In the hours immediately before encounter, Floyd saw little of captain or navigator. The Orlovs scarcely left the bridge, as they continually checked the approach orbit and made minute refinements to Leonov's course. The ship was now on the critical path that would just graze the outer atmosphere; if it went too high, frictional braking would not be sufficient to slow it down, and it would go racing out of the Solar System, beyond all possibility of rescue. If it went too low, it would burn up like a meteor. Between the two extremes lay little margin for error.

The Chinese had proved that aerobraking could be done, but there was always the chance that something would go wrong: So Floyd was not at all surprised when Surgeon-Commander Rudenko admitted, just an hour before contact: 'I'm beginning to wish, Woody, that I had brought along that icon, after all.'

14 – Double Encounter

'... papers for the mortgage on the Nantucket house should be in the file marked M in the library.

'Well, that's all the business I can think of. For the last couple of hours I've been recalling a picture I saw as a boy, in a tattered volume of Victorian art – it must have been almost one hundred and fifty years old. I can't remember whether it was black-and-white or colour. But I'll never forget the title – don't laugh – it was called "The Last Message Home". Our great-great-grandfathers loved that kind of sentimental melodrama.

'It shows the deck of a windjammer in a hurricane – the sails have been ripped away and the deck's awash. In the background, the crew is struggling to save the ship. And in the foreground, a young sailor boy's writing a note, while beside him is the bottle he hopes will carry it to land.

'Even though I was a kid at the time, I felt he should have been giving his shipmates a hand, not writing letters. All the same, it moved me: I never thought that one day I'd be like that young sailor.

'Of course, I'm sure you'll get this message-and there's nothing I can do to help aboard Leonov. In fact, I've been politely requested to keep out of the way, so my conscience is quite clear as I dictate this.

'I'll send it up to the bridge now because in fifteen minutes we'll break transmission as we pull in the big dish and batten down the hatches – there's another nice maritime analogy for you! Jupiter's filling the sky now – I won't attempt to describe it and won't even see it much longer because the shutters will go up in a few minutes. Anyway, the cameras can do far better than I could.

'Goodbye, my dearest, and my love to you all – especially Chris. By the time you get this, it will be over, one way or the other. Remember I tried to do my best for all our sakes – goodbye.'

When he had removed the audio chip, Floyd drifted up to the communications centre and handed it over to Sasha Kovalev.

'Please make sure it gets off before we close down,' he said earnestly.

'Don't worry,' promised Sasha. 'I'm still working on all channels, and we have a good ten minutes left.'

He held out his hand. 'If we do meet again, why, we shall smile! If not, why then, this parting was well made.' Floyd blinked.

'Shakespeare, I suppose?'

'Of course; Brutus and Cassius before battle. See you later.'

Tanya and Vasili were too intent upon their situation displays to do more than wave to Floyd, and he retreated to his cabin. He had already said farewell to the rest of the crew; there was nothing to do but wait. His sleeping bag was slung in preparation for the return of gravity when deceleration commenced, and he had only to climb into it – 'Antennas retracted, all protective shields up,' said the intercom speaker. 'We should feel first braking in five minutes. Everything normal.'

'That's hardly the word I'd use,' Floyd muttered to himself. 'I think you mean "nominal".' He had barely concluded the thought when there was a diffident knock on the door.

'Kto tam?'

To his astonishment, it was Zenia.

'Do you mind if I come in?' she asked awkwardly, in a small-girl voice which Floyd could scarcely recognize.

'Of course not. But why aren't you in your own cubicle? It's only five minutes to re-entry.'

Even as he asked the question, he was aware of its foolishness. The answer was so perfectly obvious that Zenia did not deign to reply.

But Zenia was the very last person he would have expected: her attitude toward him had invariably been polite but distant. Indeed, she was the only member of the crew who preferred to call him Dr Floyd. Yet there she was, clearly seeking comfort and companionship at the moment of peril.

'Zenia, my dear,' he said wryly. 'You're welcome. But my accommodation is somewhat limited. One might even call it Spartan.'

She managed a faint smile, but said nothing as she floated into the room. For the first time, Floyd realized that she was not merely nervous – she was terrified. Then he understood why she had come to him. She was ashamed to face her countrymen and was looking for support elsewhere.

With this realization, his pleasure at the unexpected encounter abated somewhat. That did not lessen his responsibility to another lonely human being, a long way from home. The fact that she was an attractive – though certainly not beautiful – woman of barely half his own age should not have affected the issue. But it did; he was beginning to rise to the occasion.

She must have noticed, but did nothing to encourage or discourage him as they lay down side by side in the sleeping cocoon. There was just enough room for them both, and Floyd began to do some anxious calculations. Suppose maximum gee was higher than predicted, and the suspension gave way? They could easily be killed...

There was an ample safety margin; no need to worry about such an ignominious end. Humour was the enemy of desire; their embrace was now completely chaste. He was not sure whether to be glad or sorry.

And it was too late for second thoughts. From far, far away came the first faint whisper of sound, like the wailing of some lost soul. At the same moment, the ship gave a barely perceptible jerk; the cocoon began to swing around and its suspension tightened. After weeks of weightlessness, gravity was returning.

Within seconds, the faint wail had risen to a steady roar, and the cocoon had become an overloaded hammock. This is not such a good idea, Floyd thought to himself, already it was difficult to breathe. The deceleration was only a part of the problem: Zenia was clutching him as a drowning person is supposed to clutch the proverbial straw.

He detached her as gently as he could.

'It's all right, Zenia. If Tsien did it, so can we. Relax – don't worry.'

It was difficult to shout tenderly, and he was not even sure if Zenia heard him above the roar of incandescent hydrogen. But she was no longer clutching him quite so desperately, and he seized the opportunity of taking a few deep breaths.

What would Caroline think if she could see him now? Would he tell her if he ever had the chance? He was not sure she would understand. At a moment like that, all links with Earth seemed very tenuous indeed.

It was impossible to move, or to speak, but now that he had grown accustomed to the strange sense of weight he was no longer uncomfortable – except for the increasing numbness in his right arm. With some difficulty, he managed to extricate it from beneath Zenia; the familiar act brought a fleeting sense of guilt. As he felt his circulation returning, Floyd remembered a famous remark attributed to at least a dozen astronauts and cosmonauts: 'Both the pleasures and problems of zero-gravity sex have been greatly exaggerated.'

He wondered how the rest of the crew was faring, and he gave a momentary thought to Chandra and Curnow, sleeping peacefully through it all. They would never know if Leonov became a meteor shower in the Jovian sky. He did not envy them; they had missed the experience of a lifetime.