Ben Bova - Voyagers

In California it was 9 P.M. and all the prime-time television shows had been pre-empted for the live coverage of the space shot.

Doug and Elly Stoner sat in their grandparents’ living room, watching the TV set. Their mother was out with friends. Their grandparents flanked them on the long sectional sofa as Walter Cronkite explained:

“This will be the most difficult and complex manned space mission ever attempted, demanding as it does that the astronaut-cosmonaut team fly four times deeper into space than any human being has ever gone before.”

Cronkite was sitting at a curved command console of a desk. Behind him a four-color chart showed the position of the Earth, the Moon and the alien spacecraft.

“Already, a team of Russian cosmonauts aboard the Soviet space station Salyut Six has assembled three modules rocketed up from Tyuratam over the past two weeks.”

Pictures of the space modules appeared behind Cronkite’s ear, replacing the chart. The modules were silvery cylinders with bent-wing panels of solar energy cells jutting out from each side. Each module bore the red letters CCCP stenciled on its side.

“These modules contain the air-recycling equipment, food and water for the two-week-long space mission,” Cronkite went on, “as well as the scientific apparatus with which the American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut will study the alien spacecraft, and—if everything goes very well—make a rendezvous in space with this visitor from a distant solar system.”

Doug fidgeted nervously on the sofa, wishing for a beer. His sister shot him a stern glance, then returned her attention to the television screen.

“Piloting the Soyuz spacecraft will be Major Nikolai Federenko, a veteran of three earlier Soviet space missions. The scientist-astronaut will be Dr. Keith Stoner, of the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration—NASA. Dr. Stoner…”

For some ridiculous reason, tears sprang up in Doug’s eyes. He kept his face rigidly staring forward, toward the blurring TV screen, and felt thankful that the living room was too dark for his grandparents or his sister to see him.

Markov had no children and his only sibling—an older sister—had married and moved off to an industrial city in the Caucasus while Kirill was still in college. So the emotional swirl of walking Stoner through the long morning caught him unaware.

As the American’s translator, Markov went every step of the way with Stoner as they entered the launch control building, sat down for the final physical checkup (a simple blood test and EKG) and then went downstairs to suit up.

“It’s like a bridegroom putting on his tuxedo,” Stoner said as a pair of white-smocked technicians helped him climb into the bulky, cumbersome pressure suit.

Markov sat on a bench and leaned his back against a metal locker. “More like a knight putting on his armor,” he observed.

Next they went out to a minibus and drove to the launching pad. With four other technicians crowding into the rickety elevator cab, they rode to the top of the launch tower. Stoner looked to Markov as if some puffy white headless monster had almost completely swallowed him. Markov felt jittery, almost sick to his stomach, as if he had forgotten something vital, as if something terribly wrong was about to happen.

But these are all good, hardworking men. They have devoted their lives to our space programs. They wouldn’t deliberately sabotage their own work. They couldn’t!

Yet he felt far from reassured. It only takes one rotten apple, whispered a coiled cobra inside his brain.

The elevator opened onto a cramped enclosure teeming with technicians in the inevitable white coveralls. A featureless tube of smooth gray walls led out of the enclosure, ending at the hatch of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Stoner turned toward his friend. “This is as far as you go, Kirill. Launch crew only from here on.”

Markov saw that the cosmonaut, Major Federenko, was already partway down the access tube, waiting, his pressure suit zipped up and his fishbowl helmet under his arm.

“It’s okay,” Stoner said. “Federenko speaks English pretty well. I won’t get lost.”

Markov forced a smile. “Good luck, Keith. Vaya con Dios .”

Stoner grinned at him. “ Et cum spirito tuo , old friend. I’ll see you when I get back.”

Markov stood there feeling empty and terribly sad as Stoner clumped down the tube toward the cosmonaut.

“Hello, Nikolai,” he heard Stoner say. “Looks like a good day for flying.”

“Yes, yes,” Federenko replied in a deep bass voice that echoed off the tube walls. “Good day. Very good day.”

Like two young knights sallying out for adventure, Markov thought. Then he realized why he was so sad. And leaving me behind.

He went back down the elevator and was driven in the minibus back to the launch control building. Maria was waiting for him as he stepped down from the bus. She wore her drab brown uniform now.

“I wish them well,” she said.

Markov nodded and put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. Incredibly, she let him get away with it.

“They have the future of the world in their hands, Marushka,” he said to her. “Our future, the future of Russia, of America—the whole world.”

Maria looked up at him. “They’ll be all right,” she assured him. “The launch will go well. Come, we can watch it from inside the control center.”

As the sun crept over the distant hills and the morning mists of Rome began to burn away, the Pope got up from his knees and walked slowly to the door of his private chapel.

Cardinal Benedetto would be out there, he knew. And Von Friederich and so many others. The television people. The paparazzi. He had to simplify it all, bring it down to a few strong words that all could understand. He spoke not merely to the cameras and the newspapers, but to hundreds of millions of believers and—strangely enough—to billions of non-believers, as well. The Papacy was a heavy burden, global in scope. Now it was about to become interstellar.

That is what I will tell them, the Pope thought, nodding slowly to himself. God in His mercy and wisdom has seen fit to reveal more of His creation to us. We are indeed fortunate to live in these times. This alien object reaffirms Christ’s truth, that all men are brothers.

Fleetingly, he wondered again what the consequences would be if the alien turned out to be evil, devilish.

It cannot be, he told himself firmly. That is something I cannot believe. God would not allow such an evil to fall upon us.

He reached out boldly and threw open the doors. Television lights glared around him and the crowd of news reporters strained against the velvet ropes that had been set up.

The dazzling lights even reached back into the chapel chamber, where, above the altar at which he had prayed, a Medieval mural of the Flood showed a sinful mankind being chastized by a wrathful God.

Halfway around the world, on Kwajalein, it was early evening. Reynaud sat by Schmidt’s bedside and watched the countdown’s progress on the hospital television set.

Cronkite was showing a view of Cape Canaveral. A NASA Space Shuttle stood gleaming white in the glare of floodlights, its nose pointing into the Florida sky.

“And at Kennedy Space Center, American technicians are preparing to launch the tanker that will refuel the Russian Soyuz, deep in space, as it nears the alien craft.

“The tanker itself is a Russian vehicle, flown to the United States six days ago as part of this intricate joint American-Soviet effort to make contact with the alien spacecraft.”

Schmidt, sitting up in his bed, asked through his wired jaw, “Do you think they’ll make it?” His voice was thick and slow.