Harry Turtledove: A World of Difference

Athena:

“Thank you, Sergei Konstantinovich,” Bragg said. “The same to you and Tsiolkovsky. Give our regards to Comrade Reguspatoff.”

“To whom?” Puzzlement crept into the Russian colonel’s precise voice.

“Nichevo, “Bragg replied. “It doesn’t matter.”

“As you wish,” Tolmasov said: an oral shrug. “We will see you on the ground, then. We also are about to uncouple.”

“Expected as much,” Bragg said. “We’ll both be busy for a while, so I’ll say goodbye now. Athena out.” He cut the transmission.

“Reguspatoff?” Frank Marquard asked. He made a good straight man.

“Registered-U.S. Patent Office,” Bragg explained with a grin that looked more like a wolf’s lolling-tongued laugh than any gentler mirth. “Or do you think Tsiolkovsky looks so much like Athena just by accident?”

“It’s bigger,” Frank said. “Why don’t we copy their rockets?”

“I wish we would,” Bragg said. “Well, we do what we can with what we’ve got. Not too bad, I suppose: we’ll be down ahead of them.”

His wife broke in. “Or maybe we won’t. Radar shows two images from Tsiolkovsky. I’d say that means they have uncoupled from their engine pack.”

The mission commander’s head jerked toward the screen. “Son of a bitch,” he said softly. He picked up the mike, punched the Transmit button, and started speaking Russian. “Athena to Tsiolkovsky.”

“Tsiolkovsky here: Lopatin.” The engineer’s English was accented but easy to follow.

“Tell your boss he’s a sandbagging bastard.”

“Sandbagging? I do not understand this word,” Lopatin said:

Bragg had left it in his own language. A moment later, Colonel Tolmasov came on. He sounded like a man fighting laughter. “I do, Emmett. That is uncultured.” “You should talk.”

“You will excuse me if I lack time for casual conversation, Brigadier. We are, as you said, rather busy at the moment. Tsiolkovsky out.”

The radio crackled to life. “Tolmasov here. Good luck, Athena.”

“Thank you, Sergei Konstantinovich,” Bragg said. “The same to you and Tsiolkovsky. Give our regards to Comrade Reguspatoff.”

“To whom?” Puzzlement crept into the Russian colonel’s precise voice.

“Nichevo,” Bragg replied. “It doesn’t matter.”

“As you wish,” Tolmasov said: an oral shrug. “We will see you on the ground, then. We also are about to uncouple.”

“Expected as much,” Bragg said. “We’ll both be busy for a while, so I’ll say goodbye now. Athena out.” He cut the transmission.

“Reguspatoff?” Frank Marquard asked. He made a good straight man.

“Registered-U.S. Patent Office,” Bragg explained with a grin that looked more like a wolf’s lolling-tongued laugh than any gentler mirth. “Or do you think Tsiolkovsky looks so much like Athena just by accident?”

“It’s bigger,” Frank said. “Why don’t we copy their rockets?”

“I wish we would,” Bragg said. “Well, we do what we can with what we’ve got. Not too bad, I suppose: we’ll be down ahead of them.”

His wife broke in. “Or maybe we won’t. Radar shows two images from Tsiolkovsky. I’d say that means they have uncoupled from their engine pack.”

The mission commander’s head jerked toward the screen. “Son of a bitch,” he said softly. He picked up the mike, punched the TRANSMIT button, and started speaking Russian. “Athena to Tsiolkovsky.”

“Tsiolkovsky here: Lopatin.” The engineer’s English was accented but easy to follow.

“Tell your boss he’s a sandbagging bastard.”

“Sandbagging? I do not understand this word,” Lopatin said:

Bragg had left it in his own language. A moment later, Colonel Tolmasov came on. He sounded like a man fighting laughter. “I do, Emmett. That is uncultured.” “You should talk.”

“You will excuse me if I lack time for casual conversation, Brigadier. We are, as you said, rather busy at the moment. Tsiolkovsky out.”

“Temperature is up a little,” Louise said. “We’re starting to get into the atmosphere.”

Her husband glanced at the gauge, then at the radar altimeter. “Still well inside specs. The carbon-fiber matrix can take more than shuttle tiles, and having a machine with a skin all in one piece means we don’t need to worry about spending our Minerva time gluing those little suckers back into place.”

Now there, Irv thought, was a really alarming notion.

A thin whistle began to fill the cabin and rose toward a shriek.

“I thought by now I knew every noise Athena could make,” Pat Marquard said nervously.

“It isn’t Athena,” Frank answered. “It’s Minerva-the wind of our passage.” His voice held awe. Irv understood why. No one but they-and half a dozen Russians, some unknown number of miles away-had heard the wind of another world.

His wife thought of something else. “I wonder what the Minervans will make of our noise coming down.”

“When the shuttles landed at Edwards, we’d hear the boom in L.A.,” Pat said. “And that’s without the noise from the ramjet and turbojet sections of our motor.”

Emmett Bragg chuckled. “They’ll be hiding under their beds, if they have beds. And speaking of ramjets-“ He checked the altimeter again and Athena’s velocity. “We’re low enough and slow enough to fire it up and save our liquid oxygen for the trip back up. I’m shutting down the lox pump, Louise.”

“Acknowledged,” she said. A moment later, she added, “First time I ever heard Mach six called slow.”

“Next to what we’ve been doing, honey, it’s just a mosey in the park.”

Irv sided with Louise. Mach six was no mosey, so far as he was concerned. Despite aggressive soundproofing, the noise was up, too. The pump was no longer thumping and clacking away, but the shriek of Minervan air coming in through the ramjet inlet more than made up for that. It reminded Irv of a dentist’s drill the size of Baltimore. His teeth cringed at the very idea.

His seat was padded and contoured, but he still felt as though he weighed tons. “Are we really sure Minerva’s gravity is only a couple of percent higher than ours?” he asked plaintively. “Or are we still decelerating?”

“Yes, we’re sure and yes, we are,” Emmett replied, but before Irv had a chance to be relieved, the mission commander went on. “But not enough to do anything about our weight.” He sounded amused.

Irv groaned. So did Frank.

Sarah felt strong enough to raise an arm and point to the monitor. “We just passed something big. A castle, a temple, a barracks-”

“Could be anything,” Irv agreed. “I wish we knew more about where the Minervans are technologically. They don’t have atomic energy and they don’t have radio, but there’s a lot of difference between where we were in 2000 8.c. and in 1890.”

“Or in 22,000 B.C.,” Emmett put in. He enjoyed sticking pins in people to make them jump.

This time it didn’t work. Irv had the facts to shoot him down. “No big buildings in 22,000 B.C.,” he said smugly. Then he shut up as another what-ever-it-was went by on the screen. Clouds blurred the view, but he still recognized the pattern on the ground surrounding the building. “Those are fields down there!”

“You’re right,” Pat said. “You see those grooved circles in the middle of nowhere when you fly over irrigated farms in desert country.”

“But the lines-plow marks, would those be, Irv?” Sarah said.

“On Earth, sure. Here, who knows?” he answered.

“The lines aren’t straight,” she observed. “What does that mean?”

“Maybe contour plowing. Maybe the Minervans don’t know what straight lines are. That’s what we’re here to find out.”