From a distance of a hundred or so kilometers, the Cigarette looked more like the old Soyuz rockets, but with a longer tail. Denis tried again to find traces of artificiality in the plain little stick on the screen. For the hundredth time, he fiddled with the photo-electronic zoom of the telescope and studied the object’s white surface. It was covered with hills and craters, evidence of its long journey. But besides its cylindrical shape, nothing spoke of its technological origins. One thing was for sure, Professor Chernikov had been right all along. This was no comet.    “Beginning final approach,” he announced. The rest of the team was staring raptly at the screen through the reflective visors of their space suits. Denis was feeling the same excitement he saw in their eyes: they couldn’t wait to dock on the Cigarette and see what it was made of.    The men crowded into the tiny control room grumbled favorably. Even Glinich, who hadn’t said a sentence longer than three words since takeoff, said that it was time they asked the owner of the Cigarette to “put it out.” The Lightning’s space junk specialist seemed to think that he had a sense of humor.    The ship headed for the solid end of the white cylinder. It grew rapidly, filling the entire semicircle of the screen. Denis flipped on the breaking thrusters. A kilometer away from the Cigarette, the Lightning fell into parallel trajectory. Denis accelerated to match the Cigarette’s speed.    “My god…” whispered Abdulov. Denis could barely see his face through the visor, but the navigator’s amazement was palpable.    The rest of the crew seemed as shocked.    They were staring at a cavity that marred the perfectly cylindrical shape at the solid end of the Cigarette. It looked like an entrance into a tunnel and made the object look even more like a half-smoked cigarette tossed into space by some giant smoker.    “Wow!” breathed Lieutenant Shilov into his microphone. He was a small, round man who was con-stantly chewing on something or other, but lively and quick on his feet. Despite Denis’ reservations, Shilov proven to be a great specialist and a jovial, funny guy. “What idiot decided this was a comet?”    “What do you think it is?” Abdulov turned to Professor Glinich.    The Professor said nothing. He liked to save his few words for the ship’s computer.    “I’m going to come in closer,” said Denis and turned on the steering thrusters. “Slava, check whether we’re alone here.”    “It’s too dark to see,” chuckled Shilov.    “We seem to be the first ones here,” answered Abdulov. “I scanned the area, and nothing came up. No Americans, no Chinese, no little green men.”    Shilov snorted. “And the winner of the Paris-Dakar race is the underdog, Russian fighter plane The Lightning!”    Abdulov snickered.    “Send a message to the base,” said Denis. “We’ve reached the object and are beginning reconnaissance.”    “Right away, sir.”    The Lightning circled the bluish-white cylinder and stopped near the edge of the cavity. The tunnel looked endless. The Cigarette was a colossal pipe with thick walls, which dissipated into the shimmering smoke of a comet tail nine kilometers from the front.    “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Glinich suddenly.    “Really?” Shilov feigned surprise. “I thought surely you saw things like this every day.”