When he murmured that aloud, the President nodded and said, “Exactly so. And in a curious way, that may turn out to be one of our greatest strengths. Our Lizard prisoners insist to a man-well, to a Lizard-that they don’t want to use their atomic weapons here on a large scale. They say it would do too much damage to the planet: they want to control Earth and settle colonists on it, not just smash us by any means that come to hand.”

“Whereas, we can do anything we have to, to get rid of them,” Groves said. “Yes, sir, I see what you mean. Odd that we should have fewer constraints on our strategy than they do when they have the more powerful weapons.”

“That’s just what I mean,” Roosevelt agreed. “If we-humanity, that is-can say, ‘If we don’t get to keep our world, you won’t use it, either,’ that will give our scaly friends something new and interesting to think about. Their colonization fleet will be here in a generation’s time, and I gather it can’t be conveniently recalled. If the Lizards lay Earth to waste, the colonists are like somebody invited to a party at a house that’s just burnt to the ground: all dressed up with no place to go.”

“And no one to pass them a hose to put out the fire, either,” Groves observed.

That won a chuckle from FDR. “Nice to know you were paying attention when I made my Lend-Lease speech.”

Any military man who didn’t pay attention to what his commander-in-chief said was an idiot, as far as Groves was concerned. He replied, “The question is how far we can push that line of reasoning, sir. If the Lizards are faced with the prospect of either losing the war or hurting us as badly as we hurt them, which will they choose?”

“I don’t know,” Roosevelt said, which made Groves respect his honesty. “I tell you this, though, General: compared to the problems we have right now, I shouldn’t mind facing that one at all. I want you and your crew here to exert every effort possible to producing that first atomic bomb and then as many more as fast as you can. If we go down, I’d sooner go down with guns blazing than with our hands in the air.”

“Yes, sir, so would I,” Groves said. “We’ll do everything we can, sir.”

“I’m sure you will, General.” Roosevelt turned his wheelchair and rolled toward the door. He got to it and opened it before Groves could come around the desk to do the job for him. That made the old jaunty look come back to his haggard features, just for a moment. He liked to preserve as much independence as his circumstances allowed.

And in that, Groves thought, he was a good representative for the whole planet.

Mordechai Anielewicz had never imagined he would be relieved that the Lizards had set up a rocket battery right outside Leczna, but he was. That gave him an excuse to stay indoors, which meant he didn’t have to see Zofia Klopotowski for a while.

“It’s not that I don’t like her, you understand,” he told Dr. Judah Ussishkin over the chessboard one night.

“No, it wouldn’t be that, would it?” Ussishkin’s voice was dry. He moved a knight. “She’s fond of you, too.”

Anielewicz’s face flamed as he studied the move. Zofia would have been more fond of him in direct proportion to any increased stamina he showed. He’d never imagined an affair with a woman who was more lecherous than he was; up till now, he’d always had to do the persuading. But Zofia would drop anything to get between the sheets-or under a wagon, or into the backseat of Dr. Ussishkin’s moribund Fiat.

Trying to keep his mind on the game, Mordechai pushed a pawn one square ahead. That kept the knight from taking a position in which, with one more move, it could fork his queen and a rook.

A beatific smile wreathed Ussishkin’s tired face. “Ah, my boy, you are learning,” he said. “Your defense has made good progress since we began to play. Soon, now, you will learn to put together an effective attack, and then you will be a player to be reckoned with.”

“Coming from you, Doctor, that’s a compliment.” Anielewicz wanted to be a player to be reckoned with, and he wanted to mount an effective attack. He hadn’t got to be head of the Jewish fighters in Lizard-occupied Poland by sitting back and waiting for things to happen; his instinct was to try to make them happen. Against Ussishkin, he hadn’t been able to, not yet.

He did his best; the midgame might have seen a machine gun rake the chessboard, so fast and furious did pieces fall. But when the exchanges were done, he found himself down a bishop and a pawn and facing another losing position. He tipped over his king.

“You make me work harder all the time,” Ussishkin said. “I got some plum brandy for stitching up a farmer’s cut hand yesterday. Will you take a glass with me?”

“Yes, thank you, but don’t ask me for another game of chess afterwards,” Mordechai said. “If I can’t beat you sober, I’m sure I can’t beat you shikker.”

Ussishkin smiled as he poured. “Chess and brandy do not mix.” The brandy came from a bottle that had once, by its label, held vodka. People still had vodka these days, but it was homemade. For that matter, the plum brandy had to be homemade, too. Ussishkin lifted his glass in salute. “L’chaym.”

“L’chaym.” Anielewicz drank. The raw brandy charred all the way down; sweat sprang out on his face. “Phew! If that were any stronger, you wouldn’t need gasoline for your automobile.”

“Ah but if I got it running, think how disappointed you and Zofia would be,” Ussishkin said. Mordechai blushed again. In the candlelight, the doctor didn’t notice, or pretended he didn’t. He turned serious. “I know telling a young man to be careful is more often than not a waste of time, but I will try with you. Do be careful. If you make her pregnant, her father will not be pleased, which means the rest of the Poles here will not be pleased, either. We and they have gotten on as well as could be expected, all things considered. I would not like that to change.”

“No, neither would I,” Mordechai said. For one thing, Leczna held a good many more Poles than Jews; strife would not be to the minority’s advantage. For another, strife among the locals was liable to draw the Lizards’ unwelcome attention to the town. They already had more interest than Anielewicz liked, for they drew their food locally. He preferred staying in obscurity.

“You seem sensible, for one so young.” Ussishkin sipped his brandy again. He didn’t cough or flush or give any other sign he wasn’t drinking water. An aspiring engineer till the war, Anielewicz guessed he’d had his gullet plated with stainless steel. The doctor went on, “You should also remember-if she does conceive, the child would be raised a Catholic. And she might try to insist on your marrying her. I doubt”-now Ussishkin coughed, not from the plum brandy but to show he did more than doubt-“she would convert. Would you?”

“No.” Mordechai answered without hesitation. Before the Germans invaded, he hadn’t been pious; he’d lived in the secular world, not that of the shtetl and the yeshiva. But the Nazis didn’t care whether you were secular or not. They wanted to be rid of you any which way. More and more, he’d decided that if he was a Jew, he’d be a Jew. Turning Christian was not an option.

“Marriages of mixed religion are sometimes happy, but more often battlegrounds,” Ussishkin observed.

Mordechai didn’t want to marry Zofia Klopotowski. He wouldn’t have wanted to marry her if she were Jewish. He did, however, want to keep on making love with her, if not quite as often as she had in mind. If he did, she’d probably catch sooner or later, which would lead to the unpleasant consequences the doctor had outlined. He knocked back the rest of his brandy, wheezed, and said, “Life is never simple.”

“There I cannot argue with you. Death is simple; I have seen so much death these past few years that it seems very simple to me.” Ussishkin exhaled, a long, gusty breath that made candle flames flutter. Then he poured fresh plum brandy into his glass. “And if I start talking like a philosopher instead of a tired doctor, I must need to be more sober or more drunk.” He sipped. “You see my choice.”