Markov saw that the cosmonaut, Major Federenko, was already partway down the access tube, waiting, his pressure suit zipped up and his fishbowl helmet under his arm.
“It’s okay,” Stoner said. “Federenko speaks English pretty well. I won’t get lost.”
Markov forced a smile. “Good luck, Keith. Vaya con Dios.”
Stoner grinned at him. “Et cum spirito tuo, old friend. I’ll see you when I get back.”
Markov stood there feeling empty and terribly sad as Stoner clumped down the tube toward the cosmonaut.
“Hello, Nikolai,” he heard Stoner say. “Looks like a good day for flying.”
“Yes, yes,” Federenko replied in a deep bass voice that echoed off the tube walls. “Good day. Very good day.”
Like two young knights sallying out for adventure, Markov thought. Then he realized why he was so sad. And leaving me behind.
He went back down the elevator and was driven in the minibus back to the launch control building. Maria was waiting for him as he stepped down from the bus. She wore her drab brown uniform now.
“I wish them well,” she said.
Markov nodded and put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. Incredibly, she let him get away with it.
“They have the future of the world in their hands, Marushka,” he said to her. “Our future, the future of Russia, of America—the whole world.”
Maria looked up at him. “They’ll be all right,” she assured him. “The launch will go well. Come, we can watch it from inside the control center.”
As the sun crept over the distant hills and the morning mists of Rome began to burn away, the Pope got up from his knees and walked slowly to the door of his private chapel.
Cardinal Benedetto would be out there, he knew. And Von Friederich and so many others. The television people. The paparazzi. He had to simplify it all, bring it down to a few strong words that all could understand. He spoke not merely to the cameras and the newspapers, but to hundreds of millions of believers and—strangely enough—to billions of non-believers, as well. The Papacy was a heavy burden, global in scope. Now it was about to become interstellar.
That is what I will tell them, the Pope thought, nodding slowly to himself. God in His mercy and wisdom has seen fit to reveal more of His creation to us. We are indeed fortunate to live in these times. This alien object reaffirms Christ’s truth, that all men are brothers.
Fleetingly, he wondered again what the consequences would be if the alien turned out to be evil, devilish.
It cannot be, he told himself firmly. That is something I cannot believe. God would not allow such an evil to fall upon us.
He reached out boldly and threw open the doors. Television lights glared around him and the crowd of news reporters strained against the velvet ropes that had been set up.
The dazzling lights even reached back into the chapel chamber, where, above the altar at which he had prayed, a Medieval mural of the Flood showed a sinful mankind being chastized by a wrathful God.
Halfway around the world, on Kwajalein, it was early evening. Reynaud sat by Schmidt’s bedside and watched the countdown’s progress on the hospital television set.
Cronkite was showing a view of Cape Canaveral. A NASA Space Shuttle stood gleaming white in the glare of floodlights, its nose pointing into the Florida sky.
“And at Kennedy Space Center, American technicians are preparing to launch the tanker that will refuel the Russian Soyuz, deep in space, as it nears the alien craft.
“The tanker itself is a Russian vehicle, flown to the United States six days ago as part of this intricate joint American-Soviet effort to make contact with the alien spacecraft.”
Schmidt, sitting up in his bed, asked through his wired jaw, “Do you think they’ll make it?” His voice was thick and slow.
“I believe they will,” Reynaud answered. “Stoner won’t let anything stop him.”
The General Secretary also sat propped up in bed, watching the final moments of the countdown on his private television set. Borodinski sat next to the big, heavily blanketed bed.
“It is going well, Comrade Secretary,” the younger man said without taking his eyes off the screen. “You must be very proud this morning. The whole world is watching Russia lead the way to a meeting with the alien.”
But the General Secretary had closed his eyes. His chin slumped to his chest. His final breath was a long, soft sigh of release.
Stoner lay on his back in the cramped spherical capsule of the Soyuz spacecraft. Helmet on, visor locked and sealed, gloved hands resting on his knees. And sweating. His legs dangled up above him. Like a turtle on its back, he thought. Useless and in danger.
He turned his head to see Federenko, in the left seat, but the helmet blocked his view. He could hear the cosmonaut, though, in his earphones, chatting happily with the launch control engineers in Russian. Stoner guessed at what they were saying.
“Internal power on.” A row of lights on the panel a few inches over his head winked on, green.
“Life support systems, on.”
“Guidance computer, on.”
“Air pressure, normal.
The cosmonaut’s gloved fingers flicked across the switches of his control panel like a pianist testing a new instrument. One by one, the banks of lights lit up.
“Shtoner,” Federenko’s bass rumbled.
“Yes?”
“You can pick up the countdown at Teh minus one meenute, at my mark…Mark.”
T minus one minute. Stoner heard the Russian words in his earphones. He appreciated Federenko’s taking the moment out to give him a translation. Now his own mental clock could click off the last sixty seconds in cadence with the Russian launch controller’s voice.
Stoner’s eyes flicked over the control panel. Every light and switch had been hastily labeled in English. He had crammed a year’s worth of orientation into a few weeks. But I can fly this bird if I have to, he told himself. They can maneuver it remotely from the ground, of course, but I can override them if I have to. I can fly her.
His hands were slippery with sweat inside the silvered gloves. He hoped he wouldn’t have to take over control of the spacecraft.
T minus thirty seconds.
Jo stood on the roof of their barracks building, peering into the brightening sky and the rocket booster, several kilometers away.
Don’t let anything go wrong, she prayed silently. Don’t let anything go wrong.
The loudspeaker boomed in Russian for several moments, then in English:
“A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOVIET UNION. GOOD FORTUNE TO THE TWO BRAVE MEN WHO GO TO MEET THE ALIEN SPACESHIP THE HEARTIEST ADMIRATION AND GOOD WISHES OF THE SOVIET PEOPLE FLY WITH YOU ON YOUR GALLANT MISSION.”
Before the echoes could die away, the voice added:
“T MINUS FIFTEEN SECONDS.”
T minus ten seconds, Stoner counted mentally.
He could feel his heart pounding wildly as he went on, Five, four, three…
The booster trembled beneath them. Pumps starting up.
“…one, zero…”
He heard the Russian word for Ignition! and felt the whole capsule shudder. A dull growl from somewhere deep within, exploding into an ear-shattering bellow as millions of demons howled their loudest and a heavy, implacable hand squeezed down on his chest, pressed him into his seat, shook him with bone-jarring violence.
Stoner felt the breath forced out of him. His eyeballs were pressing back in their sockets. The noise was overpowering, a solid wall that pressed his eardrums flat. He couldn’t lift his hands from the armrests. His spine was being crushed. And the noise, the noise and vibration rattling him…