Death is a Ruby Light

by Paul Kenyon

  The Baroness decided to see how far she could bait him. "There were thousands of Chinese scientists working and studying in the United States when the Communists took over China. Most of them decided to stay."

  "Yes, they stayed," he said, swaying above her like a giant tinkertoy. "They stayed to have their security clearances revoked, to be forbidden to work, to be questioned by FBI agents, to be humiliated at immigration hearings!"

  Humiliated! That was the key. The Baroness put her hands on her hips and stared upward at the strange chalk-white face.

  "It must have been lonely for you at Caltech with your… affliction," she said.

  "I'm a freak," he said without rancor. "That's what you mean, isn't it? Very well, then, call me a freak. Albinos have no pigment in their skin or eyes. I can't go out in daylight because the sun would give me cancer. Bright light of any kind is a torment. And then there's the matter of my hypergrowth. Acromegalic giants are awkward people to have for friends."

  "You can't blame America for a genetic defect, Professor. Or an overactive pituitary gland. What do you really hate us for?"

  "This," he said. He raised his sunglasses and plucked his eye out of its socket. He tossed it to the Baroness. Startled, she caught it.

  * * *

  Sumo shoveled rice into his mouth with the chopsticks. There were, he estimated, about three hundred soldiers sitting at the trestle tables in the makeshift mess hall. They were chattering noisily, pleased at having helped to capture the American and Russian spies, gobbling the hot food provided by the observatory's kitchen staff. Quite a few of the troops, Sumo noticed, were women, wearing the same ill-fitting cotton uniforms and militia armbands as the men.

  The soldier sitting next to Sumo belched. "Which unit are you with, comrade?" he said.

  Sumo decided to misunderstand him. "I'm a city boy from Nanking," he said, "but my family moved to Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. I was going to join the militia there, but I was a student, and they drafted me for a rural assignment. So I…"

  He launched into a long, rambling story. The soldier soon lost interest and turned away. Sumo smiled and went back to his rice bowl.

  He'd found that the soldiers he was mingling with came from at least three different PLA and militia units that had been hastily assembled the day before under a temporary command. None of the units knew the others. As long as he circulated a lot and avoided direct questions, he was safe.

  It was a damned good thing that he'd taken the trouble to collect the Chinese uniform and the AK-47 rifle after the battle on the island in the Amur River. He hadn't trusted the Russians, so he'd been careful not to let them see him put on the uniform under his camouflage outfit. He hoped that the spy, whoever he was, hadn't noticed the fact that his weapon was an AK-47. But he doubted it. Everybody had been preoccupied with his own problems just before the final plunge on skis down the slope.

  The Baroness and Skytop knew he was here, though. He'd kept his face turned away from the others.

  He turned to the soldier sitting on the other side of the bench. It was a severe-looking girl with a round face and a big bust. A badge with the smiling face of Chairman Mao was pinned to the left pocket.

  "How long are we going to be here, comrade?" he said.

  She gave him a stern glance. "Weren't you told?"

  "No, comrade. You see, our unit was only called at the last moment. I was in the latrine at the time. Have you ever been in Chekiang? Did you know that it's the custom there for men and women to use the same latrine together? At any rate…"

  She blushed. "We were called here only to help Comrade Sung to capture the imperialist spies. Comrade Sung is the officer in charge of this place. There are no facilities to sustain so many troops here for any length of time. Therefore we will be allowed to rest overnight and be fed in the morning, but will return with our units at first daylight."

  Sumo thought it over. Whatever prowling he was going to do would have to be done tonight. He needed some idea of the layout of the observatory. And he had to find out where they were keeping the Baroness.

  What kind of excuse could he give if they caught him wandering around the corridors?

  He leaned toward the girl with the round face. He studied the Mao badge pinned to the shelf of her bosom until she lowered her eyes. Then he looked into her eyes with a frank, correct, comradely stare.

