Satellite

by Nick Lake

  “& u must be the little astronaut,” he says—it could sound patronizing but somehow it’s not. “the 1 we are shooting into space.”

  “um, yes,” i say. “i’m Leo, hi.” i put out my hand to shake his.

  he laughs, & swats my hand away like it’s a fly, then he picks me up, just lifts me off the ground & squeezes me tight.

  “watch it,” says Grandpa. “his bone mass is—”

  “damn, i forgot,” says Yuri. he releases his hold & lowers me gently to the ground. he claps Grandpa on the back. “it’s shit-good to c u, Freeman,” he says. “i thought i would not c u in body again. just on screen.”

  “u too,” says Grandpa. “u haven’t changed at all.”

  Yuri grabs a handful of his belly. he’s wearing a thin shirt & a furry hat & no jacket; i can’t believe he’s not freezing. “nonsense,” he says. “i am becoming fat & wobbly like blammidge.”

  “blammidge?” says Grandpa.

  “blammage. blammanch?” says Yuri. “dessert. wobble wobble.”

  “oh, blancmange!” says Grandpa.

  Yuri pulls an expression. “u are saying i look like blancmange?”

  “no, no, i was—”

  Yuri roars with laughter. “i fuck with u,” he says. he produces an e-cig from his pants pocket & puts it in his mouth. then he turns to me. “ur grandfather & i, we had many missions together. many months in space. when u are like this with another person, pissing in suction tubes next to each other, for samples, it makes u close.”

  “um, yeah,” i say. it’s true tho. i think for a second of Orion, of Libra, then i chase the thought from my mind.

  “me & Freeman,” says Yuri. “piss brothers. for life.”

  “piss brothers?” says Grandpa. “wonderful.”

  Yuri rolls his eyes. “now, we go to cosmodrome, yes? it is maybe 1 hour drive. i will take u in my car.”

  Grandpa eyes the jeep. significant portions of the bodywork are missing. 1 tire looks very flat. there is rust all down the sides. “this thing?” he says.

  “Russian engineering,” says Yuri. “in better shape than it looks. same with our old rockets.”

  “well, i really hope so,” says Grandpa.

  Yuri shakes his head. “i don’t need hope,” he says. “i have luck. always.” he winks at me. “ask ur grandfather. i am lucky. lucky charm.”

  Grandpa smiles at me. “he’s pretty lucky,” he says.

  “the most lucky,” says Yuri. “& now u are here again. even luckier! so. let’s ride.” he opens the door & ushers us in, the 2 of them lifting me in to the backseat, then slinging the crutches into the rear of the car. Grandpa gets into the front next to his old friend, & Yuri puts the car in gear & drives jerkily off.

  soon we leave the runway behind. there’s a guard post & a gate topped with barbed wire, but the men with Kalashnikovs who guard it seem to know Yuri & wave him thru. we bump onto a rough road that leads away from the airport, into the blank land that lies around it. i feel alternately sweaty & shivery—my body doesn’t seem to be able to adjust to the cold.

  i look out the window as we drive. i feel dislocated, discombobulated, disorientated, disarmed. everything i feel begins with dis. less than 48 hours ago i was in a facility on a mountain in Alaska & now i’m in Kazakhstan, in an old Russian jeep, on a road that is barely a road, in a landscape wiped clean by wind & snow, pockets of which lie whitely & thickly here & there in the sand.

  we drive, & it is as if we are not driving, because nothing about the world around us changes—there are mountains somewhere in the distance, a gray smudge on the skyline, but we come no closer to them, only rattle across desert.

  minutes pass.

  more.

  finally a space begins to open up in front of us, an impression of the land dropping away, & the road starts to curve, gently at first & then more steeply, & i realize that we’re following the course of a river that is below us & to the left, in a shallow ravine. on the other side of the river, the desert continues, as if the river was only a brief distraction in its endless story of sand & low bushes & patches of snow.

  Yuri points out his window.

  “the Syr Darya,” he says. “only water we have around here.” i c the slow, wide river flowing black as ink thru the flat Kazakh landscape. there are few trees: everything seems blasted, scoured—a desert in the true sense of the word. i notice an animal wandering along the course of the river, looking miserable. its own breath clouds above it. it’s far away, i can’t quite make it out.

