The silence and the gift of darkness blessed,

I receive the visions still and cryptic; Reveal

Unto me that which is cursed.

Traces of skin, blood and sin alike blend

Upon the walls of the dreaming mind.

The fibers and liquids coil and swirl to mend

The broken body whose limbs unfurl to bind

The spirit to the flesh that has separated from the bones.

Somnolence-in black-purple robes-dubs,

With his judgmental sceptre, me a knight

So that I may slay the hell-spawned cubs

Of the lioness who seizes Love’s furious light.

Veins of silver in the river black show

To me a shimmering shine and false salvation.

From sparkling seas does the Adonis glow

With Venus’ light and lordly aberration,

As his glistening image, again, ascends.

A Soviet colonel arrived at Plesetsk Cosmodrome just above the Arctic Circle in a large American K-car. He wore civilian clothes, smoked German cigarettes and stayed mostly in the shadows. The base manifest identified him by the enigmatic letters SP, but the ranking officer, Marshal Nedelin, addressed him simply as Chief. His real name was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, the anonymous Chief Designer of the Soviet space program, and he was here to witness what had become a very familiar sight in the Soviet Union these days – a rocket launch.

The Chief stood behind the reinforced concrete bunker with the collar of his blue overcoat up and the brim of his brown fedora down, whether to protect himself from the frigid air or to conceal his features nobody really knew. Patiently and silently, he waited for the wingless monolith on the launch pad to fire up into the night.

“It is precisely this sort of delay which will cause us to fall behind the Americans,” Marshal Nedelin said abruptly and then swore. He pulled out his silver pocket watch, a sixty-year-old relic from Russia’s Tsarist past, and swore again. It wasn’t a very fierce curse or easily translatable, something about baby birds of questionable parentage and loose virtue. The Chief, who had worked among rocket mechanics, political prisoners and hotshot air force pilots most of his life, almost laughed. Fortunately, he caught himself in time. To laugh at a major general and a senior member of the Communist Party was political suicide, more certain than drawing a mustache on Premier Khrushchev’s portrait in Red Square.

“We cannot allow ourselves to become complacent, to rest upon the success of our past endeavors. You may have put Sputnik into space, Colonel, but last year, the Americans had two suborbital launches with live subjects.”

“Monkeys,” the Chief clarified but Nedelin did not hear him. “And the Atlas Rocket – - ” “Has not yet had a successful launch.”

“But it is only a matter of time.” Nedelin fumed, the Chief’s sanguine demeanor only serving to add fuel to the flames. “Mark my words, Colonel, the Americans are on the verge of sending a Mercury astronaut into space.”

The Chief assumed a grim expression. “Delays are necessary.”

“You have no idea what pressures I’m under. Premier Khrushchev – ”

“Premier Khrushchev suffers delays poorly,” the Chief interrupted, his words bordering on treason. “But he suffers failure not at all. Besides, it is not the R-16 that I am here to see.”

“No? Then what?”

“It is the test pilot,” the Chief said simply.

As if on cue, the preliminary launch warning sounded over the loudspeakers and a man in a bright orange flight suit emerged from the distant blockhouse. He was not an unusual man at first glance. He had a thin face, for a Russian, wavy brown hair and a faint scar on his otherwise attractive chin. He stood about even with the busy flight technicians who flanked him on either side carrying his life support equipment. But there was an air of confidence in his brown eyes that distinguished him from any other man on the tarmac. His was the look of the master bullfighter or the lion tamer entering the ring – the consummate professional. He was a man marked for death, yet there was no apparent fear at the prospect of riding a fireball into the stratosphere.

He strode casually towards the awaiting rocket, and the milling engineers, soldiers and technicians parted in awe. He stopped before the gantry to give his final salute and only the Chief noticed as he made a very quick movement with his left hand to touch something under his collar. And then he was up the gantry elevator and into the capsule. Korolev turned back to Nedelin.

“I would like to talk to him . . . if he survives.” Nedelin was appalled by the Chief’s pessimistic attitude, but Korolev merely shrugged.

