Assignment - Mara Tirana (17 page)

The one-ton mushroom bell had floated down on its parachute apparatus at the same angle of descent as the slope of a gravel spill at the head of the ravine, and the rock slide it had started on impact was already darkened by the recent rains into a similarity of appearance with the other slopes. Rugged pines grew here, and their green upper limbs formed a canopy over the shattered brush below. It was as if the capsule had slid conveniently into a tunnel for camouflage. Only the most direct air search could spot this place, he had thought. And it was doubtful if any humans passed this place in the craggy mountains more than once a year.

The parachutes had been gathered up by Jamak and Lissa long before, and buried under the pines. The escape hatch, opened by explosive bolts, stood open in the shadows. Adam felt strange, viewing the wreck. This vehicle had soared into the voids of space, and the scarred metal, the rust-like color, a result of the heat that had melted part of the special skin of one-sixteenth alloy of nickel, chrome, and steel, made the wreck seem tragic in its twisted silence. The capsule was surprisingly small—not more than ten feet long and six feet wide. The interior contained a plastic, crush-able couch, against the broad “screen” face of what might have been a huge TV tube. The couch was only two feet wide, providing what the NASA team had facetiously termed his “living space.”

But packed inside the bell was over two hundred pounds of instrumentation. The damage was surprisingly slight, even with the shock endured during the emergency re-entry program.

Lissa helped him unload the tapes and miniaturized instruments. She had been impressed by what she saw when she peered through the hatch.

“All this equipment,” she commented. “You had to watch all these dials and instruments? And this strange seat for you—”

He explained what he could of the capsule control system and the electronic controls to maintain capsule altitude during flight. These were the first tapes he rescued, since it was here that the failure had begun. Crouching inside the narrow space, he disconnected the telemetry system, the radio beacon, and indicated for Lissa the system of gyroscopes and reaction jets by which the initial orbit had been achieved.

“The Space Task Force boys calculated over 126 separate measurements for environmental control alone,” he told her. She reached down through the hatch for the instruments as he detached them, using the tools provided inside for disconnecting cables and tapes. “Temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition—it’s all here. Anyway, I survived,” he grinned.

“Could you—see what it’s like up there?” Lissa asked.

“A little. I had this periscope that worked for both navigation and viewing on this eight-inch screen.” He pointed it out among the complex litter of instruments. It had been hot and cramped inside the bell, and his leg gave him difficulty. Eventually, he yielded and let Lissa go in to finish securing the recorded tape data under his direction. Her smaller size made it easier to disassemble what was needed.

“With all this,” she said, her brown eyes sober, “how did you go wrong and come down here?”

“That’s what the lab boys will find out, back home —if we can get this stuff out to them. The automatic reentry system failed, you see. When I was at orbital altitude, I could see over 1,700 nautical miles on the earth, on that screen—or so the engineers told me. There were filters I could swing and interchange to measure the angle of the rising sun, and indices to measure the capsule’s relation to the earth and its pitch and yaw. It let me calculate the bell’s proper position when I fired the retrograde rockets manually, for re-entry, and I could watch the parachute deployment, too, through the periscope screen. Besides—” He paused, seeing her confused smile. “I’m sorry, Lissa. It gets technical, and I’ve lived with this stuff in training for over three years.”

“No, it—you’re different, when you talk about the flight.”

“I guess I’m just glad to be alive,” he said.

All at once, he had wanted to get away from the sad wreckage of that shiny vehicle in which he had soared to the stars. Its streaked, heat-rusted metal, cracked and cratered and crumpled, had an air of desolation that made him shiver. “Let’s get away from here,” he had said. . . .

They had returned to the hut by evening. The miniaturized instruments were now hidden in the hayloft of the stone bam. The tapes and cameras had not proved too much for Lissa and himself to pack through the mountain gorges back to the hut. But that night, Lissa returned to Viajec.

“I must go now,” she explained. “There are sick people waiting for my attention, and there is no one to do my work. Besides, Petar Medjan will come back here if I stay on Zara Dagh.”

He felt a sudden anxiety for her. “I don’t like your being down there with him.”

