Immediately, the atmosphere of doom recedes. This new room is smaller, well-lit and furnished with comfortable chairs, carpeted like someone’s private study. Designed to make him feel at home. They’re playing him. On a table in front of the chairs, there is water in a large mug and a tray of berries. Skioth gently urges Borman to sit down. He points at the food. Borman gulps down the water but doesn’t touch the berries.
“Leave nothing out. I need to know it all,” says Skioth.
“I don’t remember anything. Holtz told me about your power of telepathy — surely you can see I’m telling the truth.”
“This is precisely our problem, Colonel. There are too many things we cannot see. For us, your arrival represents a risk to the Martian people.”
“You think we’re here to invade your world? We don’t have that sort of capability.”
“But given half a chance, you would have the intention. Meaning you and I need to speak freely with one another. And please, for the sake of your friends, you must leave nothing out.”
Borman sighs. “Let’s say for argument’s sake you’re right about us. I’ll admit, the people who sent me here must be looking upon your world with envious eyes — what would it matter? It’s not as if we have the ability to build some grand space armada to stage an invasion. The only way into your world is via the gateway you yourselves created. If you shut that door, it’s all over.”
“Good. Continue.”
Borman tells them everything he remembers. He’s repeating himself, going over old ground. As he talks, he has the strange sensation of also being able to observe himself talking, like he is in a dream and can be in two places at once. Prompted by the sound of his own voice, he uncovers new fragments of thought that flash into his mind. These too, he reveals, as if Skioth is a therapist and he a patient on the couch. Lives are on the line. There’s no point in holding anything back. Trick Stamford is the first person who returns to him. Not words. More like a feeling. The two of them standing side by side, staring at someone — something — in awe. Like he’s seeing it for the first time. He doesn’t remember what it is.
Skioth appears to accept this much at face value.
“What is Bermuda?”
Borman puts names to faces, paints a picture of a group of people running America’s military-industrial complex, with virtually no oversight other than that they place upon themselves.
“Why then did they send you here?”
Again, Borman tells him he has been kept in the dark about Bermuda’s motivation for sending him to Mars. Skioth is far from convinced.
“Let us leave,” says Borman. “I’ll take Donald and we’ll leave your planet and make sure nobody ever comes back.” He looks down at the table and notices the mug is again full of water. The berries look so full and ripe they are almost irresistible. But he knows better than to let a jug of fresh water and a bowl of fresh berries lull him into a false sense of security.
His captor faces him across a table. “Why are you here?” he demands. “You are not working with the Russians. Of this I am certain.”
Borman replies, “Of course I’m working with them — it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“You tell me this because you think it’s what I want to hear.”
“No, I’m telling you because it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“To you, nothing makes sense. You cannot even explain to me the means by which you arrived at our doorway.”
“I know the way my leaders think. They want to beat the Russians at any cost. Even if it means working with them in secret.”
Skioth isn’t satisfied. “Then what of the Cosmonauts? What would you have me do with them? I could make them disappear. Would that not suit your purpose?”
“No. Let them go. Let us leave. You have my word, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you’re left alone.”
Skioth breathes loudly, the air leaving his lungs like an illustration of his reluctance. “How are we to trust you when you do not trust one another?”
Borman shrugs and nods slowly in acceptance. “You’re right. Our two nations are afraid of one another. But there are bigger considerations. I think you’ve demonstrated that much, at least.” He chooses his next words carefully and honestly, fearing his contempt for the Soviets will be the thing they use against him. “Those two men have families too. And a leader who values their lives enormously. Let them go.”
Skioth stares at him for an uncomfortably long period of time, trying to decide. “Yet still there is something you won’t tell me.” He waves his arm through the air in a figure eight and a door appears in the wall, as if by his magic hand. Through the door step the two Russians. They appear bewildered, but utterly unsurprised to see Borman again. They barely even look at him.
“Now you will choose. Which one dies and which one lives?”
Borman is aghast. “What? No…”
Skioth rises to his feet. He speaks like a parent, reluctantly but insistently ready to punish a naughty child. “You choose, Frank Borman. Or I will do so for you. Who will die?”
Borman kicks his chair back and stands to meet him. “This is not a choice,” he spits back, “it’s an ultimatum. You do this, the blood is on your hands.” The Russians say nothing, but they know what’s happening. “I’ve told you everything I know,” says Borman. “There is nothing else for me to say. Come on… You don’t want to do this.”
Skioth just stares at him with an unwavering determination. He tips his head sharply to one side and a terrible sound fills the room, giving voice to the rending force of destruction, the sort of noise you’d expect to hear outside the gates of hell. The embodiment of wrongness, of annihilation. The body of Viktor Patsayev stiffens, then emits a flash of white as the life force is sucked from his flesh. He is already dead by the time his skin turns translucent purple. His body dissolves into fine particles, gradually winking out of existence.
Georgy Dobrovolsky stares murderously at Skioth, but remains rooted to the spot, either reluctant or simply unable to move.
Skioth says, “Now you see what I can do.”
“Why?” yells Borman.
“Perhaps I want to start a war.”
“This won’t do it,” says Borman.
“Can you be certain? Your leaders have their fingers poised over the nuclear button and appear eager to use it. It is amazing to us one of you has not already done so.”
“Nobody’s going to start a war over the loss of two men. Not even Cosmonauts.”
“Not even if it is an American astronaut responsible for their deaths?”
“No…”
“Unfortunately for you, Colonel Borman, this is not your biggest problem. Tell me who sent you or decide who dies next — you or Georgy Dobrovolsky.”
There is no fooling Skioth. He will kill them all to get what he wants. But Borman has nothing to give him. Even if he wanted to tell, Borman wouldn’t know where to start. He’s afraid even to open his mouth in objection, lest his next words be the cue for another killing.
Seeing Borman in crisis, the Russian speaks first. “I am not afraid to die.”
This is too much. Borman shakes his head and smiles ruefully, a condemned man reduced to his bare essence. “No, you don’t. Set him free, Skioth. You wanna kill someone else, it’s gonna have to be me.”
Skioth seems to be happy with Borman’s choice. He waves his other arm at the opposite wall and another door opens. Through it appear two other Martians, a male and a female — the same pair who carted Menzel away from the space capsule. They grab Borman by the arms and walk him away. He feels them inside his head, compelling his body to respond. He doesn’t try to struggle. He can’t. He’s happy to surrender, having somehow come out on top in the final moment.