First Cosmic Velocity

by Zach Powers

  “You can start by reassuring me that all of it hasn’t been a mistake.”

  Ignatius chuckled. “What will you do now?”

  “I’m afraid that the only solution is to make my largest mistake yet.”

  “Which is?”

  “There is one fully trained cosmonaut left.”

  “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  “Tell me an alternative. Do you know where I was before I came to the hospital? I was at the Kremlin. I announced my plans to Khrushchev. Not just sending his dog to space, but a cosmonaut at the same time. The General Designer’s heat shield works. We can save the dogs without needing twins for them. But that wasn’t enough for me. I promised a human flight, too.”

  “It’s Nadya, then, who will finally fly her mission.”

  Ignatius took one step into the room. Two men entered behind her, each wearing a black coat. The Chief Designer realized how difficult it was to tell an undertaker from a security officer. The man on the left carried a long black bag draped over his arm, canvas coated with rubber. He removed the sheet from Giorgi, spread the bag alongside his body, and with the help of the other man lifted the body, light as paper, into the bag’s long slit. The zipper ratcheted loud in the room.

  * * *

  • • •

  MARS HEARD the commotion in the hallway outside the radio room, but he did not go to investigate. He had been living there full-time for a month, only leaving to get food and relieve himself and bathe but seldom that. The Chief Designer had visited less and less, and then Mishin and Bushuyev, too. They still stopped by occasionally to speak a few words to Leonid, but even those had been reduced to mere pleasantries. Leonid, for his part, never had much to say to anyone but Mars. Whenever one of the others spoke to him, he would answer their questions, then echo the questions back, wait for an answer, and comment on it with a single word. Good. Unfortunate. Interesting. Then the conversation ended, the duty of both sides fulfilled.

  It reminded Mars of the two young engineers, a man and woman whose names he could not remember, who had begun to spend time together, sneaking away to walk on the quad, taking meals at the same time, pressuring the chiefs to put them on the same projects. That initial spark had faded, though. After a few months they made only the motions of a relationship. Yes, the couple still ate at the same time, but where once the meals had been about little touches and whispered, punch-drunk exchanges, they descended into rote silence. They seemed to say just enough to each other as necessary, as if conversation were an unwanted obligation. It was no surprise to anyone, except maybe the couple, when things finally fizzled out completely. It had been over for some time without them even noticing.

  Maybe the Chief Designer and the others could not come to grips with a thing that should have ended long ago still going. They had expected days, and instead it was months. They had prepared only so many words, so many thoughts, and their supply was long since exhausted. Leonid refused to die. No, that was not it. Dying simply did not occur to Leonid. That is what Mars had concluded. Death was the thought of death. So far, Leonid had other things to think about.

  Mars was lying on the cot when the radio crackled. Usually he was up and waiting, but he had been lost in his own thoughts, the only thoughts, besides Leonid’s, he ever had access to anymore.

  “Hello?” came Leonid’s voice from the speaker. Every day, the sound seemed farther away, even though Mars knew the opposite was true. The orbit decayed. Every moment brought Leonid a hairsbreadth closer to the atmosphere and the same fiery reentry that had claimed Nadya. And Mars’s brother.

  Mars tumbled getting off the cot and fell against the console, bashing his elbow. He turned on the microphone and spoke through his teeth, gritted against the numbing pain that shot up the length of his arm.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “Is anyone else with you?” asked Leonid.

  “No one else.”

  “I’ve been thinking . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been thinking about why I was fearful before the launch. I knew it meant my death, yes. I knew the dangers, that my death might come before I could actually accomplish anything. I knew I might never beam back a single word, which seems strange now, since I have spoken so many to you. Do you write them down?”

  “I didn’t think to.”

  “That’s all right. It would make a terrible book, anyway.”

  “Certainly the book would have been hard to follow.”

