Harry Turtledove - Down to Earth

That was a real question, all right. Johnson went from insolent to serious in the blink of an eye. “Sir, my best guess is, they sit on their hands. They hate the Nazis, and the Lizards scare the hell out of them. That’d be a war where they hope both sides lose, so they can pick up the pieces. If there are any pieces left to pick up, I mean.”

Healey’s jowls wobbled slightly as he nodded. “Okay. That makes pretty good sense. Matches up pretty well with what I’ve been hearing from back on Earth, too.” As much to himself as to Johnson, he added, “You always like to get things from more than one source if you can.”

You don’t trust anybody, Johnson realized. It’s not just me. You don’t trust the bigwigs who sent you out here, either. “Besides, sir,” he said, “the Russians fly tin cans. That’s compared to what we’ve got and what the Germans have. Compared to what the Lizards have…” He shook his head.

To his surprise, Healey laughed. “What they fly doesn’t matter much, not for this game. They’ve got their missiles aimed at the Lizards-and at the Nazis-and they’ve got their submarines. As long as those work, everything else is gravy.”

Johnson didn’t like to hear what he’d spent his career doing belittled. He could have argued about it; several relevant points occurred to him. Most times, he would have done it. At the moment, he had something more urgent on his mind. “Ask you a question, sir?” When Brigadier General Healey’s bulldog head bobbed up and down, Johnson said, “If the Nazis and the Lizards go at it, sir, will we stay out of it?”

Healey’s eyebrows sprang upward. “We’d damn well better, or this mission will fail. We still need resupply missions from home. We’ll need more people, too, sooner or later.”

“Yes, I understand all that.” Johnson couldn’t very well misunderstand it, not after so much time aboard the Lewis and Clark. “But will we stay out of it if it heats up?”

“I’m hoping it won’t,” the commandant said. “If the Germans were going to jump, they would have jumped by now-that’s what the consensus back home is, anyhow.” He paused and coughed, realizing he hadn’t answered the question Johnson asked. With another cough, he did: “As far as I know, we aren’t going to go to war unless we’re attacked. Will that do?”

“Yes, sir,” Johnson said. “It’ll have to, won’t it?” Brigadier General Healey nodded again.

Vyacheslav Molotov nodded to Paul Schmidt. “Good day,” the Soviet leader said. “Be seated; take tea, if you care to.” He gestured toward the samovar that stood on a table in a corner of his office.

“No thank you, Comrade General Secretary,” the German ambassador said in his good Russian. “I suppose you are curious as to why I asked to see you on such short notice.”

“Somewhat,” Molotov said, and said no more. No matter how curious he was, he didn’t intend to show Schmidt anything.

Rather to his annoyance (which he didn’t show, either), the German ambassador smiled. Paul Schmidt had known him a long time-since before the Lizards came-and might well guess how much he was concealing. Schmidt said, “My government has charged me with announcing the dissolution of the Committee of Eight and the selection of a new Fuhrer to guide the destiny of the Greater German Reich .”

That was indeed news. It was news Molotov had awaited with a curious mixture of hope and dread. He concealed both of those, too, asking only, “And to whom are congratulations due?” Who’s come out on top in the intrigue and backstage bloodletting?

“Why, to Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, inheritor of the great mantle formerly worn by Hitler and Himmler,” Schmidt replied.

“Please convey to him my heartiest and most sincere felicitations, and the hope that he will have a long, successful, and peaceful tenure at the head of the Reich ,” Molotov said.

Not even his legendary self-control could keep him from putting a little extra stress on the word peaceful. It did, however, keep his most sincere felicitations from sounding too dreadfully insincere. Kaltenbrunner was the man he had hoped would not rise to the top in Germany, and would surely have been Himmler’s chosen successor had Himmler not dropped dead before choosing anyone. A big Austrian with cold eyes, Kaltenbrunner had stepped into Reinhard Heydrich’s shoes after the British arranged Heydrich’s untimely demise in Prague, and filled them all too well.

No one noticed him for a while, either, Molotov thought. Heydrich had been assassinated just as the Lizard invasion began, and the chaos that followed masked many things for a long time. But, when the dust settled, there was Kaltenbrunner, as much of a right-hand man as Himmler allowed himself.

Now Molotov asked the question he had to ask: “What will-Doctor, did you say? — yes, Dr. Kaltenbrunner’s policies be?”

“I expect him to continue on the path laid down by his illustrious predecessor and continued by the Committee of Eight,” the German ambassador said.

That was the answer Molotov had expected. It was also the answer he dreaded. Picking his words with some care, he said, “A change of leaders can sometimes lead to a change in policy with no disrespect for what has gone before.” I have not been nearly such a mad adventurist as Stalin, for instance.

But Schmidt shook his head. “The new Fuhrer is convinced his predecessor followed the proper course. Our neighbors ignore the legitimate claims of the Reich at their peril.”

“At their peril, certainly,” Molotov said. “But also at yours. I hope the new Fuhrer bears that in mind as well.”

Unlike the leaders he served, Schmidt was a man of culture. Molotov had thought so for many years. But the German did serve the ruffians who led the Reich, and served them loyally. He said, “The Fuhrer does indeed have that in his mind. Because he does, he sent me to renew the offer his predecessor, Reichs Chancellor Himmler, extended to the Soviet Union in regard to the illegally occupied Polish regions.”

“He wants us to join him in an attack on the Race, you are telling me,” Molotov said.

“Yes.” Schmidt nodded. “After all, part of the territory between our states was formerly occupied by the Soviet Union.”

“So it was-till 22 June, 1941,” Molotov said with a savage irony he did not try to hide. “I asked you once, and now I ask you again: if our borders marched with each other, how long would it be till the Reich was at the Soviet Union’s throat again?”

“Perhaps longer than it would take for the Soviet Union to be at the Reich ’s throat,” Schmidt answered tartly. “Or perhaps-and it is certainly the new Fuhrer ’s earnest hope-we could live at peace with each other once the victory has been won.”

“Living at peace with each other if our borders touched would take a small miracle,” said Molotov, using the language of the religion in which he had not believed since youth. “Living in peace with the Race after attacking Poland, however, would take a large miracle.”

“As Reichs Chancellor Himmler did not, Dr. Kaltenbrunner does not share this view,” Schmidt said.

“As I told Himmler through you, so I tell Kaltenbrunner: if he wants to attack Poland on his own, that is his affair,” Molotov said. “I do not think, however, he will be pleased with the result.”

But did that matter to the Nazis? Molotov doubted it. Fascists wanted what they wanted because they imagined they were entitled to it. Whether their desires inconvenienced or infuriated anyone else mattered very little to them. What they wanted, after all, was legitimate. What anyone else wanted was nothing but the twisted desires of subhumans or, in the case of the Lizards, nonhumans.