The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 15

by Gardner Dozois

  “I heard and read descriptions of the fireflies,” Aksyonov said, “but I never dreamed how beautiful they are.”

  “Are you still upside down, Comrade?” the doctor asked him.

  Aksyonov laughed. “Yes, but if you can stand it so can I. If I were not as upside down as you two, I would not be here, would I?”

  “Well, the Chief will turn us all upside down,” Novikov said, “if we don’t get some more chores done before we fly back into radio range. We have transitional spectra to photograph, ion fluxes and background radiation to measure, and of course spontaneous greetings to prepare for our Olympic team in Tokyo. Yegorov, perhaps you and our topsy-turvy friend could rehearse the script while I see to these instruments.”

  “Right away, Comrade. Let me just finish these medical notes . . .”

  Aksyonov squinted at Yegorov’s writing hand. “Comrade Doctor,” he said. “Is that the pen you typically use for note-taking? In zero gravity, it seems prone to skip.”

  Yegorov stopped writing, opened his mouth, closed it again, and cast Aksyonov a sheepish glance. “This is not my usual pen, Comrade. I borrowed it for the flight. It is one of the Chief’s pens.”

  His crewmates regarded the doctor for a few seconds. Then Novikov chuckled and reached into a pocket. “Don’t be ashamed, Comrade Doctor. Look. I myself asked for one of the great man’s handkerchiefs.”

  After a pause, pilot and doctor both looked at the engineer who lay between them.

  “For my part,” Aksyonov said, “I have a note he gave me just before launch.” He pulled the small square of paper from his jacket and began to unfold it. “I see no harm in sharing it with you – ”

  Novikov tapped his hand.

  “No, Comrade,” he said. “That note is for you, and not for us. Maybe at some point we will need to hear it, and then you may read it to us, but not now. Not now. Now we have our orders, Comrades. Shall we get to work?”

  VII. SUNRISE TWO, 18 MARCH 1965

  “I can’t do it. Come in, Baikonur. I can’t do it.”

  “Leonov, this is the Chief. What did you say? Please repeat.”

  “I can’t get back into the airlock, Chief.”

  “Explain.”

  “My pressure suit, sir. It has swollen, as we expected, because of the unequal stresses on the materials . . . but it has swollen much more than we anticipated, in only a ten-minute spacewalk. I didn’t realize how much, until just now, when I tried to bend to enter the hatch. It’s becoming rigid, Chief, like a suit of armor, or a statue. Please advise.”

  “I understand, Leonov. This is an inconvenience, nothing more. Have you tried to maneuver with the handholds? Grasp them and haul yourself forward headfirst. Stretch out and pull yourself along like a log. I know it’s awkward, but clipping the television camera to the hull was awkward, too, remember?”

  “All right. I will try, Chief.”

  “You’re doing fine, Leonov. You have executed a flawless extravehicular activity. Your suit may be stiff, but you are more free at this moment than any other man who has ever lived, and we all envy you, Leonov. Report when you are ready. Baikonur out.”

  “Uh, Baikonur, this is Leonov. Come in, Baikonur. Come in, Chief.”

  “Yes, Leonov, this is the Chief. What news?”

  “No news yet, Chief, I’m still trying. It’s hard, because my arms are getting stiff, too, but I’m trying. Chief, could you perhaps keep talking? It helps me focus. Believe it or not, there are a lot of distractions up here. I keep wanting to look at the Earth, at the clouds over the Volga. Or the other way, at the blackness – although it’s really a dark blue, and it’s beautiful too, in its own way. If you keep talking, Chief, it will help keep me on task.”

  “Why, Leonov. Am I such an evil boss that you fear my wrath even five hundred kilometers above? Everyone in the control room is smiling and nodding his head, Leonov, so everyone here agrees with you. I am quite the dictator, I see. Well, I will try to mend my ways. When you return I will be a new man, yes? Yes. I will be only the proud uncle to my young friend Leonov. How are you doing, Leonov?”

  “I’m still trying, Chief. Keep talking.”

