Ben Bova - Voyagers

“Your hour has come,” Markov said solemnly.

Stoner glanced at Jo. She was watching the technician as he removed a black plastic case from the cabinet.

“Nobody’s been able to substitute poison for the tranquilizer they’re going to give me,” Stoner heard himself say.

Jo flicked her dark, anxious eyes to him. “I’ve been checking the cabinet all day. They’ve kept it locked.”

Markov frowned but said nothing.

The four of them went up to Stoner’s room, the technician in the lead. Stoner sat in his creaking desk chair and rolled up his shirt sleeve while Markov and Jo hovered beside him.

With elaborate care the technician fitted the syringe together and tested it. Stoner stared down at the unfinished letter to his son. Hastily, he scrawled:

I’ve got to go now. You’ll probably see the flight on TV. I hope to see you and Elly soon. Please write, and ask your sister to write, too. I love you both very much.

He signed his name, folded the letter and stuffed it into the envelope he had already addressed. Handing it to Markov, he asked, “Would you mail this for me, Kirill?”

Markov nodded.

The technician came up, swabbed Stoner’s bare arm just above the elbow. Markov turned his head. So did Stoner. He felt the faintest prick of the needle, and then the technician was pressing a cotton swab on his arm.

“It’s all finished,” Jo said.

“Christ, I hate needles,” Stoner muttered.

The technician smiled at them, his smile growing especially big for Jo, and then left. Stoner got to his feet, tested his legs.

“Nothing. No effect at all.”

“It will hit you soon enough,” Markov said. “You had better get into bed.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Markov toyed with his beard. “Keith…tomorrow you will be surrounded by others, technicians, doctors…you know.”

Stoner nodded. Markov grabbed him by the shoulders and embraced him. Stoner pounded the Russian’s back with both hands and got the same treatment in return.

“Good night,” Markov said, pulling himself away. “Good luck, my friend.”

“Good night, Kirill.”

Markov hurriedly left the room. Stoner turned. Jo was still standing there, between him and the bed.

Stoner put out a hand to push the door shut, missed it, staggered a few steps.

“Whoa…!” The room swayed.

“Here, let me help you,” Jo said.

“I can manage.” He gripped the open door, clung to it for a moment to steady himself, then pushed against it. It swung shut and he swung around to face her.

“That must’ve been some shot he gave you,” Jo said. Her voice sounded far, far away.

“Kid stuff,” Stoner said. He tried to snap his fingers, but it didn’t work.

Somehow she was holding him, propping him up, walking him toward the bed. An infinite distance. Endless.

“My last night on Earth,” Stoner mumbled. “I want to spend it with you.”

“Sure you do,” she said.

He was falling, gliding slowly, effortlessly, weightlessly toward the bed that stretched out so invitingly, so far below him.

“My last night on Earth,” he repeated as he bounced on the squeaking, sagging mattress.

“Yes, I know.”

She was beside him and he held her close. She felt warm and the scent of springtime flowers buzzed through his brain.

“We are stardust,” he told her.

Her voice was a distant purr in his ear. “You told me that our last night on Kwajalein.”

“A million years ago. Yes, I remember.”

“Close your eyes, Keith. Sleep.”

“I want to make love with you, Jo. I want you to make love with me.”

Her soft laughter was like windchimes. He couldn’t hear the sadness in it. “Keith, you’re going to be unconscious in another minute.”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to…” The words faded away as his eyes closed.

Jo sat next to him for long moments, watching his face relax into deep, untroubled sleep. She kissed him lightly, and he smiled.

“Say you love me, Keith,” she whispered to his sleeping form. “Tell me just once that you love me.”

But he lay there sound asleep, smiling.

Jo got to her feet, straightened her clothes, and went to the door. With one final look at him sleeping peacefully on the bed, she opened the door and left his room.

“Harry, come on! You’re missing Walter!”

“Walter? I thought he retired.”

“He’s on for this. Hurry!”

“Hold on. Hold on. Here I am. Turn up the sound.”

“I swear you’re getting deaf. I swear it.”

“If you’d shut up for a minute, maybe I could hear the darned TV!”

“Don’t yell at me, Harry! First time Walter’s on all year and you have to start an argument.”

“Just turn up the sound and sit down.”

“…and for that story, we switch to Roger Mudd, in Moscow.”

“It’s three A.M. here in Moscow, Walter, and the city is asleep. But the lights in the Kremlin offices where the upcoming space shot is being monitored are burning intensely…”

“Is that happening now, Harry?”

“Can’tcha see? It says, ‘Live by Satellite.’ ”

“…and in the Russian cosmodrome of Tyuratam, final preparations for the rocket’s lift-off are being made in the glow of floodlamps…”

“Is that a real Russian rocket?”

“Sure it is.”

“Gee, it looks just like one of ours.”

Maria Kirtchatovska Markova watched the sky slowly brighten with dawn as she lay wide awake beside her husband’s sprawled, sleeping form.

Even with his beard and his hair turning silver, when he slept he looked like a baby: his face was unlined, except for the smile crinkles around the corners of his eyes, his mouth was open slightly, his breathing deep and regular.

Her eyes burned with sleeplessness. All night long she had lain in bed, rigid with tension, worrying about the future. The American was doomed, she knew that. He was nothing more than a pawn in the power struggle taking place within the Kremlin. But if Stoner was a pawn, Maria herself—and Kirill—were even less. They could both be swept away with the brush of a careless hand.

I must protect him, she knew. I must protect us both.

Slowly, carefully, she lifted the bedcovers enough to slip out of bed. The floor felt cold to her feet, but she barely noticed it. She went to the window, felt the summer sunlight warm on her face.

“Maria?” Markov’s sleep-fogged voice called.

She didn’t answer.

“What are you doing?”

Turning, she saw that he was sitting up in the bed. His faded green nightshirt was twisted ludicrously around his torso, but the sight brought no laughter to Maria’s lips.

“I’m watching the sunrise,” she said. “It’s quite beautiful.”

Markov reached for a cigarette from the pack on the bedside table.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, lighting it. “Why are you up at this ungodly hour?”

She shrugged. There was no sense talking to him about it. He would only get angry and climb up on his high horse and make silly pronouncements.

Markov got out of bed and came to the window beside her.

“You haven’t slept all night, have you? Your eyes are all red.”

“They launch the rocket this morning,” she said.

“Yes.” Markov puffed on the cigarette and gazed out the window. From this side of the building the launching pad couldn’t be seen.

“Strange to think,” he went on, “that Stoner will be safer once he’s in space than he’s been on the ground.”

Maria said nothing.

Her husband mused, “At least there are no assassins in outer space.”

She still said nothing.

He looked down at her, his eyes searching. “Maria Kirtchatovska, he will be safe in that rocket, won’t he?”