Peenemünde, German Democratic Republic, 1954

I'm 29 years old, and I'm freezing cold, mucking up from the surf off a rain-swept beach into the woods near Peenemünde, an old V-2 launch site. It's nighttime. The Company likes to send me out at night. The boys call me Orlok; the sunlight hurts my eyes. I hate the night shift. It's like I'm walking through a nightmare. But it's my job. It's how we win. A cluster of concrete buildings damp and dribbling. An airstrip. Old blast pits where V-2s once launched to buzz over the North Sea into England. South, the horizon glows. A city. A truck trundles into the base. It stops. Idles. A person gets out, lights a cigarette, and limps into the only standing building. He leaves the door open. "What the hell?" I mutter. I draw my pistol. Inside, the rain hammers on the rusted roof. I can hear water churning; whole sections of the building are flooded. This place has been dead for years. Something gravitational draws me deeper in. "Amerikanisch, Britisch, oder Deutsch?" A voice echoes through the building. Gently accented German. "Amerikanisch," I answer. I don't holster my gun. "English fine?" "If that works for you." "English is good. I am practicing." I follow the voice to the center of the structure. A factory floor, or large warehouse of some kind. Dark but for a single lantern on a solitary table. The man sits in the pool of light, smoking a cigarette. Rain falls through the perforated roof, dribbling on rusted machinery. An empty chair sits opposite him. "Not much of a space program," I say. "No," he says. "Sit, please." He gestures at the table, an unlit cigarette pinched between his fingers. "You smoke?" I remain standing. "Are you going to kill me?" I ask him. "You're the one with the gun, amigo. Are you going to kill me?" "No," I say. "Where is Dr. Heuer?" "Dead." "What?" The dark-eyed man mutters a soft, frustrated curse in Russian. "Gone," he says, slowly. "We killed him. Вы понимаете?" "Не совсем. Я учусь," I say. "Why?" "He was a fascist," the Soviet says. "What would we need him for after we captured his rockets? He's been dead since '45." I sag down into the chair. "Sorry to bend your paperclip." He grins. "How is my English, by the way?" "It's good," I assure him. "How's my Russian?" "Your pronunciation is fine." "Thank my brother," I say. "You could continue practicing with me." The immensity of the offer stuns me. I see a different life, one lonely but wild, in a red world far more ancient than my own. A different tongue, a different set of stars. I am alone, but special. "I can't do that," I lie. "Как жаль," he sighs. "OK. Go now." "Why?" Distant, mingled with the driving rain: the thud of approaching helicopters. The Soviet stands, leaving the unlit cigarette on the table. I run.