  “Leonov, do you remember when I came to your cottage last night to tell you to go to bed? I also told you that we cannot foresee every problem on the ground, that your job and pilot Belyayev’s job is to step in to deal with the problems that we haven’t foreseen down here, and that we have complete faith in your abilities to do this. Well, here is just such a problem as I was talking about, Leonov. This is the unforeseen that was foreseen. And there you are to solve it for us. How are you doing, Leonov? Please report.”

  “Chief . . . I’m still out here, and I don’t think the handholds will be much use. It’s not just that I can’t bend in the middle; my arms and legs are sticking out, too, and the hatch is only a meter wide. And the suit is stiffening even as we speak. Maneuvering is like trying to swim without moving my arms and legs. Please advise.”

  “Thank you, Leonov, we better understand your situation now. We will advise you in a moment. Just now I am going to speak with your pilot, all right? I will switch over very briefly, then confer with my comrades in the control room, then come back to you. If you like, you may admire the Volga. You will be able to describe it all the more vividly when you return.”

  “All right, Chief.”

  “Baikonur out . . . Sunrise Two, this is the Chief. Come in, Sunrise Two.”

  “Chief, this is Sunrise Two. Do you want me to go out and get him?”

  “Negative, Belyayev, negative. You are to stay inside until you receive contrary orders from me. I cannot have both my cosmonauts waltzing together outside the craft until we are sure we can get both of you back inside. Do you understand, Belyayev?”

  “I understand, Chief. What shall I do?”

  “Do as you are doing, and carry out your orders, and prepare yourself to exit if I say the word. Baikonur out.”

  “Leonov, this is the Chief. Any progress?”

  “No, Chief . . . but the sunlight on the Black Sea is remarkable.”

  “And so are you, friend Leonov, and so are you. Listen, Leonov, we have found a way to make your pressure suit a bit more manageable. Your current air pressure reading is six. If you begin to lessen the air pressure, you should gain some flexibility. Do you understand, Leonov?”

  “. . . Uh, Chief, I do understand, but my pressure’s already pretty low relative to the inside of the capsule. How much lower can I go without some real trouble when I get back in? I won’t be much good to the mission if I get the bends, Chief.”

  “That is true, Leonov, but we have work for you to do inside. We don’t pay you to loiter out there and watch the clouds all day. And Comrade Belyayev is lonely for your company.”

  “I don’t like this, Chief.”

  “Nor do we, friend Leonov, nor do we. But you have counted the minutes as attentively as we have, have you not?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “And you have noted your oxygen supply as well, correct?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “And do you have any alternate courses of action to propose at this time?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “Very well, Leonov, begin to adjust your – ”

  “Chief.”

  “I am here, Leonov.”

  “Is this a group recommendation, Chief? A consensus? Or is it your personal recommendation?”

  “. . . It is my personal recommendation, Leonov. This is the course of action I would take were I in your place. It is the recommendation of the Chief Designer.”

  “Thank you, Chief, I will do it. Adjust pressure to what level?”

  “No target level. Adjust as slowly, as gradually as possible, all the while trying to flex your arms and legs and bend your waist. We want you through the lock with the highest suit pressure possible. Understood?”

  “Understood, Chief. Beginning to reduce suit pressure . . .

  “Five and a half, no good, c
ontinuing . . .

  “Five, I do see some improvement in mobility, Chief, repeat, some improvement, but I am still a slow old man up here, continuing . . .

  “Four and a half, I’m doing my best, trying to wedge myself in there, but I can’t quite . . . shall I continue this, Chief?”

  “Continue.”

  “Continuing to reduce pressure . . . Four point twenty-five, I really am not liking this, Chief, I really – Chief! My head and shoulders are inside, I’m pulling myself along, I’m turning around in the airlock – I’m in, Chief? I’m in, in! Hurrah!”

  “Excellent, Leonov! Excellent! Can you hear our applause? Well done!”

  “Shit, that was close. I beg your pardon, Chief. Closing airlock. Preparing to equalize pressure . . . ”

  “Any problems to report, Leonov? How are you feeling?”

  “No problems, Chief. But Belyayev said I smelled pretty ripe when I came in.”

  “Chief, Lyosha here has not sweated so much since his last physics exams.”

  “He just completed his most difficult physics exam, friend Belyayev, and he passed it with honors. Congratulations, Leonov.”

