“I know. I have done it,” David Nussboym replied. “But I come from the western part of Poland, and that is where my enemies live.”

“As you wish. I keep my promises,” Molotov said, conveniently forgetting how many he had broken. “I give you a free hand against your enemies there in Lodz. Whatever resources you require, you have my authorization to utilize. The only thing you may not do is embarrass the Soviet Union’s relations with the Lizards. If you do that, I will throw you to the wolves. Is it agreeable? Do we have a bargain?”

“It is agreeable, and we do have a bargain,” Nussboym said. “Thank you, Comrade General Secretary.” Despite having saved Molotov’s life, he did not presume to address him by first name and patronymic. The USSR was officially a classless society, but that did not change who was on top and who below.

“Good enough, then, David Aronovich,” Molotov said. “So long as you do not embroil us with the Race, do what you will.” He realized he sounded rather like God sending Satan out to afflict Job. The conceit amused him-not enough for him to let it show on the outside, true, but he found very few things that amusing.

Nussboym also knew better than to linger. Having got what he wanted from Molotov, he rose, nodded, and took his leave. After he was gone-but only after he was gone-Molotov nodded approval.

Half an hour till his next appointment. Those thirty minutes might stretch, too; Khrushchev had the time sense of the Ukrainian peasant he’d been born, not of the West. He came and went when he thought it right and fitting, not according to the bidding of any clock. Molotov pulled a report from the pile awaiting his attention, donned his spectacles, and began to read.

He remembered memoranda wondering what the United States was doing with its space station. From the report in his hands, it appeared that the Reich and the Lizards were wondering, too. He scratched his head. Such aggressive work seemed more likely the province of the Reich than of the USA. President Warren had always struck him as a cautious and capable reactionary. He hoped the man would be reelected in 1964.

But what were the Americans doing up there? From the report in front of him, even some of them were wondering-wondering and not finding out. Molotov frowned. Secrecy was unlike the Americans, too, at least for anything less vital than their nuclearexplosives project.

He scribbled a note to spur further investigation. Most of that would have to be on the ground. The Soviet Union had forced itself into space along with the Germans and the Americans, but it was not the player there that the other two independent human powers were.

On the ground… “Damn you, Lavrenti Pavlovich,” Molotov murmured. In the wake of Beria’s failed coup, the NKVD was being purged. That had to happen; the fallen chief’s backers had to go. But Molotov wished they didn’t have to go now. With the NKVD in disarray, he had to rely more on the GRU, the Red Army’s intelligence operation, which-again-made him more dependent on Georgi Zhukov. With two agencies doing the same job, he could play one off against the other. For the time being, he’d lost that option.

Muttering balefully under his breath, he reached out for the next report. It gave him good news: several caravans of arms had crossed the border into Lizard-occupied China and reached the People’s Liberation Army. Mao would keep the Race hopping like fleas on a griddle; Molotov was confident of that.

He worked his way through the whole report instead of contenting himself with the one-page summary stapled to the front. An eyebrow rose-with him, a sign of considerable emotion. Someone had tried to sneak something past him. The report mentioned that a shipment of U.S. arms had reached the People’s Liberation Army despite the best efforts of the Kuomintang, the Lizards, and, ever so secretly, the GRU. The report mentioned that-but the summary didn’t.

In future, he wrote, I expect summaries to conform more closely to the documents they are supposed to summarize. Failure in this regard will not be tolerated. If that didn’t make some apparatchik ’s ulcer twinge, he didn’t know what would.

Before he could reach for the next report in the stack, his secretary said, “Comrade Khrushchev is here to see you.”

Molotov glanced at his watch. Khrushchev was fifteen minutes late-not bad at all, by his standards. “Send him in,” Molotov said.

“Good day, Comrade General Secretary,” Khrushchev said, shaking hands with Molotov. He spoke Russian with a strong Ukrainian accent, turning g’s into h’s, and had a peasant drawl to boot.

“Good day, Comrade General Secretary,” Molotov echoed with a wintry smile. The rank he held in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev held in the Communist Party of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. “And how are the pacification efforts progressing?”

Khrushchev made a remarkably sour face. He was ugly as sin to begin with: squat, bullet-headed, snaggle-toothed, with a couple of prominent warts. When he got angry, he got uglier. “Not so good,” he answered. “The Reich keeps shipping the robbers arms across the Romanian border. You ought to call the sons of bitches on it.”

“I have done so, Nikita Sergeyevich,” Molotov answered. “The Reich states that Romania is an independent nation pursuing an independent foreign policy.” He held up a hand. “And I have protested to the Romanians, who say they are helpless to keep the Germans from shipping arms through their territory.”

“Fuck ’em,” Khrushchev said. “Fuck ’em all. The Lizards are sneaking shit in from Poland, too. We hold things down, but it’s a damn pain in the arse.”

“So long as you do hold things down,” Molotov said. “That is why you have your job, after all.”

“Don’t I know it,” Khrushchev said. “Stinking nationalist bandits. As soon as we pull one band up by the roots, another one sprouts.” He raised an eyebrow. “Anybody would think they didn’t fancy taking orders from Moscow.”

“Too bad,” Molotov said coldly. Khrushchev laughed out loud. They didn’t always agree on means, but they stood together on keeping the Ukraine a part of the USSR. Molotov asked, “You can document the fact that some of the bandits’ weapons come from the Lizards and not the fascists?”

“Oh, hell, yes, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,” Khrushchev exclaimed.

“Good. Give me your evidence, and I will protest to the Lizards,” Molotov said. Khrushchev nodded. Molotov went on, “When confronted with evidence, the Lizards often draw back-unlike the fascists, who are strangers to shame.”

“Unlike us, too,” Khrushchev said with a grin. “But we have the dialectic on our side, and the goddamn Nazis don’t.”

“Neither do the Lizards,” Molotov said. And a good thing, too, or they would surely beat us, he thought somewhere down deep.

Khrushchev departed in due course, loudly and profanely promising to give Molotov the evidence he needed to protest to the Lizards. Based on his previous performance, Molotov figured the chances he would were a little better than even money. Molotov was reaching for another report when the telephone rang. His secretary said, “Comrade General Secretary, Marshal Zhukov wishes to speak with you.”

“Put him through,” Molotov said at once, and then, “Good day, Georgi Konstantinovich.”

“Good day, Comrade General Secretary,” Zhukov said politely. “I wonder if you might be able to stop by my office some time today, to review the revised projections for the military budget in the upcoming Five-Year Plan.”

Revised upwards, he meant-revised sharply upwards. Zhukov might not want to rule the USSR, but he was taking his pound of flesh for suppressing Beria. And Molotov could not-did not dare-do anything about it. Things could have been worse, and he knew as much, but they also could have been a great deal better. With the resigned sigh of an animal in a cage too small, he answered, “I will be there directly, Marshal,” and took a petty revenge by hanging up the phone very hard.