Morrison climbed in, following her directions and doing his best not to damage his head on any portion of the skimmer - or, perhaps, damaging the skimmer.
He sat in his seat, staring in horror at the skimmer's open side to his right. "Isn't there a door to close?"
"Why do you want a closed door? It would spoil the wonderful feeling of flight. Strap yourself in and you'll be perfectly safe. - Here, I'll show you how. - Are you ready now?" She was in the seat beside him, looking quite confident and pleased with herself. They were crowded into contact and that much at least Morrison found rather soothing.
"I'm resigned," he said. "That's as close as I can get to ready."
"Don't be silly. You're going to love this. We'll use the motors to rise."
There was a high-pitched throb of the small engine and a rhythmic slap as the rotors began to spin. Slowly the skimmer rose and - as slowly - it turned. It canted to one side while turning and Morrison found himself leaning out over the open side and straining precariously against the strap that held him. He barely managed to fight off the strong impulse to throw his arms around Kaliinin for nothing more than utterly nonerotic security.
The skimmer straightened and Kaliinin said, "Now, listen," as she turned off the engine and threw in a switch labeled, in Cyrillic, SOLAR. The throb ceased and the rotors slackened as the forward propeller began to turn. The skimmer moved slowly and almost silently forward.
"Listen to the quiet," whispered Kaliinin. "It's like drifting on nothing."
Morrison looked down uneasily.
Kaliinin said, "We won't fall. Even if a cloud passed over the sun or if a circuit failure put the photovoltaic cells out of action, there is enough power in the storage components to bring us across kilometers, if necessary, to a safe landing. And if we ran out of power, the skimmer is more than half a glider and it would still settle down to a safe landing. I don't think I could force the craft into a crash even if I tried. The only real danger is a strong wind and there's none of that now."
Morrison swallowed and said, "It's a gentle motion."
"Of course. We're not going much faster than an automobile would go and the sensation is much pleasanter. I love it. Try to relax and look at the sky. There's nothing as peaceful as a skimmer."
He said, "How long have you been doing this?"
"When I was twenty-four, I got my master's license. So did Yu- so did he. Many a peaceful summer afternoon we spent in the air in a skimmer like this. Once we each had a racing skimmer and marked out lover's knots in the air." Her face twisted slightly as she said that and it occurred to Morrison that she had obtained a skimmer for the short hop to Malenkigrad only for the sake of a momentary reliving of memories and for no other reason.
"That must have been dangerous," he said.
"Not really - if you know what you're doing. Once we skimmed along the foothills of the Caucasus and that might have been dangerous. A wind squall can easily smash you into a hillside and that wouldn't be fun at all, but we were young and carefree. - Though I might have been better off if that had happened."
Her voice trailed away and for a moment her face darkened, but then an inner thought seemed to illuminate her into a smile.
Morrison felt his distrust mounting again. Why did the thought of Konev make her so happy, when she could not bear to look at him when they were together in the miniaturized ship?
Morrison said, "You don't seem to mind talking about him, Sophia." Then, deliberately, he used the forbidden word, "About Yuri, I mean. It even seems to make you happy. Why is that?"
And Kaliinin said between her teeth, "It's not sentimental memories that makes me happy, I assure you, Albert. Anger and frustration and - and heartbreak can make a person vicious. I want revenge and I am mean-spirited enough - well, human enough - to enjoy it when it comes."
"Revenge? I don't understand."
"It's simple enough, Albert. He deprived me of love and my daughter of a father when I had no way of striking back. That did not bother him as long as he had his dream of bringing miniaturization to practical low-energy fruition so that he might become, at a bound, the most famous scientist in the world - or in history."
"But he failed at that. We didn't get the necessary information from Shapirov's brain. You know we didn't."
"Ah, but you don't know him. He never gives up; he's driven by the Furies. I've seen him, fleetingly, looking at you, after the voyage through Shapirov's body was done. I know his looks, Albert. I can tell his thoughts even from the droop of an eyelid. He thinks you have the answer."
"Of what was in Shapirov's brain? I don't. How could I?"
"It doesn't matter whether you do or not, Albert. He thinks you do and he wants you and your device with a greater yearning than he ever wanted anything in his life; certainly more than he wanted me or his child. And I'm taking you away from him, Albert. With my own hands I am taking you out of the Grotto and will watch you leave for your own country. And I will see him sicken to death of frustrated ambition."
Morrison stared at her in astonishment as the skimmer moved along in response to her rock-steady hand at the controls. He had not thought that Kaliinin was capable of wearing an expression of such consuming and malignant joy.
Boranova had listened to Konev's emotional and breathless account and felt herself carried along by the wave of his utter conviction. That had happened before, when he had been convinced that Shapirov's dying mind could be tapped and that Morrison, the American neurophysicist, was the key to doing that. She had been swept along then and she tried to resist it now.
She said finally, "That sounds quite mad."
Konev said, "What's the difference what it sounds like if it's true?"
"Ah, but is it true?"
"I am certain."
Boranova muttered, "We need Arkady here to tell us that his father assured him that vehemence was no guarantee of truth."
"Neither is it a guarantee of the reverse. If you accept what I say, you must also see that we can't let him go. Certainly not now and possibly not ever."
Boranova shook her head violently. "It's too late. There's nothing to be done. The United States wants him back and the government has agreed to let him go. The government can't very well backtrack now without bringing about a world crisis."
"Considering what is at stake, Natalya, we must surely risk it. The world crisis will not explode. There will be loud talk and much posturing for a month or two and then if we have what we want, we might let him go if absolutely necessary - or we might arrange an accident -"
Boranova rose to her feet angrily. "No! What you are suggesting is unthinkable. This is the twenty-first century, not the twentieth."
"Natalya, whatever century this is, we face the question of whether the Universe is to be ours - or theirs."
"You know you're not going to convince Moscow that that is what is at stake. The government has what it wants, a safe voyage into and out of a body. At the moment it's all they want. They never understood that we wanted to read Shapirov's mind. We never explained that."
"That was a mistake."
"Come, Yuri. Do you know how long it would have taken to persuade them that Albert would have to be taken forcibly if he did not come voluntarily? They would not have wanted to risk a crisis - even as much a crisis as they now face, which is a minor one indeed. You will now be asking them to face a much larger one. Not only will you fail but you will encourage them to look into the matter of the arrival of Albert here and I don't think we can afford that."
"The government is not all one piece. There are many high officials who are convinced that we are too eager to give in to the Americans, that we pay too high a price for the occasional pat on the head we receive. I have people to whom I have entry -"