Mr Dezhurov stood and shook her hand. He looked tired — very tired.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, his English dripping with heavy Russian intonation. ‘You can call me Aleks.’
‘And I’m Sally.’
They sat down.
‘Very briefly,’ Aleks began, ‘a few weeks ago, the crew of the ISS discovered a unidentified object.’
He continued to describe what had happened, telling Sally about the difficulty in establishing visual contact with the vessel and their failure to communicate with it. He told her about Mikhail’s hallucinogenic experiences and, making Sally’s skin prickle, the harrowing two-word message that had been their last.
‘That transmission was recorded four days ago and was the last time we had contact with anyone on board the ISS,’ Aleks concluded.
‘Oh my god,’ Sally whispered, looking between the solemn faces of Aleks and Bales. ‘But I’m afraid even with all my knowledge of long-range communication, we won’t be able to penetrate the barrier of radiation from the solar storm to make contact with the crew. It’s just not possible…’
Aleks’ face fell a little, and he looked at his desk.
‘I’m sorry you’ve brought me all this way to hear that, but there’s nothing I can do to help you. You’ll have to wait for the storm to die down.’
‘That’s the problem,’ Bales said. Sally looked at him; his narrow eyes were fixed on hers. ‘The storm ended more than two days ago. We’ve had a clear window of communication for over twenty-four hours and there hasn’t been a single response to any of our broadcasts.’
Sally blinked, hearing but not understanding. ‘I don’t… I don’t know what you mean,’ she said. ‘I mean, I do know what you mean, but I don’t know what you need me for?’
That churning, nauseating anxiousness began tumbling inside her again, and she held the desk to steady herself.
‘Are you okay?’ Aleks asked.
Sally nodded. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, not feeling fine at all.
Bales placed his hand on her shoulder.
‘We wanted you as an advisor to the ISS crew, to help them figure out how to make contact with UV One, but it’s clear that’s not going to happen now.’ He paused, as if letting his words sink in. ‘Sally, we need you to go to the station with one of our astronauts and resume the research yourself.’
‘But,’ Sally whispered, her throat tightening, ‘can’t I do that from here?’
‘The station is in the best location, has the best equipment and offers you the best chance of making contact with UV One,’ Bales said. ‘I’ve been told there isn’t anyone better suited to this job than you, and right now we can’t do with anything less than that. This is a matter of global security. We can’t cut corners.’
He lifted his hand from her shoulder and clasped it together with his other. Aleks’ eyes flitted backwards and forwards between them.
‘Take some time to think about it,’ Bales said, his tanned face breaking into a reassuring smile that his stern eyes did not mirror.
On the plane, Sally had hoped beyond hope that something like this would happen. She had done for a long time before, too. But now it was here, real, it was the last thing she wanted. Sitting in the corner of the canteen, clutching a tepid cup of coffee, she stared through the wall and way into the distance. The people around her came and went, some on their own, some in groups talking among themselves, but they registered only as a blur. She had hoped to find solace on her own in the canteen — it was how she worked best, how she cleared her mind. Solitude was who she was and she sought it out, embraced it even. But this — this was on another level. She felt more than alone: she felt lonely. She was already far away from home, from the comfort of familiarity, and they wanted to send her even further away. She didn’t cry — she never was one for crying — she just felt lost, confused, and desperate to be back where she belonged.
The sound of chair legs dragging against the floor made her jump, and she looked up. It was Aleks, who placed a steaming cup on the table in front of her.
‘I brought you fresh coffee,’ he said.
‘Did John send you here to try and convince me to go?’ Sally asked, staring at the old cup pressed between her palms.
Aleks sat down next to her. ‘No, not at all, nothing like that.’
He took a deep breath as though he was going to continue talking, but instead he just sighed a long, loud sigh.
‘He’s my friend you know,’ he said after a while. ‘Mikhail, that is. Has been for a very long time.’
‘You don’t think he’s coming back?’ Sally asked.
Aleks shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t known what to think since — since it showed up.’ He looked around the deserted canteen, his face anxious. ‘I just want to know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘I want to get some answers. Find out what happened to Mikhail and the others. For all I know this thing could kill us all tomorrow, and I don’t want to go without knowing why.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘That’s the reason why we — why you — are here isn’t it? To ask why?’
Sally gave an inward nod, but outside said and did nothing.
‘I don’t trust Bales,’ Aleks continued, ‘and I don’t like him either, but for now at least we’re on the same team. I do trust you, though. I think you could be exactly what we need to sort this whole mess out and find some answers.’
He put his cup down on the table and heaved himself to his feet. ‘Do whatever you think’s right, okay?’
Sally nodded. ‘I will.’
Aleks nodded himself and wandered away, leaving Sally alone with her thoughts.
The next day, with a clear mind, Sally was able to see things afresh, and her decision was made. It came easier than expected, and when she told Bales, she felt a sense of relief. Before she knew it, she was riding in a helicopter bound for Star City. Also known as Zvyozdny, Shchyolkovo Fourteen and Closed Military Townlet Number One, Star City was home to the secret cosmonaut training centre, Military Unit 26266 , established during the 1960s space race between Soviet Russia and the US Now called the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre — after the cosmonaut that made Soviet Russia the first power on Earth to put a man in space — and under civil command, it was a thriving town with its own school, shops, post office, cinema, railway station and even museum. Between the old Star City and the new, one thing still remained: its sole reason for existence was to train cosmonauts to cope with the rigours of space. Sally had dreamed of coming to this place since she was a little girl; for her, it was a Mecca of extra-terrestrial exploration and a doorway to the heavens.
The beating blades of the helicopter thumped through her headphones, and Bales gave her a reassuring nod from the opposite seat. She watched through the glass bubble as the patchwork quilt of green fields slid beneath them, her heart pounding with each revolution of the blades. Clinging on to the dangling handhold, she tried to concentrate her mind on the beauty of the view rather than what was waiting for her at the end of it.
‘Not long now,’ Bales’ voice came, muted and muffled, over her headset. He tapped his watch to reiterate what he was saying in case it had been lost over the noise. And he was right: a mere minute or so later and the helicopter was descending down among a network of peeling grey buildings stretched out in uniform rows. The immediate skyline was punctured with other, more unusual buildings; in the fleeting moments of the descent, Sally noticed cylinders and domes dotted around the Eastern Bloc monotony.
Читать дальше