Part 31 (1/2)

”Goebbels we know,” Gromyko said, and Molotov nodded. The foreign commissar went on, ”Manstein we also know. He is the likeliest of the generals to come to the top. By all accounts, an able man.”

Molotov nodded again. ”Zhukov respects him,” he said. By his tone, by his expression, no one would have known how much having to acknowledge Zhukov's opinion pained him. ”As you say, he too is a known quant.i.ty.”

”But the SS officials under Himmler...” Gromyko's voice trailed away. He stubbed out the cigarette and lit another one.

”Yes, they are the trouble,” Molotov agreed. ”None of them has been able to show what he can do, for Himmler has held power there firmly in his own hands. If one of them can grab it, who knows in which direction he might go?”

”It could be worse,” Gromyko said. Molotov raised an eyebrow. The foreign commissar explained: ”The Lizards might have landed a few days earlier. Then, perhaps, the British would not have a.s.sa.s.sinated Heydrich.”

After pondering that, Molotov discovered he had to nod. ”Yes, you are right-although I doubt Heydrich would have waited for Himmler to die of natural causes before making his bid for the top spot. Go on to Nuremberg, then, Andrei Andreyevich. Learn what you can and report back to me.”

”Very well, Comrade General Secretary.” Gromyko's s.h.a.ggy eyebrows twitched. ”I do hope the n.a.z.is can keep from starting their civil war until Himmler's funeral is over.”

”Yes, that would be good, wouldn't it?” After a moment, Molotov realized the foreign commissar hadn't been joking. He glanced at the smoke spiraling up from his own cigarette, which he hadn't crushed quite well enough. ”Do you really think it will come to that?”

”I hope not,” Gromyko answered. ”But in the Reich Reich there is only one way to tell who is the stronger: by conflict. When Hitler died, Himmler was inarguably the strongest man left. Who is strongest now is not so clear, which makes struggles over the succession more likely.” there is only one way to tell who is the stronger: by conflict. When Hitler died, Himmler was inarguably the strongest man left. Who is strongest now is not so clear, which makes struggles over the succession more likely.”

”You could be right,” Molotov said. Guile and intrigue had got him the top spot in the Soviet Union after Stalin died. He wondered who would succeed him, and how. The question wasn't idle-far from it. Now he did think about similarities between the USSR and the Greater German Reich. Reich. His own country had no more formal system for succession than did Germany. Beria's failed coup had rubbed everyone's nose in that. The failed coup had also made it all too likely that Molotov's successor would be Marshal Zhukov, a distinctly unappetizing prospect for an His own country had no more formal system for succession than did Germany. Beria's failed coup had rubbed everyone's nose in that. The failed coup had also made it all too likely that Molotov's successor would be Marshal Zhukov, a distinctly unappetizing prospect for an apparatchik. apparatchik.

Smoking yet another cigarette, Gromyko left the office. Molotov lit a new one from his own packet. The Americans and the Lizards both claimed tobacco cut years off your life. Having already pa.s.sed his threescore and ten, Molotov found that hard to believe. If tobacco was poisonous, wouldn't it have killed him by now? In any case, he was inclined to doubt claims from the Race or from the USA on general principles.

He could have watched Himmler's funeral on television. In these days of relay satellites, news went around the world as soon as it happened. He didn't watch. He knew the n.a.z.is were good at melodramatic spectacle. As far as he was concerned, their rule depended in no small measure on keeping the ma.s.ses mystified through spectacle so they would have no chance to contemplate either their oppression or rising against it.

And, when Gromyko returned from the German capital, Molotov asked no questions about the last rites for the dead Fuhrer. Fuhrer. Instead, he came straight to the point: ”Who is in charge in Nuremberg?” Instead, he came straight to the point: ”Who is in charge in Nuremberg?”

”Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, I do not precisely know.” Gromyko sounded troubled at the admission. ”I don't think the Germans know, either.”

”That is not good,” Molotov said, with what he judged considerable understatement. ”Where no one is in charge, anything can happen.” It wasn't a proverb, but it sounded like one.

Gromyko accepted it as if it were. ”What they have in place now is something they call the Committee of Eight. It has soldiers on it, and SS functionaries, and n.a.z.i Party officials, and a couple of Goebbels' men, too.”

Scornfully, Molotov clicked his tongue between his teeth. ”All that means is that they are putting off the bloodletting till someone is ready to start it.”

”Of course,” Gromyko agreed. No veteran of Communist Party infighting could fail to recognize such portents.

”Now we have an interesting question,” Molotov said. ”Do we prod the Germans while they are weak and confused, or do we leave them severely alone till they sort themselves out?”

”If we prod them, we may gain advantages we could not have managed against Himmler.” The foreign commissar spoke in musing tones. ”On the other hand, we may only succeed in uniting the members of this committee against us, or in bringing one of them to the top.”

Molotov nodded. Gromyko had laid out the alternatives as neatly as a geometry teacher proving a theorem on the blackboard. ”If we leave them alone, they are likely to stay disorganized longer than they would otherwise. But so what, if we gain nothing from their disorganization?”

”In that case, at least, we do not run the risk of conflict with them,” Gromyko said.

”Conflict with them is inevitable.” There Molotov knew he was on firm ideological grounds. But, ideology or no ideology, he temporized: ”With the weapons they and we have, conflict with them is also liable to be suicidal.”

”Yes,” Gromyko said, and then, greatly daring, ”This is a problem I fear neither Marx nor Lenin antic.i.p.ated.”

”Possibly not,” Molotov said. The admission made him as nervous as if he were the Pope airing doubts about the Trinity. He backed away from it: ”But if we cannot rely on Marx and Lenin, on whom can we rely?”

