In Our Hands the Stars Read online

  “I am most loyal to your organization because it is the wisest arrangement for me. Speaking as a professional now, I can assure you that it is very difficult to get reliable intelligence information about the U.S.S.R. You have rigorous security procedures. Therefore I am happy for the items—I presume they are false-that you supply me for the Americans. They will never discover this because the CIA is hideously inefficient and has a one hundred percent record of never having ever been correct with intelligence information supplied to their own government. But they pay very well indeed for what they receive from me, and there are many fringe benefits.” He held up his cigarette and smiled. “Not the least of which is the money you pay me for revealing their little secrets. I find it a profitable arrangement. Besides, I like your organization. Ever since Beria …”

  “Things have changed a great deal since Beria,” she said sharply. “A former SS man like yourself, an Oberst at Auschwitz has little claim to moral arguments.” When he did not answer she turned to look out of the window, at the long white building barely visible through the light rainfall. She pointed.

  “There they are, Schmidt, just across the graveyard from us. There is something very symbolic in that, have you never thought?”

  “Never,” he said emotionlessly. “You have far more insight into these matters than I have, tovarich Shirochenka.”

  “Don’t ever forget that. You are an employee whom we watch very closely. Try to get closer to this Professor Rasmussen …”

  She broke off as the door opened. A young man in his shirtsleeves hurried in and handed her a piece of paper that had been tom from the teleprinter. She scanned it quickly and her eyes widened.

  “Boshemoi!” she whispered, shocked. “It can’t be true…” The young man wordlessly nodded his head, the same look of numb disbelief on his face.

  * * *

  “How many hours now?” Arnie asked.

  Ove looked at the chart hanging on the laboratory table. “Over two hundred fifty—and that is continuous operation. We seem to have most of the bugs worked out.”

  “I hope to say you do.” Arnie admired the shining, cylindrical apparatus that almost filled the large workstand. It was festooned with wires and electronic plumbing, and flanked by a large control board. There was no sound of operation other than a low and distant humming. “This is quite a breakthrough,” he added.

  “The British did most of the groundwork back in the late sixties. I was interested because it related to some of my own work. I had been able to build up plasmas of two thousand degrees, but only for limited amounts of time, a few thousand microseconds. Then these people at Newcastle on Tyne began using a helium-caesium plasma at fourteen hundred sixty degrees centigrade with an internal electric field. They were increasing the plasma conductivity up to a hundred times. I utilized their technique to build Little Hans here. I haven’t been able to scale up the effect yet, not practically, but I think I see a way out. In any case Little Hans works fine and produces a few thousand Volts steadily, so I cannot complain.”

  “You have done wonders.” Arnie nodded thanks as one of the laboratory assistants handed him a cup of coffee. He stirred it slowly, thinking. “Scaled up this could be the power source we need for a true space vessel. A pressurized atomic generator, of the type now used in submarines and surface craft, would fit our needs. No fuel needed, no oxidant. But with one inherent drawback.”

  “Cooling,” Ove said, and blew on his hot coffee.

  “Exactly. You can cool with sea water in a ship, but that sort of thing is hard to come by in space. I suppose an external radiating unit could be constructed ...”

  “It would be far bigger than the ship itself!”

  “Yes, I imagine it would. Which brings us back to your fusion generator. Plenty of power, not too much waste heat to bleed off. Will you let me help you with this?”

  “Delighted. Between us I know …”He broke off, distracted by a sudden buzz of conversation from the far end of the laboratory. “Is there anything wrong down there?”

  “I’m very sorry, Professor, it is just the news.” She held up an early edition of BT.

  “What’s happened?”

  “It’s the Russians, that Moon-orbiting flight of theirs. It has turned out to be more than that, more than just a flight around the Moon. It is a landing capsule, and they have set it down right in the middle of the Sea of Tranquility.”

  “The Americans won’t be overjoyed about this,” Ove said. “Up until now they have considered the Moon a bit of American landscape.”

