Dying Space td-47

by Warren Murphy

  "Me Ivan," he said, sending the mermaid into frenzied activity. "Who you?"

  The professor buried her face in Ivan's chest. Call me Comrade," she said.

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "You are getting worse, Remo," Chiun said quietly.

  There was a long silence. "I'm sorry," Remo said.

  "You should be. We should never have come to this place."

  "I said I'm sorry."

  "Your professor has gone with the Russians. The robot is missing. Your body has all the control of a camel's bowels. With you in this condition, we can never leave this place."

  "You can get out alone. Find your way back to Smitty and tell him what happened. He'll see that you're sent back to Sinanju."

  Chiun did not stir.

  "I mean it. There's no sense in both of us buying the farm just because I'm turning into a klutz. I'll stay and try to do something about that Volga thing. You just get out any way you can."

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  Chiun sat up on his bunk, folding himself into a full lotus. "Are you finished?" he asked. "I guess so," Remo said. "Good. Now perhaps I can get some sleep."

  "Get up, you," a guard said in Russian.

  Remo struggled to his feet. "Now," he said. "Get out now, Little Father!"

  "Save your chatter," Chiun said.

  The guard grabbed Remo roughly and jerked his head toward the open cell door. "High commander want see you," he said in English.

  "Please go, Chiun," Remo pleaded.

  "You are the one who has been called. You go."

  The high commander's office was empty. The guard had closed and locked the door behind Remo. He was alone in the room.

  With a whoosh, a sliding panel in the wall slid open, filling the space with a Russian version of Montovani's 1001 Cascading Strings.

  "Come in, American," the high commander cooed from the room beyond the sliding door. Remo walked in.

  She was lying nude in the middle of a four-poster bed canopied with red gauze. Across her neck hung an ornate gold necklace, and her hands held two red silk leashes attached to two small monkeys. The monkeys each had small black boxlike protrusions sticking out of the backs of their necks.

  "You will lie beside me," the woman purred, spreading the red gauze.

  "What do you want" Remo said flatly.

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  "You. You amuse me, just like little monkeys." She patted one of the animals on its head. The creature looked at her submissively. Then, with the back of her hand, she swatted the black box embedded in its neck, and the monkey screamed. It curled into a tight ball and rolled whimpering away from her until the leash around its throat strained.

  She laughed when she saw the look of disgust on Remo's face. "You find me cruel, yes?" she asked coyly.

  "I wouldn't exactly call you a bleeding heart."

  "These animals we breed for dying," she said, letting go of the leashes and kicking the monkeys off the bed. They scurried chattering into a corner of the room. "Soon they take long journey where bad germs will kill them. Transmitters in their necks will inform us how long they go before they die."

  "So I heard. Anerobic bacteria," Remo said.

  "Da, exactly. Professor tell you?"

  "No, the monkeys."

  She laughed. "That good. Monkeys tell. Hah. I know professor. She will tell us also, everything we want. She fix robot, she tell everything about computer. Just for boom-boom with Ivan."

  She snaked an arm around Remo and kissed him fiercely on the mouth. Uncontrollably, his arms began flapping.

  "Hold still long enough for necessary kissing as outlined in Worker's Marriage Manual," she said.

  "Sorry, but we're not married. What's it say in the Worker's Makeout Manual?"

  She reached out with her painted claws, her

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  tongue flicking Between her lips. Remo's nervous system chose that precise moment to execute a double back flip, pulling down the bed's red gauze canopy and tangling the high commander in it like a porpoise.

  An unfamiliar feeling swept Remo's body, and it took a split second for him to place it. It was fear. By the moment his body was growing more and more out of control, and somewhere in this pile of stones was Gordons with only one message in his metallic little mind: kill Remo. And what of Chiun? And the professor? And America, with the threat of the Volga over its head?

  As suddenly as his movements had begun, Remo dropped to the floor and lay supine, staring at the ceiling. The woman extricated herself from the netting and straddled him, panting. "You are finished? You dare to lie on floor, no kissee, nothing? You obviously not read Worker's Marriage Manual."

