They dispensed with the courtesies. Karper merely said, “You are Cherpas. I have met you. You are Gausgofer. I have seen your reports. You are Gauck.”
The delegation went into Rogov’s bedroom. Karper snapped, “Wake him.” The military doctor who had given him sedatives said, comrade, you mustn’t-”
Karper cut him off. “Shut up.” He turned to his own physician, pointed at Rogov. “Wake him up.”
The doctor from Moscow talked briefly with the senior military doctor. He too began shaking his head. He gave Karper a disturbed look. Karper guessed what he might bear. He said, “Go ahead. I know there is some danger to the patient, but I’ve got to get back to Moscow with a report.”
The two doctors worked over Rogov. One of them gave Rogov an injection. Then all of them stood back from the bed.
Rogov writhed in his bed. He squirmed. His eyes opened, but he did not see the people. With childishly clear and simple words Rogov began to talk, “… that golden shape, the golden stairs, the music, take me back to the music, I want to be with the music, I really am the music …” and so on in an endless monotone.
Cherpas leaned over him so that her face was directly in his line of vision. “My darling! My darling, wake up. This is serious.”
It was evident to all of them that Rogov did not hear her.
For the first time in many years Gauck took the initiative. He spoke directly to the man from Moscow. “Comrade, may I make a suggestion?”
Karper looked at him. Gauck nodded at Gausgofer. “We were both sent here by orders of Comrade Stalin. She is senior. She bears the responsibility. All I do is double check.”
The deputy minister turned to Gausgofer. Gausgofer had been staring at Rogov on the bed; her blue, watery eyes were tearless and her face was drawn into an expression of extreme tension.
Karper ignored that and said to her firmly, clearly, commandingly, “What do you recommend?”
Gausgofer looked at him very directly and said in a measured voice, “I do not think that the case is one of brain damage. I believe that he has obtained a communication which be must share with another human being and that unless one of us follows him there may be no answer.”
Karper barked, “Very well. But what do we do?”
”Let me follow-into the machine.”
Anastasia Cherpas began to laugh slyly and frantically. She seized Karper’s arm and pointed her finger at Gausgofer. Karper stared at her.
Cherpas restrained her laughter and shouted at Karper, “The woman’s mad. She has loved my husband for many years. She has hated my presence, and now she thinks that she can save him. She thinks that she can follow. She thinks that he wants to communicate with her. That’s ridiculous. I will go myself!”
Karper looked about. He selected two of his staff and stepped over into a corner of the room. They could hear him talking, but they could not distinguish the words. After a conference of six or seven minutes he returned.
”You people have been making serious security charges against each other. I find that one of our finest weapons, the mind of Rogov, is damaged. Rogov’s not just a man. He is a Soviet project.” Scorn entered his voice. “I find that the senior security officer, a policewoman with a notable record, is charged by another Soviet scientist with a silly infatuation. I disregard such charges. The development of the Soviet State and the work of Soviet science cannot be impeded by personalities. Comrade Gausgofer will follow. I am acting tonight because my own staff physician says that Rogov may not live and it is very important for us to find out just what has happened to him and why.”
He turned his baleful gaze on Cherpas. “You will not protest, comrade. Your mind is the property of the Russian State. Your life and your education have been paid for by the workers. You cannot throw these things away because of personal sentiment. If there is anything to be found, Comrade Gausgofer will find it for both of us.”
The whole group of them went back into the laboratory. The frightened technicians were brought over from the barracks. The lights were turned on and the windows were closed. The May wind had become chilly.
The needle was sterilized. The electronic grids were warmed up.
Gausgofer’s face was an impassive mask of triumph as she sat in the receiving chair. She smiled at Gauck as an attendant brought the soap and the razor to shave clean a patch on her scalp.
Gauck did not smile back. His black eyes stared at her. He said nothing. He did nothing. He watched.
Karper walked to and fro, glancing from time to time at the hasty but orderly preparation of the experiment Anastasia Cherpas sat down at a laboratory table about five meters away from the group. She watched the back of Gausgofer’s head as the needle was lowered. She buried her face in her hands. Some of the others thought they heard her weeping, but no one heeded Cherpas very much. They were too intent on watching Gausgofer.
Gausgofer’s face became red. Perspiration poured down the flabby cheeks. Her fingers tightened on the arm of her chair. Suddenly she shouted at them, “That golden shape on the golden steps.”
She leaped to her feet, dragging the apparatus with her.
No one had expected this. The chair fell to the floor. The needle holder, lifted from the floor, swung its weight sidewise. The needle twisted like a scythe in Gausgofer’s brain.
The body of Gausgofer lay on the floor, surrounded by excited officials.
Karper was acute enough to look around at Cherpas.
She stood up from the laboratory table and walked toward him. A thin line of blood flowed down from her cheekbone. Another line of blood dripped down from a position on her cheek, one and a half centimetres forward of the opening of her left ear.
With tremendous composure, her face as white as fresh snow, she smiled at him. “I eavesdropped.”
Karper said, “What?”
”I eavesdropped, eavesdropped,” repeated Anastasia Cherpas. “I found out where my husband has gone. It is not somewhere in this world. It is something hypnotic beyond all the limitations of our science. We have made a great gun, but the gun has fired upon us before we could fire it.
”Project Telescope is finished. You may try to get someone else to finish it, but you mil not.”
Karper stared at her and then turned aside.
Gauck stood in his way.
”What do you want?”
’To tell you,” said Gauck very softly, “to tell you, comrade deputy minister, that Rogov is gone as she says he is gone, that she is finished if she says she is finished, that all this is true. I know.”
Karper glared at him. “How do you know?”
Gauck remained utterly impassive. With superhuman assurance and calm he said to Karper, “Comrade, I do not dispute the matter. I know these people, though I do not know their science. Rogov is done for.”
At last Karper believed him.
They all looked at Anastasia Cherpas, at her beautiful hair, her determined blue eyes, and the two thin lines of blood.
Karper turned to her. “What do we do now?”
For an answer she dropped to her knees and began sobbing. “No, no, not Rogov! No, no, not Rogov!”
And that was all that they could get out of her. Gauck looked on.
On the golden steps in the golden light, a golden shape danced a dream beyond the limits of all imagination, danced and drew the music to herself until a sigh of yearning, yearning which became a hope and a torment, went through the hearts of living things on a thousand worlds.
Edges of the golden scene faded raggedly and unevenly into black. The golden dimmed down to a pale gold-silver sheen and then to silver, last of all to white. The dancer who had been golden was now a forlorn white-pink figure standing, quiet and fatigued, on the immense white steps. The applause of a thousand worlds roared in upon her.