Este é provavelmente "Thunder and Roses", de Theodore Sturgeon. A partir deste Guia do Leitor da história:
Pete Mawser and Sonny are survivors of one-half of a nuclear war, stuck on a military base, both plagued by thoughts of suicide. They discover a formerly hidden door that has unlocked due to the high-level of radiation. They get spooked and leave. Starr Anthim is a popular singer but gives a performance without being flashy. She sings the "thunder and roses" of the title.
A história começa com a sensação de derrota:
Everyone used to say, Wednesday morning, "How about the way Starr sang The Breeze and I last night?"
That was a while ago, before the attack, before all those people were dead, before the country was dead. Starr Anthim—an institution, like Crosby, like Duse, like Jenny Lind, like the Statue of Liberty. (Liberty had been one of the first to get it, her bronze beauty volatilized, radio-activated, and even now being carried about in vagrant winds, spreading over the earth . . . )
Pete Mawser grunted and forced his thoughts away from the drifting, poisonous fragments of a blasted liberty. Hate was first. Hate was ubiquitous, like the increasing blue glow in the air at night, like the tension that hung over the base.
O lado deles está condenado:
"You—well, it's not easy to forget. We got hit. We got hit everywhere at once. All the big cities are gone. We got it from both sides. We got too much. The air is becoming radioactive. We'll all—" He checked himself.
A música que Starr canta, para tentar convencer as pessoas a não revidarem é:
With thunder I smote the earth
With roses I won the right
With the sea I washed, and with clay I built
And the world was a place of light
Ela então faz seu discurso:
"We have more bombs than both of them put together. We have them. We are not going to use them. Wait!" She raised her hands suddenly, as if she could see into each man's face. They sank back, tense.
"So saturated is the atmosphere with Carbon Fourteen that all of us in this hemisphere are going to die. Don't be afraid to say it. Don't be afraid to think it. It is a truth, and it must be faced. As the transmutation effect spreads from the ruins of our cities, the air will become increasingly radioactive, and then we must die. In months, in a year or so, the effect will be strong overseas. Most of the people there will die too. None will escape completely. A worse thing will come to them than anything they have given us, because there will be a wave of horror and madness which is impossible to us. We are merely going to die. They will live and burn and sicken, and the children that will be born to them—" She shook her head, and her lower lip grew full. She visibly pulled herself together.
e
She gazed briefly at each man in turn, from the screen. "We must not strike back. Mankind is about to go through a hell of his own making. We can be vengeful—or merciful, if you like—and let go with the hundreds of bombs we have. That would sterilize the planet so that not a microbe, not a blade of grass could escape, and nothing new could grow. We would reduce the earth to a bald thing, dead and deadly.
"No—it just won't do. We can't do it.
Pete Mawser persegue Starr, onde ela admite uma das razões pelas quais ela está espalhando sua mensagem:
"All right," she said, with a tired acquiescence that frightened something inside him. "You seem to have guessed right, though. It's true. There are master firing keys for the launching sites. We have located and dismantled all but two. It's very likely that one of the two was vaporized. The other one is—lost."
Eles perderam a noção de onde está, então estão espalhando a mensagem para tentar convencer quem quer que a encontre, não para ativá-la e deixar que ela se desarme. Claro, porque é uma história, acontece que é nessa mesma base, Pete e um outro homem já a encontraram (embora ambos não tenham percebido o que era até colocar dois e dois juntos com a performance) ... Pete quer honre os ideais de Starr, enquanto o outro homem quer retaliar não se importar se isso danifica o planeta.
A história completa pode ser lida aqui .