In the Balance

Larssen had played football in high school. If he’d run the ball behind a lineman as huge as Groves, he’d have put so many touchdowns on the board that people would have thought him the second coming of Red Grange. The image made him smile. “Where are we going?” he asked as Groves pushed past him.

“To see General Marshall,” the colonel said over his shoulder. “He has the power to bind and to loose. I’ll get you in to talk to him-today, I. hope. After that, it’s up to you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Larssen said. George Marshall was Army Chief of Staff. If anyone could order Chicago defended at all cost, he was the man (although, against the Lizards, ordering something and having it come to pass were not the same thing). Hope rose in Jens. As he followed Groves out into the street, he drew in a lungful of air ripe not only with exhaust but also with the sulfurous reek of the springs.

Groves took a deep breath, too. A grin made him look years younger. “That smell always reminds me of walking into a freshman chemistry lab.”

“It does, by God!” Jens hadn’t made the connection, but the colonel was absolutely right. The very next breath brought with it memories of Bunsen burners and reagent bottles with frosted glass stoppers.

Colonel Groves literally ran interference for Larssen on the streets of White Sulphur Springs, using his blocky body to bull ahead where a thinner or less confident man might have hesitated. He had a good deal of muscle beneath the fat, and also a driving energy that made him walk with a forward lean, as if into a headwind.

Getting in to see the Chief of Staff wasn’t as simple as Groves had made it sound back in his office. The lawn of the house in which Marshall stayed was clogged with officers. Jens had never seen so many sparkling silver stars in his life. To generals, a colonel like Groves might as well have been invisible.

He did not stay invisible long. Sheer physical bulk got him near enough to the doorway to catch the eye of a harried-looking major inside. In a ringing voice that cut through the hubbub, Groves announced his name and declared, “Tell the general I have a fellow here from the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago. It’s urgent.”

“What isn’t?” the major answered, but he ducked back inside. Groves peacefully yielded up his place to a major general.

“Now what?” Larssen asked. He could feel the sun pounding his head and his arms-he wore a short-sleeved shirt. He was so fair he didn’t tan worth a damn; he just burned layer by layer.

“Now we wait.” Groves folded his own arms across his broad, khaki-clad chest.

“But you said it was urgent-”

The colonel’s booming laugh made heads swing toward him. “If it weren’t urgent, I wouldn’t be here at all. Same with everybody else, son. As that major said, everything is urgent nowadays. But if he delivers that message, well, I expect we’re urgent enough, if you know what I mean.”

As seconds crawled by on hands and knees, Jens began to wonder. He also wondered where in White Sulphur Springs he’d be able to find calamine lotion to slather on his poor toasting arms and nose. As inconspicuously as he could, he moved into Groves’ massive shadow. He felt a stab of jealousy when the major returned to call out the name of a brigadier general. Groves only shrugged.

The major came out again. “Colonel, uh, Graves?”

“That’s me,” Groves declared; since no Colonel Graves rose up in righteous anger to dispute his claim, Larssen supposed he was right. More officers’ heads turned toward him as he surged forward with Jens in his wake. Envy and anger were the main expressions Jens saw-who was this mere colonel to take precedence over men with stars on their shoulders?

“This way, sir,” the major said. This way led to a closed door, in front of which Groves and Larssen spent the next several minutes cooling their heels. Larssen didn’t care; the hall was hot and airless, but at least he’d got out of the sun.

The door opened. The brigadier general came out, looking grimly satisfied. He returned Groves’ salute, gave Larssen a brusque nod, and strode away.

“Come in, Colonel Groves, and bring your companion,” General Marshall called from behind his desk. Jens noticed that he got the name straight.

“Thank you, sir,” Groves said, obeying. “Sir, let me present Dr. Jens. Larssen; as I told your adjutant, he’s reached us from the project at the University of Chicago.”

“Sir.” As a civilian, Larssen reached across the desk to shake hands with the Army Chief of Staff. The general’s grip was firm and precise. Jens’s first impression was that despite the uniform, despite the three rows of campaign ribbons, Marshall looked more like a senior research scientist than a soldier. He was in his early sixties, spare and trim, with hair going from iron gray toward white. Under a wide forehead, his face was rather narrow. He looked as though he seldom smiled. His eyes were arresting; they said he’d seen a lot and thought hard about every bit of it.