"I'll do it," Dr. Carlton said. "But what chance do you think you're going to have against him? He's indestructible. He's a survivor."
"We'll think of something," Remo said.
But Remo had misgivings. In their room at the laboratory that night, he told Chiun, "It's not going to work, Chiun."
"Why?"
"Because Mr. Gordons will see through it. He's going to know it's a phony and we're behind it. It doesn't take the creativity of a snail to see that."
"Aha," Chiun said, raising his long-nailed right index finger skyward. "I have thought of that. I have thought of everything."
"Why don't you tell me about it?"
"I will." Chiun opened his kimono at the throat. "Do you notice anything?"
"Your neck seems thinner. Have you been losing weight?"
"No, not my weight. Remember the lead lump I have been wearing about my neck? It is gone."
"Good. It was ugly anyway."
Chiun shook his head. Remo was dumb sometimes. "That was a thing from Mr. Gordons. One of those beep-beeps your government is always using. An insect, I think you call them."
"A bug?"
"Yes. That is it. An insect. Anyway, I kept it and buried it in lead so Mr. Gordons would get no signals from it."
"So?"
"So when we came here, I took it out of the lead, so Mr. Gordons would get signals."
"Well, that's dumb, Chiun. Now he's going to know we're here. That's just what I said."
"No," Chiun said. "I put in it an envelope and mailed it away. To a place all Americans love and always go to."
"Where's that?"
"Niagara Falls. Mr. Gordons will see that we have gone away to Niagara Falls. He will not know we are here."
Remo raised his eyebrows. "It might work, Chiun. Very creative."
"Thank you. Now I am going to sleep."
Later, as Remo was drifting off to sleep, Chiun said, "Do not feel bad, Remo. You will be creative too one day. Maybe Dr. Carlton will make a program for you." And he cackled.
"Up yours," Remo said, but very quietly.
The next day, Dr. Carlton's announcement had appeared in the press. It came to the attention of two sets of eyes: the brilliant eyes of Dr. Harold W. Smith and the electronic sensors that reposed behind the plastic face of Mr. Gordons. Both had boarded planes for Cheyenne, Wyoming.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was late the next day when Dr. Harold W. Smith presented himself at the steel gate outside the Wilkins Laboratories.
Remo was in the office with Dr. Carlton when she demanded to know who was at the door.
"Dr. Harold W. Smith," came back the voice.
Remo took the microphone from Dr. Carlton.
"Sorry. We have all the brushes we need," he said.
"Remo? Is that you?"
"Who's Remo?" asked Remo.
"Remo. Open this gate."
"Go away."
"Let me talk to someone in possession of all his faculties," insisted Smith.
Remo handed the microphone back to Dr. Carlton. "He must want to talk to you."
"Do you think I've got all my faculties?" she asked.
"You've got all of everything," Remo said.
"You really think so?"
"I've always thought so."
"What are you going to do about it?" Dr. Carlton asked.
"I know what I'd like to do."
"Yes?"
"But."
"But what?"
"But I don't really feel like making love to you and that computer too."
"Screw the computer," Dr. Carlton said.
"It'll have to wait its turn," said Remo.
"Remo, Remo," squawked Dr. Smith's voice.
Remo picked up the microphone. "Wait there a few minutes, Smitty. We're busy now."
"All right, but don't take forever."
"Don't tell him what to do," Dr. Carlton said into the microphone. She turned it off and said to Remo, "I don't like Dr. Smith."
"To know him is to dislike him. To know him well is to detest him."
"Let him wait."
Dr. Smith waited forty-five minutes before the steel panel opened. He walked along the corridor and the steel wall opened and he entered to find Remo and Dr. Carlton sitting at her desk.
"I knew you'd be here," he told Remo. "You're Dr. Carlton?"
"Yes. Dr. Smith, I presume?"
"Yes." He looked through the open doorway to the three-story-high control panel of the computer center. "That is quite something," he said.
"Mr. Daniels," she said. "Jack Daniels. There's nothing like it in the world."
