by John Gardner
*
There was no way of telling how long he had been out. His neck felt bruised and stiff, as though he had been sitting too long in a draught, and there was a whining noise in his ears. Boysie sat upright and shook his head. A wave of sickness passed through him and he could see that his hands were trembling.
He was back in the Seducer’s office. Nobody else was there and a strange silence seemed to have enveloped the building. Gingerly, still rubbing the back of his neck, Boysie stood up and walked carefully to the door. Locked. Constanza’s dead face swam into his mind. Rage followed close on the vision’s heels. Then a terrifying calm. The moment of truth. Anyone who would go to these elaborate safety precautions was a guilty man. Boysie knew he had to stay in this place and find some method of either sabotage or revenge.
He looked round. There was a folder lying open on the desk. Flipping through its pages, Boysie saw easily that it needed a better man than him to make anything out of the graphs and equations laid out black against the snow white paper.
The book shelf. Crammed with erudite tomes. Rocket Engines. Cosmic Dust. Wernher von Braun’s Space Frontier. Boysie did not really know what he was looking for. Then, it almost leaped out. A small book with black and blue lettering on the spine. Dictionary of Astronautics. Quickly he riffled through the pages. H-I-J-K, what was it? Knudsen Number; Kappa IV; Capustin Year; Kelvin Scale; no. Here. That was it. Kepler’s Laws. Dropping into a chair, Boysie started the painful process of committing three paragraphs to memory.
His head ached, eyes were sore. The seconds whipped by. Minutes. An hour perhaps. All sense of time seemed to have gone. Then the sound of footsteps. Catting it across the room, Boysie returned the book to its place and flopped out in the chair. The door opened. He groaned, sat up and shook his head.
‘Ah, so you are awake.’ The Sorcerer faced him. Boysie thought the man looked white and shaken. The Seducer, behind him, seemed unmoved.
‘You were foolish to attack Solomon,’ said the Seducer, ‘it shows grave lack of control.’
‘A pity you didn’t show any …’ Boysie began.
‘You think we are insensitive?’ Humperdinck spat out. ‘She was a good girl. Talented. Might have done great things.’
‘She panicked.’ The Seducer looked at the floor. ‘I blame Solomon. She should have been warned about the dogs. Once they are let loose … You will not make the same mistake, Mr. Oakes.’
Boysie stayed silent.
‘Are you ready to finish our conversation?’ asked the Seducer.
‘Go ahead. Whatever you like.’
‘Now I’ve lost my back-up for Sonya she must be isolated completely. I only hope Mr. Oakes is a fit person to back-up Yetsofar.’ The Seducer spoke to the Sorcerer. He turned back to Boysie. ‘Ah, yes. One simple question. If you are so clever, Mr. Oakes. What are Kelper’s Laws?’
Boysie took a deep breath and plunged with his eyes shut. ‘Kelper’s Laws. First: Every planet moves in an ellipse having the Sun at one focus. Second: The radius vector sweeps out equal areas in equal times. Third: The squares of the periodic times are proportional to the cubes of the mean distances from the Sun.’
He might just as well have been reciting from the Jerusalem telephone directory, in Hebrew, for all it meant to him. But it seemed to please both the Seducer and the Sorcerer.
‘Good,’ beamed the Seducer, the first smile Boysie had seen from him. ‘I don’t wish to seem inhospitable, Mr. Oakes, but as you have already seen tonight, we have to be careful. You are still willing to assist?’
‘I’ll help the Sorcerer, certainly,’ said Boysie. ‘But, shouldn’t I know something about your side of the experiment?’
‘In good time. In good time,’ nodded the Seducer. ‘Solomon, naturally, does not feel well disposed towards you. He has asked us to keep you informed only of essential things for the time being. The Silversmith arrives tomorrow, and the day after that we will begin the count down. Three days from now you will feel pleased at having taken part in such an operation.’
The Seducer opened the door. ‘Come.’ He spoke pleasantly to Boysie.