  “Only because you helped me through, Chief.”

  “Well, I know all about such things, you see. I move like an old man every day. And now, I think, I will let one of these younger fellows talk to you a while, about how we are to get you fellows home again. Chief out.”

  VIII. BAIKONUR COSMODROME, 12 JANUARY 1966

  Vasily!

  Alive! Here! How – ?

  “Oleg, stop the car! Stop the car, I said!”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Oleg braked and steered to the shoulder, just beside the ditch that separated the highway from the railroad track and the featureless warehouses beyond. Korolev was out the door before the car quite stopped; he lurched, off balance, until the world quit moving, nearly toppling into the ditch. Some engineer he was, to forget his physics like that.

  “Chief, what is it?” Aksyonov called. “What’s wrong?”

  Ignoring him, Korolev trotted to catch up with the shuffling column of zeks being herded, single file, back toward the launch pad from which he had come. He felt slow, clumsy, like a runner in a nightmare. His legs moved as if knee-deep in roadside slush, though the ground was grey and bare. In this barren land, snow was as rare as rain.

  “Chief! Hey!” Car doors slammed. “What’s going on?”

  Vasily was dead, surely. Had to be. No man could survive, what – twenty years in the Kolyma? Even if he were such a wonder man, he would be no good to work an outdoor construction detail in a Kazakhstan winter. And Vasily had been at least ten years Korolev’s senior to begin with. Thus Korolev reasoned as he quickened his pace, his heart racing. “Vasily!” he cried. “Wait!”

  He started to identify himself, then wondered: Had he ever told Vasily his name? Would Vasily remember his number? Oh luckless day! No matter, no matter, surely Vasily would recognize him – unless eating utterly could transform a man. “Vasily!”

  One of the guards at the rear of the line turned and raised a hand in warning. “No closer!” he cried. None of the fifty-odd prisoners looked around; all curiosity had been scoured from them, Korolev knew, long long ago. The other guard unstrapped his rifle.

  “Halt the line!” boomed Oleg, as he sprinted past Korolev. “It is the will of the Chief Designer! Halt the line!”

  The first guard blew a whistle, and the prisoners immediately looked like men who had not walked or moved in years, who had aged in all weathers beside the road, and who would not deign to fall even when they died.

  Puffing, Korolev leaned on Aksyonov’s shoulder.

  “Chief, please. How many more heart attacks do you want? Calm down.”

  Hands on hips, glaring downward at them, Oleg was trying to intimidate the guards. “Do you have a man named Vasily in this detail?”

  The guards, impervious, shrugged. “How should we know, Comrade?”

  Oleg began to pace the line, calling the name at intervals. Korolev shook his head. The fortunate man obviously had no experience with political prisoners – himself excepted, of course. “Let’s follow Oleg,” Korolev told Aksyonov. “Slowly, mind you – slowly.”

  “That was my plan,” Aksyonov said.

  Korolev couldn’t remember now whether the face he had seen from the car window had been in the back of the line, the front, or the middle (or in a cloud? a clump of weeds?), so he peered at all the faces as he overtook them. So far no glimmer, no trace, no Vasily; but as he walked on, another, more terrible recognition dawned. These men all looked alike. The vacant stares, the beards, the scars and creases of misery – they could all be brothers. How would anyone be able to distinguish among them?

  Korolev stopped at the head of the line, smiled weakly at the guard he faced there, then looked back along the column. “I am sorry,” Korolev said. “Do you all understand? I am genuinely sorry. My friends, I think I will rest a moment.” With the help of Aksyonov and Oleg, he lowered himself onto the weedy rim of the ditch, as weary as the engines of the stars.

  “Carry on,” Oleg barked, and at the whistle the sad processional shuddered into motion again. The guards eyed Korolev as they passed. He heard them begin to mutter about how nutty the scientists get, with their heads in outer space all the time. Korolev started to laugh, then was seized with his worst coughing fit of the day.

  “I will bring the car,” Oleg said.

  When the coughs had passed, Korolev glanced sideways at Aksyonov. “Your Chief is a wreck,” he said. “Do you want a transfer?”

