Time’s Eye

At dawn, two days after his departure, the Mongol envoy returned. The cosmonauts’ fate, it seemed, had been decided.

Sable had to be prodded awake. Kolya was already alert, his eyes gritty with sleeplessness. In the musty dark of the yurt, where children snored gently in their cots, the cosmonauts were given breakfast of a little unleavened bread, and a bowl of a kind of hot tea. This was aromatic, presumably made from steppe herbs and grasses, and was surprisingly refreshing.

The cosmonauts moved stiffly. They were both recovering quickly from their orbital sojourn, but Kolya longed for a hot shower, or even to be able to rinse his face.

They were led out of the yurt, and allowed a toilet break. The sky was brightening, and the customary lid of cloud and ash seemed comparatively light today. Some of the nomads were paying their respects to the dawn, with genuflections to the south and east. This was one of their few public displays of religious feeling; the Mongols were shamanists, eschewing public rituals for oracles, exorcisms and magic displays in the privacy of their yurts.

The cosmonauts were led to a small group of men. They had saddled up half a dozen horses, and had harnessed two more to a small wooden-wheeled cart. The horses were stocky and undisciplined-looking, like their owners; they looked around impatiently, as if eager to get this chore over with.

“At last we’re out of here,” Sable grunted earnestly. “Civilization here we come.”

“There is a Russian saying,” Kolya warned. “Out of the frying pan …”

“Russian my ass.”

The cosmonauts were prodded toward the cart. They had to climb aboard, hands still bound. As they sat down on the bare floor a Mongol man, strong-looking even by the standards of these people, approached them, and began to harangue them loudly. His leathery face was creased like a relief map.

Sable said, “What’s he saying?”

“No idea. But we’ve seen him before, remember. I think this is the chief. And his name is Scacatai.” The chief had come to inspect them during their first hours of captivity.

“This little asshole is going to try to make capital out of us. What were those words you used?”

“Darughachi. Tengri. ”

Sable glared at Scacatai. “Did you get that? Tengri, Tengri. We’re ambassadors from God. And I’m not about to ride off to the Pleasure Dome with my arms tied behind my back. Let us loose, or I’ll fry your sorry butt with a thunderbolt.”

Scacatai, of course, understood nothing but the fragments of Mongolian, but Sable’s tone carried the day. After more mutually incomprehensible argument, he nodded to one of his sons, who cut Sable’s and Kolya’s bonds.

“Good work,” Kolya said, rubbing his wrists.

“Piece of cake,” Sable said. “Next.” She started pointing, at the Soyuz, and at the parachute silk stacked up against one of the yurts. “I want what’s mine. Bring that silk to the cart. And the stuff you stole out of the Soyuz …” It took much gesturing to get this point across, but at length, with much bad grace, Scacatai ordered his people to load up the parachute, and bits of kit were brought out of the yurt. Soon the cart was incongruously piled high with parachute, spacesuits and other gear. Kolya checked that the emergency medical supplies and flare guns were there—and the components of the ham radio gear, their only possible line to the outside world, and Casey and the others in India.

Sable rummaged through the gear and dug out a life raft. She handed it ceremonially to Scacatai. “Here you go,” she said. “A gift from Heaven. When we’ve gone, pull this toggle like so. You dig?” She mimed the action repeatedly until it was clear that the Mongol understood. Then she bowed, and Kolya followed suit, and they clambered onto the cart.

The horsemen set off, one of them leading the cart horses by a rope, and the cart lumbered into motion. “Thanks for the mutton, buster,” Sable called back.

Kolya studied her. Bit by bit, starting from a position of utter weakness and vulnerability, she was assuming control of the situation. In the days since the landing she seemed to have burned her fear out of herself by an effort of will—but her intensity of purpose made Kolya uneasy. “You have nerve, Sable.”

Sable grinned. “A woman doesn’t get to the top of the Astronaut Office without learning to be tough. Anyhow, it’s nice to leave with a little more style than when we arrived—”

There was a loud bang, a chorus of confused cries. Scacatai had pulled the ripcord on the raft. The Mongols stared in open-mouthed astonishment at this bright orange artifact that had exploded into existence out of nowhere. Before the village had receded into the distance, the children were starting to bounce on the raft’s inflated rim.

***