They led him down the passage to another door which opened into a luxurious suite, plush as any three star hotel. Deep pile carpet, sumptuous bed, a bathroom which would not have looked out of place at an international display of cleansing facilities. Piped music, filtered from a speaker housed above the bed. Boysie’s case stood by the bed, and a small table had been laid for dinner. A prawn cocktail nestled comfortably in its little goblet, while a side table creaked under its little load of cold chicken, ham, tongue and a vast salad bowl. There was also fresh fruit and cheese, while, in the centre of the table, a silver ice bucket sprouted a bottle of Dom Perignon.
‘Eat, bathe and get some sleep,’ said the Seducer.
Boysie nodded, crossing to the window and drawing back the curtains. Outside he could just discern the flat black and white landscape, barren and as bleak as the road to Hell. He shivered, turning quickly on hearing the door close. The Seducer and the Sorcerer had left and from the door came, first the click of a key turning, then the strange snuffle and pawing of a dog on guard.
*
Mostyn landed at Spitzbergen in the early hours. A British major met him and apologized on behalf of the C-in-C AFNORTH, ‘He arrived two hours ago,’ said the Major, ‘He’s catching up on his sleep.’
Mostyn nodded grumpily and was taken to the Base Hospital where a pair of tired and disgruntled medics were awaiting him. There followed an exhaustive physical, checking and re-checking, before he was allowed to go with the Major to the Officers’ Mess where a meal and bed were ready for him.
‘Tomorrow we’ll just go through your parachute technique again, sir. Then you’ll have to spend a little time with stores before we do a briefing. You go tomorrow so we haven’t much time.’
‘Can’t wait, laddie, can’t wait,’ said Mostyn tartly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SEXT
It is the bell for Sext, my lord;
The time for prayer;
In sooth ‘tis prayers you need.
THE UNHOLY: John Bracegirdle
Boysie’s neck was still stiff when they woke him the following morning. One of the guards, with the white roundel on his back, brought breakfast, English style, bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade and a large pot of coffee.
The same guard returned to remove the dishes and leave a set of clothes.
‘Orders are that you put these on,’ was his only comment.
Boysie picked up the clothes, garment by garment. A suit of woollen long johns, a pair of heavy calf-length stockings, high boots with tough rubber soles, a thick blue coverall with zipped pockets, a pair of fleece-lined gloves and a light coloured parka. On the back of the parka a white circle had been stitched.
Slowly he climbed into the clothes. He rather liked the effect when he got to the coverall stage, it made him look like a military jet pilot.
‘Now hear this. Now hear this,’ he growled, watching himself in the mirror. ‘Pilots man your planes. Pilots man your planes.’ He ran round the room, puffing heavily, then, dragging a chair in front of the mirror, Boysie climbed into it from the side and went about buckling his imaginary safety harness.
‘Oscar Tango One. Permission to start engines.’ His hand was cupped to his mouth. Then, holding his nose, ‘Control to Oscar Tango One. You are clear to start engines.’ Pressing the imaginary starter button, Boysie revved the great jets.
‘Oscar Tango One. Clear take-off please. Control to Oscar Tango One, you are clear to take-off under supervision of the Catapult Launch Officer.’ Boysie looked out of his cockpit, watching the little figure whirling his hand round as Boysie opened the throttle. Maximum revs, then the Catapult Launch Officer dramatically pointed forward and he felt the kick in his back as the jet roared off the flight deck. Climbing now. Gear up. There was a tap at the door and Boysie had to eject back into reality.
The Sorcerer stood in the en
trance, face wreathed in smiles. ‘Good morning, Apprentice. Hope you feel rested. Now we must go to work.’
Boysie shrugged his way into the parka, zipped it up, picked up his gloves and followed the Sorcerer.
‘First,’ said the Sorcerer, ‘I must introduce you to Sext.’ Boysie nodded. Today was not a talking day. Today was listening and observing day.
They made their way to the main entrance hall. A lightweight G/S Landrover waited outside, the driver was looking impatient. They sky was clear, a light blue, but the cold still ripped into one’s body, despite a shining sun.
‘Where to, sir?’ asked the driver as they climbed aboard.
‘Capsule workshops,’ ordered the Sorcerer.
The Landrover moved off.