  He tried to stand up, but his body would not let him.

  "This not look like very active position," the woman said.

  "Oh, it's deceptive. Nothing shows on the outside. Your liver does all the work."

  "I see," she said thoughtfully. "Americans very clever in techniques of pleasure. From leading lazy, money-grubbing lives." With one hand she pulled Remo's T-shirt over his head. In another moment his pants were off. He be^an to twitch again. The twitches turned into spasms. Before long, his arms and legs were flailing in all directions.

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  "This more like it," the high commander said.

  "It's all from the liver," Remo grunted as he tried unsuccessfully to bring himself under control.

  "You sock it to me this way, okay, Yankee?"

  He flipped into a handstand. She rose with him, hanging upside down and yelling in delight. "This is what Americans call kinky, yes?" she leered.

  "This is what Americans call a pain in the ass." He twitched his way to the corner. She clung to him every step of the way. "Love it to death, imperialist baby," she said. "High commander love kinky boom-boom."

  In an effort to stand up, Remo raised his arms. The insteps in his feet coiled and he sprang, astonished, toward the chandelier in the center of the ceiling, the high commander in tow.

  "Highly inventive," she said approvingly. The chandelier crashed down in a shower of lights and sparkling glass.

  Remo said, "Look, you'll have to excuse me."

  "Hah," the high commander said. "American sex. Five minutes, and poof. Pale and bloodless is American nookie. Your people have no feeling. Americans make only dollars, not love. Nowhere in America is man to please Russian woman."

  Remo touched a spot on the high commander's left earlobe.

  "I command you to provide wild and crazy orgasm, like American magazines talk about."

  Remo sighed. "One magazine orgasm coming up," he said. He poked her between her third and fourth ribs. She yelled and whipped her head

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  back and forth. He touched her ankle with his big toe. She bared her teeth and pounded her chest. He pinched a spot on her thigh. She burst into a chorus of "Do It Again Like You Did Last Summer, Baby!" in Russian.

  When she regained her breath, she sat up. "You will get worker's medal for this."

  "The presentation ceremony must be a dilly," Remo said.

  "Now we talk softly/'she whispered.

  "About what?"

  "About Communism, of course. Is on page 210 of Worker's Marriage Manual. I give you copy."

  Til pass."

  "You not find Communism interesting?" she said archly.

  "As interesting as tearing the wings off flies."

  She stood up, her hands on her hips. "You have insulted Communist Party," she said. "For this you will be punished." She bellowed for a guard.

  When the uniformed detachment entered, she shouted, "Get him out of here."

  "Back to his cell, Madam Commander?" one asked.

  "No. Put him in the dungeon. By himself."

  Remo felt himself being dragged from the office. It was all over. His strength was almost gone. He had nothing left.

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  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "Hold still," the professor whispered to the glassy-eyed robot in front of her. The instrument
in her hand welded together two wires in his chest.

  "I'm experiencing an unusual sensation," Mr. Gordons said.

  "Is it heat?" She held up the tiny blowtorch. "I'm welding."

  "I don't know. I don't think so. It is a strange and terrible feeling." Then something clicked in his throat and he said, "Now I know what the feeling is. It is fear."

  "Fear? How can you feel fear? You're a robot."

  "I am afraid, Mom."

  The professor stepped back a pace. She looked at his panic-stricken face. "It's the creativity," she said slowly. "The heat from this blowtorch is stepping up the fusion of the silver transistors. That must be it."

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  "Am I becoming creative?" Mr. Gordons asked.

  "I think you might be."

  "Hey, what you two talking about?" Ivan thundered from his chair, the iridescent blue mermaid on his chest undulating. He set down a pitcher of martinis he had finished mixing.

  "I was just telling him what a sweet, intelligent, considerate person you are, Ivan," she said, smiling. "Say, you couldn't spare some of that, could you?" She pointed to the pitcher filled with swirling clear liquid.