“The R-16 is not my rocket. General Yangel has a new design team at NII-88, mostly Germans. They abandoned my R-7 Semyorka booster in favor of a modified V-2 rocket design.” Korolev had often wondered where Yangel had really found his design for the R-16. It was quite a departure from the V-2 rockets that they had captured from Germany after the war and unlike anything they had worked on together. Korolev couldn’t imagine that Yangel was smart enough to come up with a new idea on his own, at least not one that worked. So where did the R-16 come from?

“It’s sleek, radical and revolutionary,” Korolev continued, “but highly unstable.” The Chief lifted his fedora and looked directly at Nedelin with his cold, gray eyes. “They’re using devil’s venom.” Nedelin raised an eyebrow, but did not respond.

Devil’s venom, otherwise known as nitric acid hydrazine, was a propellant so volatile that it burned whatever it touched and ate the very metal that housed it. Many attempts had been made to safely harness the lethal rocket fuel, but sooner or later they all ended in disaster.

“You know those German engineers,” Korolev continued casually. “They’re all so convinced that their alternative fuels will provide more thrust. I prefer more conventional approaches, small improvements on tried and tested designs. I find we go through fewer test pilots that way. But I have been over-ruled on this one. It is out of my hands.”

Nedelin was tempted to argue with the vaunted Russian rocket scientist. After all, as Marshal of Artillery, it was his decision to turn the manned-flight program over to General Yangel. It wasn’t that he doubted the Chief Designer’s genius. After all, this was the man that had put Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into space. But Nedelin was an impatient man, nervous of his superiors, and especially the Americans. He was convinced that Wernher von Braun, Korolev’s opposite number in America, was about to send a man into space. Von Braun was on the verge of designing functional ICBM’s sixteen years ago. Who knew what he could have accomplished by now with the almost unlimited resources of the United States? Certainly more than the cautious and secretive Russian engineers like SP Korolev.

Marshal Nedelin was about to make a bold statement to this effect when white steam billowed from the R-16’s starter rockets and the final countdown began. Nedelin and the Chief slipped on their protective goggles and all conversation ceased. Nedelin wanted very much for Yangel’s rocket to succeed, not so much for the life of the brave test pilot, but to prove that the Chief Designer’s delays were unnecessary. Hadn’t the Soviet Union already had countless successful rocket launches? If they could put a dog in the nosecone of a rocket and launch it into space, surely they could do the same thing with a man. It did not concern him too much that they had not yet found a safe and reliable way to bring the dogs back alive. Such details were best left to lesser men.

The ground shook as the massive first stage engine ignited and condensation crystals cascaded down from the metallic cylindrical body in a shower of white. Billowing clouds of smoke filled the million-square-foot stadium as the R-16 rose slowly under its powerful rocket to a height of nearly a thousand feet. Nedelin opened his mouth to congratulate himself on his wisdom and foresight when the powerful rocket veered slowly to the horizontal and exploded in a brilliant fireball like the fireworks on May Day. Moments later, the stars above were obscured by an impenetrable wall of black smoke. The air was thick with the smell of burned rocket fuel.

Nedelin felt robbed of his opportunity to make his point and then suddenly remembered the Chief’s unfortunate test pilot. “I’m afraid, SP, that you have just lost another future cosmonaut,” Nedelin gloated. The Chief rubbed his chin thoughtfully, but it was difficult to read the expression on his grim, intelligent face.

#

Georgi Petrov had been grumpy all morning. In fact, he’d been grumpy all week. He always got that way when he couldn’t fly. It was as if his mother’s God had made a colossal blunder on the day of his conception, putting the soul of an eagle in the body of a man. He fingered the eagle pendant that hung on a silver chain about his neck. It was the only thing that he had left from his parents and sometimes he imagined his mother’s soul was hidden somewhere inside it. He knew such thoughts weren’t proper for a good communist, but he only ever felt that way when he was grounded. So if Lenin’s ghost wanted Georgi to be a good atheist and sing the Soviet National Anthem, he had to let the eagle soar.

