Sole Survivor td-72

by Warren Murphy

  "She is there, looking for something. We know not what."

  "You just answered my second question," Remo said.

  "Is that good?"

  "For me, yes. For you, uh-uh," Remo told him, shaking his head sadly.

  "You are going to shoot me here?"

  "No, I hate guns. Firing that one made me remember why. It's noisy and sloppy, and why should I shoot you when I can do this?" And Remo flipped the gun at the Russian. It struck him square over the heart, stopping it.

  "Much better," Remo said, looking around for more Russians.

  The Master of Sinanju found himself walking through a long, square tunnel whose walls might have been carved from black obsidian. Starlike lights twinkled behind the smoky glass, giving the illusion of walking through a tunnel of stars. When he emerged at last, he found himself in a spherical white room.

  The room was turning like the inside of a basketball rolling down a hill. It was filled with children and adults, laughing and giggling as they tumbled about the slick inner walls.

  When the room stopped revolving, an opening appeared on the opposite side, leading deeper into the Moon Walk attraction. The children started for the opening first.

  The Master of Sinanju cleared space in a gazellelike leap. He landed, blocking the entrance, his spindly arms raised menacingly.

  "Begone!" he said wrathfully.

  The children giggled, thinking the Master of Sinanju was part of the attraction.

  "Are you a moon man?" one of them asked.

  "This place is closed. Begone," Chiun repeated. And when one of the children reached out to touch the brocade of his robe, he slapped him once. Not hard, but sharply enough to get the attention of the others.

  "How dare you strike my child!" a woman cried, shoving her way toward the Master of Sinanju. Chiun smacked her too, and spinning her around, sent her off with a firm sandal on the seat of her pants.

  "I have closed this place," he said loudly. "Go now, and tell the others that no one may enter henceforth, otherwise they will face the wrath of the Master of Sinanju."

  "And you'll face the wrath of my lawyer," the woman shot back. But she led the crying child back toward the entrance. The others followed.

  Satisfied that he had prevented a terrible fate from befalling the group, the Master of Sinanju turned to face the next room and pressed on. His face was set.

  Anna Chutesov felt the eyes upon her.

  She had walked through the Star Tunnel and the Satellite Spin and floated through the Orbit Room to find herself in a great room called the Sargasso of Lost Spaceships. The floor was a web of nylon mesh. Great rusty hulks of derelict spaceships lay all about her. They protruded up from the bouncing mesh flooring, stuck out of the walls, and floated under the ceiling. She brushed at a tiny asteroid that hung before her face, but her hand went through it. She realized it was a three-dimensional image.

  The room was burnished with an eerie blue glow. In the semilit portholes of the spaceships, there were dummies of astronauts and aliens, supposedly dead and marooned in space. Their eyes stared, open and seemingly alive.

  Anna walked past a dummy in an astronaut suit, picking her way carefully because the web flooring gave with each step like a trampoline, making it seem as if she were actually walking in space. She thought she heard the crinkling sound of a spacesuit flexing.

  Anna stopped to listen, but the floor continued to shake.

  Anna Chutesov wheeled suddenly, her pistol coming up.

  The dummy in the spacesuit clambered to its feet and faced her. Its unblinking blue eyes regarded her blankly.

  "Hello is all right," said the voice. The same voice that had called to her from the booth of the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash.

  "I prefer good-bye," spat Anna Chutesov, and she emptied the clip into the figure's chest.

  Chapter 19

  Remo Williams had lost count.

  There had been ten Russians altogether. He was pretty sure of that number. He had counted them before he had gone to work on them. The trouble was, he had not bothered to count them as he dispatched them.

  Remo thought he had gotten all ten. But he wasn't sure. He sat down on a grassy knoll where the legend "Larryland" was spelled out in daisies and cornflowers, and counted them off on his fingers. There had been the first three, whose guns exploded. Then the next two, one of whom he had shot. A bad move. He would never do that again. Remo recalled stuffing one Russian into a trash receptacle. That made five so far. Then there had been the one who had picked up a little boy and tried to use him as a shield when Remo had cornered him. Remo had rescued the boy and fed the Russian to the big gears of the Squirrel Girl ride. That had been a mistake too, because the man had screamed in Russian as the machinery ground up his legs. And that had brought the others running.

