“I do not,” Molotov admitted. The German ambassador brightened-until Molotov added, “But I vastly prefer them to the Reich. They form a useful buffer. And what do you suppose they would do if we were rash enough to fall on their colony in Poland? They would not sit quiet, I assure you.”

“I think they might,” Schmidt said, and then qualified that by adding, “Reichs Chancellor Himmler thinks they might. They have no adjoining territory. Once lost, Poland would be difficult for them to regain. What could they do but acquiesce to the fait accompli?”

“Drop nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union and the Reich till both countries glow for the next thousand years,” Molotov answered. “In my considered opinion, that is exactly what they would do at such an outrageous provocation.

“Chancellor Himmler believes otherwise,” Schmidt said. This time, he didn’t say anything about what he believed. Molotov nodded to himself. He’d pegged the ambassador for an intelligent man. He might present Himmler’s proposal as part of his duty, but that didn’t mean he thought it was a good idea.

“If Chancellor Himmler believes otherwise, he is welcome to launch this attack against Poland by himself,” the Soviet leader said. “If he succeeds, he is welcome to all the spoils. I will congratulate him.” I will also begin fortifying our western frontier more strongly than ever.

“Our two great nations have cooperated before, first in rectifying the frontiers of eastern Europe in 1939 and then in the struggle against the Lizards,” Schmidt said smoothly. “What we have done once, we can do again.”

“We have also fought each other to the death in the interval between those times,” Molotov said icily. “When your predecessor, Count Schulenberg, announced that your nation had wantonly invaded mine, I asked him, ‘Do you believe that we deserved this?’ He had no answer. I do not believe you have an answer, either.”

He had never had a worse moment in his life than when the German envoy announced the start of hostilities on 22 June 1941. Stalin had never thought that day would come, which meant no one under Stalin had dared think it might come. Had the Lizards not landed, who could guess which of the two giants in Europe would have been left standing when the fighting was done?

Schmidt did his best, as his masters in Berlin would have wanted him to do. Voice still smooth, he said, “That was twenty years ago, Comrade General Secretary. Times change. Both of our governments view the Race as the greatest menace facing humanity these days, would you not agree?”

“The Race is the greatest enemy facing humanity, yes. I would agree with that.” Molotov shot out a forefinger to point at the German ambassador. “But the Reich is without a doubt the greatest menace to the peace-loving people of the Soviet Union.”

“Chancellor Himmler does not think the Soviet Union is the greatest menace to the Reich,.” Paul Schmidt told him. “That is why he invited you-”

“To share in his own destruction,” Molotov broke in. “Do you know what would likely happen even if the Reich and the USSR did succeed in wresting Poland from the Race?”

“You have expressed your view on the matter with great clarity,” Schmidt said.

Molotov shook his head. “The view I expressed was, as you say, mine. If anything, it was also unduly optimistic. If we ousted the Lizards from Poland, they might conclude we were drawing ahead of them technically. Do you know what they might do if they came to that conclusion?”

“Respect us. Fear us,” Schmidt answered. He might be a decent enough fellow. He might be a clever fellow. But Nazi ideology had corroded his thought processes, sure enough. Too bad, Molotov thought.

“They might indeed do those things,” he said aloud. “Most especially, they might fear us. And, if they fear us enough, their ambassador here in Moscow has made it clear that they will seek to destroy us altogether so we cannot possibly become a menace to the Empire as a whole. Has not the Lizard ambassador in Nuremberg conveyed a similar message to your leaders?”

“If he has, I am not aware of it.” Schmidt looked thoughtful, an unusual expression to find on a German’s face.

Here, Molotov believed him. Regardless of the warnings the Race might have given the Nazi bigwigs, they were unlikely to take them seriously. In their arrogance, the leaders of the Reich, like so many spoiled children, still thought they could do whatever they wanted simply because they wanted to do it. Unlike spoiled children, though, they could wreck the world if they tried.

Schmidt licked his lips. “I think I had better send that message back to Nuremberg with some urgency. If it has already been communicated to my superiors, it will do no harm. If it has not, it may do some good.”

“I hope so,” Molotov said. “Considering the adventurism your government has displayed up to this point, though, I would not bet any sizable sum on that, however. Perhaps you had better go attend to it at once-unless, that is, you have any less reckless proposals to lay on the table before me.”

“I have made the proposal I came here to make,” Schmidt said. He rose, bowed, and took his leave.

Molotov’s secretary looked into the office. “Your next appointment, Comrade General Secretary, is-”

“I don’t care who it is,” Molotov said. “I need to consult the foreign commissar. Have Comrade Gromyko come here at once.”

“But it’s Marshal Zhukov!” the secretary wailed.

“I don’t care,” Molotov repeated, though he cared very much. But he had to do this for the safety of the country. “Give him my regrets, say the matter is urgent, and tell him I will see him as soon as it is convenient. Go on, Pyotr Maksimovich. He won’t eat you.” Though if he is unhappy enough, he may eat me.

By the look on the secretary’s face, he was thinking the same thing. But he said, “Very well, Comrade General Secretary,” and disappeared. Molotov might not be more powerful than Zhukov-he feared he wasn’t-but he could still tell his secretary what to do. Silently, he cursed Lavrenti Beria. If the NKVD chief hadn’t tried to overthrow him, he wouldn’t be beholden to the Red Army now.

But Zhukov didn’t choose to eat Molotov, at least not then. And Gromyko got to the Soviet leader’s office inside ten minutes. Without preamble, the foreign commissar said, “And what has gone wrong now?”

Molotov appreciated Gromyko’s style, not least because it came so close to matching his own. “I will tell you what has gone wrong, Andrei Andreyevich,” he said, and recounted the exchange he’d just had with Paul Schmidt.

“Bozhemoi!” Gromyko exclaimed when he was through. “The fascists are serious about this?”

“I would say so, yes, unless they are merely trying to lure us to our own destruction,” Molotov answered. “But surely even the Nazis could not reckon us so naive. My question for you is, how do we respond, beyond rejecting the proposal?”

“One obvious thing we could do is tell the Lizards what the Reich has in mind,” Gromyko said.

“We could indeed do that. Whether we should is one of the things I wanted to ask you,” Molotov said. “The question, of course, is whether the Lizards would believe us. We and the Germans spend a good deal of time spreading misinformation about each other. That could prove a nuisance now.”

“So it could,” the foreign commissar agreed. “But I think that, in this case, the effort would be worthwhile. The Nazis are surely contemplating the use of nuclear weapons here: they could not hope to conquer Poland without them. This is not a trivial matter.”

“No, indeed,” Molotov replied. “I warned Schmidt about what Queek has told me: that the Race may seek to exterminate mankind if we present a large enough danger to them.”

“And how did he respond?” Gromyko inquired.