"How many synapses?" asked Smith.
"Two billion," she said.
"Incredible."
"Come, I'll show you," and she rose to her feet.
Remo waited but was finally disgusted by so many "incredibles" and "marvelouses" and "wonderfuls" that he went back to his room, where Smith joined him and Chiun later and reported on Mr. Gordons's latest demand.
"Well, don't worry about it," Remo said. "He'll be here."
"I think he is here," Smith said. "There was a passenger booked on an earlier flight. Mr. G. Andrew. I think it was him."
"Then we'll see him in the morning."
Smith nodded and then said nothing more until he left for his room to sleep.
"The emperor is disturbed," said Chiun.
"I know it. He thinks this and he thinks that. When did you ever hear Smith anything less than positive?"
"He is worried about you," said Chiun. "He is afraid his emperor may tell him to hand up your head."
"My head? What about yours?"
"If it comes to that, Remo, you must tell Mr. Gordons that I am the sole support of a large village. It is different with you. You are an orphan and nobody relies on you. But many people will starve and want for food and shelter if I am no longer here to provide them."
"I'll try to put a good word in for you," Remo said.
"Thank you," said Chiun. "It is only right. After all, I am important. And creative."
Smith was in better spirits the next morning when he and Remo went to inspect the rocket launching chute. It was a giant brick tube, coated with steel plates, built into the center of the building. It stood as high as the top of the three-story building and extended two stories below ground, fifty feet high in all.
A rocket sat in there now, a thirty-foot-high needle-shaped missile. Liquid oxygen was being poured into its motors by elaborate pumping equipment built into the walls. Looking into the chute, raised a few feet above the launch pad, was the control room, shielded behind a thick clear plastic window. A steel door was cut into the wall of the chute next to the window and led into the control room.
Inside the control room, Smith looked out at the rocket and asked Remo, "Is there a way we could lure him onto the rocket and launch him into space?"
Remo shook his head. "You don't understand. He's a survival machine. He'd figure a way to get back down. We've got to destroy the matter that he is created from. That's the only way to get him."
"Out of the way, boys." Dr. Carlton, all business in a long white robe, brushed by them and went to the control panel where she began flipping toggle switches and checking readings on the rocket's internal pressure. Walking along behind her was Chiun, who stood at her shoulder and watched her work.
"And you have a plan to accomplish this?" Smith asked Remo.
"Ask Chiun," Remo said. "He's creative."
Smith called Chiun over and asked, "Do you have a plan for destroying Mr. Gordons?"
"A plan is not required," said Chiun, turning around to watch Dr. Carlton at work. "He will come when he will come and when he comes I will attack him through his need. There will be no difficulty. She is a very nice woman."
"Are you jilting Barbara Streisand?" Remo asked. "After being in love with her for so long?"
"It is possible for one to love many," Chiun said. "After all, I am but one and I am loved by many. Should n
ot the opposite be possible?"
"Will you two stop?" Smith said. "We can't just leave everything to chance. We've got to have a plan."
"Well, you go ahead and make one up," Remo said. "It's three hours to launch time. I'm going to have breakfast." He turned and walked away.
"Yes. You make up a plan," Chiun said to Smith and he walked away to stand again at Dr. Carlton's shoulder. "You move those switches nicely," he said.
"Thank you."
"You are an exceptional woman."
"Thank you."
Smith shook his head in exasperation, found a chair in the corner, and sat down to try to work out a plan. Somebody here should act sane.
At that moment, Mr. Gordons was acting very sane. He had walked up to the front door of the laboratory and read a sign which said that because of a rocket launching at noon, all personnel were given the day off.
Noon. His time sensors told him there were 172 minutes left till noon. He would wait. There would be no danger. The two humans, Remo and Chiun, were not here. The homing device showed they were someplace in the northeastern part of the United States. He would wait until it was nearer launch time. Optimum time when launching personnel would be busy with their tasks.
The clock over the plastic window behind the control board read 11:45.
