“Komyeta 1, this is Station T-22. New contact, bearing three-three-five, range seventy kilometers.” Nesterov blinked, his tiredness receding upwards behind his eyeballs as the tinny voice of the ground-control intercept radar officer pierced through his headset. Clearing his throat, he could hear his radar systems officer, Dubinev, also grunting himself more alert over the plane’s intercom. “Speed is approximately five hundred kilometers per hour, altitude is seven kilometers. Komyeta 1, status?” Before pressing the transmit toggle, Nesterov heard Dubinev say, “My scope’s clear. Has been for the last hour.” “Station T-22, this is Komyeta 1,” Nesterov said, his voice carrying no hint of the fatigue sharing equal space with the blood coursing through his arteries. “We have no other contacts on radar at present. Fuel capacity is within tolerances. All systems are operational.” “Proceed on bearing to establish visual identification of contact.” Nesterov, already bringing the rudder and stick over smoothly to change course, said, “Roger, Station T-22. Will report on making visual with contact. Komyeta 1, out.” Both the radar station and the plane belonged to the Voyska-PVO, the separate air defense arm of the Soviet Air Force. Station T-22’s recent construction on Severny Island of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago increased available coverage for the PVO into the far north, and allowed it to more accurately vector in interceptors from the nearby air base at Rogachevo. Nesterov and Dubinev both held the rank of captain. Flying as a pilot/radar operator team for two years now, the dull sweep of air patrols over the desolate northern Arctic reaches did not faze them. Nudging the throttles forward as they settled in on their new course, the acceleration nudging him back into his ejection seat, Nesterov said, “Going rather low and slow for a reconnaissance flight.” “Probably someone off-course. Or the new station is having some kind of a mechanical goblin.” “It’s no Blackbird, that’s for sure.” “A crate like ours won’t catch a bird like that.” “A Red pilot can dream.” “Sure, and the black ones will soar away on afterburners above us.” “Don’t kill my joy.” Even with their banter, Dubinev’s point remained correct. Their plane, a Tupolev Tu-28, bore the dimensions of a bomber more so than the kind of silver streak required to bring down an American SR-71. With a full weight of forty thousand kilos, the design philosophy mandated a heavy radar tied to heavy engines designed to bring a quartet of heavy missiles within range of an incoming bomber formation. Its fuel capacity gave it the endurance to conduct long-range patrols over large and otherwise empty expanses of the Soviet Union. Not a glamorous mission, but a necessary one. Before their arrival at Rogachevo, their base had been in the flat and wind-blown Taymyr region of northern Russia. Keeping the more desolate skies of their homeland free of probing had been something they had grown accustomed to doing over the last two years. In this nighttime hour, going on close to midnight at their local time, the skies over the nether swirl where the Barents and Kara Seas merged contained a cold majesty of stars. Being the seventeenth of January of the year 1984, the sharp white disc of the full moon lay like a crown jewel amongst a breadth of celestial bodies pressed so close together that scarcely any darkness showed between them. It could, at times, move even the two of them, they who had seen such things numerous times on their lonely flights. But the approach to their contact now occupied their attention. Their acceleration on their new heading soon bore a result. “I have a radar contact,” Dubinev said, “at fifty kilometers. Altitude and speed appear to have remained constant since the radar station’s report.” Nesterov considered that for a moment. A contact that appeared to be conducting a very tight orbit, to the point of remaining stationary, didn’t seem all that plausible in these conditions. Other Tu-28 units had conducted intercepts of NATO reconnaissance balloons, but he considered finding one this far up here unlikely. The same went for some kind of small civilian aircraft. No reason for it to behave in such a manner. Some kind of drone, then? Perhaps the Soviet Northern Fleet testing something, their notification of such getting lost somewhere between Murmansk and Moscow. Finally, he said, “Continue tracking.” He nudged the stick forward lightly, the plane’s nose pointing downwards towards the life-ending sea below and away from the icy points above. “We’ll approach and overfly at 75 klicks altitude, see if we can see anything. If not, we’ll descend and return for another pass.” “Prepare the radar-homing missiles?” Pause. “Negative. For now, we shall just look.” “Not risking more bad press?” “The West loves its bad press. About everything you could name, but about the Soviet Union especially. I’ll not give them another flak shell to fire against us, even in as remote an area as this.” Four months prior, there had been an incident over the Soviet Far East. Voyska-PVO interceptors had shot down an airplane that had violated Soviet military airspace over the island of Sakhalin. While the official Soviet line, the line which both Nesterov and Dubinev felt inclined to believe, said that their planes had downed a US Air Force reconnaissance flight, most of the rest of the world howled that it had been an off-course Korean Air Lines jumbo jet instead. The investigation still went on. Combined with a separate