Late that afternoon, Georgi got his wish. Yuri reported in sick with the Russian flu (otherwise known as a vodka hangover), and Georgi was next in line to ride Yangel’s rocket. Officially, it was called the R-16, but Georgi knew it was modeled after secret German rocket designs. He never let politics get in the way of a fast ride, and so far, there was nothing faster than the R-16. With over 500,000 pounds of thrust, it had the potential to launch a man sixty miles above the earth to the very edge of space.

Perhaps Georgi would break a record today, have his name written in the history books. Perhaps there would be a ticker-tape parade awaiting him upon his return. Georgi thought he would cut a fine figure up on the podium in his new, red-striped officer’s uniform. He was not as tall as some of the American astronauts like John Glenn and Alan Shepard, but he was strong and brave. Surely no one would notice the little scar under his chin as the news cameras flashed and Premier Khrushchev presented him with his medal and declared him a Hero of the Soviet Union. Fame, fortune, dreams of a certain unattainable woman — these were the thoughts that swam ebulliently through his mind as he squeezed into his orange flight suit and stepped out onto the tarmac.

There was an unusually large crowd gathered for this flight and Georgi felt a surge of adrenalin as he strode out towards the awaiting R-16. Apparently, some rather important people had arrived at the Cosmodrome in the night and were now watching from the safety of the command bunker. Whatever the final outcome of this flight, Georgi would give them a good show. He stopped before the gantry and saluted in the general direction of the hidden VIPs. It was a gallant gesture, but Georgi figured the occasion called for it. He wondered if anyone inside the bunker appreciated it. Then he turned to ride the elevator to the top of the hundred-foot rocket.

His left hand went unconsciously back to the eagle pendant that hung around his neck. It wasn’t his only talisman. In his other hand, he clutched a tuft of grass – a symbol of the desire of every Russian pilot for a safe return to mother earth. But like Marshal Nedelin who was watching from a safe distance in the command bunker, Georgi was not to have his desires fulfilled tonight.

Ten seconds into the flight and the eight ball was already cockeyed. The inertial guidance system had failed and the R-16 was seven degrees off ballistic trajectory. Georgi knew instantly that the first stage rocket was not producing constant thrust, thus causing the invisible phenomenon of harmonic oscillation. Dangerous vibrations were ripping unseen through the fuselage, weakening its structural integrity and threatening to flatten the hundred-foot ship like a tin can. Twelve seconds in and the section couplings failed. Fourteen seconds and the auxiliary fuel tanks ruptured, leaking highly volatile nitric acid hydrazine. Another few seconds and Georgi would be dead, blown to oblivion with all his dreams of glory left unfulfilled.

Georgi wasn’t about to let that happen.

This wasn’t his first emergency by any means. His mind was clear and his blood was cold. He had an escape plan. It wasn’t an approved plan, and probably wouldn’t even work, but it was a plan, and at the moment, that was all that counted. Georgi had toyed with the idea of sharing the escape contingency with Designer General Yangel in the pre-launch briefing, but had wisely reconsidered. The General would have been appalled by the blatant misuse of his brilliant technology just to save an insignificant pilot. Then his engineers would have locked the controls and Georgi would have been completely helpless. Even now he imagined the heartless engineers estimating his chances of survival at less than five percent.

Fighting the G-forces, Georgi released his restraints and punched out the third stage override. Instantly, he was thrust back into his seat by another powerful surge of acceleration as the third stage rockets fired. The R-16’s first stage megaton booster and second stage rocket separated from the nosecone and then exploded. Georgi felt rather than heard the explosion, the concussion nearly sending him into blackout. He fought it, struggling to orient himself as the damaged craft spun wildly out of control.

