A Step Beyond

by Christopher K Anderson

Vladimir released the vial of vodka and ran his fingers through the tiny curled hairs of his beard. “Do you like it?” he asked. The hair was short and tangled and grew in patches.

  Endicott nodded and permitted a slight smile to appear on his lips.

  “Ah, you are lying. But no matter. I like you. Too bad you cannot share vodka with me. We could get drunk together. Yes?”

  “I’m not entirely unprepared.” Endicott produced a bottle of liquor from beneath the screen. “Medicinal purposes, of course.”

  “What is it you have there? I cannot make out the label.” “Cognac,” Endicott replied.

  “You are a resourceful man, Dr. Endicott,” Vladimir said, grinning with approval. “I like that. To your health, then.”

  They raised their respective containers in the air—Vladimir tapped his against the monitor screen—and brought them to their lips. Endicott took a small sip but made certain not to withdraw his bottle before Vladimir.

  “Now we can talk,” Vladimir announced. There was a moment of silence as he contemplated his next words. His left hand was rubbing the short hairs of his beard. “They should have never put her on the same ship as him.”

  Endicott nodded to indicate he understood.

  “He has an insatiable appetite for women. They are like candy to him. He eats them one right after another, pop, pop, pop. I don’t blame him. He is a great test pilot and cosmonaut, a national hero, he can take liberties not permitted other men. It’s my misfortune that the only woman available is my wife. I should have known Tatiana would be his next victim. His reputation is well founded. My wife, you see, she could tempt the pope himself into sin. It’s not him I blame. It is her. She is the guilty one. She is the one who has vowed to be faithful to me for as long as she lives. She has broken faith with me, not him. She has lied to me.”

  “You are certain, then, that she has broken faith?” Endicott asked. He was careful to use the same words Vladimir had used.

  “I can see it in her eyes. I can see it in the way she talks to me. Yet she still loves me. She lies to protect me. Isn’t that why we all lie? We lie because we love each other; it is the only way love can be sustained.”

  “I don’t know if I can accept that.”

  “I am not asking you to. Perhaps I have generalized too much. Perhaps you are right. No matter, let us drink.”

  The hot liquid burned Endicott’s throat, and despite his moderate sips he was already beginning to feel its effects. Rather than fight its influence, which was his initial reaction, he decided he would get further with Vladimir if he at least seemed drunk. With that thought he open his throat and allowed several ounces to drop down it. The liquid, which burned the moment it hit his tongue, somehow got itself trapped between his throat and stomach, and the muscles that normally sent everything to his stomach were caught in a spasm of indecision. His eyes widened and filled with tears. He started to choke. Not wanting to lose face in front of Vladimir, he clamped his teeth shut and fought his body’s instinctive reaction to reject the liquid. Nearly a minute passed before he had regained his composure.

  “Cognac, you say,” Vladimir remarked. “It is not as easy to drink as vodka.”

  “It’s been a while,” Endicott offered in explanation. “Where were we?”

  “Faith.”

  “Ah, yes. She has broken faith. The question I keep asking myself is, what should I do?”

  Endicott felt his pulse quicken as he considered how he should respond. He had been instructed to reassure Vladimir that Tatiana was not having an affair. But he knew doing so would only anger Vladimir and destroy the trust that he was attempting to establish.

  “Perhaps you should not judge her so harshly,” Endicott said. An eternity passed while Endicott gazed down at the bottle in his hands. He wondered how much Vladimir would drink that night and when his seemingly endless source of vodka would run out.

  “How do you mean?”

  Endicott noticed that Vladimir’s voice had lost some of its bitterness. He took it as a hopeful sign.

  “Assuming there has been an affair . . . I’m not entirely convinced there has been, but, for the sake of argument, let’s say there has been . . . then, clearly, Dmitri was the pursuer.”

  “She has been unfaithful.”

  “My point is that she did not bring it about.”

  “But she has been unfaithful all the same.”

