The Oppenheimer Alternative

by Robert J. Sawyer

  “To this extent,” Teller continued, “I feel that I would like to see the vital interests of this country in hands which I understand better and therefore trust more. In this very limited sense I would feel personally more secure if public matters would rest in other hands.”

  Oppie’s heart sank. He felt ... he felt like Chevalier must have when he’d learned Robert had named him to the authorities. There was bile in his throat.

  Surely that was enough. Surely Robb now had everything he needed. But no. The bastard was insatiable. “Doctor, I would like to ask for your expert opinion again. In your opinion, if Dr. Oppenheimer should go fishing for the rest of his life, what would be the effect upon the atomic-energy and the thermonuclear programs?”

  Jesus Christ, thought Oppie. For fuck’s sake.

  “You mean from now on?” asked Teller.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Teller shifted his bulk again. “In that case I should like to say two things. Within the A.E.C., I should say that whole committees could go fishing without affecting the work of those who are actively engaged in the work.” Oppie saw the three members of the board look startled. “In particular, however, the general recommendations that I know have come from Oppenheimer were more frequently—and I mean not only and not even particularly the thermonuclear case but other cases—more frequently a hindrance than a help, and therefore I think that further work of Dr. Oppenheimer on committees would not be helpful.”

  Robb looked like he was going to speak again, but Chairman Gray held up a hand. “Do you feel that it would endanger the common defense and security to grant clearance to Dr. Oppenheimer?” he asked.

  Teller was silent for a time and when he at last spoke there was a note, Oppie thought, of contrition in the husky voice as if his old colleague realized he might have gone too far. “I believe—and that is merely a question of belief and there is no expertness, no real information behind it—that Dr. Oppenheimer’s character is such that he would not knowingly and willingly do anything that is designed to endanger the safety of this country. To the extent, therefore, that your question is directed toward intent, I would say I do not see any reason to deny clearance.”

  Oppie hadn’t been aware that he was holding his breath, but it suddenly exploded from him in a relieved sigh.

  But Teller wasn’t done, damn it all. “But if it is a question of wisdom and judgment, as demonstrated by actions since 1945, then I would say one would be wiser not to grant clearance.” He fell silent for a long moment then added, almost plaintively, “May I limit myself to these comments?”

  Gray said yes and dismissed Teller. Oppie had seen the man stand up countless times before. It was always a bit of an ordeal, as Teller had no feeling in his artificial foot. But at last he was erect. Oppie expected him to simply head toward the door, but Edward startled him by turning around and walking toward him. He loomed over Oppie and looked down with pale irises, hooded lids, and unkempt eyebrows. “I’m sorry,” he said, offering his hand.

  Oppie stared at the hand, so much meatier than his own. But it was his character that was being judged here, and the only thing to do was take it. “After what you’ve just said,” Robert replied softly, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Teller released his grip, turned, and shuffled toward the exit.

  Chapter 45

  There is a story behind my story. If a reporter digs deep enough he will find that it is a bigger story than my suspension.

  —J. Robert Oppenheimer

  There was nothing to do now but go back to Princeton and wait for the security board’s verdict. Oppenheimer was in no mood for administrative trivia. He went straight to the second-floor corner office in Building A, which was being used by Rabi’s Patient Power group, hoping for some distraction.

  “Well,” said Luis Alvarez as he paced the hypotenuse between the north and west windows and back again, “if we’re hoping to shield the earth from the photospheric purge, we want something that will stay stationary in between the earth and the sun so that the shield is in permanent conjunction from earth’s point of view.”

  “There’s no such orbit,” said Oppie, with a bit of the old glee he used to employ in shooting down students. “Or, to put it more precisely, there’s only one such orbit: the only orbit that goes around the sun in precisely 365 and one-quarter days is this one, the one occupied by earth.”

  “What about the Lagrange points?” asked Rabi, seated at the one desk in the room.

