Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

"We have two bombs. The uranium bomb we think will work, and the plutonium bomb we hope will work. We don't have enough refined uranium to make another. The plutonium bomb must be tested at Trinity. We can get more plutonium, though it won't matter if Trinity doesn't work. The point is, we have none to expend on good intentions and mere fireworks." Oppy spoke through a veil of weariness. "God knows, I wish we did. But the invasion will be carried out before bad weather sets in over the Japanese islands. It won't be postponed while we build more bombs or while we negotiate when and where the Emperor should sit for a better view of a peaceful demonstration. Should he come to Trinity? Trinity is in twelve days. Stop time for me, Harvey. Give me more bombs and a cushion for the divine Emperor to sit on and watch."

"Three more inches, Joe. Then at least a base, Oppy, not a city."

"A waste. A waste of the bomb and a waste of the soldiers. The Japanese would censor every report and all that would be left would be a wisp of smoke and rumours. You know the blast effects, Harvey. There wouldn't even be that much to see in a camp—not like a city, not like buildings."

"Not like civilians?"

"A target that will end the war, Harvey."

"Civilians and American POWs?"

"They'll put POWs in every city. And how many more POWs and dead and wounded will there be after the invasion? How many cities will we conventionally bomb off the map? How many American graves?"

"I didn't become a physicist to learn how to vapourize Japanese." Harvey's voice rose.

"None of us did." Oppy's voice became nearly tender. "But you tell a mother of a young soldier who died on the beach of Japan—and there will be many thousands of them—that you had a bomb that could have ended the war and that you chose not to use it. Tell his wife. Tell his children."

The Geiger counter ticked like a speeded-up clock. The sealer lights multiplied rapidly now that the two bowls were only eight inches apart. In the shadow between, the ball still glittered, like a note between two cymbals. A chain reaction of one kilogram of plutonium released as much energy as thirty-four million pounds of TNT, Joe had heard. Some percussion.

"The issue is not the weapon, Harvey, but the war. Ending the war and saving us from the hideous slaughter to come."

The trade-off for that kind of power was an alpha radiation that could destroy first the bone marrow, then the kidney. Everyone knew that the doctors on the Hill refused any responsibility for the Dragon.

"Eighty-eight percent critical at three inches." Harvey scanned the rolling graph. "The issue is the future after the war. Two inches, Joe."

After the war the Army would close its bases in New Mexico, Joe thought. The soldiers would be coming home from Europe and the Pacific, though, and they'd flock to the Casa Mariana. "Teller had the same fears. I'll tell you what I told him: that if the issue is the world's postwar future—and I agree it is— the only way to demonstrate the implausibility of any more war is to use this bomb, to make all mankind a witness. This, finally, will be the war to end all wars. Edward Teller will be with us at Trinity. In fact, I had hoped that you would do the countdown for the test."

"Eighty-nine," Harvey read.

The Geiger counter sounded like a bow drawn across a bass string. The lights of the sealer flickered, drawing nervous red dashes.

"One more inch, Joe," Harvey said.

"After the war there will have to be international control of all nuclear devices, and international cooperation for the peacetime uses of the atom. A sober, frightened world will do that, Harvey. But we will have to take the moral lead. We will share information with our allies."

"With Russia?" Joe asked.

"Yes, with Russia. Of course," Oppy said.

"Ninety percent. Half an inch, very slowly."

The Geiger counter echoed an accelerating, snapping wave of electrons.

"The future is then," Oppy said. "The war is now. The Japanese would use the bomb if they had it. They wouldn't hesitate. They started this war. Our cause is just. It is written in the Bhagavad Gita that 'There is a war that opens the gates of heaven. Happy are the warriors whose fate it is to fight such a war. Not to fight for righteousness is to abandon duty and honour.' We scientists are soldiers, no more. We are on this mesa by an accident of history, because our nation has been attacked. We have no special competence in political or social or military affairs. We are not the people elected or trained to make those decisions. We are not an elite divinely chosen, simply because we are physicists, to govern mankind."

"Stop."

Closed to within an inch, the Dragon's two bowls nearly made a single gray moon, almost hiding an inner, brighter moon. There was a faint rise in the Geiger's pitch, a touch more hysteria in the red lights.

"Still ninety percent," Harvey said happily. It was just what he had predicted.

"Yes?" Oppy asked.

"I don't know."

"Ask Joe. This is why I wanted Joe along, because he is the only man you know who has actually fought. Speaking for the men who will be on the boats that will hit Japan in a few months' time, Joe, what would you say to Harvey?"

You sly son of a bitch, Joe thought. He took his hand from the button and found his thumb had cramped. He'd listened to the ticking of atomic particles, but what had rilled the hangar were words, a web of them spreading and connecting from roof to floor. And all preamble to ensnare Harvey so that Joe could strike the final blow.

"Tell me, Joe," Harvey said.

"Speaking for the boys in the boats," Joe said, "I'd say you were a phoney, I'd say you were lower than a Jap. I'd say you were actually a traitor."

Harvey swallowed. The Geiger amplified electrons at the anode, ions at the cathode. Neutrons danced to the beat of lights.

"On the other hand…" Joe moved closer to the Dragon. "Speaking as a friend, I don't think you should care what anyone says." He leaned across the Dragon's near-moon and nearly buried core. "If you really think the bomb is that bad, then -"

Ticking soared into whine. Stylus flew from graph paper. The six sealer lights were solid red, flashing so fast that no intervals could be seen. The hydraulic piston dropped, carrying the bottom bowl with it, shaking the concrete pad of the floor. The silvery core lurched up to the lip of the bowl's hollow, made an indolent circuit, then dropped heavily back into place. The whine plummeted. Red lights flashed again with a slow, regular pulse.

"What the hell was that?" Joe looked at the stylus, still vibrating free. A red line led off the paper. "The Dragon went off all by itself."

"Don't move!" Harvey began sketching on his clipboard.

Joe was close enough to Harvey to see him draw an outline of the room, the position of each man around the Dragon, equations, a curve of criticality. There was a foul greasiness to the air, a smell of melted paraffin.

Joe still wanted to finish what he was going to say, but the moment had gone. Imploded. Oppy knew it; the blue gaze said it. That was the colour of Oppy's eyes, Joe thought: ion-blue.

"You set me up."

"I asked you to tell the truth and you did," Oppy answered.

"I'm not done."

"Yes, you are."

Harvey stared up from his scribbling. "You did it!" he told Joe.

"Me?"

"The core was already near the margin of criticality. The human body is composed mostly of water - hydrogen dioxide - which reflects the neutrons. Oppy and I didn't matter. You're bigger. When you leaned over the Dragon, you triggered the counters."

"You're a more unpredictable factor than I'd thought," Oppy said.

"It doesn't matter," Harvey said, "we got the data."

"Well, are we radioactive now?" Joe asked.