Warren Murphy: Dying Space

"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.

"I must find Remo. And kill him."

Mr. Gordons spoke those words softly as he stopped at the head of the staircase leading down to the dungeons. He touched his new face, Ivan's face, with his fingertips. "Creative," he said. "I was very creative."