Skyfall

7

“And now our little holiday begins, hey?” Colonel Kuznekov said, smiling around at the five others. Behind his back the heavy door hissed shut and the bolts rattled into place.

“It's quarantine,” Ely Bron said, “I don't think we can look at it as a holiday.”

“But we can, Dr. Bron,” Kuznekov insisted. “Ninety-six hours of peace while the final countdown begins. Right now the technicians are, how do you say it, in a bloody sweat making sure everything goes right? While us — what do we have to do? We are locked in this magnificent block of flats where nasty bugs and bacteria cannot get at us. We're sealed in with cooks to make our food and maids to look after our clothes and bedding. We all have work to do, the pilots most of all, I see them studying those big books all the time. But we don't work as they do. So we've time to meet each other without politicians and publicity and newsmen and a thousand other things to distract. To talk with us they must use the phone and we can always be busy when it rings.”

The phone rang. They were all silent for a moment — then burst out laughing. “Who shall I say is busy?” Patrick asked, as he reached out to take up the phone.

When he did so the lights came on. This was more than a simple telephone, really a closed-circuit television setup. The chair in front of the phone was bolted into place and a TV pickup focused on it. Across the desk was a screen with the image of the caller. It was I. L. J. Flax.

“What's up?” Patrick asked. “We're not even locked in yet and you're on the phone already.”

“Sorry. Reporter wants to interview Coretta. Should have been here a day ago but had trouble with plane connections.”

“Who is it?” Coretta called out.

“Girl by the name of Smith. Says you promised an exclusive interview for Black Woman magazine.”

Everyone was aware of the conversation; no one was looking at Coretta. She hesitated a moment, then answered.

“Tell her to wait a bit, I'll be in touch with her. There's no time now.”

“Pull out the cord when you hang up, will you, Patrick,” Ely said.

“I'd like to. But let's do like Coretta. Don't take calls. Call them if we want to talk. Colonel Kuznekov is right. We all have things to do before lift-off. But let's get to know one another. We're a team and we're going to have to learn some more about each other to function as a team. Nadya and I are the pilots and we know how to work together. At this moment I'm in command and I'll stay there until we're in final orbit and the engine is shut down. At that point the Colonel takes over and issues the orders.”

“Not quite, Patrick. The generator is my responsibility, and I am in charge of assembly. I'll need strong people who can space walk; for this I'll issue orders. But for everything else, maintenance of our space station, communications, the rest, to the Commander. You must still be in charge.”

“Makes sense, Pat,” Ely said, turning the page of his book as he spoke. “You're the captain of the ship and you stay that way. With Nadya your first mate. The fission engine is mine, but I just fire it up for the single burn into orbit, then shut it down. After that I play rigger to Colonel Kuznekov's solar generator.”

“We all have our roles, like an anthill in space,” Kuznekov said. “Patrick and Nadya get us into orbit, then keep all the machines operating that keep us alive in that hostile environment. I'll supervise the assembly of the generating plant and once that's done electricity's turned over to Gregor here.”

Gregor nodded. “While the generator is being assembled I will be erecting the broadcast antennae on Prometheus. The output will be low to begin with but will serve to operate the pilot program. Conversion from the turbo-generators to 3.3 GHz then beamed to the receiving stations on Earth. I do not envision any problems. The equipment has been tested and functions as designed.”

“Well, bully,” Coretta said. “That leaves me as odd girl out, with nothing to do except help you people carry around the equipment. But I must remind you that the only machine on this trip not designed to function in space is the human body. We will be in orbit, in free fall, for at least a month before the relief flight of the space shuttle. So my job is to see that we all stay functional for that period, possibly longer. It must cost a million dollars each to put an American or a Russian body into orbit, so the longer we can stay on the job functioning well the better it will be. See me with all your complaints, aspirin and sympathy at all hours.”

Coretta hit the right tone. Somehow they had each summed up their work for the others, once they started they had to go on. But she had topped the conversation and made them laugh. Patrick sensed this as the correct moment to stop the business and get social. They had to learn to live together before they could work together.

“The drinking light is lit,” he said. “I know there are no teetotalers among the Americans, or among the piloting staff. How about you, Colonel?”

“I drink only vodka, brandy, beer, kvass and wine, though during the war I learned to like German schnapps and Scotch whiskey.”

“You won't be hard to please. That leaves you, Gregor.”

The blond engineer looked around. “Please, I am no problem, a small glass of wine perhaps. Though I am willing to try anything.”

“Boozers all,” Patrick said. “As CO of this outfit it is my pleasure to throw out the first bottle. It's going to be a native product of ours, a sour mash bourbon, and you'll like it. If you don't like it we'll try something else.”

Patrick poured the drinks and passed them out. Nadya nodded thanks, without looking up, already deep in conversation with Gregor. Perhaps she found him attractive; maybe he was in a depressing Russian way. A sad-looking engineer, a widower of only two months, must bring out the maternal instincts in any girl. Perhaps even more than that. She might be holding his hand next to cheer him up. Or more. Well fine, it would make for a happy ship, wouldn't it? It didn't matter to him. She was pilot and he was commander and that was all there was to it. Yet as he reached for the bottle to pour more drinks he saw her image clearly before him, as she had been that once, nude and smooth as silk beneath his fingers, her lips still wet where they had pressed against his. This memory was so strong that he had to pause for a second and resist the impulse to blink or shake his head. With a steady hand he poured a drink. That was all in the past, a moment out of time, something unimportant. It had looked good for a bit, then something had gone wrong. He had no idea what it was nor did he care to find out. There were other women in the world, right on this flight in fact. Femlib with a vengeance. And he could understand Coretta a lot better than he could Nadya. Maybe there was something after all to the east is east, west is west bit. It was technology and a common need that had lifted the Prometheus Project off the ground, not the crying need for each country to vote in the other's elections. Ely and the Colonel had the right idea; keep it technical and there were no problems. Patrick brought them their glasses.

