Weapons of choice

Eisenhower had put together the short list of scientists, with the help of Professor Einstein. But he suspected the president had asked him to do the introductions because Roosevelt and one of the scientists, Professor Millikan, loathed each other. Eisenhower had joked to King they needed the rifle squad inside the building to keep the two men apart.

Millikan, the director of the California Polytechnic Institute's physics lab, merely grunted at Kolhammer. He appeared actively hostile to most of the other fliers. Eisenhower knew him to be a bit of a nut on racial issues, so perhaps that had something do with it. By way of contrast, Theodore von Karman, the top man at Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, and Leo Szilard from Columbia University, had to be dragged away from the fliers. Robert Oppenheimer, Linus Pauling, and a relatively young man called Robert Dicke from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology restricted themselves to nods and perfunctory smiles.

"And this is Professor Albert Einstein," said Eisenhower. "He's probably done more than anyone here to help us adjust to your arrival."

All the time travelers reacted as Einstein shuffled forward to shake hands with Kolhammer. They treated him like some kind of big-league ballplayer or radio star, suddenly crowding around to take his hand or just touch him on the arm or the shoulder. It was odd. One of the fliers produced a thin black briefcase and handed it to Kolhammer.

"We thought you might appreciate this, Professor," said the admiral. "It's a computer. It'll help you in your work."

The physicist thanked him and carefully unzipped the bag. Eisenhower had been told about their electrical books, the flexipads as they called them. This would have fit the description, except that it seemed to be too large. Perhaps it was a more powerful flexipad?

"It's called a data slate," said Kolhammer as Einstein turned it over in his hands. "The sort of calculations that'd take months to do by hand, you can do in a split second on this baby."

Eisenhower suppressed a smirk. He could see the other scientists eyeing it covetously.

"Does it play movies and music?" asked Einstein. "I've heard that it does."

"Do you mind?" Kolhammer asked, taking the slate back and looking inquiringly at both Einstein and Roosevelt. Neither objected.

The admiral brushed a corner of the slate's glass screen and it lit up, throwing out considerably more light than the single gas lamp in the room. Eisenhower could see that most of the illuminated page appeared to be a blank blue rectangle. Half a dozen or so small objects, about the size of a postage stamps, were clustered down the right-hand side of the-what would you call it, the screen? The page?

Kolhammer brushed one with the tip of his finger and it suddenly whooshed outward to fill the entire space with a moving picture of people in evening dress. Violinists, he realized as the first sweet notes of a Paganini concerto stole into the room. A murmur arose from the scientists and even from some of the military officers. The recording sounded as real as if they were in the front row of a concert hall.

Kolhammer handed the slate back back to Einstein, who was clearly entranced. He nodded and grinned and stroked the glowing glass plate like a blind man, attempting to "see" through his fingertips. He turned and bent over so that Roosevelt could see the display more clearly. The president took the machine gingerly, handling it like a precious crystal vase.

"It's pretty tough, sir," said Kolhammer. "Military-grade construction. You could kick it across the room and it'd be fine."

Einstein straightened up. He was smiling as though very pleased.

"It is good, ja? Not everything in your world is about war making and destructive potential?"

Eisenhower thought he detected something in Kolhammer's response-a fleeting moment of indecision, as though he wasn't quite sure of how to respond. In the end, the man shrugged and smiled with a mixture of warmth and possibly of regret.

"No," said Kolhammer. "Not everything."

21

THE EASTERN FRONT, MAY 1942

Eternity was so cold they had piled up the dead to shield themselves.

The wind cut deeply into Brasch's bones on the short run from the trench to the forward observation post, until he wondered if he might ever stop shivering; although shiver was too mild a word for the spasms that shook him to his core. He shuddered so violently, and with such little hope the convulsions would ever cease, that he began to wonder if he might die from exhaustion.

There was no source of warmth in the filthy dugout. The three men he found there were wrapped in so many layers of clothing scavenged from fallen comrades and Russian prisoners that they no longer resembled men. They looked like swollen, fuzzy ticks. Brasch tried to speak to them, but his voice stuttered so much he gave up. He had only platitudes to offer anyway. When the next wave came it would sweep them from the face of the earth.