Warren Murphy: The Wrong Stuff

The coolness of the eighty-degree air shocked him. As careful hands laid him down on the bucking surface of the tank, Remo shivered uncontrollably. Tender fingers wiped his eyes clear.

He found himself staring up into the deeply concerned face of the Master of Sinanju. His mouth forming a grim frown, the old man inspected the mass of burned and blistered flesh that covered his pupil's body.

With a splutter the boosters stopped firing. The tank below them shuddered, then stopped dead. Remo tried to push himself to his elbows. The struggle proved too much. "We have to-" he said weakly as he fell back to the tank's curved surface. "Check, Chiun. We have to make sure this time."

"The machine matters not, my son," the old man said softly. "We must tend to your injuries."

"I'm fine," Remo insisted. But he knew it was not true.

His body was one big bum. A prickly rash of confusion swam through his brain. As the delirium grew, his vision blurred. Behind the kaleidoscopic swirl that was his teacher, he saw a shadow loom up out of the water.

Chiun sensed the motion behind him. Standing sharply, the old man whirled.

The fog had largely burned away, replaced by pockets of wispy steam that swirled across the surface of the water. And from that calming sea, the Virgil probe was clambering up the arced surface of the external shuttle tank.

The machine was badly damaged. Droplets of hissing slag dripped from its ruptured belly. The legs were largely burned away. It crawled on stumps of melted metal.

Chiun saw the thin wire trailing into the steaming water. It was the same technique Gordons had used to animate the various creatures in Maine.

"You are not Mr. Gordons," the old Korean pronounced.

The voice that answered was that of Gordons, filtered through the battered speaker of the probe. "No," replied the voice that spoke through the Virgil probe. "I have been damaged. But I will repair myself."

Lying on his back behind the Master of Sinanju, Remo had been squinting at the probe. As he watched, he realized that his eyes had been injured more than he thought, for a black haze suddenly began to swirl before him.

He tried to blink the illusion away, but it only intensified. And as he watched in stunned silence, the swirl of black brightened and congealed. Remo found himself staring up into a pair of disturbingly familiar eyes.

The otherworldly figure who had appeared above him was only four feet tall with shiny black hair. Remo recognized the moon face of the Korean child. It was Song, the ghost of Chiun's dead son. The same boy who had appeared to Remo more than a year before to warn him of the hardships he would face. But there had been more than just that to his prophesying.

At first Remo wasn't sure if the ghost he was looking at was real or if it was just a vision caused by his delirium.

But then the boy nodded.

And in that moment, Remo understood. Truly understood. The knowledge flooded his mind and heart, and he knew with all his being that it was right.

Song offered a childlike smile and was gone. With calm acceptance Remo dropped his head back to the dock.

Unmindful of the importance of what had just occurred behind him, the Master of Sinanju continued to face down Mr. Gordons's emissary.

"I am a survival machine," the probe was saying. "I will do whatever is necessary to maximize my survival."

"And we will do whatever is necessary to minimize it," the Master of Sinanju replied.

If Gordons wanted to say more, Chiun didn't give him a chance. Bending, he snipped the wire with a single nail. A nudge from his sandal sent the Virgil probe back into the water. It hit with a mighty splash, sinking from sight.

The instant he did so, the distant sound of an outboard motor carried to his shell-like ears.

Far off on the bobbing waves of the Atlantic, a small motorboat raced away. Chiun noted that the boat moved at speeds far greater than it should have been able to achieve. In a matter of seconds it had disappeared from sight.

His face tight, the old man spun back around. When he returned to Remo's side, the Master of Sinanju was surprised to find a smile on his pupil's burned and chapped lips. Chiun's frown deepened. "We must tend your wounds," the old Korean said, gently tucking his hands beneath his pupil.

As he lifted Remo into the air, the smile never left the younger man's lips.

The hint of sadness that might have flicked across Remo's eyes as he looked up at the old man's face, was supplanted by a sense of honor, pride and tradition.

"It's time, Chiun," Remo said. And the words felt right.

The Master of Sinanju didn't have time to ask what his pupil meant. Fatigue and injury took firm hold, and Remo faded into the soothing oblivion of peaceful slumber.

Chapter 32

When the ambulance passed through the gates of Folcroft Sanitarium three days later, Harold W. Smith and Mark Howard were waiting on the broad front steps.

On opening the rear door, the ambulance attendants were surprised to see their patient not strapped to his gurney.

Remo stepped down to the gravel drive. The Master of Sinanju flounced down after him.

Thanks to Chiun's ministrations, the younger Master of Sinanju had made great progress on the road to recovery. His skin was still a bright crimson, but the blisters were drying and beginning to scab over. He looked exhausted.

Smith's face was grave. Howard's expression mirrored that of his employer.

"Stop looking like this is a wake," Remo groused at them. "I'm fine."

"No, he is not," Chiun chimed in. "He is better, thanks to my expert care, but he still needs time to recuperate."

Smith turned to Howard. "Mark, summon two orderlies and a gurney."

"Do it and they're the ones who'll need a stretcher," Remo warned. "I just wanna go lie down."

His lips thinning, Smith nodded tightly. Dismissing the ambulance attendants, the four men made their way into the building. Only when they were in the common room of Remo and Chiun's quarters, the door closed tightly behind them, did Smith feel free to speak.

"What of Gordons?" the CURE director asked. Remo had sunk into a living-room chair. Smith and Howard were on the sofa while Chiun sat on the floor.

"Didn't Chiun tell you?" Remo asked.

Smith glanced at the old man. "Given his concern for you and your injuries, Master Chiun was, er, vague on the details," he said tactfully.

"Only detail you need to know is that he got away," Remo said. "Good news is it looks like he shed that cockamamie probe thing, so we might not be seeing spider-Gordons again. But he's still out there somewhere."

Smith clearly wasn't happy with this news. "Very well," he said with a troubled frown. "I suppose we shall have to satisfy ourselves with the fact that you survived your encounter with him."

"Don't sound so disappointed," Remo droned.

Smith forged ahead. "In case you did not hear while you were recovering, the truth of what Zipp Codwin was up to at NASA has come to light. It turns out that he spent the bulk of the agency's budget on everything but scientific research. It is mismanagement on a grand scale. Given his reputation and all that has come to light in the last thirty-six hours, it has been accepted by all that Codwin and his soldiers were to blame for everything odd that has happened there these past few days. So that is that." He stood to go.

"Wait, what about that crackpot writer?" Remo asked. "You want me and Chiun to punch his ticket?"

The Master of Sinanju was quick to chime in. "Remo needs to remain here while he recovers. But I will gladly travel to the Potato Province, Emperor."

Remo noted the cunning in his tone. "You're not going house shopping without me, Little Father," he warned.

The aged Korean raised an eyebrow. "Who said anything about shopping?" he sniffed. "If it is Emperor Smith's wish, that scribbler's home will soon be vacant."