Borodinski introduced Academician Bulacheff, sitting at the very foot of the table, and opened the discussion on the topic of the alien spacecraft.
“Then we are going through with this scheme of sending cosmonauts to greet the alien?” asked the Foreign Minister.
“It is the General Secretary’s plan,” Borodinski said.
“But with an American astronaut aboard our Soyuz?” grumbled the Minister of Internal Security. He sat close to the head of the table, but the chairs on either side of him were empty.
“Yes,” said Borodinski.
“He’ll be able to spy on our launch facilities, our rocket boosters—everything!”
“He is no spy,” said Bulacheff, his voice surprisingly strong. “He is a scientist, not a hoodlum.”
Dead silence fell over the conference room. Borodinski barely suppressed a laugh. The academician is too new to these meetings to show the proper respect for our chief pesticide, he thought. Then he reflected, Or he is old enough so that he doesn’t care about running the risks, perhaps? This alien visitor must be very important to him.
The Security Minister glared at Bulacheff, then leaned back in his chair and slowly put a long, filtered cigarette to his lips.
“We will fly out to meet the spacecraft,” Borodinski said firmly, “and the American will be aboard our Soyuz. Every precaution will be taken, of course, to see to it that he does not gain any information that we do not wish him to have.”
General Rashmenko grinned heartily at them all. “Not to worry. Our missiles can blow the alien out of the sky—and the American with it. All I have to do is make one phone call.”
Chapter 37
The Minister of Internal Security held the wine glass up to the light from the chandelier. The deep red liquid glowed within the crystal goblet. Slowly, cautiously, he took an experimental sip of the wine.
With a smack of his lips he put the goblet down on the damask tablecloth and pronounced, “Excellent. Truly excellent!”
His host, across the table from him, beamed with satisfaction. “It’s from our comrades in Hungary. They call it ‘The Blood of the Bull.’ ”
The Minister laughed. “A dramatic people, the Hungarians.”
“But they make good wine,” said his host, nodding to the servant standing behind the Minister.
The servant began ladling a stew of freshly caught rabbit into the Minister’s china plate. The Minister was a small, bald man, with the tiny, delicate hands of a watchmaker. But his face was heavy, almost gross, with thick lips, a bulbous nose and narrow deepset eyes that were often impossible to fathom.
His host, the director of one of Internal Security’s biggest bureaus, was by contrast an elegant figure: tall, suavely handsome with silver hair and an aristocratic, almost ascetic face, soft-spoken, with the polished manners of a born gentleman.
By the time dessert was served, the Minister was in a relaxed, almost happy mood.
“Ah, Vasilli Ilyitch, it’s difficult to believe that this magnificent home is actually in Moscow, here, today, now. I always feel as if I’ve been transported to some other time, when life was more gracious, easier.”
“Before the Revolution, Comrade Minister?” the bureaucrat asked mildly, a slight smile touching his lips.
The Minister’s look suddenly turned cold.
“Or perhaps,” the bureaucrat continued, “you are experiencing a premonition, a view into the future, when true communism rules the world and all the peoples everywhere can live in peace and luxury.”
“That’s better,” the Minister said sourly. “Your sense of humor will get you in trouble someday, Vasilli.”
His smile broadened. “I always thought that it was my sense of luxury that will someday be my downfall.”
Now the Minister grinned. “Come now, my old friend! Life is grim enough without us becoming morose.”
“True enough! Come with me into the library. I have a cognac there that will interest you.”
An hour later, the Minister was relaxed in a deep leather chair, snifter in one hand, cigar in the other, his face scowling.
“To talk to me like that,” he was muttering. “That academic pipsqueak. That…that…schoolteacher!”
“Academician Bulacheff?” his host asked.
“Bulacheff,” the Minister snapped. “In front of the others, too.”
“But the General Secretary did not attend the meeting.”
“He’s at death’s door. Borodinski sat in his chair.”
“H’mm. Borodinski.”
“Yes, I know what you’re thinking,” the Minister said.
His host became quite serious. “You, comrade, have the power of life or death over Borodinski. You realize that, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t state it quite that way.”
“But it is true, nevertheless. Borodinski wants you on his side. If you agree, he is safe. If you join the others…”
“There aren’t that many others to join,” the Minister pointed out. “Borodinski’s being very thorough.”
“What will you do?”
The Minister puffed for a moment on his cigar, then, “What can I do, except go along with him? I have no desire to see the struggle deepen. We are safe. Borodinski won’t interfere with us.”
“You’re certain?”
The Minister smiled, but there was nothing pleasant to it. “You needn’t worry, my dear friend. Borodinski is clever enough to avoid a fight with me, if I don’t oppose him. I will keep the ministry, and you can keep your fine house, and servants, and wine cellar.”
“And you,” the bureaucrat added in a whisper.
“Yes, and me too.”
The bureaucrat smiled boyishly and took another sip of his cognac.
“But the alien,” the Minister said. “That’s another matter. I will not have Americans snooping around Tyuratam, not without teaching them all a lesson.”
“But Americans saw Tyuratam years ago, during the joint Soyuz-Apollo operation.”
“That was then. This is now. I won’t have Bulacheff or even Borodinski going over my head in matters of internal security.”
“But what can you do? The Americans are already on their way here.”
“Yes, I know. I can’t stop them from arriving in Tyuratam. But I can prevent them from achieving their goal. They will never make contact with that alien spacecraft. I will see to that, and Borodinski will know that I did it, and he will be powerless to oppose me.”
His host let out a long, low sigh. “You play for very high stakes.”
“Borodinski must understand that I will not oppose him, but he must not oppose me, either. This matter of the alien spacecraft and the American astronaut is a good way to teach him that lesson. Practically painless for him, but obvious.”
“Yes, I see. But how will you go about…eh, teaching him this lesson?”
The Minister took a long gulp of cognac, put down his emptied glass and said harshly, “How? Kill the American astronaut, of course. What could be simpler?”
Stoner spent his last afternoon on Kwajalein in a round of meetings with Thompson, Tuttle, the Russians, the full conference room of group leaders. Then, suddenly, he was back in his office alone.
He stood at his desk and surveyed the room. As impersonal as a telephone booth. One by one he opened the drawers of his desk. There was nothing in them that he needed, nothing that he wanted to take with him, nothing that was his.
Then his eyes lit on the absurd coconut resting beside the telephone. He broke into a slow grin.
“You,” he said to the shaggy brown lopsided sphere, “are going on a long, long journey.”