Got up, went on comm, reported that we’re ready for fuel transfer. The hatches of the docking port and the intermediate chamber are closed. But why was I so sleepy? Yesterday we went to bed at 2 AM again. The thing is, at midnight we had to close the hatches — and suddenly the key to the docking port hatch was gone. It had been in the intermediate chamber, we’d seen it, tied it down so it wouldn’t float away. And now it’s gone. We searched the intermediate chamber, the cargo ship, thinking maybe it drifted in there, checked everything — no key. I broke out in a cold sweat. Can’t close the hatch. Following the instructions in the “Emergency Station Evacuation” manual, we started looking for the second key and where it should be stored. The second key was supposed to be in the transfer compartment, in the docking port accessories bag. We looked — it wasn’t there. We started thinking where it could be — maybe it came untied and floated away during the cargo ship loading, and try finding it behind all that spent equipment. For that, we’d have to pull everything out of the cargo ship again. Or maybe it drifted behind a station panel, in which case we’d have to open all the panels to find it on the ventilator grilles, where the airflow could have carried it. And it’s already nighttime, we want to sleep, there’s work tomorrow, and here’s this disaster. So I’m searching for the second key according to documentation in the transport ship and the transfer compartment, while Tolya is crawling around the cargo ship and looking behind the station’s recesses. No key. Already 1 AM, I say: “Let’s go to sleep; for now, close your hatch from the station side with the control panel command, and tomorrow we’ll report that we made such a blunder.” Tolya says: “Let’s look in the intermediate chamber one more time.” We started checking every corner again — no key, everything’s in plain sight, but no key. Suddenly Tolya says: “Where does this little cord lead?” He pulled it and out came the key from the rotary mechanism of the docking port hatch. Apparently, when we were climbing into the cargo ship, we bumped it — it floated up and hid behind the guard specifically designed to protect the rotary mechanism from foreign objects. A real joke, that’s what it was.

Yes, when we came on comm in the morning, we heard a nightingale trilling — the ground reminded us of the start of summer with birdsong on a recording. On this orbit, before reaching Soviet territory, we were crossing the Mediterranean Sea heading toward the Arabian Peninsula. It was morning; our country remained to the left on the horizon, in the haze of its dawning morning. And the panorama of the Earth and the nightingale’s song with a cuckoo on the airwaves amid the crackle of radio interference, beeping, noise, English and Italian speech — it all sounded symbolic, as if a choir of birds had filled the entire globe.

The day went well. We completed the fuel transfer and some test checks of the equipment. We observed the Mississippi — a beautiful river. Along its entire course all the way to the ocean coastline, both banks are plowed — fields upon fields, and as we approached it we saw lakes shaped like aloe leaves, and one looked like a hydra, with an arrow-shaped head — I absolutely have to photograph it. In the Mississippi delta, along the coast there are greenish-turquoise swirls that set off the yellow river sediment. In the northern part of Africa, I saw an enormous five-pointed star on the land, weathered out of rock formations. And in the center of the star — red sand. Amazing creations of nature. In the evening we finished sorting through things and made an inventory. Just now I watered the plants in “Oasis.” Our peas and oats are already about 20 centimeters tall, pressing against the light fixtures. I lowered the vessels below the support so they’d have room to grow. The pea tendrils have started curling — who knows, maybe pods will appear.