Dr. Carlton sat at the panel, Smith at her side. She checked gauges continuously.
"It's all set," she called over her shoulder. "It can go anytime."
"Good," said Remo who was lying on a table. "Keep me posted."
Chiun stood by Remo's side.
"Hark," he said to Remo.
"What hark?"
"Did you not hear that sound?"
"No."
But Chiun had. He continued to listen for another sound like the first. He had recognized the first. It was the sound of metal being ripped. The steel door to the lab complex had been pulled open. A flashing red light came on over the control panel.
"He's here," Dr. Carlton said. Remo jumped to his feet and went to her side. "Someone's in the passageway," she said. "The heat sensor just came on."
"Good," said Remo. "Is there a way we can shade this window? So he can't see us?"
Dr. Carlton pressed a button. The clear plastic slowly began to darken. "There's a polaroid sheet in the center," she said. "By rotating it, you close out the light."
"Good," said Remo. "That's dark enough. Stop it now."
In the passageway that led to the rocket tube, Mr. Gordons moved slowly. There was ample time. Fourteen minutes left. A steel panel barred his way. He pressed his hands against the edge of the steel panel. His fingers lost their human shape as they turned into thin steel blades that slid into the opening between the panel and the wall. They extended until they reached the end of the panel, then curled around it. Mr. Gordons pulled. The panel groaned, surrendered, and flew open, revealing another corridor behind. Mr. Gordons restructured his hands into human fingers as he walked. He reached the enclosed stairway at the end of the hall and walked up.
Three flights later, he was on the roof, walking toward the large opening in the center of the building that was the rocket shaft. He could see the droplets of liquid oxygen spurting over the edge. He reached the edge of the shaft and peered down. Below him he saw the sharp pointed nose of the rocket. A metal ladder curled over the edge and down into the pit, which fogged over with the fumes of the liquid oxygen. Mr. Gordons hoisted himself over and began climbing down the ladder.
"There he is," said Remo softly. "He still moves funny."
Mr. Gordons sensed humans behind the plastic screen but it did not bother him because there were supposed to be humans there. He reached the bottom of the rocket tube and walked until he stood in the liquid oxygen fog under the rocket.
"Cut that fog," Remo said to Dr. Carlton. "I can't see what he's doing."
Dr. Carlton pressed a button which cut off the supply of coolant to the rocket. As the mist began to dissipate, they saw Mr. Gordons reach over his head, grab the locked hatch of the rocket and wrench it off. He dropped it to his feet. He reached his hands over his head, grasping the two sides of the open hatch and hoisted himself up.
Smith's hand began to move toward the launch button but Remo clapped his hand over Smith's. "None of that," he said. "I told you it won't work."
"What will?"
"This."
Remo opened the door from the control room into the rocket shaft and leaped lightly down to the floor of the tube. He heard above him, inside the rocket, the ripping tear of metal and machinery.
"Hey, you refugee from Oz, get down out of there," Remo shouted. "There's nothing in there for you." There was silence aboard the rocket. "You heard me," Remo shouted. "Get down out of there. I'm going to slice you like a can opener."
He looked up at the open rocket hatch. He saw feet, and then with a light bound, Mr. Gordons dropped through the hatch and stood on the floor of the shaft, under the rocket, staring at Remo.
"Hello is all right. I thought you were not here."
"That's what you were supposed to think, you ambulatory adding machine."
"I would offer you a drink but I will not have time. I have to destroy you."
"You wish," said Remo.
"Is the yellow-skin here too?"
"Yes."
"Then I will destroy him too. Then I will always survive."
"You have to get past me first. I do all Chiun's light work," Remo said.
"For you, I will not use my simulated hands," Mr. Gordons said, and as Remo watched, the bones under Mr. Gordons's skin appeared to quiver, and then his hands rearranged themselves until they were no longer ten flesh-colored fingers attached to a palm, but two shiny steel knife blades jutting out from Gordons's wrist. Remo moved forward as if to attack. Inside the control room, Chiun hit the switch that lighted the window and it cleared in front of them, just in time to see Mr. Gordons raise both knife-hands up over his head and charge at Remo slashing both blades back and forth through the air. Remo stopped and waited until Gordons was almost on him, then feinted left, moved right, and slid out from under the twin blades and was behind Gordons, looking at his back.
