Chapters (23)
Somewhere in the USSR and somewhere in the USA, soldiers would be making sure the missiles in their silos were ready to launch and the warheads atop them would blossom into thermonuclear fire above a particular patch of ocean. Did Humpty Dumpty’s sensors know anything about that? What would the starship do if those missiles flew? Jerry could only wonder and worry.
Tuesday came. At a little past eleven, the American and Soviet delegations entered Humpty Dumpty, trailing their telephone lines behind them as they walked to the suspended-animation chamber. Carrying rifles, both Jerry Pournelle and Vitaly Yushchenko looked serious and military. And well they might have; they’d both seen their share of hell on earth.
“Which one are we going to wake up?” Pournelle asked when they went in.
“One closer to doorway. Is easier to reach yellow button for this one,” Kalyakin said. Dale Neuwirth didn’t try to tell him no. Maybe they’d settled it ahead of time. Maybe Dale just thought the astronomer’s words made good sense.
Kalyakin and Jack Porter spoke into their phones, each making sure he had the connection with his government he needed. Kalyakin nodded to show he did. Jack gave a thumbs-up. Everybody was as ready as humanly possible, and hoped the humanly possible would prove ready enough.
Then Pournelle asked, “Who pushes the button? Who gets the credit—or the blame?”
“Should be Stieglitz,” Kalyakin said. “He is American on Soviet delegation, part of both. And he found way into spaceship to start with. Who better?”
By the look on Dale’s face, and Jack’s, they didn’t want the USSR’s delegation there at all. Want it or not, they had it. Dale, as was his way, managed to be gracious: “One small push for man, one giant leap for mankind. Let’s see what happens.”
“Okay,” Jerry said in a small voice. Dale had borrowed Neil Armstrong’s first words on the Moon. If this went well, it would make what Armstrong had done seem not just a small step but a baby step. If it didn’t … He tried not to think about that.
He eyed his watch. At noon exactly, he reached up and pushed the raised yellow area as hard as he could. Something happened; he could feel it. Pournelle and Yushchenko pointed their rifles at the centaurowl inside its glassy half-dome.
Silently and without any fuss, the half-dome disappeared the way the airlock door had when Jerry said Friend! He hoped that meant the centaurowl wasn’t suspended anymore but back in the real world, the world of time.
Did its beak quiver, ever so slightly? He wasn’t sure—he might have been imagining things. But then the centaurowl blinked. When its yellow eyes opened again, they moved until they met his. Then their gaze steadied, and the two very different beings regarded each other for the first time.