  “Sure, Chief, send me to the moon. Who’s this Vasily?”

  Korolev shook his head, drew his coat a bit closer around him. “Someone I knew many years ago. In the camps.”

  “The Kolyma.”

  “Yes. He collapsed at mealtime, was dragged away. I got a piece of his bread, and enjoyed it. Maybe I’m guilty for that, I don’t know. I assumed he was dead. I suppose he is dead. Yes, I’m sure he is.”

  “He died, you lived. That’s nothing to feel guilty about, Chief. Have you brooded about Vasily all this time?”

  Korolev smiled. “Comrade, I had not thought about Vasily once, not in twenty years, until a few moments ago in the car. And then it all came back. Like a comet that has been away for so long that no one remembers it, eh? Yet all the while it is on track out there, makes its great loop, comes round again. As dependable as Oleg, here. Yes, thank you, Oleg. No, stay put, we’ll be right over. Aksyonov.”

  “Yes, Chief?”

  “Listen to me. Tonight I go to Moscow, back into the hospital. I hope to be back in a week, maybe two. The Health Minister has scheduled an operation for me, a hemorrhoid operation. I’ve had problems down there.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Serious. It’s my ass, isn’t it? Yes, my ass is serious. Stop interrupting. Do you still have your copy of Tsiolkovsky’s book, of Exploration of Cosmic Space – ”

  “ – with Reactive Devices, yes, Chief, you know I do.”

  “While I am gone, I want you to read it over again. Every word of it. Study every diagram. Read it as if it were the first time, as if there were no satellites, no Gagarin, no spacewalk, no cosmonauts, and see where your ideas take you. And I, I will do the same. For I have been too old lately, Aksyonov, and turning you old along with me, I’m afraid; but when I return, we will talk about all these new wonders we have envisioned, and we will savor the sky and be astonished again.”

  IX. MOSCOW, 14 JANUARY 1966

  The Health Minister enjoyed one last cigarette as he leaned against the wall opposite the scrub room. Down the darkened corridor toward the elevators huddled the doctors and nurses who would assist him. They murmured among themselves. One or two looked his way, then avoided his glance.

  No doubt they dreaded performing under the scrutiny of the Motherland’s most honored physician, and so sought to encourage each other. They did not know their patient’s name, but they knew they had not
been whisked here after hours to work on any mundane Party apparatchik. They knew that Chairman Brezhnev himself awaited the outcome of the operation; the Health Minister had told them this at the briefing, to impress upon them the importance of this hemorrhoidal procedure, and the honor of their participation in it.

  As he watched them now, the Health Minister smiled and shook his head with fond indulgence, smoke pluming. These hard-working men and women did not realize it, but he already had made up his mind to be lenient with them. They would be unusually nervous, with good reason, and he would make allowances when writing his report. He was a servant of the State, yes, but he was also a human being; he could understand, even forgive, the frailties of others; he prided himself on this trait, one of his most admirable and practical. He took a final pull, crushed the butt into his coffee cup, and sighed with satisfaction. Too bad these Winstons were so hard to find . . .

  The doctors and nurses now approached him as a shuffling unit, little Dr. Remek in the lead. Stepping away from the wall, the Health Minister, who had been the third tallest dignitary on the reviewing stand at the 1965 May Day parade, drew himself to his full height and smiled down at them. “Are we all ready to wash up, Comrades? Our patient should be prepared by now.”

  Dr. Remek cleared his tiny throat. He sounded like a noisemaker blown by an asthmatic child. “Comrade Minister, my colleagues and I . . . with all due respect, sir . . . we would like to recommend that . . . that, the gravity of the situation being what it is, that you, or, that is, we, take the added precaution of, of . . .”

  “I am waiting, Dr. Remek,” the Minister murmured. His eyes had narrowed during this preamble.

  Remek turned to the others with a look of despair. One of the nurses stepped forward and said:

  “Comrade Minister, we request that Dr. Vishnevskiy be included on this surgical team.”

  “Vishnevskiy,” the Minister repeated. He should have guessed. The others fidgeted. The nurse (whose name escaped him; he would look it up later) maintained her defiant gaze. “And what could young Dr. Vishnevskiy contribute to these proceedings?”