"Welcome to the beautiful Sea of Tranquility! Nothing but miles and miles of miles and miles..."
"You've got that right!"
Eric Dixon and Michael Stokes were driving a road construction rover, laying down a road between Alpha Base and the still-under-construction Beta Base, both on the ancient volcanic plain known as Mare Tranquilitatis. The construction rover was a simple affair: a cowcatcher in the front to clear rocks and other obstacles, a steamroller-type affair at the back to flatten the road surface. Theoretically any object under two meters could be cleared easily by the construction rover. Anything larger would necessitate a detour, but the Sea of Tranquility offered very little in the way of obstacles.
So when an obstacle came up, it was bound to attract attention. "Dixon, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
"What do you think you're seeing?" Dixon replied deadpan.
"It's definitely metal, about ten meters long, cylindrical."
"Let's take a look. Anything beats this monotony!"
Dixon and Stokes dismounted the tractor and examined the object more closely. "This is incredible! I didn't think one of these made it out this far!" Stokes exclaimed over his suit radio.
"What are you talking about? And what's this CCCP on the side mean?"
"Not a student of history, I see. This is an old Salyut-class capsule, launched by the Soviet Union--'CCCP' is 'USSR' in Russian. The Russians were trying to get to the Moon back in the 1960's, but they never made it. Or so we thought."
"Wouldn't they have mentioned it?"
"Obviously they didn't succeed. The old Soviet Union didn't like to advertise its failures. Let's get SDF on the radio to salvage this bird."
Two hours later, the Space Defense Force had landed a transport to pick up the Salyut capsule. The capsule was nearly intact--surprising in that it was never intended for a surface landing. A six-man crew, along with the cargo crane on Dixon and Stokes' construction rover, was needed to herd the Salyut into the cargo transport.
"This craft in excellent condition!" Major Nigel Pertwee exclaimed. As if it wouldn't be--the thing's been in vacuum for years, William Baker, the resident NSA analyst on the SDF Lunar Base thought. Pertwee, an exchange officer on loan from the European Union, was competent but completely unimaginative.
Two technicians carefully opened the hatch of the Salyut. The cockpit was a complete shambles--the seatliners had been shredded, the restraints cut, and ration containers littered the interior. More disturbing were the two pressure suits inside. Two empty pressure suits. The CCCP legend was stenciled in red across the visor of each helmet. Each suit had a red hammer and sickle flag on the left sleeve, and the name of the wearer on a nametag above the left breast.
"Colonel N. A. Popov and Major I. I. Tverdovsky," one of the Russian technicians read off. "They always told us at Baikonur that these two were killed in a training accident."
"Another KGB/Pravda job, it looks like," Baker said. Let's start tearing this thing down and seeing what we can find out.
"We've found this old recording tape, sir," one of the technicians reported to Baker. "It might be useful."
"You've got that right! Jacques, get this tape to the lab." A white-jumpsuited technician carefully placed the ancient reel-to-reel tape on a cart and wheeled it away.
We'll find out what happened to you soon enough, comrades, Baker thought toward the empty suits. The suits had been cut open from the back. All indications were that their occupants had been forcibly removed.
Three hours later, a joint Earth-Moon-Mars conference call was taking place.
"Using techniques first used ten years ago to recover the missing data from the Nixon Watergate tapes, we were able to extract some information from the tape found on the derelict Salyut we discovered at kilometer marker 142," Baker said. "As near as we can determine, this mission was launched by the Soviet Union in October 1967--perhaps to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. The Communist government was extremely tight-lipped about its activities in space. Most of you are probably aware that the Soviets did not announce Yuri Gagarin's first flight until after he had safely returned.
"The vast majority of the data we've recovered, as you might expect, are routine and technical in nature. The last ninety minutes of the tape, however, are very telling. Mr. Roshkov will provide translation:
The Russian technician switched on the digital player containing the information gleaned from the tape.
