"Then it's stalemate, Feodor Stepanovich. I can make no more concessions without risking impeachment."
The dark, massive head of the Russian Premier nodded. "Nor can I, without committing political suicide." His English was better than the rural dialect of Russian he still retained. "Call it a double checkmate. Our predecessors sowed their seeds too deep for our spades. Or should I say, too high?"
Both heads turned to the north, where a bright spot was climbing above the horizon. The space station sparkled in sunlight far above Earth, sliding with Olympian deliberation past a few visible stars until it was directly overhead. Without a timetable or a telescope, there was no way of knowing whether it was the Russian Tsiolkovsky or the American Goddard, nor did either man care. Half the world lived in almost hysterical fear of one or the other, with the rest of the human race existing in terror of both.
The Premier muttered something from the ugliness of his childhood experiences, but the President only sighed unhappily, as if sorry that his own background gave him no such expressions.
A few minutes later, the leaders separated. As they moved across the garden, their escorts surrounded them, clearing the way toward the cars that would take them to the airport. Behind them, professional diplomats stopped puzzling over the delay and began spinning obfuscations to cynical reporters. The phrases had long since lost all meaning, but the traditions of propaganda had to be maintained.
In the UN, the Israeli delegate crumpled a news dispatch and began speaking without notes, demanding that space be inter-nationalized. It was the greatest speech of his career, and even the delegate from Egypt applauded. But national survival could not be trusted to the shaky impartiality of the UN. The resolution was vetoed by both the United States and Russia.
The Fourteenth Space Disarmament Conference was ended.
II
A month later, a thousand miles above Earth and exactly 180° behind the Tsiolkovsky, the Goddard swung steadily around the globe in a two-hour circumpolar orbit. Outwardly, it looked like the great metal doughnut that space artists had pictured for decades. On the inside, however, the evidence of hasty, crash-planned work was everywhere. The air fans whined and vibrated, the halls creaked and groaned, and the water needed to maintain balance gurgled and banged through ill-conceived piping. It was cramped and totally inadequate for the needs of the nation that had put it into space eight years before in a rush attempt to match the Russian "Sulky".