The absurd possibility that he, a Hero of the Soviet Union, could ever become a traitor occurred to Nicolay Talin when he was 150 miles above the surface of the Earth.
The absurdity – it was surely nothing more – was prompted by an announcement over the radio link from Mission Control:
‘We know that you will be proud to hear that at 05.00 hours Moscow time units of the Warsaw Pact Forces crossed the Polish border to help their comrades in their struggle against the enemies of Socialism attempting to subvert their country.’
Proud? Involuntarily, Talin shook his head. Such timing! While he was acting as ambassador of peace in space the Kremlin had perpetrated an act of war on Earth.
‘So they finally did it,’ was all he said.
He felt Oleg Sedov, Commander of the shuttle, Dove 1, on its maiden flight, appraising him. Sedov, forty-seven years old and as dark and sardonically self-contained as Talin was blond and quick, had been appraising men all his adult life.
Sedov, separated from Talin by a console of instruments, leaned forward in his seat, cut the radio and smiled at Talin.
‘You didn’t exactly glow with patriotic fervour,’ he remarked.
Talin gazed at Europe, bathed in spring sunshine, sliding away below them. There was a storm gathering over the sheet of blue steel that was the Mediterranean; to the north lay a pasture of white cloud; beneath that cloud was Poland, beneath that cloud war. In ninety minutes they would be back, having orbited the Earth. How many would have died during that time?
He tried to relax, to banish the spectre of treachery that had suddenly presented itself. True, he had often doubted before; but his doubts had never been partnered by disloyalty. He unzipped his red flight jacket and said: ‘You know better than I do, Oleg, that what goes on down there,’ jabbing a finger towards an observation window, ‘doesn’t have much impact up here.’
‘So you’re suppressing your joy until we land?’
‘If we land,’ said Talin who was piloting Dove.
‘Ah, there I share your doubts. But let’s keep them to ourselves,’ Sedov said, re-activating the radio.
‘Dove one, Dove one, are you reading me?’ The voice of the controller in Yevpatoriya in the Crimea cracked with worry. When Sedov replied his tone changed and he snapped: ‘What the hell happened?’
Sedov shrugged at the panels of controls, triplicated in case of a failure, and said: ‘Just a temporary fog-out. Also I had to use the bathroom.’
The controllers had long ago learned to accept Sedov’s lack of respect: not only was he the senior cosmonaut in the Soviet Union, he was a major in the First Chief Directorate of the KGB.
‘Is everything still going according to schedule?’
‘Affirmative,’ Sedov replied.
‘We were worried about Comrade Talin?’
Sedov frowned. ‘He looks healthy enough from where I’m sitting.’
‘His heart-beat went up to a hundred and twenty just now.’
Again Sedov’s dark eyes appraised Talin as he said to the controller: ‘Maybe he was thinking about Sonya Bragina.’
‘That,’ said the controller, ‘is a remarkable observation, because it so happens that we have Sonya Bragina here waiting to talk to Comrade Talin.’
This time Talin himself felt his pulse accelerate as he heard Sonya’s voice, pictured her at Mission Control, wearing her severe, dark blue costume to make her look more like a Party member than a dancer, blonde hair braided and pinned – remembered her the last time he had seen her, naked on the bed in her apartment in Moscow.
What was happening was obviously the dream-child of a Kremlin publicist. Bolshoi ballerina converses with lover in space; as subtle as a Pravda editorial but more effective. And if Dove 1 crashed into the Siberian steppe then the Russian people would always remember the last, space-age conversation and weep delightedly.
Ironic, he thought, that at this historic moment I should be hurtling towards the United States of America.
‘Hello, Nicolay, how are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘Where are you now?’
‘Right above you.’
‘Your mother sends her love. And –’
‘Yes?’
‘I love you.’
Talin guessed that someone had prompted her because, although she was by nature passionate, she wasn’t demonstrative in public, certainly not for the benefit of the millions watching and listening on television and radio.
Now he was expected to respond: ‘And I love you,’ but he rebelled because the whole exercise was so gauche; there was nothing they could do about that and she would understand.
He said: ‘Do you know what I fancy now?’
A nation held its breath. Sedov raised an eyebrow.
Talin said: ‘A plate of zakuski, salted herring perhaps with beetroot salad, followed by a steak as thick as a fist washed down with a bottle of Georgian red.’
He thought he heard her laugh but he couldn’t be sure; the laugh would be surfacing all right but she had the discipline to fight it back. Anyway, their audience would appreciate the remark: a man wasn’t a man unless he indulged his belly.
She hesitated, the Kremlin script in tatters. ‘Aren’t they feeding you all right up there, Nicolay …?’ Her voice faded as she realised that she had made a mistake, implied criticism.
He came to her rescue. ‘I was only joking. The food’s fine.’ Well, not bad, if you liked helping yourself to re-hydrated vegetable soups, blinis and coffee in slow motion to combat weightlessness.
‘I miss you, Nicolay.’
Another cue. He ignored it.
‘Ten more orbits,’ he said, ‘and we’ll be down.’
‘Goodbye, Nicolay.’
‘Goodbye, darling.’ Sweet compromise. ‘Don’t forget the zakuski.’
And she was gone.
‘Well,’ said Sedov, ‘I didn’t realise I was in the presence of a great romantic.’
‘I’m not a ham from Mosfilm,’ Talin told him.
Even that was a perversity: Mosfilm made good movies. Perhaps space had got to him; it could cause disorientation, which was why cosmonauts underwent so many psychological examinations.
That would explain his aberration when he heard about the invasion of Poland. A side effect of the transition into space, awareness of the curve of the globe below and the void above.
The Soviet Union occupied a sixth of the world’s land but in orbit he had seen the other five sixths. The pendulous sacks of South America and Africa, oceans scattered with fragments of land … Space and freedom had become one, the breeding ground of fantasy.
Beneath them now was the cutting edge of the United States. In eleven minutes thirty-eight seconds they would have crossed the North American continent. Dove