The general said nothing.
The President touched a green square on the keypad built into the desk’s surface. A door opened and three more people—a man and two women —entered the Oval Office: the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Advisor.
Exactly when the digital clock on the President’s desk read 12:00:00, the large display screen that took up much of the wall opposite her desk lit up to reveal the face of Yuri Kolgoroff, General Secretary of the Communist Party and President of the Soviet Union. He was much younger than his predecessors had been, barely in his midfifties, and rather handsome in a Slavic way. If his hair had been a few shades darker and his chin just a little rounder, he would have looked strikingly like the President’s science advisor.
“Madam President,” said Kolgoroff, in flawless American-accented English, “it is good of you to accept my invitation to discuss the differences between our two nations.”
“I am always eager to resolve differences,” said the President.
“I believe we can accomplish much.” Kolgoroff smiled, revealing large white teeth.
“I have before me,” said the President, glancing at the computer screen on her desk, “the agenda that our ministers worked out . . .”
“There is no need for that,” said the Soviet leader. “Why encumber ourselves with such formalities?”
The President smiled. “Very well. What do you have in mind?”
“It is very simple. We want the United States to withdraw all its troops from Europe and to dismantle NATO. Also, your military and naval bases in Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines must be disbanded. Finally, your injunctions against the Soviet Union concerning trade in high-technology items must be ended.”
The President’s face went white. It took her a moment to gather the wits to say, “And what do you propose to offer in exchange for these . . . concessions?”
“In exchange?” Kolgoroff laughed. “Why, we will allow you to live. We will refrain from bombing your cities.”
“You’re insane!” snapped the President.
Still grinning, Kolgoroff replied, “We will see who is sane and who is mad. One minute before this conversation began, I ordered a limited nuclear attack against every NATO base in Europe, and a counterforce attack against the ballistic missiles still remaining in your silos in the American Midwest.”
The red panic light on the President’s communications console began flashing frantically.
“But that’s impossible!” burst the science advisor. He leaped from his chair and pointed at Kolgoroff’s image in the big display screen. “An attack of that size will bring on Nuclear Winter! You’ll be killing yourselves as well as us!”
Kolgoroff smiled pityingly at the scientist. “We have computers also, Professor. We know how to count. The attack we have launched is just below the threshold for Nuclear Winter. It will not blot out the sun everywhere on Earth. Believe me, we are not such fools as you think.”
“But . . .”
“But,” the Soviet leader went on, smile vanished and voice iron-hard, “should you be foolish enough to launch a counterstrike with your remaining missiles or bombers, that will break the camel’s back, so to speak. The additional explosions of your counterstrike will bring on Nuclear Winter.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“I am deadly serious,” Kolgoroff replied. Then a faint hint of his smile returned. “But do not be afraid. We have not targeted Washington. Or any of your cities, for that matter. You will live—under Soviet governance.”
The President turned to the science advisor. “What should I do?”
The science advisor shook his head.
“What should I do?” she asked the others seated around her.
They said nothing. Not a word.
She turned to the general. “What should I do?”
He got to his feet and headed for the door. Over his shoulder he answered, “Learn Russian.”
LOWER THE RIVER
I worked for a dozen years at Avco Everett Research Laboratory, in Massachusetts. In many ways, it was the best experience of my life. I was living a science-fiction writer’s dream, surrounded by brilliant scientists, engineers, and technicians working on cutting-edge research in everything from high-power lasers to artificial hearts.
We got involved in developing superconducting magnets in the early 1960s. Superconductors can generate enormously intense magnetic fields, and once energized they do not need to be continuously fed electrical power, as ordinary electromagnets do.
But they only remain magnetized if they are kept below a certain critical temperature. For the superconductors of the 1960s, the necessary temperature was a decidedly frosty —423.04 Fahrenheit, only a few degrees above absolute zero. The coolant we used was liquified helium.
In the 1980s, “high-temperature” superconductors were discovered: they work at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, -320.8T. Whoopee.
The search for a room-temperature superconductor, one that will remain superconducting at a comfortable 70 F and therefore would not need cryogenic coolants, is being pushed in many labs.
In the meantime, business colleges have sent their graduates into all sorts of industries. What would happen, I wondered, if one of these MB As tried to use the management techniques of goal-setting and negative incentives on a physicist who is laboring to produce a room temperature superconductor?
“Lower the River” is the result.