occurrence in 1978 where a PVO interceptor had fired on an another off-course Korean Air Lines jetliner, that time near the border between the Soviet Union and Finland, most air defense squadron commanders felt the need to require a more conservative approach to handling unidentified aircraft. “As you say, then,” Dubinev replied. “Two of our missiles are heat-seekers. That should be adequate for whatever we find.” “Alright, then.” “Why so unconvinced?” “Not really. I just prefer having the option.” “Our bosses have a different preference. Therefore, it’s our preference.” A small chuckle. “Of course.” Nesterov edged the throttles forward again. This, combined with their shallow descent, increased their speed to a comfortable margin. Enough to quickly disengage in the face of a sudden appearance of hostile intent. After a moment, Nesterov asked, “Any change in contact aspect?” “Negative. Range twenty-five klicks and closing.” Opening the radio channel, Nesterov quickly gave a status report to the radar operator at Station T-22, who only replied with a terse, “Acknowledged.” “If the contact location remains consistent,” Nesterov said to Dubinev, “then at ten kilometers, I want you to start broadcasting on general aviation bands. See if we can establish any kind of radio contact with them.” “Roger. If we cannot?” “Continue closing, make a visual identification. Follow our orders. Any other contacts on screen?” “Negative. We’re alone up here.” The darkness below spread in every direction into which they could fly down, masking the empty chop of the sea. Both Nesterov and Dubinev focused on the soft light of their instruments, their attention concerned with the single blip on the plane’s huge Smerch radar system. Nesterov considered asking if any kind of radar emission had been detected emanating from the unknown contact, but squashed it almost instantly. Dubinev had not said anything about any sort of electronic emissions, radar or otherwise, therefore, there could be nothing to report. In the two years they had known each other, Nesterov considered Dubinev to be as close as a brother. Growing up an only child, he had never felt any sort of a pang for where a sibling’s affection would have been in his life. There had only been his parents and himself in the household, and, as far as he had been concerned, getting emotional over that fact constituted a misallocation of resources. His initial service in the PVO had been in twin-seat Yakovlev interceptors, and, while the radar operators he had flown with had been a decent lot, none had made a deep impression upon him. Only after transferring to the Tu-28 squadrons, and meeting Dubinev, did he realize that growing up with a brother might have brought his life an enrichment that it had not known. It did not shame Nesterov to say that he loved him. Not really in any kind of romantic manner, but as a unique and irreplaceable sharer of experiences. Whether that experience had been getting booted out of the local dive for the umpteenth time, or discussions about the vagaries of their similar sexual experiences with women, or arranging the logistics of special long-range flights to increase their unit’s prestige, to the one terrifying, exhilarating time when Nesterov had nursed their Tu-28 back to Rogachevo with one of its engines dead and the other one dying as it burned itself up from the inside out on a load of poor-quality fuel. He did not know Dubinev’s position on their relationship, but could reasonably guess that it mattered as much to him, as well. It brought him a comfort he needed in the desolation into which they constantly operated. Checking the radar console, Nesterov called out, “Ten kilometers.” Dubinev opened the radio channel, broadcasting on general aviation bands that any aircraft in the area would be reasonably expected to be receiving. He spoke first in Russian. “To the aircraft bearing three-three-five from my location, this is Soviet Air Defense Forces aircraft Komyeta 1. Please identify yourself and state your intentions, over.” After a moment, he repeated his message, this time in remarkably good English. In the barren north, having time to learn potentially useful skills came easily to them. No reply. Only darkness lay ahead. No light, no shape. The Smerch radar still held the contact. Nesterov switched back to the frequency for Station T-22. “We are attempting to initiate radio communication with the contact. Will update if successful.” The same reply as before: “Acknowledged.” “Nice to know they’re so excited to learn what’s going on up here,” Dubinev said. “If it’s nothing but a fault in their system, I’m getting that operator to buy us a bottle of something good to make up for our lost time and fuel.” “You think you’ll get him to do that?” “I know I will. Have some faith.” Pause. “Try hailing them again.” Another pause as the frequency shifted back once more. This time, leading off in English, “This is Soviet Air Defense Forces aircraft Komyeta 1 to the aircraft bearing –“ Suddenly, over the radio, came a single dull spike of noise. Not earsplitting, but loud enough to make both of the Soviet aircrew wince and flinch. It faded out in a few seconds. Only silence following it. With a ringing in his ears, Nesterov again put the radio back to Station T-22’s frequency. “This is Komyeta 1. Experiencing some kind of radio interference from the contact. Acknowledge.” No reply. After a moment of waiting, Nesterov again said, “Station T-22, do you copy?” Again, no reply. “Dubinev, is there a fault with the