As soon as they were put into the cell, Chiun ripped the handcuffs off his wrists. Then, with a flick of his fingers, he snapped the cuffs on Remo's wrists into a million metal shards that tinkled as they hit the floor.
Chiun's fingernails tapped the steel and concrete walls of the cell. It was a strange cell, with no bars and no fixtures of any kind. A buzzer beside a small intercom was the prisoners' only contact with the rest of the prison, except for an inch space between one wall connecting the cell with the next. Through the inch clearance could be seen odd tracks, like those of sliding doors. On the ceiling a large circle was cut to let in air and artificial light.
"Well, what now?" Chiun said. "You have managed to have us arrested, break your computer's arm with one of the sloppiest attacks ever ex-
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ecuted in the history of Sinanju, and make a fool of yourself in the process/What now?"
"He's not the LC-111," Remo said. "That's Mr. Gordons, that damned robot that we killed twice, and he's still alive."
Chiun stared at him, unimpressed. "You are in wonderful condition to fight him now," he said sarcastically. "Perhaps you can get him to die laughing."
"Gordons. My little baby Gordons," the professor wailed from behind the cell wall.
Remo tapped on the wall. "Professor, are you there?"
"Why, yes," she said. "Are you the nice boy from Washington?"
"Yeah," Remo said.
"Got a drink?"
"No."
"Commie pinko. My baby," she cried. "My baby Gordons."
"Your baby Gordons just killed a man. And he tried to kill me," Remo said.
"Tsk, tsk," the professor muttered. "He's got such a temper. He came over here to kill you, actually. I tried to talk him out of it, but once he's made up his mind, he's really determined," she said indulgently. "He really didn't want to kill that other fellow, I don't think. He's just very touchy about people calling him a robot. He wants to be human, sweet thing. Gordons is so neurotic about that. Now I don't know where they've taken him."
"He's a survival machine," Remo said. "Hell be aU right."
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"So he tells me. I hope you won't take it personally."
"We never take killing personally, madam," Chiun said.
"I take it personally," Remo said. "I come to help you find your computer, only you give me the runaround while you fool around with that garbageman, who, incidentally, turns out to be dead...."
"That was Gordons, too, I'm afraid. That's when he first came to me. He'd already offed that poor fellow Verbena or whatever his name was."
"Verbanic," Remo said. "Wait a second, if he's Mr. Gordons, why did you tell Lucrezia Borgia in there that he's the LC-111?"
"Because he is," the professor explained. "He's an assimilator. If materials for his construction are available, he can repair himself. The last time he was damaged—by you, he tells me—he was left at the dump in Hollywood. Apparently that's where the LC-111 was taken when it was stolen."
"By a Russian agent."
"I wouldn't know. It didn't matter, once I got the computer back. By then, though, Gordons had already assimilated it. That's why I couldn't talk to you. Gordons didn't want you to know who he was. The LC-111 and Mr. Gordons are the same thing."
"That's why you couldn't let the guards shoot him," Remo said.
"I suppose, partly. I didn't want them to shoot Gordons, really, now that I've grown to care for him. But I suppose Gordons can repair his arm
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himself within an hour or so. He assimilates very quickly. He's quite indestructible, you know." "So it seems."
"But the LC-111 isn't. It would take years to reassemble if the Commies deeided to blow Gordons apart. I've destroyed my notes for security purposes. That computer is one of a kind. It simply must be saved. The future of our country depends on it."
"I thought it was just a missile tracker."
"It's not the tracker that's important," she said. "It's the missile. The Volga is the most advanced Soviet missile ever designed. It sends out high-frequency emissions that disperse after the vehicle leaves our atmosphere. The signals scramble themselves automatically. The Volga can't be tracked by conventional methods. Once NASA got this information, I began work on the LC-111."
"Where's the Volga going?"
"To the moon," the professor said.
"The moon? It's not even going to hit us?"
"If the Russians succeed, the Volga moon drop will be worse than any bomb," she said.
"But we've already been to the moon."
"That's exactly it. Since the Apollo moon landing, the U.S. has been making extensive plans for moon mining, satellite construction on the moon, weigh stations for future transport vehicles, things like that. The moon is our springboard into space. It's all been planned so that by the time we build the vehicles for space travel, we'll be prepared to conduct operations from the moon."
"So what do the Russians want with it? None of
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that stuff's up there yet. There's nothing to destroy."
"Wrong, darling. There is something. They're going to destroy our chances of ever working the moon." She sighed in anguish. "Oh, it's all so terrible," she said. "They've developed a strain of anerobic bacteria that can breed in space. It's small enough 'to penetrate the fabric of spacesuits, and hardy enough to reproduce in a near vacuum. With this bacteria on the moon, no further exploration there will be possible."
"They're out to spoil the moon," Remo said, rolling into an involuntary headstand.
"Exactly. They want to get back at us for reaching the moon first. And the only thing that can stop the Volga is the LC-111."
"Well, he's still Mr. Gordons," Remo said, "so just keep him off my back."
"He's my poor baby," the professor wailed.
The gold balls suspended from his necklace clicked softly as Mikhail Andreyev Istoropovich entered Dr. Payton-Holmes's cell through a section of the steel and concrete wall, which swung heavily away.
"Finally. We meet," he said.