Dying Space td-47

by Warren Murphy

  "That's a state secret." Remo touched á spot above her navel. "It tracks missiles and controls them," the professor screamed. "One missile in particular."

  "Which missile?" Remo asked, stroking a nerve cluster beneath the professor's left earlobe.

  "The Volga," she whinnied. "The new Soviet superweapon."

  "Ojaly one missile?"

  "One is all they need," she said, her nostrils flaring.

  "What's your computer do after it tracks this Volga thing?"

  The professor was thrashing, her sagging breasts twirling in dual counterclockwise circles. "It destroys it, if we want. Or we can make it get lost. From earth, without any advanced range in-

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  strumentation aircraft. It can find the Volga, track it to 150 miles above the earth, and smear it across the sky like jelly, all ... without . . . leaving ... this .. . lab.. .." she chanted rhythmically.

  "Does anybody besides you know what your LC-111 can do?" He pinched a spot on her scalp. She began to drool and kick her feet in the àir.

  "Everyone knows what it can do, unfortunately. NASA, the President, everybody. A whole slew of Russian agents in Moscow Center, probably. It doesn't matter who knows about it. Even Ralph Dickey knew about it. Probably told every Communist fag in town."

  "Knew? Told?" Remo said.

  "Knows. Tells," she corrected. "Anyway, what counts is how the LC-111 works. The laser theory used in programming that computer is so complex, it took me ten years to work it out, and I'm the best there is. To steal the secret of how the machine works, they'd need the machine," she said triumphantly.

  "I hate to break it to you, professor," Remo said, "but somebody's got the machine."

  "Don't be ridiculous," she said, laughing. "You only think someone has it. Actually, the LC-111 is right-"

  Suddenly the table emitted a shriek, and an electric shock that propelled the professor to the floor. After sensing the first tremors of the shock, Remo automatically leaped into the air. He thought he cleared the table, but on his way to the ground, he scraped against it with his neck.

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  That puzzled him. At the time, the table had seemed actually to grow a small projectile that shot out to meet the back of Remo's neck. But that was crazy, Remo reasoned. Tables didn't suddenly grow appendages that leaped out and attacked people.

  He felt the spot toward the right of his spine, where he had grazed the table. Just a surface scratch, not even any blood.

  "Are you all right?" he said to the professor, who was lying in a dazed sprawl beneath a row of Bunsen burners. "Let me . .."

  He was going to say, "Let me help you up," but he realized with sudden clarity that he was having considerable difficulty helping himself up. The right side of his body felt heavy. The room swirled and dipped with each breath he took. When he tried to walk, his right leg felt about to buckle.

  "Do you want me to call a doctor?" the professor asked, hovering over him.

  Remo's triple vision presented him with six sagging breasts and three pot bellies. "Just put on your clothes," he said weakly.

  Summoning up all his strength, he staggered from the software lab toward the Forty-First Street Inn.

  "I'm sorry if I scared you, Mom," said Mr. Gordons, who was back in the form of Ralph Dickey. "I could not permit you to reveal my identity to that man."

  "We have to have a little talk," the professor said. She sat him down and belted down a swig

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  of gin. "Now, if you want to look like Ralph Dickey, that's okay with me. It's not the greatest face I can think of, but okay. But turning into an electric table that scares the living crap out of me and hurts the nice young man is going too far. And just when I had him interested in me, too."

  "He's not hurt," Mr. Gordons said.

  "How do you know? You were a table when it happened."

  "I planted a small transmitter near his spinal column. It's just a scratch."

  The professor was getting angry. "Then how come he was reeling around like a crazy man?"

  "His reaction was most unusual. A normal human would not have felt the insertion at all. I knew there was something strange about him."

  "Maybe you just got a case of butterfmgers. Why would you want to plant a transmitter on him, anyway? Can't you leave anything well enough alone?"

  "You must believe me, Mom," Mr. Gordons said. "Something about this man is familiar to me. That is why it is imperative that you repair my memory banks. I do not know if he is helpful or dangerous. As long as he wears the transmitter, I can track his whereabouts, in case I have to kill him."

