Zach Powers - First Cosmic Velocity

Nadya had crouched and drawn Kasha back, holding her close. Khrushchev regarded them, his mouth pursed and eyes narrowed.

“Can you launch in five months and a half? How perfect would it be to launch on the anniversary of the Revolution? Let’s launch on November 7.”

“Of course, as long as you’re fine with me requisitioning additional resources, it should be possible to—”

“Wait, Chief Designer. I have an idea. Use my dog as the second cosmonaut. He’s a similar size. How thrilling would it be to have him in space. I mean thrilling for the Soviet people to see Byelka in space.”

The Chief Designer could not follow all that was being said. “Pardon me, but a squirrel?”

“ Byelka is my dog’s name, Chief Designer!” Khrushchev smiled like a proud parent. “Byelshenka.”

“Our dogs have been trained for years, most more than even Kasha. And not all dogs are able to handle the stresses of spaceflight.”

“Nonsense. Just give the little fellow a sedative if you have to. I’ll let you take him for two weeks before the launch. I suspect he can be prepared in that time.”

“Of course, Mr. Khrushchev.” The sound of the salesman had completely drained from the Chief Designer’s voice.

“Byelka and Kasha, the four-legged heroes of the Soviet Union.” Khrushchev gestured to an invisible headline in front of him. “Yes, Chief Designer, I like this very much. Take whatever you need to succeed from the General Designer. He’ll be notified to cooperate in full.”

“Yes, Mr. Khrushchev.”

“This is very exciting. Very exciting.”

Khrushchev summoned his bodyguards and walked away down the hall.

Nadya asked, “Will we really launch Kasha?”

“I don’t know if we can avoid it.”

The Chief Designer looked down and saw tears in Nadya’s eyes. She had never, as far as he knew, cried in front of anyone. He had doubted until right then that she was capable of crying at all.

THE CHIEF DESIGNER unlocked the door to the radio room, entered, and locked it behind him. He flipped on the light and jumped back at the sight of Mars already at the console.

“You were here in the dark?” asked the Chief Designer.

Mars looked up at the overhead light, blinking his eyes deliberately. “I didn’t even notice. It’s been several days since I last slept. I think I thought my eyes were closed.”

The Chief Designer rested his hand on Mars’s shoulder. “After this you’ll sleep, yes?”

“I don’t want to leave him alone.”

“I’ll take the next two orbits, and Mishin and Bushuyev after that.”

“I’ll try to sleep.”

“It doesn’t look like you have a choice. Your eyes are barely open even now.”

The Chief Designer turned on the radio console. The gentle hum of its electronics filled the quiet of the room.

“It’s risky to talk to him, you know,” said the Chief Designer. “The Americans are surely listening, not to mention the operators at our own stations. Are you using encryption?”

“Zarya is functioning properly.”

“How’s Leonid doing?”

“You know the twins. It’s as if they talk in riddles sometimes. Leonid is as much a part of the machinery of Vostok as the switches and wires. Now for the first time he has time to think about who he is. His existence is no longer limited to only training and action. He’s a machine manufacturing a philosophy based on the very limited life he’s lived.”

“You’re starting to sound like a philosopher yourself.”

“I’ve let myself become trapped up there with him.”

The radio crackled. Underneath the static, a faint organic sound repeated. It grew stronger and clearer. A human voice. It asked over and over, Hello?

“Hello, Leonid. It’s the Chief Designer.”

“Is Mars not there?”

“I’m here, too,” said Mars.

“I’ve been saying hello,” said Leonid, “for several minutes. I forgot to note the time when we last lost communication, so I didn’t know when I would again be in range. Also, I’ve begun to distrust the clock. It wasn’t made to run for so long.”

“The clock is fine,” said the Chief Designer.

“That’s good to know. It’ll save me several dozen hellos on the next orbit. All of my supplies are limited, and I suspect I have only so many greetings at my disposal, as well. With infinity literally all around me, the idea of shortage is one that’s difficult to deal with. It’s not that I don’t have everything I could possibly ever need, it’s that I can’t reach it. I remember being a boy, very small, unable to reach something on the table. What possibly could I have been reaching for? The memory of the thing is gone, but I remember wanting it so badly. I remember my short arms. I remember lifting up on my toes, pushing against the floor with them as hard as I could. I was young enough to believe that my will alone would let me achieve the goal. The goal of reaching the forgotten thing on the table.

“Do you know what my brother did? He pushed a chair up to the table and climbed from it to the top and got the thing I wanted. He dropped it down to me. I don’t remember the thing, but I remember my brother standing there, and I thought he was so tall, but we have always been the same height. He was no taller, even though he could reach farther.

“So I wonder. I think these things to be out of reach, the resources I need to survive and all the hellos I have yet to speak, but perhaps I’ve just not yet thought to use a chair. The infinite is infinite, but the extent of our reach is ingenuity. I strained against my limitations, but my brother knew to ignore the limitations entirely. My brother, how is he?”

“He just returned home today,” said the Chief Designer.

“To Bohdan? How’s Grandmother?”

“No, he’s barely closer to Bohdan than you are. He returned to Star City.”

“Tsiolkovski was the first to tell us Star City was home, but I was never able to convince myself entirely. Here, in my little metal ball, I feel more at home than I ever did there. No offense intended, Chief Designer.”

“This doesn’t offend me at all. Most days, I, too, wish to leave Star City and return to my actual home. Months go by when I don’t see my wife or boy.”

“You have a family?”

“I’m supposed to be only a title, Chief Designer , so my family is a secret, even from my staff. I figure there is no harm in telling you. Not because of your… situation, but because you have proven, for even longer than the other cosmonauts, that you can keep a secret.”

“And me?” asked Mars.

The Chief Designer placed his hand on Mars’s shoulder. “You, Mars, are too sleepy to remember any of this tomorrow.”

Mars brushed the Chief Designer’s hand away with an emotive flare.

“I’m not so feebleminded as that,” said Mars.

The men laughed, but not loudly or for long.

Leonid spoke into the silence that followed, “Can I share a secret of my own?”

“Of course, Leonid,” said the Chief Designer.

“I don’t remember her name, my grandmother. She, too, is only a title.”

“Tsiolkovski told it to me when he brought you here. I made a point to remember. I felt that I should honor her sacrifice at least that much.”

“Do you think my brother remembers her name?”

“If not, and if he ever asks, I’ll remind him.”

“Will you remind me now?”

The Chief Designer leaned close to the microphone and whispered her name.

AFTERNOON GAVE WAY to evening and the staff filtered out of the party. Glasses lay sideways and overturned on the tables, even on chairs and the floor. The whole room reeked of spilled spirits. The only ones left were the three cosmonauts, Nadya, Leonid, and Giorgi, sitting on the floor, leaning against Giorgi’s mural on the back wall of the room. Kasha curled in Nadya’s lap. Nadya hummed a simple melody, and Giorgi sometimes pitched in a harmony.