  “That’s the trouble.” She held the newspaper out to them, her eyes wide. “They have landed, but something is wrong with their lunar module. They can’t take off again.”

  There was little more to the newspaper report, other than the photograph of the three smiting cosmonauts that had been taken just before take-off. Nartov, Shavkun, and Zlotnikova. A colonel, a major, and a captain, in a neatly organized chain of command. Everything had been very well organized. Television coverage, reporters, take-off, first stage, second stage, radioed reports and thanks to Comrade Lenin for making the voyage possible, the approach, and the landing. They were down on the Moon’s surface and they were alive. But something had gone wrong. What had happened was not clear from the reports, but the result was obvious enough. The men were down. Trapped. There for good. They would live just as long as their oxygen lasted.

  “What an awful way to die, so far from home,” the laboratory assistant said, speaking for all of them.

  Arnie thought, thought slowly and considered what had happened. His eyes went to the fusion generator, and when he looked back he found that Ove had been looking at it too, as though they both shared the same idea.

  “Come on,” Ove said, looking at his watch. “Let’s go home. There’s nothing more to be done here today, and if we leave now we can beat most of the traffic.”

  Neither of them talked as Ove pulled the car through the stream of bicycles and turned north on Lyngbyvej. They had the radio on and listened to the news most of the way to Charlottenlund.

  “You two are home early,” Ulla said when they came in. She was Ove’s wife, a still attractive redhead, although she was in her mid-forties. While Arnie was staying with them she had more than a slight tendency to mother him, thinking he was far too thin. She took instant advantage of this unexpected opportunity. “I’m just making tea and I’ll bring you in some. And some sandwiches to hold you until dinner.” She ignored all protests and hurried out.

  They went into the living room and switched on the television. The Danish channel had not come on the air yet, but Sweden was broadcasting a special program about the cosmonauts and they listened closely to this. Details were being released, almost grudgingly, by Moscow, and the entire tragedy could now be pieced together.

  The landing had been a good one right up to the very end. Setdown had been accomplished in the exact area that had been selected and, until the moment of touchdown, it had looked perfect. But as the engines cut off one of the tripod landing legs had given way. Details were not given, whether the leg itself had broken or gone into a hole, but the results were clear enough. The lunar module had fallen over on its side. One of the engines had been torn free: an undisclosed quantity of fuel had been lost. The module would not be able to take off. The cosmonauts were down to stay.

  “I wonder if the Soviets have a backup rocket that could get there?” Arnie asked.

  “I doubt it. They would have mentioned it if there were any chance. You heard those deep Slavic tones of tragedy in the interview. If there were any hope at all it would have been mentioned. They are already written off, and busts are being made of them for the Hall of Fame.”

  “What about the Americans?”

  “If they could do anything they would jump at the chance, but they have said nothing. Even if they had a ship ready to go, which they probably don’t, they don’t have a window. This is the completely wrong time of the month for them to attempt a luna
r trip. By the time there is a window that trio of cosmonauts will be dead.”

  “Then … nothing can be done?”

  “Here’s your tea,” Ulla said, bringing in the heavily loaded tray.

  “You know better than that,” Ove told him. “You have been thinking the same thing I have. Why don’t we take the fusion generator, put it in Blaeksprutten— and go up there to the Moon and rescue them.”

  “It sounds an absolutely insane idea when you come right out and say it.”

  “It’s an insane world we live in. Shall we give it a try—see if we can talk the Minister into it?”

  “Why not?” Arnie raised his cup. “To the Moon, then.”

  “To the Moon!”

  Ulla, eyes wide, looked back and forth from one to the other as though she thought they were both mad.

  10

  The Moon

  “Signing off until sixteen hundred hours for next contact,” Colonel Nartov said, and threw the switch on the radio. He wore sunglasses and ragged-bottom shorts, hacked from his nylon shipsuit, and nothing else. His dark whiskers were now long enough to feel soft when he rubbed at them, having finally grown out of the scratchy stage. They itched too: not for the first time he wished that there was enough water to have a good scrub. He felt hot and sticky all over, and the tiny cabin reeked like a bear pit.

