Departures

“Thank you, Ra

Zalman, ironically, looked rather like a younger version of the terrorist leader, but his face was more open, calmer. He spread his hands.”I’d sooner accept the present as it is than live in the dead past. I’ve been threatened before. You can’t let it worry you or it’ll affect your performance.”

“Spoken like a true competitor,” Cavendish said. “Let me ask this, then: how do you feel about what your teammate al-Kuwatly had done to his suit?”

“He was a fool,” Zalman said flatly. “I knew nothing about that, and I can still hardly believe it. My own jumping suit conforms to every standard. What good is a medal you’ve cheated to win?”

“Aye, that’s a poser, though there’s some who don’t care, I’m sorry to say. Am I right in thinking you’re doing your best to stay in condition during the delay in the jumping?”

“Oh, of course. I can’t go out on the ramp, naturally, but I’m doing both stretching and weight work. The weight rooms have been packed.”

“What’s the atmosphere there?”

“About what you’d expect-nervous. After all, none of us knows whether the person working out beside him is a killer.” Zalman thought for a moment, amended his last statement: “No-one of us does.”

“ You’ve put your finger on the true calamity of these games,” Cavendish said. “Olympics may have been disrupted before this, but never by people co

Zalman nodded soberly. “I will take all the luck I can find, thank you. Being who I am, I need it.” He bounced away.

Cavendish said, “We’d hoped to have a member of the team from Moscow with us, but they’ve all declined to speak on camera. Joining us instead is Nikolai Yezhov of Siberia. Welcome, and thank you for being with us today.”

“My pleasure.” Yezhov’s French had less of an accent than Cavendish’s. Short, stocky, and solid, he looked formidable in his spotless white tunic with the cross of Saint George on an embroidered patch on his left shoulder.

“Did ye know Shepilov well?” Cavendish asked.

“Not very, I’m afraid.” Aristocratic contempt showed briefly in the Siberian eyes. “The Muscovites always stick close to themselves. Not cultured.”

“Er, yes.” Cavendish changed the subject in a hurry; from a Russian-speaker, “not cultured” was the kind of insult that started fights. The Scotsman said, “What reaction have ye noticed among the athletes to word of al-Kuwatly’s suit?”

Yezhov’s smile seemed genuinely amused. “The only sin is to be found out, is it not?”

Every question Cavendish asked was getting him into trouble. Gamely, he tried again after a glance at Yezhov’s fact sheet. “This is your first time off Earth, nay?”

“Oh, certainly. I was a simple stereovision installer in Kolyma, by the Sea of Okhotsk, a weekend skier, I think the saying is, when the Little Father honored me by including me on this year’s team.”

“Aye, just as ye say, ‘a weekend skier.’ “ Cavendish finally let himself smile. The czar’s recruiting and training methods were notoriously effective, and started at about age six. “A coincidence, then, that you took the Siberian downhill championship four years ago and have held it ever since?”

Yezhov’s expression was bland. “Yes, as a matter of fact, or at least my first win. The favored skier broke his leg in a fall, opening the door for me.”

“How lucky for you.” Cavendish sighed. Despite his best efforts, Yezhov remained opaque. He might claim greater sophistication than his Muscovite counterparts, but he was no more forthcoming. Cavendish thanked him again for appearing, then passed the show back to the studio with obvious relief.

Ra

Glancing at it, Be

“I wish Katayama had said more,” Ra

“If his precious satellite didn’t show him anything, he’s got damn-all to go on,” Be

“What if he did? Our job is to report, not to investigate.”

“There’s still a bit of a different tradition left in the United States. I’ve never had much of a chance to go ferreting things out, but I think it would be interesting to try.”

She shrugged. “If your idea of fun is trying to do the same thing the professionals are doing, don’t let me stop you. But I expect I’ll have a better time with Jozef than you will staring at tapes.”

“You’re probably right,” Be

In a way, watching death for the second, third, or twentieth time was harder than seeing it when it actually happened. There was always the dreadful, futile impulse to cry “Look out!”

Be

And if it was-Be

The circle that came out shaded in the printout was north of the jumpers’ flight path, much closer to the landing area than to the runway. Depressingly, it was also about two kilometers across. But Be

He checked his spacesuit’s systems with the caution of a neophyte, then cycled through an air lock and bounded down onto the surface of the moon. Looking about, he could almost have thought himself on Luna. Dirty ice looked very much like rock, and one set of jumbled craters much like another.

Yet there were differences, after all. Aside from the very low gravity, the sun, while still too bright to look at, was hardly more than an incandescent point in the sky. And one could never see several moons at once from Luna-not natural ones. Enceladus, Dione, Rhea, and orange Titan all showed visible disks, though none could compete with even the attenuated sun as a light source.

Remembering Angus Cavendish’s comments on the jumpers’ form on the runway, Be