"Step up to bench, please," General Semoyan said. The others crowded around under the unstable fluorescent lighting.
On the bench were two objects. They appeared to be identical.
"This is component of the rocket motor of our new
shuttle spaceplane," General Semoyan told Brashnikov, tapping one of them.
"It is quite . . . shiny," Rair ventured. In fact it was very shiny. Rair wondered what it might fetch on the black market. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. There were too many witnesses in this room'. He could not palm it in full view of all these men.
The general hefted the other object.
"And this is component from American shuttle," he said. "Do they look similar to you?"
Rair took the second component in his hands and turned it over and over. The old urge tugged at his heart. Reluctantly he replaced it on the bench's grainy surface.
"Yes," he said firmly. "They are identical. A testament to the ability of Soviet technicians to match much-vaunted Americans."
"No," the general said. "A tribute to good fortune and what we call reverse engineering."
"I do not know this term, 'reverse engineering,' " Rair admitted. He wondered what this had to do with America.
"You understand principle of engineering a tool or machine part, nyetl One begins with prototype. From this, blueprint is made. And from blueprint, many copies are built. Here is blueprint of the rocket-motor part. See? It shows in exacting detail how the components are to be manufactured, how to machine fine thicknesses of parts and how to join parts together to result in a working mechanism."
"Da, I understand," said Brashnikov.
"No, you do not. While this Soviet component was built from Soviet blueprint, it is not total story. For these blueprints are not drawn from Soviet prototype. They were created from this American component. One of our agents obtained this from its point of manufacture. We took it apart, calibrated measurements and deduced materials, and developed blue-
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prints. Thus, without incurring cost and time required to develop component that might or might not work properly first time, we have attained ability to mass-produce this part. Thus our shuttle soared as well as its American counterpart."
"Reverse engineering," Rair said blankly.
"Reverse engineering, da. For despite what you may have read in Pravda or Izvestia or whatever it is thieves read, Soviet technology still lags far behind the West. Even now, we have hundreds of agents in U.S. attempting to acquire working parts to everything from microwave ovens to neutron bombs."
"Whatever works," Rair said, inadvertently recoining an American catchphrase. He was trying to be diplomatic.
"But," General Semoyan went on, "even with all of our agents, America is too productive. Too creative. Often by the time a find comes into our hands and can be duplicated, it is already obsolete by Western standards. In short, we cannot steal American technology as fast as Americans can create and improve it."
"This is ironic," Rair said.
"This is tragic," the general countered. "For if this trend continues, we will be left far behind. Even now, almost seventy years after American society was first transformed by mass-produced automobile, Mother Russia still cannot build a decent affordable car."
Rair nodded unthinkingly. He drove a Lada.
General Semoyan laughed grimly. "Instead of making glorious revolution, we should have been making Model T's. And today, American computer technology is so far ahead of us, they will bury us in microchips. Khrushchev is no doubt turning in grave."
"I will be happy to steal as much American technology as you would like," Rair Brashnikov said bravely, "but I fear I am not equal to this mighty task."
"Nyet, you are not. No ordinary man is. But we can make you so. Bring it," the general said to a hovering technician.
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The technician came back with a black box the size of a light traveling suitcase. It had a combination lock and two keyholes. The technician removed a small key from a chain around his throat and undid the locks. Then he worked the combination.
"What that man did, the unlocking, would defeat any thief," General Semoyan said coolly. "Even you, Brashnikov."
"Yes," Brashikov said, but he really meant "no." He was confident he could pick any lock. But he was afraid to seem like too much of a thief. He still couldn't take his eyes off the shiny shuttle components.
But when the technician opened the case and revealed a heap of white plastic, Brashnikov forgot all about the components.
"This," the general said proudly, "will allow you to defeat locks, doors, vaults, walls-even the most impregnable fortified military installations in USA."
The technician lifted the thing out of the case. It hung from his hands like a cosmonaut suit. Gloves and thick-soled boots lay in the case, along with what appeared to be a collapsed helmet. They were slick like plastic, but the skin was networked with pale plastic filaments.
"Please demonstrate our prize for Captain Brashnikov," General Semoyan ordered.
One of the technicans-the shortest of them-struggled into the suit. It took the help of two others to pull the skintight material on. It was like getting into a scuba suit that was a size too small. They sealed it in the back by Velcro flaps. The helmet went on the same way.
Rair noticed with interest that the face shield was not transparent glass or plastic, but a kind of opaque white cellophane. After the helmet was in place, the cellophane expanded. Then it contracted. Its rhythmic expansions were obviously the result of the technician's respiration.
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"The facial membrane is like two-way mirror," General Semoyan explained as he noted Brashnikov's perplexed expression. "He can see out, but no one can see his face. It has added advantage of being permeable to oxygen, but proof against all known forms of chemical agents. However, its prime purpose is that no matter how well we train a man to prepare himself for rigors of wearing device, the human eye is designed to flinch from perceived obstacles, even when brain knows those obstacles cannot possibly harm it."
"I do not understand," Rair said as the technicans turned the man around. They hooked two white cables to ports on the suit's shoulders. The other ends were hooked up to an ordinary car battery. Then they fitted the battery into a webbed sling that attached to the man's back like a rucksack.
The man in the suit turned around and waited, his blank blister of a face crinkling as he breathed.
General Semoyan smiled expansively.
"If you are curious about the material, Captain Brashnikov, go ahead, touch it. Feel it if you wish."
Brashnikov touched the man's chest. It felt slick, like plastic. It was plastic, Rair decided, possibly some kind of rubberized plastic. The sewn-in tubes also felt plasticky. Fiberoptic cables, he decided.
"Does it feel solid to you?" the general asked pleasantly.
"Yes, of course. It is very substantial. Is it bulletproof?"
The general laughed loudly. "Yes," he said. "But not in the way you think. I mean, did it feel solid to the touch?"
"Yes," Rair said. What did the general mean? Of course it was solid. What else could it be?
"And this," General Semoyan asked, rapping on the bench. "Is it solid?"
Rair Brashnikov ran his fingers along the edges of the bench. He was careful to keep his fingers away from the shuttle parts which sat so carelessly, so temptingly within reach.