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"Oh?" Yasenin asked, his irritation turning to curiosity. He decided to pin Rykov down. "All right. I'll hear you out. What's so vital to the interest of Mother Russia that it can't go through prescribed channels?"
Rykov spoke very calmly. "I have proof that someone is on the moon."
Forty-five minutes later, General Yasenin strode into the photo analysis laboratory of the Geophysical Space Center. Big, beefy, and red of face, he wore a rumpled uniform that was ablaze with decorations.
The hair was smoke-gray, the eyes steady and hard. He walked quietly, his head thrust out as if stalking a prey.
"You Rykov?" he asked without prelude.
"Yes," Rykov said simply but firmly.
They stared at each other a moment, neither making any attempt at shaking hands. Finally, Rykov cleared his throat and motioned toward the stereoscope.
"This way, General," he said. "Please lie prone on the leather cushion and look through the eyepiece."
As Yasenin positioned himself over the photo montage he asked, "What am I searching for?"
"Focus on the small area I've circled," replied Rykov.
The general adjusted the lenses to his vision and peered downward, his face impassive. After a full minute, he looked up strangely, then bent over the stereoscope again. At last he slowly rose and stared at Rykov, eyes stark in open astonishment.
"This is not a photographic trick?" he asked dumbly.
"No, General. What you see is real. Two human forms, wearing encapsulated suits, are aiming some sort of device at Selenos 4."
Yasenin's mind could not accept what his eyes saw to be true. "It's not impossible. Where do they come from?"
Rykov shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. If they're not United States astronauts, they can only be aliens."
"I do not believe in supernatural fairy tales."
"But how could the Americans launch men to the moon without the event leaking to the world news media or our intelligence people?"
"Suppose they left men behind and stockpiled material during the Apollo program. Such an effort might be possible."
"Their last known lunar landing was by Apollo 17 in 1972," Rykov recalled. "No human could survive the harsh lunar conditions for seventeen years without being resupplied."
"I can think of no one else," Yasenin insisted.
He returned to the stereoscope and intently studied the human forms standing in the crater. The sun's glare was coming from the right, throwing their shadows to the left. Their suits were white, and he could make out the dark green viewports on the helmets. They were of a design unfamiliar to him. Yasenin could clearly distinguish footprints leading into a pitch-black shadow cast by the crater's rim.
"I know what you're looking for, General," said Rykov, "but I've already examined the landscape on the floor of the crater and cannot find any sign of their spacecraft."
"Perhaps they climbed down from the top?"
"That's a sheer drop of over a thousand feet."
"I'm at a loss to explain any of this," Yasenin admitted quietly.
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"Please look closely at the device they're both holding and pointing at Selenos 4. It seems to be a large camera with an extremely long telephoto lens."
"No," said Yasenin. "You're treading in my territory now. Not a camera but a weapon."
"A laser?"
"Nothing so advanced. Strikes me as a hand-held surface-to-air missile system of American manufacture. A Lariat type 40, I should say. Homes in with a guidance beam, ten-mile range on earth, probably much more in the moon's rarefied atmosphere. Became operational with NATO forces about six years ago. So much for your alien theory."
