Down below that concrete, the pile was turning uranium into jovium, which was what FitzBelmont had christened element 94. Enough jovium would go boom, just like U-235. Making it go boom, though, wasn't so simple.
"With U-235, we could shoot a plug into a hole in a bigger chunk, and then everything would go up," FitzBelmont said.
"Why can't you do that with the jovium, too?" Potter asked.
"Our calculations show it would start going off too soon and get too deformed for a full blast," the physicist answered.
"Well, you seem to think you can make it go off," Potter said, and Henderson FitzBelmont nodded. Potter asked what looked like the next reasonable question: "How?"
"We have to slam a lot of pieces down into a sphere-that's what the math says," FitzBelmont replied. "It's harder than making a U-235 bomb would be, because it's so much more precise. But getting the jovium is easier, because we can chemically separate it from the uranium in the pile."
"My chemistry prof at Yale told me transmutation was nothing but a pipe dream," Potter said.
"Mine told me the same thing." FitzBelmont shrugged. "Sometimes the rules change. They did here. Transmutation isn't chemistry-it's physics."
"It could be black magic, and I wouldn't care," Potter said. "As long as we say, 'Abracadabra!' before the damnyankees do, nothing else counts."
"They're doing their best to make sure we don't. Are we doing the same to them?" the professor asked.
"What we can. Getting to Washington State isn't easy for us, and it got tougher after they went and grabbed Baja California from Mexico," Potter said. Henderson FitzBelmont looked blank. He was no military man. Patiently, Potter explained: "It makes it much harder for us to get ships and subs out of Guaymas. But we did it not so long ago, and we attacked their facility."
"And?" FitzBelmont asked eagerly.
"And past that I don't know," Potter admitted. "The attack went in-that's all I can tell you for sure. The United States keep real quiet about their project, same as we keep quiet about ours. We haven't picked up any leaks to let us know what we did-none I've heard, anyhow."
"We can't hit them the way they hit us," FitzBelmont said mournfully. "And it looks like they started work on this before we did."
Potter had been worrying about those very things for quite a while now. Except for getting the latest strike at the Yankee project started, he couldn't do much but worry. "That means we have to be smarter," he told the physicist. "We're up to that, aren't we? If we make fewer mistakes and don't get stuck in blind alleys, we can still win. You're as good as anybody they've got, right?" You'd better be, or we're history.
"Yes, I think so," FitzBelmont replied. "They may well have more highly competent people than we do, though. And I worry about Germany a good deal. The Kaiser's physicists, and the ones he can draw from Austria-Hungary, are the best in the world. Has the President been able to get any technical help from our allies?"
"If he has, he hasn't told me," Potter said. "I'll ask him next time I'm in Richmond."
That was only a couple of days later. Traveling inside Richmond was safer by day. U.S. airplanes mostly came at night. Confederate defenses and fighters still made daytime raids too costly to be common. The bombers had taken a terrible toll all the same. Intact buildings stood out because they were so rare. The streets were full of holes of all sizes. The smell of death floated through the air.
The grounds to the Gray House might have been hit harder than anything else in Richmond. The United States wanted Jake Featherston dead. They wanted to avenge Al Smith, and they thought the Confederacy would grind to a halt without its leader. Potter feared they were right, too, which made him leery of plots against Featherston.
After going underground, after a couple of unpleasantly thorough searches, he was escorted to the waiting room outside the President's office, and then into Featherston's presence. The President's secretary sniffed as she closed the door behind him.
"Lulu doesn't much fancy you." Jake Featherston sounded amused, which was a relief. "She doesn't reckon you think I'm wonderful enough."
How right she is. But saying that was impolitic. "The country needs you. I know it." Potter could tell the truth without giving away his own feelings.
"What's the latest from Lexington?" Featherston asked, letting Lulu go.
"They're doing everything they know how to do, and the United States are trying to make sure they can't," Potter answered. "Do you know what we did in Washington State?"
"Something," the President answered. "They've had repair crews in there-I know that for a fact. Don't know much more, though."
How did he know even that much? A spy on the spot? Reconnaissance aircraft? Intercepted signals? Whatever the answer was, the word hadn't come through Potter. "How are things in Georgia?" he asked. The wireless didn't say much, which was never a good sign.
"We're going to lose Atlanta," Featherston said bluntly. "They didn't want to come in, so they're sweeping around. They want to trap our army in there and grind it to pieces."
"For God's sake don't let them!" Potter exclaimed. The President had thrown away one army in Pittsburgh. Didn't he see he couldn't afford to do that again?
He must have, for he nodded. "We're pulling out. We're wrecking the place, too. They won't get any use from it when they get in." He paused. "When Patton challenged you to a duel, did you really choose flamethrowers?"
"Yes, sir," Potter answered. "For a little while, I thought he'd take me up on it, too."
"That wouldn't've been pretty, would it?" the President said. Potter shook his head; it would have been anything but. Featherston went on, "He was spitting rivets at you, though. Let me tell you, he was."
"Let him spit rivets at the damnyankees," Clarence Potter said. "It would hurt 'em a lot more than some of the other things he's tried."
"Yeah, I know." Featherston scowled. "But who have I got who'd do better?"
Potter grunted. That, unfortunately, was much too good a question. He found a question of his own: "If we can't lick the USA no matter who we've got in the field, why are we still fighting?"
"Well, for one thing, they want unconditional surrender, and I'll see 'em in hell first," Jake Featherston answered. "And, for another, the longer we hold on, the better the chance FitzBelmont and the other slide-rule boys have of blowing 'em a new asshole."
Reluctantly, Potter nodded. The Confederate States had shown they were too dangerous for the United States to give them another chance to rebuild and try again. It was a compliment of sorts, but one the Confederacy could have done without now. As for the other…"What if they get a uranium bomb first?"
"Then we're fucked." Featherston's response had, at least, the virtue of clarity. "Then we don't deserve to win. But that won't happen, so help me God it won't. We are going to lick those bastards right out of their boots. You wait and see."
When he said it, Potter just about believed it-a telling measure of how persuasive Featherston could be. But afterwards, coming up aboveground once more, seeing the devastation that had been a great city, Potter shivered. How often lately had Jake Featherston taken a good long look at what had become of his capital and his country?
That afternoon, Potter and Nathan Bedford Forrest III walked through the disaster that was Capitol Square. Washington's statue still survived; not even a mountain of sandbags had saved Albert Sidney Johnston's. "What the hell are we going to do?" the chief of the General Staff said-quietly, so no passerby could hear.
"What the hell can we do?" Potter answered. "We're stuck between the Yankees and Jake Featherston. If we dump Featherston-if we kill him, I mean, because he won't be dumped-the United States land on us with both feet. And if we keep fighting-"