Tilting the Balance

The meeting with the physicists went on for another half hour, over lesser but still vital issues like keeping electricity coming into Denver and into the University of Denver in particular so the men could do their jobs. People in the United States had taken electricity for granted until the Lizards came. Now, over too much of the country, it was a vanished luxury. But if it vanished in Denver, the Met Lab would have to find somewhere else to go, and Groves didn’t think the country-or the world-could afford the delay.

Unlike nuclear physics, electricity was something with which, by God, he was intimately familiar. “We’ll keep it going for you,” he promised, and hoped he could make good on the vow. If the Lizards got the idea humans were experimenting with nuclear energy here, they’d have something to say about the matter. Keeping them from finding out, then, was going to be a sizable part of keeping the lights on.

When the meeting broke up, Groves fell into step with Larssen and ignored the physicist’s efforts to break away. “We need to talk, Dr. Larssen,” he said.

“No we don’t, Colonel-sorry, General-Groves,” Larssen said, loading the title with all the scorn he could. “The Army’s already done enough to screw up my life, thanks very much. I don’t need any more help from you.” He turned his back and started to stamp off.

Groves shot out a big, meaty hand and caught him by the arm. From the way Larssen whirled around, Groves thought he was going to swing on him. Decking a physicist wasn’t part of his own job description, but if that was what it took, that was what he’d do.

Maybe Larssen saw that in his eyes, for he didn’t throw the punch. Groves said, “Look, your life is your business. But when it makes you have trouble with your job, well, your particular job is too important to let that happen. So what’s eating you, and how come you think it’s the, Army’s fault?”

“You want to know? you’really want to know?” Larssen didn’t wait for an answer from Groves, but plowed ahead: “Well, why the hell shouldn’t I tell you? Somebody else will if I don’t. After I saw you last year, I managed to get all the way to western Indiana on my own. That’s when I ran into General Patton, who wouldn’t let me send my wife a message so she’d know I was alive and okay.”

“Security-” Groves began.

“Yeah, security. So I couldn’t get her a message then, and by the time I got to Chicago, it was too late-the Met Lab team had already taken off. And I couldn’t get a message to Barbara after that-security again. So she figured I was dead. What was she supposed to think?”

“Oh,” Groves said. “I’m sorry. That must have been a shock when she came into Denver. But I’ll bet you had quite a reunion.”

“It was great,” Larssen said, his voice deadly cold. “She thought I was dead, so she fell for this corporal who rides herd on Lizard POWs. She married him up in Wyoming. I was already in Denver, but Colonel Hexham, God bless him, still wouldn’t let me write. Security one more time. Now she’s gonna have the guy’s baby. So as far as I’m concerned, General Groves; sir, the U.S. Army can go fuck itself. And if you don’t like it, throw me in the brig.”

Groves opened his mouth, closed it again. He’d been through Chugwater just after that wedding in Wyoming. He’d known something was eating Larssen, but not what. No wonder the poor bastard was in a blue funk. Mahatma Gandhi wouldn’t have stayed cool, calm, and collected with this landing on him.

“Maybe she’ll come back to you,” he said at last. It sounded lame, even in his own ears.

Larssen laughed scornfully. “Doesn’t look that way. She’s still going to bed with Sam stinking Yeager, that’s for sure. Women!” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “You can’t live without ’em and they won’t live with you.”

Groves hadn’t seen his own wife in months, either, or sent her a note or anything else. He didn’t worry about her running around, though; he just worried about her being all right. Maybe that just meant he was older and more settled than Larssen and his wife. Maybe it meant his marriage was in better shape. Or maybe (unsettling thought) it meant he didn’t know what to worry about.

He fell back on his own training: “Dr. Larssen, you cannot let it get you down to the point where it affects your work. You cannot. More than just you and your wife depends on what you do here, more even than your country. I am not exaggerating when I say the fate of humanity rests on your shoulders.”

“I know that,” Larssen said. “But it’s hard to give a damn about the fate of humanity when the one human being who really matters to you goes and does something like this.”

There Groves could not argue with him, nor did he try. He said, “You’re not the only one in that boat. It happens all the time-maybe more in war than in peace, because things are more broken up nowadays-but all the time. You have to pick up the pieces and keep going.”