irst year.
There was not much else to do. Europe was gone; a slag heap with dark
weeds growing from the ashes and bones. Most of North America was
useless; nothing could be planted, no one could live. A few million
people kept going up in Canada and down in South America. But during
the second year Soviet parachutists began to drop, a few at first,
then more and more. They wore the first really effective
anti-radiation equipment; what was left of American production moved
to the moon along with the governments.

All but the troops. The remaining troops stayed behind as best they
could, a few thousand here, a platoon there. No one knew exactly where
they were; they stayed where they could, moving around at night,
hiding in ruins, in sewers, cellars, with the rats and snakes. It
looked as if the Soviet Union had the war almost won. Except for a
handful of projectiles fired off from the moon daily, there was almost
no weapon in use against them. They came and went as they pleased. The
war, for all practical purposes, was over. Nothing effective opposed
them.

* * * * *

And then the first claws appeared. And overnight the complexion of the
war changed.

The claws were awkward, at first. Slow. The Ivans knocked them off
almost as fast as they crawled out of their underground tunnels. But
then they got better, faster and more cunning. Factories, all on
Terra, turned them out. Factories a long way under ground, behind the
Soviet lines, factories that had once made atomic projectiles, now
almost forgotten.

The claws got faster, and they got bigger. New types appeared, some
with feelers, some that flew. There were a few jumping kinds.

The best technicians on the moon were working on designs, making them
more and more intricate, more flexible. They became uncanny; the Ivans
were having a lot of trouble with them. Some of the little claws were
learning to hide themselves, burrowing down into the ash, lying in
wait.

And then they started getting into the Russian bunkers, slipping down
when the lids were raised for air and a look around. One claw inside a
bunker, a churning sphere of blades and metal--that was enough. And
when one got in others followed. With a weapon like that the war
couldn't go on much longer.

Maybe it was already over.

Maybe he was going to hear the news. Maybe the Politburo had decided
to throw in the sponge. Too bad it had taken so long. Six years. A
long time