  “I’ve been thinking that the reason I was scared is not because of what fate awaited me but because of the many familiar things I had to leave behind. All I knew since childhood was Star City. Maybe I was always just a martyr-in-training there, but I knew the people and they knew me. I had a routine. I had a bedroom in which I lived for more years than I can remember. I still know what books are on the shelves. Has anyone cleaned out my room?”

  “As far as I know it remains untouched. Leonid, your brother, was supposed to move in, but he refused. He stayed in his old room in the twins’ dormitory.”

  “He was never much of a reader. Or was he? Of all the people I knew at Star City, he was not one of them. I saw him only a few times in all the years. Did you see Mars? Your brother, I mean.”

  “I didn’t see him even on the day he launched. He refused my visit.”

  “I won’t lie. I resent my brother and the fact that he gets to live. Perhaps your brother felt the same.”

  “Sometimes I think it was simply his way to have the final word in all our boyhood arguments. We spoke through the radio after he launched, but that’s something different.”

  “My point is,” said Leonid, “that I had friends in Star City. I had a life that was not so bad. Even knowing it had to end, I enjoyed it. I won’t speak of my childhood, but know that it wasn’t pleasant. I never expected to escape it. But I did and I found a measure of happiness. My fear, then, was that leaving Star City would be a return to the dark past that preceded it. A silly fear, yes? The only future I have is this little capsule, this egg, hurtling so fast through the dark that no other darkness could possibly catch up.”

  “So your fear was unfounded?”

  “I now know that leaving one place is not the same thing as returning to another.”

  Static popped the speaker. Mars did not know if Leonid had fallen silent or simply passed out of range.

  Bohdan, Ukraine—1950

  Even Grandmother had finally grown thin. When she hiked up the hem of her dress before kneeling to pray, her calves, once fat as tree limbs, were withered to twigs. The prayer, too, was something new. One day she knelt out of nowhere and spoke to herself in whispers. Leonid just barely remembered his father doing the same, and knew that Grandmother had as well, but she was one of the few villagers who seemed happy when the Soviets came and dismantled the church. She was one of the few who did not gather at the train station to say goodbye to the priest.

  At first, the two Leonids had just watched Grandmother pray. Sometimes they walked outside. At the very least they went to the other side of the cottage. But as the prayers came day after day, first the younger Leonid and then the older joined her, kneeling on the floor, facing the blank wood of the east wall. The older Leonid did not know what he was supposed to pray about. Usually, he just whispered the thoughts in his head, carrying on a conversation with himself. He tried to eavesdrop on Grandmother, but whatever she said never made it beyond her lips. No, he never learned why they prayed, but he knew for sure that he did not want Grandmother to have to pray alone.

  As they knelt today, Kasha would not stop being a bother. She nuzzled up into Leonid’s crotch as if trying to lift him on her snout. She walked behind and pawed at the bottoms of his bare feet. When he refused to budge, she moved on to his brother. And when his brother did not move, Kasha tried with Grandmother. She tolerated a few pokes of Kasha’s nose to her b
uttocks before dropping back into a crouch and scratching Kasha behind the ears.

  “What is it, dog?”

  Kasha streaked to the door, still as fast as ever despite suffering the same starvation that affected everyone.

  “Let her outside,” said Grandmother.

  The Leonids rose and headed to the door. Letting Kasha out had become a ritual of sorts. One of the brothers would go out first, halfway up the path to the rest of the village. From there he could signal back to the other brother if someone headed their way. The brother who stayed with Kasha led her around to the other side of the cabin. With the trees leafless, they worried that the white flash of the dog would be easily spotted against the gray earth even from a distance. Kasha did not need to be led. She seemed to know to head to the back on her own. If anyone came from the direction of the village, Leonid felt sure Kasha would know to hide. The ritual then was for the sake of the brothers. It gave them something to do. A brief, twice-daily distraction from the pain that became more and more pronounced in their guts each morning.

  When the older Leonid reached the door, Kasha darted to the other side of the room.

