So clever — concealing the rocket right out in the open, just another “attraction,” another “ride.” Soviet Intelligence had much to answer for.
The structure displaying this and other “TOMORROWLAND” posters had a peculiar modernistic shape, with a curved roof and two big round balls growing out of it, reminding Nikita of the two-headed giant in a Russian fairy tale. He had supervised the design of many new facilities in Moscow and considered this so-called “building of tomorrow” very impractical… unless the domes held some technological secrets and were perhaps laden with explosives.
While Marilyn ran to the front entrance of the futuristic building to see if they could get inside, Nikita turned his attention to what was next to it: the spaceship. That razor still clasped in his hand, he stayed alert as he approached the craft, which rose dramatically into the sky, nose poking at the stars on this clear, moonswept night.
Upon closer inspection, however, the spaceship didn’t seem as tall as it had looked from a distance — standing seventy feet at best — not like their towering Russian rockets. And this one had little circular windows running all the way from the bottom to the top — what could be the purpose of these? Why would any ship need windows where its rocket boosters were? Who would be looking out?
Nikita moved beneath the craft, between its three legs, and gazed up.
And where were the rocket boosters? There didn’t seem to be any… Could the United States have developed some new technology, abandoning the use of highly flammable rocket fuel to propel their ships into space? Atomic energy? Magnetism?
As Nikita pondered this unusual spacecraft, Marilyn returned to his side.
“The doors are all locked,” she told him, edgy. “And I don’t think your shoe would make much of a ‘key’… I don’t know what to do… where to go…”
She followed his gaze up the side of the rocket.
“Yes, yes you’re right!” she said. “We can hide in there!”
Nikita just looked at her. “You know how to get inside rocket?”
“Sure,” she said with a little shrug. “I went up, once.”
This information surprised Nikita. Never were Russian citizens allowed in Soviet spaceships, which were restricted to scientists and only the highest-ranking military and government people.
“A kid fell down and broke his leg,” she told him, “so Mr. Disney boarded it up… come on.”
As she grabbed his hand, Nikita held back. “Mr. Disney must be a powerful man to close down a government rocket.”
Marilyn blinked. “Nikkie, it’s not a real spaceship.”
“Is not?”
She shook her head; he could tell she was trying not to smile. “The ship’s an observation deck — you can see the whole park from there.”
Now he did feel silly.
“Another ride,” he said.
“Sort of… only it doesn’t go anywhere.”
Nowhere in particular.
Silly and disappointed, he felt. He supposed the submarines didn’t go anywhere, either. But he didn’t ask.
“There used to be some stairs up to the deck,” Marilyn was saying, pointing upward to where the base of the craft was nailed shut, regular boards that had been painted white to fool the eye. “If you lift me, maybe I can pull some of those boards down.”
Nikita could see spaces between the wood that had been haphazardly nailed together. Although his shoulder ached, Nikita crouched, hugged his arms around Marilyn’s hips, and lifted her up.
In the process, she must have touched his bloodied pajama top, because she gasped and wriggled from his grip.
“Oh you’re hurt,” Marilyn exclaimed. She obviously hadn’t noticed before; in the darkness the burgundy pajama top merely looked damp, not red. “Oh, Nikita, why didn’t you say something…?”
“Is nothing. As they say in your western pictures, he winged me… We must get in spaceship.”
“But…”
“Will be much more than arm if we don’t get inside ship.”
He bent again, hoisting Marilyn as high as he could. She squirmed a bit as he held her, working at the boards; then he heard wood cracking, and two pieces of lumber fell by his feet, thumping to the cement.
When he lowered Marilyn, her face was long with concern.
“Nikkie, you’re sure you’re all right?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Can you… can you lift me again? I think I can get up inside.”
After another hoist from “Nikkie,” Marilyn pulled herself up through the opening.
“What do we do now?” she whispered down to Nikita, her pretty face visible between the opening in the boards. “I’m not strong enough to pull you up.”
But an idea had already come to him. Quickly he removed his trousers from over his silk pajama bottoms, slipping them over his shoes.
He tossed the tan pants up to her. “Tie these around strong board,” he instructed.
“Oh. I get it.”
Nikita, using the legs of the slacks, began to climb them like a rope, favoring his right arm. Marilyn still was unaware of the razor, which he had tucked in his pajama breast pocket. The board, around which the trousers was wrapped, moaned in protest at his weight, but held.
Soon, inside the spaceship, Nikita was back in his trousers as he and Marilyn stood on a sturdy platform, taking in their surroundings. A wooden stairway, off to one side, rose dizzyingly from one landing to another, all the way to the top.
“Let me see your arm,” Marilyn said. She unbuttoned his pajama shirt and gently pulled it off his massive shoulders.
“Is nothing I tell you,” Nikita said gruffly. But he found her tenderness touching.
“I think the bullet just grazed you,” she said slowly, examining the wound on his upper left arm.
“Yes, as I say, I am winged.”
“But it’s still bleeding.”
She took his silk pajama top and tried to tear off the un-bloodied sleeve to make a bandage; however the material was too slippery to tear, and — she pointed out — probably wouldn’t stay knotted, anyway.
“I know,” she said, letting the silk top fall from her fingers. “We’ll use my shirt… It’s cotton.”
Marilyn unbuttoned her blouse and took it off. She wore nothing underneath.
Embarrassed, Nikita looked away, but the glimpse of her full, perfect breasts would reside forever in his memory.
“Don’t you just hate underwear?” she commented casually. They both were, at the moment, bare-chested. “It’s so unnatural… and I go along with nature.”
Yes she did, he thought, sneaking a sideways peek at those supple white breasts.
Marilyn tore a sleeve from her blouse, then — gently — wound the plaid fabric around and around his arm, tying it snugly.
“There,” she said at last, taking a step back, examining her work, hands on her hips, famous bosom on display. “Is that better?”
“Is wonderful.” A Russian woman would have blushed and covered her naked self. The ones that he knew, anyway.
She slipped back into the now one-sleeved blouse, buttoning but not bothering to knot it this time, letting it hang loose. “Are you ready?”
He blinked.
“To climb, Nikkie?”
“Yes. Yes! To top.”
Marilyn turned toward the wooden stairs. “We should be safe up there.”
Nikita followed her up, pausing briefly at each landing to look out its small circular window. As he climbed, he could see more and more of the amusement park, a sprawling world of rides and buildings and foliage, cloaked in the blue-ivory of the moonlit night.