Yet, I felt I had to see Uncle Vladimir.
I make no apologies for my dithering. This was how I lived my life, always trying to be the dutiful son, especially when I was not. Within moments I had remembered the reasons for my call to Uncle Vladimir, and after leaving a message with Triyanov’s office saying I would not be back today for personal reasons, grabbed my only other coat and headed for the train.
Eventually I found myself back inside that huge, messy office, feeling just as nervous as I had a year ago. I noted my own red folder on Uncle Vladimir’s desk; it was noticeably fatter than I remembered.
“He’s certainly drinking,” I said of Artemov.
“I think his problems go deeper than that. He strikes me as a man in a crisis.” He had been tapping a pencil, which he now dropped, a gesture of considerable frustration by Uncle Vladimir’s standards. “I wish I could get you closer to him.”
“My friend Lev is working for him now.”
“Yes, your Georgian buddy,” he said, adding, “We have our eye on him.” It was said most casually, but made me wonder: Did he consider Lev to be a potential watcher, or someone to be watched? “As we will have our eye on Artemov during this next launch. The number of accidents and failures is appalling, like the first days of a war.” He blinked. “Where will you be?”
“At Baikonur to begin with, then wherever the recovery team goes.”
“You’re wasted there.”
“I think so, too,” I said. Seeing an opportunity to make the transition to the next, painful subject, I added, “Which is why I’m leaving the bureau.”
Uncle Vladimir listened to this, then smiled in disbelief. “That’s interesting, Yuri. Where are you going to be working?”
“In the Strategic Rocket Force. As an officer.”
I believe I surprised him. “I see.” He pushed back in his chair, looking down at his desk for a moment. “You’ve been listening to your father again.”
“He is my father.”
“And I would be the last person to ask you to go against your father’s wishes. Even in the service of the Party.”
“I think I can serve the Party as an officer.”
“Yes, yes, yes. But it will be more difficult for you to help me. You see that, Yuri?”
“I can’t see that I’ve been much help to you at all.”
“It’s not a question of what arrests we make based on what you tell me. Our business is to gather information, and you have been quite good about that. You give me the ability to keep other sources honest, for example. And your career in the bureau has just begun. Who knows where you might wind up in a few months or years?”
“As long as Artemov is in charge, I’ll be staying right where I am, in the outhouse.”
He waved away the whole idea of Artemov. “Artemov will be lucky if he doesn’t wind up in prison.” He leaned forward. “All right, how far along have you gotten?”
I told him I was scheduled to take my military medical exams on Thursday. If I passed, and there was little doubt I would, given that I had passed the substantially more rigorous cosmonaut training tests, I would be subject to immediate call-up. “All right, take your exams, but don’t take the oath without talking to me. I’m going to see if we can’t improve your situation.”
That, of course, was the last thing I wanted, given that the original “improvement” in my situation as Filin’s assistant had marked me as a spy. But I felt I had to make some concession to Uncle Vladimir. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll call you first.”
We shook hands, and I got out of there as fast as I could.
25
The Credentials Committee
It turned out that Triyanov never knew I was absent that afternoon. He had stayed at Star Town to smooth ruffled eagle feathers. It was especially lucky for me, because two days later I needed a whole morning off. This time, though, I actually managed to formulate an excuse that fit the situation. “I have to take an examination regarding my military reserve status.”
“Anytime you want to get out of that, let me know,” Triyanov said. “The reserve people are very good at excusing engineers doing important space research.”
I thanked him for his offer, but nevertheless presented myself early Thursday at the same Aviation Hospital in Sokolniki, where my father had been hospitalized after his car crash the previous spring. It was slightly irregular, in that my prior military medical examinations had been performed in a clinic at Bauman, but my father had arranged it.
The doctors there were exactly like those at the IMBP, except that they wore uniforms under their white coats. They also had my IMBP tests in front of them, and contented themselves with a few hours of completely routine checks — blood pressure, hearing, eyesight — to confirm the earlier data. I think their primary criterion was whether or not my breath would fog a mirror held up to my nose.
As I was dressing to go, my father arrived carrying a garment bag over his shoulder. “You passed,” he said. “Congratulations.”
I thanked him, then said, regarding the bag, “A new uniform?”
“Yes. For you.” He thrust it at me. “Put it on. You’re coming with me.”
As a reserve senior lieutenant, I was allowed to wear a uniform, and had a faded one back home in my closet, complete with my rocketeer badge. But this was new! “Shouldn’t I take the service oath first?”
“Don’t worry about it. There are going to be others just like you where we’re going.”
“Where are we going?”
“Star Town.”
On the drive out of Moscow, I guessed that this maneuver was my father’s lure; even if technically a member of the Strategic Rocket Force, I would be assigned to the cosmonaut training center. Somehow he had been able to pull strings with the Air Force officials who controlled the place. Why couldn’t he have done that eighteen months ago? It would have saved me two false steps in my career.
The parking lot in front of the main administration building at the training center was jammed with an unusual number of expensive official cars. I had been teetering on the edge of nervousness. At this point I gave in to the emotion. “I can’t go in there!”
“Of course you can.”
“What if they ask me a military question?”
My father waved the folder in front of me. “They will know your background, Yuri. You aren’t the only reserve officer they’re considering today. There are people here from missile factories and even from the universities. It’s a military credentials committee, so they are looking at you as a potential military officer.”
Feeling the pinch of the stiff collar and tie, trying not to slip on the ice in my shiny new shoes, and trying (uselessly) to slick down my non-regulation hair, I followed my father into the building. “It seems like a lot of fuss to hire engineers for the center.”
Now my father smiled in triumph. “They don’t have committees like this to hire engineers, Yuri. This is for the next enrollment in the cosmonaut team.”
In a hallway on the first floor, outside the meeting room, a row of chairs had been set up. I was given the last one.
The chairs were filled with officers and even a pair of sergeants from the Air Force, Air Defense Force and the Strategic Rocket Force, perhaps thirty men in all. The only thing they all had in common was obvious good health. Even the ages ranged from the low twenties to mid-thirties. Each man sat there, hands folded, eyes closed, or in some cases, open and staring, waiting for what would surely be a turning point in his life.
Mine, too, I realized. I had taken several small steps down the road to becoming a member of the bureau’s cosmonaut team, but could not have expected to train for a flight for at least two or three years, perhaps longer. Now I was about to jump ahead in line. The USSR had not had a manned flight for over two years, but I expected that sorry situation to change in the next month. And given the number of military vehicles being built, it was possible that soon we could be flying missions to Earth orbit or the Moon every other month.