“Under interrogation, a captive Lizard pilot has informed us that this enormous invasion force is but the precursor to a still larger fleet now traveling toward our planet,” Togo replied. “The second fleet is termed, if we understand correctly, the colonization fleet. The Lizards intend not merely conquest but also occupation.”
He could have created no greater consternation if he’d thrown a live grenade onto the gleaming mahogany surface of the table in front of him. Ribbentrop shouted in German; Cordell Hull slammed the palm of his hand down onto the tabletop and shook his head so that the fringe of hair he combed over his bald crown flailed wildly; Churchill choked on his cigar and coughed harshly.
Only Molotov still sat unmoved and unmoving. He waited for the hubbub to die down around him, then said, “Why should we allow this to surprise us, comrades?” He used the last word deliberately, both to remind the other dignitaries that they were in the struggle together and to irk them on account of their capitalist ideology.
Speaking through an interpreter had its advantages. Among them was getting the chance to think while the interpreter performed his office. Ribbentrop started off in German again (a mark of indiscipline, to Molotov’s mind), then switched to spluttering English: “But how are we to defeat these creatures if they throw at us endless waves of attack?”
“This is a question you Germans should have asked yourselves before you invaded the Soviet Union,” Molotov said.
Hull raised a hand. “Enough of that,” he said sharply. “Recriminations have no place at this table, else I would not be sitting here with Minister Togo.”
Molotov dipped his head slightly, acknowledging the Secretary of State’s point. He enjoyed twitting the Nazi, but enjoyment and diplomacy were two separate things.
“The depths of space between the stars are vaster than any man can comfortably imagine, and traveling them, even near the speed of light, takes time, or so the astronomers have led me to believe,” Churchill said. He turned to Togo. “How long have we before the second wave falls on us?”
The Japanese foreign minister answered, “The prisoner states that this colonization fleet will reach earth in something under forty of his kind’s years. That is less than forty of our years, but by how much he does not know.”
The interpreter leaned close to Molotov. “I am given to understand that two of the Lizards’ years are more or less equal to one of ours,” he murmured in Russian.
“Tell them,” Molotov said after a moment’s hesitation. Revealing information of any sort went against his grain, but joint planning required this.
When the interpreter finished speaking, Ribbentrop beamed. “So we have twenty years or so, then,” he said. “This is not so bad.”
Molotov was dismayed to see Hull nod at that. To them, he concluded, twenty years hence was so far distant that it might as well not exist. The Soviet Union’s Five Year Plans forced a concentration on the future, as did continued study of the ineluctable dynamics of the historical dialectic. As far as Molotov was concerned, a state that did not think about where it would be twenty years from now did not deserve to be anywhere.
He saw, intense concentration on Churchill’s face. The Englishman had no dialectic to guide him-how could he, when he represented a class destined for, the ash-heap of history? — but was himself a student of history of the reactionary sort, and thus used to contemplating broad sweeps of time. He could look ahead twenty years without being dizzied at the distance.
“I shall tell you what this means, gentlemen,” Churchill said: “It means that, even after we have defeated the Lizards even now encroaching on the green hills of Earth, we shall have to remain comrades in arms-even if not comrades in Commissar Molotov s sense-and ready ourselves and our world for another great battle.”
“I agree.” Molotov said. He was willing to let Churchill twit him without mercy if that advanced the coalition against the Lizards. Next to them even a fossilized conservative like Churchill was reminted in shiny progressive metal.
Ribbentrop said, “I agree also. I must say, however, that certain countries now preaching the gospel of cooperation would do well to practice it. Germany has noted several instances of new developments transmitted to us incompletely or only with reluctance, while others at this table have shared more equally and openhandedly.”
Churchill’s bland face remained bland. Molotov did not change expression, either-but then he rarely did. He knew Ribbentrop was talking about the Soviet Union, but declined to feel the least bit guilty. He was still sorry that Germany had succeeded in smuggling even half his share of explosive metal back to his homeland. That hadn’t been part of the Soviet plan. And Churchill couldn’t be enthusiastic about sharing British secrets with the power that had all but brought Britain to her knees.
“Minister Ribbentrop, I want to remind you that this notion of sending new ideas runs both ways,” Cordell Hull said. “You haven’t shared your fancy long-range rockets with the rest of us, I notice, nor the improved sights I hear tell about in your new tanks.”
“I will investigate this,” Ribbentrop said. “We shall not be less forthcoming than our neighbors.”
“While you are investigating, you ought to look into the techniques involved in your Polish death camps,” Molotov said. “Of course, the Lizards have publicized them so well that I doubt many secrets are left any more.”
“The Reich denies these vicious fabrications advanced by aliens and Jews,” Ribbentrop said, sending Molotov an angry glare that made him want to smile-he’d hurt the German foreign minister where it mattered. And Germany could deny all she pleased; no one believed her. Then Ribbentrop went on, “And in any case, Herr Molotov, I doubt whether Stalin needs any instruction in the art of murder.”
Molotov bared his teeth; he hadn’t expected the normally fatuous German to have such an effective comeback ready. Stalin, though, killed people because they opposed him or might be dangerous to him (the two categories, over the years, had grown closer together until they were nearly identical), not merely because of the group from which they sprang. The distinction, however, was too subtle for him to set it forth for the others around the mahogany table.
Shigenori Togo said, “We need to remember that, while we were enemies, we now find ourselves on the same side. Things which detract from this should be left by the wayside as inessential. Perhaps one day we shall find the time to pick them up once more and reexamine them, but that day is not yet.”
The Japanese foreign minister was the appropriate man to speak to both Molotov and Ribbentrop, as his country had been allied with Germany and neutral to the Soviet Union before the Lizards came.
“A sensible suggestion,” Hull said. His agreement with Togo meant something, for the United States and Japan had the same reasons for hatred as Russians and Germans.
Molotov said, “As best we can, then, we shall maintain our progressive coalition and continue the struggle against the imperialist invaders, at the same time seeking ways to share the fruits of technical progress among ourselves?”
“As best we can, yes,” Churchill said. Everyone else around the table nodded. Molotov knew the qualification would weaken their combined effort. But he also knew that, without it, the Big Five might have balked at sharing anything at all. An agreement with an acknowledged flaw was to his mind better than one that could blow up without warning.
They were keeping the fight alive. Past that, little mattered now.
V
The air-raid siren at Bruntingthorpe began to howl. David Goldfarb sprinted for the nearest slit trench. Above the siren came the roar of the Lizards’ jets. It seemed to grow impossibly fast.