Borodinski made his face look shocked.
“But, comrade,” the Secretary went on, “suppose we prepare a little snare for these hotheads, a little trap to catch them in treasonable activities, eh? Then we can clear the Kremlin of the troublemakers and I can live out my remaining days in peace, knowing that I’m safe from traitors and assassins.”
Borodinski stroked his pointed little beard again. “Then the decision to join the Americans in studying the alien spaceship…”
“Is the bait for our trap, naturally.”
“That’s…brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. No wonder you have been our leader for all these years.”
The Secretary allowed himself a brief smile. “There is something else, as well.”
“Yes?”
“If we are to make contact with another race of intelligent creatures, I want it to be in my lifetime. In fact, it would be the crowning achievement of my career if the Soviet Union could make this contact alone, without the help of the West.”
“But how…?”
“This is what we shall do.” The General Secretary leaned closer to his aide, close enough so that Borodinski could smell the odor of medicine on the old man’s breath.
“I am listening,” he said.
“We will send a small team of scientists to this island. They will work with the Americans. Among them will be a few of our intelligence people, of course. Links to us. To me.”
“I see. Of course.”
“While the scientists study this spacecraft, we will be preparing one or more of our biggest rocket boosters for flights to meet this alien ship as it approaches us.”
“Ahhh, now I see…”
“Our scientists on Kwajalein will have the responsibility of keeping us fully informed. If and when the proper moment arrives, we will send cosmonauts to greet the alien ship.” He paused, took a deep, wheezing breath. “Or…”
“Or?” Borodinski asked.
“Or we will blow the alien out of the sky with a hydrogen bomb missile, if necessary.”
Borodinski felt a shock wave go through him.
The General Secretary’s face was grave. “That is the one thing that the scientists don’t understand. This alien intruder might be hostile. We must be prepared to defend ourselves.”
“But…it’s only one little ship.”
“No, comrade.” The General Secretary shook his head. “It is only the first ship.”
“Where?” Markov asked, blinking.
“Kwajalein,” said Maria. “It’s an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they told me.”
“We’re being sent there? Why?” Markov glanced around the familiar surroundings of their living room: the bookcases, the comfortable chairs, the old brass reading lamp that he had rescued from his mother’s house, the sturdy tree just outside the window.
“First, they send me to the research center out in the middle of the wilderness and now…where did you say it is?”
“Kwajalein,” Maria repeated firmly. She was still in her uniform, but she held two big paper bags of groceries in her arms. She hadn’t even bothered to put them down before telling her husband the news.
“No,” Markov protested, his head buzzing. He groped for one of the chairs and sank into it, leaving his wife standing there with the groceries. “I can’t go there. I’m not a traveler, Maria Kirtchatovska, you must make them understand that. I want to stay here, at home…”
“Ha,” she said. It was not a laugh.
He looked up at her.
Stamping the snow off her boots as she walked, Maria headed for the kitchen.
“You want to stay home,” she mimicked in a high, singsong voice. “You didn’t stay home last night. You weren’t even here when I left for the office this morning.”
“I wasn’t on a tropical island, either,” he called after her.
“Where were you?”
“In my office. Working late. I slept on the couch there, rather than walking all the way back here through the snow. The buses stop running after midnight, you know.”
“Sleeping on your couch,” Maria groused, from the kitchen. “With whom?”
“With a volume of Armenian folk tales that I must translate before the end of the semester!” he snapped. “Your superiors demand weeks of my time, but they don’t hire anyone to do my work for me.”
She came to the kitchen doorway, a small sack of onions in her hands. “You were with some slut all night. I phoned your office when I got home.”
Markov made himself smile at her. “Really, Maria, you can’t trap me that easily. I was in the office all night. You did not phone.”
She stared at him for a long moment.
“I was really there, Maria,” he said. “Alone.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“Of course. Have I ever lied to you, my dear?”
Her face contorted into a frustration that went beyond words. She disappeared back into the kitchen. Markov could hear pantry doors opening, canned goods banging onto the shelves.
She’ll break something, he thought.
With a sigh, he got up from the chair and went to the kitchen.
“Kwajalein?” he asked.
She was on tiptoe, shoving jars of pickled beets into the cabinet over the gas range. Over her shoulder, she grunted, “Kwajalein. Yes.”
“Here, let me.” He squeezed past her in the narrow space between the range and the refrigerator, and took a pair of cans to put away on the topmost shelves.
“Not those!” Maria snatched the cans from him. “They go here.”
He watched her put them where she wanted them, then accepted two other cans from her and stacked them neatly on the highest shelf, asking:
“Why do I have to go to Kwajalein? Why can’t I stay here at home?”
“Bulacheff specifically asked for you. The Academy is sending an elite team of scientists to join the Americans in studying the alien spaceship.”
“Is Bulacheff going too?”
“No.”
“I thought not.”
“But you are.”
Markov leaned his lanky frame against the pantry doors. “But I have nothing to contribute to their studies! Haven’t we been through all this once already?”
“The American astronaut, Stoner, will be there.”
“Ah. My correspondent.”
“Exactly. He knows you, by reputation. That is why Bulacheff picked you to join the others.”
“I should never have written that book,” Markov muttered.
“You are an internationally recognized expert in extraterrestrial languages…”
“Which is to say, nothing,” he said.
“And you will be a part of the Soviet team of scientists that is going to Kwajalein to work with the Americans in studying this alien visitor.”
Markov shook his head sadly. “All I want, Maria, is to remain here in Moscow. At home. With you.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “On that score, you can rest comfortably. I will be going to Kwajalein with you.”
“You’re going!” He felt shocked.
“Of course. You are far too important to be allowed outside the Soviet Union unprotected.”
“Oh, come now, Maria,” he said, “are your superiors so frightened that I might defect to the West? I’m not a flighty ballet dancer, you know.”
“It’s for your own safety.”
“Of course.”
“Of course!” she snapped. “Don’t you think I care about your safety?”
He patted his shirt pockets, searching for a pack of cigarettes. “I think you care about the trouble it would make for you if I defected.”
“And all you care about is finding some young slut to pursue!”
He stood up straight. “Maria Kirtchatovska, I told you that I was alone in my office last night.”