Zach Powers - First Cosmic Velocity

After three days in the bunker at Baikonur, Leonid and Nadya had been retrieved by Mishin and Bushuyev in a timeworn Sorokovka armored transport. The cargo bed carried a Vostok capsule, bearing scorch marks as if it had reentered the atmosphere when in reality Mishin and Bushuyev had attacked it with blowtorches. The transport carried them hundreds of kilometers across the steppe to the supposed landing site. Once there, Leonid helped Mishin and Bushuyev push the capsule off the back of the transport. It landed with a hollow thud and sank into the damp dirt. They attached a parachute and allowed the wind to billow it open. Mishin and Bushuyev radioed the rest of the recovery team, who had no part in the deception. Who believed. Hours more of waiting, followed by a trip to an airstrip another several hundred kilometers away. Leonid found some small amusement in the fact that he had to travel so far to pretend that he had traveled even farther.

Ignatius waited for them on the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs. She wore a leather jacket with a fur collar, several sizes too large, though it was too warm for even a sweater. A black Zil limousine idled behind her, its door held open by a man dressed in a black suit. In the distance, just outside the terminal, a small crowd waited, and with them a military band playing the “Aviamarch.” Nadya sang along in whisper, “ Ever higher, and higher, and higher we direct the flight of our birds ,” bobbing her head out of time with the beat. She must have heard that song a thousand times after her sister’s launch.

“Comrades,” said Ignatius, spreading her arms, “welcome back to Moscow.”

“It’s only been a week since we left,” said Leonid.

“But you left the planet entirely. Certainly you deserve a welcome home.” She smirked as she said this, turning to the car before Leonid could respond.

Other than for launches, he had only been away from Star City twice since he first arrived as a child, both for trips into Moscow, so that he might know the history and the monuments. Moscow did not feel like home, no matter how close to Star City it might be. But then, returning to Star City never felt like returning home, either.

The Zil’s engine grumbled, and the car slid forward, wheels whirring across the tarmac, then through an ungated gap in the wire fence that surrounded the whole airport. A lone highway threaded away from Domodedovo, nothing much around it, forest and field and an occasional silo breaking through the canopy of trees. On maps, the area was marked with the names of towns, but Leonid saw no sign of them. No one waited for his arrival this far out, kilometers and kilometers from Moscow’s center. He settled back into the plush leather seat. In training, he had been required to sit for hours in a mock-up of the Vostok capsule, the seat padded just enough to make tolerable the way it curled the body like a fetus. Young Giorgi called Vostok the iron womb . He seemed to have a nickname for everything and everyone.

Giorgi was the sixth cosmonaut, brought in later, the only one who did not have a twin, who prepared to both fly and return to Earth. He had no idea the cosmonauts he knew now were not the same ones he had trained with for years. He had no idea that his five closest friends were dead. Four dead, thought Leonid, with one who might as well be.

A black radio receiver was built into the back of the Zil’s passenger seat. Ignatius fiddled with the knobs, cycling through static and squeals, until she found the robotic ghost of a voice. She tweaked the tuning until the voice came in clear. It was Yuri Levitan, announcing Leonid’s arrival in Moscow, directing the populace to Red Square and telling them which streets Leonid would traverse on the way there. Levitan’s rich voice, thick with a Moscow accent that Leonid still sometimes had trouble understanding, filled up the whole cone of the little radio’s speaker, the loudest words, always Leonid’s name, Vostok , or socialist , popping on each hard consonant.

The city began in fits and starts, buildings clustered instead of standing alone, the distance filling with the gray outlines of taller structures. Here and there, a group of Muscovites waited by the side of the road to wave as the Zil sped past. These people still wore an older style of clothes, not much different from the shapeless tunics and baggy pants that Leonid wore as a boy. Traveling from the outskirts to the city was like following a time line, the old ways evolving to modernity.

As the Zil entered the avenues of old Moscow, the crowds grew, though nothing like Nadya’s procession years before. It seemed then as if all of the city’s five million citizens had packed into Red Square, flooding the streets, slowing her car’s progress to a crawl. Men pressed against the window and proposed to her. Parents, cheeks streaked with tears, held out babies as if Nadya might bless them. Children followed the car, sometimes for blocks, surely out of sight of their families. Nadya was the first, though, and the crowds had shrunk with each subsequent launch. Leonid, being fifth, had doubted that anyone would show up at all.

Two police cars joined the Zil, one leading, one following, their blue lights flashing but faint in the midday sun. Ignatius rolled down the side window.

“Greet your admirers,” she said to Leonid.

He did not much feel like waving, but as soon as the window was down, his hand metronomed back and forth without him having to think about it, as if powered by the inrushing air. His training had included whole classes on how to emote. He could shake hands and bow and hug with professional acumen. He waved and waved. He imagined that his hand actually belonged to his brother.

The convoy passed behind the Kremlin, up to the short road that entered Red Square from the northeast. The police escort peeled off, one car in either direction. The Zil halted near Lenin’s tomb, where an armed soldier opened the door from outside. Ignatius exited and Leonid followed. By the time he was standing, however, Ignatius had merged with the crowd that pressed toward the car from all sides. The whole of Red Square was paved or laid with brick, and the sound of so many people echoed back onto itself, amplifying every clap and holler and clomp of foot. A semicircle of soldiers held the crowd back, but Leonid felt as if he were about to be crushed. As a boy, he had seen landslides tumble unstoppable down the mountainside. Then Nadya was beside him, taking his hand and pulling him along. They mounted the raised platform in front of the mausoleum.

Khrushchev waited there with a small entourage, politicos and military officers, all huddled against the back wall, where they could not be seen from below. Leonid recognized one of the officers as Marshal Nedelin. He had been forced to learn Nedelin’s face from photographs, but he could not remember why Nedelin was important. Leonid saluted, and Nadya followed suit a beat later. Instead of returning the gesture, Nedelin strode forward and gripped Leonid by each shoulder. Leaning close to Leonid’s ear, Nedelin spoke, “A good show, son. A good show, indeed.” He released Leonid and moved to Nadya, gripping her shoulders in the same fashion. She smiled, just slightly, and Leonid could not be sure but thought he saw the faintest red of a blush.

Khrushchev beamed at Leonid, a gap-toothed grin bunching his supple cheeks. Leonid had never met the man before, and was surprised by how short he was. The cosmonauts were not so tall themselves, but still Leonid looked down at the top of Khrushchev’s head, the pate sprouting a few final wisps of white hair. Khrushchev embraced first Nadya and then Leonid, deep hugs of real affection. Leonid lifted his arms, but despite the many times he had been forced to practice hugging could not return the embrace. He patted Khrushchev’s back instead.