“Listen, Patrick,” Ely said. “Did you know that our friend the Colonel here was the man who developed, with Patsayev, the superconductor cable that we're laying now in Alaska?”

“I didn't know it but I would believe it. Probably because I know very little about superconductors.”

“The greatest thing in physics since the discovery of the monopole. Shows how stupid the CIA boys can be. A fifteen-page report on the Colonel, all about what year he joined the Communist party and the name of his dog, but nothing about his real work. Don't stand there looking like a shocked virgin, Patrick. Do you think the Colonel doesn't know that we've had inch-thick security reports about everybody on the crew?”

“Or is there doubt on your part that we have had the same about you?” the Colonel said. Taking a long swig from his glass he nodded approvingly. “Not vodka; but a certain charm of its own.”

“Yes, it has,” Patrick said, then relaxed and smiled at himself. “I'm sure the security people are earning their money on both sides of the fence. And I guess it doesn't really matter a damn. Prometheus is a joint project that both countries have been booted into because we both need new energy sources now the old ones are running out. In the US we've had our big blackouts in Seattle and Frisco, then the fires. You've had those crop failures and the famine in Siberia, or maybe that didn't hit the papers here?”

“Our press is reluctant to spread bad news,” the Colonel said dryly. “But the enthusiastic broadcasts of the Voice of America and the BBC keep us informed of all disasters.”

Coretta sat alone, looking into her drink, and Patrick thought it would be a good time to repair some fences. “About our first meeting,” he said.

“What about it?” She did not intend to make it easy.

“I think you misunderstood — “

“I don't think I did, Major Winter.”

“It's going to be a long flight. My name is Patrick.”

“If I call you that you'll be calling me Coretta, and I'm not quite ready for that yet.”

“This is not a fight that anyone can win, Dr. Samuel. All we can do is all lose. If we should keep fighting, the flight will be in jeopardy and one of us will have to be replaced. What would that accomplish? Can't we just start even — like we'd never met before, as if I'd just come in the door? Then I could sidle up and say that you remind me of a girl I used to date in high school, almost my first date as I remember. Don't narrow your eyes like that, I mean it. I know I'm the right color and everything else to be a racial bigot, but appearances can be fooling. I remember her name was Jane and she was a Negro, that was before the word black came along, and I thought she had a real great build and I asked her to the drive-in, me borrowing my father's car. I thought it worked real peachy-dandy, particularly the wrassling in the back seat, but when I took her home she said she didn't think she would be seeing me again. Now this was a blow to the old male ego and I asked her why, didn't she like me? I remember she gave me this nice pat on the cheek and said sure she liked me, I was a real good necker and she liked that. But the conversation was just too boring. I remember she went on in school and had her degrees years before anyone else, and now she's teaching sociology at Columbia. Of course I didn't feel too humiliated because at that time smooching was more important than books, but I have never forgotten it.”

“Patrick Winter! Is that story true?”

“So help me. And I'll show you her picture in my high school year book with a big red lipstick kiss right over her signature.”

“And she was a black girl?”

“Well — not exactly. I changed that part to capture your attention. She was really a chicana, Mexican-American. All her family were migrant workers. But I thought a minority is a minority to make the point. Fins?”

She was tense for a moment longer, then relaxed and smiled. “You know, you're not so bad for an ofay.”

“You're not so bad yourself for a femlibber who has spent her life keeping the male fascist pigs at bay. Drink to peace — and the success of Prometheus.”

“Why not.” She clicked her glass against his and they drank. “But why not success? Is there any doubt of it?”

“There is always doubt about any flight. The more things that are involved, the more that can go wrong. On the first Apollo to the Moon the LM touched down with two and a half percent fuel left. The Soviets, us, we've both had our problems with the space program. Now we have six of the largest boosters ever made strapped together in one lump. They have to take off together and put Prometheus into low orbit, this payload also happening to be the largest one ever as well. Then when we are in this low orbit, which is what is called a decaying orbit meaning we will drop back to Earth pretty soon if we don't get out of it, we have to fire up Ely's fission engine to take us out to our final orbit. Now this engine, while the theory and smaller models have been ground tested — “

“Let me guess. This engine has never been flown in space before?”

“Bang on. And you ask me if there is any doubt about this flight. But, before I depress you too much, let me say that a lot of people have been working a number of years to bring the doubt factor as close to zero as possible. By the odds you are a lot safer in Prometheus than trying to change a tire on a California freeway. Your life expectancy there is twenty-five seconds if you try to change it on the inside, next to the lane.”

“You've cheered me up. As long as I stay away from California I am safe.”

A tall man in a chef's hat appeared at the open door. “Dinner is served,” he said in thickly accented English.

“What are we having?” Ely called out, but the cook's linguistic knowledge was exhausted and he fled.

“A specially selected menu,” Nadya said. “I talked to the cook and he is very proud of it. Borscht, then herring, followed by beef Stroganoff and noodles. Caviar and vodka too, of course.”

“Russian soul food,” Coretta said. “If I get the chance I am going to show your chef some real American cooking like collard greens and ribs. Let's go, I'm starving.”