Harry Turtledove - Drive to the East

“It does, doesn’t it?” Flora said. “I don’t know where it’s from, not for sure. I’ve certainly heard it. I don’t think you can live in Philadelphia without hearing it.”

“That’s because so many boondoggles live here,” Roosevelt said cheerfully.

“No doubt.” Flora didn’t sound cheerful, or anything close to it. “Is this project out in Washington another one?”

“If it works, no one will ever say a word about what we spent on it,” the Assistant Secretary of War answered. “And if it doesn’t, nobody will ever stop investigating us. I can’t do anything about it either way except hope it works and do everything I can to help the people who know more about it than I do.”

That sounded less encouraging than Flora wished it did, but was perhaps more honest than the usual glowing promises. She said, “I think you ought to tell Ophelia Clemens as much as you’ve told me”- however much that is -“and swear her to secrecy.”

“If she’ll swear to instead of swearing at. ” Roosevelt sounded dubious.

“She may not like the administration. She may not even like the government, no matter who’s in charge,” Flora said. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Franklin: I promise she likes it better than she likes Jake Featherston.”

“Mm, you’ve probably got something there,” Roosevelt admitted. “No-you’ve definitely got something there. I think I’m going to have to call the President before I talk to her, but that’s what I’ll put to him. Before I go, though, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Go ahead. What is it?” Flora said.

“Midterm elections coming up this November. Has the Joint Committee talked about how we’re going to handle the House districts the Confederates are occupying? Thank God neither Senator from Ohio is up for reelection this year.”

“Senator Taft”-who was from Ohio-“has said the same thing,” Flora answered.

Roosevelt laughed. “I’ll bet he has!”

“Right now, the plan is to let the Congressmen in occupied districts hold their seats,” Flora added. “That seems only fair. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re pretty evenly split between Socialists and Democrats. There’s even a Republican.”

“Republicans.” Franklin Roosevelt laughed again, this time on a sour note. “The lukewarm, the politicians who can’t make up their minds one way or the other. No wonder the American people spewed that party out of their mouths.”

The language was from the New Testament, but Flora understood it. She was a Jew, but she was also an American, and the USA, for better or worse-no, for better and worse-was a Christian country. If you lived here, you had to accommodate yourself to that reality.

Of course, the Confederacy was also a Christian country… and what did that say about Christianity? Nothing good, she was sure.

Clarence Potter did not care for Professor Henderson V. FitzBelmont. The dislike was plainly mutual. Potter thought FitzBelmont was a pompous stuffed shirt. Not being a mind reader, he didn’t know just what the physics professor thought of him. Probably that he was a military oaf who couldn’t add two and two without counting on his fingers.

That stung, since Potter reckoned himself a cultured man. He’d known a lot of military oafs in his time. To be thought one himself rankled.

His surroundings conspired against him. Instead of bringing Professor FitzBelmont back to Richmond, he, like Mohammed, had gone to the mountain-in his case, to the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Washington University was in Lexington, Virginia, not far from the Virginia Military Institute-what the damnyankees called the Confederate West Point.

War hadn’t come home here. It was something people read about in the newspapers and heard about on the wireless. Every once in a while, airplanes would drone by overhead. But the locals were still talking about a U.S. air raid on VMI the year before. After that calling card, the Yankees hadn’t come back. For Clarence Potter, who’d watched men work on unexploded bombs and who’d spent enough time underground to get little beady eyes like a mole, this was the next best thing to paradise. The streets weren’t full of rubble and broken glass. Artillery didn’t rumble in the distance. The air didn’t stink of smoke-and of death.

The university sat at the top of a sloping meadow at the northwest edge of Lexington. Professor FitzBelmont’s office, in one of the red brick buildings with white porticoes at the heart of the campus, had a fine view of the forested mountains to the west. The professor’s tweeds seemed far more appropriate here than Potter’s butternut uniform.

With such patience as Potter could muster, he said, “I have to understand this business as well as I can, Professor, to be able to give my people in the United States the best possible idea of what to look for.”

“Indeed.” Professor FitzBelmont looked like a maiden aunt called upon to discuss the facts of life with the madam of the local bawdyhouse. He looked just like that, in fact. He might not approve of Clarence Potter the soldier, but he definitely didn’t approve of Clarence Potter the spy.

Potter nodded to himself. He’d seen that before. “Professor, there isn’t a country in the world that can get along without an intelligence service. We spy on the damnyankees, yes, and you can bet your bottom dollar they spy on us, too. If they’re ahead of us in this uranium business, we need to do everything we can to catch up, don’t we?”

“Indeed,” FitzBelmont repeated, even more distaste in his voice than he’d shown the time before.

“Sir, you were the one who brought this to the President’s attention. You must have done that because you’re a patriotic citizen,” Potter said.

“I don’t want those people to beat my country again.” Henderson FitzBelmont packed more scorn into that than most Confederates did into damnyankees. He went on, “If that makes me a patriot, so be it. But if you expect me to jump up on my hind legs and shout, ‘Freedom!’ every other sentence, I fear you will be disappointed in me.”

He was either braver or more naive than Potter had thought-maybe both. The Intelligence officer said, “I don’t do that, either.” FitzBelmont’s eyebrow was eloquently skeptical. Potter continued, “By God, sir, I don’t. My politics have always been Whig, and I did everything I could to keep Jake Featherston from getting elected.” That was not only true, it was a spectacular understatement. He could talk about it, too, because it was common knowledge. Talking about going up to Richmond in 1936 with a pistol in his pocket was a different story. He finished, “I’m also a Confederate patriot, though. For better or worse”- for better and worse -“this is my country.”

Professor FitzBelmont studied him, perhaps seeing the man instead of the uniform this time. “Maybe,” he said at last.

“ Maybe isn’t the right answer, Professor,” Clarence Potter said gently. “You can talk to me now, or you can have some less pleasant conversations with some much less pleasant people later on. Your call, either way.”

FitzBelmont didn’t try to misunderstand him. The physics professor did try to get huffy. “This is not the right way to get my cooperation, General. And if I don’t work with you wholeheartedly, how will you go forward?”

Potter’s smile, all sharp teeth, might have been borrowed from a gator. He named four physics profs at universities scattered across the CSA. Henderson V. FitzBelmont looked appalled. Still smiling carnivorously, Potter said, “Give me credit for doing my homework, please. If you were the only fellow in the country who could do this work, we couldn’t compete with the Yankees anyhow, because they have so much more manpower than we do-and that includes trained manpower along with every other kind. You may be important, Professor-you are important-but you’re not indispensable, and you’d better get used to it.”