Stallion Gate

  Drawn up to the Dragon on steel tables were a Geiger counter, a radiation graph that drew a red line on rolling paper, and a neutron scaler that measured radiation with a bank of six red lights. If the Dragon got too hot and Joe didn't react in time, the three counters were wired to drop the hydraulic piston, bottom bowl and core to the floor.

  Wearing a long white lab coat, Harvey plotted the curve of criticality with a slide rule and clipboard. "Raise it ten inches," he said.

  Joe pushed the green button as Oppy continued the argument that had gone on all morning.

  "You say, Harvey, that the Japanese are all but defeated. By any rational measure, they should be, I agree. You think it would be feasible to set off the bomb in a publicly announced demonstration. An island in TokyoBay would be ideal. Somewhere they could bring their best scientists and generals. If we do drop the bomb on them, you want it to be employed against a remote, purely military target, a base as far as possible from civilians. You don't see why women and children should die simply because we want to make a point. You add that there are American POWs in a number of the Japanese cities we may have contemplated attacking. You believe that if we are the first nation to use such a weapon we will be historically tainted. That we will sacrifice the good will of the entire world. Much worse, you fear an armaments race, a building of horrible weapon after horrible weapon, such as mankind has never known and cannot survive. That our actually using such a weapon in war will poison any chance of international agreement on the future control of such apocalyptic devices. Last, we bear the direct and special responsibility of these weapons because we are the men and women who created them. Who should say how and if these weapons are used if not us? Is that a fair summation of your arguments?"

  Those indeed were Harvey's points better than Harvey himself had put them. Abashed, he kept his eyes to the clipboard.

  "Eight inches more."

  "We all have the same nightmares," Oppy said as he walked, hands in his jacket pockets, toes out, around Harvey, the tables, the Dragon. "These are the years of nightmares and they are not ended yet. If you walked away before Trinity, I would not blame you. I'd envy you." Oppy lifted his gaunt face, evidence of his fatigue. "We'd all envy you."

  Joe did figures in his head. By calling in loans and cashing his last gas coupons and travel vouchers, he could bring his bankroll to $20,000. How could he more than double it in two weeks? How much scotch and commissary sugar could a man sell?

  Maybe high explosives were the answer. Hilario had mentioned contractors down in Albuquerque. With a couple of mules, he could clean out the magazine bunkers on Two Mile Mesa.

  "To go up into the mountains for a year," Oppy said. "Not see a headline or hear a radio. Not come down until the entire, awful thing is over."

  Harvey glanced at Joe for psychic support. "Five inches."

  Assuming he got the money together, there was the problem of musicians. He could only afford a couple of men from New York or Kansas City. He'd have to use some Mexicans. Horn players. There was a trolley that ran from Juarez to El Paso, and he could slip them over the border that way.

  As the two bowls came within a foot of each other the Geiger counter started to concentrate on what was happening, taking a definite interest. The scaler measured fast neutrons by multiplication. One light for two neutrons, two lights for four. Up to six lights for sixty-four escaping particles, then starting over again. The red lights blinked like eyes rousing from a nap.

  "It won't be over soon." Oppy's voice took a sharper tone. "The Japanese didn't give up on Iwo Jima or Okinawa. They will fight ten times harder on their own islands. It won't be just kamikaze planes. Army intelligence says they're building kamikaze boats and teaching people to strap dynamite to their chests. The estimate I've seen for the invasion is one million casualties. Japanese and American, soldiers and civilians."

  "Four inches," Harvey said.

  There was a bar and kitchen to stock. Utilities, water, linen. It might be tricky, getting around the liquor laws on Indians. He might not be allowed to pour a bottle even if he owned the place.

  The Dragon shone like ice.

  "A demonstration on an island sounds like a good idea," Oppy said. "With a bunker for the Emperor and his generals. But what if a single enormous blast didn't convince the Japanese that it was caused by a single weapon? We can barely convince our generals, let alone theirs. And what if the bomb was a dud?"

  "Eighty percent critical." Harvey watched the red line on the graph paper, and then for the first time answered Oppy. "The uranium bomb works."