  Shavkun was asleep, breathing hoarsely through his gaping mouth. Captain Zlotnikova was fiddling with the knobs on the receiver—they had more than enough power from their solar panels—looking for the special program that was beamed to them night and day. There was static, a blare of music, then the gentle melody of a balalaika playing an old folk melody. Zlotnikova leaned back, arms behind his head, and hummed a quiet accompaniment. Nartov looked up at the blue and white mottled globe in the black sky and felt a strong desire for a cigarette. Shavkun groaned in his sleep and made smacking noises with his mouth.

  “Chess?” Nartov asked, and Zlotnikova laid down the well-worn thin-paper copy of The Collected Works of V.I. Lenin that he had been leafing through. It was the only book aboard—they had planned to read from it when they planted the Soviet flag in Lunar soil—and, while inspiring in other circumstances, bore little relationship to their present condition. Chess was better. The little pocket set was the most important piece of equipment aboard Vostok IV.

  “I’m four games ahead of you,” Nartov said, passing over the board. “You’re white.”

  Zlotnikova nodded and played a safe and sane pawn to king four. The colonel was a strong player and he was taking no chances. The sun, pouring down on the Sea of Tranquility outside, hung apparently motionless in the black sky, although it crept closer to the horizon all the time. Even with sunglasses he squinted against the glare, automatically looking for some movement, some change in that ocean of rock and sand, mother-of-pearl, grayish green, lifeless.

  “Your move.” He looked back at the board, moved his knight.

  “A vacuum, airless … whoever thought it would be this hot?” Zlotnikova said.

  “Whoever thought we would be here this long, as I have told you before. As highly polished as this ship is, some radiation still gets through. It hasn’t a hundred percent albedo. So we warm up. We were supposed to be here less than a day, it wasn’t considered important.”

  “It is after eleven days. Guard your queen.”

  The colonel wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, looked out at the changeless moonscape, looked back to the board. Shavkun grunted and opened his eyes.

  “Too damn hot to sleep,” he mumbled.

  “That hasn’t seemed to bother you the last couple of hours,” Zlotnikova said, then castled queenside to get away from the swiftly mounting kingside attack.

  “Watch your tongue, Captain,” Shavkun said, irritable after the heat-sodden sleep.

  “I’m a Hero of the Soviet People,” Zlotnikova answered, unimpressed by the reprimand. Rank meant very little now.

  Shavkun looked distastefully at the other two, heads bent over the board. He was a really second-rate player himself. The other two beat him so easily that it had been decided to leave him out of the contest. This gave him too much time to think in.

  “How long before the oxygen runs out?”

  Nartov shrugged, bearlike and fatalistic, without bothering to look up from the board. “Two days, maybe a third. We’ll know better when we have to crack the last cylinder.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we will decide about it,” he said with quick irritation. Playing the game had put the unavoidable from his mind for a few minutes; he did not enjoy being dragged back to it. “We have already talked about it. Dying by asphyxiation can be painful. There are a lot simpler ways. We’ll discuss it then.”

  Shavkun slid from the bunk and leaned against the viewport, which was canted at a slight angle. They had managed to level off the vessel by digging at the other two legs, but nothing could replace the lost fuel. And there was the Earth, looking so close. He pulled the camera from its clip and squinted through the pentaprism, using their strongest telescopic lens.

  “That storm is over. The entire Baltic is clear. I do believe I can even see Leningrad. It’s clear, really clear there with the sun shining….”

  “Shut up,” Colonel Nartov said sharply, and he did.

