Upsetting the Balance

Groves decided he’d better sit his fanny down and bang out a memo. He couldn’t be sure anyone would pay any attention to that, either, but at least it would haveBrigadier General, U.S. Army under his name, which might make soldiers sit up and take notice. The only real thing he was sure of was that they certainly wouldn’t know what to expect if hedidn’t sit down and write. That was all a man of action needed to know.

“Excuse me, Professor Fermi,” he said, and hurried away. The typewriter was waiting.

Atvar studied the computer display of the slow track of Tosev 3 around its parent sun. “Equinox,” he said, as if it were blasphemy against the revered name of the Emperor.

“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord.” Kirel didn’t sound any happier at the self-evident astronomical fact than had his superior. He put the reason for his distaste into words: “Winter will now approach in the northern hemisphere, where so many Tosevite not-empires remain unsubdued.”

Both high-ranking males contemplated that for a while in unhappy silence. The probe the Race had sent to Tosev 3 centuries before had warned that the planet’s weather grew extremely intemperate in winter. Still, the Race’s equipment was imperfectly adapted for such climates: the ruling assumption had been that the conquest would be over and done long before such things mattered. And no one back on Home had imagined that the Tosevites could have industrialized in the space of a few short centuries, let alone developed equipment better designed than anything the Race had for dealing with all the appalling varieties of muck and frozen water indigenous to Tosev 3 in winter.

Still gloomily, Kirel resumed, “During the last winter, we lost the strategic advantage over broad areas of the planet. When bad weather begins, the Big Uglies will assail us with more sophisticated weapons than they employed two of our years ago. This does not cause me to look on the likely results of the upcoming combat with optimism unrestrained.”

“I assure you, Shiplord, I have not looked on this conquest with optimism unrestrained since we discovered the Big Uglies knew enough to employ radio,” Atvar answered. “But we are not in an entirely disadvantageous position in regard to the Tosevites, either. We have made serious inroads on their industrial capacity; they produce far less than they did when we first arrived.”

“Our own industrial capacity on Tosev 3, however, remains effectively nil,” Kirel said. “We can produce more ammunition: all well and good, though even there we rely to some degree on captured Tosevite factories. But who in his wildest nightmares would have thought of the need to manufacture landcruisers and killercraft in large numbers to replace combat losses?”

“No one, but it remains a reality whether we thought of it or not,” Atvar said. “We have serious weaknesses in both areas, as well as in antimissile missiles. We were lucky to have brought any of those at all, but now our stocks are nearly exhausted, and demand remains unrelenting.”

“The Deutsche, may their eggshells be thinned by pest-control poisons, not only throw missiles at us but load them with their poisonous gases rather than with ordinary explosives. These missiles must be shot down before they reach their targets, or they can do dreadful damage. Our ability to accomplish this is degraded with every antimissile missile we expend.”

“We have knocked the island of Britain out of the fight against us for some indefinite time,” Atvar said. That was true, but it was also putting the best possible face on things, and he knew it. The campaign on Britain had been intended to annex the island. Like a lot of intentions on Tosev 3, that one had not survived contact with the Big Uglies. The losses in males and materiel were appalling, and certainly had cost the Race far more than the temporary neutralization of Britain could repay.

After what looked like a careful mental search, Kirel did find an authentic bright spot to mention: “It does appear virtually certain, Exalted Fleetlord, that the SSSR possessed but the single atomic weapon it used against us. Operations there can resume their previous tempo, at least until winter comes.”

“No, not until winter, not in the SSSR,” Atvar said sharply. “Long before that, the rains begin there and turn the local road network into an endless sea of gluey muck. We bogged down there badly two years ago, during the last local autumn, and then again in the spring, when all the frozen water that had accumulated there through winter proceeded to melt.”

“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord. I had forgotten.” Kirel seemed to fold in on himself for a moment, acknowledging his error. Almost angrily, he continued, “The Big Uglies of the SSSR are a pack of lazy, incompetent fools, to build a road system unusable one part of the year in three.”