  "We have two bombs. The uranium bomb we think will work, and the plutonium bomb we hope will work. We don't have enough refined uranium to make another. The plutonium bomb must be tested at Trinity. We can get more plutonium, though it won't matter if Trinity doesn't work. The point is, we have none to expend on good intentions and mere fireworks." Oppy spoke through a veil of weariness. "God knows, I wish we did. But the invasion will be carried out before bad weather sets in over the Japanese islands. It won't be postponed while we build more bombs or while we negotiate when and where the Emperor should sit for a better view of a peaceful demonstration. Should he come to Trinity? Trinity is in twelve days. Stop time for me, Harvey. Give me more bombs and a cushion for the divine Emperor to sit on and watch."

  "Three more inches, Joe. Then at least a base, Oppy, not a city."

  "A waste. A waste of the bomb and a waste of the soldiers. The Japanese would censor every report and all that would be left would be a wisp of smoke and rumors. You know the blast effects, Harvey. There wouldn't even be that much to see in a camp– not like a city, not like buildings."

  "Not like civilians?"

  "A target that will end the war, Harvey."

  "Civilians and American POWs?"

  "They'll put POWs in every city. And how many more POWs and dead and wounded will there be after the invasion? How many cities will we conventionally bomb off the map? How many American graves?"

  "I didn't become a physicist to learn how to vaporize Japanese." Harvey's voice rose.

  "None of us did." Oppy's voice became nearly tender. "But you tell a mother of a young soldier who died on the beach of Japan —and there will be many thousands of them— that you had a bomb that could have ended the war and that you chose not to use it. Tell his wife. Tell his children."

  The Geiger counter ticked like a speeded-up clock. The scaler lights multiplied rapidly now that the two bowls were only eight inches apart. In the shadow between, the ball still glittered, like a note between two cymbals. A chain reaction of one kilogram of plutonium released as much energy as thirty-four million pounds of TNT, Joe had heard. Some percussion.

  "The issue is not the weapon, Harvey, but the war. Ending the war and saving us from the hideous slaughter to come."

  The trade-off for that kind of power was an alpha radiation that could destroy first the bone marrow, then the kidney. Everyone knew that the doctors on the Hill refused any responsibility for the Dragon.

  "Eighty-eight percent critical at three inches." Harvey scanned the rolling graph. "The issue is the future after the war. Two inches, Joe."

  After the war the Army would close its bases in New Mexico, Joe thought. The soldiers would be coming home from Europe and the Pacific, though, and they'd flock to the Casa Mañana.

  "Teller had the same fears. I'll tell you what I told him: that if the issue is the world's postwar future —and I agree it is— the only way to demonstrate the implausibility of any more war is to use this bomb, to make all mankind a witness. This, finally, will be the war to end all wars. Edward Teller will be with us at Trinity. In fact, I had hoped that you would do the countdown for the test."

  "Eighty-nine," Harvey read.

  The Geiger counter sounded like a bow drawn across a bass string. The lights of the scaler flickered, drawing nervous red dashes.

  "One more inch, Joe," Harvey said.

  "After the war there will have to be internat
ional control of all nuclear devices, and international cooperation for the peacetime uses of the atom. A sober, frightened world will do that, Harvey. But we will have to take the moral lead. We will share information with our allies."

  "With Russia?" Joe asked.

  "Yes, with Russia. Of course," Oppy said.

  "Ninety percent. Half an inch, very slowly."

  The Geiger counter echoed an accelerating, snapping wave of electrons.

  "The future is then," Oppy said. "The war is now. The Japanese would use the bomb if they had it. They wouldn't hesitate. They started this war. Our cause is just. It is written in the Bhagavad Gita that 'There is a war that opens the gates of heaven. Happy are the warriors whose fate it is to fight such a war. Not to fight for righteousness is to abandon duty and honor.' We scientists are soldiers, no more. We are on this mesa by an accident of history, because our nation has been attacked. We have no special competence in political or social or military affairs. We are not the people elected or trained to make those decisions. We are not an elite divinely chosen, simply because we are physicists, to govern mankind."