  “Perhaps Dmitri is the one you should blame, not Tatiana.” “It does not matter. I am not married to Dmitri.”

  “Placed in a similar situation, alone with a woman as beautiful as your wife, would you not also be tempted?”

  Endicott could see that the liquor was beginning to have an effect on Vladimir, and him, too. Although Vladimir was floating in zero g, he appeared to be swaying as if he were having some difficulty maintaining his balance. His features darkened, and in their shadowy lines an expression of guilt emerged.

  “I was tempted,” he said inaudibly.

  It was only two months before the launch date. He had been sent to Japan to train with their computerized mock-up of the Druzhba. She was wrapped in a tight skirt that clung translucent to the contours of her buttocks. The skirt stopped high on her legs, revealing almost their entire length. They were youthful legs, firm, and sensuous, and were delicately colored the light shade with which oriental women were blessed. The legs held him transfixed, his cover the simulator, until she spoke, but he could not understand what she said because her words were in Japanese. But they did accomplish the task of diverting his attention upward. As his eyes traveled he noticed her hands on her hips, palms outward, and the inward slope of her waist. Conscious of her scrutiny, he lingered for only a fraction of a second, then continued his climb. At eye level, poking through the fabric of her blouse, two erect nipples peered back at him. He went up her slim neck, past her delicate jaw, to her thin, red lips, which glistened with moisture. Finally, he reached her eyes.

  “Major Pavlov?” she said in near perfect English.

  They were nocturnal eyes. The slits were lined with long eyelashes that opened and closed like the wings of a black butterfly. Her pupils formed two large circles. Vladimir sensed that she was attracted to him.

  “Yes, I am Major Vladimir Pavlov,” he replied in English. “And you are?”

  “You can call me Mariko,” she said musically.

  “Mariko,” he repeated, hoping she would approve of his pronunciation.

  She nodded slightly and smiled, then stepped forward and leaned over so that her eyes would be level with his. A layer of glass, less than one millimeter in thickness, separated them. Her blouse hung loose at the neck and through the narrow opening he could see her breasts. They hung pendulously, swaying with the slight motion of her shoulders as she propped herself against the simulator.

  “Mariko,” she corrected him, with a very pleasant smile. They had dinner that evening, and made love that night, and made love every night for a week, at the end of which he had to leave. He did not feel guilty, nor did he feel guilty when he returned to Tatiana and made love to her. As long as Tatiana did not know, his conscience did not trouble him. Mariko, to whom he had not spoken or written since his return, had ceased to exist—that is, until Tatiana resurrected her. How she found out, Vladimir did not know, nor was he absolutely certain she had found out. But she dropped subtle hints, her manner changed, and she became less receptive to his advances. His doubts and her suspicions fueled each other. And he felt that all that had gone wrong could be traced back to that one week with Mariko. This troubled him more than anything else, so he did not like to think about it.

  “What was that?” Endicott asked.

  “Nothing,” Vladimir replied.

  “Most men would at the very least be tempted. It is human nature.”

  Vladimir did not respond.

  “Tatiana loves you.”

  Vladimir turned away from the camera to keep Endicott from seeing the moisture gathering in his eyes. He reached for the con
tainer that was floating empty in front of him. “I must go now,” he whispered. Without waiting for a reply, he shut down the comm link. He bounced off a wall, caught a handhold, and hurried down the corridor in search of more vodka.

  Satomura held the rope with both hands as he took another step forward. The seesaw sound of his breathing was amplified by the microphone inside his helmet. Komarov was in front of him, testing the ground with the tip of his boot. They were following a path, at points no more than five meters wide, that ran down the northeast wall of Candor Mensa.

  “How are you doing?” Komarov asked.

  “I’m right behind you,” Satomura replied.

  “If you need to rest, speak up. There is no need to hurry.” “Don’t slow down on my account.”

