Skyprobe (2 page)

“Yes, sir?”

“How many men,” Latymer asked slowly, “do you suppose that capsule contains?”

Shaw said, “Why, two, sir. Majors Schuster and Morris of the US Air Force.”

“That,” Latymer said flatly, “is where you’re so wrong. There are three men aboard.”

Shaw stared.
“Three!”

“That’s what I said. It doesn’t go beyond this room, I need hardly say. The Press boys never got a smell of the third man. Both NASA and CIA did a first-class security job on that. Naturally, a biggish number of technicians and so on had to know there would be a third man aboard, but mostly they don’t know his identity. The reason for the secrecy is simple: the very name alone of the third man would have given away something of the nature of the flight’s objectives. So apart from the heads of NASA and CIA and the men directly concerned with the flight—aeromedics and so on—the third man’s identity is known only to the President, the Secretary of State and the Chiefs of Staff in the United States, and over here by the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister and myself. Also, of course, his wife. The reason we in Britain were told is because he happens to be a British subject by birth. He’s a naturalized American citizen now, but because of who he is, we were still informed.” Latymer paused. “Is that enough to give you a clue?”

“Are you speaking of Danvers-Marshall, sir?” Shaw’s tone was disbelieving. He leaned forward and jerked cigarette ash into the jade receptacle. “
He's
in the capsule?”

“He is. And that’s one reason why, in my opinion, we as well as the United States come into this. Professor Neil Danvers-Marshall—none other—is orbiting with Schuster and Morris. He’s a man who likes to see for himself, to feel the same strains as his team, though as a matter of fact this is the first time he’s actually been in continuing orbit. This present distance-probe is his pet project. What d’you know about him, Shaw?”

“Not much, frankly, apart from his reputation as a space scientist. . . and that in spite of his British birth he’s one of the top men in the US Space Administration—”

“The very top, Shaw, in his particular line. He’s responsible only to the Head of NASA. He’d been working for years in the closest co-operation with the US on space research before he went over there permanently ... as a matter of fact, it would be perfectly true to say he’s the one single man who’s got at his finger-tips
all
the West’s space secrets, all the data of past flights, details of projected plans and so forth. He’s a practical scientist who is also a brilliant administrator, co-ordinator, and planner. He’s a man of great brain and foresight, with the ability, so it’s said, to think constructively well into the future. He’s decades ahead of his time.” Latymer’s eyes searched Shaw’s face. “Now—would you care to tell me what he’s not?”

Shaw grinned. “All right, sir—I get you! He’s not the sort of man any hostile Power would want to smash a blunt object into—”

“Exactly—so your theory of a collision in space isn’t on at all. To my humble mind, they’d be much more likely to want to get their hands on him alive and intact—so they can get all those secrets out of him, including the details of a certain brand-new fuel Skyprobe’s using. Also the new fuel used in the launch rocket. Believe me, it’s a fantastic achievement to get a manned vehicle orbiting at the height Skyprobe IV has reached—and basically it’s Danvers-Marshall who put it there.”

“So you’re suggesting there’s been a leak and we’re facing a kidnap job, organized by the Communists. But I don’t see how anybody can possibly be kidnapped in space.”

Latymer gave a hard, mirthless smile. “Frankly, nor do I. There just isn’t the machinery for it! The Russian manned orbital space stations can’t help—they can’t interfere one way or the other. Nor can the American stations combat any funny business. . . .” He had closed his eyes now, leaning back once more and thinking aloud. “They can’t put vehicles into orbit—they’re equipped for direct rocket flight only. No . . . they’re out. As to a vehicle from earth, something to dock on . . . that’s out, too. I can’t see anyone risking a fight in space, nor can I see them managing to dock on without co-operation from inside Skyprobe. . . .”

“Nor me.” Shaw ran a hand through his hair. “It all sounds like a hell of a lot of quite unnecessary trouble. Wouldn’t Danvers-Marshall be easier to deal with on the ground? A straightforward kidnap job in the States?” Latymer opened his eyes. “On the face of it, yes,” he answered smoothly, “but it doesn’t necessarily follow, does it?”