  “what’s that?” i say.

  “camel,” says Yuri, when he sees what i’m pointing at.

  “wow,” i say. “i thought pretty much all the wild animals were extinct.”

  “not camels,” says Yuri. “camels are too fucking stubborn to die. my granddad raised them & i always hated them. stupid vorchuny.”

  “vorchuny?” i say.

  “like, grumpy people,” says Grandpa.

  “people?”

  “well, camels in this case,” says Grandpa.

  i watch the river as we pass it. the glassy surface. “lots of water too,” i say.

  “yes but cold,” says Yuri. “when people fall in, they die.” he laughs. “sometimes other people jump in to help them. they die too. hypothermia.”

  cheerful, i think.

  Grandpa leans over & whispers something to Yuri.

  Yuri shuts up.

  he told him about Orion, i think. & i feel oddly embarrassed, like my friend-brother-whatever’s death is something to be ashamed of, & then i feel ashamed in turn of that burning sensation in my cheeks, & i lean against the window, feel the cold of it against my forehead, the smoothness of the glass.

  the desert unfolds itself before us, a constant rolling carpet of thin scrubby grass & sand.

  gradually, a city comes into view. first a sketch of shapes on the horizon—blocks, rectangles, towers—& then resolving into huge buildings, cranes, houses.

  “Baikonur cosmodrome,” says Yuri.

  & i realize it’s not a city; it’s a rocket center. this whole town, growing as we approach it, is constructed around the old launch sites that used to be here. then the great space city is around us, warehouses & what look like apartment buildings flashing past on either side, & i wonder how many people must have lived here last century, when the space race was at its peak, & when the ISS was being built.

  there are very few people here now tho: the odd rusting car, a man huddled in scarves limping along the road, packs of stray dogs roaming the streets, dust blowing in the wind. i breathe into my hands, to warm them.

  we drive right thru. over to our left, i c a tall gantry-like structure that may once have been a T-shaped rig a rocket would be attached to before liftoff. there’s a train station of some kind too, abandoned cargo containers on tracks, big flatbeds that would have taken equipment where it was needed. weeds grow between the railroad ties.

  then the city is gone, & we’re past it.

  Yuri keeps going.

  “we’re not stopping?” says Grandpa.

  “we’re going somewhere else,” says Yuri.

  “where?”

  “u’ll c,” says Yuri. “trust me.”

  Yuri doesn’t say anything more—just keeps his hands on the wheel. the road is long & flat & poorly maintained. the occasional shack flicks past the windows. everything seems forgotten, left behind, the whole road & outbuildings & poor run-down houses like toys discarded in a playroom no one has visited in years.

  there’s a forest, ahead. dark, thru the windshield. tall pine trees. they are the first really big trees i have seen, & we’re basically in a desert, which makes me think they were planted for a reason. Yuri turns off the main road & onto a rougher 1, which curves toward the forest, & it fills the windshield & then we’re in it, suddenly plunged into shadow & shade, the temperature in the car lowering another degree & i put my hands under my arms.

  trees press in on either side.

  Gra
ndpa turns to me & shrugs. he doesn’t know what’s going on either.

  ahead, the road, & the woods flanking it. a knife of light thru the forest.

  then there’s a sense of a clearing ahead, & tall concrete walls, & then Yuri pulls into a cracked parking lot & stops & i peer out of my window, then open the door & look out & catch my breath.

  in front of us is the biggest structure i have ever seen. a hangar of some sort. it is a kind of monumental rectangle, gray, blocky. it dwarfs any of the buildings at the base in Nevada, makes Mountain Dome look like an architect’s model. i have to get out of the car to c the top of it, high up in the sky, skyscraper high.

  “300 ft.,” says Yuri, coming to stand next to me, seeing me looking up. i am leaning on the car door, keeping most of my weight on my good foot. “& 500 ft. on side. it rains in there, sometimes.”

  “it rains? in a building?”

  “yes. it’s so big that it has its own weather systems. water turns to vapor, rises when the sun heats the lower sections of the metal walls. condenses in the cool above. it needs to be very large. in here is where we stored the things we didn’t want the others to know about, during the space race.”

