Winter Hawk

Negotiations and love songs,

Are often mistaken for one and the same.

— Paul Simon, 'Train in the Distance'

… it is therefore in a gesture of the most profound respect for the importance of today, and out of the new friendship that exists between our two countries and across the whole of our planet, that the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wishes to include a new clause in our solemn treaty.

'We propose, out of our sincere desire for peace in the world, to include all space weapons systems, whether real, experimental, or merely theoretical, within the terms of our agreement. All space weapons and all research into such weapons will now become subject to the terms of the Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty.'

John Calvin applauded, together with every member of every delegation assembled for the signing session in the Assembly Room of the Palais des Nations.

Projected on a huge screen at one end of the hall, the U.S. shuttle Atlantis hung above the beauty of the blue-white-green earth. Beside it, the Soviet shuttle Kutuzov floated innocently against the planet. Calvin glanced from the screen toward Dick Gunther. Gunther shook his hand in a slight, quivering gesture.

Close, too damn close, the gesture stated.

Calvin nodded and then looked down at the treaty, waiting to bear his signature. And only then, staring at the paragraphs and clauses that were somehow out of focus for a moment, did he smile genuinely and with vast relief.