The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century by Harry Turtledove Page B

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