  Grandpa is staring up at it too. “it’s massive. how could we not have known? this thing must be pretty visible to a spy plane.”

  “u knew, i think,” says Yuri. “but u didn’t care. u knew we would run out of money & then—kaput—no more space program.”

  “which is what happened,” i say.

  “yes. until glasnost & then the ISS anyway,” says Yuri. “then we began to work together. but there are still…secrets in here.”

  i look at the enormous, mind-bendingly large building. i can imagine it.

  “come on, then,” says Yuri. “let’s go in.”

  he walks toward the hangar, & Grandpa & i follow. it rears up like a cliff above us, as we near it. ahead of us there’s a surprisingly small door, riveted metal, set into the long side of the rectangular shape, tho i notice that the entire end wall of the building is on some kind of huge wheel runners—so that it can slide open & let out whatever is inside.

  Yuri goes to a new-looking keypad next to the door & taps in a code, then presses his thumb to a screen. there’s a chunk, & then the door swings open. we go inside. we don’t go right into the hangar tho. there’s a steel wall in front of us; we’re in a small stairwell, cobwebbed. Yuri hits a switch next to him & lights flicker on overhead, fluorescent tube lights. stairs lead up to the right, shiny silver metal, lozenged with raised shapes, for grip.

  “up,” says Yuri.

  he leads the way. Grandpa takes my crutches under his arm & offers me his shoulder, to lean on.

  we climb.

  switch back.

  climb some more.

  my breath comes hard & labored, my heart thudding. sweating even harder now. i remember climbing the stairs with Soto, back in Nevada. it feels like a lifetime ago. i start shaking, like a shiver that doesn’t stop. weird.

  we come to another door, which seems like it must open into the hangar, but higher up. Yuri enters another code, his thumbprint again. the door shushes open & we step thru.

  & my breath stalls again, in my throat.

  we’re on a kind of platform, steel mesh, so u can c thru tiny holes to the bare concrete floor 100 ft. below. my head spins dizzily. i look up: the gray steel roof still seems cloud-height above us. birds wheel, cawing, away from walkways & rigging, black swatches of silk in the wind, screeching, turning & flapping & then settling, on bars & steps farther away.

  crisscrossing the space, extending from the platform we are standing on, halfway between the ground & the roof, are gangways, metal bridges spanning the void.

  & suspended, propped up on great structures of tubes & cinder blocks, smeared with dust, the gangways surrounding them to give access to their doors & engines & panels, dripping crow-shit & lit by sharp columns of light spearing down from plastic lights in the roof far, far above, are…shuttles.

  space shuttles.

  sleek, massive objects like airplanes, but bigger, & with rocket engines at their rears.

  3 of them, laid out in a row.

  i’m in a building big enough to have its own weather, & dust hangs in the light all around me, & there are 3 space shuttles the size of small apartment buildings in here, rust-stained & worn by age.

  “Jesus,” says Grandpa. “part of me didn’t really believe it.”

  Yuri sweeps a hand, proprietorial. “the Burans,” he says. “the name means snowstorm. developed at end of space race, as a competitor to ur shuttle. but shelved when democracy came.”

  Grandpa frowns at them. at least 1 of them is missing a wing. there are open panels with wires poking out. rust everywhere. an engine has fallen off 1 of them, & lies in a pile of broken scaffolding & dust on the ground.

  “we’re taking 1 of these?” he says.

  Yuri laughs. “no,” he says. he points to the far end of the building, to our right. “u are good with distances, Freeman,” he says. “does that look like 600 ft. to u?”

  Grandpa squints. we’re looking along the wall of the building, to where it ends in a sheet of steel at the end. he whispers to himself, his finger moves, as he counts along the gangway that runs from where we stand all along the wall, ticking off the ft. under his breath.

  “no,” he says. “more like 400.”