  "Stop."

  Closed to within an inch, the Dragon's two bowls nearly made a single gray moon, almost hiding an inner, brighter moon. There was a faint rise in the Geiger's pitch, a touch more hysteria in the red lights.

  "Still ninety percent," Harvey said happily. It was just what he had predicted.

  "Yes?" Oppy asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Ask Joe. This is why I wanted Joe along, because he is the only man you know who has actually fought. Speaking for the men who will be on the boats that will hit Japan in a few months' time, Joe, what would you say to Harvey?"

  You sly son of a bitch, Joe thought. He took his hand from the button and found his thumb had cramped. He'd listened to the ticking of atomic particles, but what had rilled the hangar were words, a web of them spreading and connecting from roof to floor. And all preamble to ensnare Harvey so that Joe could strike the final blow.

  "Tell me, Joe," Harvey said.

  "Speaking for the boys in the boats," Joe said, "I'd say you were a phony, I'd say you were lower than a Jap. I'd say you were actually a traitor."

  Harvey swallowed. The Geiger amplified electrons at the anode, ions at the cathode. Neutrons danced to the beat of lights.

  "On the other hand…" Joe moved closer to the Dragon. "Speaking as a friend, I don't think you should care what anyone says." He leaned across the Dragon's near-moon and nearly buried core. "If you really think the bomb is that bad, then–"

  Ticking soared into whine. Stylus flew from graph paper. The six scaler lights were solid red, flashing so fast that no intervals could be seen. The hydraulic piston dropped, carrying the bottom bowl with it, shaking the concrete pad of the floor. The silvery core lurched up to the lip of the bowl's hollow, made an indolent circuit, then dropped heavily back into place. The whine plummeted. Red lights flashed again with a slow, regular pulse.

  "What the hell was that?" Joe looked at the stylus, still vibrating free. A red line led off the paper. "The Dragon went off all by itself."

  "Don't move!" Harvey began sketching on his clipboard.

  Joe was close enough to Harvey to see him draw an outline of the room, the position of each man around the Dragon, equations, a curve of criticality. There was a foul greasiness to the air, a smell of melted paraffin.

  Joe still wanted to finish what he was going to say, but the moment had gone. Imploded. Oppy knew it; the blue gaze said it. That was the color of Oppy's eyes, Joe thought: ion-blue.

  "You set me up."

  "I asked you to tell the truth and you did," Oppy answered.

  "I'm not done."

  "Yes, you are."

  Harvey stared up from his scribbling. "You did it!" he told Joe.

  "Me?"

  "The core was already near the margin of criticality. The human body is composed mostly of water – dihydrogen monoxide - which reflects the neutrons. Oppy and I didn't matter. You're bigger. When you leaned over the Dragon, you triggered the counters."

  "You're a more unpredictable factor than I'd thought," Oppy said.

  "It doesn't matter," Harvey said, "we got the data."

  "Well, are we radioactive now?" Joe asked.

  "We're fine," Harvey said. "Nothing really happened."

  "Nothing really happened," Oppy agreed.

  They looked at Joe with twin scientific detachment, a sudden, palpable line between them and him. He stared back, for the first time his mind fully engaged. It was obvious that Oppy had won. What was interesting was Harvey's surrender, his relief about it.

  "You know," Harvey said and turned to Oppy, "it occurs to me that the bomb would probably be flown to Japan. What if the plane crashed? Maybe I should run the Dragon in salt water."

  Even his Southwestern tonalities seemed to change subtly, to ape unconsciously Oppy's Eastern croak. His stance shifted, his enthusiasm grew.

  The effort of winning Harvey back had taken a toll on Oppy. Each crisis appeared to take an ounce of flesh, and now he looked cadaverous and more determined than ever. He nodded proudly, encouraging the flow of ideas that was purely Harvey, until Harvey asked, "You really wanted me to count down Trinity?"

  "I wanted an American physicist to do it," Oppy answered, "and my first thought was you. An American voice."