Shaw shrugged. “Well, there’s no FBI or CIA up there in orbit, certainly—”

“Quite. It’s not so easy to smuggle a high-powered scientist out of the States. Any hostile Power, mentioning no names, could have other methods up its sleeve anyway—for instance, I’ve no doubt Danvers-Marshall could be nabbed on splashdown, before the recovery fleet reaches him. The same applies if in fact it’s the capsule and not any of the crew they’re after. These people could have submarines on station in the Caribbean easily enough. Even the US Navy can’t be one hundred percent certain of being able to keep tabs on all the submarines our hypothetical Power could send into the area—not even by using Aga Thermovision mounted in aircraft. It’s dicey, Shaw—very dicey.” Latymer drummed his fingers heavily on the desk. “We’ll have to act fast now. Since this thing has arisen here in London, it’s up to us at this stage. The Americans will expect a full report in double-quick time,

including a complete breakdown on this Pole. I want you to drop everything and find out precisely what the threat is. I suggest you’re most likely to do that if you first find Rudolf Rencke. I’ll see the ports and airfields are watched for a start, but Rencke’s slippery—he’s been sliding through check-points for years. In the meantime, get cracking and dig up all you can on the dead man—that could lead to Rencke. Of course,” he added, “all our theorizing could be wildly off the beam. All the same, there’s something else . . . something that could link up. Don’t ask me how or where.” Latymer reached into a drawer and brought out a thin folder which he pushed across to Shaw. “This came in late yesterday from the FO for my personal attention.”

Shaw took the folder, saw that on Page One it carried the Top Secret stamp followed by the somewhat rare instruction, FOR UK EYES ONLY. He recognized the various ‘twiddles’, as the cross-references to other relevant classified documents were known within the department. The information itself was brief and to the point: British agents working inside the Communist borders had reported greatly increased activity in the Russian space research establishments, and had reported also that certain new developments appeared to follow closely those recently evolved by the United States; the clear inference being that space-programme data could have been finding its way into Communist countries from the West. No details were given and there were no indications as to likely sources. But, as Latymer had suggested, there was at least some possible if tenuous affinity between these agents’ reports and the message, whatever it might have been, that the murdered Pole had intended to pass on. If the intelligence reports were accurate, and there was no prima facie reason why they should be doubted, then the East was already on the ball spywise. And there was a note in the Prime Minister’s own hand to the effect that, notwithstanding the FO instruction about the limited circulation of the document, the information was to be passed at once to Washington.

Shaw closed the folder. “Has Washington been told yet?” he asked.

“Yes. I don’t know the reaction yet, but I’ve no doubt they always expect a certain leakage and won’t be too worried.” This was true; no-one could ever be certain all staff had been one hundred percent investigated, however tough the screening procedure. “But this threat, vague as it all is, could be the crystalization of any previous leaks, if you follow.”

Shaw nodded. “What’s your guess as to America’s likely action now—once they’ve heard about the threat, that is?”

Latymer lifted his shoulders. “I’ve no idea. Ultimately they may order the spacecraft to ditch ahead of schedule, but I should think they’ll want something very much firmer to go on before they do that. This flight, I repeat, means a hell of a lot to the West, Shaw—us as well as America— not least prestigewise. Nevertheless, there’s one overriding consideration I trust they’re going to have well in the front of their minds, and it’s this: if the Communists are allowed to carry out successfully any kind of threat to an American spacecraft in flight, then public opinion in the States isn’t going to settle for anything less than a full-scale war.”

In Scotland Yard’s mortuary Shaw took a closer look at the Pole. There was nothing remarkable about the body except for one thing: the fifth toe on the left foot was missing. There was also an old appendix scar; but there was nothing whatever in the way of moles, war wounds or other distinguishing marks.

But that missing toe could be a big help. . . .

Shaw asked, “Have you any idea when it was amputated, Doctor?”

The police surgeon shook his head. “That’s quite impossible to say.” He rubbed his chin musingly, then added, “All I can tell you is that it doesn’t really strike me as having been done particularly recently.”

“Could it have happened in the war, say?”

“I don’t know . . . it could have, yes. Even before that— I’m afraid I really can’t possibly be precise.”

