One Step From Earth

Adam was too startled, too numb to react. He let them click the cold handcuffs to each wrist, to pull him firmly toward the front door. There was one glimpse of Mom's hanging jaw, then he was outside and being hustled toward the open door of the waiting limousine. He held back — but was pulled inexorably forward.

"My car," he said. "It's being washed. ." But when he looked up he saw that a stranger was driving it into the street. His captors said nothing, just pulled him forward and into the back seat. After that a numbness and despair washed over him as they sat in silence during the drive. It was over. All over.

The interrogation took place as soon as they were inside the Federal building. His two captors pushed him into a chair at the large conference table, then sat one to each side of him. They did not remove the handcuffs, perhaps to remind him of his perilous position. A tall man, obviously senior to them, entered and pulled up a chair on the other side of the table, then reached out and turned on the tape recorder.

"What is your name?"

"Adam Ward. What do you think you are doing. ."

"Answer my questions correctly and don't act stupid. Whoever you are, whatever your name is, we have been watching you since you came here. Who are you — and where is the real Adam Ward?"

"This is preposterous — I want a lawyer…"

He went silent as his interrogator slid across very clear photographs of the magnetic bits of tape attached to their bandaids.

"You will talk and you will tell us everything. Now begin."

Adam took a deep breath and let it out with a tremulous sigh. It was over. There was some relief in that. "Take these cuffs off and I'll answer your questions. Isn't this what they call a fair cop in the cinema? In a way I'm glad that it's over. I've done what I had to do. What has been discovered here belongs to all mankind — it is not just the property of one country. If I have done that, why then I have done something important."

"You've done nothing — except probably get yourself shot," the interrogator said with malice-filled satisfaction. "We've monitored all of your drops and know all of the people involved. They'll be picked up tonight. It's all over and you have lost."

"Really," he said, irritated at the man's superior tones, then looked at his watch. "I wouldn't be so sure if I were you. The tapes were just backup. The typed originals are well on their way by now."

The sudden pain drove him to the table, gasping. Then the fist struck his face again, even harder. "Tell us what you mean — tell us!" The pain again. He had meant to keep this part secret until there was time for the contact to be long gone. He had not counted on the pain. He had to speak. It was almost seven. The papers would surely be safe by now.

"What papers?" the interrogator asked. He must have spoken the word aloud, although he had no memory of doing so.

"The notes I typed," he said through puffed lips. "I always typed the report out before encoding it. Then I left the sheets under the mat in the car when I brought it into the carwash. Each time when the car was returned the sheets were gone."

There was a silence and he sat up, shaking. But he had them, he could tell by the grim expressions on their faces. They had not known about the carwash.

"You are out of your mind, you commie bastard," the man who had struck him shouted. "Every guy in that carwash is black. You Russkies are good — but not that good. You don't have any black Russians yet."

"I beg your pardon," Adam said, speaking slowly through his bloodied lips. "Of course those chaps are black. Mostly from the West Indies. Good agents. And I resent the suggestion that I am Russian. I'm Canadian, Oxford graduate, Rutherford Laboratories. I believe my recruiters were MI5. British, you know."

Even though it hurt he found himself smiling at their shocked faces. "Nice of you to share your technical advances with your allies. Greatly appreciated."

One Step From Earth

THIS LANDSCAPE WAS DEAD. It had never lived. It had been born dead when the planets first formed, a planetary stillbirth of boulders, coarse sand, jagged rock. The air was thin and so cold that it was closer to the vacuum of space than to any habitable atmosphere. Though it was nearly noon and the pallid, tiny disc of the sun was high overhead, the sky was dark, the wan light shining on the uneven plain that was unmarked by any footprint. Silent, lonely, empty.

Only the shadows moved. The sun paced its way slowly across the horizon until it set. Night came and with it an ever greater cold. Silently the dark hours passed, the stars arched by overhead, until on the opposite horizon the sun appeared once again.