“No,” Molotov confessed, but he reversed course a moment later: “Wait. Yes, perhaps I do. Do you mean that we, with an undivided share, have enough to make one of these bombs for ourselves?”
“That is exactly what I mean,” Stalin said. “See, you are a clever fellow after all. The Germans and the Americans will still have to do all the research they would have required anyhow, but we-we shall soon be ready to fight the Lizards fire against fire, so to speak.”
Just contemplating that felt good to Molotov. Like Stalin, like everyone, he had lived in dread of the day when Moscow, like Berlin and Washington, might suddenly cease to exist. To be able to retaliate in kind against the Lizards brought a glow of anticipation to his sallow features.
But his joy was not undiluted. He said, “Iosef Vissarionovich, we shall have the one bomb, with no immediate prospect for producing more, is that right? Once we have used the weapon in our hands, what is to keep the Lizards from dropping a great many such weapons on us?”
Stalin scowled. He did not care for anyone going against anything he said, even in the slightest way. Nevertheless, he thought seriously before he answered; Molotov’s question was to the point. At last he said, “First of all, our scientists will go on working to produce explosive metal for us. They will be strongly encouraged to succeed.”
Stalin’s smile reminded Molotov of that of a lion resting against a zebra carcass from which it had just finished feeding. Molotov had no trouble visualizing the sort of encouragement the Soviet nuclear physicists would get: dachas, cars, women if they wanted them, for success… and the gulag or a bullet in the back of the neck if they failed. Probably a couple of them would be purged just to focus the minds of the others on what they were doing. Stalin’s methods were ugly, but they got results.
“How long before the physicists can do this for us?” Molotov said.
“They babble about three or four years, as if this were not an emergency,” Stalin said dismissively. “I have given them eighteen months. They shall do as the Party requires of them, or else suffer the consequences.”
Molotov chose his words with care: “It might be better if they did not undergo the supreme penalty, Iosef Vissarionovich. Men of their technical training would be difficult to replace adequately.”
“Yes, yes.” Stalin sounded impatient, always a danger sign. “But they are the servants of the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union, not their masters; we must not let them get ideas above their station, or the virus of the bourgeoisie will infect us once again.”
“No, that cannot be permitted,” Molotov agreed. “Let us say that they do all they have promised. How do we protect the Soviet Union in the time between our using the bomb we have made from the Lizards’ explosive metal and that in which we begin to manufacture it for ourselves?”
“For one thing, we do not use that one bomb immediately,” Stalin answered. “We cannot use it immediately, for it is not yet made. But even if it were, I would wait to pick the proper moment. And besides, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich”-Stalin looked smug-“how will the Lizards be certain we have only the one bomb? Once we use it, they shall have to assume we can do it again, not so?”
“Unless they assume we used their explosive metal for the first one,” Molotov said.
He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Stalin didn’t shout or bluster at him; that he would have withstood with ease. Instead, the General Secretary fixed him with a glare as cold and dark and silent as midwinter at Murmansk. That was Stalin’s sign of ultimate displeasure; he ordered generals and commissars shot with just such an expression.
Here, though, Molotov’s point was too manifestly true for Stalin to ignore. The glare softened, as winter’s grip did at last even in Murmansk. Stalin said, “This is another good argument for carefully choosing the time and place we use the bomb. But you also must remember, if we face defeat without it, we shall surely use it against the invaders no matter what they do to us in return. They are more dangerous than the Germans, and must be fought with whatever means come to hand.”
“True enough,” Molotov said. The Soviet Union had 190,000,000 people; throw twenty or thirty million on the fire, or even more, and it remained a going concern. Just getting rid of the kulaks and bringing in collectivized agriculture had killed millions through deliberate famine. If more deaths were what building socialism in the USSR required, more deaths there would be.
“I am glad you agreed, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,” Stalin said silkily. Under the silk lay jagged steel; had Molotov persisted in disagreeing, something most disagreeable would have happened to him.
The Foreign Commissar of the Soviet Union was fearless before the leaders of the decadent capitalist states; he had even confronted Atvar, who led the Lizards. Before Stalin, Molotov quailed. Stalin genuinely terrified him, as he did every other Soviet citizen. Back in revolutionary days, the little mustachioed Georgian had not been so much, but since, oh, but since…
Nevertheless, Molotov owed allegiance not just to Stalin, but to the Soviet Union as a whole. If he was to serve the USSR properly, he needed information. Getting it without angering his master was the trick. Carefully, he said, “The Lizards have taken a heavy toll on our bombing planes. Will we be able to deliver the bomb once we have it?”
“I am told the device will be too heavy and bulky to fit in any of our bombers,” Stalin said. Molotov admired the courage of the man who had told-had had to tell-that to Stalin. But the Soviet leader did not seem nearly so angry as Molotov would have guessed. Instead, his face assumed an expression of genial deviousness that made Molotov want to make sure he still had his wallet and watch. He went on, “If we can dispose of Trotsky in Mexico City, I expect we can find a way to put a bomb where we want it.”
“No doubt you are right, Iosef Vissarionovich,” Molotov said. Trotsky had thought he was safe enough to keep plotting against the Soviet Union, but several inches of tempered steel in his, brain proved that a delusion.
“No doubt I am,” Stalin agreed complacently. As undisputed master of the Soviet Union, he had developed ways not altogether different from those of other undisputed masters. Molotov had once or twice thought of saying as much, but it remained just that-a thought.
He did ask, “How soon can the Germans and Americans begin producing their own explosive metal?” The Americans didn’t much worry him; they were far away and had worries closer to home. The Germans… Hitler had talked about using the new bombs against the Lizards in Poland. The Soviet Union was an older enemy, and almost as close.
“We are working to learn this. I expect we shall be informed well in advance, whatever the answer proves to be,” Stalin answered, complacent still. Soviet espionage in capitalist countries continued to function well; many there devoted themselves to furthering the cause of the socialist revolution.
Molotov cast about for other questions he might safely ask. Before he could come up with any, Stalin bent over the papers on his desk, a sure sign of dismissal. “Thank you for your time, Iosef Vissarionovich,” Molotov said as he stood to go.
Stalin grunted. His politeness was minimal, but then, so was Molotov’s with anyone but him. When Molotov closed the door behind him, he permitted himself the luxury of a small sigh. He’d survived another audience.
For getting his consignment of uranium or whatever it was safely from Boston to Denver, Leslie Groves had been promoted to brigadier general. He hadn’t yet bothered replacing his eagles with stars; he had more important things to worry about. His pay was accumulating at the new rate, not that that meant much, what with prices going straight through the roof.