"I will activate my pollution filters," Mr. Gordons said. He knelt over the professor. His fingers worked inside his shirt, and then he began to hiss like a garage air hose, and he put his face over the professor's and put air into her mouth.
He stopped for a moment and called over his shoulder to Remo. "I only have a four-minute supply. To create oxygen, I must destroy some of my internal circuits," he said. "I suggest you get us out of here."
Remo was slamming both feet against the stone panel, chipping away inches at a time. Chiun walked to it and flicked Remo out of the way. With a circular motion of his arm, he drew a neat zero on the stone with the fingernail of his index finger. Then, his hand moving at a speed too fast to be called a blur, his fingers sped around the circle, tapping the stone so rapidly that the sound seemed not to be tapping, but a buzz.
He stopped, then pressed the heel of his hand into the center of the zero. The round piece of stone fell through on the other side of the door, and the poison gas poured out of the anteroom into the vast missile lab. Remo could feel the air clearing, and he slowly let his breathing and heartbeat return to normal.
He reached through the hole Chiun had just made and found a switch next to the stone panel.
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He pressed it, and the door slowly swung open. Then he went back and propelled Mr. Gordons and the professor, who were still attached to one another by their lips, toward the doorway.
"No!" Istoropovich called weakly from the shadows where he had fallen. He was slithering on his stomach, the muscles of his abdomen contracting in terrible spasms. A trickle of black bile ran from his mouth down his chin. "I will not die for nothing," he groaned.
"That's the way it goes sometimes," Remo said, and turned back to the embracing couple.
"So is this," Istoropovich said. And before Remo spotted the glint of gray metal in the Russian's hands, a shot fired. It rang through the small anteroom, echoing tinnily. It ricocheted off one wall and came to rest with a soft snap in the professor's back.
She arched wildly, her features contorted. "Get them inside," Remo said to Chiun. With a small kick to Istoropovich's throat, he snapped the man's head, and the Russian lay still, the gun warm in his hand.
"Frances," Mr. Gordons whispered. "Why are you acting like this? Frances, stand up."
Chiun shuffled the dazed robot, carrying his limp charge, into the lab.
"Please, Frances," Mr. Gordons said softly.
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CHAPTER TWENTY
They were met by a burst of machine gun fire.
An alarm, high pitched and shrieking, had sounded as soon as Remo opened the wall to the lab. The high commander herself was at the controls of the main launch computer terminal. When the alarm sounded, she abandoned the controls and reached for the automatic submachine gun strapped across her back.
Chiun and Remo leaped high above the spray of bullets, distracting her while Mr. Gordons hid the professor behind a remote terminal, killing the technician who operated it.
The air quality sensors inside, detecting the traces of cyanide from the anteroom, whirred to overload, cleansing the air. As Mr. Gordons crouched behind the terminal with the unconscious professor, he heard the alarm shut off. A hush fell in the lab. The normal chattering and cross-checking of controls ceased, and the only
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sounds remaining were the clicking of computer consoles and the whirring of the atmospheric sensors.
All electronic, mechanical, inorganic sounds, Mr. Gordons thought. It was his first free thought, and it made him sad. This is the sort of place where I was conceived, he said to himself. Clean, sterile, without creativity, devoid of love.
Through the smoky dark glass of the lab. he could see, a quarter-mile away, the huge Volga stationed on its scaffolding, ready for takeoff. This was a place for metal and wire coil and electric impulses and electronic circuitry and glass insulators. And suddenly Mr. Gordons never wanted to be in a laboratory again. He just wanted to take Frances to a place where she could breathe the air she needed, where they would share their lives and love each other forever.
Everything was different now. He was no longer just a machine, another brilliant series of electromagnetic connections. The professor had seen to that. She had, he realized, given him the greatest gift of. all, greater than his ability to walk or talk or assimilate information, greater even than his capacity to survive: she had given him creativity. Independent thought. Choice. With her genius, she had set him free.
"Please don't die. We have so many things to do together," he said to the still form of the professor.
He was answered by the high commander's volley of machine gun fire. Slowly Mr. Gordons stood up, his hands held in front of him. The bullets tore at the skin covering him, but bounced away
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harmlessly when they touched his metallic interior. After a few moments, the weapon clicked when she pressed the trigger, but no more bullets came out.
, "I could kill you now," Mr. Gordons said to the panicky high commander, "if I could find a way that was creative enough to make you suffer as much as you deserve." The handsome face he wore carried a strange bitterness in it.
The high commander looked around wildly. The technicians in the room were trembling and cowering behind whatever protection could be found. On the lighted console of the computer terminal, graphs and assorted countdowns continued to take place, as though they were fully manned.
The commander raised her head defiantly. "It no matter if you kill me or not," she said. "The countdown for the launch is on automatic control now. The Volga will be launched in ten minutes, and nothing any of you can do will stop it." She turned to Remo and smiled, a malicious, triumphant smile. "This is my country. You kill me, you not live long here."
"I've got news for you, sweets," Remo said. "None of us is going to live long here. Gordons over there is programmed to deflect the Volga back to dear old Mother Russia as soon as it leaves the earth's atmosphere."
"You lie!" she said. "You lie."
"He's not lying," came a woman's voice weakly from a far corner of the room.The professor's eyes fluttered open.
"Frances," Mr. Gordons said gently.
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"Who said that?" the high commander demanded with a snap of her head.
"Help me to somewhere I can talk," the professor said. Mr. Gordons carried her to the main computer launch console and lay her on top of it.
The high commander stepped over to her and raised her head arrogantly. "Is true?" she seethed. "Did you reprogram killer robot to deflect Volga back to Soviet Union?"
The professor managed a thin smile before a fit of coughing overtook her. "Yes, I did. I knew your men wouldn't have the time or intelligence to check Mr. Gordons's more complex circuits."
"Deceiving bitch." The high commander grasped the professor around the neck with both hands. In a fury, Mr. Gordons slapped the woman across the face with the back of his hand. She went flying across the lab and, to the shrieks of the dumfounded technicians, struck the smoke-colored windows with a thwack and dropped sprawling to the floor.
Mr. Gordons knelt over Dr. Payton-Holmes.
"Frances," he said.
"Yes, darling," she said.
"Frances, we have failed."
"Why?"
"I .cannot stop this Volga. To produce oxygen a few minutes ago, I burned up the circuits."
"Oh no," Dr. Payton-Holmes said. Her face twisted with anguish. "It must be stopped."