Ben Bova - Voyagers

“Make contact?”

“Bounce a radar beam off it,” Stoner explained.

“But it’s still farther away than Mars, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but the radar guys think they might be able to get a signal bounced off it. They’re itching to try.”

“I will go with you,” Markov said, nodding eagerly. “I’ve never seen this done before.”

“Neither has anybody else,” Stoner said. “And we might not see it done tonight. The damned thing is a helluva long way off.”

The two men walked side by side down the empty street, through the warm, humid darkness, oblivious to the scent of flowers and salt spray on the air.

Academician Bulacheff sat uneasily in the stiff-backed chair. Borodinski’s desk was raised on a little dais, so that visitors had to look up at him. It was an old trick, but Borodinski carried it off well. He had greeted the academician brusquely, waved him to the chair in front of the desk and then bent his balding, neatly bearded head to the paperwork on his desk.

It’s true, Bulacheff said to himself. The General Secretary is dying and we’re going to have to put up with this young pup. I wonder if he’s deliberately trying to make himself look like Lenin?

As if he could read minds, Borodinski looked up at precisely that moment.

He smiled paternally. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Academician Bulacheff, but the press of urgent business has been almost overwhelming these days.”

Bulacheff hesitated a moment, then asked, “The Comrade Secretary? He is well?”

“Oh yes, quite well.” Borodinski’s smile waned. “But extremely…busy. You must excuse him.”

“I had expected to see him personally. We have always discussed this matter between ourselves, face to face…”

“For security reasons, I know. But our friend has asked me to meet with you today.”

“I see.” Bulacheff wondered how far he could trust this younger man.

“The reports coming from Kwajalein indicate that it may be desirable to send a team of cosmonauts to meet the alien spacecraft,” Borodinski said. “Are preparations being made toward this end?”

He knows, Bulacheff realized. No sense trying to stall him off. “The appropriate departments of the Academy are keeping track of the spacecraft and preparing the necessary navigational plans for a rendezvous mission.”

“Good.”

“It is not within our jurisdiction, however, to force the Army to allocate the necessary rockets and cosmonauts.”

“I understand.” Borodinski nodded. “These steps are being taken, I assure you. What we need from you, for now, is continuously updated tracking information for an interception flight.”

“Interception?”

“If the spacecraft is hostile, or about to fall into unfriendly hands…”

“You would destroy it?”

Borodinski flicked both hands upward. “Poof! With an H-bomb. Didn’t our friend tell you of that possibility?”

“He mentioned it once, yes, but…”

“Then you understand that we need the necessary tracking data. Only your long-range radio telescopes have the power to provide such data, I’m told. The Army’s anti-missile radars haven’t the required range.”

“Of course.”

Borodinski smiled pleasantly and fingered his trim little beard.

“Comrade…” Bulacheff began, then hesitated.

“Yes?”

“There…have been rumors…of arrests, interrogations. Is the General Secretary safe and well?”

The younger man’s eyes narrowed and the slightly smug smile left his lips. “Comrade Academician, I assure you that the General Secretary is safe, and well, and most vitally interested in this alien visitor. As for rumors of…changes within the Kremlin—don’t let that bother you. It does not concern you, I promise.”

Still, Bulacheff felt an old familiar weight pressing against his heart.

Rising from behind his desk, Borodinski said, “All you have to worry about, my dear Academician, is the tracking data we require.”

“For making rendezvous with the spacecraft.”

“Or for intercepting it with a missile.” Borodinski pointed a forefinger toward the scientist. “We will either board that spacecraft or blow it out of the sky.”

Cavendish was having the nightmare again. The tropical weather seemed to leach all the energy out of his frail body, and he had been going to bed earlier and earlier each night since he’d arrived on Kwajalein. But his sleep was far from restful.

They were standing over him again with their needles and the lights. He was very small and he had been very wicked to resist them. They were giants and to resist them was not only foolish, but wicked. He could see the gold in their teeth when they smiled and he wanted to run, but his body was frozen and the needles were sinking into his flesh and he could feel the burning juices as they all bent closer over him…

He sat up in bed, shivering with cold sweat. His head throbbed. The muscles of his neck were so taut he could barely turn his head.

Alone in his single room in the Bachelor Officers Quarters, Cavendish pulled on his faded old robe, stuck his slippers on his bony feet and took a towel and a bar of soap from the rack by the room’s sink. He flap-flapped down the bare wooden hallway floor to the washroom.

It was empty at this hour of the night. He got into a shower stall and stood under the taps for several minutes. The water was only lukewarm, more frustrating than relaxing.

Back in his room, he stared at the rumpled, sweaty bed for long moments, then found himself pulling on an old shirt and a pair of slacks. He felt utterly weary; his eyes wanted to close. But mechanically he donned his only pair of sandals, buckled them across the instep and walked out of the BOQ like a sleepwalker, into the late night darkness.

He went directly to the bungalow where the Markovs lived, went up the cement steps and opened the front door without knocking.

Maria sat on the rattan sofa in the front room, an open suitcase beside her. Its innards were filled with knobs and dials. It hummed faintly, and a single red light glowered in it like an angry evil eye.

Maria’s face was an anxious mixture of awe, disbelief and fear.

“Dr. Cavendish?” she whispered, as if afraid of waking him.

“Yes,” he said. Somewhere deep inside him Cavendish wondered who this woman was and what she wanted of him. Only one lamp was lit in the room, over by her, next to the open suitcase filled with electronic equipment.

“Sit down,” Maria said.

Cavendish took the easy chair and crossed his ankles. He folded his hands in his lap and stared ahead blankly.

Maria licked her lips anxiously. She knew Kirill would be coming back soon; it had taken her hours to get the equipment to summon Cavendish—partly because she had been afraid to dial the power setting high enough, she realized now.

“You will remember nothing of this meeting tonight, will you?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

“Not a thing,” he said calmly.

“The reflexes are still there, even after all these years,” she marveled. “I was only a young girl when I first met you, Dr. Cavendish. You don’t remember me at all, do you? It was at a place called Berezovo.”

“The…hospital…”

“Yes, yes. You were a difficult patient. But you won’t be difficult now, will you? You won’t force me to…to do what they did…in the hospital.”

“I won’t be difficult.”

“You will be very co-operative, won’t you?”

“Co-operative.”

Maria sighed with relief. “Now then…about this American, Stoner.”

“My orders were to find out how much he knew and then, if possible, to eliminate him.”

“You did not follow those orders.”