Fall of a Cosmonaut

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Kinotskin had been at a loss for words. He had the soul of a satyr without the wit or words of a poet. His talk of women bored Tsimion, who was forced to endure it.

  Five more weeks, Tsimion thought. Five weeks and I will be leaving. I can make it for five weeks. I have many dreams to record and to dream. I have my experiments.

  The alarm went off, squawking, bleating. It was about time for the others to wake up, but there was something wrong. It was five minutes too early. Another system breakdown? Would they have to endure that maddening sound for hours till they could dismantle it?

  Kinotskin shot through the opening to the command module.

  Tsimion watched him bump into the side of the small tunnel, grab the bar next to the seat beside Tsimion, and say, “It’s … he …”

  “Shto, ‘what?’”

  “‘Come,’ typeeyehr, now.”

  It was the first direct order Kinotskin had issued to him.

  Tsimion Vladovka had visions of worms floating through the passage into the module. He glanced. There were no worms. Not yet.

  They were just coming into radio contact with the earth. Quickly the white-faced Kinotskin told him what had happened. The younger man spoke quickly, efficiently. It took less than fifteen seconds. There was nothing more to say to each other. They knew what must be done. Kinotskin began to transmit.

  There was no television contact. Ground control had ended almost all such transmissions since problems had begun more than a year earlier. Voice contact was not perfect.

  “Ground,” said Mikhail Stoltz, his voice weary.

  “We have a Syehm, a ‘Seven,’” Kinotskin said calmly.

  There was a silent pause on the earth before Stoltz came back, now alert.

  “Prognosis?” he asked.

  Kinotskin saw his future disappearing, but he managed to pull himself together and speak. “Unable to give one at this time,” he said. “We must go now. We will return with a report as soon as possible.”

  Possibly never, thought Tsimion, who said quickly, “Ground, please tell my wife I love her.”

  “Come,” said Kinotskin, tugging at Tsimion’s white T-shirt.

  “And,” Tsimion added, reaching to turn off the ground contact, “if we go to Vossyeam, ‘Eight,’ please inform Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.”

  Chapter One

  One Year and Five Days Later

  PORFIRY PETROVICH ROSTNIKOV, CHIEF inspector in the Office of Special Investigation, had not witnessed such a sight in his more than half century of life.

  He had been heading across Petrovka Street after getting off the bus. The central police headquarters, two ten-story, L-shaped buildings surrounding a landscaped garden protected by a black metal fence, was no more than fifty steps in front of him.

  It had been raining lightly when he kissed his wife, Sarah, and left his apartment on Krasikov Street. The rain had grown worse, out-of-season rain blamed by the television weather people on something called El Niño or La Niña.

  When he got off the bus, it was coming down heavily and he could hear the crack of thunder. To his right he saw a bolt of lightning and the crackle of its electricity. It was at times like this that he missed his left leg. He had learned to talk to the leg, which had been shattered by a German tank when he was a boy soldier in Rostov. He found it difficult to talk to the leg-shaped mechanism of plastic and metal; it had resisted all conversation for the year or more that it had become a reluctant part of the burly man known to the various branches of the police, Mafias, and petty criminals as “the Washtub.”

  The bus had pulled away down the street. Rostnikov looked after it. The bus swayed dangerously though it was moving slowly. The wind suddenly went mad. People scattered. No one screamed. The two uniformed officers at the Petrovka station gate backed into the relative safety of their small bulletproof guard box.

  Porfiry Petrovich swayed and ordered his leg to stand firm, knowing that it would not listen, had no mind. It was efficient but poor company. He was about to fall. The wind pulled open his coat and tugged at the buttons of his shirt. Rostnikov avoided a car that pulled past him and stopped in the middle of the street. The Washtub managed to make it over the curb to a small tree whose bare branches chattered as he clung to the trunk.

  In the kennels of Petrovka, the German shepherds howled.