  That was where it turned complicated.

  Did three Russians try to jump him-or was it four? If Remo could remember for certain, it might account for all of them.

  Remo had had to run into the crowd, and the Russians followed him, so Remo had to play it carefully. He sneaked up on the first one, crouching low, working the crowd so that the first target noticed nothing. The other Russians saw their comrade suddenly drop from sight. Remo had pulled him to the ground and collapsed his windpipe.

  The second Russian disappeared beneath a sea of people in exactly the same way, and Remo, because it had seemed fitting, had made the "duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh" sound that was the theme from jaws as he bore down, unseen, on the third and possibly last guard.

  Remo tapped that man's spine, and carried him off to the pile he had made of the others, out of sight behind a cluster of palms.

  So was it three or four? Remo couldn't remember. He thought it was four, but he wasn't positive. He wished he had counted. Probably it was four, because he didn't find any more Russians. Maybe the last one had run away.

  While he was trying to figure it out, the man in the Buster Bear suit came up to him.

  "I think someone's calling you," he said helpfully.

  "Where?" Remo asked, coming to his feet. "Where?"

  "There," said the bear, pointing.

  Remo followed the bear's pointing paw. In a side door to the Moon Walk pavilion, the face of Anna Chutesov had appeared.

  "Remo," her urgent voice called out. "Hurry. Chiun needs you."

  Remo hesitated only a moment. Chiun had told him to stay outside. But now he was sending the message that he needed help. That decided Remo. He flashed to the door.

  Anna Chutesov had already disappeared inside. Remo spotted her at the end of a dim passageway. She looked back and waved him on.

  Remo followed, noticing that on either side of the passage, a copper line, like a transistor radio circuit, ran the length of both walls. He wondered why it would be exposed like that, then saw that Anna brushed either line casually as she walked, and he knew the wires must be safe.

  "Wait up," he called after her.

  "There is no time," she called back. "Hurry."

  Remo followed her into a room that was completely dark. His eyes adjusted instantly. He saw Anna Chutesov's dim figure disappear through a door.

  Remo stepped through. The next room was full of mellow golden light.

  Anna Chutesov stood off to one side. She stood with her fingertips touching the continuous copper line, and Remo noticed that the tips of her fingers, like the wire, were coppery.

  "Hello is all right," Anna Chutesov said in the voice of Mr. Gordons.

  "You never did learn to talk right, tin man," Remo said. And because he knew that the real Anna Chutesov had to be dead, he started in on Gordons without wasting another moment.

  The voice of the Master of Sinanju stopped him. "Remo!" Chiun called. "Go back! Do you hear me? Go back."

  Remo, distracted, turned to the sound of his voice. He saw a panorama of a lunar landscape, artificial rock and craters dotting the floor. From the ground, stalagmites rose like spiny needles, and over his head stars twinkled ag
ainst a glassy black sky and planets loomed gigantically.

  In the middle of the ceiling hung the planet Saturn, a silvery ball crowned by a yellow ring.

  And immediately below Saturn, clinging to a needle of stone and clawing like a cat for the ringed planet, was the Master of Sinanju.

  "Chiun! You okay?" Remo called.

  "I hear disappointment shouting in a loud voice, asking me if I am okay," Chiun said angrily. "I am not okay. I am risking my life to protect an idiot. Go! Save your seed."

  Before Remo could answer, his vision exploded in a starburst of pain.

  Gordons had struck the first blow.

  Remo stepped back, weaved to avoid a second, killing blow, and steeled himself. He knew he was facing Mr. Gordons, his old enemy. But Mr. Gordons looked exactly like Anna Chutesov. That would make it harder.

  "Remo. Go this instant!" Chiun cried, his cheeks puffing out with rage. "I will handle this."

  "After I settle this little score," Remo said. He lunged for Gordons' chest. The blow sent sparks flying, but Mr. Gordons remained on his feet. The android clutched at the wall for support, feeling the copper wire, then came on.

