There were some very bad minutes. For a while he weighed several tons and could not move, and then he weighed nothing at all and was sick. Someone else unstrapped him and gave him pills, and then thoughtfully tied him to a handring on the wall. And at long last his mind began to accept it.
The incredible Soviet had succeeded. His Russian contemporaries had put a manned vessel in outer space.
Diavilev sat quietly stupefied.
That the spouting, unshaven, preposterous baboons with whom he had worked could have built this thing seemed to him blankly impossible. Being one himself, Pyotr Diavilev had no great respect for what Russian scientists the great many purges had left. But of course there the thing was. Built by Germans perhaps, with secrets stolen from the Americans while they haggled about peace; nevertheless, there the thing was.
And if he was going up now there could be only one place to go and therefore he was not a prisoner at all. The wonder and relief of it was too much at once. He surrendered himself to awe. When the time came to board the satellite he was poised and ready.
In the midst of a curving room hung and inset with a thousand shining gadgets, Pyotr Diavilev floated in the air. A black-browed man took his arm carefully and pulled him to the floor, placed magnetic-soled shoes on his feet. Diavilev could not help grinning delightedly. The dark man, whose name was Krylov, stood thoughtfully and absently scratching his cheek.
"Now as to why you are here," he said, and Diavilev tensed and waited. There were three other men in the room, but no one moved.
"You understand of course what this station is, and that the building of it places us, our people, in control of the world."
Diavilev nodded.