  "Where have you been assigned to sleep tonight, comrade?" he said severely.

  * * *

  The thing in Penelope's hand was the size and shape of an eyeball. But it was no ordinary glass eye. It was a smoothly polished orb of synthetic ruby.

  The Baroness tossed it up to Professor Thing. He snatched it out of the air and pushed it back into his eye socket. She caught a glimpse of the other eye, the real one. It was as pink as a rabbit's.

  "Very pretty, Professor," she said. "It would make an expensive piece of jewelry. Why do you hate America for it?"

  He didn't answer immediately. He sat down on a low couch. The sharply rising knees of his long skinny legs gave him a grasshopper look. He patted the couch beside him.

  "Sit down. I'm going to enjoy telling you."

  Major Sung took a step forward. "Professor Thing…" he protested.

  "You needn't worry, Major," the gangling giant said.

  "I can't allow you to endanger yourself," the major sputtered. "Your work is too important to the People's Republic."

  "I'm hardly in danger from one small unarmed female person," the Professor said sharply. "In any case, I doubt that she's suicidal." His face twisted in a grimace. "Americans put a high value on their lives, Major. They're not like us fatalistic Orientals."

  She sat down on the opposite end of the couch while they were arguing. Major Sung unbuttoned his holster and ostentatiously kept his hand on his revolver.

  "Major Sung says you live by light, Professor. Is that because you're an astronomer?"

  His mouth twisted again. "It's the other way around. I became an astronomer because I live by light. I've always been fascinated by it, perhaps because it's forbidden to me. As a child, I was kept out of the sun by my parents. Our home was kept dim, with the shades drawn. My father was always warning me: 'Th'ing hui huai.' 'Light destroys.' It was my tangible enemy, yet I was bound to its power. Do you wonder that even as a child I resolved to learn everything I could about the nature of light?"

  "Then there's your name…" she said.

  "You're very astute. Yes, the word for light in Chinese is ting or th'ing, depending on the region and the dialect. To my childish mind, there seemed to be a strange significance in the fact that my family name was the same as the most powerful force in the universe. I identified myself with my enemy. Over the years I've come to believe that there is, indeed, a mysterious fate working."

  He had become voluble, eager to talk. Penelope almost felt sorry for him. The poor, stiff, withdrawn bastard! He probably hadn't had a chance to speak English for twenty years.

  "Yes," he said, more cheerfully now, "perhaps my affliction did indeed push me along in my profession. Astronomers are creatures of the night. Our observations are made while the rest of humanity sleeps. There are long, solitary hours of studying photographic plates, of working at calculations. Our universe is composed of pinpoints of light. We cannot alter the nature of the fight that we gather with our telescopes — mix it up in a test tube as the chemists do with the stuff of their dreams. We can only seek to understand the secrets that are hidden in that fight. I was better equipped than most of my colleagues."

  "Then why do you hate them?"

  The pallid head turned toward her like a skull on a post. "They were jealous of me, afraid of my success. They threw obstructions in my way — made it difficult for me to get observation time at Lick and Mt. Pleasant. They ridiculed the papers I published. They played pranks on me — falsified my plates, then crucified me for the conclusions I drew from them."

  Paranoid, the Baroness thought. "And yet you say you were
heaped with academic honors."

  "In spite of their little plots! At the age of twenty, I published a paper on the nature of demon stars. Does that mean anything to you?"

  "Algol binary. A large red star that keeps eclipsing its brighter companion. The ancients thought the oscillations of the fight were sinister, so they blamed it on a demon."

  "You're more intelligent than I thought. My paper presented a new theory on stellar evolution. It made me famous overnight. I went on to study the red giants. A gloomy subject. Our world will end when the sun grows into a red giant. It was the subject of my Ph.D. thesis. It caused another sensation. Reporters came to interview me. They twisted my words. The university reprimanded me for unprofessional conduct. It became more difficult for me to schedule observation hours at Lick Observatory and Mt. Pleasant."

