Striking the Balance

Atvar did not care to dwell on that unless forcibly reminded of it. After the Americans exploded their own nuclear device outside Denver, the Race’s attack there had bogged down. It had already proved more expensive than calculations predicted, as attacks against Big Ugly strongpoints had a way of doing. The bomb had broken the southern prong of the attack, and weakened the center and north as well, because the local commander had shifted forces southward to help exploit what had looked like an opening. An opening it had been-the opening of a trap.

Kirel said, “Exalted Fleetlord, what are we to make of this latest communication from the SSSR? Its leadership is certainly arrogant enough, demanding that we quit its territory as a precondition for peace.”

“That is-that must be-a loud bluff,” Atvar replied. “The only nuclear weapon the SSSR was able to fabricate came from plutonium stolen from us. That the not-empire has failed to produce another indicates to our technical analysts its inability to do so. Inform the Big Ugly called Molotov and his master the Great Stalin-great compared to what?” the fleetlord added with a derisive snort, “-that the SSSR is in no position to make demands of us that it cannot enforce on the battlefield.”

“It shall be done,” Kirel said.

Atvar warmed to the subject: “In fact, the success of our retaliatory bomb once more makes me wonder if we should not employ these weapons more widely than we have in the past.”

“Not in the SSSR, surely, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said in some alarm. “The broad expanse of land there is vulnerable to widespread radioactive pollution, and would otherwise be highly satisfactory for agriculture and herding for our colonists.”

“In purely military terms, this would be a much more highly satisfactory campaign if we could ignore the requirements of the colonization fleet,” Atvar answered resentfully. He sighed. “Unfortunately, we cannot. Were it not for the colonization fleet, this conquest fleet would have no point. The analysts agree with you: large-scale nuclear bombing of the SSSR, however tempting it would be to rid this planet of the Emperor-murdering clique now governing that not-empire, would create more long-term damage than the military advantage we would gain could offset.”

“I have also studied these analyses,” Kirel said, which raised Atvar’s suspicions: was Kirel trying to prepare himself to wear a fleetlord’s body paint? But he hadn’t done anything about which Atvar could take exception, so the fleetlord waited for him to go on. He did: “They state that there are certain areas where nuclear weapons may successfully be employed in an offensive role without undue damage to the planet.”

Atvar’s suspicion diminished, not least because Kirel had agreed with him. He said, “If we do employ nuclear weapons on our own behalf rather than as retaliation for Tosevite outrages, we will also make ourselves appear less predictable and more dangerous to the Big Uglies. This may have a political effect out of proportion to the actual military power we employ.”

“Again, Exalted Fleetlord, this is truth,” Kirel said. “Letting the Big Uglies know we, too, can be unpredictable may prove, as you say, a matter of considerable importance for us.”

“That is a vital point,” Atvar agreed. “We cannot predict the actions of the Big Uglies even with all the electronics at our disposal, while they, limited as they are in such matters, often anticipate what we intend to do, with results all too frequently embarrassing for us.”

Finding Kirel in accord with him, Atvar blanked the map of Florida and summoned another from the computer to take its place. “This large island-or perhaps it is a small continent, but let the planetologists have the final say there-lying to the southeast of the main continental mass had huge tracts of land ideally suited for settlement by the Race and little used by the Big Uglies, most of whose habitations cling to the damper eastern coast. Yet from those bases they continually stage annoying raids on us. All conventional efforts to suppress these raids have proved useless. This might prove the ideal site for nuclear intervention.”

“Well said, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel answered. “If we do strike those areas with nuclear weapons, most of the radioactive fallout they produce will be blown out to sea, and seas the size of those here on Tosev 3 undoubtedly can accommodate such with far less damage than the land.”

“This planet has altogether too much sea in proportion to its land area,” Atvar agreed. “The planetologists will spend centuries accounting for what makes it so different from Home and the worlds of the Rabotevs and Hallessi.”

“Let them worry about such things,” Kirel said. “Our job is to make certain they have the opportunityto worry.”