  Oppie, leaning back in a wooden chair, nodded. In any system in which a small body is under the gravitational influence of two large ones, there are five points at which the small body will theoretically be retained by the gravity of the larger ones, although only two of those points are stable in the long term. In the earth-moon system, the two stable ones are at the points of equilateral triangles that have the earth and the moon at the other vertices.

  “L1 is the point that’s correctly positioned between the sun and the earth,” said Oppie. “That’s where any shield should go, but it’s not stable. An object at L4 or L5 would stay in place—but at 400,000 kilometers ahead or behind the earth’s position in its orbit around the sun. No good for a shield.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Alvarez. “But suppose, as we get closer to the actual solar purge, we have bigger and bigger fusion bombs—which, if Teller gets his way, we surely will. And suppose by appropriately rocketing such bombs into the sun itself we could subtly alter the purge date, fine-tuning it a bit, until it landed on a day in which there’s naturally a large body shielding the earth from the sun.”

  “A solar eclipse!” declared Rabi.

  “Right,” said Alvarez. “If we can’t stop the purge, maybe we can regulate to some degree precisely when it occurs. And if we can get it to happen during a total solar eclipse, the moon could take the brunt of the blast, possibly shielding earth.”

  “The swath of totality is very narrow,” said Oppie, “and that’s pretty much the same thing as the part of the earth that would be shielded. For the total eclipse coming up next month, it’ll only be ninety-five miles wide.”

  “That’s better than nothing,” said Alvarez.

  “The timing is impossible,” Rabi said. “The maximum length of totality in even the best solar eclipse is what—seven minutes? Volkoff is still crunching the numbers to figure out what the duration of the photospheric purge will be—how long from when its leading edge touches the earth until the trailing one does—but it’s going to be way longer than seven minutes. As soon as a point on earth moves out of the umbra, it’ll be obliterated.”

  “And,” said Oppie, “you’re assuming the moon is solid enough to shield earth from the blast.”

  “Right,” said Alvarez. “The whole lunar surface might turn molten, but the actual astronomical body could survive.”

  “But the moon is very lightweight and not very dense,” said Rabi. “I suspect the purge will simply vaporize it.”

  “We still need to do the math,” said Alvarez.

  “Oh, we will, we will,” said Rabi. “But even if we could get the sun to basically hold its nose until we tell it that it can sneeze—and that’s one hell of a tall order—I still don’t think it’ll work. We need something dense—something that could have its outer volatile layers burned away but still leave behind a solid core to shield us.”

  “An iron core,” said Oppie. “Like the one the earth has.”

  Rabi nodded. “Yes. But you can’t use the earth to shield itself, obviously.”

  “No, no!” said Oppie. “But you might be able to use the earth to shield the moon!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Alvarez.

  “A total lunar eclipse: the sun, the earth, and the moon all in a straight line. As I said, the earth’s core is probably iron, right? Dense as hell. So, sure the oceans will be boiled off, and the crust burned away, but that iron c
ore might survive, and, everything in the core’s lee will be shielded from the onslaught. Under the specific geometry of a lunar eclipse, we still lose the earth, but we could, perhaps, see the moon spared. And even if the moon’s nearside still gets hammered—the ancient maria running liquid again—the far side might come through unscathed.”

  “If we can control the timing of the purge so that it coincides with a lunar eclipse,” said Rabi.

  “Yes,” agreed Oppie. “A slim chance, to be sure, but it would be a lot easier to move large numbers of humans to the far side of the moon than it would be to Mars.”

  “But we’re sure that Mars will survive, regardless,” said Alvarez. “It’s only the slimmest of chances that we could arrange for the earth to shield the moon.”

  “True,” said Oppie. “Mars should still be the primary target, if we can’t find some other way to prevent the purge or shield the earth.” He looked at the wall clock, Roman numerals orbiting its nucleus. “I’m bushed. These last few weeks have been murder on me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  #

  In the end, the verdict in the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer was delivered in writing. Oppie had just returned home to Olden Manor when the letter arrived, but it was Kitty who, in her cast, had hobbled to the door and dealt with the messenger. She came into the living room bearing the envelope. “It’s here.”