  "When you finished," Ivan said. "First, you change robot into Russian weapon, then you get vodka."

  "Commie hoople," she muttered.

  Mr. Gordons lurched. "I have to kill that Remo," he said.

  "First things first," the professor whispered softly. "We've got other things to do. A country to save. Trust me."

  "I must kill Remo," Mr. Gordons said.

  Behind them, Ivan dozed lightly.

  "Listen," Dr. Payton-Holmes said. "Nothing is more important than destroying that Volga. You're hooked up now to make sure it can't hurt America."

  "I do not care about America being hurt. I care about me being hurt. I must kill that Remo before he hurts me again."

  "Are you going to listen to your mother?" she hissed.

  "Yes, Mom. I think."

  "You can have Remo. But first, the Volga. Now play dead."

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  Mr. Gordons snapped into a rigid position, and the professor called out, "Okay, Ivan. I'm done."

  Ivan snapped awake with a snort. "This thing now Russian weapon?"

  "Yes. All they have to do is reach inside his belly and turn him on."

  "All right," Ivan said. "I send you back to cell now and I take robot away. Later, Ivan come to see you. With bottle of vodka. And Ivan."

  "Where is that idiot Ivan?" the high commander snapped from her position at the head of the long mahogany table. She shot a look over her shoulder at the door.

  To her immediate left, Grigori Seminov placed his monocle in his eye, making him look like half a fish. He was staring at Istoropovich, who sat on the other side of the high commander, the gold balls around his neck clicking softly. While he had had nothing really to do with it, Istoropovich would take credit for having captured the LC-111. There might be enough credit involved to have him think he could make a move for Semi-nov's job as number two man in Moscow Center. Seminov would be on the alert.

  The high commander was talking. "Is all ready for the Volga?" she asked.

  "All is ready, Commander," Seminov said.

  "Fine. When that simpleton arrives, we will make sure that the robot cannot interfere with Volga. Our socialist science will again lead the way in space," she said.

  By poisoning the moon? Seminov thought. But he said nothing, remembering the fate of his aunt

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  who had had the poor judgment to speak her mind.

  Suddenly, the door behind the high commander opened, and Ivan walked in with great dignity, carrying an inert humanoid lump in his arms.

  "It is about time, fool," said the high commander, and the tone in her voice told Seminov that Ivan would not be long for Moscow Center. There was a rumor that Ivan's ability to tend to the high commander's personal needs was no longer so great. In some circles, they now referred to him as Ivan the Terrible and said he suffered a prostate problem. He was as worthless, some said, as the mermaid tattoo on his powerful chest.

  Ivan set the body face down on a sofa on the far side of the room. "This is Mr. Gordons," he said. "Professor fix him up, make him Russian robot, say all you got to do is turn him on."

  "It's nice to know that one of you two can be turned on," the high commander said.

  "I leave now," Ivan said.

  "Please do," the high commander said.

  When Ivan left, she led Seminov and Istoropo-vich to the sofa.

  The two men turned over the body.

  Ivan's unseeing face stared up at them.

  The high commander took a step backward. Seminov moved to put his arm around her, but Isto-ropovich moved forward, grabbed the shirt of the man on the couch, and ripped it open.

  There on his chest was the swimming mermaid.

  The man on the couch was Ivan.

  "And he is dead," Istoropovich said.

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  "Then who was that who just left?" the high commander said.

  "That was Mr. Gordons," Istoropovich said. "The LC-111."

  Outside, in the long corridors that crisscrossed the building, Mr. Gordons stopped to think.

  Creativity was wonderful. All kinds of ideas raced through his metal and plastic synapses.

  Dr. Payton-Holmes—Mom—had told him that first he would take care of the Volga and then he could eliminate Remo. Wasn't that just like Mom, putting her country first? But Mr. Gordons's creative brain came up with a very creative alternative.

  Yes. He would take care of the Volga mission.