The R-16’s third stage payload was a top secret, spacecraft prototype called the Raketoplan. It was designed by Chelomei, one of Yangel’s most promising and eccentric engineers and theoretically capable of orbiting in space and landing on a runway like an airplane. Chelomei had sold his idea to the military long before his prototype had even been built simply by painting a glowing picture of the Raketoplan’s potential to shoot down enemy spy satellites and rule the world from orbit. However, the glorious Raketoplan wasn’t equipped with an ejector seat like the fighter jets that Georgi had flown over the Pacific. The engineers back at Chelomei’s bureau, OKB-52, were of the general opinion that an ejector seat mechanism was just too heavy. It was easier and cheaper to replace a dead pilot than to design an engine with an extra thousand pounds of thrust. But a parachute was light and Georgi never flew without one. It was useless above twenty-five thousand feet, but he wasn’t anywhere near that height at the moment. He wondered vaguely if he ever would be again.

Georgi found the escape hatch release and yanked hard. The circular titanium hatch exploded out and Georgi was thrown free of the cockpit. So much for setting a record tonight, he thought as the Raketoplan drifted away into the night. The winged capsule had an automatic parachute system itself, but it was notoriously unreliable. Georgi wondered if the sleek craft would survive the fall. At least he had given her a chance. Now he had to try and save himself.

In the almost complete darkness of the northern spring, it was impossible to tell how high up he really was. His immediate instinct was to pull the ripcord as soon as possible, but he knew that would be a fatal mistake. He was tumbling violently through the air and would most certainly tangle the chute. He would have to risk a few seconds of freefall to right himself. It was a maneuver that he had done only a few times before and never at this velocity. His eyes stung from the smoke and his tongue tasted acid.

He held out his arms like an eagle spreading its wings. The air rushed against his body like a hurricane. He felt as if his arms would be torn from their sockets. Gradually, his body slowed against the wind. He was still turning slow cartwheels in freefall, but he dared not wait another second. He pulled the ripcord. The chute opened. Georgi grunted as the harness constricted on his chest and took away his air. A few seconds later, he hit the snowy tundra five hundred miles north of Moscow.