  Oppie looked up from his place on the couch and Kitty sat next to him. She used a silver letter opener to slit the flap then pulled out the pages, holding them so both she and he could read them simultaneously. Although they were laid out as unadorned paragraphs, never, thought Oppie, had the term “bullet list” been more appropriate:

  We have come to a clear conclusion that he is a loyal citizen. We have, however, been unable to arrive at the conclusion that it would be clearly consistent with the security interests of the United States to reinstate Dr. Oppenheimer’s clearance and therefore do not so recommend.

  We find that Dr. Oppenheimer’s continuing conduct and associations have reflected a serious disregard for the requirements of the security system.

  We find his conduct in the hydrogen bomb program sufficiently disturbing as to raise a doubt as to whether his future participation would be clearly consistent with the best interests of security.

  We have regretfully concluded that Dr. Oppenheimer has been less than candid in several instances in his testimony before this Board.

  “Well,” Oppie said, sagging into the upholstery. “That’s that.” His breathing was ragged. “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

  Kitty pulled him close, and he rested his head on her shoulder. “Assholes,” she said, and he nodded, his cheek stubble catching as it slid over the silk of her blouse. “Bad enough to put you through all that,” she continued, “but to humiliate me! Goddamned assholes.”

  To humiliate her. Yes, yes, what they had done was as unforgivable as what he had done. Pushing him about his relationship with Jean while his wife was sitting right there—right there! Barbarians.

  Kitty’s pain at having all of that paraded out was bad enough but even worse, he knew, was her realization that her prominence, her access to power, was over now, too.

  He closed his eyes, but ghosts are visible even thus, and Jean’s specter fluttered across his field of vision, sad and wan and lonely.

  Chapter 46

  Our failure to clear Dr. Oppenheimer will be a black mark on the escutcheon of our country.

  —Ward Evans, in his dissenting opinion as a member of Oppenheimer’s security board

  Edward Teller took a deep breath of the mountain air. There was nothing like the dry, floral-tinged scent of the Los Alamos mesa in summer, especially after the long flight from San Francisco and the dusty drive from Santa Fe. Oh, his house in Livermore, where he worked now, was so much nicer than the apartment he and Mici had shared here, but, still, for three intellectually invigorating years, this had been his home, and he was returning to it with joy. Mici had come along, too, leaving Paul, now eleven, and Wendy, a precocious seven, with Ernest Lawrence’s family. So many of the old gang had come back for this meeting! He’d never get to attend a high-school reunion in Budapest, but this gathering, nine years after the summer of Trinity, felt like a triumphant homecoming.

  They were staying in a guesthouse; their war-time quarters here were occupied by someone else now. A picnic was to be held on the eastern terrace of Fuller Lodge today, and he was eager to see his old friends.

  The sky was the luminous unblemished blue that came with high altitudes. Long tables were set up under awnings with bowls of Mexican-style salads and platters of dainty desserts. A couple of young men Edward didn’t know were manning a barbecue, serving up hamburgers and hot dogs. Well, there were many faces, after all these years, that he didn’t know, although he imagined most of these people knew who he was. He was certainly aware that his eyebrows were ... distinctive.

  Ah, but there was Robert Christy, a Canadian theoretician—the fellow who had confirmed Edward’s suggestion that the core of the implosion bomb should be a solid ball rather than the hollow sphere originally proposed. Shortly after the war, when housing was hard to find, Christy and his wife had shared a home in Chicago with Edward and Mici.

  Edward moved quickly toward him. “Bob!”

  Christy, who had a long thin face, a nose worthy of the same adjectives, full lips, and a cleft chin, was, at thirty-eight, eight years younger than Edward. He turned his attention toward Teller, and their eyes engaged for a moment. Edward extended his right hand, and—

  —and, without a word, Christy pivoted on his heel and walked away.