“Do not worry about me, Adam.”

She had smiled, touching his cheek in an oddly tender gesture. Something good had grown between them on the long hike to the wrecked capsule. She had laughed and sung peasant songs in a throaty, captivating voice. When she returned to Viajec, he knew she could cope with Petar Medjan, yet he felt a helpless anger as he watched her slim, proud figure move down the trail and out of sight. Her life held little joy. And he felt an overwhelming desire to do everything for her, to make her laugh and sing always.

He had spent the night in an agony of worry over her.

Twice he awoke to the thunder of jet search planes overhead. The second time, he went outside and found Jamak staring off to the north, where the sky was artificially bright with magnesium flares.

“They search for you now,” the old man murmured grimly.

“Lissa and I covered things up pretty well. I don’t think they’ll find the capsule this way.”

“Lissa is brave and clever—not like Gija, who rushes into things like a bull, confident his strength will carry everything with him. I wish Gija were clever, like Lissa.

But he is not,” the old man said. “With my older son, it was different. Giurgiu was like a fox, but he fell into a political snare here. We should have stayed in America. But he was determined to be a big man, eh? He learned that no man stands taller in the grave than his neighbor.” Jamak sighed and stared to the north. The flares were dying, and the dark mountains melted back into the night. “What will you do with Lissa?” he asked quietly. “She put herself in great danger for you. But when you go, if all is lucky for you, what will happen to her?”

“Perhaps you can all come with me,” Adam said abruptly.

“How could such a thing be done?”

“I don’t know yet,” Adam said.

He looked down into the dark valley of Viajec and wondered about Lissa and felt a sharp, strong ache for her that made him shiver.

She brought a portable radio back when she returned the next day, and it carried home the enormity of the hunt for Adam Stepanic. He was world-famous now, the object of infinite speculation, accusation, and counter-accusation.

The State Department’s note demanding his release with the instruments was summarily rejected by Moscow. Voices were raised in the U.N. about him, but Adam knew that his only hope for rescue lay with Gija.

On the next day they saw troops moving across the valley in a cordon that meant a careful search. Apparently the location of the capsule had been narrowed to a degree that inspired this effort. Adam’s feeling of being trapped grew deeper. There was no word from Gija. And it was only a matter of time until they focused on this mountain, Adam thought. He decided he could not wait for help that might never come.

“The best thing is to get out now, rather than sit around like this,” he told Lissa. “The Turkish border is the best bet, I think.”

“It is over two hundred miles away. You could not walk so far, with your leg, and you do not know the language, you have no papers—” Lissa took a deep breath and turned away. The sky was a tumble of dark clouds over the peak of Zara Dagh. “We could use Jamak’s horse and cart, however.” She paused again. “Do you want me with you?”

“I need you,” he said simply. “The old people will come, too.”

She looked doubtful. “There are many back roads, but the peasants are suspicious, and there are also many police posts. But it could be done. If we are caught—”

“Every hour we stay here makes it more dangerous,” he insisted.

But it was Jamak who made them wait one more day for word from Gija. It rained that night, and the wind lashed wildly at the stone house. Adam worked in the barn with Lissa, getting the old cart ready and loading the canvas-wrapped electronic gear from the capsule. Later, when the old people were asleep, they remained in the barn, drinking hot, bitter coffee. They spoke very little. They had not mentioned the time in the pine woods when he had made love to her, and he felt this was intolerable. When she finally turned to go, he caught her arm.

“Lissa, we must talk about things.”

“Not here.”

“It doesn’t matter about here, or what happened here.” “Please,” she whispered. “Do not speak of anything. I was foolish to think about you. When you first came here, my attitude toward you was the correct one—to consider you simply as a danger to us all. But you were different from what I expected. I thought all Americans were so strong. But you were not so, when I first saw you, and I—I wanted to help you—”

He wanted to tell her he loved her. The words leaped to his tongue and were checked there. She would not believe him. The wind struck impotently at the stone bam, but inside the air was warm and heavy with the scent of animals and hay. Lissa suddenly made a small sound and clung to him feverishly. Her body was firm and alive in his embrace. “Adam, not here—not where Medjan—”

“Nothing happened to you herel” he said fiercely. “Nothing!”