  "Listen." Joe broke the mood.

  Oppy snapped, "What?"

  "Just listen."

  Omega was hidden in tall pines, amid the calls of jays and canyon wrens, the wind tugging at treetops. It took a moment to hear the siren.

  "Fire," Harvey said.

  They counted the blasts together. Oppy wore an ironic smile, as if disaster were only to be expected.

  "Tech Area," said Joe.

  In the middle of the Hill, squeezed between the

  Main Drive

  and the mesa's southern rim, the Tech Area held twenty-six nondescript buildings. Each structure was labeled with a placard from "A" to "Z", but this was the only sense of order to them. Half were white Army clapboard, half green Army sheetrock. They were at all angles to one another and shared a military style that decreed that every side look like the back.

  A transformer was burning. In some ways the fire was well located: at the back of the Tech Area, away from the gas stocks, cyclotron and particle accelerator, near the fire station and close to hydrants. But it had taken time to cut power to the transformer, and by the time Joe and Oppy arrived, power poles, cables, switching equipment and the high wooden fence around the transformer were all throwing flames and creosote-black smoke into the afternoon. Because of the fence, firemen couldn't get their hoses as close to the transformer as they wanted.

  Watching the firemen and the fire was the whole population of the Tech Area: physicists from the cyclotron shack, soldiers from the boiler house, doctors from the medical labs, office clerks and, in front, the Indians who swept every building. A truckload of construction workers rolled up to join the spectators.

  Oppy stared at the fire. "No, no, no," he insisted.

  His prayer was answered. The Texans leapt from the flatbed of the truck. As soon as they were off, the driver honked and moved toward the fire. The truck was an old Reo with a girder for a bumper, and as fire fighters ran from its path, the truck accelerated until it rammed through the burning fence and into the concrete barrier around the transformer. The truck backed up, lurched forward again and crashed into the burning gate of the fence. The driver rammed the fire a final time, taking out the other fence posts and shoveling more rubble into the transformer and around the base of the power poles. He backed into the clear, kicked open the cab door and hopped down like a rider who had just busted a cow in record time. He was big, in a blue work shirt and jeans, the only construction man in a shirt. He was young, with a fair crew cut and the fluid, arrogant grace of an athlete. A hero. He thrust his left fist into the air. A southpaw.

  While technicians swarmed around Opp
y, as if the truck had been a manifestation of his will, Joe stood aside and was joined by Felix Tafoya. On the Hill, with his khaki work clothes and push broom, Felix was invisible; in Santiago, he was the calf cutter and brander, an honored figure. His nose had been kicked askew by a hoof years before.

  "That tejano," he told Joe, "that's Hilario's fighter."

  "Seen Hilario lately?"

  "I'm cutting tomorrow. Hilario's bringing someone who wants to see a real old-fashioned cutting."

  The fire chief led Oppy and Joe around the remains of the transformer. He was a civilian named Daley. Smoke had turned to a film of ash on his face, rubberized coat and boots. He coughed up phlegm dark as tar. Both high-voltage poles were charred and iridescent. Burned cables and wire floated on mud. Joe imagined that Daley was conducting the tour out of professional habit, as if they were stepping through the smoking bricks of a tenement.

  "This is really what I wanted to show you and the sergeant." Daley picked out of the mud a carved zigzag, half blistered gold, half blackened wood.

  "The dancers had those at the pueblo," Oppy said.

  "It's a lightning wand. It's supposed to bring lightning," Joe explained. "Did it?"

  "People saw the bolt hit," Daley said.

  Oppy looked impatiently in the direction of his office. When he glanced back, he was smiling. "Joe, arson by Indian wand is your department. You handle this. I can walk from here."

  "Before you do," Joe said quickly, "I heard some calves are being cut in Santiago tomorrow. I ought to be there in case any of them are hot."

  "Cows and wands are definitely your crucial responsibility. Just make sure you're at the La Fonda by eleven. We have visitors coming."

  Oppy stepped out of the mire, slapped soot off his hat and headed in the direction of the administration building.