radio?” “Negative. System appears normal. I am still not detecting any electronic emissions from the contact. Do you have a visual?” “Negative.” A light unease had begun to slither in the pit of Nesterov’s stomach. Not enough to get him to abort, but certainly enough to increase his wariness over this unknown contact. “Try hailing the contact one more time.” A pause. “This is Komyeta 1 to –“ Another noise spike driving into their eardrums. Its peak lasting longer, its taper unwinding at a slower pace than before. Nesterov went back to the intercom. “We’re being jammed. Somehow. Not sure. Increase power output on the Smerch and bring the radar-guided missiles online. Try one last time to reach Station T-22.” Dubinev tried one last time to broadcast to the radar. Receiving no reply whatsoever, he focused on his radar and the missiles it might soon be guiding to their target. The Tu-28 carried a missile system unique to that particular type of plane. The Bisnovat R-4 had been designed from fins to nosecone as a bomber-killer, carrying a fifty kilogram warhead to a target at over Mach 1. Two of them carried semi-active radar-homing seeker heads, the other two configured for infra-red tracking. They could handle the target now harassing them, if it came to that. Nesterov pushed the throttles forward. Not up to full military power, but close. Looking into the darkness, he thought he could see something. It looked elongated, a vague oval shape. The color hard to determine. Maybe red. Squinting at it for a moment, he saw the color start to brighten, become ever so slightly more vibrant. He said to Dubinev, borrowing an Americanism he had picked up from the other man’s English lessons, “I have a tally-ho on the target. Eleven o’clock low. Still maintaining its station.” It only took a second. Just one. Dubinev, a knife edge in his voice, “Fast aspect change on target! Target is climbing [i]and accelerating[/i] –“ Nesterov punched the throttles all the way up, the plane’s afterburners igniting as he hauled the Tupolev’s nose up and to the right, heaving for altitude. Dubinev increased the Smerch’s power output to maximum, seeing the possibility of increased jamming and using the one tool at their disposal to try to counteract it. The Smerch could burn through a huge amount of electronic jamming if the need arose, and he sensed that need now. The only thing either of them had heard of that could produce the maneuvering they now saw was some kind of rocket or missile, but none of that computed with the target’s behavior up to now. Nesterov, still pulling up and right, almost putting the Tupolev on its wingtip, sensed a huge burst of light to his left. Red light – no, not red, [i]pink[/i]. A hard [i]whump[/i] sound, the plane bucking upwards like something had kicked it square in its belly. Him fighting a moment to keep the plane from going inverted. Nose still up and pointing back to the stars. The light fading, pink glow passing behind them. Sharp, curt, “We hit?” “Negative, negative.” “Where is he?” “Six o’clock, still climbing. Speed is about” – doubt – “sixteen hundred, what the hell –?“ “Does he have a lock on us?” “Negative!” Pause. “I don’t think –?“ “Focus! It’s negative. Keep tracking him!” Disengaging afterburners, he kept the giant interceptor in its right turn, now making a wide circuit to come back around to face the target. “Two R-4’s, one radar, one heat-seeker. Set it up.” The engagement range less than Nesterov would have liked, but it would have to work. The Tu-28 did not carry a cannon for very close-in work. “Target is now two klicks above us. Still in the R-4’s engagement envelope.” “Do you have a target lock?” Silence. Frustration, confusion, “[i]Do you have a fucking[/i]-?“ “Look up.” Nesterov, startled, looking away from his controls, did as Dubinev asked. Seen from Earth, stars always appeared white. Even through the electric curtain lens of an aurora borealis, the stars, and the moon, generally always shone white. On this night, as both Nesterov and Dubinev looked into the firmament, each white point, so many of them so close together they could almost choke one another, began to turn. All of them. Each hard white point shifting into pink. The moon acquiring a darker hue, more salmon in tone. The black lines delineating its various seas and craters now shifting to a pink so light they almost appeared white. Nesterov, his mind now grasping that this did not fall into any kind of set military engagement, checked his compass to set a course back to Rogachevo. Setting the throttles back up to afterburner. Vaguely aware it might give him fuel problems later, but not caring in the right now. “Are you seeing this?” “Yes, and I’m trying to get us the hell away.” “Nesterov, the light!” “I know-“ “No, look!” His gaze jerking upwards again and this time it did not leave again as the pink light descended like a great curtain through the twin canopies of the plane. The light whose source neither of them could see. The light whose source, unseen to either of them, suddenly winked off their radar scope. Nesterov, seeing the light, sensed his muscles grow slack, his head relaxing back into his seat, mouth opening, his eyes never leaving the illumination. His need to blink going away for the time being. The light providing for that need. All the darkness above, the space between the stars, replaced with that heart-soft glow. The thought to pull back on the stick did not originate within his own mind. He followed it anyway. Dubinev in the same position behind him and following him