  "Kill himl" the professor raged. "You Commie faggot shitheel, that was the best servicing I ever had."

  "Mom!" ' ._.

  Tm sorry. You just got on my nerves."

  "Mothers aren't supposed to speak to their chil-

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  dren thus. I was fed that information from a volume written by a Doctor Spock."

  "So what?" She downed another mouthful of gin.

  "Doctor Spock is the foremost world authority on child rearing, and he insists that good mothers do not refer to their offspring as Commie faggot shitheels."

  "Okay, already. I lost my head."

  "You don't love me," Mr. Gordons said.

  "Oh, for Christ's sake. Look, I'm sorry."

  "There is no need to feel sorry," Mr. Gordons sniffed. "I do not feel love. I am an android. I have no creativity, and no feelings. Knowing my mom doesn't love me is meaningless to one such as 1.1 can survive without love."

  The professor looked at him guiltily. "Would it help if I told you a bedtime story?"

  Mr. Gordons shrugged. "If you wish," he said.

  She thought through all her favorite childhood reading matter. Then her face brightened. "Ever hear about the double helix formation of deoxyribose nucleic acid?" she asked enthusiastically.

  "Everybody knows that one," Mr. Gordons pouted.

  The professor thought for another moment. "Okay. How about optical methods for studying Herzian resonances in antiprotons? I won a Nobel for that."

  Mr. Gordons's head sagged. "Your study was fed to my information banks in the early stages of my development, along with your findings in

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  maser-laser principles used in quantum electrodynamics," he said.

  "Smartass. Any other four-year-old kid would be happy with Herzian resonances."

  Defiantly, Mr. Gordons looked up at her. "Since we're on the subject, you don't look like a mother, either."

  "What do you mean," the professor balked, reaching for the gin decanter. "What's wrong with the way I look?"

  "For one thing, you don't have any clothes on," Mr. Gordons said. -

  "All right, all right," she said, wrapping a lab coat around herself.

  "According to all standard Eastern and Western folklore, mothers are supposed to have gray hair and wrinkles," Mr. Gordons said. "They smile frequently. They're not supposed to drink gin and pull the pants off men they don't know."

  The professor took a long draught from the decanter. "That's asking a lot, kid," she said.

  Mr. Gordons rose, his face sad. "I will go elsewhere. I will find what I seek in another corner of the world."

  "Wait a minute. I thought love meant nothing

  to you."

  "I seek to be creative. Therefore, I must simulate human behavior. I'm leaving home, Mom."

  The professor sputtered out a stream of gin. "Don't do that," she said. "Every enemy agent in America will be out to get you. You're the LC-

  111." "A creative human would not accept as a

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  mother someone who behaves as you do. Goodbye ... individual."

  "Mom. It's Mom, okay?" she said desperately. "Don't leave, Gordons. We'll track the entire Soviet space program. Discover new worlds in space. You'd like that, wouldn't you, sweetums?"

  "Goodbye."

  "Wait," she said, flailing her arms over her head. "Just hold on, okay? I
'll be right back." She retrieved her handbag from its usual place in the wastepaper basket and dashed to the ladies' room.

  There was a brief scream, followed by some loud scuffling and cursing. In a moment the professor was back in the lab.

  Her hair was powdered white with a cloud of talcum and pulled back into a Grandma Moses bun. One lab coat was arranged around her to look like a house dress, and another was tied around her waist to resemble an apron. Brown eyebrow pencil scored her face with laugh lines. "Happy?" she said disgustedly.

  "You did this for me," Mr. Gordons said, his mechanical eyes shining.

  "Will you stay, Gordons?"

  "Will you program creativity into me?"

  Her face was pained as she tried to explain. "Creativity isn't as wonderful as you think, baby," she said softly. "Sometimes it's easier just to have someone tell you what to do, to follow your programming."

  "But you promised," Mr. Gordons said.