  "Was it the newspaper publicity that your colleagues resented?"

  "They were jealous of my ability. They knew I was on the verge of an important discovery. They plotted to blind me. Their weapon was the light of a star."

  "Oh? And how is that?" the Baroness said, as if she were having the most normal conversation in the world.

  His long pale hands were writhing like colorless squid. "I'd scheduled some telescope time at Mt. Pleasant to observe a solar eclipse. Someone substituted a defective sun disk. When I looked through the telescope, my eye was burned out."

  "Perhaps it was an accident."

  He was breathing hard. "It was no accident."

  "So now, Professor Thing, you're getting even by burning out America's eyes? Our observation satellites. Is that it?"

  "Even then I might not have gone to China. But when I got out of the hospital, the government began persecuting me. It seems that I had neglected to take out citizenship papers."

  "But China welcomed you with open arms?"

  "They were eager for loyal Chinese with technical training. They offered inducements. They granted funds for my work. I did not disappoint them. The first ruby lasers appeared about then. Scientists all over the world were doing research. I devised a method of growing giant ruby crystals on a scale no one had thought possible. I explained the implications to Peking. They granted the funds and manpower to construct this observatory. There will be more such installations after I grow additional ruby laser rods."

  "You're insane, Professor Thing."

  Major Sung started forward, his hand raised to slap her. Professor Thing waved him back.

  "You'll be allowed to play with her, Major. And the other Americans. But not until after tomorrow. I want them to see the power of the ruby light. I want them to think about it when they die."

  Sung thrust out his lower lip like a sulky child. "What about the Russians?"

  Professor Thing shrugged his coat-rack shoulders. "You can do what you want with them. I don't care."

  Penelope stole a glance at Alexey. He was still sprawled unconscious on the floor where the guards had dumped him. She looked at Tarda. The Russian girl seemed unmoved. Her baby face was clear and untroubled, the killer's eyes as cold as ice.

  "What's so important about tomorrow, Professor?" Penelope said.

  He unfolded his pipestem body and stood up. His voice came from above her head. "America's space rendezvous with Russia. The whole world will be watching. Three Apollo astronauts are going to dock with two Russians in a Soyuz. I intend to burn them to death with my laser — just as they link up. Their screams will be heard over millions of television sets. The Russians will be unharmed. The American public will never believe that the Russians didn't kill them. No American President will ever be permitted again to seek a detente with Russia. World War Three will be a step closer. China will be the beneficiary."

  She sprang straight up, her hand shaping itself for a death blow. Professor Thing was too far to the side. His vital parts were high, too high, above her. Major Sung had been waiting. His hand with the revolver swung even as she moved. It caught her at the side of the head. There was a tremendous shock and bright sparks of pain. The force of the blow knocked her full length across the couch, and she became unconscious.

  18

  She was drowning.

  An icy wave slapped her in the face, filling her mouth and nostrils. She choked and spluttered. She opened her eyes.

  A grinning Chinese soldier stood just beyond the bars, an empty bucket in his hands. Her head and face were dripping with the water it had held.

  Bars!

  She was in some kind of a cage, like the animal wagons at the circus. There was straw on the floor. Inga was kneeling beside her, wiping her face, unzipping the top of the white camouflage suit to let her breathe.

  She sat up. "Did I get him?"

  "No, you didn't have time."

  The Baroness shook her head to clear it. She had a crashing headache. But there was no double vision or nausea, and she could remember everything up till the moment she'd leaped toward Professor Thing. So she didn't have too serious a concussion. Not like poor Alexey, lying there on the straw, breathing stertorously.

  Skytop and Wharton were in the cage too. They smiled at her. "Welcome back," Wharton said.

  Tania was missing.

  "What happened?" the Baroness said.

