They taught him that he could trot while in the suit, but he could not run. Even with his body as insubstantial as smoke, his micron-thick soles could trip on ground rocks. If he tripped, he was told, he would fall. And if he fell . . .
"What?" Rair had asked anxiously.
The technician shrugged. They did not actually know, but they theorized that a fall would propel the suit through the earth's crust, where a man might, in theory, sink until he emerged on the opposite side of the globe.
"That would not be so terrible," Rair had said, visibly relieved.
True, they told him. But no one could say if, after passing through the earth, the man might not keep going, forever and ever, into deepest space.
"Oh," Rair had said in a sober voice.
There were other problems with the suit. The more he learned, the less he liked the assignment, but because giving up meant facing a firing squad, Rair Brashnikov continued training.
Even after they warned him that he must never, ever, turn off the suit while inside something solid.
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"What would happen then?" he had asked fearfully.
On this the technicians were not in complete agreement.
One thought that Rair would become trapped like a fly in amber.
Another believed that the atomic structure of both substances would become inextricable, so that in his last moments Rair would taste wood or concrete in his mouth, his stomach would feel full of matter. His brain would be riddled with foreign nonorganic substances. His bodily fluids would mingle with the material. It would be a weird, terrible, suffocating death.
Still another theorized that with the vibration suit shut down, the repelling forces that kept the atoms separated would cease, possibly result in a nuclear explosion.
Rair Brashnikov kept the thought of becoming a walking Chernobyl in mind all through the Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Washington, D.C., where he met his case officer, the charge d'affaires of the Soviet embassy, actually a KGB major. The charge d'affaires provided Rair with a secure place to live between pentrations, which ranged from plucking key parts from U.S. missiles so that when they went awry and had to be destroyed, no one dreamed that they had malfunctioned because they had been pilfered, to obtaining mission-critical computer chips from Pentagon super-computers.
Through it all, Rair Brashnikov had been extra, extra careful not to be seen, not to be heard, not to be suspected. American security was so lax it was relatively easy. And Rair Brashnikov had been very, very well-trained. Even in America, the training continued. He was forced to enter mock-ups of cramped missile interiors, positioning himself so that when he deactivated the suit, no toe or finger remained inside anything solid. It was a simple matter, then, to remove whatever he wished, reactivate the suit, and slip away.
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It was a happy property of the suit that whatever Brashnikov held in his hands when the suit activated, vibrated in sympathy so that it could be carried through solids as well.
Rair Brashnikov trained very hard. He did not desire to go up in a small mushroom cloud. Nor did he wish to be captured when the battery pack ran down, as it did when he was being pursued from LCF-Fox by the American with unusually thick wrists and the absurdly garbed Oriental.
The pair had been incredibly fleet of foot. And strong. They had chopped down a thick tree while he hid within. Rair had no idea who they were. He had been fascinated by them-until the rheostat warning light went on, indicating that he had only the sixty-minute reserve-energy supply left.
Rair had counted himself fortunate that he had so many trees to hide in. He had finally given them the slip, and made it back to his hotel, where he immediately reported his encounter with U.S. military personnel to the charge d'affaires.
Rair had been certain that the trio had been left far behind. That had been a fatal mistake, he now realized.
As the dark tunnel walls zoomed past him, Brashnikov tried to remember his last moment of life. He had dialed the Soviet embassy. The switchboard had answered, and Rair had asked to speak with the charge d'affaires, giving his code name, Lyovkiy Dukh-Nimble Ghost.
While he waited to be connected, the hotel-room door crashed in. Rair did not turn to see what had happened. That was not important. Turning on the suit was by then a reflex in any dangerous situation.
He remembered reaching for the belt rheostat. At the same time, the charge d'affaire's voice came over the line, saying, "Hello?" That was the last thing Rair heard. The room went white like a star going nova, and now he was hurling through this endless tunnel at the speed of light.
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The explanation was obvious. The suit must have gone nuclear. There was no other possible answer.
It had been the thing that Rair Brashnikov had most feared. Yet now that it had happened, he felt a curious lack of concern. It had been quick and painless. How much more could one expect from death?
And so Rair Brashnikov, only a little sad, rushed through the snaking tube, searching for the light his grandfather had spoken of so long ago, in another time and place.
It was a strange thing. In his ears, he could still hear the charge d'affaires' angry voice. It kept repeating, "Hello? Hello? Are you there, Brashnikov? Answer me!"
And behind it, there were other voices. A multitude of them. Laughing and whispering. Shouting and sobbing. Rair thought they were the voices of the dead. If he listened hard enough, could he pick out his grandfather's voice too? he wondered.
But when he tried, he discovered a strange thing.
All the voices spoke English. American English.
How curious, Brashnikov thought. Were there no Soviets in the afterlife?
Then he heard the charge d'affaires' voice again, angry and anxious, calling his name over and over again. It was most passing strange.
11
"It's okay, I'll get it," Remo Williams called out in response to the familiar knock. He leapt to the back door, swiping at the smoke that had seeped into the kitchen despite the insulation of two closed doors.
"Hi, Smitty," Remo said. "Back for more rice?" Then he stopped. "You look different. Did you break down and get a face lift?"
"Nonsense," Smith snapped, closing the door behind him like a nervous milkman on a dawn assignation.
"No, really," Remo returned, following him to the kitchen table. "There's something different about you. New haircut?"
"I have been using the same barber for nearly thirty years."
"And you probably tip him the same way you did in 1962."
"I consider my loyal patronage to be tip enough." Smith looked around, noticing the haze.
"Has someone been smoking?" he asked.
"Sort of. This is Chiun's latest kick."
Smith looked at Remo with disbelief. "I cannot imagine Chiun smoking."
"I'll explain later. I'm still trying to put my finger on what's different about you today. A new tie?" Remo asked. "No, that's a Dartmouth tie. And your suit the same. Gray as a mouse."
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