Yeager wasn’t insulted when the president called him a reasonably intelligent man. He was, if anything, flattered. He wouldn’t have had a chance to meet a president if the Lizards hadn’t come. The most he could have hoped for was big-league coach, if one of his buddies got lucky and made manager. Part-time scout or high-school coach somewhere struck him as a lot more likely.
He said, “Mr. President, sir, if the Lizards wanted to blow up one of our cities, the way they kept doing during the fighting, they could have done it by now. Seems to me that Atvar wants to do something that would let him save face with his own people but doesn’t want to touch off a war with us.”
Earl Warren rubbed his chin as he pondered that. “You’re saying he might be satisfied with a symbolic act of destruction, Major, and would be willing to forgo something so brutal as to force us to respond in kind?”
“Yes, sir, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” Yeager didn’t try to hide the relief in his voice. Having a boss who understood what he was talking about was liable to make life easier for the whole planet.
On the other hand, it might not, too. Warren said, “I regret permitting even a symbolic act of destruction on our soil if we have done nothing to deserve it. It sets a dangerous precedent.”
“Right now, sir, the shiplords in the colonization fleet-and in the conquest fleet, too-will be screaming their heads off at Atvar to get him to blow a city here and one in the Reich and one in Russia to kingdom come,” Sam said. He didn’t try to hide his desperation, either. “If Atvar settles for something symbolic, they’ll all be shouting that he’s set a dangerous precedent-and the Lizards take precedent a lot more seriously than we do.”
“A point,” the president said, “and one I’m glad you reminded me of. I tend to think of the Lizards as always seeing things in the same light and speaking with a single voice. I have the same trouble with the Germans and the Russians, probably for the same reason: because their politics are less open than ours, I need to remind myself they have politics at all.”
“I don’t know about the Nazis and the Reds, sir, but the Lizards sure have politics,” Yeager answered. “They had ’em even before the colonization fleet came. Now they’re worse, because the ones who’ve been here for twenty years have started to understand a little bit about us, but the new ones don’t believe half of what the old-timers tell ’em and don’t want to believe any of it.”
“Is that last your opinion, Major, or have you got data to back it up?” Warren asked sharply. He’d been a politician a long time, and a lawyer for a long time before that; he understood the difference between evidence and hearsay.
“Sir, it’s the unanimous opinion of all the defectors and prisoners I’ve talked to, from Straha on down,” Sam said, “and some of the communications intercepts we’ve picked up show the same thing. We don’t have as many as we’d like; the Lizards are still ahead of us when it comes to keeping signals secure.”
Warren sighed and looked weary. His wits remained keen; his body, now and then, forcibly reminded him it was past seventy. And, from the days of FDR on, the presidency had grown into a job of man-killing importance and complexity. “I will consult with officials from the Departments of State and the Interior,” Warren said at last. “If they concur in your view, Major, perhaps we’ll dicker with the Lizards over a suitable symbolic act. If your good offices are required there, I will call on you.”
“That’s fine, Mr. President. That’s better than fine, in fact,” Yeager said enthusiastically. He also realized he’d just been dismissed. Saluting, he turned to go.
Before he could leave, though, President Warren said, “Wait.” Sam did as smart an about-face as he had in him. Warren asked, “Whom do the Lizards believe to be the responsible party?”
“Sir, the way they handicap it is, the Nazis first, the Reds second, and us trailing but not out of the running.” Yeager hesitated, then risked a question of his own: “How does it look to you?”
“I know about us, of course, which the Lizards would, too, if they had an ounce of sense,” Warren answered. Sam waited, not sure whether the president would tell him anything more. After a few seconds, Warren went on, “If I were a gambling man, I would bet on the Reich ahead of the Soviet Union, too. Molotov is a very cool customer-or a cold fish, whichever you like. He holds his cards so close to his chest, they’re inside his shirt. He would never dare anything so wild. The Nazis…” He shook his head. “No one can tell what the Nazis will do till they do it. Half the time, I don’t think they know themselves.”
“That’s what the Lizards say about all of us,” Yeager said.
“So I’ve heard. But it happens to be true of the Germans. Less so now than when Hitler ran them, maybe, but still true.” The president sighed again. “And I wish Britain hadn’t started cozying up to the Greater German Reich after the Lizards took away her empire. I don’t know how much we could have done about that-the Reich is on the other side of the Channel, and we’re on the other side of the Atlantic-but I wish it hadn’t happened.”
“You get no argument from me, sir,” Yeager said. “For that matter, I don’t like the idea of propping up the Japs. I remember Pearl Harbor too well.”
“So do I, Major,” Warren said. “I was attorney general of California at the time. I helped get the Japs off the West Coast and into camps. But if we don’t prop them up now, they’ll look to the Russians, which would be bad, or else to the Lizards in China, which would be worse. And so-” He made an unhappy face.
“By what I’ve heard, sir, the Lizards aren’t having a very happy time in China,” Sam said.
“They’ve got the same problem the Japanese did before them: too many Chinese to try to hold down with not enough soldiers.” Warren looked up at the ceiling. “In a quiet sort of way, we try to keep the Lizards from having too happy a time in China. It’s easier for the Russians to do that than it is for us, but we manage.” He glanced toward Yeager. “Unofficially, of course.”
“Oh, of course, sir.” Sam saluted again. This time, President Warren let him go.
Before the Lizards came, what people called the White House these days had been the governor’s residence, not far from the State Capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas. People kept talking about rebuilding on the site of Washington, D.C., but they were more willing to talk than they were to spend money. Some people also said the Lizards had known just what they were doing when they dropped an explosive-metal bomb on Washington. Sam had been known to say that a time or two himself.
He rather liked Little Rock, even the larger, more hectic city that had sprung up around and in the midst of the town he’d known during and right after the fighting. It was larger and more hectic than it had been, but still small and staid alongside Los Angeles. It was also much greener than Los Angeles, and full of trees. Both the Californian he was and the farm boy from the prairie he had been appreciated that.
Down the block, only a few embassies stood: that of the Lizards, biggest of all; those of Germany and the USSR, rival concrete cubes; smaller structures from Britain and Japan; those of Canada and Ireland and New Zealand and Germany’s vassals: Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria; and ones from the island nations of the Caribbean-Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. The Lizards had swallowed down the rest, with the exception of some the Germans had swallowed instead.
A man in a German uniform and a Lizard strolled down the street in earnest conversation. A colored fellow went past them the other way without even turning his head. Yeager chuckled to himself. Twenty years earlier, the local would either have tried to shoot both of them or run like hell. Sophistication had come to Little Rock, whether the Arkansans particularly wanted it or not.