up. Nesterov pulled back, stood the Tupolev up on its tail, now ascending like a gunmetal angel. The light filling him. Them. Time getting lost and happening to everyone else in the world except them. As they rose, Nesterov saw millions of years in a space the size of a cubbyhole, all bright pink and white and whirling so hard they could cut to the end of all history, and the diamond cores of gas giants, and wings holding aloft beasts of such luster and glittering angular beauty that no human finger could hope to build a machine to match their purpose and devotion. His airplane rose through the stratosphere and passed into an elsewhere that would never stoop to the cold vacuum of mere space. He saw dirt once trod upon by empresses trapped in ice that contained secrets capable of launching a thousand revolutions. Seeing all families in all the worlds as a kaleidoscope whirl before his eyes, and he could hear them sing at times. The partitions between them melting, Nesterov tumbling backwards to face Dubinev looking at it all with the same expression upon his face as Nesterov wore upon his own. Them both nude now, flight suits and helmets gone, Nesterov embracing him more tightly than he would have once believed possible even as Dubinev kept looking to the heavens. A hundred questions being put to their own minds as they saw the splendor beyond their imaginings, and them answering every single one without their realization. Too enthralled by the answers they now received to the questions they never even knew to ask. Even in the mass of it all, Nesterov, who could still remember himself in totality, felt the Tupolev perform a loop. Through where, through when? Certainly questions. He let Dubinev go, turning back to face the front. The pink now starting to fade. He assumed a sitting position, his flight gear coming back to him as the partitions behind him came back into existence. The pink draining from above, and, through the valleys of his brain, Nesterov sensing their wave of goodbye. It ended with a simple muscle movement. He blinked. Dawn’s cold light, passing through a pitiless overcast, blared through the left side of his canopy. Nesterov blinking more furiously as his normal mind caught up and started assessing the situation. Where once before they had been kilometers in the air, now only a few hundred meters separated the Tupolev’s belly from the sea below. Gazing ahead, he could see the barren gray waste of Cape Zhelaniya dead ahead. The northernmost point of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, he’d passed over it enough times, heading out and in on patrol flights, to recognize it instantly. Neither engine running. Both out of fuel. The loss of engine power also meant the loss of electrical power. He could still work the control surfaces. He barked, “Dubinev, can you hear me?” “Yes.” His reply weaker than Nesterov would have liked, but definitely there. “Drop the weapons. Get them off the rails. Now!” “Y-yes, right now.” A series of mechanical thumps issued from each of the plane’s hardpoints as all four air-to-air missiles jettisoned into the sea. Nesterov kept the Tupolev as level as possible. Very little in the way of crosswind on this dawn, for which he felt grateful. His first real emotion he could remember since last night. Applying flaps, he maintained the plane’s level attitude. For having no memory of arriving there, the plane was straight on course to make a proper belly landing on the island. Nesterov did not have to do much in the way of actively flying the plane. As emergency landings went, it would be the best a pilot could ask for. Moments later, the plane cruised over solid land, with only about ten meters below its centerline. Its belly hit the gray, rocky soil with an annoyed groan, the plane’s low speed and high mass ensuring that it skidded only a short distance before coming to a halt. He looked up again, but saw only the dawn of this world, in this time. A gray sheet of clouds above him. But, lighting deep inside him, Nesterov, who had seen into the deeps above, felt the lightest sense of wonder. A thinning of all separations. In the dawn’s light, he smiled. “Nesterov?” “Yes, Dubinev?” “We need to leave the plane.” This statement struck Nesterov as hilarious. His laughter did not spread, though the other man did quirk his lips in a quick grin. Opening the canopies and stepping outside, they regarded each other for a moment. Nesterov’s face still lit up, Dubinev’s more closed. After a moment’s quiet, Dubinev said, “There’s a manned weather station nearby. We can use their radios to contact Rogachevo for assistance.” “Of course! We should head there immediately.” Nesterov turned and began walking in the direction of the station. But only he did so. After a moment, he became aware of this, and turned to look back at Dubinev. “Aren’t you going to come along?” He stood in silence for another moment, the sigh of the sea air coursing around him. Finally, he asked, “What do we tell them?” Nesterov, a spark in his eyes, said, “As much as we can, and nothing more.” He paused for a minute himself. “I don’t remember a whole lot. The last time the radar station acknowledged us is the last thing I remember concretely before whatever happened, happened. Is that true for you, too?” The other man nodded. “It’d be worse if we lost the plane. After what we went through, we can only do what we can.” Nesterov gestured to his side. “Walk with me, my brother.” Dubinev blinked at being called that. He did not move for a moment, but, finally, with the