"So you deny the charge?" Vatutin inquired. Breaking this one would really be a pleasure.
"Of course! I am a loyal Soviet citizen. I am a Party member. My father-"
"Yes, I know about your father."
"He will hear of this, Colonel Vatutin, and if you threaten me-"
"We do not threaten you, Comrade Vaneyeva, we ask for information. Why were you on the Metro yesterday? I know that you have your own car."
"I often ride the Metro. It is simpler than driving, and I had to make a stop." She picked her package up off the floor. "Here. I dropped off the coat for cleaning. It is inconvenient to park the car, go in, and then drive on. So I took the underground. Same thing today, when I picked it up. You can check at the cleaners."
"And you did not pass this to our friend here?" Vatutin held up the film cassette.
"I don't even know what that is."
"Of course." Colonel Vatutin shook his head. "Well, there we are." He pressed a button on his intercom set. The office's side door opened a moment later. Three people came in. Vatutin waved to Svetlana. "Prepare her."
Her reaction was not so much panic as disbelief. Svetlana Vaneyeva tried to bolt from the chair, but a pair of men grabbed her by the shoulders and held her in place. The third rolled up the sleeve on her dress and stuck a needle in her arm before she had the presence of mind to shout. "You can't," she said, "you can't "
Vatutin sighed. "Ah, but we can. How long?"
"That'll keep her under for at least two hours," the doctor replied. He and his two orderlies picked her out of the chair. Vatutin came around and got the parcel. "She'll be ready for you as soon as I do the medical check, but I anticipate no problems. Her medical file is clean enough."
"Excellent. I'll be down after I have something to eat." He gestured to the other prisoner. "You can take him away. I think we're done with him."
"Comrade, I-" the courier began, only to be cut off.
"Do not dare to use that word again." The reprimand was all the harsher for its soft delivery.
Colonel Bondarenko now ran the Ministry's laser-weapons desk. It was by the decision of Defense Minister Yazov, of course, as recommended by Colonel Filitov.
"So, Colonel, what news do you bring us?" Yazov asked.
"Our colleagues at KGB have delivered to us partial plans for the American adaptive-optics mirror." He handed over two separate copies of the diagrams.
"And we cannot do this ourselves?" Filitov asked.
"The design is actually quite ingenious, and, the report says, an even more advanced model is in the design stages right now. The good news is that it requires fewer actuators-"
"What is that?" Yazov asked.
"The actuators are the mechanisms which alter the contours of the mirror. By lowering the number of them you also reduce the requirements of the computer system that operates the mirror assembly. The existing mirror-this one here-requires the services of an extremely powerful supercomputer, which we cannot yet duplicate in the Soviet Union. The new mirror is projected to require only a fourth as much computer power. This allows both a smaller computer to operate the mirror and also a simpler control program." Bondarenko leaned forward. "Comrade Minister, as my first report indicated, one of the principal difficulties with Bright Star is the computer system. Even if we were able to manufacture a mirror like this one, we do not as yet have the computer hardware and software to operate it at maximum efficiency. I believe we could do so if we had this new mirror."
"But we don't have the new mirror plans yet?" Yazov asked.
"Correct. The KGB is working on that."
"We can't even replicate these 'actuators' yet," Filitov groused. "We've had the specifications and diagrams for several months and still no factory manager has delivered-"
"Time and funds, Comrade Colonel," Bondarenko chided. Already he was learning to speak with confidence in this rarest of atmospheres.
"Funding," Yazov grunted. "Always funding. We can build an invulnerable tank-with enough funds. We can catch up with Western submarine technology-with enough funding. Every pet project of every academician in the Union will deliver the ultimate weapon-if only we can provide enough funding. Unfortunately there is not enough for all of them." There's one way in which we've caught up with the West!"
"Comrade Minister," Bondarenko said, "I have been a professional soldier for twenty years. I have served on battalion and divisional staffs, and I have seen close combat. Always I have served the Red Army, only the Red Army. Bright Star belongs to another service branch. Despite this, I tell you that if necessary we should deny funds for tanks, and ships, and airplanes in order to bring Bright Star to completion. We have enough conventional weapons to stop any NATO attack, but we have nothing to stop Western missiles from laying waste to our country." He drew back. "Please forgive me for stating my opinion so forcefully."
"We pay you to think," Filitov observed. "Comrade Minister, I find myself in agreement with this young man."
"Mikhail Semyonovich, why is it that I sense a palace coup on the part of my colonels?" Yazov ventured a rare smile, and turned to the younger man. "Bondarenko, within these walls I expect you to tell me what you think. And if you can persuade this old cavalryman that your science-fiction project is worthwhile, then I must give it serious thought. You say that we should give this program crash status?"
"Comrade Minister, we should consider it. Some basic research remains, and I feel that its funding priority should be increased dramatically." Bondarenko stopped just short of what Yazov suggested. That was a political decision, one into which a mere colonel ought not stick his neck. It occurred to the CARDINAL that he had actually underestimated this bright young colonel.
"Heart rate's coming up," the doctor said almost three hours later. "Time zero, patient conscious." A reel-to-reel tape recorder took down his words.
She didn't know the point at which sleep ended and consciousness began. The line is a fuzzy one for most people, particularly so in the absence of an alarm or the first beam of sunlight. She was given no signals. Svetlana Vaneyeva's first conscious emotion was puzzlement. Where am I? she asked herself after about fifteen minutes. The lingering aftereffects of the barbiturates eased away, but nothing replaced the comfortable relaxation of dreamless sleep. She was floating?
She tried to move, but couldn't? She was totally at rest, every square centimeter of her body was evenly supported so that no muscle was stretched or strained. Never had she known such wonderful relaxation. Where am I?
She could see nothing, but that wasn't right, either. It was not black, but gray like a night cloud reflecting the city lights of Moscow, featureless, but somehow textured.
She could hear nothing, not the rumble of traffic, not the mechanical sounds of running water or slamming doors
She turned her head, but the view remained the same, a gray blankness, like the inside of a cloud, or a ball of cotton, or-
She breathed. The air had no smell, no taste, neither moist nor dry, not even a temperature that she could discern. She' spoke but incredibly she heard nothing. Where am I!
Svetlana began to examine the world more carefully. It took about half an hour of careful experimentation. Svetlana kept control of her emotions, told herself forcefully to be calm, to relax. It had to be a dream. Nothing untoward could really be happening, not to her. Real fear had not yet begun, but already she could feel its approach. She mustered her determination and fought to hold it off. Explore the environment. Her eyes swept left and right. There was only enough light to deny her blackness. Her arms were there, but seemed to be away from her sides, and she could not move them inward, though she tried for what seemed like hours. The same was true of her legs. She tried to ball her right hand into a fist but she couldn't even make her fingers touch one another.