Stoner sensed someone leaning over him and turned in his seat. It was Markov, an odd little half-smile on his bearded face.
“We enter the country the same way our revered Lenin did, in 1917,” Markov said, nearly shouting to be heard over the thundering vibration of the jet engines.
“Lenin flew in?”
Markov lowered his lanky body into the seat next to Stoner’s. “No, the Germans sent him into Mother Russia in a sealed train. No stops, no one allowed on or off until it reached Petrograd. We fly in from the other direction, in a sealed airplane.”
Stoner tapped the window with a fingernail. “It’s a big country out there, your Mother Russia.”
“Oh, this isn’t Russia,” Markov corrected. “It’s Kazakhstan, a Federated Republic, part of the Soviet Union. But not Russia. These people are Asians…Mongols. Russia is another thousand kilometers to the west, on the other side of the Ural Mountains.”
“But it’s part of your country.”
Nodding, “Yes, just as Puerto Rico is part of the United States.”
Stoner looked out the window again. “Pretty damned big. And it looks untouched…raw.”
“Much of the Soviet Union is still virgin land,” Markov said. “It was Khrushchev’s dream to cultivate such lands, make them yield rich harvests.”
“What happened?”
Markov’s grin turned sardonic. “He was outvoted…while his back was turned.”
“Oh.”
“They allowed him a peaceful retirement, though. He died of natural causes. Very unusual for a Russian leader. A sign of our growing civilization.”
Stoner asked, “Are you laughing or crying, Kirill?”
With a shrug, Markov said, “Some of both, my friend. Some of both. I feel like a life-sentence prisoner returning to jail after a brief escape. It’s hateful, but it’s home.”
“I should’ve talked to you into staying at Kwajalein,” Stoner said, lowering his voice even though the drone of the engines made it impossible to hear anything a few feet away.
“No, no,” Markov protested. “This is where I belong. This is where I should be.”
Stoner searched the Russian’s face. “You really believe that?”
Markov closed his ice-blue eyes and nodded gravely. “I have talked about it at some length with Maria. We are going to try to work things out between us. She will put in for a transfer to a…a less demanding job.” His boyish grin returned. “If I can make her more human, easier to live with, perhaps there is hope for the rest of the Russians as well.”
Stoner sensed there was much more going on in Markov’s marriage than the Russian was willing to talk about.
“In the meantime,” Markov went on, “all of us here will act as your bodyguard. You are part of us, and we are part of you. You will get to fly into space, never fear.”
“That’s all I ask,” Stoner said.
Markov’s face grew serious. “I know there has been talk about a Russian plot against you.”
“Kirill, I never thought that you or anyone among us…”
“Not to worry,” he said, raising a hand to silence Stoner. “I will be in communication with Academician Bulacheff the instant we land at Tyuratam. This project will go through without interference, I promise you.”
“Okay,” Stoner said. “Fine.”
“We are not pawns in some international power game,” Markov muttered darkly. “The government will treat us—all of us—with some respect.”
“Do you really think you can change the system that much, Kirill?”
Shaking his head slightly, Markov said, “It isn’t necessary to change the system, as much as it is to get the bureaucrats to return to the system, to use it honestly and fairly. The Russian people are a good, hard-working people. They have suffered much, endured much. We must return to the true principles of Marx and Lenin. We must return to the road that leads inevitably to a truly just and happy society.”
“That’s a big job,” Stoner said.
“Yes, but I have help,” Markov said. “Our alien is going to help me.”
“How?”
With an absentminded tug at his beard, Markov said, “Look at what the alien has already accomplished. Not merely for me, but for you as well. America and Russia are co-operating—in a limited way, to be sure, but co-operating in the midst of confrontations on almost every other front.”
Stoner countered, “Then why wouldn’t they let us off this airplane? They’re co-operating so well that they’re afraid we’d steal something if we set foot on their ground.”
“Do you realize how great a strain it is on our national paranoia to allow Americans to come to our premier rocket base? And two Chinese scientists?”
“I suppose so, but…”
“Our alien visitor has already forced all the governments of the world to change their habits of thought.”
“An inch,” said Stoner.
“Perhaps only a centimeter,” Markov granted, “but still it is a change. They can never think again of our world as the whole universe. They are being forced to work together to find out who this alien visitor is. Never again can we think of other human beings, other human nations or races, as being truly alien. Our visitor from space is forcing us to accept the truth that all humans are brothers.”
“Jesus Christ,” Stoner muttered. “Scratch a Russian and he bleeds philosophy.”
“Yes,” said Markov. “And pious philosophy, at that. But mark my words, dear friend. This alien will bring us all closer together.”
“I hope you’re right, Kirill.”
“It has already done so! It has made friends of us, hasn’t it?”
Stoner nodded.
“It has been a good friendship, Keith.” Markov’s eyes got watery. “I am proud to have you for a friend, Keith Stoner. You are a good man. If necessary, I would lay down my life for you.”
For several moments, Stoner didn’t know what to say. “Hey, Kirill, I feel the same way about you. But this isn’t the end of our friendship, it’s only the beginning.”
“I hope so.” Markov sighed. “But once we land, neither my life nor yours will be completely under our own control. Events will catch us up and carry us on their shoulders. And, certainly, I may never get the chance to leave Russia again, to see you or any other foreigners.”
The realization caught Stoner by surprise. He heard himself answer, “And I might never come back from the rendezvous mission.”
“Ah,” Markov said, “I hadn’t even thought about that possibility.”
Stoner took a deep breath.
“There is one thing I can promise you, though,” Markov said before Stoner could think of anything.
“What’s that?”
“You will get to go on the rendezvous mission. No one will stop you from going. That I promise.”
Stoner nodded and smiled and told himself, He means what he’s saying, but he’s got no way of keeping that promise.
Markov nodded back, eyes misting again, and wordlessly got up to head back to his own seat.
Turning back to the window to watch the endless empty steppe, Stoner soon drifted off to sleep. He was jolted out of the doze by the plane’s sudden lurching and the loud banging noise of the landing gear being lowered. The plane shuddered and banked hard over until the grassy ground seemed to tilt upward to meet them.
It sounded as if a gale was blowing through the cabin. As he pulled his seat belt tighter, Stoner saw that Zworkin, across the aisle, was very much awake now and clutching the arms of his chair with white-knuckled terror.
Then the plane straightened out, lurching and bumping through the early evening twilight as the pilot lined it up for the final approach to the airfield. Stoner looked out the window and his jaw dropped open.