There were no figures scurrying around the base of the gantry now. All of the technicians and scientists had retreated to their bunkers.
The rocket was clearly visible without the aid of floodlights. It stood, massive and smooth and black, with a single red star on the upper stage, like a monolith at Stonehenge. Vapors escaped from various hoses connected between the rocket and the gantry. The additional booster cylinders attached to each side were at least half as tall as the primary rocket.
As he watched, Oberstev saw the gimbal-mounted nozzles of the main rocket motor swivel briefly, part of 2m automatic pretest sequence.
TIME TO LAUNCH: 00:04:48.
The console beside Dmitri Oberstev’s chair reported: “The MiG-25s are orbiting on station, General.”
Two MiG-25 aircraft, called Foxbat by NATO, were stationed at 10,000 meters of altitude, ready to give chase as soon as the A2e was launched. Capable of three times the speed of sound, the reconnaissance aircraft would be able to follow the rocket for some distance, up to an altitude of 25,000 meters, photographing its performance. Once the ground-tracking cameras lost sight of the A2e, the cameras aboard the MiGs would take over, transferring the image of the accelerating rocket to earth-based monitors.
And on to the millions of Commonwealth citizens watching their televisions.
On the pad, the gantry arms cradling the rocket shifted outward then retracted. The gantry moved back several meters. Only the umbilical cords remained draped from the gantry to the vehicle. On launch, they would drop away and the top portion of the gantry would tilt back, giving the rocket added clearance.
TIME TO LAUNCH: 00:04:22.
Oberstev removed his glasses and polished the lenses with a linen handkerchief. Resettling them on his thin nose, he looked around his private observation room. His aide, Colonel Alexi Cherbykov, stood at the samovar, drawing tea into glasses set in silver holders. He had chosen Cherbykov, immaculately groomed in a fresh uniform, for his assistant because he was such an efficient officer. Diplomatic, also. He handled the visiting dignitaries with grace and charm, a function for which Oberstev had little patience. The general was far more interested in producing results than he was in the processes — especially political processes — that swirled around his project.
Cherbykov walked across the room, balancing a silver tray on upraised fingers, and presented it to the visitor. Vladimir Yevgeni, a member of the national parliament’s subcommittee on aerospace, absentmindedly selected a glass from the tray. A senior lieutenant whose name Oberstev could not remember, offered a plate of Dutch cheeses and pastries, but was waved off by the politician.
It was Yevgeni’s first visit to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome during a launch, which Oberstev saw as a major failing in a member of the aerospace committee, much less the chairman of the committee.
Yevgeni had pulled one of the leather chairs up close to the wall of glass overlooking the control center and settled his heavy body into it. Vladimir Yevgeni was close to eighty years of age, Oberstev thought. He was an ultraconservative, representing a large conservative constituency. He would have been a coup plotter, then a defrocked detainee, if he had not been in England for a heart bypass operation at the time of the coup. His pate was shiny and smooth, and his heavy jowls sagged like those of a sad hound. His expensive charcoal suit, laced with thin vertical silver stripes, did not hide the flab layered around his waist.
Yevgeni was one of the cadre who supported having a celebration of the Revolution, rather than the New Order. “Our history does not disappear with our evolution,” he had argued in both the national parliament and the Russian parliament. Vladimir Yevgeni would never acknowledge a mistake made by Russian or Soviet people, but his displeasure at the termination of the traditional October festivities was widely known.
Oberstev asked, “Is there anything we can get for you, Comrade Chairman?”
Though the ʻcomradeʼ form of address was growing sparse in the Commonwealth as a result of the Party’s deteriorating membership, it was certainly a requirement when addressing Yevgeni. He was an idealist of the highest grade and surely, Oberstev thought, one of the silent group alarmed at the foreign and domestic policy strategies that had taken radical turns.
“Not a thing, General Oberstev. I am quite content.”
His jowls wiggled comically when he spoke.
TIME TO LAUNCH: 00:03:51.
On the main floor of the launch control center, the overhead lights had been fully dimmed. Still, with the diffused light from monitors, digital readouts, and LED indicators, the center was bright enough. Every console was manned, and from his view from the rear, Oberstev was aware of the tension in each set of shoulders. It was the same with every launch, though launches had become so much a routine. If there were an added zest to the electrical aspect of the environment, Oberstev thought it resulted from the fact that this was not quite a normal launch. The additional mass of the pay-load and the presence of the twin boosters on the A2e made a palpable difference.
He himself had to consciously revolve his shoulders to ease the tightening muscles. He found himself taking a deep breath from time to time.
He concentrated on details to pass the time. He glanced at the main screen, squinted at the smaller screens focused on exhaust nozzles, umbilical cables, and exhaust deflectors. He tried to follow the complicated wording — rows and columns of numbers — on computer screens, but got lost immediately.
He surveyed his people.
The group of technicians was somewhat diverse. The military men were in uniform blouses, and the civilian scientists and technicians wore white laboratory coats.
The launch director was seated at an oversized console centered in the back row. He was smoking a cigarette and speaking over his headset to someone. Oberstev would have a word with him later about smoking in the center.
On the right side of the room, in a straight chair backed up to the wall, was Lt. Col. Janos Sodur.
Pod-Palcovnik Sodur had once been a political officer, one of the toads assigned to a command to ensure conformity with the ideals of the Communist Party. While no longer carrying such a title, Sodur was now an aide to Yevgeni and had been assigned to Oberstev. Less interested in liaison between the space program and the aerospace committee, Sodur was intent upon discovering philosophical meanderings among the men of the Red Star program. His outlook on life was bleak, and his attitude was instantly suspicious. Oberstev detested the man and frequently went out of his way to make his life uncomfortable. Right now, he sat on the floor of the control center, rather than, as he had requested, up in the observation room with the visiting Yevgeni — an idol, no doubt — because Oberstev did not want to listen to the prattle of two right-wing, righteous zealots during the final countdown. Oberstev’s loyalties were aligned more carefully with the rodina, the motherland, than they were with the waning ideologies of the Party.
Also on the main floor, in an extra chair pulled up close to the technician manning the motor control console, was the director of the Flight Data Control Center. Normally, Pyotr Piredenko would have remained in the computer center.
The man was worried, and that worried Oberstev.
TIME TO LAUNCH: 00:03:02.
An overhead speaker blurted the launch director’s voice. “Three minutes to ignition. Primary controllers, report.”
“We have excellent fuel status. We are showing full tanks, and the pressures are in the green.”