  The grade of the path was erratic and in places much steeper than they would have liked. They could barely make out the canyon floor through the morning mist. Upon reaching the upper layer of the stratification that had so interested him in the dirigible, Satomura ran up to the rock and rubbed his hand across its surface. There was a sharp line of division between the two layers.

  “Where do we start?” Komarov asked.

  “I will start here. Perhaps you should continue down the path. Look for anything unusual. Speak up as soon as you find something, even it doesn’t seem significant.”

  “Very well,” Komarov replied, and headed in the designated direction.

  Satomura stepped back to examine the division between the two layers in the rock. It was diffused, fluvial in appearance, similar to formations he had seen in dry riverbeds on Earth. He panned the area with the camera, then moved in closer. After a moment of reflection, he attached his camera to his suit and laid out his equipment. He selected a hammer and began to take samples. As he worked, his mind raced with theories. Dmitri and Vladimir had vanished completely from his thoughts. He had performed this type of work on Earth many times before, in preparation for the Mars trip and in actual fieldwork. The fieldwork had been during the years immediately following his first doctorate. He was still undecided about entering the National Space Development Agency, which, at the time, seemed to be in a state of perpetual collapse. He had fallen into a rhythm and was extracting the third sample when his work was interrupted by a sudden exclamation.

  “What was that?” he said, standing upright.

  “I have found something!” Komarov exclaimed.

  Satomura looked down the path, attempting to locate the Russian cosmonaut. He could only see about forty meters of the path before it bent around the cliff. Komarov was nowhere to be seen.

  “What have you found?” Satomura asked, partly annoyed at having been interrupted.

  “It looks like some sort of fossil. It’s big. A plant or something. My God, this is incredible! You’ve got to get over here quick.”

  The announcement stopped Satomura from breathing. “Say again.”

  “I think I found a fossil. It’s nearly a meter long.”

  Satomura reached out to steady himself. Komarov must be mistaken. A fossil nearly a meter long? Preposterous. Perhaps he is pulling some sort of practical joke. It would not be unlike him. Yes. That is it. He closed his eyes so that he could listen better.

  “Oh my,” exclaimed Tatiana.

  “Stop moving,” Vladimir said excitedly. “The image is jumping too much. I can’t quite make it out.”

  “Oh my,” Tatiana repeated.

  “It looks like the leaf from a palm tree,” said Vladimir. “Congratulations.” It was in English, Endicott’s voice, then the other Americans; everyone was talking at once, their voices growing louder with each exclamation. Satomura opened his eyes and frantically searched the path for signs of Komarov. It occurred to him that he was perhaps the only one who had not yet seen whatever Komarov had found.

  “I will be right there,” Satomura shouted excitedly. “Do not touch anything.” He bounded down the path without regard to his safety and realized, as he was rounding the bend, that he had left his equipment behind. He decided to retrieve it later. First he would assess the validity of the find.

  “Where?” he demanded upon reaching Komarov, and took in several deep breaths.

  Komarov stepped aside. What struck Satomura first was its sheer size. It was larger than Komarov had indicated, nearly a meter and a half in total length and perhaps twenty-five centimeters wide at its broadest point. He realized at once that it was a real fossil and not some freak formation carved by erosion. And it was, as Vladimir had suggested, similar to a palm leaf. The detail was stunning. He lifted his hands and traced an imaginary copy of the fossil in the air before him. He did this several times. He reached for a brush and discovered that it was missing. Suddenly, he realized they were waiting in silence for him to make some sort of pronouncement.

  “Aracales,” he said.

  “What?”

  “On Earth it would belong to the order Aracales, the palm order.” He paused while he considered the many ways his statement could be misinterpreted. “Vladimir, your observation is surprisingly accurate; the fossil does bear a resemblance to a palm leaf. Of course that does not mean this fossil belongs to the same order. I only make the statement for comparison purposes. I would imagine, Dmitri, that they will name this plant after you since you are the one who discovered it.”

  Komarov approached the fossil to take a closer look. “I should be photographed next to it,” he said.