  Remo knew from past experience that the element containing Gordons' intelligence, the nearly indestructible control circuits, were not always located in the same part of his mechanical body. They could be hidden in the android's head, throat, elbow-even in his little finger. Stopping Gordons meant locating and immobilizing that motivating element.

  Remo decided not to waste time.

  "I'm going to show you a new game," he said. "It's called process of elimination."

  He jumped back, bounced off the wall, and kicked against Gordons' chest with both feet. Gordons fell. Remo landed on top of him. He took off the android's right arm with a vicious chop. Gordons, squealing like a tape recorder, swept Remo aside with the other arm.

  "Nope, it's not in that arm," Remo said, getting back his legs.

  "Remo! Go!" Chiun called in anguish. He was at the tip of the stone needle, within reach of the planet Saturn, which Remo understood was the Sword of Damocles satellite in disguise.

  The needle slowly sank into the floor, taking Chiun with it. The Master of Sinanju leapt to another needle as the artificial planet began to revolve in Remo's direction. Its bottom dropped open to reveal its toothlike microwave emitters.

  "Remo, it is pointing at you!" Chiun cried. "Run now. We will fight this creature another day."

  "Nothing doing," said Remo. "He got Anna. And I'm going to get him."

  "I did not want to fight you," Mr. Gordons said. "I would have been content to outlive you, knowing that the House of Sinanju ended with you."

  "There isn't room for both of us on this planet," said Remo.

  "I will remember your words when I watch the last human being die," said Mr. Gordons, raising his remaining fist.

  Remo ducked under Gordons' balled fist, and bobbed up behind him. He batted Gordons' head off. It flew to the other side of the room like a puppet whose string had been jerked.

  "Nope. Not in the head either," said Remo.

  Mr. Gordons staggered around in circles until he bumped into the wall. He groped for the copper line. When he found it, his jerky movements straightened.

  Remo, unaware that the Sword of Damocles' emitters were zeroing in on him, moved in for the kill.

  The Master of Sinanju felt his fingernails scratch the Sword of Damocles. The touch was brief. Then, once again, the stalagmite on which he stood retracted into the moonscape floor.

  He leapt to the floor, where he swiftly considered the situation. He could rush to Remo's side and pull him from the room and possibly save him from Gordons' mad attack. But that would still leave the hellish device. It would burn the vitality from his pupil's loins before he crossed the room. The Master of Sinanju hesitated.

  Then he noticed an object at his feet. It looked like the head of Anna Chutesov, but its neck ended in a cluster of wires and optical fibers.

  The Master of Sinanju swept the head up by its blond hair and sent it flying. He had made his decision. Remo waited for the next blow. When it came, he moved back from it, taking Gordons' remaining wrist in a two-handed grip. He pulled, turning the momentum of the android's thrust against him in a throw that was too perfect to be mere judo. It was Sinanju.

  Gordons went flying. His hand came off at the wrist. Mr. Gordons staggered toward the wall, toward the copper wire that ran around the room.

  Remo stepped in ahead of the jerking automaton and yanked a length of the copper filament from the wall, breaking the circuit.

  The body of Mr. Gordons collapsed in a heap. "Yep," Remo said, pleased with himself. "It was in the left hand this time."

  "And you are out of your mind," said the Master of Sinanju angrily, joining him.

  Remo turned. "I'm sorry I disobeyed your instructions, Little Father. He made himself look like Anna and said you needed me."

  "And you believed him!"

  "I didn't stop to think. I just knew that you needed me."

  "I need an intelligent pupil, that is what I need," sputtered the Master of Sinanju. "One who has sense enough to obey the wards that come from my lips, not the trickery of an impostor."

  "Is that the thanks I get for stopping Gordons?"

  "Pah! You did not stop him. I stopped him. Look." Remo saw that the Sword of Damocles satellite was lying in an artificial crater. It was shattered like a dropped Christmas-tree ornament. The head that resembled Anna Chutesov lay to one side, staring glassily through hair that Remo knew had belonged to the real Anna Chutesov. He turned away from the sight.