  It was then that the bench, iron and wood, came flying down the street, touching down on top of a stopped car, creating a streak and scratch of sparks before continuing away about six or seven feet off the ground. The bench paused, twisted, rose as if deciding what to do, and then darted with the wind and rain down the street and into the drenched darkness. Now Rostnikov could hear the sound of windows breaking in Petrovka headquarters.

  It reminded him of something in a book he had read. No, it had been Chekov’s notes on Siberia, the description of something like this, only in Chekov’s tale it had been snowing.

  Rostnikov clung and watched, waiting for more wonders. Across the street, well behind the bus and not far off, a slightly larger tree than the one to which he clung cracked low on the trunk and slowly toppled, brushing the sidewalk with a dying sigh.

  And then it was over.

  The rain continued but it was only a drizzle now, though the street was puddled and rivulets cascaded down the gutters. There was no wind, just a breeze. The sound of thunder was distant now and there were no more crackles of lightning. The entire marvel had taken less than a minute.

  Rostnikov examined himself, touched his body to be sure he had not been stabbed by some stray flying screw or broken twig, and continued his walk to Petrovka headquarters. The guards nodded him in as they emerged cautiously from their shelter.

  He was not the first to arrive on the fourth floor, which housed his office, that of the director of the Office of Special Investigation, and the cubicles of the investigators who worked under the direction of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, who, in turn, reported to the director. The cubicles of the investigators were behind a door directly across the hall from Chief Inspector Rostnikov’s. It was only seven in the morning. The sun was barely out, but the light was on in the investigators’ office.

  Rostnikov knew who was behind the closed door. He went to his own office, closed the door, and began to remove his soaking clothes and put on his spare suit, which was in his very small closet. He hung his damp clothing neatly on hangers and then brushed back his hair with his hands. His hair, like his father’s before him, was bushy. There was more than a bit of gray in it now, but Sarah, his wife, said it made him look distinguished, even stately. To keep him looking respectable, Sarah checked his shirt, suit, and tie each morning. There wasn’t much of a selection, but with three suits, a dozen ties, and a reasonable selection of shirts and two pair of shoes, one black, one tan, she could certainly keep him respectable.

  He moved to the window of his office and looked out. There was a scattering of tree branches in the street, and some of the shrubbery and flowers in the courtyard of Petrovka had been broken, plucked, and tossed about by the storm. Now the heat would come back. The mad rain would drop the temperature for a few minutes, and then the summer heat, worse than any Rostnikov could remember, would be back.

  Air conditioning in Petrovka, driven by the city’s gas system, if working, made the offices too cold, just as they were too hot in the winter. Stepping into the heat of the outdoors from the chill of the protected building was a blow for which one had to prepare.

  His window was not broken but he could see that several across the courtyard had imploded. Behind one of the broken windows on the third floor a heavyset woman in a dark dress looked at the jagged broken glass and then across at Rostnikov, who nodded his head in sympathy. The woman turned away.

  Rostnikov’s office was wired by the director, Igor Yaklovev, “the Yak.” Rostnikov knew his conversations were recorded and listened to, and the director knew that Rostnikov knew. The offices across the hall were similarly wired and every inspector knew it. Everyon
e pretended that their conversations could not be overheard. Everyone knew that if they wanted privacy they had to leave the building. The director did not really expect to learn anything from his hidden microphones, but he wanted the devices to remind those who worked for him that he was in charge. The only one who was upset by these hidden microphones was Pankov, the director’s secretary, a sweating dwarf of a man who had lived in near panic since learning of the wiring, long after the discovery had been made by the entire investigative staff.

  Rostnikov was suddenly hungry.

  His phone was ringing.

  He picked it up and said, “Chief Inspector Rostnikov.”

  “Are you all right, Porfiry Petrovich?” his wife said.

  “I am fine,” he said. “The storm hit where you are?”

  “I think it hit everywhere in Moscow. The television said that part of the roof of the Bolshoi was torn off and that people ran in fright as the pieces of roof chased them into the square.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “I think so. The television said so.”

