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Page 187
sprouts limbs that orient it, then erect it to a vertical position. The hatch now lies only two meters from the surface of the bay at low tide. Dead and rotting fish that had settled in the mud are disturbed; they float away from the Device on the current.
The Device's movement has widened the original split in the casing. Watertight integrity has been lost. Within a radius of twenty meters the contamination was already severe. It now suddenly increases by orders of magnitude.
A hatch in the missile's flank opens and a small, torpedolike unit is ejected. It sinks to the muddy bottom. One minute later, the small unit's propeller whirs into action and it rises from the bottom and speeds away to the northeast on a preset course.
After thirty-seven minutes, the small unit's hydrazine fuel is exhausted. But it does not sink to the floor of the bay. Instead, it breaks the surface of the water, erects a spidery whip antenna, and transmits a signal.
Cosmos 7201 flies in bright sunlight at an altitude of 290 kilometers. As it overflies the Russian space base at Tyuratam, the satellite's recording and retransmitting program positions the transmitting antenna and begins to send.
The cover program is one of cosmic ray research over Central Asia. Buried within the code is a message for General Piotr Kondratiev, to be delivered by a dissident member of the GKNT.
Two hours after receiving the message, a jubilant Piotr Kondratiev boards an Aeroflot jet for Sheremeteyvo Airport, Moscow.

 
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