  11

  The gray waters of the Baltic hissed along the side of the MS Vitus Bering, breaking into mats of foam that were swept quickly astern. A seagull flapped slowly alongside, an optimistic eye open for any garbage that might be thrown overboard. Arnie stood at the rail, welcoming the sharp morning air after the night in the musty cabin. The sky, still banded with red in the east where the sun was pushing its edge over the horizon, was almost cloudless, its pale blue bowl resting on the heaving plain of the sea. The door creaked open and Nils came on deck, yawning and stretching. He cocked a professional eye out from under the brim of his uniform cap-his Air Force one, not SAS this time-and looked around.

  “Looks like good flying weather, Professor Klein.”

  “Arnie, if you please, Captain Hansen. As shipmates on this important flight I feel there should be less formality.”

  “Nils. You’re right, of course. And, by God, it is important, I’m just beginning to realize that. All the planning is one thing, but the thought that we are leaving for the Moon after breakfast and will be there before lunch … It’s a little hard to accept.” The mention of food reminded him of the vacant space in his great frame. “Come on, let’s get some of that breakfast before it’s all gone.”

  There was more than enough left. Hot cereal and cold cereal; Nils had a little of each, sprinkling the uncooked oatmeal over his cornflakes and drowning them both in milk in the Scandinavian manner. This was followed by boiled eggs, four kinds of bread, a platter of cheese, ham, and salami. For those with even better appetites there were three kinds of herring. Arnie, more used to the light Israeli breakfast, settled for some dark bread and butter and a cup of coffee. He looked with fascinated interest as the big pilot had one serving of everything to try it out, then went around again for seconds. Ove came in, poured some coffee, and joined them at the table.

  “The three of us are the crew,” he said. “It’s all set. I was up half the night with Admiral Sander-Lange and he finally saw the point.”

  “What is the point?” Nils asked, talking around a large mouthful of herring and buttered rugbrød. “I’m a pilot, so you must have me, but is there any reason to have two high-powered physicists aboard?”

  “No real reason,” Ove answered, ready with the answer after a night of debating the point. “But there are two completely separate devices aboard—the Daleth drive and the fusion generator—and each requires constant skilled attention. It just so happens that we are the only two people for the job, sort of high-paid mechanics, and that is what is important. The physicist part is secondary at this point. If Blaeksprutten is to fly, we are the only ones who can fly her. We’ve come so fa
r now that we can’t tum back. Our risk is really negligible—compared to the certain death facing those cosmonauts on. the Moon. And it’s also a matter of honor now. We know we can do it. We have to try.”

  “Danish honor,” Nils said gravely, then broke into a wide grin. “This is really going to rock the Russians back on their heels! How many people in their country? Two hundred twenty-six or two hundred twenty-seven million, too many to count. And how many in all of Denmark?”

  “Under five million.”

  “Correct—a lot less than in Moscow alone. So they have all their parades and rockets and boosters and speeches and politicians, and their thing falls over and all the juice runs out. So we come along and pick up the pieces!”

  The ship’s officers at the next table had been silent, listening as Nils’s voice grew louder with enthusiasm. Now they burst out in applause, laughing aloud. This flight appealed to the Danish sense of humor. Small they were; but immensely proud, with a long and fascinating history going back a thousand years. And, like all the Baltic countries, they were always aware of the Soviet Union just across that small, shallow sea. This rescue attempt would be remembered for a long time to come. Ove looked at his watch and stood up.

  “It is less than two hours to our first lift-off computation. Let us see if we can make it.”

  They finished quickly and hurried on deck. The submarine was already out of the hold and in the water, with technicians aboard making the last-minute arrangements.

  “With all these changes the tub really needs a new name.” Nils said. “Maybe Den Flyvende Blaeksprutte—the Flying Squid. It has a nice ring to it.”

  Henning Wilhelmsen climbed back over the rail and joined them, his face set in lines of unalloyed glumness. Since he knew her best, he had supervised all of the equipment changes and installations.

  “I don’t know what she is now—a spaceship I guess. But she’s no longer a sub. No power plant, no drive units. I had to pull out the engine to make room for that big tin can with all the plumbing. And I even bored holes in the pressure hull!” This last crime was the end of the world to any submariner. Nils clapped him on the back.