He might have seen a dot dwindling away far astern and below them.
THE SAUCER landed once more inside the Iron Curtain, on a deserted stretch of frontier country within the Pripet Marshes. Tumanov climbed out slowly, shook hands with Skinner. “Perhaps I’ll see you again someday, Tovaritch Nick.”
“I hope so.”
“I still have work to do, a lot of work. Out here on the frontier I can get things ready for the time your people are prepared to bring peace to the world—real peace…”
A tall gangling figure, Tuman Tumanov faded off into the swamp. Skinner stared after him until he could see nothing but the swirling clouds of mist. Then he climbed back inside the bubble atop the saucer, fashioning a sling for his injured arm and settling back while the little green man took off again.
That day which Tumanov sought, which Sonya and Natasha and so many others had died for—that day would come soon.
Skinner could picture the stir a flying saucer would create in Washington. A nationwide tour for the green man from space, an official visit to the United Nations, perhaps an offer to vouch for the value of every product which had ever received a three-second commercial on television.
But in the end the man from space would see the truth. With his cultural heritage telling him he must fight evil wherever he saw it, he would place undreamed of science at the disposal of the United Nations. Because the Commies had seen samples of that science for themselves, it would be a big stick they would be able to understand.
It might—it just might—negate the necessity for war. But if it didn’t, no bookie in the world would place his money on the Commies….
As they winged their way West, Skinner felt very good indeed.