Ben Bova - Voyagers

Borodinski considered that possibility for a moment, then asked, “Will you accept their offer?”

Leaning closer to his aide, the Secretary asked, “What would you do?”

It was a test, Borodinski realized, a test to see if he was fit to take over his master’s position. He fought down the fear rising in his throat and kept his long-simmering ambition deep within his heart.

“There is strong opposition within the Presidium,” he said slowly. “The idea of co-operating with the capitalists can cause bitter resentment among our more conservative comrades.”

“The same comrades who insisted that we march into Afghanistan,” the Secretary muttered, “without thinking about how difficult it is to march out again.”

“They have caused us many difficulties, true,” said Borodinski.

“And,” the General Secretary pointed out, “there is strong pressure within the Presidium that we accept the American offer.”

Borodinski nodded and stroked his pointed, Lenin-style goatee. “I have learned that the United Nations is also interested in the American program. And they will certainly bring the Chinese in with them.”

“Then we would be left out in the cold if we refused to co-operate, wouldn’t we?”

“But if we do co-operate, it will infuriate some of the most powerful members of the Presidium. Not to mention the Red Army.”

The General Secretary gave him a smirking grin. “A nice little problem, isn’t it? How would you handle it?”

Borodinski sank into silent thought. The limousine drove on through the snowy gray silence of morning, well beyond the buildings and houses of sprawling Moscow, far beyond the range of rooftop directional microphones and laser snoopers that can record conversations from the vibrations that spoken words make on the windows of a moving automobile.

Finally Borodinski said, “I think we have no alternative but to accept the American offer. Otherwise we will fall behind them and the others. They could obtain enormous amounts of information from this spaceship…” He had more to say, but the pleased expression on the General Secretary’s face told him it was time to stop talking.

“A good, honest, straightforward decision.” The old man patted his knee. “Now allow me to give you a lesson in politics to go with it.”

Borodinski sat up a little straighter.

“I am a dying man, comrade. The doctors have confirmed it. Everyone in the Politburo and the Presidium knows it. This is a dangerous time for me—and for you.”

Borodinski nodded, not trusting his voice to reply.

The Secretary closed his eyes for a moment. Then, “You pointed out, quite correctly, that if we accept the Americans’ offer of co-operation it will infuriate some of our most conservative comrades. It might well enrage them to the point where they might try to—well, hasten my demise.”

“They’d never dare!”

“Oh yes they would,” the Secretary assured him with a grim smile. “It wouldn’t be the first time a ruler in the Kremlin was hurried to his grave. And it hasn’t happened only to the Tsars, either.”

Borodinski made his face look shocked.

“But, comrade,” the Secretary went on, “suppose we prepare a little snare for these hotheads, a little trap to catch them in treasonable activities, eh? Then we can clear the Kremlin of the troublemakers and I can live out my remaining days in peace, knowing that I’m safe from traitors and assassins.”

Borodinski stroked his pointed little beard again. “Then the decision to join the Americans in studying the alien spaceship…”

“Is the bait for our trap, naturally.”

“That’s…brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. No wonder you have been our leader for all these years.”

The Secretary allowed himself a brief smile. “There is something else, as well.”

“Yes?”

“If we are to make contact with another race of intelligent creatures, I want it to be in my lifetime. In fact, it would be the crowning achievement of my career if the Soviet Union could make this contact alone , without the help of the West.”

“But how…?”

“This is what we shall do.” The General Secretary leaned closer to his aide, close enough so that Borodinski could smell the odor of medicine on the old man’s breath.

“I am listening,” he said.

“We will send a small team of scientists to this island. They will work with the Americans. Among them will be a few of our intelligence people, of course. Links to us. To me .”

“I see. Of course.”

“While the scientists study this spacecraft, we will be preparing one or more of our biggest rocket boosters for flights to meet this alien ship as it approaches us.”

“Ahhh, now I see…”

“Our scientists on Kwajalein will have the responsibility of keeping us fully informed. If and when the proper moment arrives, we will send cosmonauts to greet the alien ship.” He paused, took a deep, wheezing breath. “Or…”

“Or?” Borodinski asked.

“Or we will blow the alien out of the sky with a hydrogen bomb missile, if necessary.”

Borodinski felt a shock wave go through him.

The General Secretary’s face was grave. “That is the one thing that the scientists don’t understand. This alien intruder might be hostile. We must be prepared to defend ourselves.”

“But…it’s only one little ship.”

“No, comrade.” The General Secretary shook his head. “It is only the first ship.”

“Where?” Markov asked, blinking.

“Kwajalein,” said Maria. “It’s an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they told me.”

“We’re being sent there? Why?” Markov glanced around the familiar surroundings of their living room: the bookcases, the comfortable chairs, the old brass reading lamp that he had rescued from his mother’s house, the sturdy tree just outside the window.

“First, they send me to the research center out in the middle of the wilderness and now…where did you say it is?”

“Kwajalein,” Maria repeated firmly. She was still in her uniform, but she held two big paper bags of groceries in her arms. She hadn’t even bothered to put them down before telling her husband the news.

“No,” Markov protested, his head buzzing. He groped for one of the chairs and sank into it, leaving his wife standing there with the groceries. “I can’t go there. I’m not a traveler, Maria Kirtchatovska, you must make them understand that. I want to stay here, at home…”

“Ha,” she said. It was not a laugh.

He looked up at her.

Stamping the snow off her boots as she walked, Maria headed for the kitchen.

“You want to stay home,” she mimicked in a high, singsong voice. “You didn’t stay home last night. You weren’t even here when I left for the office this morning.”

“I wasn’t on a tropical island, either,” he called after her.

“Where were you?”

“In my office. Working late. I slept on the couch there, rather than walking all the way back here through the snow. The buses stop running after midnight, you know.”

“Sleeping on your couch,” Maria groused, from the kitchen. “With whom?”

“With a volume of Armenian folk tales that I must translate before the end of the semester!” he snapped. “Your superiors demand weeks of my time, but they don’t hire anyone to do my work for me.”

She came to the kitchen doorway, a small sack of onions in her hands. “You were with some slut all night. I phoned your office when I got home.”

Markov made himself smile at her. “Really, Maria, you can’t trap me that easily. I was in the office all night. You did not phone.”

She stared at him for a long moment.

“I was really there, Maria,” he said. “Alone.”