distant shriek of gulls at his back, he walked forward to fall in beside Nesterov. The two of them walked down to rejoin the world as they knew it. [hr] The Voyska-PVO’s final report into the incident involving one of its Tu-28’s on the night of January 17 – 18, 1984 did not make any solid conclusions about the vague stories of the plane’s flight crew, nor did it offer an explanation for how a plane with four hours’ worth of fuel managed to stay aloft and glide in for a belly landing seven hours after it took off from its home base. Close examination of the radar telemetry records retrieved from Station T-22 yielded no firm conclusions, either, and this incident contributed to the decision to shut down the station six months later. Nonetheless, both the PVO’s report and the radar readings both ended up classified at a level beyond top secret. At that point, most of the air defense force leadership was engaged in deflecting criticism from itself after the shootdown of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. An incident of the unexplained would not endear itself to the wider Soviet military establishment, and, so, any investigation into what happened ended up quietly dropped. Both Nesterov and Dubinev saw beyond what they believed it possible for a human to see. From that night forward, their life paths diverged in ways neither could have imagined before then. Filip Nesterov resigned from the Voyska-PVO in March of that year. Returning to his home city of Novosibirsk, he became active in organizing Russia-based UFO groups, while gaining employment at a company providing crop dusting and aerial firefighting services. Marrying in 1986, he later raised two daughters. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, he traveled to Europe, speaking on matters related to extraterrestrial contact and adopting an almost anarchistic stance in calling for the borders of the globe to be broken down and replaced by a single unified world-nation. Revered by some, though taken as a fringe figure by practically all, Nesterov continues to lecture on a variety of subjects (as his work and family schedules will allow him) to this day. He often personally flies crop-dusting sorties, as a means of maintaining his piloting skills. Iosif Dubinev remained in the Voyska-PVO, eventually attaining the rank of full colonel before the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Never marrying or raising a family, he remained in the armed forces before retiring in 1993, having transferred from airplanes to focus on ground-based air defense systems. Following his retirement, he immigrated to the newly-independent republic of Belarus, where he became a high-level civilian advisor to the Belarusian air force staff regarding air defense systems and training. Most of his income ended up being donated to various Orthodox churches and religious organizations. Modest about his successes, Dubinev, who never displayed any overt signs of clinical depression, did, however, develop a paralyzing fear of flying, and he vowed that never again would he leave the grip of the Earth so long as he lived. Both Nesterov and Dubinev maintained contact for the first few years, but it grew increasingly sporadic as time went by. Neither of them speaking directly of that night to each other, but that night always there in the backgrounds of everything they did say. Until, eventually, they did not say anything to each other anymore. [hr] In February of 2004, Nesterov received an envelope in the mail. The rest of his family had traveled to Khabarovsk, to visit relatives of his wife, while he had stayed behind to sort out some complications with his business. The envelope had contained two documents. The first being the plastic image of an MRI scan, marked I. DUBINEV, and showing an image of the interior of his skull. An image centered on his brain, and, in particular, the tennis ball-sized mass within it. The second document was a single piece of paper, folded into thirds, with two sentences hand-written upon it: [center]“I saw the light with you. I go now to seek it again.”[/center] Telephone inquiries immediately followed. The envelope had been mailed at the end of January, on the notarized instructions of Dubinev’s attorney. Dubinev had been diagnosed in November of the prior year and given three months to live. Returning to Russia, the authorities pieced together what he had done afterwards. Forging official documents, he managed to get himself transported out to the weather station at Cape Zhelaniya. Arriving there on the seventeenth of January, he had waited with the skeleton staff at the station until nightfall, when he had purportedly gone to bed. His last statement, made to one of the station workers, had been, “I’ll see the light tonight.” Once they had fallen asleep, he proceeded to board a small rowboat with limited supplies, and rowed away out into the freezing nighttime sea. No one saw him again. Finding this out, Nesterov collapsed in his home. A sorrow beyond all tears moving deep within him. The memory-less night that still blew him forward rising in his mind in a wash of illumination. His tears came later. After his family returned. As did something else. In the small garden behind his office, Nesterov began keeping a small electric light. Always lit. A light sheathed in a case of pink glass. “I’ll see the light tonight.” Nesterov hoped it came to pass for him. For the things the pink light meant to both of them, that it healed him. He keeps the light burning even now. For his brother.