“Have the United States already done it?” Potter asked.
“You would know for a fact better than I, General,” Professor FitzBelmont said. Potter wished that were true. He knew the damnyankees had that establishment out in Washington State, but that was all he knew. He hadn’t been able to sneak any spies into the project-or, if he had, they hadn’t managed to get any reports out, which amounted to the same thing. U.S. security there was tight, and all the tighter after the Confederates’ bombing raid a few months before. FitzBelmont, meanwhile, went on, “While I don’t know for sure, I’d say it’s highly likely.”
That matched Potter’s opinion better than he wished it did. The United States wouldn’t be committing the kind of resources they were if they didn’t think they had a winner. Were they spending more than the Confederacy was? They hid the budget as best they could (so did his own government), but he thought they were. “So they’re still ahead of us?” he said.
“Again, I can’t prove it. Again, if I were a gambling man, I’d bet that way,” FitzBelmont said.
“We’re all gambling men right now, Professor,” Potter said. “We’re gambling that you and your people can get this done before the damnyankees do-and before they rip our guts out just in the ordinary way of making war.”
“Rip our…?” Henderson FitzBelmont frowned. “Do I take it that the true state of affairs in Kentucky and Tennessee is less salubrious than the press and the wireless make it out to be?”
“Less…salubrious. That’s one way to put it.” Abstractly, Potter admired the professor’s choice of words. The damnyankees were tearing the Confederacy a new asshole out West, and nobody seemed able to slow them down much, let alone stop them. “We are in trouble over there. They’re aiming at Chattanooga right now. They haven’t got there, but that’s where they’re heading.”
“Oh, my,” Professor FitzBelmont said. “That’s…a long way from the Ohio River.”
“Tell me about it,” Clarence Potter said. He’d almost got sent west a couple of times himself, not as an Intelligence officer but as a combat soldier. The War Department was throwing every experienced officer into the fight. Only Jake Featherston’s loud insistence that he needed a spymaster had kept Potter in Richmond this long. Even Featherston’s insistence might not keep him here forever.
“Unfortunate,” FitzBelmont murmured. “Um…You are aware that my team’s experiments require large amounts of electricity?”
“Yes,” Potter said. “And so?”
“The supply has been erratic lately, erratic enough to force delays,” FitzBelmont said. “I have no idea who can do anything about that, but I’d appreciate it if someone would. If you are the person to ask, I hope you’ll pass the word to the proper authorities.”
Clarence Potter didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He ended up laughing, because he didn’t want Henderson FitzBelmont to see him cry. “Have you been paying attention to the war news, Professor? Any attention at all?”
“I know it’s not good,” FitzBelmont said. “We were just talking about that. But what does it have to do with the electricity supply?”
He was good at what he did. There wasn’t a better nuclear physicist in the CSA. Potter knew that. He’d had every one of the small band of physicists investigated. But outside his specialized field, Henderson V. FitzBelmont lived up to almost every cliche about narrowly specialized professors. As gently as he could, Potter said, “You know we’ve lost a lot of dams on the Cumberland and the Tennessee? The Yankees blew some, and we blew others to try to slow them down.” And it didn’t work well enough, dammit, he added, but only to himself.
“Well, yes, certainly, but…” Much more slowly than it should have, a light went on in FitzBelmont’s eyes. “You’re telling me those dams produced some of the electricity I use.”
“Not just what you use, Professor, and you aren’t the only one feeling the pinch,” Potter said. “Some of our factories have had to cut production, and we just can’t afford that.”
“If we don’t have adequate power, heaven only knows how we can go forward,” FitzBelmont said. “This isn’t something we can do with steam engines and kerosene lamps.”
“I understand that. But you need to understand you’re not the only one with a problem,” Potter said.
How much did that matter? Would the Confederacy let factories work more slowly to make sure the uranium-bomb project stayed on track? Without the weapons the factories made, how were the Confederate States supposed to hold back the latest U.S. thrust? The other side of that coin was, could the Confederates hold back the latest U.S. thrust even with all those factories going flat-out?
If the answer to that was no…If the answer to that is no, what the devil were we doing getting into this war in the first place? Potter wondered. Jake Featherston had counted on his quick knockout. The difference between what you counted on and what you got explained why so many people had unhappy marriages.
But if the Confederate States had to count on the uranium bomb for any hope of victory, and if there was no guarantee they would ever get it built, and if there was a more than decent chance the United States would beat them to the punch…If all that was true, the Confederacy was in a hell of a lot of trouble.
“Do you want to see the President, Professor?” Potter asked. “I’m sure he’d be glad to have this news straight from the horse’s mouth.” Well, straight from some part of the horse, anyhow.
Henderson FitzBelmont shook his head. “Thank you, but that’s all right. You can deliver it. I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. President Featherston, uh, intimidates me.”
“President Featherston intimidates a lot of people,” Potter said. That was true. Featherston intimidated him, and he was a lot harder to spook than any tweedy professor ever born. In fairness, though, he felt he had to go on, “I don’t think he would try to be intimidating after news like this. I think he’d be much more likely to pull out a bottle and get drunk with you.”
By the look FitzBelmont gave him, that was intimidating, too. How many years had it been since he went out and got drunk? Had he ever done anything like that? With most people, Potter would have taken the idea for granted. He didn’t with the professor.
“Do I need to know anything else?” he asked. “You’ve got a self-sustaining reaction, and you need all the electricity you can steal. Is that it?”
“That is the, ah, nucleus, yes.” Professor FitzBelmont smiled at his own joke.
So did Clarence Potter, in a dutiful way. As quickly as he could, he eased the professor out of his office. Then he called the President of the CSA-this couldn’t wait. “Featherston here.” That harsh, furious voice was familiar to everyone in the CSA, and doubly so to Potter, who’d heard it in person long before most Confederate citizens started hearing it on the wireless.
The line between his own office and the President’s bunker was supposed to be secure. He picked his words with care all the same: “I just had a visit from the fellow at the university.”
“Did you, now?” Jake Featherston said with sudden sharp interest. “And what did he have to say?”
“He’s jumped through one hoop,” Potter answered. “I’ll send you the details as soon as I can. But we really are moving forward.”
“Hot damn,” Featherston said. “The fucking Yankees are moving forward, too. I swear to God, Potter, sometimes I wonder if this country deserves to win the war. If we let those nigger-loving mongrels kick the crap out of us, we aren’t the kind of people I reckoned we were.”
“I don’t know anything about that, sir,” Potter said, in lieu of something like, I see. It’s not your fault we’re losing the war. It’s God’s fault. Potter didn’t think that was true. But even if it were, it didn’t help, because what could a mere mortal do about God? “I do know our friend thinks he can get this done.”