‘How many men have we got here?’ Boysie felt the odd probing question could do no harm. He had carefully accented the ‘we’.
‘About two hundred and twenty,’ the Sorcerer said blandly. ‘One hundred and twenty technicians and launch complex staff. About one hundred guards and HQ personnel.’
‘Quite a large operation then.’
‘You’ll see. You’ll see just how big it is.’
The Landrover was following a cinder-based track over the flat landscape. Now they seemed to be turning south. Ten minutes later Boysie caught sight of what looked like a low scaffolded building to their left. The Landrover turned towards the scaffolding which grew as they approached. Slowly Boysie made out the lines of a rocket gantry. It rose higher and higher over the skyline as they approached. Soon they were in the midst of a full-scale launch complex, complete with pad, launch control bunker, and two giant radar aerials, bowls rotating steadily.
Boysie, fascinated, could clearly see that already the first stage of the stolen Saturn V was in position at the gantry, while cranes were lifting the second stage into place.
‘You could be back at Kennedy, eh?’ The Sorcerer was very pleased.
‘I wish we were. It’s too bloody cold here.’
‘The extremes of temperature never really make any difference to me. It is as though I do not notice.’
‘Glad you don’t. You’re lucky, it’s killing the brass monkeys.’
‘The brass monkeys?’
‘Forget it,’ said Boysie feeling a shade uppish.
They had come to rest beside a low hangar-like building.
‘Here is where the brains hang out,’ said the Sorcerer, chuckling.
The building was well guarded. At least four men with rifles stamped their way up and down. There was no military precision about them, but, even in their stamping and slapping shoulders against the cold they gave the appearance of alertness. The Sorcerer led Boysie through a small passage which served as a technicians’ entrance. Through a door at the end of the passage and they were in a large hangar. A hangar large enough to have housed Blenheim Palace — twice. In the centre of the big concrete floor stood a space capsule, a great white bulb slightly larger than the Apollo nodule and with a much thicker and longer neck sprouting from its top. To Boysie, the craft looked obscene, like an outsize model womb. Along the side of the capsule black lettering spelled out the legend SKYCHILD ONE.
‘She is a beautiful baby, yes?’
‘Terrifying,’ said Boysie looking up at the spacecraft about which men swarmed. ‘This is the one?’
‘This is it.’
‘Ah. Umm. What about the lifting body?’
‘I thought you’d never ask. Come, I show you.’
Boysie followed the Sorcerer across the concrete and into a wide offshoot hangar. The walls were plastered with drawings and maintenance plans. A round table in the centre of the floor held a large model of the spacecraft in the other hangar, while to the right stood a squat wooden aircraft with a flat rocket-shaped body, and two long curved rudders and stabilizers. A pair of minute delta-shaped wings protruded from the fuselage, giving the impression that they were apologizing for being there at all.
The Sorcerer followed Boysie’s gaze. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is the mock-up of Sext. But later for that, let me show you how things will operate.’
They crossed to the table with its model of Skychild One. The Sorcerer removed the outer casing disclosing an interior sectional model. Boysie could now see the reason for the long thick neck of the spaceship. Inside the neck, up-ended and with undercarriage retracted, sat Sext.
‘Now you see,’ said the Sorcerer. ‘My Sext is held in position here, in the neck of the capsule. You will note that it is completely sealed off by a separate heat shield which will eventually take the impact from Sext’s rocket motor. Now,’ he pointed. ‘You will see each side of Sext is fitted with an aluminium ladder reaching down to traps in the Sext heat shield. Two crew members begin the launch seated in Sext. Once they reach second stage they make their way down ladders and through the heat shield into the capsule. There they will conduct the Seducer’s experiment. If there is a fault during launching Sext will automatically be triggered off, the rocket motor shooting it a distance of five thousand feet before the two jets become ignited and the pilot astronaut can take control, stabilize the craft and bring her back to earth like a normal aircraft.’ He paused to let the information sink in. ‘You follow?’
‘Yes. But what about this experiment in the capsule?’
