The Red Dove

It was to the living quarters, as Dove 1 orbited at 18,000 mph on this May day in 1983, that Talin now walked with ponderous, weightless steps to prepare for re-entry.

On one side was a bathroom, on the other bunks and lockers, in the centre a table. From the dispenser Talin took a small tray wrapped in plastic marked Day 3, last meal. Into the dehydrated food inside he squirted water through a hollow needle attached to a faucet; then he removed the plastic, clamped the tray to the table and slowly began to eat cold beef and potato salad.

He drank a glass of synthetic orange – it was impossible to re-hydrate natural orange because water and crystals don’t mix – took off his flight jacket and put on an anti-gravity suit with inflatable trousers. The pressure of the oxygen on legs and belly in these stopped the blood from plunging to the lower extremities: puncture those pants and you blacked out.

Back in the flight deck Sedov had prematurely begun the pre-burn check-out. It was only Talin’s second trip into space but he had spent 300 hours in a simulator and he knew this was unusual for a veteran such as Sedov. Talin shivered and glanced into the star-strewn darkness for comfort.

Sedov was sitting on his high-backed seat, one hand on the rotational hand controller, staring at the computer screen. He was frowning.

‘What’s wrong?’ Talin asked.

‘I wish I knew. She just doesn’t feel right. Maybe space is getting to me.’ Sedov stood up. ‘You take over the check-out while I get into my anti-gravity gear.’

As he plodded away Talin strapped himself into the seat next to Sedov’s and examined the indicator lights, computer readouts, dials. Nothing wrong there. And yet … Sedov’s concern was contagious.

Sedov who had circled the moon, Sedov who had spent ninety-six days on a SALYUT space station, Sedov the laconic cosmonaut/intelligence officer who had been personally chosen by Nicolay Vlasov, Chairman of the KGB, to represent the MPA, which maintained Party control over the military, in space. Hardly the sort of man to be fanciful.

What worried most cosmonauts was their reliance on computers. If a computer could foul up your electricity bill then it was perfectly capable of abandoning you with only manual glide control over the Pacific Ocean.

Figures on the screen in front of Talin danced with blurred speed.

Sedov returned, strapped himself into his seat and slipped on his white helmet and headset. His lean, Slav face was expressionless as he spoke to Control.

Turning to Talin, he said: ‘We’re just half way round the world from touch-down.’

Green light shone below them, gaining strength by the second. They were over the Atlantic which was just emerging from a night blanket of cloud.

Again Sedov disconnected the radio link. ‘Stop thinking about Poland,’ he said. ‘They had it coming to them.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about Poland,’ although his doubts had begun with the announcement of the invasion.

The trouble was that Sedov, his mentor, knew him too well. Read his thoughts. Sedov had known him when he was a young rebel and because he admired his talent for space navigation, because he had no son of his own, had taught him to quell – not kill – the rebellion. He had also persuaded Military Intelligence, GRU, even then little more than an arm of the KGB, that he was politically acceptable.

In a way Sedov’s insight into his own reactions was another conscience. To betray Communism, even in thought, was to betray Sedov.

At 06.00 hours, one hour before the scheduled landing, Sedov, having re-contacted Mission Control, nodded at Talin and said: ‘It’s all yours.’

It was the crucial moment, no abort possibilities after this. Forget Poland, forget Sedov’s doubts.

First Talin had to reduce the impetuous speed of Dove. He turned her round and ignited the retro-fire engines. She quivered, slowed down and, with the two small engines thrusting forward, began to descend backwards towards the Earth’s atmosphere. A dozen dangers now lurked in her straining body. If, for instance, the skin of ceramic tiles protecting her from heat peeled off she would explode into a ball of fire.

After the retro-burn that took Dove out of orbit Talin turned her round again and pulled up her nose; inconsequently, he remembered pulling the reins on a recalcitrant horse he was riding as a boy on the steppe.

Their altitude was now seventy-five miles. The temperature on the outside of Dove was between 2,000 and 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the melting point of aluminium, from which her body was made, was 1,200 degrees they couldn’t afford to lose many ceramic tiles. In front of them the air glowed with heat.

As Dove dipped towards the land masses of Europe and North Africa and the Earth’s gravity began to pull, Talin’s arms felt heavier and he became weighted to his seat.

He checked the instruments. They were 3,000 miles from the landing strip which was itself 100 miles north of the launch pad at Tyuratam in the Soviet central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.

Talin spoke to Control to reassure them. Not that there was any real need because every reaction of Dove was monitored on forty-eight consoles. Even my heart beat, he remembered.

‘Everything under control,’ he reported. ‘I reckon I can see Russia ahead and that’s always a beautiful sight,’ which it was; he only wished that, being a Siberian, they were homing down from the East Coast, over the Sea of Okhotsk with the fish-like body of Sakhalin Island beneath.

He glanced at the digital clock. In less than half an hour they would touch down on the established flight path. Sedov had been wrong: there was nothing wrong with their beautiful red and white bird. Talin gave a thumbs-up sign to Sedov.

Which was when the radio link with Mission Control went dead.

Don’t panic. Talin’s preparation for any emergency in the simulated shuttle on the ground asserted itself. Controlled panic. His arms felt even heavier than they should, a rivulet of sweat coursed down his chest.

He glanced at Sedov. Sedov was smiling. Smiling!

Sedov spoke into his mouthpiece: ‘You can hear me?’

Talin nodded, remembering as Sedov spoke.

‘The black-out we anticipated,’ Sedov. ‘You were prepared for it?’

‘Of course, the heat …’ The lie stood up and took a bow; Sedov ignored it because that was his way and said: ‘It won’t last long.’

When Control returned Talin suppressed the relief in his voice. At 250,000 feet he began to fly the ship a little, using elevons, brakes, rudders and flaps, correcting flight path and speed.

At 80,000 feet over the Sea of Aral the engines cut and, as planned, Dove became a glider. From Control: ‘Perfect ground track.’

They were wrong. At that moment the shuttle veered sharply away from the runway laid out like a white ceremonial carpet. Talin took over completely from the autopilot and tried to correct the flight path. Nothing. Panic returned but was instantly disciplined, a wild dog on a lead.

Beside him Sedov was also struggling with the dual hand controller and rudder pedals. But the Dove had become a wilful bird of prey that had sighted a far-off quarry.

Sedov’s face was a mask, a single muscle dancing on the line of his jaw. He said: ‘This is crazy,’ and Talin knew what he meant: rockets, computers, all the most sophisticated technology that Man could devise had worked, but elementary controls used by any weekend glider pilot had failed. That was Russia for you.

They were below 50,000 feet, supposedly descending for the final approach and landing on a twenty-two-degree glide slope.

Sedov took over and raised the Dove’s nose. As they headed away from the strip in a wide arc he said: ‘I once had a car like this.’

His voice calmed Talin. ‘A car?’ He peered down. A ten-mile radius around the strip had been levelled in case of a forced landing; beyond this circle of black earth and shale lay the desolate steppe still patched with snow.

‘Sure a car. It wasn’t much of a car, an old Volga that looked like a tank. And it developed this trouble, it would only steer in one direction.’

From Mission Control came a hoarse voice: ‘What’s going on up there?’ Talin could picture the consternation as both screen monitors and visual trackers reported Dove’s deflection.

‘A minor technical fault,’ Sedov said.

‘At this stage?’

‘This bird doesn’t want to return to its cage,’ Sedov said.

Talin noticed that he was no longer trying to correct the flight path of the shuttle.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’