  Skytop answered. "After Sung knocked you out, Thing chewed him out for lax security. I felt sorry for the guy. Thing was the one who insisted that you sit next to him on the couch. I think you scared him. Anyway, Sung snapped his fingers and they wheeled in this cage. It was made for holding bears, I gather. They're planning some sort of an object lesson."

  The grinning soldier with the bucket had returned with Major Sung in tow. Sung's face was dark with anger. It looked like raw liver.

  "So, you're awake! Professor Thing is angry. So angry that I almost persuaded him to let me have you now instead of after the space launch. But you will watch something now and think about it."

  He barked an order, and four sweating Chinese soldiers hauled at the tongue of the wagon and pulled the cage to the center of the vast circular floor near the big chrome drum at the base of the telescope.

  Tania was sitting naked atop the drum, her hands tied behind her back with coarse rope, her legs stretched awkwardly out at either side by ropes attached to her ankles and looped to the sides of the drum. She had a grave, little-girl look, with her rounded, rosy-pink body and the snub nose and the corn-colored braids spilling down over her apple-sized breasts.

  Professor Thing was leaning over some sort of a console, looking like a collection of sticks someone had propped there.

  "Are we ready, Major?" he said. Even in the dim light, Penelope could see the extraordinary play of emotions on his face. The muscles at the hinges of his jaw were twitching, and a vein was pulsing in his forehead. But where a normal man would have been flushed with anger, Dr. Thing's albino skin was unable to darken. Instead, the blood vessels stood out in a pink tracery, like a coral bush.

  "I wish you'd let me do this, Professor," Major Sung said. "You have not the skill, and you are not in full control of yourself. In the first place, the girl should be stretched flat to present a greater body area…"

  "I can manage quite well, Major." He pushed a button, and there was the whine of a generator warming up.

  Tania turned her head and looked directly at Penelope. "Do not feel badly, Coin. You are not to blame. The swine would have killed me anyway." She looked toward Professor Thing and spat. "That stretched-out kreevjetky! No woman has ever looked at him, you can be sure! This is the only way he can have one!"

  Professor Thing trembled with fury. His hand stabbed at the console.

  And suddenly there was a pencil-beam of red light stretched through the huge dome. It seemed to come from somewhere near the top of the giant telescope and bounce in a complicated series of angles from the big mirror to the base of the drum. The scene froze like something seen by strobe light.

  Tania had arched her back and thrown back her head, as if to scream. A beam of ruby light came from her round open mouth an
d shot up the telescope cage. She slumped backward on the curved glass, her braids dangling over the edge of the drum.

  There was a smell of cooked flesh in the room. Smoke was pouring from every orifice of Tania's body — the mouth, nostrils, ears, between her parted thighs. There wasn't a mark anywhere on the surface of her body.

  "Jesus!" Skytop whispered beside Penelope.

  Major Sung was briskly inspecting the Russian girl's body. "I told you you should have let me do it," he said to Professor Thing. "You killed her too quickly."

  Professor Thing swayed to his feet. He made a gesture of distaste. "You may continue by yourself, Major," he said. "I'll leave you to your own devices."

  He strode like a stilt-walker to a door at the far side of the dome and disappeared through it. Major Sung rubbed his hands and turned to the cage.

  "It was a pity to waste the girl like that. The laser beam offers infinite possibilities for torture. It can be made narrower than the finest hair. It can carve human flesh more keenly than the sharpest razor, or bore through it more precisely than even the heated wires I've used until now. I could have made the Russian girl last for hours."

  "He's like a kid with an electric train," Skytop muttered. "He couldn't wait for his father to stop playing with it."

  Major Sung was over at the console, his fingers caressing the verniers. "Now you shall witness my finest performance."

  "Do you remember what Professor Thing said about Americans?" Penelope said in a steady voice. She glanced at the unconscious Alexey. "And you don't want the Russian. He'd be no fun."

  Major Sung was in a rare good humor. "I don't mind waiting for the five of you," he said. "But Professor Thing said nothing about anyone else. We've caught a friend of yours."