"I can't believe it--it's incredible! Ivan, have you seen anything like it? Nikolai--it's glowing! Get pictures! Activate the radio! Greetings space visitors! We, Colonel Nikolai Alexi'evich Popov and Major Ivan Issarionovich Tverdovsky bring you Revolutionary greetings in the name of the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union--wait! A doorway is opening! We're being drawn in! Activiating retrofire--it's not working, Colonel! What is going on? What the hell is happening? We--"
The tape was filled with sudden screams, then silence. Static.
"The recording ends here," Roshkov announced.
"Unfortunately we've been unable to locate any photographs or other visual evidence of what Colonel Popov and Major Tverdovsky may have encountered. However, given the general condition of their spacesuits and the inside of the Salyut capsule, it would appear that they were forcibly abducted."
[Mr. Baker, any hypothesis as to why it's taken nearly forty-five years to discover this Salyut? We've seen no evidence of a crash or landing in this vicinity from any of the Apollo missions or any subsequent Soviet, Russian, American, European or Japanese missions.] Anthony Stiles from the SDF office in the Pentagon was trying to assess this new information that had not shown up in declassified KGB documents. His Russian opposite, Olga Purin, was doing the same with the declassified CIA files she had access to.
"As you know, the KGB and its successors were very thorough in eliminating anything they did not wish even the Politburo to see. It's entirely possible that the Eriarti--if it is indeed the Eriarti--dumped the Salyut years later. For that matter, we've only had the ability to resolve features as small as a Salyut on the lunar surface for the past ten years. Everyone from Neil Armstrong forward could have passed right over this thing and not noticed it because of the equipment limitations."
[Have we been able to access the Eriarti ship for confirming data?] Commander Vishnevski on Mars asked. Baker suspected that Vishnevski, a high-ranking member of the Russian cosmonaut corps, might know something of this off-the-books Soviet era lunar mission.
"We're not even sure it was the Eriarti who were responsible. There may be other nasties out there; we don't know. But no, so far we haven't been able to access the Eriarti saucer, although I'm assured that--"
[Sir, this is Jenkins in Lab Bay B. We've opened the saucer!]
"Well, Commander, I guess this answers your question."
Jenkins, Baker, and Roshkov entered the Eriarti saucer. The craft was huge--thirty meters across--and had an opening in one side that could have easily accomodated the Salyut.
At the controls were the mummified remains of two naked human males. On the decks behind them were the bodies of four Eriarti, equally dessicated, with dark purple bloodstains on the deck plates. A notepad--apparently scavenged from the Salyut--contained scribblings in an odd looping script, with Cyrillic letters next to them.
"Fantastic!" Baker said, ignoring for the moment the two dead men at the controls. "We've finally got something we can work with in translating the Eriarti language!"
Roshkov looked over the notepad. "They appear to have been working out how to fly the ship. All of these words correspond to flight controls on the control console," he said. "Wait--here's something on the back! It's in Russian and English."
Baker read the English aloud. "To our American comrades in space, should you find this: the space visitors are vicious and utterly without remorse. Resist them at all costs, and the people of the Soviet Union will join you in your fight against the oppressors. Please send word if possible to our wives, Svetlana Popov and Irina Tverdovsky. Do not trust the gray ones!"
He looked up. "Well, if Congress wants to fight SDF funding, we've got a fine arguement for them here," he said, noticing the two dead cosmonauts.
The postmortem indicated that Popov and Tverdovsky starved to death. The Eriarti had dumped whatever food they'd brought aboard the Salyut, and had made no provisions for their captives. Certainly no provisions that could have helped after the cosmonauts took over the ship. They had apparently lived for five weeks after their capture; a date on the notebook read November 6, 1967 and was in a very shaky hand. Arrangements were made to return Popov and Tverdovsky to Earth, for burial in the Kremlin wall and the highest honors the Russian Republic could honor. Unfortunately, their widows had both passed away long ago.
Baker sighed as he finished the report. "Well, it looks like the Virgo
folks weren't joking. This is for real..."
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