‘You must talk to the Seducer about that. You digress.’ He was off again, a proud father showing off junior to the neighbours. ‘Once the experiment is complete the crew return through the Sext heat shield, batten down the hatches, and climb up to the cockpit. They then remove the two ladders which fold into the outer casing of the capsule’s neck. The capsule performs a normal automatic turn round and drops out of orbit with the capsule heat shield first. Immediately the re-entry is completed the Sext rocket fires and the first astronaut takes control of the machine.’
‘And it handles like an ordinary aircraft?’
‘It’s initially a little fast, but once control is fully regained Sext is very easy to handle.’
‘What about handling the capsule itself?’
‘Mostly automatic or controlled from the ground. They must have no distractions for the Seducer’s experiment.’
‘Quite a doddle.’
The Sorcerer looked puzzled. ‘Excuse? What is doddle?’
‘Like when you’re free-wheeling.’ Boysie intent on getting the Sorcerer as bemused as the foreigner who, after struggling with the English pronunciation of words like ‘cough’ and ‘bough’, committed suicide on seeing a movie poster which proclaimed, THE LIQUIDATOR —PRONOUNCED SUCCESS.
‘Free-wheeling. I see.’ The Sorcerer obviously did not see.
‘What about the engines?’ asked Boysie rapidly turning the conversation back to the matter at hand.
‘Engines? On Sext you mean?’
‘Yes. How do you provide thrust for Sext?’
‘Initial thrust is given by a centrally placed YLR99-RM-1 Turborocket. Very interesting because it is throttleable which means you can bring it back to idling before putting in the two CF700 Turbofans.’
‘So it gets blown free from the nodule by a turborocket, then uses a pair of turbofans for normal flight.’
‘Correct. But come over here to the mock-up and see for yourself.’ As they reached the mock-up a voice hailed them from the entrance.
‘This is where I find you, hu?’ said the Seducer, looking more rodent-like than ever in a thick woollen turtleneck. He came across to them.
‘You like the Sorcerer’s Sext then, Apprentice?’ He looked hard at Boysie.
‘Fascinated,’ said Boysie returning the hard look while internally his guts seemed to have been set upon by a troop of Boy Scouts learning to tie sheepshanks.
‘What can we do for you then?’ the Sorcerer chimed in. ‘Just lend me your Apprentice for the rest of the morning. I must have him medically examined.’
‘Is Yetsofar …?’
‘Sonya and Yetsofar are both fine. I pray that Sonya remains that way, but I must at least
take the precaution of having a back-up ready for Yetsofar. I get very nervous now.’
‘I know. There is a lot at stake. I, too, am concerned. Better safe than sorry.’
‘You come with me then.’ The Seducer turned to Boysie. ‘We should finish by lunchtime. After lunch the Sorcerer will explain the intricacies of flying Sext.’
‘Flying what?’ Boysie momentarily misheard. ‘Oh yes, how to fly Sext. I thought you said something really devastating.’
Another G/S Landrover waited outside. A triangular pennant was attached to the bonnet. This carried one word in white against a blue backing. Seducer, said the pennant.
‘You have your own personal transport, then,’ said Boysie trying to sound impressed.
‘Naturally. I am the genius behind this operation.’
‘Can you tell me …?’ Boysie began questioningly. ‘What my part of the operation is to be?’ The Seducer turned his head towards Boysie. Not a hint of humour showing on his nasty little face. The Landrover was now heading for the cinder track over which Boysie had been driven on the way out.
‘Yes, your part of the experiment,’ Boysie nodded in affirmation.
The Seducer seemed to be thinking. Finally he said, ‘No. I do not think you yet need to know. But I will fill in certain details. The count-down will take roughly twenty-four hours. We should be ready for count-down by tomorrow afternoon.’
‘As soon as that?’
‘Maybe sooner. Anyway, this means that the two astronauts will go on board at lift-off minus one-twenty minutes.’
‘Astronauts?’ Boysie stressed the plural.
‘Yes, there are two. One American and one Russian. For them the critical stage will be between lift-off minus twenty-four hours until lift-off minus one-twenty minutes. Ideally I should have back-ups, what do you call them? Reserves?’
‘Yes.’ The word came out slowly, vomity, as Boysie began to see his role in the plan. ‘You mean I’m to be a reserve?’