”Lenin extended Marx's doctrine into areas on which Marx did not speak,” the foreign commissar replied. ”It is up to us to extend Marxist-Leninist thought into the new areas that have come to light over the past forty years.”

”I suppose so.” Again, Molotov thought of the Pope. ”We cannot say we are changing the doctrine, of course-only strengthening it.” How had the papacy dealt with the theory of evolution? Carefully, Carefully, was the answer that sprang to mind. was the answer that sprang to mind.

”Of course,” Gromyko echoed. ”That was what Stalin said, too. It gave him the excuse he needed to do whatever he pleased-not that he needed much of an excuse to go and do that.”

”No,” Molotov agreed. Stalin was more than ten years dead now, but his shadow lingered over everyone who'd ever had anything to do with him. Molotov had never been shy about ordering executions, but he knew he lacked Stalin's relentless ruthlessness. In a way, that knowledge made him feel inadequate, as if he were a son conscious of not being quite the man his father was.

Gromyko said, ”Have you yet decided what we ought to do, given the changed conditions inside the Reich Reich?”

Stalin would have decided on the spur of the moment. He would have followed through on whatever he decided, too: followed through to the hilt. He might not have been right all the time-Molotov knew only too well he hadn't been right all the time-but he'd always been sure. Sometimes being sure counted for as much as being right. Sometimes it counted for more than being right. If you were sure, if you could make other people sure, you might easily end up right even when you'd been wrong before.

Molotov also knew he lacked that kind of decisiveness. He said, ”We can try prodding at Romania and Finland and see how they react-and how the Reich Reich reacts. If the fascists' puppet states show weakness, that will be a sign the reacts. If the fascists' puppet states show weakness, that will be a sign the Reich Reich itself is on the way to the ash-heap of history to which the dialectic consigns it.” itself is on the way to the ash-heap of history to which the dialectic consigns it.”

Gromyko considered, then nodded. ”Good enough, I think, Comrade General Secretary. And if the Germans show they are still alert in spite of this collective leaders.h.i.+p, we can pull back at little risk to ourselves.”

”Yes.” Molotov permitted himself a small, cold smile of antic.i.p.ation. ”Just so. And it will be pleasant to pay them back in their own coin for the troubles they continue to cause us in the Ukraine. That will make Nikita Sergeyevich happy, too.” He dismissed Gromyko, then spent the next twenty minutes wondering whether he wanted to make Khrushchev happy or not.

As the airliner droned on toward Kitty Hawk, Jonathan Yeager turned to his father and asked, ”Do you think Mom is up to... taking care of what needs taking care of till we get back?”

He didn't want to mention Mickey and Donald. His father nodded approval that he hadn't, then answered, ”She'll do fine-because she has to.” He grinned. ”She put up with you when you were a baby, so she ought to be able to manage the other.”

Hearing about himself as a baby never failed to embarra.s.s Jonathan. He changed the subject: ”Four more years for President Warren, eh?”

”Sure enough,” his father said. ”I thought he'd win. I didn't think he'd take thirty-nine states.” He didn't look so happy that Warren had taken thirty-nine states, either.

”Neither did I,” said Jonathan, who knew his father had soured on the president but didn't know why. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. ”I wish the election had come a couple of months later. Then I could have voted, too.” Having to wait till he was almost twenty-five to help pick a president struck him as dreadfully unfair. He tried to make the best of it: ”One vote wouldn't have mattered much this time around, anyhow.”

”No, but you never can tell when it will,” his father said. ”As for that, you're lucky. When I was your age, I was living somewhere different every year. I never put down enough roots to be able to register and vote, so I never did, not till after the fighting stopped and I settled down with your mother.”

Jonathan hadn't thought about that. Lord, his father had been an old man by the time he finally got the chance to vote. Before Jonathan could say anything about it, the pilot announced they'd be landing soon. This was Jonathan's first flight. His father took airplanes for granted, so he did his best to do the same. It wasn't easy. Watching the ground rush up, feeling the jounce as the plane hit the runway...

And you'll be going into s.p.a.ce in a couple of days, he thought. he thought. If you're getting excited about airplanes, what will you do when you blast off? If you're getting excited about airplanes, what will you do when you blast off?

A trim captain halfway between his age and his father's took charge of them when they got off the plane. The captain gave Jonathan's shaved a head a couple of glances, but didn't say anything.

The officer drove through drizzle to a barracks. The quarters the two Yeagers got struck Jonathan as spartan. His father accepted them with the air of a man who'd known worse. Sometimes Jonathan wondered what all his old man had been through in the days before he'd reached the scene himself. His father didn't talk about that much.

When they went to the mess hall, some of the soldiers there also gave Jonathan's s.h.i.+ny skull and casual civilian clothes odd looks. He ignored them. He wished he could have ignored the food. You could eat as much as you wanted, but he couldn't see why anybody would want to eat any of it.

Along with his father, he spent the time till he went into s.p.a.ce getting lectured about everything that could go wrong and what to do if anything did. The short answer seemed to be, If anything fails, you probably die. If anything fails, you probably die. The long answers were more complicated, but they added up to the same thing. The long answers were more complicated, but they added up to the same thing.

People did die going into s.p.a.ce. He thought about that as he boarded the upper stage with REDTAIL REDTAIL painted on its nose. He didn't think about it for long, though. At not quite twenty-one, he didn't really believe he could die. painted on its nose. He didn't think about it for long, though. At not quite twenty-one, he didn't really believe he could die.

”Going to pay a call on the Lizards, eh?” said the pilot, a Navy lieutenant commander named Jacobson. ”I'll get you there and I'll bring you home again-as long as we don't blow up.”

”If we do, it'll be over in a hurry,” Jonathan's father said. ”Plenty of worse ways to go, believe you me.”