shaven, ate with the others, and seemed to Tsimion to be going slowly mad, a condition with which Tsimion could sympathize. Though Baklunov had been on the space station working in his own module for only a month, Tsimion thought the stay was long enough. He had tried to convince Kinotskin, whose responsibility it would be to make the recommendation that Baklunov return to earth, but Kinotskin had his own future on earth to consider. To request the early return of one of the men under his command would be an admission of failure, an admission that would cost the Russian government a massive amount of money to remove the worm man.
“He is all right,” Kinotskin had told Tsimion only two days earlier as the two went over routine data and monitored the telescope telemetry.
“He is going mad,” said Tsimion.
“Ridiculous. He is eccentric. Biologists are often eccentric.”
Tsimion had wondered what extensive experience Kinotskin had with biologists that led him to this conclusion, but it was not an issue to be debated. Tsimion had long come to the conclusion that, though Kinotskin could easily beat him at chess, the poster boy with the blond hair and small mole was not particularly bright and possessed no imagination. He claimed, for example, that he never dreamt. Tsimion was inclined to believe him. The only subject outside of his work that Kinotskin entered into with any zeal was women. Vladimir Kinotskin never tired of talking about the women he had been with and the women he would be with when he returned to earth and toured the world.
“American women, perhaps the wives of diplomats, African women. You know, the women of Somalia are among the most beautiful on earth. And Mexican women, I have seen them with large breasts and lips that …”
Kinotskin had been at a loss for words. He had the soul of a satyr without the wit or words of a poet. His talk of women bored Tsimion, who was forced to endure it.
Five more weeks, Tsimion thought. Five weeks and I will be leaving. I can make it for five weeks. I have many dreams to record and to dream. I have my experiments.
The alarm went off, squawking, bleating. It was about time for the others to wake up, but there was something wrong. It was five minutes too early. Another system breakdown? Would they have to endure that maddening sound for hours till they could dismantle it?
Kinotskin shot through the opening to the command module.
Tsimion watched him bump into the side of the small tunnel, grab the bar next to the seat beside Tsimion, and say, “It’s … he …”
“
“‘Come,’
It was the first direct order Kinotskin had issued to him.
Tsimion Vladovka had visions of worms floating through the passage into the module. He glanced. There were no worms. Not yet.
They were just coming into radio contact with the earth. Quickly the white-faced Kinotskin told him what had happened. The younger man spoke quickly, efficiently. It took less than fifteen seconds. There was nothing more to say to each other. They knew what must be done. Kinotskin began to transmit.
There was no television contact. Ground control had ended almost all such transmissions since problems had begun more than a year earlier. Voice contact was not perfect.
“Ground,” said Mikhail Stoltz, his voice weary.
“We have a
There was a silent pause on the earth before Stoltz came back, now alert.
“Prognosis?” he asked.
Kinotskin saw his future disappearing, but he managed to pull himself together and speak. “Unable to give one at this time,” he said. “We must go now. We will return with a report as soon as possible.”
Possibly never, thought Tsimion, who said quickly, “Ground, please tell my wife I love her.”
“Come,” said Kinotskin, tugging at Tsimion’s white T-shirt.
“And,” Tsimion added, reaching to turn off the ground contact, “if we go to
Chapter One
Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, Chief inspector in the Office of Special Investigation, had not witnessed such a sight in his more than half century of life.
He had been heading across Petrovka Street after getting off the bus. The central police headquarters, two ten-story, L-shaped buildings surrounding a landscaped garden protected by a black metal fence, was no more than fifty steps in front of him.
It had been raining lightly when he kissed his wife, Sarah, and left his apartment on Krasikov Street. The rain had grown worse, out-of-season rain blamed by the television weather people on something called
When he got off the bus, it was coming down heavily and he could hear the crack of thunder. To his right he saw a bolt of lightning and the crackle of its electricity. It was at times like this that he missed his left leg. He had learned to talk to the leg, which had been shattered by a German tank when he was a boy soldier in Rostov. He found it difficult to talk to the leg-shaped mechanism of plastic and metal; it had resisted all conversation for the year or more that it had become a reluctant part of the burly man known to the various branches of the police, Mafias, and petty criminals as “the Washtub.”
The bus had pulled away down the street. Rostnikov looked after it. The bus swayed dangerously though it was moving slowly. The wind suddenly went mad. People scattered. No one screamed. The two uniformed officers at the Petrovka station gate backed into the relative safety of their small bulletproof guard box.
Porfiry Petrovich swayed and ordered his leg to stand firm, knowing that it would not listen, had no mind. It was efficient but poor company. He was about to fall. The wind pulled open his coat and tugged at the buttons of his shirt. Rostnikov avoided a car that pulled past him and stopped in the middle of the street. The Washtub managed to make it over the curb to a small tree whose bare branches chattered as he clung to the trunk.
In the kennels of Petrovka, the German shepherds howled.
It was then that the bench, iron and wood, came flying down the street, touching down on top of a stopped car, creating a streak and scratch of sparks before continuing away about six or seven feet off the ground. The bench paused, twisted, rose as if deciding what to do, and then darted with the wind and rain down the street and into the drenched darkness. Now Rostnikov could hear the sound of windows breaking in Petrovka headquarters.
It reminded him of something in a book he had read. No, it had been Chekov’s notes on Siberia, the description of something like this, only in Chekov’s tale it had been snowing.
Rostnikov clung and watched, waiting for more wonders. Across the street, well behind the bus and not far off, a slightly larger tree than the one to which he clung cracked low on the trunk and slowly toppled, brushing the sidewalk with a dying sigh.
And then it was over.
The rain continued but it was only a drizzle now, though the street was puddled and rivulets cascaded down the gutters. There was no wind, just a breeze. The sound of thunder was distant now and there were no more crackles of lightning. The entire marvel had taken less than a minute.
Rostnikov examined himself, touched his body to be sure he had not been stabbed by some stray flying screw or broken twig, and continued his walk to Petrovka headquarters. The guards nodded him in as they emerged cautiously from their shelter.
He was not the first to arrive on the fourth floor, which housed his office, that of the director of the Office of Special Investigation, and the cubicles of the investigators who worked under the direction of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, who, in turn, reported to the director. The cubicles of the investigators were behind a door directly across the hall from Chief Inspector Rostnikov’s. It was only seven in the morning. The sun was barely out, but the