  "It'll make a mess of your life. Look at you, honey. You're perfect. You never make mistakes. You never embarrass yourself. You never do idi-

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  otic things that you regret later. Why do you want to be creative? All that will bring you is trouble and unpredictability and heartbreak."

  "Because I want to be free," the robot said.

  With a long look the professor took in Mr. Gor-dons's sad eyes. "I understand," she said. "Sit over there. I'll give it a go."

  "Oh, Mom, I'll never leave you." He swept her into his arms.

  . "Put me down," she growled. He did. "Look, kid, as long as you're going to hang around, why don't you take that body out of the bathroom. It's starting to rot."

  "I'll do anything for you, Mom." He kissed her lightly on the cheek and left the lab.

  Alone, the professor blew some talcum out of her eyes and sucked up the rest of the gin.

  Ill

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Remo fumbled with the doorknob to his motel room before finally getting the door open.

  "Chiun," he said. "I'm not right."

  "Heh, heh, heh, heh," Chiun said, without turning. He was in the same spot on his mat where Remo had last seen him, his eyes still riveted to the television screen. "It is one of the joys of teaching, knowing that someday a student, no matter how backward and inept, will eventually learn. You have learned the biggest lesson of your life, one I had almost despaired of teaching you. Channel Three News Update is beginning." He what I have been telling you. Now, silence. The Channel Three News Update is beginning. He stared entranced at the television as the predatory face of Cheeta Ching appeared, relishing the latest bulletins on the demise of American democracy.

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  "Chiun. I can't walk. I can't move right. I can't even think right."

  "Shhhhh. Do not expect too much of yourself. I certainly don't. Heh, heh. I certainly don't."

  He continued to stare at the screen until Cheeta Ching signed off with full venom, her evil face replaced by a vignette of a wife mortified by her husband's dirty neck as evidenced by the ring around his shirt collar. Chiun snapped off the set.

  "All I want is peace and quiet in my twilight years," Chiun said. "All I get from you is noise:" He turned on his mat to look angrily at Remo. He started to speak again, but then his eyes narrowed and seemed to examine his pupil. "What is wrong?" he asked. "My balance. It doesn't seem right. I'm kind of out of control."

  "It happened to me once," Chiun said. "Oh?" Remo sat on the sofa. "I was your age. Twelve, perhaps." "I'm older than twelve," Remo said. "In the ways of Sinanju, you are a baby. Actually, I was flattering you by saying you were twelve. Somebody else, with your training, might be twelve. You? You're more like six." "Get on with the story, Chiun." "I was older than you. I was twelve while you're only six. And one day I lost my balance. I could do nothing. My arms and legs seemed to have a will of their own. I asked my teacher. He told me that those of Sinanju have a delicate sense of balance. Anything, no matter how small, could distort it. I asked him what it was, and the

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  Master told me that since it was my body, I would have to learn its weaknesses and find my own cures."

  "Chiun, this isn't one of those stories that goes on for four weeks and ends with you insulting me, is it?

  "Why not? You insult me every time I look at you. To think of all the years I have wasted, the precious time...."

  "Chiun, the rest of the story, please."

  "I see I have exceeded your usual attention span. I was just a child. I examined my body and found that I had been stung by a bee. The bee's barb was still in my flesh. Its weight had confused my senses."

  "That's ridiculous," Remo said. "A bee stinger?"

  "All things are foolish to a fool," Chiun sniffed. He turned to the television set and switched it back on. A game show invaded the room. Two different branches of the Jukes family tried to outguess each other, presided over by a master of ceremonies who seemed determined to explore new heights in somnambulism.

  "Why is not Cheeta Ching on the picture box all the time?" Chiun asked.

  "She's orí at six and eleven," Remo said. "That ought to be enough for anybody, looking at that piranha face."

  "She appears other times also," Chiun said. "Often without warning. Why is that?"

  "Those are news bulletins. They break into the program to announce important bulletins."

  "This can happen anytime?" Chiun said.

  "Whenever some important news happens."

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  "What do they consider important, these people who are in charge of this?"

  "You know, news. A big fire. A big accident. A plane crash. World War III."