“I’d like to speak to the lady. Where is she?”
“I’m here!”
“Are you Hulda?”
“Yes, I am. What brings you here, little girl? Can I see your face?” I seized her by the hood and she shook her head and revealed her face to me.
“I came after my father. Is he alright?”
“Who is your father, young lady?”
“Take me to the warriors’ camp!” She took me by the hand and I had to keep up with her. A man lifted her up and they were both overjoyed and spoke to each other in a mellow language. I shivered with an otherworldly feeling. I must have looked at a loss, for he addressed me all sorts of words, round and sweet shaped.
“I met your brother in the woods and he touched his sheath as a death menace. And in doing this he stirred up love and things in me. , so I told him. And he replied: , I said. So we called ourselves blood brothers and he brought me here.”
Or so I understood from what he spoke. It was as if his words came to me through a veil and barely reached a shore. Yet I needed these words desperately.
“And your lady?” I asked. He looked over his shoulder and he did it so that I swore to myself not to look in that direction again. “Does your father understand what I speak?”
The girl just gazed at me for a while. Then she nodded almost unperceivably or I imagined she nodded, but it was rather a “no” movement. I talked her into staying a few more days with me, so that I could accompany her to the warriors’ camp each morning. My cheeks grew hot as I felt them watching me and thinking.
On coming home my brother met us both. He covered the girl’s ears gently. “You should be more careful, Hulda! I heard rumours…”
“What rumours?”
“That you grew too fond of Kristinn. All our men know he is married”.
“Kristinn… Is that his name?”
“It’s the one I gave to him when we became blood brothers”.
Then there was this dream that kept coming back – I lay in my bed half asleep and I threw a pebble out of the window; a sort of stir woke things up and something landed on my bed in response and took a bite from my flesh. I kept asking my beldam to unriddle the runes for me. “I don’t see his face, dear lady. I see someone else…”
“Try again, try again about Kristinn and me!” Then I said: “Never mind, beldam, it won’t work! I must remember Kristinn is a borrowed name”.
“What difference does it make now? Your heart is already set”.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
I feared my father could be in danger. I promised my mummy to bring him back and I didn’t know why we had to stay here with lady Hulda and her brother. We were among foreigners and I could hardly understand what they said. He had to stay in the camp and we only saw each other a short while during the day. One evening I went to talk to him.
“Father, when will we go home?”
“How was your day? Won’t you look at me and tell me?”
“It was fine… It’s lady Hulda…”
“Lady Hulda… what about her?”
“She puts her hands around her body and she sighs and calls your name…”
He embraced me and said: “Go to your mother and tell her I serve a foreign lady but it’s still her that I love. Tell her I love the lady’s brother and I will leave only if he sets me free”.
“I will go but not tomorrow. She takes me on a carriage trip tomorrow”.
We kissed good-night and I walked out of the tent. I lingered there a while in the growing darkness and when I opened my eyes again I noticed lady Hulda’s fur. I started at the thought that she might be inside with him.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“He’s asleep! I must hurry!” I knelt beside Kristinn and tried to open the locket at his neck. I was afraid I might break one of my nails when it suddenly burst open. He started and rose his sword to my face.
“It’s you! What have you come for?” At least this is what I think he asked me.
“Do you understand what I say?” I asked him. Kristinn gave no answer, so my eyes fell on the picture inside the locket. “Is she your wife? Do you love her?” He whispered a name I had never heard of, it sounded so far away… fairest… she was the fairest among them… he had known women before and women after her. “Can I sleep here with you tonight? Kristinn…” He looked me in the eyes. “What’s your real name?” I couldn’t help looking at his lips though he kept them tightly closed. Then I turned and lay myself beside him. He leant on his elbow and I felt him awake and watching over me until the thread of my thoughts got blurred. I wouldn’t fall asleep, I was afraid he might disappear. Sleep was the shameless thief. It circled me until I surrendered.
In the morning I found Kristinn in the same position, still looking at me. “You didn’t leave me!” I said. I took his sword and cut out a stripe of my hair. Then I put it into his locket carefully. Kristinn caught my hand and pressed his lips on my wrist. “Today I’ll take her on a journey in the carriage ”, I said. “The carriage…” he repeated and there was more in his voice than before.
We stepped outside and found the little girl asleep and wrapped in my fur. Kristinn took her in his arms and carried her to bed. He sang a lullaby in their mellow language, yet I found it somewhat sad.
I dozed off while the carriage was gliding like a flake. She put both her arms around me and remained awake. She was a little scared. I woke up with a shudder when the carriage suddenly stopped. “What is it?” I asked. “Foxes!” the girl cried out. They hemmed us in, grinning at the horses.
“No!” she cried. “Why did you step out?”
“Give me your hand and step out! If they bite the horses they will break loose and tear the carriage to pieces!”
The pack was slowly approaching. One of them headed for a horse leg, so I hurried and took the girl out of the carriage before it rushed past. Out of all foxes, one stepped forward and grinned and it had a sort of stately attitude about it.
