stop. The foreign commissar pointed. “There is Stassen-President Stassen, now-speaking with General Dornberger.”

“Thank you for pointing him out,” Molotov answered. “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have recognized him.” Like Dornberger, Stassen was bald. But the American was a younger man-probably still on the sunny side of sixty-and looked to have been formed in a softer school. He might not have had any trouble in his life from the end of the first round of fighting to Earl Warren’s suicide. Well, he would have troubles now.

The driver opened the door to let out the Russian leaders. “Shall I introduce you?” Gromyko asked. “I speak enough English for that.”

His English was actually quite good, though he preferred not to show it off. Molotov nodded. “If you would. I have never met Dornberger, either. Does he speak English?”

“I don’t know,” Gromyko said. “I’ve never had to deal with him. But we can find out.”

He and Molotov approached the American and German leaders. Stassen turned away from Dornberger and toward them. He spoke in English. “Purely conventional,” Gromyko said. “He thanks you for your presence and says it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Tell him the same,” Molotov answered. “Express my condolences and the condolences of the Soviet people.” As Gromyko spoke in English, Molotov extended his hand. The new president of the United States shook it. His grip, firm but brief, said nothing about him save that he’d shaken a lot of hands before.

Stassen spoke in English. Gromyko translated again: “He hopes we can live in peace among ourselves and with the Race. He says staying strong will help in this.”

“Good. He is not altogether a fool, then,” Molotov said. “Translate that last into something friendly and agreeable.”

As the foreign commissar did so, the new German Fuhrer came up and waited to be noticed. He was a poor man waiting for rich men to deign to see him: not a familiar position for a German leader these past ninety-five years. When Dornberger spoke, it was in English. “He says he is pleased to meet you,” Gromyko reported.

“Tell him the same.” Molotov shook hands with the Germans, too. “Tell him I am happier to meet him now that the Reich no longer has missiles aimed at the USSR.”

Through Gromyko, Dornberger replied, “We had those, yes, but we had more aimed at the Race.”

“Much good they did you,” Molotov said. After the Reich’s misfortunes, he didn’t have to worry so much about diplomacy.

Dornberger shrugged. “I did not make the war. All I did was fight it as well as I could once the people set above me made it. When no people set above me were left alive, I ended it as fast as I could.”

“That was wise. Not starting it would have been wiser.” Molotov wished more Russian generals showed the disinclination of their German counterparts to meddle in politics. Zhukov came close. But even Zhukov, though he didn’t want the title, wanted at least some of the power that went with it.

“Now I have to pick up the pieces and gather my nation’s strength as best I can,” Dornberger said. “Maybe the Soviet Union can help there, as it did after the First World War.”

“Maybe,” Molotov said. “I can offer no promises, even if the idea is worth exploring. The Race has espionage far better than the Entente powers did after that war.” He turned away from the German Fuhrer, who no longer led a great power, and back to the American president, who still did. “President Stassen, I want to be sure you understand how brave President Warren was not to leave you at the mercy of the Lizards for the sake of a temporary political advantage.”

“I do,” Stassen replied. “I also understand that he has left me at the mercy of the Democrats because he gave the Lizards Indianapolis. I do not expect to be reelected in 1968.” He smiled. “Just for the moment, and just a little, I envy your system.”

Had he thought of it, Molotov would have envied the American tradition of peaceful succession when Beria mounted his coup against him. He would not have admitted that no matter what. Before he could say anything at all, an American started calling to the assembled dignitaries. “Their protocol officer,” Gromyko said. “He is telling us how to line up.”

The ceremony was not so grand as it would have been in the Soviet Union-as it had been when Stalin died-but it had a spare impressiveness of its own. Six white horses drew the wagon on which lay the flag-draped casket that held Earl Warren’s remains. Behind it, a nice touch, a soldier led a riderless black horse with empty boots reversed in the stirrups.

President Warren’s widow, his children, and their spouses and children walked behind the horse. Then came the new U.S. president and his family, and then the assembled foreign dignitaries, with Molotov in the first rank. Behind them marched military bands and units from the American armed forces, some on foot, some mounted.

At a slow march, the procession went east on Capitol Street-Embassy Row-for more than a mile, then turned south toward a barge church. Molotov cared little for any of that, except when his feet began to hurt. He took sardonic pleasure in the certainty that Walter Dornberger, who wore Nazi jackboots, was suffering worse than he.

What really interested him were the people who crowded the sidewalks to watch the coffin as it rolled by. Some were silent and respectful. Others called out, as they would not have done in the USSR. Gromyko murmured in Molotov’s ear: “Some of them say he should have hit the Lizards harder. Others curse him for striking them at all.”

“Someone will take the names of those people.” Molotov spoke with great certainty. The United States might boast of the freedom of speech it granted its citizens. When they criticized the government, though, he was convinced they would be fair game.

He endured a religious service in a language he did not understand. Gromyko didn’t bother translating. Molotov knew what the preacher would be saying: Warren had been important and was dead. One day, Party functionaries would say the same of Molotov. Not soon, he hoped.