The Flag on Gorbachev Crater

14. A Historic Moment

They retraced their steps toward the reception room and the elevators without incident. The cluster around the holo set had tripled during the hour. Beckwith started to pull her around toward the exit.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Listen!”

The voice came over the heads of the little audience: “Cass Jones, International News. What we see here is a file shot of the northern lip of Gorbachev Crater. That little area here—indicated by an ‘X’ on your holo screen, an area we call ‘Flag Corners’—is where the Gagarin shuttle will land. One moment, please, Captain Petrov is coming on. We hear the captain’s voice from the Gagarin landing shuttle. He’s obviously delighted. He has just given the order for retrofire. Going down, now. We sense the physical descent of the little craft. Ah! He’s down. The captain is speaking again. We translate. ‘Russia has landed. A historic moment for Russia and for the world. Our flag is ready and waiting. While I suit up, we will run the nose visi up a few meters and make a panoramic sweep of the flag area.’

“And so, ladies and gentlemen, while the good captain suits up, we’ll take a moment to check on the other ships in the race. We note that the John F. Kennedy is coming up fast, but it is at least ten hours out from Ganymede.” (And there, thought the lawyer, goes the Space Agency account and D. Beckwith, P.C.) “Farther back,” continued the voice, “number three in this great contest is the German ship, Deutschland, followed by the Spanish Toreador, and the French Napoleon.”

“Let’s go,” Beckwith said softly.

“Not yet.”

The newscast continued. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, back to Captain Petrov. He’s still slowly panning the area, ‘Flag Corners,’ of what will soon be a new Russian province. The site is well chosen. We see no rocks or rubble larger than a soccer ball. What? One moment, ladies and gentlemen. Petrov says… what? My, my, our translator says Captain Petrov is shouting a string of Russian curses. Did we miss something? Run it back… Yes, there at the edge. Well, look at that, ladies and gentlemen, what we are looking at is a man holding an American flag! How can this be? Are we there first, after all?”

“Huh?” grunted the lawyer. He shouldered his way through the watchers for a good look at the holo screen. And then he stopped breathing for several seconds.

The announcer hesitated. “We seem to have lost our picture. We suspect that Captain Petrov has turned off his camera. Has this moment of victory suddenly turned to ashes? We simply don’t know. What? Oh. We’ve just been told a U.N. patrol corvette is moving in to investigate. Yes, the Ralph Bunche. So what’s going on? Well, to sum up, for those of you who joined us late, Captain Petrov of the R.S. Gagarin has just landed his shuttle on Ganymede, and he was personally welcomed by a flag-holding American.

“Meanwhile, we’ll run the tail-end of that tape once more. There he is, the man with Old Glory. Not waving, of course. The fabric is obviously frozen stiff. And since our American is not wearing a space suit or protection of any kind, we have to assume that he is likewise frozen. We see dark splotches around his ears and nose and mouth. We take that to be blood, which froze instantly, a result of the near-zero atmospheric temperature and pressure on the Jovian satellite. At present we have absolutely no explanation of how he got there.”

Pale and shaken, Beckwith worked his way back to az-Zahra, and this time steered her unresisting to the door. For you, he thought, was Smerll that banner-waving barbarian on the siegetower? And now, is it all finally finished? Sleep, blessed Cordoba!

She looked up at him with clear serene eyes. “Okay?”

And he replied, “Allah akbar!”