  “You are well? The girls are well?”

  The girls of whom Rostnikov spoke were twelve-year-old Laura and her eight-year-old sister, Nina, who lived with the Rostnikovs in their one-bedroom apartment along with the girls’ grandmother, Galina Panishkoya. They had no place else to live yet. Galina had recently been released from prison. She had shot a man in a state-owned grocery. It had been an accident. The man had been arrogant. Galina had been desperate for food for her grandchildren. Rostnikov had arrested her. Rostnikov and his wife had taken in the girls. Rostnikov had gotten Galina out of jail and had gotten her a job in the bakery on the Arbat owned by Lydia Tkach. And so the Rostnikovs found themselves with a new family. Porfiry Petroyich didn’t mind. Sarah welcomed them and their company.

  “Yes, the girls are fine. Galina took them to school.”

  “Then maybe the mystery we call God and cannot understand has chosen to keep us alive another day. I saw a bench fly down the street.”

  “A bench? What is happening to the world, Porfiry Petrovich?”

  “It went mad long ago, Saravinita. Most of the world refused to acknowledge it, but you and I have not been given the luxury of blindness.”

  “Take care of yourself today, Porfiry Petrovich. It is a dark day.”

  “I will try to be home at a reasonable time,” he said. “You take care too.”

  He hung up, removed his artificial left leg, placed it on his desk, and in English softly sang, “Looks like we’re in for storm in the weather. Don’t go out tonight. There’s a bad moon in your eyes.”

  Rostnikov knew he didn’t have the words quite right, but the melody was close and the meaning clear.

  The phone rang again and Rostnikov picked it up.

  “The director would like to see you in his office in fifteen minutes,” said Pankov. Rostnikov had long ago decided that Pankov was the only human he had ever met who could sweat over the telephone.

  “Please tell Director Yaklovev that I will be there in precisely fifteen minutes.”

  “I will tell him, Chief Inspector. Would you like coffee when you come?”

  “I would,” said Rostnikov.

  “A cup will be waiting,” said Pankov, hanging up.

  Pankov was definitely the dog who did the bidding of the director. He had hidden in the shadow of the previous director, the preening but surprisingly cunning Colonel Snitkonoy, who had gone on to the position of chief of security at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and been promoted to general. The current director was a bit more difficult than had been Snitkonoy, who’d been known as “the Gray Wolfhound.” While the Wolfhound had been tall, stately, almost always uniformed, the picture of a historic officer, Igor Yaklovev was of normal height, lean, given to dark suits and conservative ties. He spoke softly and kept his brown hair cut short and his bushy eyebrows untrimmed. The Yak, who had been a KGB officer, was ambitious and didn’t bother to hide it. He was not above manipulating his office or the law, not for wealth but for the promise of power. The Yak had made an unwritten agreement with Rostnikov. Porfiry Petrovich would be in charge of all investigations turned over to the office. In turn, the Yak would decide how to handle the results of all investigations. Rostnikov would have a free hand and the complete support of the director in carrying out his investigations. In turn, Rostnikov would not question his superior’s use of information gathered.

  There was room for negotiation with the Yak but not a great deal of room. Rostnikov and his team had been responsible for notable successes even before the fall of the Soviet Union. Each additional success made the Yak look better. He did not long for the prestige and public circle of the Hermitage. He sought the quiet power of Moscow. Though it was no longer fashionable or politically correct to put paintings or photos of Lenin on the wall, the Yak kept a clear mental picture of the fallen leader in his mind as a model and inspiration. Were it acceptable, he would have grown a small beard.

  Rostnikov put his artificial limb back on after sliding up his trousers and being careful not to snag the cloth on the prosthesis. He stood, hesitated, and then with a sigh of resignation reached into the pocket of his drying jacket and took out a plastic Ziploc bag containing two sandwiches of Spam, wilted lettuce, and butter. Sara had sliced the sandwiches neatly in half. Rostnikov stood eating one of the sandwiches, knowing he would be hungry again in a few hours. The morning was just beginning but it already seemed long. He vowed to wait as long as he could before he ate the other half of his lunch.

