Stuart Kaminsky - Fall of a Cosmonaut

Rostnikov hung up the phone. Podgorny had left him alone in the shop to make his calls. Porfiry Petrovich made his way up the narrow wooden stairs. He moved slowly, not relying on his alien leg. There was no light under the door of the man who called himself Primazon and who Rostnikov had recognized as a former KGB agent whose name was something like Disiverski. The name would come. Porfiry Petrovich and Iosef were safe from him. He wanted them to lead him to Tsimion Vladovka, almost certainly to kill him and preserve whatever the secret was.

There was a light under Iosef’s door. Rostnikov hoped that his son would soon turn out his light and move to his window. He imagined that father and son would be looking at the moon at the same time, thinking of dead czars, of Ivan the Terrible, of Catherine the Great, of men who rode in small spheres circling the earth and looking at that full moon. He could not see Mir, but there was a secret about it that he would like to know. Perhaps a cosmonaut or two were now circling in the sky, looking at the same full moon, thinking about dead royalty.

The murderer of Sergei Bolskanov was Andrei Vanga, the director of the Center for Technical Parapsychology. He acted in rage, out of jealousy of Bolskanov, who had come into his office to tell the director of the lengthy article he had just completed. Bolskanov had been ecstatic, jubilant-perhaps, Vanga had thought, he had been gloating a bit, because the director, who worked in the same area, had published nothing for over a decade. There was an implication that the director lacked the imagination to make such a research breakthrough.

Oh, yes, Vanga, as director, would get some of the credit. He could use the findings to raise more money, but his success would come as an administrator, not as a scientist. It would be the insufferable Bolskanov, whom no one liked and many hated, who would be quoted, mentioned in the literature, go down in the history of psychic research for his findings.

It was at this point that Bolskanov had said that Vanga was the first to know, that he did not plan to tell anyone else till the next morning.

If it were done when it is done, thought Vanga at that very moment, then better it were done quickly.

The murder had not been planned, but in executing it Vanga had demonstrated, if only to himself, that he had imagination. It might be an imagination better suited to murder than to scientific research, but an imagination of no small proportion nevertheless.

He had worn an old lab coat that he had disposed of after the murder, in the small incinerator on the research floor. It existed to dispose of items of clothing or papers that might contain evidence or information about ongoing research which should not get into the hands of those who could use it-the Bulgarians, the Latvians, the Japanese, the English, the Americans.

But Andrei Vanga’s triumph was the shoes. He had carefully crept into the sleep-research lab where Adamovskovich was napping. The instruments glowed with the information that the man was in deep REM sleep. Andrei did not have to be particularly quiet, but he was. Adamovskovich, the sarcastic bastard, the smug, superior bastard who was no better than the man he was about to kill, would remain asleep long enough, if Vanga hurried.

The shoes were too large but not so much that he could not walk in them. The murder had gone quite well. Andrei Vanga, who had never harmed another human in his life, found the act particularly satisfying. As a scientist, he found the release of violence surprising, leading to the conclusion, even as he searched for the paper Bolskanov had written, that everyone probably had great power within him, that there existed a core, perhaps even a spiritual core, which did not reside in the brain, that accounted for psychic powers.

He had found the printed copy of the paper quickly, on the chair next to the murdered man. There were a few drops of blood on the cover page, but that didn’t matter. He would, and did, incinerate that page along with the lab coat. But before he did that he found on the dead man’s computer the file which contained the paper he now possessed. He also found the backup disk. He erased the file on the hard disk, put the shoes back near the sleeping Adamovskovich, went back to his office after retrieving his own shoes from his laboratory. He transferred the file on the disk to the hard drive of his own office computer, making the necessary changes to erase any sign that the paper belonged to Sergei Bolskanov, the dead, gloating son of a bitch. Only then did he incinerate the lab coat, cover page of the paper, and the backup disk.

When he had closed the door of the incinerator, he had a sudden thought. What if Bolskanov had printed more copies? He had been careful, had seen no one else, though he was sure others were in the building. There had been a risk, but it had been slight. He could have run into someone, but what of it? He had taken the bloody lab coat off before leaving the lab. With shaking hands he had folded the thin coat and plunged it under his shirt. It showed only as a bulge. He had put his own shoes on immediately after the murder.

But now he would have to take the chance. His mind had worked quickly. If he heard someone coming to Bolskanov’s laboratory, he could shout out for help and claim to be discovering the corpse.

His luck had remained. There was no other copy in the laboratory. He looked carefully, thoroughly. He was certain. He moved downstairs to the dead man’s office. Drawers, files, top of the desk, nothing. He was sure. He even checked to see if there was a second backup disk. This had been the most dangerous part of the evolving plan. If he were found in the dead man’s office he would make an excuse, but his presence would be noted. He would surely be a suspect, a secondary one to be sure, but a suspect. Again he was certain. Nothing there.

He went back to his office, checked everything, put the report in his briefcase, signed out, and went home.

That night, at home, in bed, certain that he would sleep well and be ready for the chaos that would come during the night or in the morning when the body was discovered, a new thought came and Vanga suddenly realized that he was a fool.

He sat up in panic. What if Bolskanov had a copy of the research in his home? On a home computer? A hard copy? Maybe several copies, just lying in the open? Vanga had never been to Bolskanov’s apartment, didn’t know where it was, though he could have found out simply by looking at the … wait, he had a copy of the two-sheet directory in the top drawer of his desk, which stood in a corner of his bedroom. He rose quickly, found the address, and stood thinking.

He rejected the idea of dressing, going to the man’s apartment, breaking in, searching. Far too dangerous, even more dangerous than going back to the lab, finding the dead man’s keys and attempting to sneak into the apartment, search, and get the keys back before the body was discovered, if it had not already been discovered.

No, he would not reveal the paper as his own till he was certain. He would suggest that he go with the police to search Bolskanov’s apartment for anything that might shed light on his murder. If they said no, he might suggest that when the investigation was done he would like to look for some notes he and Bolskanov had been working on. He had to remain calm. There would be no reason for the police to bring anyone else to the dead scientist’s apartment, and the police would not understand what the paper meant even if they found a copy. Vanga would work that out.

The shoes, the shoes. What if they were too stupid to check the shoes? Then, somehow, he would have to suggest it to them, subtly. He hoped that would not be necessary. As it had turned out, it wasn’t.