  “Of course.” Satomura stepped back and focused the camera upon Komarov and the fossil. After several minutes, he asked Komarov to step aside because he was blocking the light. He filmed the fossil for several more minutes, then reattached the camera to his suit and sat down upon a rock to consider the find. The impression of the leaf upon the cliff was flawless. He chose a vein and followed it until it diminished into the rock, then chose another. He imagined what the plant that bore the leaf must have looked like several hundred million years ago. He envisioned a tall stem with a single giant leaf emerging from the edge of a lake. Next to it was another leaf of similar height and dimensions and next to it another. They ringed the perimeter of the mesa. The first action he would take upon returning to the ship would be to date the material. Then he would search for fossilized organic particles. The remainder of their mission plan would have to undergo a drastic revision, and in his mind he was already beginning to formulate the new plan. Suddenly he remembered that they were scheduled to depart in two weeks. This was five days earlier than originally planned. It was to give them sufficient time to use the backup lander, if the Gagarin failed to launch. He would recommend pushing their liftoff to the original departure date.

  “I will take an impression of it first, then we should extract it.” “Extract it?” Komarov asked doubtfully.

  “Of course,” Satomura replied. “We must take it back with us.” “But it’s part of the cliff. Won’t it break apart?”

  “Not if we are careful.” Satomura stood up and walked over to the fossil. He examined the surrounding rock. “We should get started. There are only so many hours in a day.”

  Vladimir had bathed for the first time in several days and had shaved off his beard. He was checking himself in the mirror. His hair shone from the gel that held it in place. He had used more than usual that morning because he wanted to make certain that it stayed in place. He opened his mouth to check his teeth. In exactly one minute and thirteen seconds, he was to initiate a private call with his wife. He kept glancing at the clock. He ran his finger across the bare skin of his cheeks and wondered what she would think. She had never said anything about the beard. He found that strange. His eyes were red, and that bothered him. But there was nothing he could do. He should not have drunk so much the night before. Seeing that it was time, he took a deep breath and opened the comm link.

  “Hello,” he said, his lips forming a forced smile. She was also smiling, and this made him feel better.

  “Hello.”

  “How have you been?” he asked.

  �
��Busy.” He could tell that she was scrutinizing his appearance. He looked away from the camera, hoping that she would not notice the redness in his eyes. “With the discovery of the fossil, I’ve barely had time to breathe. Yourself?”

  Vladimir wondered why she would ask such a question. She knew as well as he that he had fallen behind on his duties. But from the innocent manner in which she had asked the question and waited for his response, he realized she had not meant anything by it. He knew by the look in her eyes that she wanted the conversation to go well.

  “Not so busy,” he said. “Not as much to do up here.” He looked nervously around as if to verify that there was not that much to do.

  “You look much healthier,” she said.

  “I shaved,” he said in explanation, and pointed at his bare chin. “It was beginning to itch. Tell me about the fossil.”

  “It is authentic,” she said. “I am arranging the itinerary for another trip to the geyser. Takashi believes that if there is life to be found, it will be there. He wants to collect additional samples. I think he’s right.”

  “Indeed,” said Vladimir. He was surprised at how easily they had avoided the original purpose of the call. “But what about the samples he has already collected? I thought he had examined them for evidence of life.”

  “He didn’t find anything,” Tatiana said. “He believes the ice he had collected may have only been permafrost knocked loose by the geyser. He wants to drill for water. The geophones have detected a subsurface river. Although the river itself is too far beneath the surface for our drills to reach, there may be water near the mouth of the geyser. The pressure is so great that it should be able to maintain a liquid form.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Vladimir said.

  “You’re not the only one who thinks so, but he has managed to convince them to let him try. He’s going to operate the drill remotely.”

  “Does he have the necessary equipment to do that?”

  “I’ve helped him rig something up,” she said.

  “So he thinks he’ll find life,” Vladimir said, mostly to himself.