“Say you’ll marry him!” she cried. “Tell the fox you’ll marry him!”
“No! No, I won’t! I won’t! Are you out of your mind?”
“Say you’ll marry the fox or else they rip us apart!”
I kept my eyes closed. “Kristinn… Kristinn, where are you? Do you hear me?” I cried in my mind.
“Say it once!” she cried.
“I’ll marry you, fox! I’ll marry you!”
Hardly had I finished my words when the pack vanished out of sight and the carriage was back with all the horses in perfect shape. On our return Kristinn was waiting for us and the child ran into his arms.
“Were you in danger, my lady?”
“I called you, Kristinn! Didn’t you hear me?” Then I remembered this wasn’t his name. “I must marry the fox”. Kristinn went on playing with his daughter. “I must marry the fox, Kristinn!”
“Lady Hulda marries grandpa the fox!” the girl said, clapping her hands.
“Why are you so happy?” I asked.
“My father can come back home! He is free!”
“I am not free until my blood brother says so”. Kristinn looked at me and cast down his eyes. “Or if my lady is forced to marry”.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
They were all worried, lady Hulda and her beldam, my father and his blood brother. They gathered in a small room and told me to go and play elsewhere. Instead I hid myself behind the long curtains and listened to them.
“The fox you must marry is my father-in-law who is a cunning spirit.”
Lady Hulda looked puzzled and helpless because she had to guess the meaning. Her brother said something, then Lady Hulda as well and the beldam stared at them all this time. She threw down the runes and began to unscramble them. Suddenly someone stepped forward from behind a wall and his face was hidden.
“Go away and leave us alone!”
“Are you a spirit?” my father asked.
“Yes”, he answered.
“Is it you, father-in-law?”
“No, I’m not your father-in-law. I’ve come to help you”.
Then the lady’s brother said something like: “You were not invited”.
“I can fool the fox into marrying me”.
“I don’t trust you”, my father said.
“Then come with me and we’ll both go to his house”, the spirit said.
Lady Hulda knelt before her brother and begged him. I didn’t understand much but I was sure she wanted to go to grandpa’s house with them.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“Take good care of her and of yourself!” my brother said. “It hurts me that you have to leave. I know you’ll meet your beloved wife again”.
“Oh, brother”, I said to myself, “you know those two words are pointed and sharp and they grieve you as much as they grieve me. Why did you let them out?”
“How about me?” the girl said running to us.
“Your father comes back quickly and he told me to look after you while he is away”. He took her in his arms: “Go now! He’s waiting for you outside”.
Kristinn rode with me behind the spirit. They both knew the way to his father-in-law but Kristinn ordered him to take the woods path. After a while the spirit drew closer to him.
“I’m sorry, my lord, I’m afraid I can’t remember your name”.
“That is because I didn’t say it”.
“Well… and…”
“Kristinn. My name is Kristinn”.
“It is true that nobody can harm you by any other name than yours… and nobody can bless you either”.
Kristinn didn’t answer, instead he pressed his sword into the sheath. The night had begun to drip like moist silver from the top of the trees and I felt already dizzy. A cold shiver went down my spine as I looked at Kristinn, just like the first time I saw him. I felt like I was an open book to him, since I was too tired to get hold of myself. When he glanced at me I understood that anything like having a rest was an outmost danger, yet he told us to stop.
I felt my flesh still aroused in the morning and tried to hide my burning cheeks in both hands. Kristinn noticed the fresh scars on my breast. I moved my hand towards him and then back towards me to make him remember we had been together. Kristinn then looked at our companion and called him from his distant corner. As the spirit walked to meet us, he uncovered his thigh and I recognized the sword wound I had caressed during the night. Kristinn asked something and said my name. In a twinkling of the eye I saw my face fallen at my feet.
“Kristinn!” He looked up and smiled. Then he grabbed the head and glued it back to its trunk. We freed the horse and wrapped the spirit in my fur, then Kristinn bound him to his horse. At his sign I moved in front of him and we rode on.
“Our hearts are like the woods, lady Hulda. The first unknown traveler who appears is the one we love.” No spell could have marred these words, while everything else around was blurred.
Kristinn put the dormant spirit into the arms of his father-in-law. “Lady Hulda is merely sleeping.” I heard the plates and the glasses downstairs and later someone’s steps toward my hiding place.
“So you are the lady!” She spoke with clear words to me.
“Don’t hurt me, please!”
“Now don’t be foolish! I may be sly like my father but I’ve got nothing of his wickedness. And why should I harm you when you are already wounded?” She took the locket out of her sleeve and opened it. My hair stripe was inside. Suddenly my head rested on her bosom. It was warm and comforting and it smelled like nothing earthly smells.
“Go on”, she said while playing with my hair, “you may cry as long as you wish, beautiful lady. And when you are over, remember you are young and you will fall in love again.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“Good morning, dear sister! I heard you crying in your sleep. Your cheeks are still wet.”
“Was Kristinn here?”
“No, you must have dreamt. I set him free.”
“I know. He told me to remind you he did love you. And that we must not think of him again.”