“He’s right,” Harvey murmured to Anna. “In the Texas Panhandle we have tent meetings where people roll on the ground and drool and talk in Hebrew, Hittite and Welsh. It’s nothing to speak the simple alphabet of algebra or the garbled Greek of physics. But, Joe, Joe, Joe, I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

“How could you get me into trouble?”

“I wouldn’t say anything, but I wanted you to understand if I disappeared. Because you’re my good friend.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Joe, I’m quitting the Hill.”

“Quitting?”

“Nobody remembers. We started this project only because Hitler had his project, so he couldn’t blackmail us with his bomb. Now it looks like he never made one. Now we say we’re going to use it on Japan, which doesn’t have any project.”

“Hold it. This afternoon at the Hanging Garden, you nearly killed yourself working on this bomb.”

“I was undecided then. I thought I’d let fate choose for me.”

“Well, that was a glorious pose, you and the cordite. This still doesn’t make any sense to me. If the Japs had the bomb, you don’t think they’d drop it on us?”

“But they don’t. We do, and we have to make the ethical choice. Joe, I didn’t leave Amarillo to become a physicist to atomize a hundred thousand human beings. When Oppy came to Columbia and recruited me, it was to make a bomb so Hitler wouldn’t use his. That’s all I signed up for; that’s all anyone signed up for.”

“Except the Army, Navy and Marines.”

“The ethical choice—”

“Is a hell of a luxury. It’s not one that enlisted men have.”

“Well, as a civilian—”

“You’re a civilian because Oppy got you a draft deferment so you could come here and build a bomb. I’m your friend and I’m happy for you. So build the bomb and end the war. Boy, Captain Augustino would love this conversation. Augustino would haul you off the Hill in a car trunk.”

“I’m prepared to suffer for my decision.”

“Suffer for your decision? Harvey, there are men dying on shitty piles of sand all over the Pacific. There are men stuffed in the holds of ships heading to Japan for the invasion. I think they’re going to suffer for your decision. Who else have you told?”

“Just me,” said Anna.

“You helped Harvey come to his decision?”

“I hope so.”

“Well, there ought to be room in Augustino’s car trunk for both of you. Good luck,” Joe said, and heaved himself out of the water. Quickly, he picked up his uniform, belt and shoes. This wasn’t the idyllic night in the hot springs he’d had in mind, not at all.

Harvey stood as tall and defiant in the water as he could get. “Are you going to report us?”