  Across the hall in his cubicle Emil Karpo sat alone, neatly writing a report and preparing for the day. Karpo, tall, gaunt, and ghostly, known to those around him and those who kept their distance from him as “the Vampire” or “the Tatar,” had been given an assignment by the chief inspector that he would have preferred to avoid. Karpo had simply nodded and taken the report. The case was murder, the victim a research psychologist at the Moscow Center for the Study of Technical Parapsychology, which, Karpo knew, was doing classified work for the government.

  Akardy Zelach, “the Slouch,” had been assigned to work with him. That was acceptable. Zelach was not bright, a fact of which Zelach was well aware and which he accepted. He took orders well, was loyal, and never complained. He was large, though of average strength. Karpo, who was taller but much thinner, was far stronger, but Zelach was not afraid of trouble, though he had almost lost his life several years ago aiding a fellow investigator.

  Karpo had been a loyal Communist. Even now he refused to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with the philosophy. It was the weakness of humans that had brought an ideal to ruin. It had not been the lure of capitalism but the drive for power that had begun even before Stalin. Humans were, Karpo had decided when he was quite young, ultimately animals. A reasonable utopian ideal like Communism was probably beyond the conception of animals, even those wearing clothes.

  Karpo had become a policeman to protect Communism and the state from the eroding effects of crime. Then, for several years he remained a policeman because it was what he knew how to do and he could lose himself in the work. Recently, he had come to a new commitment to his work. A woman, her name was Mathilde Verson, had been killed in the crossfire of a battle between two Mafias. She had been the meaning for his existence. Now his crusade was to rid the city of Moscow of as many as possible of the worst of the two-legged monsters who prowled the dark streets.

  But psychics? Had Porfiry Petrovich given the assignment to him as some kind of joke? Rostnikov was not above such a joke. Emil Karpo was surely the wrong man to deal with people who believed in and studied such things. The world was tangible. Nature had its laws, even if we did not understand them. So-called psychic phenomena were strands of false hope that something existed beyond the natural world. Yes, some things called psychic phenomena were certainly explainable if the research and experiments were possible to demonstrate that they were natural and not supernatural. The problem might be that
research did not exist to prove the natural where the unnatural seemed to be taking place. It mattered little to Emil Karpo. It was sufficiently challenging to accept the terrible reality of the tangible world in which he existed.

  Rostnikov entered the room. Karpo did not have to look up. It was too early for anyone else, and the sound of the limping leg on the wooden floor was unmistakable.

  The chief inspector entered the cubicle and stood before Karpo’s desk. Karpo put the top back on his pen, closed his notebook, and looked up. He was dressed as always completely in black: shoes, socks, trousers, and jacket over a pullover shirt.

  “Are you aware that we had a storm, Emil?”

  “I am aware, Chief Inspector.”

  “Windows broke, trees fell, a bench flew down the street and into the darkness.”

  Karpo nodded. “It seemed unduly loud.”

  “Thunder and lightning. At this magnitude in the middle of the usually calm summer. Nothing like this has happened before. Perhaps at the parapsychology center you will witness things that haven’t happened before?”

  “I do not expect that to occur,” said Karpo.

  “I know. Do you like Spam?”

  “No.”

  “If you are here when Iosef arrives, please tell him to come to my office and wait for me.”

  “I will be here till the institute opens at nine.”

  “Keep smiling, Emil Karpo.”

  “I do not smile, Chief Inspector.”

  “I know,” said Rostnikov.

  “And I know that you know,” said Karpo, without humor or emotion.

  “We have too many levels to our conversations,” said Rostnikov. “Even the most trivial. I believe it is endemic to Russians. It comes from having a history in which survival is often dependent on being cryptic.”

  “That is possible.”

  “We will talk later. As always, take care of yourself. Today especially. Omens from the sky.”

  “I do not believe in omens,” said Karpo.