“I fear that, perhaps, these bombs are not to protect the Project,” Korolyov enunciated clearly. “Zhukov is a good man, but he may be misguided. I fear they may be designed to enforce worldwide Communist rule.”
The world spun dizzily around Goddard. The last thing he saw was Korolyov’s concerned scowl as the Russian asked, “Are you all right?”
Goddard awoke in his apartment in Plesetsk proper. He drew a deep breath, searching his body for pains, finding none. He then noticed Esther and von Braun in the room with him, standing by the window, quiet.
He thought furiously for a long time, watching the tableau of those he loved against a background of the place he had grown to love. Here was a place scoured of human life but free of war, dangerous and beautiful in a barren way. He considered the revelation with which he had been burdened. The suspected betrayal had finally come, but long after he expected it, and from a quarter he had neither feared nor suspected. I have been a naive old dreamer, he told himself.
As soon as he utterly accepted defeat, the answer sprang to mind.
Robert H. Goddard felt his face harden to grim determination and masked it with a smile.
“Wemher,” he said. The other two turned, startled.
“My dear Robert!” Esther called, hurrying toward him.
“In a moment, dear,” Goddard said. “Wemher, fetch Sergey Korolyov, and be sure no one sees you, especially not the Colonel’s men. Hurry.” Von Braun nodded rapidly and fled the room. Goddard sat upright on the bed and held out his hands to his wife, who took them and helped him to his feet.
“Sorry to startle you, darling,” he said. “Just an attack of indecisiveness.” He squeezed her hands.
“It has passed.” Goddard spoke the last three words slowly and clearly.
Sixteen days later, Tsiolkovsky-2 flexed itself into a cloudless sky. It appeared to vanish as its path crossed the disk of the Sun. Twenty days after that, the third rocket went up just before the winter’s first blizzard, and fourteen days more saw the fourth launch of the thunderous rocket. Goddard could hardly believe their infiltrators had succeeded.
When the fourth craft had separated from its upper stage, Goddard finally let himself believe his months of espionage and counter-espionage had ended. Yet he warned himself against any false optimism, against hope that any peace could be final.
Although the Mankindists’s deep infiltration into the Russian industrial-military complex had proven invaluable, he had begun to feel dirty using them the way he and the others had. He wanted this element of their plan finished. Now would begin the end.
The world’s news ways were buzzing with information and speculation about what lay ahead, in space, for a newly united world. The war, which had months before ground largely to a stalemate in the Afrikanische deserts and quieted elsewhere—with the profound exception of occasional atomic blasts in England or Germany, which had ranged between one-half and twenty kilotons—now ceased. Not a single atomic bomb devastated a single city block; not a single high-explosive shattered a single building. The war was, for the moment, forgotten. Reporters speculated that this willingness grew perhaps out of hope, or more likely out of deathly weariness, or denial and the blind need to escape the inutterable and uncountable individual tragedies that had been forged in those blasts.
Goddard gave Korolyov the signal to bring forward all available newsmen for an important announcement. Though he would be acting out a most honorable duty to humanity, what stilled his nerves was not idealism. Neither was it Esther; actually, he felt unnerved if anything by her presence. If she should die…
What kept him bound to his path was the knowledge that, at least, the world would hear his words immediately by radio, even if Zhukov ordered immediate vengeance. The world would know. It must. The Soviet Premier’s plan to rule the world would be shattered. Goddard could die well with that knowledge, and the knowledge that he had helped bring the nations together for the first time since Eden. His only pain was knowing his actions could cost Esther the many years that lay ahead of her.
A hundred faces seemed to condense out of mist before Goddard. They were expectant. More microphones than he could count prodded the air. Movie cameras began rolling. A number of Soviet guards ambled toward the mass, as well as soldiers wearing green, blue, black, and grey uniforms that had been sewn in garment factories all around the planet. He began his speech:
“Every plan, no matter how grand—especially, perhaps, the grand ones—requires compromise and sacrifice. Over the past months, you, the many peoples of this wonderful yet sometimes sinister world, have been following the grandest of all human endeavors. The necessary sacrifice is on a par with the greatness we will attain if we keep our heads calm over the next days and weeks. And, to maintain the impetus here begun, we will have to keep our heads for generations to come. Remember that.
“We, the scientists at ‘Space Mecca,’ as the reporters please to call Plesetsk Cosmodrome; we, the engineers and optimists who have designed and launched the first, second, third and fourth spacecraft ever, have sacrificed our burning-pure idealism for a guarantee of long-term good. But only because we were forced into that position. We have learned that nearsighted optimism is no better than dangerous naivete.” He began to cough as a cloud of Tsiolkovsky-4’s exhaust swept across the silent crowd.
If one listened very carefully to the recordings made that day, one could hear a woodpecker pounding a tree, squirrels squawking at one another over a nut, a pack of wolves trotting across a bed of pine needles toward tall shadows beside a hill. The coughing spell faded, but Goddard couldn’t help realizing his time was at hand—in both meanings of the phrase.
“We have turned inside-out a Communist plot to dominate the world with the threat of atomic bombs hovering over our heads.” The crowd began to mutter to itself. Several flashbulbs fired in Goddard’s face, startling him, presaging muzzle flashes. He hurried on:
“Instead, a handful of scientists, technicians, and engineers have ensured that not only is the rest of the world warned against incautious movements, but so too the Soviet Union.” Colonel Vebretsky could be heard shouting in the distance. A tramp of boots grew near.
“We call ourselves ‘Mankindists,’ because our first loyalty is to the whole of humanity.” He cast a smile at Korolyov, who fairly glowed. “We do not intend to use any of the now-orbiting bombs on anyone. That would be against all that we believe. But to any man or nation that would move to destroy another nation or the future of our race—destruction!”
Chaos ensued. Goddard was briefly arrested, then the Colonel released him under threat of violence from the American contingent. Reporters were at first detained, then anarchy broke out and planes took off in all directions. The Soviets actually scrambled fighters to intercept the Americans. Several rounds were fired in both directions before the order to desist was given by President Truman and Premier Zhukov.
Several important Russian atomic and computer scientists disappeared, but attention was focused elsewhere. Two weeks passed wherein everyone on the surface of the Earth denounced the Mankindists. Then a security leak in the Kremlin revealed the facts, and worldwide rage was turned against the Communists. In the third week, when an anger borne of fear reversed to its initial emotion, when the cold hard facts revealed that mere nations no longer controlled the future of humanity, when the theory of “nuclear winter” was accepted by respected scientists, more sensible debate decided what would be done next: