George Washington's Ghost

Disappointingly, Arturo’s interlocutors were still looking a little bewildered. However, a university lecturer soon got used to that; so, he decided to press on regardless.

“The important things you must take into consideration are that there are only a couple of viable methods of enriching U238 to U235,” he frowned, momentarily distracted by arcane, positively existential possibilities, “although, several recent papers suggest the possibility of deriving U233 from Thorium, of course but forget about that for the moment. More realistically, you might employ some kind of gaseous diffusion process, or you might use cyclotrons to separate our matter,” another stray thought intruded, “deuterium oxide,” he muttered, as if making a mental note, “heavy water, perhaps… Anyway, the point is that it is impossible to enrich to the U235-state other than by creating an appropriate enrichment infrastructure, I suspect, on an industrial scale previously unknown in the whole of human history. The cost of this alone would be, as I alluded to earlier,” he thought about it, “perhaps twenty percent of all the Republic’s revenues tax revenues for as long as a decade, without even taking into account the weaponization costs of the end product, which itself, would be extremely cost, not to mention very hazardous to everybody involved in the processing, and consequently, very dangerous to store, other than in very small, well-shielded facilities. As to the specific problem of the weaponization project…”

Nobody interrupted, so the physicist continued.

“The geometry of bringing two smaller, non-critical masses together to form an instantaneous critical mass, thereby initiating the spontaneous chain reaction required to release a small part of the energy within the atoms of U235, would in itself, be a remarkable piece of science…”

“And yet,” Santa Anna sighed, “the English have, it seems, solved all of these problems and produced, we think, judging by the test grounds in northern Sonora, a significant number of viable atomic weapons?”

“Yes, but they have the resources of an Empire that encompasses a quarter of the globe, General. Moreover, respectfully, they possess a centuries-old scientific tradition of free inquiry, that we do not. They also have access to Uranium, in small quantities in the British Isles and New England, and in significant deposits in Australia and Southern Africa, and the pre-existing, well-established advanced, large-scale, well-established academic, technical and industrial infrastructure in place to expeditiously implement such a huge project. True, the cost to them would be enormous; but in comparison to ourselves, that cost would only equate to a relatively small drain on their overall wealth.” The physicist hesitated. “I would guess that the English have been able to keep their atomic research secret simply by hiding its costs in major military and civilian infrastructure and research and development projects. We have made great strides in the last few years but our universities and industry were constrained by the dogmas of the Mother Church even while I was studying for my first degree, and in the fields of the natural sciences and other realms of pure theoretical and experimental inquiry, we remain in many respects, like babes in arms, children taking their first steps into the future in comparison with our friends in New England and Northern Europe.”

Santa Anna sat back and looked, thoughtfully to Hernando de Soto before again focusing on the scientist.

“You intimated to Don Rodrigo that you were afraid that the English might already have progressed beyond the testing of ‘rudimentary’ devices, Professor?”

Arturo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena swallowed hard and nodded.

“Yes, in testing the samples brought back from the ‘test’ area, I detected traces of radioactive isotopes which my theoretical studies indicate ought not to be present in the environment after the testing of a U235 device. Specifically, I suspect that at least one device employing a product of Uranium enrichment called Plutonium may have been tested in Sonora.”

“And why is this particularly worrying?” The President asked, his face a little ashen.

“Because using Plutonium it is conceivable to produce a fusion reaction, much like that in the heart of our Sun, Your Honour. It infers a technology which, if combined with that of a U235 bomb,” he stumbled after the inadvertent use of that word, “might make possible the development of a weapon which could destroy the largest city on the planet and obliterate everything around it for ten, twenty, or possibly fifty miles in every direction.”

The physicist’s thoughts had already moved on.