Then it was time for the years-delayed EVA. Khrunov and Yeliseyev moved into the orbital module of Soyuz 5 and donned their white Hawk suits, the same model we had used in zero-G aircraft flights — the suits that had the life-support pack attached to the legs. Volynov remained sealed inside the Soyuz 5 command module, prepared to film as much of the activity as he could through the small windows.
Shatalov, meanwhile, was sealed inside the command module of Soyuz 4, with the outer hatch of his orbital module unlocked.
We saw fuzzy black-and-white pictures of a ghostlike Khrunov emerging from Soyuz 5 and moving slowly toward us along the handrails built onto the exterior of both orbital modules for this purpose. He stopped to inspect the docking mechanism, taking a series of photographs, then continued on to Soyuz 4. Only when he had reached the hatch of the other vehicle did Yeliseyev emerge and follow Khrunov onto the rails.
It took an hour from the time the hatch on Soyuz 5 opened until Khrunov and Yeliseyev were safely buttoned up inside Soyuz 4. From all indications, the Hawk spacesuit worked very well. The two spacecraft separated as planned after four and a half hours together.
Khrunov, Yeliseyev, and Shatalov made a safe landing in the primary zone a day later, on the seventeenth. Volynov, flying Soyuz 5 alone, had a much more difficult time of it.
Trouble began for him when the cylindrical equipment module failed to separate from the command module after making the all-important retro burn. Soyuz 5 began its descent into the atmosphere with its heat shield covered. Of course, the spacecraft’s center of gravity and basic flight dynamics were totally fouled, too. The spacecraft swung around so that it was reentering nose-first. Temperature inside the spacecraft began to rise. Volynov expected to burn up. He ripped pages out of his journal and stuffed them inside his flight suit, next to his chest, hoping they might survive the flames.
Then, magically, the equipment module separated on its own. Volynov was able to swing the freed command module back to the right attitude and go ahead with a ballistic reentry, which subjected him to nine Gs. He had to have worried about the parachute system, though, which had been subject to excessive heat when Soyuz 5 was flying nose-forward.
The ’chutes did open as planned, though Volynov’s landing was hard enough to knock out several of his teeth. Far from the primary zone, he had to wrap himself in winter survival gear and crawl out of Soyuz 5 unaided.
(All this we learned later, of course, though I can imagine the horror at the flight-control center in Yevpatoriya. Not again!)
For all of Volynov’s troubles, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 were two steps forward, back into the race.
On the nineteenth, the latest Universal Rocket 500 thundered off its pad carrying L-1 Number 13 on the flight we hoped would pave the way for a manned L-1 in April or May. I was optimistic: While I didn’t believe that all of our failures were my father’s work (our own lack of quality-control in the manufacture of rocket engines and electronics would have doomed some of those flights, anyway), he had created bizarre last-minute failures on launch vehicles that had passed stringent checkout.
He was gone now. I myself had sat through the checkout and State Commission reports on the status of the UR-500 and the L-1.
So I was stunned when the new mission ended within five minutes as the second stage of the launcher failed, the escape rocket pulling the L-1 safely away before the self-destruct charges blew, parachuting to a landing downrange.
Then I began to have horrifying doubts: Suppose I had accused my father unfairly? Suppose someone else was tampering with our spacecraft?
No, no, no. I had his letter. I had the other evidence. If I had been wrong, he wouldn’t have admitted his guilt.
He wouldn’t have killed himself with my pistol.
In any case, these were the things I told myself as I flew back to Moscow with Shiborin and Leonov and the other disappointed lunar cosmonauts.
The day after our return — January 22—there was a parade in honor of the four new Soyuz cosmonauts. Even the student-cosmonauts of the Fourth Enrollment were given the morning off to be bused to Red Square to take part, standing in the crowd in Borovitsky Plaza on the southwest corner of the Kremlin complex.
Our publicly known cosmonauts, such as Nikolayev and Beregovoy, were part of the motorcade. Others, even such long-serving veterans as Ivan Saditsky, who would command one of the next Soyuz flights, stood with the spectators. As we waited, I asked Saditsky when he hoped to fly. “My crew will be ready by July,” he said, “but we won’t have a vehicle until September. The factories can’t keep up with the demand.” I could see why: We were trying to test four different models of the Soyuz — the orbital version just flown by Shatalov and his comrades, the L-1 that had just failed, yet another version of the L-1 configured for the first Carrier launch next month, plus the L-3. All were built by the same plant in Kaliningrad. “Meanwhile, the Americans are getting their lunar module ready. They could be on the Moon this summer.”
I admired the American successes, but I found that hard to believe. “They say they need to test the lunar module three or four times before they try that.”
“They often say one thing and do another. They already announced a lunar landing crew for a flight in July. Armstrong is the commander.” I hadn’t heard that news, but then, I had been busy with my father’s affairs.
“Do you think they’ll succeed?”
He stared out over the crowd, many of them stamping their feet on this cold day, others sipping openly from flasks. “Yes.” He must have seen the shock on my face. Saditsky was honest, even brutally so, but he was also competitive. “Something went wrong. I don’t know when… maybe it was when Korolev died.” That had been the very day we met, Saditsky, my father, and Gagarin, almost three years ago to the day. And two of those men were now dead. “Maybe it was when Yuri crashed.”
At that moment I realized he was right — but far too conservative. Something had indeed gone wrong, but it hadn’t started the day Gagarin died, or Korolev, but much earlier. It started when the Glorious Revolution of the Russian people, a genuine attempt to create a new way of life, had become just another case of rule by force. When a small group of men with guns found they could steal without fear, that they could murder those who disagreed with them. What allowed them to survive was their ability to buy silence, with apartments and food and cars, and the promise of a good education, which would make access to apartments, food, and cars that much easier. All they required in return was mute complicity.
My father was a part of it. So was Uncle Vladimir. So was Saditsky, for that matter.
And so was I.
Just then, a line of cars slowed to make the final turn into the Kremlin, and we all heard several sharp sounds. “What was that?” I asked, stupidly.
“Gunfire!” Saditsky snapped. “Look!”
We pushed through the crowd, which had suddenly come alive, in time to see a young officer being flattened by burly security men in dark coats. He waved a gun like a wild man. There was blood on the snow. Shards of shattered glass.