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"Eh Sergei! Your missile is still coming," Ralph shouted in the phone. "It's six minutes down range, now. It should have been destroyed if you were serious at bringing it down."
"Maybe they had a computer failure at Lenin Base, or an electrical failure; that's all I can think of," replied Sergei.
"I don't care about your computer or your power failures, get that thing terminated, you hear! Stop trying to snow us!"
"Relax Ralph," Sergei repeated as calmly as he could. "Even if Lenin Base would fail to get the missile terminated, you are in no danger. We have a new system installed that sets up missile targeting after the launch. If a missile is erroneously launched, it will have no targeting parameters applied. When this happens there won't be any separation of the warheads. The warheads will remain clustered inside the missile and burn up with it on re-entry somewhere over the dessert in New Mexico. Most likely, there will be no nuclear explosion taking place at all."
"And you expect us to believe this!" Ralph shouted back.
"Don't worry, no one will get hurt," Sergei assured him. "Our strategic committee in Moscow is probably telling your President the same thing right now."
"The guys here don't believe your fairy tale," Ralph replied.
"Well Ralph, what more do you expect me to say. I invented the Post-Launch-Targeting system myself, and had it installed under my personal supervision, and I personally verified it. I tell you it works! It isn't a fairy tale!"
For six long years Sergei had struggled with his invention, to get it approved, to get it implemented. A fairy tale they called it! Little did they know how he had fought for their safety, gave his life to it, risked his position so that innocently targeted people wouldn't get killed if some technical mistake happened. And now, the very people he tried to protect scoffed at his efforts.
The idea had come to him six years before the project was finally installed. It came during an afternoon's ride with his friend Nicolayevitch, an ardent horseman. There were days when the two would go out riding for hours, sometimes just to talk, which seemed easier on horseback, and sometimes to ride quietly, to think. There had been great opposition to his project when he first announced it. It took thirteen months of political fighting to get it approved. And even after it was built, the project was still in danger of being canceled at a moment's notice whenever there were political uncertainties.
Ironically, the safety of human beings mattered nothing against the concerns of national security, as if the two weren't one and the same thing. It took countless hours of arguing to get the simple fact acknowledged that the security of people's life, everywhere on the globe, and the security of Russia, were in essence related. There was always a fight going on for the project's survival, throughout every stage of it. The ranch proved to be a valuable asset during those days. If it was good for nothing else. This one thing alone was worth the price of it.
Most of the opposition came from high ranking military officers over whom Sergei had no authority. He went to rather grotesque extremes to address this impasse. Once he staged a foxhunt to persuade a certain general to drop his opposition. It was no small task to convince the general just to accept his invitation, though this proved still easier in the end than organizing the hunt itself. Foxhunts had long been stopped. A fox had to be found. Hunting rules had to be researched....
Peter had bee put in charge of all the arrangements. Peter was a genius when it came to organizing unusual events. But even he had a hard time getting the fine details worked out, to find the proper hounds that were not too swift....
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Stories
about
Healing
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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