Derek Lambert: The Red Dove

Talin spoke to Control to reassure them. Not that there was any real need because every reaction of Dove was monitored on forty-eight consoles. Even my heart beat, he remembered.

‘Everything under control,’ he reported. ‘I reckon I can see Russia ahead and that’s always a beautiful sight,’ which it was; he only wished that, being a Siberian, they were homing down from the East Coast, over the Sea of Okhotsk with the fish-like body of Sakhalin Island beneath.

He glanced at the digital clock. In less than half an hour they would touch down on the established flight path. Sedov had been wrong: there was nothing wrong with their beautiful red and white bird. Talin gave a thumbs-up sign to Sedov.

Which was when the radio link with Mission Control went dead.

Don’t panic. Talin’s preparation for any emergency in the simulated shuttle on the ground asserted itself. Controlled panic. His arms felt even heavier than they should, a rivulet of sweat coursed down his chest.

He glanced at Sedov. Sedov was smiling. Smiling!

Sedov spoke into his mouthpiece: ‘ You can hear me?’

Talin nodded, remembering as Sedov spoke.

‘The black-out we anticipated,’ Sedov. ‘You were prepared for it?’

‘Of course, the heat…’ The lie stood up and took a bow; Sedov ignored it because that was his way and said: ‘It won’t last long.’

When Control returned Talin suppressed the relief in his voice. At 250,000 feet he began to fly the ship a little, using elevons, brakes, rudders and flaps, correcting flight path and speed.

At 80,000 feet over the Sea of Aral the engines cut and, as planned, Dove became a glider. From Control: ‘Perfect ground track.’

They were wrong. At that moment the shuttle veered sharply away from the runway laid out like a white ceremonial carpet. Talin took over completely from the autopilot and tried to correct the flight path. Nothing. Panic returned but was instantly disciplined, a wild dog on a lead.

Beside him Sedov was also struggling with the dual hand controller and rudder pedals. But the Dove had become a wilful bird of prey that had sighted a far-off quarry.

Sedov’s face was a mask, a single muscle dancing on the line of his jaw. He said: ‘This is crazy,’ and Talin knew what he meant: rockets, computers, all the most sophisticated technology that Man could devise had worked, but elementary controls used by any weekend glider pilot had failed. That was Russia for you.

They were below 50,000 feet, supposedly descending for the final approach and landing on a twenty-two-degree glide slope.

Sedov took over and raised the Dove’s nose. As they headed away from the strip in a wide arc he said: ‘I once had a car like this.’

His voice calmed Talin. ‘A car?’ He peered down. A ten-mile radius around the strip had been levelled in case of a forced landing; beyond this circle of black earth and shale lay the desolate steppe still patched with snow.

‘Sure a car. It wasn’t much of a car, an old Volga that looked like a tank. And it developed this trouble, it would only steer in one direction.’

From Mission Control came a hoarse voice: ‘What’s going on up there?’ Talin could picture the consternation as both screen monitors and visual trackers reported Dove’s deflection.

‘A minor technical fault,’ Sedov said.

‘At this stage?’

‘This bird doesn’t want to return to its cage,’ Sedov said.

Talin noticed that he was no longer trying to correct the flight path of the shuttle.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Sedov cut the radio link.

He said to Talin: ‘About that old car of mine. I was lecturing at Moscow University in those days but I lived in lodgings off Russakouskaya Street. Now as you know that’s on the other side of the city but in a direct line—’

‘I don’t see…’

‘You will, you will.’ The lack of noise was eerie and Talin wondered again if space had at last affected Sedov. What sort of impact would 100 tons of spaceship make on the steppe? They could always eject – but only to disgrace; in any case Sedov would never permit it. ‘You see,’ Sedov was saying, ‘all I did was to drive in a semi-circle round the city until I arrived at the University.’ He leaned back in his seat. ‘There,’ he said, ‘now you take this old Volga back to base.’

Talin took over. There was no manoeuvrability to the left, only to the right. That meant that, although he was committed to a curving glide, he could bring the ship right round again to the strip.

He tightened the circle. Dove completed its northward arc and began to return on a southward curve towards the runway.

‘Just tell me one thing,’ Talin said. ‘How the hell did you get home again after you’d lectured at the University?’

‘Easy. I just continued on round the other side of the city.’

‘If I miss the strip this time I’ll have to go round again.’

‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ Sedov said. ‘You should have touched down at 235 mph. By the time you get there on this lap you’ll have lost so much speed that we’ll probably land like a spent meteorite.’

‘You should have been a doctor,’ Talin said, ‘you have a perfect bedside manner.’

‘Take her down a little,’ Sedov advised.

Talin began his approach at 12,000 feet. He could feel Dove straining down: she didn’t want to glide any more, she wanted to answer the call of gravity.

The great tail engines, the heaviest part of the ship, tipped back jerking the nose up. Talin grappled with the hand controller, tendons on his wrists standing out like cords. Fleetingly he saw himself again as the boy on the horse, a grey, pulling on the reins as, mane flowing, it galloped through a copse of silver birch. He summoned Sonya to him, Sonya naked on the bed and, loving her, determined to keep that last picture with him. But he discovered that such pictures don’t stay, only survival stays.

Dove’s nose levelled. Below, to the right, Talin could see the strip. To one side, scattering, were the spectators. No massed crowds like those who swarmed to the launch and landing of the first American shuttle Columbia; fatalistically the Kremlin always anticipated failure.

Sedov was staring ahead, private as always. What picture had he tried to lock in his mind? Even as he wondered Talin knew; Sedov had seen a blond teenager from Khabarovsk in Siberia who wanted to become a cosmonaut.

The strip was almost beneath them. Air speed too slow, descent speed which should have been about three feet a second too fast. Talin lowered the undercarriage.

The tail was sagging again; with one last effort Talin fought the earth’s magnetism.

Tail up fractionally. A little more. The strip directly below.

They bounced. Hit again. Bounced. Dove was veering away once more, out of control, a beautiful bird hellbent on suicide. Tarmac raced past. Then they were onto the hard black soil, chasing the fleeing spectators.

Brake, brake…

Dove shuddered, stopped.

Talin closed his eyes, kept them tight shut for a moment.

Sedov said: ‘As a matter of fact I’ve still got that old Volga. You just qualified to drive it.’

Three hours later in the debriefing centre Talin switched on the radio to pick up the news.

‘Dove 1, command ship of what will one day comprise a fleet of space shuttles, today completed its maiden flight without a hitch.’

Talin switched off the radio.

He was seventy-two years of age and he enjoyed chopping down trees.

You could almost feel his enjoyment, his companion thought, observing the play of muscles on his naked chest, hearing his grunts of satisfaction as the blade of the axe bit into the young redwood.