Warren Murphy: Sole Survivor

"That'll do," said the clerk, grinning as he marked the crate.

After Remo had paid the man, he started out the door, thinking that he had forgotten some little detail. He ducked back into the building.

"By the way, how long will it take to reach Iran?" he asked.

"About two or three weeks."

"Good. Thanks," said Remo. He was very pleased that he had guessed right. There was just about enough canned dog food in the crate to keep Dexter Barn alive until he reached his new home, Iran or Libya. Still, Remo couldn't get rid of the idea that he had forgotten some minor detail.

At the airport, they stopped Remo as he went through the metal detector.

"Please empty your pockets, sir," a woman guard requested firmly.

Remo turned his pockets inside out. They were, empty. He went through the detector again. It buzzed again. The guard ran a metal detector wand up and down Remo's body. It beeped near Remo's waist.

"I'll have to confiscate this," said a guard, plucking a can opener from Remo's belt.

"I knew I forgot something," Remo said sheepishly.

Chapter 6

If the magazine had not fallen out of Earl Armalide's back pocket just as the wall splintered his favorite rifle, he would have died horribly.

At first, Earl Armalide did not realize why the wails had suddenly stopped closing in on him. His fear-frozen mind only registered the welcome fact that the walls had locked in place. He would have savored the moment, but he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

He had been screaming almost from the moment he first stepped aboard the Soviet shuttle Yuri Gagarin and unslung his high-powered Colt Commando rifle. "Suck lead, Commie bastards," he had yelled.

But he found the shuttle's lower deck empty. The cockpit was empty too. So was the upper deck. He moved carefully from section to section, hunched low, his rifle pointing from his hip.

He used the classic room-to-room fighting tactics that was a guerrilla specialty. He would bob his head into the next section too fast for anyone to get a clear shot at him, and if no one fired, he jumped in, hitting the floor in a snap-roll and coming to his feet, spinning in place, finger on the trigger, yelling, "Die, godless heathens!"

Every time Earl entered a new compartment, he found himself staring at bare walls. There was no trace of a crew or captives.

Eventually he worked his way to the rear of the ship and its huge cargo bay area. It, too, was vacant.

Earl Armalide was very unhappy. Fate had handed him a solution to all his problems-not to mention a golden opportunity to pump bullets into Russian bodies without any legal consequences. But there was nobody to shoot. It struck him as very unfair. Like income tax.

Earl considered shooting the big silvery globe that nestled in the cargo bay, on the theory that, if he couldn't kill Russians, he could at least shoot up some Russian technology. But he decided against it. The bullets were bound to ricochet off the bulkhead walls, catching him in his own crossfire.

It was a disheartened Earl Armalide who stepped back into the airlock section. He noticed suddenly that the other door, leading back into the lower deck, had silently closed.

Earl tried that door, without success. While he fought with it, the other door sealed itself and the walls began to close in on him.

That was when Earl stopped bellowing guerrilla slogans and just sat on the floor with his hands over his eyes and his lungs working at top volume. It was during those gyrations that the magazine fell out.

The magazine fell cover-up, showing the title, Survivalist's Monthly. Abruptly a flat metallic voice emanating from the walls asked him about it.

"I am unfamiliar with the term 'survivalist,' " the voice said. "Please explain."

Earl heard the emotionless voice boom over his own screaming. It was very loud.

"What?" he said, taking his hands away from his eyes.

"I requested that you define the term 'survivalist.' " Earl noticed the magazine. He also noticed that the walls had stopped moving.

"Me. I'm a survivalist. An expert survivalist. Who are you?"

"I am a survival machine, Is that like a survivalist?"

"You're a machine?"

"Do not be so surprised. You are also a machine."

"The hell I am," said Earl Armalide indignantly.

"You are a machine of meat and bone and plasma fluids. I am a machine of metal and plastic and lubricants."

"I am a human being."

"You are a meat machine infested with parasitic organisms such as bacteria, without which you could not function. But I do not hold that against you. I am interested in this concept called survivalism."

"Where are you?" asked Earl Armalide, looking around.

"All around you. I am what you see."

"You're a wall?"

"I am this craft. It is my present form. I assimilated it because I could not reenter earth's atmosphere without burning up. Becoming this craft enabled me to survive. Surviving is my prime directive."

"We got something in common there," said Earl Armalide, standing up. He looked around for something to face. The walls were blank. "Can you see me?"

"The control panel," the voice stated.

Earl looked. The door control lights blinked. Earl looked closer. One of the buttons was not a button, but a cold blue eye. Humanlike, but glassy and unblinking like a cat's-eye marble, it followed his every gesture. "That you?" asked Earl.

"I can assume any form I choose, and I possess the power to manipulate any form I assume."

"You're not Russian?"

"No."

"Are you, like, a Martian?"

"No. "

"What are you?"

"I have told you, I am a survival machine. I have enemies who desire my destruction and I am interested in this new concept of survivalism, which must have come into being while I was in outer space, for I have never heard of it."

"Well, turning into a Russky space shuttle and dropping down on New York City ain't the way to go about surviving," Earl Armalide retorted. "If anything, you just collected yourself a new batch of enemies. They're gonna have you surrounded by tanks any minute now. You know what a tank is?"

"A military vehicle capable of ejecting explosive projectiles. "

"Those ain't the words I would have used, but you got the general concept," said Earl Armalide.

"Tell me, survivalist, what would you do were you in my position? How would you use your expert skills to survive this situation?"

"First thing," said Earl Armalide, "I'd get the heck outta here."

Earl was immediately thrown off his feet as the Yurf Gagarin lurched into motion. The rising whine of jet engines filled the cramped airlock. Earl grabbed for a projecting bolt, but the bolt withdrew from his fingers as if it were alive. Then Earl remembered that it was alive. He threw himself spread-eagle on the smooth floor while the shuttle gathered speed. He felt the floor lift under his stomach, the shuttle's trembling power making his beefy face shiver. He shut his eyes.

When, minutes later, the ship leveled off, the voice asked him another question.

"What, in your expert opinion, would be my next survival maneuver?" it asked.

"You got me," answered Earl Armalide, his eyes pinched shut.

"Yes," said the voice. "I do have you." And the walls began to close in again.

"No! No!" screamed Earl. "Time! Give me time to think. "

"What is my next survival maneuver?"

Earl thought frantically, but his mind refused to work. In his fear, his eyes alighted on the title of the lead article of his Survivalist's Monthly, "Creative Camouflage."

"Camouflage!" he yelled.

"Define. "

"You blend into your surroundings. Meat machines-I mean people-paint their skin with plant and earth colors to move about unseen. You gotta blend in with your surroundings. People can't chase you if they can't see you."