  “Do you want to go outside or not?” he said.

  Kasha pushed herself into the corner where the cabinet met the wall. None of them had ever seen her cower before.

  “What is it, girl?” asked the younger Leonid.

  A knock came on the door, and the older Leonid, who still stood right next to it, jumped at the sound. The motion sent a sharp pain through his ankles, knees, and hips, fading into a dull burn in the long muscles of his legs. The door swooped open, almost clipping his shoulder. Mykola burst in.

  The younger Leonid stood in front of Kasha, though his skinny legs did little to conceal the dog.

  “It’s customary to allow someone to answer the door after you knock,” said Grandmother.

  “There are men coming,” said Mykola, panting.

  “Soldiers?” asked the older Leonid.

  “Mr. Honchar and Mr. Dyachenko. They’re half-mad. The Honchar baby died this morning. Dyachenko is the uncle, you know, and his own children died already. They were outside saying they would hunt down anyone who was hoarding food. They didn’t hide their suspicions about your cottage. They said that out here by yourself you could have enough food hidden away for everyone, the whole village.”

  “Does it look like any of us have eaten?” Grandmother held up her arm, and the skin hung like a sheet drying on a line.

  Leonid realized how little of her there was left. He wondered if there would come a day when he would discover just her empty skin, all the stuff on the inside wasted away. Already she no longer matched his memory of her, the pleasant roundness of her face replaced by angles.

  Mykola said, “They already came through our cottage and flipped all the furniture and threw everything from the cabinet. It didn’t matter that there was no place food might be hidden.”

  “Let them come,” said Grandmother. “I won’t allow them to enter.”

  “Honchar has an ax. He threatened Mother with it when she tried to stop him. I think he would have struck her if I hadn’t pulled her away.”

  “That man was barely strong enough to wield an ax even when he was well fed. I’m not worried about that.” She looked back at the younger Leonid. “However, I don’t think it would be good if they found Kasha.”

  Kasha poked her snout from behind the younger Leonid’s legs. Mykola, across the room, stepped forward.

  “She’s still alive? I thought surely someone had . . .” The phrase choked off in his throat.

  “Will you tell them about her?” asked the older Leonid.

  “I can’t believe she’s still alive.”

  Mykola was crying, thin tears that did little more than glisten his cheeks. He gripped the older Leonid at the biceps. His fingertips touched on the back side of Leonid’s arm.

  “We have to protect her,” said Mykola. “We can’t let the men find her.”

  Grandmother crossed the room and pulled Mykola’s hand from Leonid.

  “Did anyone see you come?” asked Grandmother.

  “I snuck away while Honchar and Dyachenko were in another home.”

  “Then take Kasha around back and follow the path up the hill. Do you know the path?”

  “We’ve played there before.”

  “It leads to a dry creek bed, which cannot be seen from below. Go there and follow the creek toward the pass. Find a place to conceal yourself as best you can and wait. I’ll send the twins to find you when it’s safe for Kasha to return.”

  “Will the dog follow me?”

  “I’m sure of it. She’s a wise animal, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect us.”

  Mykola looked at Kasha, now emerged from behind the younger Leonid and sitting on her haunches in the center of the room. Mykola’s brow furrowed in worry. Grandmother grabbed the boy’s chin and directed his gaze to meet her own.

  “Do you know that the dog has not eaten since we brought her here? Over a month, and not one lick. She protects us, and she’ll protect you.”

  It was true. Kasha had refused even the small bites of food offered to her. At each meal, such as they were, the boys shared morsels from their own pitiful portions. But the morsels would sit there, on the bare wood of the floor, ignored by the dog completely, until the boys gave up and ate the food themselves. When they tried to feed her from their hands, she would push the offering away with her nose, then hurry off before the food could be offered again.

  “That’s impossible,” said Mykola.

  “We’ve survived on little more than nothing,” said Grandmother, “and Kasha is a special dog. Now it’s up to you to protect her. Go.”

