Beside her Ralph Gershon was huddled over on himself. His head was tucked into the collar of his suit, his helmet was under his arm. Gershon’s eyes were glazed. He had a knack, York had observed, of retreating into some private cosmos when the outside world got sufficiently shitty. Well, just now that was a knack she envied.

The mock-up of the Soyuz Command Module sat squat on the Kazakh plain. A handful of trucks — battered, unpainted — stood around the capsule. Beside the Soyuz was the flatbed truck which had carried the capsule dummy out there. Fifty yards beyond that stood a Soviet Army helicopter, its rotors turning slowly. Cables trailed from the Command Module, coiling across the dust of the steppe, leading to winches attached to the chopper.

There was a smell of wormwood grass: thin, almost lost on the cold air. The ground was baked to a yellowish, brick-hard glaze, with just a few tufts of grass. In some places patches of snow lingered. Vladimir Viktorenko had told her that in the early spring, the steppe would be covered in flowers. York found it hard to believe.

She didn’t know what had caused the latest delay. Technicians stood around, showing no apparent concern for timetables or schedules. That seemed to be the way in the Soviet Union, even around the space program.

York tried to be tolerant, but she found it hard. She didn’t feel she had the time to hang around on a steppe with a bunch of ragged-assed Soviets. Let’s get on with this. Get it over.

Vladimir Viktorenko came stalking up to her, compact and purposeful, his flight helmet fixed over his head. “So,” he said, and he clapped her on the shoulder. She was braced for the blow, and managed not to stumble. “You are ready for your ride? And you, Ralph?”

Gershon lifted his head out of his suit neck, like a turtle poking out of its shell.

York stared up at the wall of the Command Module, her apprehension growing. “We’ve had no preparation for this. Where’s the hatch? At the top of the Soyuz?”

“Yes, it is at the top. I will climb in first.” He tapped her shoulder, then Gershon’s. “Then you, then you. You will see. It will be easy.”

The technicians were snickering. York felt her resentment build.

“So, Vladimir, why are these guys of yours laughing at me?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Vlad-im-ir,” he said, accenting the second syllable. “Oh, it is nothing.”

“Like hell it is.” She felt anger surge in her. She’d been burning up with it since Apollo-N, lashing out at anything that came in her way. She suspected it was one reason she’d been sent over there, despite her involvement in the post-accident investigations. To keep her out of the way. To cool her off, on the steppe.

Well, it wasn’t working.