“I see.” Shaw looked down thoughtfully at the thin body on the slab. In life the man had looked anxious—a man whose worries had shown in his face; in death that face was still hauntingly anxious, perhaps because of the unaccomplished mission . . . Shaw had a strange feeling that he owed it to this dead man, in a personal sense, to see to it that he hadn’t been pierced by that needle-sharp length of steel entirely in vain. The brown eyes—sad eyes in life—stared blankly at nothing. Shaw turned away; there was nothing more to ask here, in this clean, bleak, melancholy room. Already he had taken the body’s measurements and a detailed description, plus a cast, of the teeth, and he had a posthumous photograph of the dead man. He had gone through the corpse’s possessions as found by the police in the pockets; here again there was nothing of interest. There had been the usual clutter from a man’s pockets—tobacco, cigarette-papers, the miniature do-it-yourself outfit, and also a packet of Benson & Hedges, which confirmed Shaw’s original theory that the man’s roll-your-own act was no more than background colour for a new identity. It had been clumsy, to carry around those ready-mades. . . . There was a Ronson lighter, an expensive one; a handkerchief as innocent of identifying marks as the rest of the clothing—the shirt and underwear, right down to the socks, were all new and were all drip-dries, so wouldn’t have been near a laundry. The pathetic collection was completed by a ball-point pen and a pocket-book containing money but again no identification, no addresses, no letters, the only revelation being the gilt imprint: REAL CALF MADE IN ENGLAND.

Shaw gestured to the attendant, who pulled the sheet over the body; then, as anonymously as he had arrived, he left the Yard.

* * *

An Army Records Office somewhere in North London yielded up the medical histories of Poles who had come to Britain to continue the war of liberation after Hitler and then Stalin had overrun their own country back in 1939.

The files were many and dusty and yellowed, and seemed not to have been disturbed for the last two decades or so. Shaw took the officers first. Aware that, despite the dead man’s instant reaction to his question, he could have been quite wrong in his assumptions as to nationality and calling, he searched carefully, minutely, painstakingly for hour after hour.

A taciturn, middle-aged woman, wearing rimless spectacles and the uniform of a staff-sergeant in the WRAC, brought him seemingly endless cups of lukewarm Ministry tea.

* * *

With its three occupants Skyprobe IV continued on its interminable orbits, still travelling at 27,000 m.p.h. and now at a height of something over 970 miles. The electrical connections that had fed power from the Titan 6C launching rocket still trailed from its plastics-covered rear. The two Air Force majors sat side by side in their contour seats, making the routine checks and keeping in periodic contact with the earth. Early on there had been a little trouble with the fuel cell, but they had got it operating again quite quickly by means of a cross-feed valve, and now all they needed to do was occasionally to check the fuel cell pressure. Danvers-Marshall sat behind them with little to do at this almost two-thirds-through stage but watch out of his window and observe now and again the dials of the special instruments that had been put into the spacecraft for his own purposes of study. The British-born scientist was a thin, dark man with a perpetually tensed-up look about him and a noticeable twitch below his left eye, a twitch that had grown worse as the long flight progressed and the state of weightlessness had affected him, as it had affected them all. Now and then he made notes on a pad of paper. From quite early in the flight the men had been orbiting in their underwear, discarding the heavy, cumbersome spacesuits whose restrictions would have exhausted them long before the end of their 21-day span had they worn them continually. One by one, time and time again, the tracking stations had come up, friendly voices from a familiar world to keep them in touch and to watch over them and record their progress: the Canaries—

Nigeria—Zanzibar—West Australia—Hawaii—California and back again to mission control at Kennedy . . . from all these places the disembodied voices had called them.

From Kennedy, soon after the start thirteen days before, the families had spoken to them. Gregory Schuster’s wife Mary had come on the air first, feeling a little foolish and self-conscious, not knowing what to talk about in the hearing of so many eavesdropping ears.

“How do you feel, Greg?” she’d asked.

A laugh came down to her and Gregory Schuster’s voice said cheerfully, “Fine, just fine . . . all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! How’s things down there, Mary?”

“Oh,” she said, “fine too . . . we’re okay, Greg, but missing you a lot. The kids are so dam proud, too . . . but I guess I want you home, Greg!”