The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century Read online

  He opened his eyes and found he could still see. The engines still roared, the props spun. “Those were the shockwaves from the bomb,” Fitch called. “We’re okay now. Look at that! Will you look at that son-ofabitch go!”

  January looked. The cloud layer below had burst apart, and a black column of smoke billowed up from a core of red fire. Already the top of the column was at their height. Exclamations of shock clattered painfully in January’s ears. He stared at the fiery base of the cloud, at the scores of fires feeding into it. Suddenly he could see past the cloud, and his fingernails cut into his palms. Through a gap in the clouds he saw it clearly, the delta, the six rivers, there off to the left of the tower of smoke: the city of Hiroshima, untouched.

  “We missed!” Kochenski yelled. “We missed it!”

  January turned to hide his face from the pilots; on it was a grin like a rictus. He sat back in his seat and let the relief fill him.

  Then it was back to it. “God damn it!” Fitch shouted down at him. McDonald was trying to restrain him. “January, get up here!”

  “Yes, sir.” Now there was a new set of problems.

  January stood and turned, legs weak. His right fingertips throbbed painfully. The men were crowded forward to look out the Plexiglas. January looked with them.

  The mushroom cloud was forming. It roiled out as if it might continue to extend forever, fed by the inferno and the black stalk below it. It looked about two miles wide, and a half mile tall, and it extended well above the height they flew at, dwarfing their plane entirely. “Do you think we’ll all be sterile?” Matthews said.

  “I can taste the radiation,” McDonald declared. “Can you? It tastes like lead.”

  Bursts of flame shot up into the cloud from below, giving a purplish tint to the stalk. There it stood: lifelike, malignant, sixty thousand feet tall. One bomb. January shoved past the pilots into the navigation cabin, overwhelmed.

  “Should I start recording everyone’s reaction, Captain?” asked Benton.

  “To hell with that,” Fitch said, following January back. But Shepard got there first, descending quickly from the navigation dome. He rushed across the cabin, caught January on the shoulder. “You bastard!” he screamed as January stumbled back. “You lost your nerve, coward!”

  January went for Shepard, happy to have a target at last, but Fitch cut in and grabbed him by the collar, pulled him around until they were face to face—

  “Is that right?” Fitch cried, as angry as Shepard. “Did you screw up on purpose?”

  “No,” January grunted, and knocked Fitch’s hands away from his neck. He swung and smacked Fitch on the mouth, caught him solid. Fitch staggered back, recovered, and no doubt would have beaten January up, but Matthews and Benton and Stone leaped in and held him back, shouting for order. “Shut up! Shut up!” McDonald screamed from the cockpit, and for a moment it was bedlam, but Fitch let himself be restrained, and soon only McDonald’s shouts for quiet were heard. January retreated to between the pilot seats, right hand on his pistol holster.

  “The city was in the crosshairs when I flipped the switch,” he said. “But the first couple of times I flipped it nothing happened—”

  “That’s a lie!” Shepard shouted. “There was nothing wrong with the switch, I checked it myself. Besides, the bomb exploded miles beyond Hiroshima, look for yourself! That’s minutes.” He wiped spit from his chin and pointed at January. “You did it.”

  “You don’t know that,” January said. But he could see the men had been convinced by Shepard, and he took a step back. “You just get me to a board of inquiry, quick. And leave me alone till then. If you touch me again,” glaring venomously at Fitch and then Shepard, “I’ll shoot you.” He turned and hopped down to his seat, feeling exposed and vulnerable, like a treed raccoon.

  “They’ll shoot you for this,” Shepard screamed after him. “Disobeying orders—treason—” Matthews and Stone were shutting him up.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he heard McDonald say. “I can taste the lead, can’t you?”