  Mykola hesitated.

  “Go!” shouted Grandmother.

  Mykola started at the shout and hustled straight to the door, still open from when he entered. On the front step, he patted his thigh, beckoning Kasha to follow. She streaked between Mykola’s legs and out of sight around the cottage.

  “Thank you, Mykola,” said the younger Leonid.

  Mykola jogged after Kasha.

  “Will she be all right?” asked the older Leonid.

  “It would take more than a man with an ax to stop her,” said Grandmother. “In that way, Kasha and I have something in common.”

  She grabbed the broom from the corner and leaned against the table, facing the door.

  * * *

  • • •

  HONCHAR ENTERED WITHOUT even knocking. Grandmother stood from the table, sweeping a single spot on the floor. She did not greet him. His eyes twitched around the room, flitting from spot to spot. His hair, now speckled with gray where only months ago it had been nothing but black, wired from his head in every direction. A streak of snot glistened his mustache underneath one nostril. The ax dangled from his knobby fingers.

  “We’re here to search your cottage,” he said.

  Grandmother stopped sweeping and gripped the broomstick at an angle in front of her chest. “No, you’re not.”

  Leonid heard the sound of Dyachenko rooting through the pile of firewood outside. There was not much wood left, certainly not enough to hide anything. In years past, the supply would have been replenished months ago. But who had strength for chopping wood? Who really expected to live long enough to see winter?

  “If you have nothing to hide,” said Honchar, “then you have nothing to worry about.”

  “You will not search my home.”

  Honchar raised the ax. The blade showed chips and spots of rust. It had not met a whetstone in some time.

  Grandmother sprung forward. Honchar took a step back, but too slow. As if wielding a sword, Grandmother arced the broomstick forward and connected with Honchar’s knuckles. The ax fell from his hand, the dull blade embedding in the worn wood of the floor. Honchar
reached with his other hand to retrieve the ax, but Grandmother swung again, this time landing a blow on the top of his shoulder. He yelped and fell to one knee.

  “Suka,” he said.

  Raising the broom over her head, Grandmother stepped toward him. Honchar leapt up and backed into the doorway, colliding with Dyachenko, who had come at the sound of Honchar’s cry. The two men fell over each other, heaped at the foot of the front steps.

  Grandmother stood in the doorway, looming over them.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for the ax.”

  Dyachenko tried to struggle toward her, but Honchar held him back.

  “If I hear of you searching another home,” said Grandmother, “I won’t hold back the next time.”

  She started to come back inside, but paused just past the threshold. Her lip trembled, and tears blurred her eyes. She turned back to the men outside.

  “I’m sorry about your daughter,” she said.

  She closed the door to Honchar’s weeping.

  * * *

  • • •

  MYKOLA STARTED to come to the cottage almost every day, and on the days he did not visit, the Leonids usually went to visit him. When Oksana had died, the village’s children had stopped playing together. It was partly due to worried parents, who feared that the fever would spread. It was partly exhaustion. What child had energy to waste on play?

  Then a sort of euphoria spread among the villagers. Parents and children alike had long since passed the point of exhaustion, and in its place came a feeling at once calm and giddy. It even affected Honchar, who returned to his old self as if the incident with the ax had never occurred.

  Still, though, Grandmother, the Leonids, and Mykola kept Kasha a secret. Grandmother told them that the current mood was partly delirium. The promise of even Kasha’s scant meat might drive the whole village into a craze like Honchar’s. The dog, for her part, refused to eat and seemed as well as ever.

  Mykola arrived at the cottage earlier than usual. He knocked once and entered without waiting for someone to answer. Grandmother still wore her bedclothes. The younger Leonid rubbed at his face with a parched cloth by the basin. The older Leonid sat cross-legged on the floor, groggy from sleep. The only one to acknowledge Mykola’s arrival was Kasha, who scampered over and waited for a pet behind the ears.