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We have to work through winter now if we’re going to make it in time. The pad itself is a forty-meter-square block of concrete, about the width of a football field, so they’ll be pouring for a while. Still, that’s where my rocket will launch from. I’m here to inspect the gigantic steel platform hanging above it. Me. My husband is scared of heights. I told him it was ironic, building rockets, scared of heights. He doesn’t get it. Russian humor is its own thing.

I wanted to use the alone time to think. Hard to do in thirty-mile-an-hour winds. I haven’t told anyone yet but I’m beginning to show. I’m not sure I’m ready. I could wait. There are places that take care of this sort of thing. There’s so much to do still. I don’t know if I can do all of it and raise a—WHOA! Big gust of wind!

If the R-7 flies like it’s supposed to twice, we can go ahead with my satellite project. I’m sure there’ll be some setbacks, but we’ll get it done in a year or two. I can’t wait to—Shit. That truck will hit the power line if it keeps backing up. I need someone with a radio.

—You! Hand me that walkie-talkie, will you?

—…

Nothing. I guess he didn’t hear.

—Hey! Can you hand me your radio?

He’s not in uniform. I wonder—I’ve never seen him before but there’s something—

—Hello, Nina!

—Fuuuuuu—

UGH! Straight kick to the stomach. I can’t breathe. I’m in midair, falling backwards. I’m staring at the sky, but I know there’s no platform beneath me. A hundred-and-fifty-foot drop. I’ll hit the ground at seventy miles an hour. Inelastic collision with a concrete slab. At that speed, even I won’t survive.

Sharp pain. I should have hit concrete by now. I haven’t. I stopped. I… There’s a…

There’s a piece of rebar sticking out of me. I don’t— There’s a fucking steel rod coming out of my stomach. I impaled myself midway down on the platform frame.

I have to stay conscious. I’m dangling in midair eighty feet above ground. I need to get down.

Both hands around the steel rod, I can pull… myself… up.

—AAAAHHHHH!

I can’t. It’s no use. They’ll need to take me down but I’ll be long dead by then.

That’s not how I imagined it would end. It doesn’t matter, I suppose. I wonder what kind of mother I’d have been.

It’s getting dark. It won’t be long now.

50

The Great Pretender

My dear Sarah,

I am writing to tell you that I am returning to China.

I have spent the last five years under house arrest, scheduled for a deportation that would never come. They would not let me stay because of what I am, and they would not let me leave because of what I know. I was denied access to sensitive information but permitted to teach. My colleagues tried to convince me that it would all work out and, for a while, I even believed them.

I wanted to stay. I wanted to build a life in America but they found a document from the American Communist Party with my name on it. They accused me of lying about who I was and what I believed in. It took me two years to realize they were right. I had been lying all along, though it was me and not the government I had been deceiving.

I convinced myself I could belong, that I could be as American as anyone else. All it took was hard work, the belief in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I realized how wrong I was when the prosecutors asked me where my allegiance lies. What they really wanted to know is whether I would build weapons to kill my people.

We cannot change who we are. I am Chinese. I wanted to be American. I believed I could be both, but they showed me time and time again that there is no such thing in these United States. I chose not to listen and I lied to myself. I pretended I could be something I’m not and everyone I loved paid the price.

I do not know what the future holds for me back home. I may be imprisoned or executed, but if I am, at least I will die knowing who I am.

Sincerely,
Your friend,
Qian Xuesen

ENTR’ACTE

Rule #1: Preserve the Knowledge

825 BC

King Shalmaneser III of Assyria invaded Anatolia to expand his empire. One by one, the states fell, but the small kingdom of Quwê refused to surrender. Perhaps it was the sense of pride she found in Quwê that attracted Ishtar, the tenth woman to call herself the Kibsu.

Ishtar’s mother had been killed on their way to their new home. The Tracker had ambushed them, and her mother stayed behind to ensure Ishtar and her daughter Nourah got away. The Tracker tortured Ishtar’s mother for days hoping to lure Ishtar back into reach. Ishtar covered her daughter’s ears until the screams faded into silence.

Ishtar had learned everything there was to know about horses from her mother. Horses had taken her from Scythia to Anatolia. Breeding those same horses would put a roof over her head and feed her family. When Nourah was five, King Jehu of Israel sent emissaries to Quwê to procure some horses for himself and his family. The king’s envoy spent days examining every mount in the capital. When it was all over, he settled on five stallions and two mares from Ishtar’s stable. The king paid a premium price for his horses, and that one trade would change their lives forever.

That evening, Ishtar prepared a sumptuous meaclass="underline" fish with her garlic sauce, maza, asparagus. She even bought some figs, Nourah’s favorite. Mother and daughter ate together, and for a brief moment, Nourah felt like a princess.

The next morning, Nourah was awoken by a voice she did not know. There was a man standing next to her bed. Nourah flinched, thinking this might be the one who killed her grandmother, the one they called Rādi Kibsi. The man smiled and told her she had nothing to fear from him, that they had met the day before when he examined their horses.

Nourah asked where her mother was. The king’s envoy said she was gone and would not come back. He explained that all the money from the horses had been returned to him. In exchange he promised to take care of Nourah as his own. Nourah ran outside and screamed her mother’s name. She screamed and screamed until she couldn’t. Lost and hopeless, she packed her small belongings and sat in one of the chariots next to a father she did not know. She did not look back as the caravan left Quwê, never to return.

A few miles north, Ishtar cried herself into oblivion. She woke alone at sunset and prepared a fire. Ishtar looked to the stars and begged the dead for forgiveness.

—I have betrayed you, Mother. I have broken my promise. I have abandoned our ways and forsaken my blood. I do not expect absolution, for I would not offer it in your place. What I did, I did for my child. What comes of my soul is irrelevant. My daughter knows nothing of our past. I have not told her where we came from and why. She will never hear our stories, for that knowledge is a death sentence and my child is innocent. I have seen our blood spilled, our homes burned. I have heard our screams. Our ways have brought us pain and death and I refuse to watch my daughter suffer for a promise she did not make. I will not force her into a life of fear and violence. I will not deprive my daughter of the peace she deserves and guilt her into doing the same to her child. The cycle ends now. I have betrayed nine generations of us to save the next hundred. I give my life for my daughter’s, as you have done for me. We are the Kibsu. We are the Ten, and we shall be the last.