Thomas Hoover - Project Daedalus

And now he was here in the wilds of northern Hokkaido, building a spaceplane. They'd sent over no less than the Grand Old Man to handle the propulsion. This project was top priority.

A s it deserved to be. But the immediate question was, What was the dean of Soviet rocket research doing here visiting him?

"Sorry I can't offer you a cup of tea. No samovar." He looked out the open door one last time. Several Soviet staffers were glancing in as they walked by, obviously puzzled why the famous Doktor Androv himself had come around to talk with some unknown civilian.

"Shto? Ya ne ponemayu… I not understand."

"Tea. Chai." He shrugged. "Just a bad joke." He reached over and shoved the door closed, then gestured toward the cot. "In the wrong language. Please. Sit."

"Thank you." The old man settled himself. "I did not come for chai." His hands were trembling. "I want-" Abruptly he hesitated, as though searching for words, and then his mind appeared to wander. "Your name is Vance?"

"Mike Vance."

"And you are with American CIA?"

What's going on, he wondered? How did these Soviets find out?

"Uh, right." He glanced away. "That's correct."

"Mr. Vance, my son is test pilot for the Daedalus." He continued, running his gnarled hands nervously through his long white hair. "His name is Yuri Andreevich."

"Pozdravleneye." Vance nodded. "Congratulations. Yuri Andreevich is about to make the cover of Newsweek. You should be proud."

"We have serious problem, Mr. Vance." He seemed not to hear. "That is why I am come. I am very worried for my son."

Vance looked him over more closely. Yes, he did appear worried. His severe, penetrating eyes were filled with anguish.

"Got a problem with the CEO? Guess the godfather can be a hard man to warm up to, even for his new allies."

"Mr. Vance, I do not know you, but there is very small time." He continued with a shrug, not understanding. "So please, I will tell you many things in very few minutes."

Vance continued to study him. "Go ahead."

"You may not realize, but this project is to be giant leap for our space program. Many of our best engineers are here. This vehicle, a reusable near-earth space platform, would save billions of rubles over many years. It is air-breathing vehicle that would lift research payloads directly into space. But my son never believe that its real purpose. Perhaps I was idealist, because I believe. I always think he was wrong. But more and more of things I have learned about its electronics-things we had nothing to do with-make me now believe he is right. And yesterday, when certain… chelovek of the Soviet Air Force come, the worst…" He paused, his voice beginning to betray barely concealed rage. "I have work all my life for peaceful exploring of space. And now I have been betrayed. The engineers I bring with me here have been betrayed. I also believe, Mr. Vance, that the Soviet people have been betrayed. And along with them, Mikhail Sergeevich himself. This is part of a plot to… I don't know what secretly is plan, but I am now convinced this plane must be destroyed, before it is too late. And the world must be warned. That is why-"

"Then why don't you warn somebody?" Vance interrupted him. "Matter of fact, there's a lot more to this setup than an airplane."

"But why do you think I am here, talking to you? The facility now is completely sealed. I would warn Mikhail Sergeevich what is happening, but no communication is possible." He hesitated again, painfully. "They want to put my son in the airplane tomorrow with guards. He has been made prisoner, like you. He does not want to fly the vehicle for tomorrow's test, but the CEO is forcing him to do it." He looked up, his eyes bleary and bloodshot. "Mr. Vance, I think he will be killed as soon as this plane is certified hypersonic. They no longer trust him."

"What about you? They probably won't think you're very trustworthy either if they find out you came to see me."

"That is correct. But the time has come for risks."

"So what do you want from me?" He stood back and looked the white-haired old man over one last time. Was he telling the truth? Were the Soviet engineers actually planning a mutiny?

"We are going to stop it. Tomorrow morning, just before the test flight. It must be done."

"Good luck."

"Mr. Vance, you are with American intelligence. We are only engineers. We know nothing about the kind of things necessary to-"

"Do you have any weapons?"

"Nothing. The guards here are all from the corporation." He lowered his voice. "Frankly, most of them look like criminals."

"They are." Vance laughed in spite of himself.

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't understand. If you did… but that's beside the point."

"Then will you help us?" His wrinkled face was fixed in determination. "Do you know anything about explosives?"

"Enough. But are you really sure that's the way you want to go?" He paused. "There's a lot that can go wrong in a big facility like this without anybody knowing what caused it."

"All the sensitive areas are under heavy security now. They are impossible to penetrate."

Terrific, Vance thought. "By the way, how does your son, the test pilot, figure into all this?"

"All along he was planning to… I don't know. He refused to tell me. But it doesn't matter. Now that two Mino Industries guards are being put in the cockpit with him, whatever he was planning is impossible. So we have to do something here, on the ground."

"Well, where is he?"

"He is in the hangar now."

"I'll need to see him."

For one thing, Vance thought, he probably knows how to use a gun. All Soviet pilots carry an automatic and two seven-round clips for protection in case they have to ditch in the wilderness somewhere. Our first order of business is to jump some of these Mino-gumi goons who're posing as security men and get their weapons.

"By the way, do you know where they're keeping the American woman who was brought here with me?"

The old man's eyes grew vague. "I believe she's somewhere here in the West Quadrant. I think she was transferred here around eighteen hundred hours, and then a little later her suitcase arrive from hangar."

"Her bag?" His pulse quickened.

"Delivered by the facility's robot carts. The plane that brought you was being made ready for the CEO's trip back to Tokyo."

"Where was it left?"

"I don't know. I only-"

"Okay, later. Right now maybe you'd better start by getting me out of here."

"That is why I brought this." He indicated the brown paper package he was carrying. It was the first time Vance had noticed it. "I have in here an air force uniform. It belongs to my son."

The parcel was carefully secured with white string-a methodical precision that came from years of engineering.

"You will pose as one of us," the old man continued. "You do not speak Russian?"

"Maybe enough to fool the Mino-gumi, but nobody else." He was watching as Androv began unwrapping the package.

"Then just let me do all talk," he shrugged. "If anybody wonders who you are, I will be giving you tour of the West Quadrant. You should pretend to be drunk; it would surprise no one. You will frown a lot and mumble incoherent questions to me. We will go directly to my office, where I will tell you our plan."

Now Andrei Androv was unfolding a new, form-fitting uniform intended for Yuri Andreevich. The shoulder boards had one wide gold chevron and two small rectangles, signifying the rank of major in the Soviet air force. Also included was a tall lamb's-wool cap, the kind officers wore. Vance took the hat and turned it in his hand. He'd never actually held one before. Nice.

Seems I just got made air force major, and I've never flown anything bigger than a Lear jet.

He slipped off the shirt he'd been wearing in London, happy to be rid of it, and put on the first half of the uniform. Not a bad fit. The trousers also seemed tailor-made. Then he slipped on the wool topper, completing the ensemble.