He stopped her protests with a kiss. They were drank with the imminent discovery of each other, moving with staggering steps to the warmth and sweetness of the haymow. They clung to each other as if drowning, and she slid down against him with a quick, muffled cry.

“Yes, you are right,” she whispered intensely. “It must be here in this place, or I can never forget—”

He took her gently. Her body was quick and smooth and lithe, cupped against him in satiny fervor. It happened explosively, beyond control. Like drowning, Adam thought dimly, at the miracle of contact. And like awakening. And afterward, they burrowed deeper into the hay and he told her he loved her. She only shook her head and smiled.

“Say nothing now, darling. It was enough, these few minutes—everything to me. It finishes one thing, it begins another.”

“I’m taking you back to the States with me,” he said. Her eyes were sad. “You are foolish, Adam. But perhaps that is why I love you. . . .”

The rain stopped in the morning, and a cold wave froze a silvery sheath on the pines and hardened the earth until it rang like iron. With the first light, the old man hitched up the two-wheeled cart. Adam hid under the hay strewn in back, with the canvas-wrapped instruments. Lissa sat between the old people on the driving board. Jelenka had baked bread and cut ham to provision them for a week.

There was also the rifle—an ancient, long-barreled gun of Turkish make, a relic of the Ottoman hegemony; there were only a dozen cartridges for it, preserved for a long time. The old man had dug it up from under the tiles behind the stove.

“We are not permitted to have weapons,” he said. “But I bought this from the peasant who owned the stone hut before us.”

Lissa did not want to take the gun. “What good will it do? If we are stopped, that will be the end of it, anyway.”

“It makes me feel less helpless,” old Jamak said.

For the first part of the journey, Adam could look out from his hiding place in the cart and see the wild mountain gorges of the valley of Viajec. The wind was bitterly cold. The old horse picked his way gingerly down the rough road, and the cart creaked and jolted on its springless axle. Jamak kept up a constant murmur of encouragement to the animal, his breath pluming in the icy air.

In an hour they rattled across the bridge into Viajec. Now Adam heard voices, a sharp ringing command, the tramp of booted feet, the distant roar of a motorcycle. They were ordered to halt in the marketplace, but it was only a routine check, and Lissa was well known. She explained in a calm voice that they were going to the next village to look for more customers for Jamak’s wood. Adam huddled, tense, in his hiding place, expecting instant discovery. But they were ordered on their way.

The cart rattled over cobblestones, then rolled more easily on the paved road to the south. The chill air bit into the hay where Adam lay, and he began to shiver violently. It seemed forever before they were clear of the village, but not more than twenty minutes passed before Lissa called him softly. The cart halted. He shook off the covers and got out clumsily, stiffened by the cold.

They were in a narrow ravine, with the river rushing along one side of the road and a sheer rock wall towering over the other. The sound of the river filled the air with thunder. Adam stamped his feet to restore circulation and looked at the old couple and Lissa.

“What is it?” he asked.

Lissa shrugged. “Jamak is worried. Corporal Nagatov went by on his motorcycle a few moments ago. Did you hear it?”

“Yes, but what of it?”

“We told him we were going to Hanat to sell wood, remember?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Hanat is in the other direction, you see. If he remembers—” Lissa paused. “Well, Jamak thinks we ought to turn back.”

“We can’t go back,” Adam said. “We’ve only just started.”

“Corporal Nagatov is ambitious and clever,” Jamak said. “I did not like the look on his face as he passed us.”

“That was minutes ago,” Adam objected. “He’d have stopped us then, if he suspected anything.”

“Perhaps he will realize it and come back soon,” Lissa said.

Adam was dismayed. “Look, how far is it to the Danube?”

“We will reach it tomorrow,” Lissa explained. “And each mile we go makes it more difficult to explain ourselves. There is a new bridge we can use, but after that the people will be even more suspicious of strangers. Jamak has papers he kept from long ago, when Giurgiu was in office, and perhaps they will help us if people don’t notice the dates.”