The girl dropped her stockings and shot to her feet so fast that she would have toppled into the brook if he hadn't leaped forward and caught her arm. She had a heart-shaped face, and her eyes were the hue of harebells. At the moment they were filled with alarm. Presently, however, the alarm went away and recognition took its place. "Oh, it's you," she said, freeing her arm.
He took an involuntary step backward. "Me?" he said.
"Yes. Captain Gordon Andrews, of the United States Space Force, is it not? You look quite a lot like your photograph."
He could only stare at her. "I do?"
"Yes. I saw it in one of your materialistic capitalistic magazines." She stood up a little straighter—an act that brought her harebell-blue eyes on a level with the topmost button of his fatigue-alls. "I am Major Sonya Mikhailovna, of the Soviet Space Force, and my ship is in the next valley. I arrived here yesterday."
He got the picture then, and he felt sick. He should have known from her too-correct, slightly stilted English, from the military cut of her clothing. He should have known in the first place, for that matter. It was the same old humiliating story. The manned Venus shot had been publicized for months before the actual launching, and he had been written up in every newspaper and magazine in the country. Articles had paid homage to his suburban upbringing, saluted his record at the Shepard Space Academy, praised his career as an orbital pilot, romanticized his bachelorhood, described how he liked his eggs, and inferred what a good catch he would be. Meanwhile, the Russians had gone quietly and systematically about their business, and at the precise psychological moment had pulled their usual unexpected coup. First it had been Laika, then Zrezdochka, then Gagarin, then Dymov, the first "Man in the Moon". Now it was Major Sonya Mikhailovna.
But why a woman? And why one so seemingly delicate that you marvelled at her ability to withstand the acceleration of take-off? Suddenly he got the whole picture, and he really felt sick. He could see the humiliating headlines—or rather, their English counterparts—in Pravda: SOVIET SPACE GIRL BEATS CAPITALIST COSMONAUT TO VENUS! USSR TRIUMPH AGAIN!
"I suppose you picked up my ship on your radar while I was coming in, and fixed the time and location of my landing," he said bitterly.
Sonya Mikhailovna nodded. "My own arrival-time has already been officially recorded, but the announcement of my success had to be withheld until I could establish your arrival-time and the exact time-difference could be computed. Soon now, the news of our glorious new victory will be released to the world."