The Relief Crew

The helicopter sets down at dawn — a dawn that should not yet exist, but here it is, pale gold spilling across the ice. The relief crew finds Vostok-9 immaculate. Every log current. Every dial calibrated. You greet them at the door with hot coffee already poured, the right number of cups.

You laugh at their jokes. You ask after their families by name. You eat. You sleep. You fly home.

It is only weeks later, in a debriefing room in Tromsø, that an analyst slows the cockpit tape and hears it: each of your answers arriving a half-second before the question. Every one. Without exception.

By then, of course, you have already been welcomed back among them. Smiling. Patient. Waiting.