"Back here, tin man," he called.
Mr. Gordons turned. "That was a very efficient maneuver," he said. "Do you know that I now have it programmed? If you do it again, I will surely kill you."
"Well, then, I'll do something else."
Mr. Gordons moved toward Remo, this time moving the knife blades in front of him in large circles, as if he were conducting an orchestra with knives for batons.
Remo waited until Mr. Gordons closed the gap. Gordons lunged forward at Remo, who leaped up, put a foot on Gordon's shoulder and went up over the android's back a split second before the left knife blade flashed into that area. The blade missed Remo but bit deeply into Mr. Gordons's own mechanical left shoulder.
"Put that one in your program," Remo said from behind Mr. Gordons. "If you do that one again, you'll cut your own throat."
Mr. Gordons felt a strange sensation welling up in him. It was new; he had never felt it before. He paused to isolate it, but it would not let him pause. It was anger, cold, evil anger, and it forced him to run forward toward Remo, who dodged between Gordons's legs and came up behind him, even while Gordons's own momentum slammed him forward into the steel wall lining the launch chute and the right knife blade snapped off and dropped with a heavy click onto the floor.
Mr. Gordons looked up over his head through the plastic window. There he saw Dr. Carlton, high probability Chiun, and someone he had never seen before. The sight of Dr. Carlton watching him fail raised his anger even higher. He turned again and charged Remo who stood lounging against the wall on the far side of the tube. Again Remo waited until Gordons was almost on him, then Remo spun fully around, vaulted up and grabbed one of the rocket supports high overhead, and swung over Mr. Gordons's head.
Gordons, in rage, swung his knifeless arm. The metallic stump thudded against Remo's calf with a lou
d sharp crack. Remo swung out of danger and dropped lightly to his feet, but when he landed, his left leg buckled under him and he fell to the floor of the rocket chute. He tried to scramble to his feet, but his left leg would not support him. The muscles had been damaged by the swing of Gordons's arm. Remo hoisted himself up, putting his weight on only his right leg, and turned to face Gordons again.
"You are damaged now," said Mr. Gordons. "I will destroy you."
And then, echoing through the chute with the sound of thunder came a voice that seemed beyond time and space.
"Hold, machine of evil."
It was the voice of Chiun, the Master of Sinanju. The door alongside the control panel was open and framed in it, wearing his red robes, stood the aged Oriental.
"Hello is all right," said Mr. Gordons.
"Goodbye is better," said Chiun. He leaped from the open doorway down into the bottom of the pit, and from the floor snatched up the foot-long blade that had broken off Mr. Gordons's arm.
"Now I will destroy you also," Mr. Gordons said.
He turned toward Chiun who backed slowly along the wall until he was on the opposite side from the open control room door.
"How will you destroy me when you have not creativity?" said Chiun. "I am armed with a weapon. Remo, the door."
Remo turned and pulled himself up, through the open door, dragging himself heavily onto the control room floor. As soon as he was inside, Smith slammed the door shut. Remo hobbled to the panel to watch the battle.
"It's terrible," Dr. Carlton said softly, to herself. "Like watching my father."
"I am creative," came Mr. Gordons's voice.
"I will attack you with this blade," said Chiun.
"Negative. Negative. You will simulate an attack with the weapon and then attack me with your open hand. It is a creative way. I understand creative ways."
He stood his ground, only eight feet from Chiun, looking at him.
"But I have thought of that," said Chiun. "I knew you would think that. And so, because you think the attack by blade will be false, I will truly carry it out. And the blade will destroy you."
"Negative, negative," Mr. Gordons shouted, his voice rising in angry desperation. "I know now your plan. I will guard against the attack by blade."
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