Ark Angel

We were very lucky to be able to recruit him from the Khrunichev Space Centre.”

    “How do you do.” Sing spoke with a cultured English accent. He shook hands with Alex and Paul, but the dark brown eyes behind the glasses showed no interest in them at all. They were children. They had no place here. That was what the eyes seemed to say.
    “This is where it all happens,” Drevin went on. “We’ll be controlling both the launch and the docking procedure from here. Of course, most of the procedure is computerized. But we have a camera fitted into Gabriel 7’s nose. Travelling three hundred miles at the speed of light, it takes about 0.001 seconds for the images to be relayed back here. It’s a bit like a giant computer game, except when you press a button here you’re manoeuvring about four tonnes of equipment in outer space. You can’t afford mistakes.”
    Sing shook his head. “There will be no mistakes,” he assured them.
    “Have we had the latest weather reports?” Drevin asked.
    “Yes, Mr Drevin. I’ve gone over the meteorological charts myself and the conditions are exactly as predicted.”
    “Good.” Drevin was pleased. “Nine o’clock on Wednesday morning. It’s a sight you boys won’t forget.”
    “Can’t we get any closer?” Paul asked.
    Professor Sing looked away, as if the question was too stupid to answer. Alex wondered what it was about the man that he didn’t like. Perhaps it was his complete lack of enthusiasm. There was no emotion in his face—and none in his voice. How could he be in charge of such a huge project and not feel the excitement of it?
    “If you were any closer you’d be deafened.” Drevin said. “When Gabriel 7 is launched, the vibration levels will be huge. They’d destroy your eardrums if you were too close. Even in here we’ll need to be completely insulated.”

    “I’m afraid I must ask for some time with you, Mr Drevin,” Sing interrupted. “I need to discuss the launch trajectory dispersions.”
    Drevin turned to Alex and Paul. “Magnus will show you around the rest of the base if there’s anything else you wish to see. We’ll meet again at dinner.”
    “Sure.” Alex tried to smile, but he didn’t look up. He could no longer trust himself to meet Drevin’s gaze.
    And there was something else that was worrying him. The more he saw of the island—the rockets, the launch pad, the space centre—the more he felt a nameless sense of dread. It was hard to explain, but Alex was beginning to think that Joe Byrne and the CIA had got it all wrong. Drevin wasn’t behaving like a man about to run away. He had something else in mind. Alex was sure of it.
    There were less than forty-five hours until the launch. That might be all the time he had left to find out what it was.

    But later that afternoon, Alex was able to forget some of his worries. Paul took him down to the beach and, as promised, gave Alex his first lesson in kite-surfing.
    The sport, very simply, combined surfing and kite-flying. As Paul said, you stood on a board and flew a kite, and the wind did the rest. Of course, there was more to it than that. The kite was actually a giant polyester wing—nine metres across—which had to be inflated with a pump. It was connected to Alex by four lines which clipped onto a rubber harness around his waist. Then there was the board, similar to a surfboard but with four fins and twin tips, making it bidirectional. And finally there was the control bar, which he held in front of him. The mechanics were simple enough. The control bar was his steering wheel, which he could raise and lower, turn left and right. The rest was balance and nerve.
    Alex was lucky. There wasn’t much wind and the sea was fairly calm. But even so, he soon felt the power of the new sport. He started on the edge of the water with Paul about twenty metres behind him, holding the kite. Paul released it and Alex quickly brought it up until it reached the zenith, directly over his head.
    While it was there, the kite was essentially in neutral. Carrying the board, Alex waded into the sea until the water was up to his ankles. He put one foot on the board. Then he lowered the kite into the wind.
    And he was away. It was an incredible sensation. He could feel his arms straining at their sockets, his whole body tensing against the pull of the kite. Before he knew it, he was moving very fast, skimming over the surface with the spray flying into his eyes. The board was incredibly