He waved me outside, into a beautiful spring evening. “Are they changing the schedule again?” I asked. We were both about to depart for Baikonur, for checkout on the payload of the second Carrier rocket.
“No. We got a telephone call for you a couple of hours ago.” He handed me the note — Marina wanted me to meet her at Tsiolkovsky Station tonight. “I didn’t know your phone was broken.”
“It’s not,” I said, folding the note.
Shiborin looked at me. “That explains why she wanted me to tell you outside.” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you under surveillance, Yuri?” The idea seemed to shock him.
I wiggled the note. “Marina seems to think so.”
He absorbed this unsettling news, then said something I never forgot: “I don’t care what kind of trouble you’re in, Yuri. If you need anything—anything—tell me.”
At that moment, I could have kissed him.
I practically ran for the station, which was half a kilometer from the front gate of Star Town, at the end of a pathway through the woods.
The latest train from Moscow had come and gone, but Marina was waiting at the end of the platform, under the only working light. We had not seen each other in months, and for the first few moments of this reunion we clung to each other like lost souls.
“I don’t have much time,” she said. In fact, we could see the train returning to Moscow approaching from the southeast.
“Stay the night.”
“They’re sending me away again tomorrow!” Her voice was shrill; she calmed down. “It’s Lev,” she said.
“What about him?”
“He’s been arrested.”
“He was arrested before—”
“That time he was only questioned, Yuri! Now he’s been charged with sabotage of some rocket! He’s in Lefortovo!” That was the prison in downtown Moscow.
“He hadn’t moved out?” I was surprised that the idea of the two of them still living together, even as brother and sister, upset me.
“Well, he has now.” Such venom was unlike Marina, and convinced me that she was upset.
“I’m sorry.”
She sighed. “The neighbors told me when I got home.”
“What can I do?”
“Talk to your uncle. Talk to Vladimir. He’s the only one who can save him.”
I would rather have simply traded places with Lev. “I’ll try,” I said. And I meant it.
The atmosphere around Baikonur during the last days of June 1969 was poisonous, with people shouting for no reason, loudly blaming each other for the smallest of mistakes. The reason, of course, was fear. The assembly building and the offices and the hotel were filled with new faces — including Uncle Vladimir — all there to apply pressure, to make sure this Carrier launch went perfectly. Lev, I learned, was not the only engineer under suspicion, though he was the only one who had actually been arrested and charged.
Since the payload for this Carrier — serial number 5L — included a mockup of an L-3 lunar lander, our checkout team was headed by none other than my old boss, Filin. He was the one who quietly confirmed Lev’s arrest. “Things have gotten very bad in the bureau, Yuri. Everything has been taken out of our hands. I used to think you were crazy to go over to the military, but it can’t be any worse there.”
The work was monotonous; the weather dry, hot, irritating. I took up smoking simply to give myself more reasons to get out of the gigantic Carrier assembly building during the long days preceding its rollout. (The building was supposed to be air-conditioned, and it was cooler, but some flaw in the system also made it feel damp and swamplike.)
It was while smoking that I managed to reconnect with Sergeant Oleg Pokrovsky, who was now shaven and fitted with a uniform that might not have been clean, but resembled a military garment. He was leading a construction team building a special viewing site here at Area 100. “What’s this for?” I asked.
“The big bananas from Moscow,” he said. “The blockhouse is too far away to get a good view of the launch.” That was true: The twin pads at Area 110 were so distant from the control center that they were over the horizon. The assembly building itself was closer — still a safe couple of kilometers away.
When I asked Sergeant Oleg how he had been, he shook his head. “These are terrible times.” I could only shrug in agreement.
There was no opportunity for me to keep my promise to Marina concerning Lev — not that I had much hope that a word from me would have any positive effect on his situation. I saw Uncle Vladimir during those two weeks of preparation only from a distance, only in a crowd of fellow “big bananas” and security people.
He was like royalty; in fact, exactly as he had said.
On the night of July 2, with our checkout work completed and Carrier Number 5L sitting on its pad at Area 110, Filin led a team of us — bureau and military — out to a restaurant in old-town Tyuratam. It served Asian food of some kind, with a rice wine that quickly went to our heads. We sang. We talked about Carrier-powered trips to the Moon beginning next year. “Shiborin and Ribko, colonists at Tycho!” We toasted America’s Apollo 11 crew, Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin, even now working at their Florida launch site and preparing for an attempted lunar landing.
Before long, Filin was weeping. I could have joined him.
As we staggered out into the summer night, a fleet of automobiles was delivering another party. Uncle Vladimir’s.
I had drunk just enough wine to lose my fears of him, and pushed forward, shouting his name. Several bodyguards or lesser royals surrounded me, but Uncle Vladimir said, “He’s my nephew. I’m happy to see him.” He grabbed me and kissed me, something he had never done. “Be smart, Yuri. Smart and short.” His voice was low as he steered me away from the others.
“I want you to let Lev Tselauri go. He’s no saboteur, and you know it.”
“Of course I know it. He’s merely my ‘switchman,’ the one I can blame. His arrest throws the fear of God into everyone else. This Carrier will fly.”
“Fine. Everyone is terrified into submission. Lev sits in jail. Why not release him?”
Uncle Vladimir stared at me with what I took to be amusement. “What do you have to offer me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You are asking me for a favor. You offer me something in return.”
I could not give him anything, but I could give up something. A sacrifice to a lord. “I’ll resign from the cosmonaut team. I’ll refuse to join the Party and they’ll dismiss me.”
He stared at me, judging my determination. Then he extended his hand toward his party — still waiting — summoning one of his associates. They conferred briefly; Uncle Vladimir even scribbled a note, which the associate took away. “It’s done,” he said. “Your friend will be freed tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll submit my resignation when I return to Star Town.” It was a formality: In spirit and in action, I had already delivered my resignation.
The next day — Thursday, July 3, 1969—Filin reported that Lev had indeed been cleared of charges and released. “It was ridiculous to begin with,” he said. “They picked him because he was Georgian and didn’t have powerful relatives in the business.”
I registered this news with no real emotion. I was playing Uncle Vladimir’s game now, by his rules.
The 5L launch was scheduled to take place after dark, at ten P.M. The time was dictated by conditions at the Moon, three days hence, when our unmanned L-1 and L-3 mockup should be in orbit over a potential landing site.