  “correct,” says Yuri. “follow.”

  he sets off down the gangway, & we follow. we walk for what seems like a long time, my leg aching, my lungs rasping, but i feel like i can’t complain. we pass 1 of the Burans, its conical nose almost within touching distance at 1 point—we can c thru the big wraparound windshield, to the shadowed darkness inside, an impression of seats & instruments.

  i trudge on, the pain in my leg bad now, gravity dragging at me, wanting to pull me thru the hard mesh rattling walkway to the ground below.

  Grandpa turns, sees that i’m struggling, & falls back. “u ok?”

  i suck in breath. nod. but my leg has turned to an iron rod, & i can’t bend my knee.

  “no,” i say eventually. “too tired.”

  we’re only halfway along the walkway. Yuri & Grandpa exchange a look, don’t even talk to each other, employ some kind of astronaut ESP. then Grandpa says, “hold ur crutches.”

  i gather them into 1 hand, concentrate on not toppling over.

  then Grandpa & Yuri get a hand under each of my arms, 1 of them on either side of me, & suddenly i’m in the air & they move forward, carrying me between them, so it’s as if i’m floating along the gangway—if u green-screened them out i’d be levitating, moving smoothly thru the air. the noise of their feet on the floor dims out; it’s like my ears are blocked, as if by pressure change. there’s a distance in my vision too, like everything, the whole world, has taken a step back.

  before long, we are past the other Burans & at the end of the hangar. in front of us is another door, another code panel beside it. Yuri taps it. thumbs it. it opens, & there is darkness beyond.

  Yuri steps thru.

  Grandpa & i follow. me on my crutches.

  Yuri swings down a small lever on the wall.

  & the floodlights come on.

  “holy shit,” says Grandpa.

  it stands before us.

  we’re in a circular space, built within the walls of the rectangular hangar, i guess—a hidden compartment at the extremity of that vast building that is itself the size & height of a skyscraper laid on its side.

  the walkway curves to the right & to the left, hugging, bracketing a cylinder of air that stretches dizzyingly from the ground to the roof, like:

  ( )

  & we are at the bottom end of the parentheses, looking into the column.

  but it’s not an empty column of air.

  at various points, like the spokes of a wheel, the walkway forks inward, allowing access to the center of the vertical hall, where it stands, its tip almost touching the roof.

 
; birds rustle, somewhere in the shadows, high above.

  somewhere near the tip.

  because it’s a rocket. a Soyuz rocket—i recognize it immediately. toward the end of the ISS, after NASA scrapped the shuttle program & before the Company took over, it was the only way for astronauts to reach the space station.

  i walk to the railing in front of us, & lean over, & look down.

  80 ft. below, the tail fins fan out, the thrusters below them, unseen.

  i look up.

  the rocket tapers as it reaches up to the artificial metal sky.

  i notice some things.

  i notice it’s clean. no bird crap. no streaks of rust.

  i notice the walkways are gleaming.

  i notice there are no missing panels, no wires protruding. it’s sleek, & smooth, & complete.

  “how many people are still working at the base?” says Grandpa.

  “enough,” says Yuri.

  “& they’ll help us?”

  Yuri smiles. “they will be happy to.”

  Grandpa shakes his head in disbelief. “we’re going to just help ourselves to a Soyuz & fly up to space?”

  Yuri shrugs. “that’s always been the plan, no?”

  Grandpa shakes his head. “the plan was a Buran. a shuttle. take off like a plane, orbit a bit, dock. easy. a 2-man job.”

  “well…,” says Yuri, “i may have misled u slightly. telephones can always be monitored, yes? the Burans are fucked. more rust than metal. we cannot fly them.”

  “we can’t fly a Soyuz either!” says Grandpa. “it’s a goddamned rocket.”

  “we have done it before, have we not?”

  “yes, but then we had NASA behind us. ur space agency. ground crews. governmental support.”

  Yuri taps his nose. “u are not the only ones who have problem with the Company,” he says. “with the monopoly.”

  “so who’s going to help us? & when do we go?” i say.

  Yuri makes a teeter-totter gesture with his hands. “i am working on it,” he says. “making calls. but first we find beds. have food. sleep. then we do logistics.”

  Grandpa takes a step forward, grips the rail with his hands. he leans closer to the rocket, almost seems to breathe it in. he has a faraway look in his eye, his mouth has twitched up at the edges, at the corners.