  January looked out the Plexiglas. The giant cloud still burned and roiled. One atom . . . Well, they had really done it to that forest. He almost laughed but stopped himself, afraid of hysteria. Through a break in the clouds he got a clear view of Hiroshima for the first time. It lay spread over its islands like a map, unharmed. Well, that was that. The inferno at the base of the mushroom cloud was eight or ten miles around the shore of the bay and a mile or two inland. A certain patch of forest would be gone, destroyed—utterly blasted from the face of the earth. The Japs would be able to go out and investigate the damage. And if they were told it was a demonstration, a warning—and if they acted fast—well, they had their chance. Maybe it would work.

  The release of tension made January feel sick. Then he recalled Shepard’s words and he knew that whether his plan worked or not he was still in trouble. In trouble! It was worse than that. Bitterly he cursed the Japanese, he even wished for a moment that he had dropped it on them. Wearily he let his despair empty him.

  A long while later he sat up straight. Once again he was a trapped animal. He began lunging for escape, casting about for plans. One alternative after another. All during the long grim flight home he considered it, mind spinning at the speed of the props and beyond. And when they came down on Tinian he had a plan. It was a long shot, he reckoned, but it was the best he could do.

  THE BRIEFING HUT was surrounded by MPs again. January stumbled from the truck with the rest and walked inside. He was more than ever aware of the looks given him, and they were hard, accusatory. He was too tired to care. He hadn’t slept in more than thirty-six hours, and had slept very little since the last time he had been in the hut, a week before. Now the room quivered with the lack of engineer vibration to stabilize it, and the silence roared. It was all he could do to hold on to the bare essentials of his plan. The glares of Fitch and Shepard, the hurt incomprehension of Matthews, they had to be thrust out of his focus. Thankfully he lit a cigarette.

  In a clamor of question and argument the others described the strike. Then the haggard Scholes and an intelligence officer led them through the bombing run. January’s plan made it necessary to hold to his story: “ . . . and when the AP was under the crosshairs I pushed down the switch, but got no signal. I flipped it up and down repeatedly until the tone kicked in. At that point there was still fifteen seconds to the release.”

  “Was there anything that may have caused the tone to start when it did?”

  “Not that I noticed immediately, but—”

  “It’s impossible,” Shepard interrupted, face red. “I checked the switch before we flew and there was nothing wrong with it. Besides, the drop occurred over a minute—”

  “Captain Shepard,” Scholes said. “We’ll hear from you presently.”

  “But he’s obviously lying—”

  “Captain Shepard! It’s not at all obvious. Don’t speak unless questioned.”

  “Anyway,” January said, hoping to shift the questions away from the issue of the long delay, “I noticed something about the bomb when it was falling that could explain why it stuck. I need to discuss it with one of the scientists familiar with the bomb’s design.”

  “What was that?” Scholes asked suspiciously.

  January hesitated. “There’s going to be an inquiry, right?”

  Scholes frowned. “This is the inquiry, Captain January. Tell us what you saw.”

  “But there will be some proceeding beyond this one?”

  “It looks like there’s going to be a court-martial, yes, Captain.”

  “That’s what I thought. I don’t want to talk to anyone but my counsel, and some scientist familiar with the bomb.”

  “I’m a scientist familiar with the bomb,” Shepard burst out. “You could tell me if you really had anything, you—”

  “I said I need a scientist!” January exclaimed, rising to face the scarlet Shepard across the table. “Not a G-God damned mechanic.” Shepard s
tarted to shout, others joined in and the room rang with argument. While Scholes restored order January sat down, and he refused to be drawn out again.

  “I’ll see you’re assigned counsel, and initiate the court-martial,” Scholes said, clearly at a loss. “Meanwhile you are under arrest, on suspicion of disobeying orders in combat.” January nodded, and Scholes gave him over to the MPs.

  “One last thing,” January said, fighting exhaustion. “Tell General Le May that if the Japs are told this drop was a warning, it might have the same effect as—”

  “I told you!” Shepard shouted. “I told you he did it on purpose!”