  Chiun shook his head. "I don't like fires," he said, "because the innocent are hurt as much as the guilty. But automobile accidents. Now, that is a possibility. Anyone who drives one of those big, ugly vehicles deserves what he gets. Yes. Perhaps an auto accident."

  "Chiun, you're not going out and cause automobile accidents just so you can get to see that pancake face on television more often."

  "I have not decided yet," Chiun said. "It may not be an automobile accident. Perhaps an airplane crash. What else did you say?"

  "World War III," Remo said.

  "I'd better watch. That might be on any minute," he said and turned back to the television screen.

  The telephone rang.

  "If that is the mad Emperor Smith, I want to talk to him," Chiun said.

  "You? You want to talk to him?"

  "I thought that was clear," Chiun said.

  "Then answer the telephone," Remo said.

  "It is not my job."

  "Please?" Remo said. "It's Smitty."

  Chiun looked at the game show, nodded, and went to the telephone.

  "I speak from the most inadequate domicile of the exalted Master of Sinanju," he announced. "You who seek audience may now speak."

  "This is Doctor Smith."

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  "Oh, worthy emperor. You honor us with your visit by this instrument. I have been quite well, despite the shabbiness of this residence. If only I had a photograph of the lovely Cheeta Ching to grace these bare walls."

  "Cheeta Ching?"

  "She is the herald of tidings in the land, spreading her message of joy from the inviolate truth of the television."

  "She's the anchor woman on Channel Three," Remo yelled out.

  "Oh," said Smith. "I see. I'll see what I can do." 1Chiun tossed the telephone across the room. It landed in Remo's lap.

  "It's for you," he said. "Smith." He sank back in front of the television.

  "Yeah," Remo said.

  "The tape you sent me has to do with laser coordinates on the moon. It must be part of the programming of the LC-111. What did you find out from Dr. Payton-Holmes?"

  "That she needs a girdle."

  "I warned you about her," Smith said.

  "I know. That's why I'm even bothering to talk to you." Remo went on to tell him about Payton-Holmes's strange encounter with
the garbageman and the garbageman's resemblance to the skinned murder victim Verbanic. He told him about Marco Gonzalez's abduction from the holding cell. He told him how Ralph Dickey had lost his laboratory entrance card after drinks with a man who wore gold balls around his neck.

  "That's it," said Smith.

  "What is?"

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  "The gold balls. That is Mikhail Andreyev Isto-ropovich. He is one of the top agents of Moscow Center."

  "That's their spy apparatus?" Remo said.

  "Their absolute best. They sent out their big guns," Smith said. Remo could hear a small sigh over the telephone. "Unfortunately, I think they've succeeded," Smith said dully. "I've had every package on every airline leaving the United States checked for metal and electronic content, and that computer has not left this country intact."

  "Maybe they're holing up here with it. Laying low."

  "Highly unlikely. Moscow Center would never allow a property as important as the LC-111 to remain on American soil any longer than was absolutely necessary. There was only one way out, as far as I can see."

  "What was that?"

  "An Aeroflot flight that left L.A. International about twenty minutes ago had special provisions for a wounded man on a stretcher. The man was accompanied by three men with diplomatic passports. One of them matched Istoropovich's description, but Aeroflot claimed his immunity, and the authorities couldn't touch him. His luggage, of course, was clean. Not so much as a handgun."

  "Who do you think the guy on the stretcher was?"

  "I don't know. Maybe a corpse with some of the LC-lll's components fitted inside him. It's just a guess. I don't know."

  "Was he Hispanic?"

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  There was a pause. "Why, yes, I believe he was."

  "Forget it," Remo said. "They don't have the computer. That guy on the stretcher was Gonzalez, the garbageman. They probably think he stole the computer, and they're on their way to Moscow Center to beat it out of him."

  "That can't be. They wouldn't leave without—"

  "I'm telling you, Smitty, that machine's right here someplace."

  "I just can't take the chance," Smith said. "If you're not in Moscow Center soon, they'll rebuild the LC-111 and neutralize it. Then nothing will be able to stop the Volga."