Stuart Kaminsky - Fall of a Cosmonaut

“And ambition is a grievous fault,” said Vladovka in English.

“And grievously will he pay for it,” Rostnikov replied in English. And then in Russian said, “but not for a long time, I hope. What happened? Who wants to kill you? Why?”

“It is really very simple,” said Vladovka. “We had a biologist on the flight. Baklunov. He did not react well to life on the space station. He began to talk to himself, behave strangely. We, Kinotskin and I, reported his behavior on the computer safe line. We had no response. Then, one day, Kinotskin came to me while I was in the control pod. Baklunov had gone mad. He was breaking things. He had attacked Kinotskin with a metal bar. Do you know what it is like to have a nightmare come true?”

“Yes.”

“I mean almost literally true.”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“I followed Kinotskin through the tunnel into the living area. The chamber was alive with floating debris and hundreds of white worms, fat white worms from Baklunov’s experiments. My nightmare, my precise nightmare, had come true. If I hadn’t had the nightmares, I would have been able to better handle what happened next. We heard the noise in the pod where the air is supplied. The noise of metal against metal and the shouting of Baklunov. We made our way through food, metal, debris, fecal matter, the worms. I have nightmares of that more than what happened next.”

“And that was?” Rostnikov prompted, looking toward the road beyond the farmhouse where a vehicle was moving quickly, sending up dust.

Vladovka’s eyes followed Rostnikov’s. He paused, and then continued his story. “When we entered the chamber, Baklunov attacked with the metal bar. He hit my hand. Blood splattered. Droplets floated. That is the reason for the scar.”

Tsimion Vladovka paused again and continued, “We killed him. Kinotskin took the bar. I grabbed Baklunov from behind. He was ranting, spitting. I was angry. I had him around the neck. I choked him. He struggled. Kinotskin had the bar now. He began hitting Baklunov in the ribs, in the face. I kept choking, thinking that I would have to go back through those fat floating worms because of this madman. The blood didn’t bother me. I know blood. It is life. It is not something to fear. It is something to regret losing. You understand?”

“I understand,” said Rostnikov.

The vehicle, whatever and whoever it was, was now driving up to the Vladovka farmhouse.

“I’m not sure which of us killed him,” Tsimion continued. “It doesn’t matter. We both murdered him. The first murder in outer space, followed by the first burial in space. We sent him into eternity to cover our crime. For you see, we did not have to kill him. But we did. I have considered it many times. We could have subdued him, but we were in a chamber of madness, in a state of instant delirium. We didn’t check with ground control. We simply put the body in a chamber and released it into space. We didn’t watch. We spent hours cleaning up after we disposed of the body. Horrible hours. Nightmare hours. No one has experienced what we have. May no one have to again.”

A man was now running through the field toward them.

“We were told to say nothing,” Tsimion continued. “We were told that we would be brought back to earth immediately, that those who were coming for us would know what had happened. We were told that we were to act as if there had been a minor problem on the station and that all three of us were coming down. We had solved the problem. We were space heroes. The three of us were coming down. We were told that our space program did not have enough money. Our national pride was at stake during difficult political times, but when are there not difficult political times? We came down. We were silent. Kinotskin took it harder than I did. His career, his ambition, were gone. He grew gaunt and became a hollow man. And they thought about it, thought, as I knew they someday would, that we might decide to tell what happened, tell of the cover-up. They decided to kill us all. Those who came to bring us back to earth, and both of us.”

“Why did you want me to be told of what happened on that flight? Why did you call my name?”

Tsimion Vladovka shook his head. “I made a mistake.”

“A mistake?” asked Porfiry Petrovich.

“I was in a panic. I had heard your name in relation to some political situation a few years ago, but I really wanted to call out the name of my friend Peotor Rosnishkov. In my panic …”

“… you called out my name.”

Tsimion Vladovka shrugged. Rostnikov smiled.

“You have a weapon?” Tsimion was looking at the man running toward them.

“No,” said Rostnikov. “You?”

“No.”

A moment later it was clear to Vladovka as it had been minutes ago to Rostnikov that a weapon would not be necessary, at least not at that moment. The man running toward them was Iosef. When he was a dozen paces in front of them, he stopped, breathing hard.

“The man who called himself Primazon,” Iosef said. “He came into the house. He asked where Konstantin was. Boris spoke to him. I couldn’t hear, then Boris killed him. Before I could act, he had reached up and snapped his neck.”

Tsimion Vladovka started toward the house. Rostnikov stopped him, gripping the bearded man with a solid grasp of his arm. Vladovka tried to pull away, grabbed “wrist and tried to free himself. He could not.

“We must think,” said Rostnikov. “Pause and think. You understand?”

Tsimion stopped struggling and Rostnikov released his grip before saying, “The driver, Laminski, did he see? Where was he?”

“He was outside, at the car. When I came out of the house and started running to tell you, he asked me what was happening. I told him to get inside the car and wait. I ordered him to get inside the car. He did.”

“Who else was there, in the house, when this happened?”

“We three were the only ones in the room,” said Iosef.

The three men stood for a few seconds and then Rostnikov said, “We will walk back to the house very calmly. The three of us. And on the way, we will make a plan, a very good one. I don’t know what it will be at the moment, but it will have to be a very good one.”

“Wait,” said Andrei Vanga, trying his best to think quickly. “My fingerprints are on that disk.”

Both Karpo and the old man, Tikon Tayumvat, looked at the director of the Center for the Study of Technical Parapsychology. The director looked very, very nervous.

“I can explain,” said Vanga.

“Then do so,” said Karpo, holding the disk carefully by the edges.

“I will,” said Vanga.

“Man can’t think on his feet,” Tayumvat said with derision. “No wonder it takes him so long to write a simple second-rate article.”

“I promised Bolskanov that I would not allow anyone to see his private journals,” said Vanga. “We had been working together for a long time, and from time to time he confided in me as I confided in him. You see?”

“I see nothing,” said the old man. “Is this going to take long? I’ll sit down if it’s more than five minutes. Ah, I see. You have no idea how long you are going on. I’ll sit at the desk and watch and listen.”

“Yes, yes,” Vanga went on, holding the fist of his left hand in the palm of his right. “His private diary is on the computer. It is very personal. He-he didn’t want it to be made public if he were to die. I promised that it would never happen, and in return he promised me the same.”

Karpo said nothing, simply stood at attention, disk in hand, watching and listening.

“I keep my promises,” said Vanga.

“And what was in that diary that was so terrible?” said Tayumvat.

“I cannot tell you. You can take my job, put me in prison even, but I am sworn to secrecy.”