  Men around Shepard restrained him. But he had convinced most of them, and even Matthews stared at him with surprised anger.

  January shook his head wearily. He had the dull feeling that his plan, while it had succeeded so far, was ultimately not a good one. “Just trying to make the best of it.” It took all of his remaining will to force his legs to carry him in a dignified manner out of the hut.

  HIS CELL was an empty NCO’s office. MPs brought his meals. For the first couple of days he did little but sleep. On the third day he glanced out the office’s barred window, and saw a tractor pulling a tarpaulin-draped trolley out of the compound, followed by jeeps filled with MPs. It looked like a military funeral. January rushed to the door and banged on it until one of the young MPs came.

  “What’s that they’re doing out there?” January demanded.

  Eyes cold and mouth twisted, the MP said, “They’re making another strike. They’re going to do it right this time.”

  “No!” January cried. “No!” He rushed the MP, who knocked him back and locked the door. “No!” He beat the door until his hands hurt, cursing wildly. “You don’t need to do it, it isn’t necessary.” Shell shattered at last, he collapsed on the bed and wept. Now everything he had done would be rendered meaningless. He had sacrificed himself for nothing.

  A day or two after that the MPs led in a colonel, an iron-haired man who stood stiffly and crushed January’s hand when he shook it. His eyes were a pale, icy blue.

  “I am Colonel Dray,” he said. “I have been ordered to defend you in court-martial.” January could feel the dislike pouring from the man. “To do that I’m going to need every fact you have, so let’s get started.”

  “I’m not talking to anybody until I’ve seen an atomic scientist.”

  “I am your defense counsel—”

  “I don’t care who you are,” January said. “Your defense of me depends on you getting one of the scientists here. The higher up he is, the better. And I want to speak to him alone.”

  “I will have to be present.”

  So he would do it. But now January’s lawyer, too, was an enemy.

  “Naturally,” January said. “You’re my lawyer. But no one else. Our atomic secrecy may depend on it.”

  “You saw evidence of sabotage?”

  “Not one word more until that scientist is here.”

  Angrily the colonel nodded and left.

  Late the next day the colonel returned with another man. “This is Dr. Forest.”

  “I helped develop the bomb,” Forest said. He had a crew cut and dressed in fatigues, and to January he looked more Army than the colonel. Suspiciously he stared back and forth at the two men.

  “You’ll vouch for this man’s identity on your word as an officer?” he asked Dray.

  “Of course,” the colonel said stiffly, offended.

  “So,” Dr. Forest said. “You had some trouble getting it off when you wanted to. Tell me what you saw.”

  “I saw nothing,” January said harshly. He took a deep breath; it was time to commit himself. “I want you to take a message back to the scientists. You folks have been working on this thing for years, and you must have had time to consider how the bomb should have been used. You know we could have convinced the Japs to surrender by showing them a demonstration—”

  “Wait a minute,” Forest said. “You’re saying you didn’t see anything? There wasn’t a malfunction?”

  “That’s right,” January said, and cleared his throat. “It wasn’t necessary, do you understand?”

  Forest was looking at Colonel Dray. Dray gave him a disgusted shrug. “He told me he saw evidence of sabotage.”

  “I want you to go back and ask the scientists to intercede for me,” January said, raising his voice to get the man’s attention. “I haven’t got a chance in that court-martial. But if the scientists defend me then maybe they’ll let me live, see? I don’t want to get shot for doing something every one of you scientists would have done.”

  Dr. Forest had backed away. Color rising, he said, “What makes you think that’s what we would have done? Don’t you think we considered it? Don’t you think men better qualified than you made the decision?” He waved a hand. “God damn it—what made you think you were competent to decide something as important as that!”

  January was appalled at the man’s reaction; in his plan it had gone differently. Angrily he jabbed a finger at Forest. “Because I was the man doing it, Doctor Forest. You take even one step back from that and suddenly you can pretend it’s not your doing. Fine for you, but I was there.”

