Striking the Balance

“In any case, he has strong opinions,” Molotov remarked, hiding his amusement. “Can you do anything about the equipment of which he complains?”

“No, Comrade Foreign Commissar,” Kurchatov answered. “It is the best available in the USSR.”

“Then he will have to use it and make the best of it,” Molotov said. “As for the others, thiskolkhoz already has better food than most, but we shall see what we can do to improve it. And if he does not want the NKVD man to accompany him, the NKVD man will not do so.”

Kurchatov relayed that to Max Kagan. The American answered at some length. “He will do his best with the equipment, and says he will design better,” Kurchatov translated. “He is on the whole pleased with your other answers.”

“Is that all?” Molotov asked. “It sounded like more. Tell me exactly what he said.”

“Very well, Comrade Foreign Commissar.” Igor Kurchatov spoke with a certain sardonic relish: “He said that, since I was in charge of this project, I ought to be able to take care of these matters for myself. He said I should be able to do more than wipe my own arse without a Party functionary’s permission. He said that having the NKVD spy on scientists as if they were wreckers and enemies of the people would turn them into wreckers and enemies of the people. And he said that threatening scientists with the maximum punishment because they have not fulfilled norms impossible of fulfillment is the stupidest thing he has ever heard of. These are his exact words, Comrade.”

Molotov fixed his icy stare on Max Kagan. The American glared back, too ignorant to know he was supposed to wilt. A little of his aggressive attitude was bracing. A lot of it loose in the Soviet Union would have been a disaster.

And Kurchatov agreed with Kagan. Molotov saw that, too. For now, the state and the Party needed the scientists’ expertise. The day would come, though, when they didn’t. Molotov looked forward to it.

If you were going to keep your clothes on, you couldn’t have a whole lot more fun than riding a horse down a winding road through a forest in new springtime leaf. The fresh, hopeful green sang in Sam Yeager’s eyes. The air had that magical, spicy odor you didn’t get at any other season of the year: it somehow smelled alive and growing. Birds sang as if there was no tomorrow.

Yeager glanced over to Robert Goddard. If Goddard sensed the spring magic, he didn’t show it. “You okay, sir?” Yeager asked anxiously. “I knew we should have put you in a buggy.”

“I’m all right,” Goddard answered in a voice thinner and raspier than Yeager was used to hearing from him. His face was more nearly gray than the pink it should have been. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, then made a small concession to the evils the flesh is heir to: “Not much farther, eh?”

“No, sir,” Sam answered, as enthusiastically as he was able. Actually, they had another day of hard riding ahead of them, maybe two days if Goddard didn’t get over being poorly. “And when we do get there, we’ll give the Lizards’ stumpy little tails a hell of a tweak, won’t we?”

Goddard’s smile wasn’t altogether exhausted. “That’s the plan, Sergeant. How well it works remains to be seen, but I do have hopes.”

“It’s got to work, sir, doesn’t it?” Yeager said. “Doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to hit the Lizards’ spaceships any other way but long-range rockets. A lot of brave men have died trying, anyhow-that’s a fact.”

“So it is-a melancholy one,” Goddard said. “So now we see what we can do. The only problem is, the aiming on these rockets could be a lot finer.” He let out a wry chuckle. “It couldn’t be much worse, when you get down to it-and that’s another fact.”

“Yes, sir,” Yeager said. All the same, he still felt like somebody in the middle of a John Campbell story: invent the weapon one day, try it the next, and put it into mass production the day after that. Goddard’s long-range rockets weren’t quite like that. He’d had help on the design not only from the Lizards but also from the Germans, and they hadn’t been built in a day any more than Rome was. But they had come along pretty darn quick, and Sam was proud to have had a hand in that.

As he’d feared, they didn’t make it into Fordyce by sunset. That meant camping by the side of US 79. Yeager didn’t mind for himself, but he worried about what it was doing to Goddard, even with sleeping bags and a tent among their gear. The rocket scientist needed all the pampering he could get, and, with the war on, he couldn’t get much.

He was as game as they came, and didn’t complain. He had some trouble choking down the rations they’d packed, but drank a couple of cups of the chicory brew that made do for coffee. He even made jokes about mosquitoes as he slapped at them. Sam joked, too, but wasn’t fooled. When Goddard got into his sleeping bag after supper, he slept like a dead man.