“But what about him?” William asked, pointing his muzzle in my direction.
“Well, he can stay at the base until everything is sorted,” Spears replied. “We could have left him, I suppose, but I know he’ll fret about you. See, I am not half as heartless as you think. I thought it would be good if the two of you could at least stay in radio contact. It is going to be a very stressful mission. You have had excellent training, but you have never been to space.”
Space? Kazakhstan? Boris? I recalled the news on television the previous evening, and regretted that I’d only been listening with half an ear.
“Surely you are not considering sending my dog …”
But I had no time to complete my sentence. We had arrived at Cape Town International airport. The “school bus” was waved through a special entrance where armed security guards were on duty.
We drove to a section of the airport some distance away from the main terminal. Things proceeded at a fast pace: we entered a building through a door marked “Government officials and other VIPs”. Superintendent Spears handed me a passport marked “Diplomatic”. My name and photo were inside. “This will help you get around easier, and without your parents’ consent.”
I liked the sound of that.
All of the formalities were quickly dealt with and we found ourselves outside again, on a runway where a private jet was waiting. There wasn’t time to ask further questions. Before I could say “spotted spaniel”, we were rushed into the plane and the engines fired even before I had fastened my seatbelt.
I glanced around the interior of the luxurious aircraft. We were travelling in style. It was very different from the crate we travelled in when we mailed ourselves to Turkey, and very different also from my aunt Ada’s tiny yellow plane which flew us all the way to her farm on the banks of the Limpopo.
I thought that perhaps, one day, I would become a pilot.
Superintendent Spears explained to me that we were flying straight to Kazakhstan, where the base command of the International Space Station was situated. It was called the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It would take us fifteen hours to fly there, and he recommended that we try to catch some sleep on the way. We would need all our energy during the next few days.
But first we had a snack of some delicious sandwiches with cold drinks and doughnuts. William and I made ourselves comfortable in the luxurious seats, and I asked him about Boris and the International Space Station. “It is commonly known as the ISS,” he explained. He answered some of my questions, but I had a strong suspicion that he was keeping many things secret. He had the annoying habit of always feeding me facts on a “need-to-know” basis.
“We trained together when we were puppies,” he said. “Then I advanced to detective work while Boris was selected for the space programme. You are aware that the Russians sent dogs to space even before humans? And they kept on using them for missions that required exceptional loyalty and intelligence.”
I suspected otherwise: the Russians used dogs for missions that were too dangerous for humans. But I preferred not to mention that to him.
“A few decades ago, when the Cold War was in full swing, the Americans and the Russians competed for dominance in space,” Spears added from his seat beside us.
“Yes,” William said. “Russians enrolled dogs as the first astronauts because they are so much more clever than humans. Also, we adapt quickly to difficult circumstances, for example weightlessness in the absence of gravity. And, of course, we always obey orders.”
Not my dog! I thought. Throw him a ball and see who has to go and fetch it …
I remembered reading about the history of the Russian space dogs. “Didn’t some of them die on their missions?”
William looked sad. “Yes. A few of them paid the highest price for advancing science. Laika was the first dog in space. She did not make it back to Earth.”
For a few moments we sat in silence, thinking of the brave Laika.
“But that was a long time ago, not so, William? Do they still train dogs as astronauts?”
“It is true that space travel has become almost as safe as deep sea diving. But even in space, dogs are still humans’ best companions,” the chief superintendent said.
Despite all the excitement, I eventually managed to catch some sleep. I woke when William prodded me in the face with a wet nose, and we were told to fasten our seatbelts for the landing.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome
Kazakhstan is a long, long way from home.
It is in Asia, just south of Russia and west of China. It is a very large country, and the climate is either hot and dry in summer or cold and miserable in winter. There are large expanses of grassland that are known as the Kazakh Steppe.
There aren’t a lot of people living there.
Not much happens.
Except for the area surrounding the Cosmodrome at Baikonur! Baikonur is a city in the south of Kazakhstan, and the Cosmodrome is home to one of the world’s most important space programs. The desolate plains surrounding it make it ideal for rocket launches, and it is a hive of activity.
Chief Superintendent Spears was giving me a quick update on the history of space travel. While the American space capsules used to land in the ocean, the Russians have always let their astronauts land close to the Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. More recently the Americans used shuttles like the Discovery that could take off and land almost like aeroplanes, but the Russians continued to launch their space capsules on the tips of rockets. When the capsules re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, giant parachutes unfold to lower it gently to the ground.
Although they competed fiercely in the past, the Russians and Americans now work together on their space projects. Usually the Russians and Americans take turns to shuttle astronauts and equipment to and from the station. But, the superintendent explained, at the moment the American shuttles were all grounded and transport to the station was left to the Russians and their Soyuz space capsules.
This was a lot of information, but much easier to absorb than a lesson at school. It helped being there in Kazakhstan and seeing all of this with my own eyes!
But William did not show any interest in the superintendent’s story. He had his nose pressed against the window of the car, his breath making two damp spots against the cold glass. I knew he was worrying about Boris and the danger that his friend must be facing. After all, look what had happened to Laika!
I gave him a hug. He licked my hand and his tail stirred with a half-hearted wag.
We passed two security checkpoints. And then I saw the rocket.
It was standing in a large clearing, propped up by metal scaffolding. It was so much larger than I could ever have imagined. It was sleek and fierce, and its tip pointed straight at the open skies.
My skin tingled with excitement. Only a day and a half before, I was just an ordinary kid stressing about a spelling olympiad. Now I found myself in a country that I have never even heard of before, looking at a real space rocket that appeared to be ready to lift off at any moment.
Then I asked the question I should have asked a long time before: “What exactly are we doing here, Chief Superintendent Spears?”
He gave me a measured glance, and I could see he was wondering how much I needed to know. “Well, son, you know that the ISS suffered a breakdown and that Boris, a dog, has been left behind. There are billions of dollars invested in that space station and we cannot afford to lose it. The breakdown affects the oxygen supply, and a valve needs to be replaced. A small thing, but critical. Dogs do not use a lot of oxygen – they are much smaller than humans. But Boris cannot make the