  At every word the man’s color was rising. It looked like he might pop a vein in his neck. January tried once more. “Have you ever tried to imagine what one of your bombs would do to a city full of people?”

  “I’ve had enough!” the man exploded. He turned to Dray. “I’m under no obligation to keep what I’ve heard here confidential. You can be sure it will be used as evidence in Captain January’s court-martial.” He turned and gave January a look of such blazing hatred that January understood it. For these men to admit he was right would mean admitting that they were wrong—that every one of them was responsible for his part in the construction of the weapon January had refused to use. Understanding that, January knew he was doomed.

  The bang of Dr. Forest’s departure still shook the little office. January sat on his cot, got out a smoke. Under Colonel Dray’s cold gaze he lit one shakily, took a drag. He looked up at the colonel, shrugged. “It was my best chance,” he explained. That did something—for the first and only time the cold disdain in the colonel’s eyes shifted to a little, hard, lawyerly gleam of respect.

  The court-martial lasted two days. The verdict was guilty of disobeying orders in combat and of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The sentence was death by firing squad.

  For most of his remaining days January rarely spoke, drawing ever further behind the mask that had hidden him for so long. A clergyman came to see him, but it was the 509th’s chaplain, the one who had said the prayer blessing the Lucky Strike’s mission before they took off. Angrily January sent him packing.

  Later, however, a young Catholic priest dropped by. His name was Patrick Getty. He was a little pudgy man, bespectacled and, it seemed, somewhat afraid of January. January let the man talk to him. When he returned the next day January talked back a bit, and on the day after that he talked some more. It became a habit.

  Usually January talked about his childhood. He talked of plowing mucky black bottom land behind a mule. Of running down the lane to the mailbox. Of reading books by the light of the moon after he had been ordered to sleep, and of being beaten by his mother for it with a high-heeled shoe. He told the priest the story of the time his arm had been burnt, and about the car crash at the bottom of Fourth Street. “It’s the truck driver’s face I remember, do you see, Father?”

  “Yes,” the young priest said. “Yes.”

  And he told him about the game he had played in which every action he took tipped the balance of world affairs. “When I remembered that game I thought it was dumb. Step on a sidewalk crack and cause an earthquake—you know, it’s stupid. Kids are like that.” The priest nodded. “But now I’ve been thinking that if everybody were to live their whole lives like that, thinking that every move they made really was important, then . . . it might make a difference.”
He waved a hand vaguely, expelled cigarette smoke. “You’re accountable for what you do.”

  “Yes,” the priest said. “Yes, you are.”

  “And if you’re given orders to do something wrong, you’re still accountable, right? The orders don’t change it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmph.” January smoked a while. “So they say, anyway. But look what happens.” He waved at the office. “I’m like the guy in a story I read—he thought everything in books was true, and after reading a bunch of westerns he tried to rob a train. They tossed him in jail.” He laughed shortly. “Books are full of crap.”

  “Not all of them,” the priest said. “Besides, you weren’t trying to rob a train.”

  They laughed at the notion. “Did you read that story?”

  “No.”

  “It was the strangest book—there were two stories in it, and they alternated chapter by chapter, but they didn’t have a thing to do with each other! I didn’t get it.”

  “ . . . Maybe the writer was trying to say that everything connects to everything else.”

  “Maybe. But it’s a funny way to say it.”

  “I like it.”

  And so they passed the time, talking.

  SO IT WAS the priest who was the one to come by and tell January that his request for a Presidential pardon had been refused. Getty said awkwardly, “It seems the President approves the sentence.”

  “That bastard,” January said weakly. He sat on his cot.

  Time passed. It was another hot, humid day.

  “Well,” the priest said. “Let me give you some better news. Given your situation I don’t think telling you matters, though I’ve been told not to. The second mission—you know there was a second strike?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they missed too.”