Ben Bova - Voyagers

Putting on a smile, Markov said, “How thoughtful of them.”

He pulled off his heavy coat and hung it on the hook behind the door. Maria’s plain black suitcase sat on the floor next to the closet.

The closet! Could Sonya be hiding in the closet?

“You must be tired after such a long trip,” he said to his wife. “Would you like some tea? Perhaps dinner?”

“You look tired yourself. There are dark circles under your eyes.”

“I’ve been working very hard.”

“Yes, I know.”

This must be the way a mouse feels when it’s in the paws of a cat, Markov thought. Or the way a prisoner feels when the police take him in.

“I’m afraid I haven’t made much progress…”

“That depends on how you look at it,” Maria said, her voice flat and cold. “The girl who was in your bed seemed quite content with your progress.”

“Girl?” His voice squeaked, almost. “Oh, her. She…well…” He shrugged and grinned sheepishly.

“I hope that you have learned something about the radio signals,” Maria said, deadly calm, “in between your sessions in bed.”

Markov’s grin crumbled. Pulling a wooden chair to sit facing her, he said earnestly, “Maria…I don’t believe there is anything to be learned from the pulses. We have used computer analyses on them and I have studied them faithfully for months now…”

“Faithfully.” She snorted.

“Faithfully,” he repeated. “There is no hint of a periodicity, or a rhythm, or any of the characteristics that one would expect from a language.”

“Are you sure your mind has been clear enough to do your work properly?”

“Have I ever failed you before?”

“You’re getting older, but not any wiser.”

He slapped a palm on his knee. “That’s unfair, Maria Kirtchatovska! I am…”

She leveled a blunt forefinger at him and he lapsed into silence. “We must crack this code, Kirill. Do you understand? My superiors will not accept failure.”

“But I don’t think it is a code.”

“They do.”

Raising his hands to the heavens, Markov demanded, “And if they believe that the Moon is made of green cheese, will they destroy the cosmonauts who bring back rocks?”

She would not move from her chair. To Markov, she looked like a stolid, unyielding mule. Words bounced off her thick hide.

“If it’s not a code, it’s not a code!” he said, his voice rising. “If it isn’t a language how can it be a language?”

Maria’s stare bored into him. “So I am to return to Moscow and tell my superiors that my husband has spent two months studying the radio signals and he has concluded that they are completely natural in origin. And when they ask me what kind of studies he did, I can tell them that he spent most of the two months in bed with some oversexed cow who should be sent out to pasture in Siberia.”

“No!” Markov snapped. “You wouldn’t.”

“If you fail, I fail,” Maria answered. “And before I let that happen, I’ll see your little bitch in hell.”

“Maria, you don’t understand…”

“No, you don’t understand. I will not accept your word on this. Not when I know you’ve been playing instead of working. It’s my career you’re playing with! My life! And your own.”

Feeling desperate, he ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Look…I have done a serious job with these signals. Honestly I have. Let me show them to Academician Bulacheff. If he agrees with me, will that satisfy you?”

Maria gave him a long, deadly stare, then reached down into the bag at her feet and pulled out a single sheet of handwritten paper.

“Read this,” she commanded.

Markov squinted at the letter, patted his pockets until he found his glasses, slipped them on. As he read, his face fell. His hand began to tremble slightly.

Finally he looked back at his wife. “Who…who is this man Stoner?”

“An American scientist, an astrophysicist who helped to build the telescope that the Americans placed in orbit earlier this year.”

Shakily, Markov made his way to the bed and sank down onto it. “And he thinks there is an artificial spacecraft in the vicinity of Jupiter, causing the radio signals.”

Maria said, “Why would he write you such a letter?”

Glancing at the flimsy sheet, Markov answered, “He says he read my book on extraterrestrial languages…”

“Your notorious book.”

“But…do you believe what he says, Maria? Perhaps it’s an American trick of some sort.”

“Many Americans do not understand the nature of the struggle between communism and capitalism. They believe that the two systems can coexist in peace.”

Markov nodded.

“This man Stoner is an idealist. He is also a scientist who wants to be recognized for discovering alien life. That is why he has written to you.”

“But why me? Why not the International Astronomical Federation? Or the Soviet Academy of Sciences? Why to me?”

“Who can tell?” Maria replied. “Our agents in America are looking into the matter.”

Markov tried to pull himself together. Too much was happening, too quickly.

“Do you still believe,” Maria asked, “that the signals are not a language?”

He took a deep breath, then, “They are not a language. At least, they are not any kind of language that I can understand.”

She reached out and took the letter from his limp hand. Placing it carefully back in her bag, she said, “A few moments ago you expressed a desire to see Academician Bulacheff. Well, he wants to see you, too. Immediately. We go back to Moscow tonight.”

“It’s just too fantastic to be believed!”

“I assure you, Mr. President, it’s quite true.”

The President got up from the polished mahogany table and walked toward the fireplace. The regular Cabinet meeting had ended in its usual bitter wrangling, and he had gladly left the cold formality of the Cabinet Room for the smaller intimacy of the Roosevelt Room.

Standing by the small bronze bust of Teddy Roosevelt on the mantel above the fireplace, the President looked haggard: tie loosened, collar opened, hair tousled, fists jammed into the pockets of his jacket.

The press secretary watched him worriedly. An old friend and adviser, he knew that the pressures were inexorably grinding the President into despair.

The President looked wistfully at the painting of Teddy the Rough Rider that hung above the sofa. “Things were a lot simpler in his day, weren’t they?”

The Defense Secretary shook his gray-maned head. “It only seems so from this distance in time, sir.”

“You work so hard to get this job,” the President murmured, more to himself than to the others in the room, “and once you’ve got it, you wonder why you ever tried.”