  Edward felt his mouth drop open, and Mici, who had now caught up with her husband, said, “How rude!” She plucked at Edward’s sleeve, aiming him toward I.I. Rabi, who was standing nearby.

  But a frown creased Rabi’s broad face, as Edward again proffered his hand. “I won’t shake your hand either, Edward,” he said.

  “Rabi,” asked Mici, “what’s going on?”

  Edward saw the Nobel laureate’s face soften as he looked at Mici. “Don’t you read the papers, Mrs. Teller?”

  She didn’t respond, and Rabi turned back to Edward. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here.”

  Edward looked around. Other people—old friends and colleagues as well as strangers—were looking at them now with expressions ranging from stone-faced to downright angry. He blew out air, any restorative effect the mountain scents had had earlier having dissipated.

  “Let’s go,” Mici said softly.

  He found himself standing there, stunned, for several heartbeats—he could hear each one, pounding in his ears. His bowel roiled; the ulcerative colitis that had been plaguing him these last few years did not take kindly to stress. But soon he felt Mici’s small hand in his, gently pulling him. At last, Edward’s good foot moved, followed by his metal one, and they walked back toward the guesthouse. He kept his gaze down, looking at yellow-brown dirt. A snake slithered across the path in front of them; he brought them to a halt as they waited for it to disappear.

  “I had to tell the truth,” he said at last, as much to himself as to Mici, in Hungarian.

  “Of course you did, Ede.”

  “The evening before I was to appear as a witness, Roger Robb had called me in. He showed me Oppenheimer’s testimony about this man Chevalier. The lies, the deceit, the fabrication Oppenheimer himself called ‘a cock-and-bull story.’”

  “Yes,” said Mici, although Edward was aware that this was all new to her.

  “I had to say what I felt. Who could trust such a man in light of all that?” Mici nodded as they walked on. “And his constant obstructionism on the hydrogen bomb! You’ve seen Oppenheimer with his kids; he’s indifferent to their future. But I want our Paul and Wendy to grow up in a world safe from Communism.”

  Mici’s grip tightened lovingly,
reassuringly.

  “I had no choice,” said Edward.

  “None at all,” Mici replied.

  They’d come to the guesthouse. Edward opened the door, then held it until Mici was inside. He stood there on the threshold for a long moment, wishing his much-traveled piano was back here on the mesa, wishing he could drown out the anger and betrayal swirling in his head with Mozart, with Beethoven.

  “There’s no point in staying for the meeting,” Edward said, his voice even lower than usual. “Pack your things. We’re leaving.”

  #

  Oppie was glad to be back in his office at the Institute for Advanced Study. He’d been terrified that Lewis Strauss—who was still on the I.A.S.’s board of directors—would push for his removal from this post, too, but perhaps the Southerner subscribed to the theory that one should keep one’s friends close and one’s enemies even closer. Or maybe Strauss simply feared the wrath of Einstein. In any event, there seemed to be no sign that Oppie’s position here was any less solid than it had been before the nightmare of the security-board hearing had begun.

  Leo Szilard dropped by, bringing Oppie a pastry with rich yellow-white icing. Oppie thanked him but simply put it on his desk. “Well,” declared Leo, “if you’re not going to eat it, I shall”—and he promptly retrieved the treat and disposed of it in a trio of bites. Then he said, “Come, it’s a beautiful day. Help me walk this off.”

  Robert grabbed his hat, and they headed out the back door of Fuld Hall into the sunshine. Oppie’s inclination was to stick to well-worn paths, but Leo struck out across the lawn, heading toward the Institute woods. Oppie followed.

  “A terrible business,” Szilard said. “It never should have happened.”

  Robert nodded. “At least the ordeal is over, and at least I won’t have to keep taking trips to Washington.”

  “Yes, yes, but it’s not just the end of your government career,” said Szilard, shaking his head. “Don’t you see? It’s the end of the new world order.”