  "You stopped the satellite," said Remo. "I stopped Gordons."

  "When I destroyed the round sword, the machine man collapsed. His thinking parts must have been concealed inside."

  "No, it was in his hand," Remo insisted. "He dropped in his tracks when I pulled off the hand."

  "No," Chiun said firmly. "I saw him stagger for some moments after that. He sought the copper line, which was the connection to his brain. See? The copper line leads to the ceiling and to the hanging cable."

  Remo looked. Sure enough, the filament traced along the ceiling and ran into the suspension cable from which the Sword of Damocles had hung.

  "No, no," said Remo. "You don't understand electronics. He probably controlled the satellite through the wire."

  "No, the satellite controlled him. That was why he kept touching the wire. Gordons had learned from his past mistakes. He knew that you would seek to destroy him in combat by wrecking his thinking parts. So he sent a false version of himself to do his fighting, operated by removed control."

  "Remote control," Remo corrected.

  "Then you accept my theory."

  Remo threw up his hands. "Does it matter? One of us got him. It's over."

  "It does matter," snapped Chiun. "I got him. The glory is mine. And I would appreciate it if you kept your white mouth shut when I report my great victory to the grateful Emperor Smith."

  "Whatever you say, Little Father," Remo said wearily. The Army Corps of Engineers set off the last explosive charge, sending a smoking pile of debris quaking into the air.

  "Well, that's the end of Larryland," said Remo.

  He watched the mushrooming cloud of dirt and debris slowly lift, pause, then collapse in on itself.

  "And of the evil creature Gordons," added the Master of Sinanju. "Thanks to me."

  "Are you going to start that again?" sighed Remo.

  "Start what?" asked Dr. Harold W. Smith. He had flown in from New York to personally oversee the operation. The Army thought he was a civilian attached to the Environmental Protection Agency.

  "Never mind," said Remo. "A family quarrel. It's a shame to destroy Larryland so soon. I never got to go on any of the rides."

  "Larryland was Mr. Gordons," said Smith. "He had assimilated the entire park. That's why we're having it pulverized. You'll recall that as long as any functioning piece of Gordons remains intact, he's
capable of reconstructing himself."

  "Chiun and I smashed every particle of Mr. Gordons' body," Remo assured him.

  "No," said the Master of Sinanju stubbornly. "Remo wasted his time dismembering a dummy. I obliterated the round sword of the Russians, which truly contained Gordons' wicked brain."

  "In any case," Smith went on, "destroying Larryland should put a period to this whole affair."

  "Not to mention making certain that Gordons won't ever come back again," Remo added.

  "I think we can be assured of that this time," said Smith, watching the dust settle over Larryland.

  "What are you telling the Russians?" Remo asked him.

  "Almost nothing. A low-level Soviet delegation is on its way to New York to take possession of the Yuri Gagarin and the bodies of its crew. The latter are in sealed caskets, of course."

  "I'd love to see the looks on their faces when you present them with the keys to a car wash." Remo chuckled.

  Smith ventured a rare smile. "I would too. But I don't think they're going to ask any questions. Not about the Sword of Damocles. They will assume that we have it. That knowledge alone will inhibit them from deploying another."

  "What about the guy who owned Larryland?"

  "He's undergoing extensive questioning. But I'm satisfied that his story of being a dupe is genuine."

  "What will happen to him?"

  "No charges will be filed," Smith said. "But I imagine there will be lawsuits once the first symptoms of sterilization show up in the general population. Fortunately, they will be few in number. We've already put out the word that Larryland had to be destroyed because it was built on a toxic-waste site. That should take care of the explanations. What Larry Lepper says in his defense is his problem. But it's doubtful that he will tell the truth. No one would ever believe him."

  "Did they find Anna's body?" Remo asked quietly.

  "What there was of it that Gordons hadn't assimilated," Smith said grimly. "Along with the KGB team, she will be buried in an anonymous grave. Officially, we don't know what happened to any of them. I doubt that the Soviets will be asking about their whereabouts."