Ben Bova - Voyagers

“I’m scared green to go! But I’m under orders. What can I do?”

“You’re too old to go into space.”

“Not on the Shuttle. I’ll just be a passenger, like a plane…. Look, Margie, it’s only for a coupls of weeks. We’ve got to set up a quarantine for those guys after they contact the alien…”

“You’ll catch alien germs! I know you will!”

“Don’t be silly. It’s all a lot of fuss over nothing. Alien organisms are alien . They can’t infect us. Just because the goddamned White House is jittery, we’ve got to go through the motions of a two-week quarantine. In orbit, yet!”

“I’m afraid, Sam.”

“It’s nothing to worry about, honest.”

“Alien germs…”

“I won’t even be in contact with the guys who make contact with the alien. We’ve got a whole sealed laboratory for them to stay in. All the tests will be done by remote control and anybody who goes into the lab will be wearing a space suit.”

“But why you, Sam? Why’d they have to pick you?”

“Don’t you worry, honey. When I come back I’ll be an important guy. They’ll want me on TV and everything. We’ll retire in style, Marge. Real style.”

Markov sat by the bedroom window, smoking ceaselessly as he watched the long summer twilight give way to darkness.

It was cloudy out there, and would probably begin to rain soon. It made no difference. Even on a clear night the floodlights surrounding their barracks made it impossible to see the stars. And the spaceships were all so far away that they couldn’t be seen from Earth anyway.

The first drops hit the windowpane and trickled down across the reflection of Markov’s long, brooding face. He took a fresh cigarette and lit it with the end of the butt in his lips. The fire glowed bright red for a moment, reminding him instantly of the devilish machine that Maria had back on Kwajalein.

Where is she? he wondered. She had gone out right after dinner and hadn’t come back yet.

Restlessly, Markov glanced at his wristwatch. Six hours to go before they rendezvous with the tanker.

Jo was right, he knew. Stoner would never settle for anything less than physical contact with the alien spaceship. Not without a struggle.

He sighed, then pulled deeply on the cigarette. The rain was spattering down now in big, fat drops. In the reflection of the window Markov saw that he was tugging at his beard again. Annoyed with himself, he got up from the chair and paced across the little room, jamming his right hand into his trousers pocket.

He heard Maria’s clumping footsteps out in the hall and went to the door. Opening it, he saw that the rain had caught her. She looked soaked and bedraggled, hair dripping down across her face, uniform hanging soggily on her stocky body.

And then he saw her eyes.

“Marushka, what is it? What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

She came into the room and shut the door tightly, then leaned against it.

“I have,” she whispered, her voice strangely harsh and breathless. “Two of them.”

“What do you mean?” Markov asked, lowering his own voice unconsciously.

“Federenko and Stoner,” she whispered. “They are both dead.”

“What?”

“Not yet,” she said, raising both hands to quiet him. “But they will be. In six hours.”

Markov felt as if a tiger had clawed out his guts. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

“The tanker,” she said, glancing all around the room, as if she could see a microphone if one had been planted. “The one launched from America. It’s been rigged to explode…”

“The Americans did this?”

“No.” She shook her head impatiently. “Our own people, a faction, very high up…”

“They’re going to kill our own cosmonaut? And Stoner too?”

Maria looked frightened, terrified. “You don’t understand, Kir. It’s a power struggle. Inside the Kremlin, they are fighting for control. We’re only pawns to them, Kir. Less than pawns.”

“When will the tanker explode?” he demanded.

“When they make contact with it. The timer was set by one of our technicians just before the tanker was loaded aboard the American shuttle.”

Markov sank onto the bed. “Maria…to kill them, kill them both, because of their power games…it’s monstrous.”

“I didn’t think they would kill Federenko too,” she said. “I never thought they would do that.”

He buried his face in his hands. The cigarette fell from his fingers to the bare wooden floor, glowing in the shadows.

Maria went to him, knelt by his feet. “I’m sorry, Kir. I risked my neck to find out for you, and now I’m sorry that I did.”

“It’s not your fault, Marushka.” His voice came out muffled, tearful.

“There’s nothing we can do,” she said. “Nothing.”

But Markov put his hands down and straightened his back. He looked down into his wife’s eyes.

“Yes, there is,” he said firmly.

“Kir…”

“There is something we can do, Maria. We can warn them.”

“But then they’ll know that I…Kir, they’ll kill us both.” She was beyond terror; the absolute certainty of it made her voice flat with hopelessness.

“Then we’ll die together,” he said. “Better that than letting those two be killed in space.”

“You are sulking,” said Federenko.

Stoner pulled his attention away from the computer screen and looked at the cosmonaut sitting beside him.

“You don’t look so happy yourself, Nikolai.”

“How can I be? To come all this way and miss the alien…it is not happy.”

“I’ve been checking the computer figures against the latest data on the tanker’s trajectory. We can still make it—if you can dock us with the tanker on the first pass.”

Federenko closed his eyes for a moment, as if rehearsing the problem in his head. “Not easy, Shtoner.”

“You want me to try it?”

The Russian laughed. “You? You are not pilot; you are passenger.”

“Then it’s up to you,” Stoner said flatly.

The laugh died. “I see,” Federenko said. “You make trap for me, eh?”

“I want you to understand how important this is. You’ve got to dock us with the tanker on the first try. Otherwise we miss the alien.”

Federenko nodded unhappily. “Hokay, Shtoner. You make point. I dock with tanker on first pass. You watch!”

Breaking into a grin, Stoner said, “See? I wasn’t sulking at all.”

Blindly Markov raced through the rain, his long legs propelling him by instinct toward the command center. Zworkin. The old man had not been in his bedroom when Markov had pounded on his door. He must be in the command center, Markov told himself. He must be.

Maria was somewhere behind him as he raced along the gravel path that led to the command center’s massive windowless building. The rain lashed at him and he slitted his eyes against its cold sting.

Zworkin is the only one who can save them now, Markov thought as he ran. If I try talking with the security police I’m lost. Zworkin! And through him to Bulacheff.

Stoner couldn’t understand the babble of Russian coming through the radio speaker, but from the expression of Federenko’s deeply lined face he knew it was bad.

The cosmonaut spoke almost angrily back to ground command, and more urgent words burst from the radio.

Stoner turned to the radar screen, a small orange-glowing disk on the panel between their two seats. It showed a strong blip almost dead ahead of them. He stretched slightly to search through the observation port and—yes, there it was. A silvery crescent of metal against the starry blackness.

The tanker. Close enough to see it.