  After he killed Remo.

  And back inside her office, the high commander barked an order.

  "Destroy them all. Now. Including the robot. Nothing must stop the Volga."

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  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The cell was dark and damp, almost airless. Remo lay on the floor trying to breathe. Even that was difficult. His breath came in gulps, his body trembling spasmodically.

  So this is the way it ends, he thought. Betrayed by his body, lying in some pesthole like a sideshow freak, all the years of training without meaning, without effect.

  And for what? He heard the words in his head, and then he heard them in his ears. He realized that he had spoken out loud, and his voice was echoing off the cell's steel walls and ceiling. For what? For America, which didn't know he existed? For Smith, who didn't care he existed? For Chiun, who always would have been happier with an Oriental student?

  For what? the voice asked.

  And another voice answered.

  For life. We struggle for life. Because life is pre-

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  cious. And knowing that it is precious gives meaning to the work that we do, to the taking of life. Because we bring death only in the service of the

  living. Live, Remo. It was Chain's voice. "Chiun," he whispered into the blackness. "Is

  that you? Are you there?"

  But there was no answer. He heard only the sound of his labored breathing.

  But they had been Chain's words. Just as there had been other words at other times. He had lain in the dust once, his body broken, death only moments away, and he had heard Chiun's voice through the mist, saying, "Live, Remo, live. That is all I teach you, to live. You cannot die, you cannot grow weak, you cannot grow old, unless your mind lets you do it. Your mind is greater than all your strength, more powerful than all your muscles. Listen to your mind, Remo. It is saying

  to you, 'Live.' "

  "Yes," Remo whispered in the dungeon. "Yes." His voice grew stronger. "Yes." Stronger still.

  "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." Until it was a shout. "Yes! I willlive!"

  Chiun sat in the corner of his cell, his legs curled before him in a full lotus position, when the panel built into the steel and concrete wall swung away, and a guard deposited Dr. Payton-

  Holmes in the cell.

  Chiun looked up and said in Russian, "She is in the wrong place. This cell
awaits the return of my

  son.

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  "Is this cell. With you. Orders," the guard said, quickly backing away as the concrete panel closed again on Chiun and the professor.

  "Want a drink?" she asked him.

  "The air in here is poison enough for my body without my adding to it fermented wastes of flowers."

  "Never too late to start," she said. "We'll all be dead in an hour anyway." She took a hefty drink from her vodka bottle.

  "That does not concern me," Chiun said. "Have you seen my son?"

  "The cute one? With the dark eyes?"

  "The meat-eater who twitches," Chiun said.

  "No. But he'll be dead too," the professor said.

  "Why?"

  "Because they're going to launch the Volga. And they don't know it, but I've reprogrammed Mr. Gordons to turn the Volga around and drop it on this building. The germs will kill Russia in an hour." She waved the bottle again. "Last call," she said brightly.

  " I care only for my son. He is hurt," Chiun said.

  "I told Mr. Gordons that he might have hurt him implanting that transmitter," she said.

  "Transmitter?" Chiun said. He was on his feet like a silent puff of smoke, standing over the woman.

  "Yeah. Tiniest thing I ever saw. He implanted it in your boy's neck. So small, I couldn't even see it."

  "So that is it," Chiun said. "I must find my son."

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  "Too late," said Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes.

  "Too late."

  Another voice crackled into the room. It came over an intercom built high into the ceiling.

  "So, professor, you have tried to deceive us. But you have not. We know now what the robot will do. When he is found, we will destroy him." The professor gasped. "He did it," she cried. "Did what?" said Chiun.

  "That was the high commander's voice. She said 'when he is found.' That means Mr. Gordons escaped. What a good boy. A good, creative boy."

  "I worry only about my son. I must find him," Chiun said. He took a step toward the door panel in the wall, and as he did, the wall moved a few inches toward him. He spun around. All the walls were slowly beginning to close in. The cell was shrinking. "I must find my son," Chiun said.