Ben Bova - Voyagers

“How are you?” he asked.

For a moment she didn’t reply. Then, “Do you really want to know, Keith?”

He saw something unfathomable in those deep eyes of hers. “Big Mac treating you well?” he asked.

Her mouth went tight.

“You’re sleeping with him now,” Stoner said flatly. “Everybody knows it.”

Nodding slowly, she said, “He treats me better than you did.”

“Than I did?” He felt genuine surprise. “What’d I ever do to you?”

“Nothing. Not a damned thing,” Jo said, her eyes blazing now. “You treated me like Kleenex: use it and throw it away.”

“That’s not fair, goddammit!”

“But it’s true, Keith.”

“So you just walked off and attached yourself to McDermott. Got yourself a better deal.”

“You’re damned right I did. And I got a better deal for you, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She started to reply, but instead turned her back to him. He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around to face him.

“What’re you talking about?” he demanded. “What better deal?”

He had thought she was crying, but she was dry-eyed, in full control of herself.

“What better deal?” Jo repeated. “I left you alone so you could devote all your attention to your work. To your pictures of Jupiter and your computer runs. That’s all you ever wanted, wasn’t it? A few sanitary conveniences and no personal ties to bother you.”

He took a staggering step backward, away from her. “Jesus Christ, you sound like Doris.”

“Doris? Your ex-wife?”

He nodded.

Jo’s shoulders slumped. The fire disappeared from her eyes.

“I didn’t walk out on you, Keith,” she said softly. “I was never part of your life. You never let me be part of you.”

He turned away from her, scanned the horizon and the breakers along the reef, pulling his emotions back under control. Leave her alone, he told himself. She’s too young to get involved with you; you’re in no position to get involved with her.

“Look, Jo,” he said, facing her again, “this is a damned small island and we’re going to see each other every day, just about. Let’s just call a truce and forget about what’s already happened. Okay?”

“Sure,” she said, her voice strained. “Water under the bridge and all that.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Jo said, lifting her chin to stand as tall as she could. “I was just taking a walk around the beach, to see what the place looks like. See you.”

She strode off, leaving him standing there alone. With a shrug, Stoner started walking up the beach in the opposite direction.

Only after several minutes had passed, and she had looked over her shoulder three times to make certain he wasn’t anywhere in sight, did Jo allow herself to cry.

Stoner walked steadily up the beach, cursing himself for a fool but not knowing what else he could have done.

He saw Jeff Thompson sitting on the sand, his back against the bole of a sturdy, slanting palm tree. Jeff scrambled to his feet as Stoner approached.

“How do you like our tropical paradise?” Jeff asked, by way of greeting.

“I was just thinking,” Stoner replied, burying his thoughts of Jo, “how many times I dreamed of coming to an island like this, when I was a kid.”

“Well, here we are.”

“Yeah. We sure are.” Stoner took a deep breath of salt air. “Your family decide to come with you?”

“No,” Thompson said. “Gloria doesn’t want to pull the kids out of school. I agree with that. So I’m on my own for a couple of months.”

“Maybe we’ll be back home before June.”

“Fat chance.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“The Russian plane’s due in this afternoon.”

“How many are they sending?”

“About twenty, from what I hear. Where are they going to put everybody?”

“Dorms. Houses. Trailers. We’ve got room for them, I think, unless they all want to stick together, by themselves.”

“And there’s another couple of planeloads due in tomorrow,” Thompson added. “One from NATO and one from the UN that’s supposed to represent Third World scientists.”

Scuffing at the sand under his shoes, Stoner grumbled, “This place isn’t a research station—it’s a damned political circus. Next thing you know they’ll be bringing in the Queen of England and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”

“Only on Sundays…”

“ATTENTION. ATTENTION,” blared the island-spanning network of public address loudspeakers. Thompson and Stoner looked up at the horn set on the bole of the palm tree.

“THE RUSSIAN DELEGATION IS NOW ESTIMATED TO ARRIVE AT SIXTEEN-THIRTY HOURS. ORIENTATION BRIEFING FOR THE RUSSIAN DELEGATION HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO TWENTY-ONE HUNDRED HOURS, AFTER THE EVENING MEAL.”

The metallic, booming voice stopped as suddenly as it had started, making Stoner feel momentarily as if a hole had been left in the air around him. Then the breeze gusted and a gull screamed and the nearby palms sighed. The island went back to normal.

“They’re late,” Thompson said.

“They must be flying a Russian plane,” Stoner muttered, “with a dependable Soviet crew.”

Markov studied the island intently as the plane circled at altitude.

Maria was sitting on the aisle seat beside him, her hands clutching the armrests with white-knuckled anxiety. The flight had been far from restful. First, they had to circle a huge springtime storm over the Urals. Then they made an extra fueling stop near Lake Baykal—where they were coolly informed that one of the engines was malfunctioning and would have to be repaired or replaced.

That did little to build one’s confidence for the long flight across the Pacific Ocean. Nor did the fact that they were kept locked inside the plane for six hours, with nothing to look at but the sight of Mongol mechanics peering puzzledly into the innards of the engine nacelle.

But now at last they were circling over the tiny sliver of an island, with its black gouge of an airstrip, the way a dog circles his sleeping mat before finally settling down for a snooze.

Markov paid scant attention to the glorious cloudscape that was turning the western horizon into a molten palette of reds and oranges. He studied the island.

There wasn’t much to see. A cluster of buildings at one end. The airstrip. More buildings on the other side of the airstrip. A single road. Some radio telescope antennas.

The other islands scattered along the oval-shaped coral reef seemed empty, abandoned. White beaches and lush green foliage. All of them tiny, barely a few city blocks long, Markov judged. The main island was bigger, but had been almost totally denuded of trees to make room for the buildings and the airstrip.

He reached down under the seat for his satchel.

“What are you doing?” Maria groused.

“Looking for the binoculars.”

“What do you expect to see? Dancing girls in grass skirts?”

Markov sighed. He had given up that particular fantasy when the KGB briefing officer had informed them that the Americans had turned Kwajalein into a military base more than twenty years earlier.

“No, of course not,” he muttered.

“Those antennas”—his wife pointed, her other hand still clutching the seat arm in a death grip—“were once radars, to observe the re-entry of test missiles fired from California.”

“Yes, so they told us.”

“They have been adapted to observe the alien spaceship,” she said.

“Umm,” muttered Markov as he put the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus.

There was no sign of natives at all. No one gathered at the airstrip to welcome them. No dark-hued girls with garlands of flowers to drape around their necks and kiss them on both cheeks. Nothing down there but efficient machines and businesslike Americans and that peculiarly American artifact—house trailers.