"Hello is all right. I thought you were not here."
"That's what you were supposed to think, you ambulatory adding machine."
"I would offer you a drink but I will not have time. I have to destroy you."
"You wish," said Remo.
"Is the yellow-skin here too?"
"Yes."
"Then I will destroy him too. Then I will always survive."
"You have to get past me first. I do all Chiun's light work," Remo said.
"For you, I will not use my simulated hands," Mr. Gordons said, and as Remo watched, the bones under Mr. Gordons's skin appeared to quiver, and then his hands rearranged themselves until they were no longer ten flesh-colored fingers attached to a palm, but two shiny steel knife blades jutting out from Gordons's wrist. Remo moved forward as if to attack. Inside the control room, Chiun hit the switch that lighted the window and it cleared in front of them, just in time to see Mr. Gordons raise both knife-hands up over his head and charge at Remo slashing both blades back and forth through the air. Remo stopped and waited until Gordons was almost on him, then feinted left, moved right, and slid out from under the twin blades and was behind Gordons, looking at his back.
"Back here, tin man," he called.
Mr. Gordons turned. "That was a very efficient maneuver," he said. "Do you know that I now have it programmed? If you do it again, I will surely kill you."
"Well, then, I'll do something else."
Mr. Gordons moved toward Remo, this time moving the knife blades in front of him in large circles, as if he were conducting an orchestra with knives for batons.
Remo waited until Mr. Gordons closed the gap. Gordons lunged forward at Remo, who leaped up, put a foot on Gordon's shoulder and went up over the android's back a split second before the left knife blade flashed into that area. The blade missed Remo but bit deeply into Mr. Gordons's own mechanical left shoulder.
"Put that one in your program," Remo said from behind Mr. Gordons. "If you do that one again, you'll cut your own throat."
Mr. Gordons felt a strange sensation welling up in him. It was new; he had never felt it before. He paused to isolate it, but it would not let him pause. It was anger, cold, evil anger, and it forced him to run forward toward Remo, who dodged between Gordons's legs and came up behind him, even while Gordons's own momentum slammed him forward into the steel wall lining the launch chute and the right knife blade snapped off and dropped with a heavy click onto the floor.
Mr. Gordons looked up over his head through the plastic window. There he saw Dr. Carlton, high probability Chiun, and someone he had never seen before. The sight of Dr. Carlton watching him fail raised his anger even higher. He turned again and charged Remo who stood lounging against the wall on the far side of the tube. Again Remo waited until Gordons was almost on him, then Remo spun fully around, vaulted up and grabbed one of the rocket supports high overhead, and swung over Mr. Gordons's head.
Gordons, in rage, swung his knifeless arm. The metallic stump thudded against Remo's calf with a loud sharp crack. Remo swung out of danger and dropped lightly to his feet, but when he landed, his left leg buckled under him and he fell to the floor of the rocket chute. He tried to scramble to his feet, but his left leg would not support him. The muscles had been damaged by the swing of Gordons's arm. Remo hoisted himself up, putting his weight on only his right leg, and turned to face Gordons again.
"You are damaged now," said Mr. Gordons. "I will destroy you."
And then, echoing through the chute with the sound of thunder came a voice that seemed beyond time and space.
"Hold, machine of evil."
It was the voice of Chiun, the Master of Sinanju. The door alongside the control panel was open and framed in it, wearing his red robes, stood the aged Oriental.
"Hello is all right," said Mr. Gordons.
"Goodbye is better," said Chiun. He leaped from the open doorway down into the bottom of the pit, and from the floor snatched up the foot-long blade that had broken off Mr. Gordons's arm.
"Now I will destroy you also," Mr. Gordons said.
He turned toward Chiun who backed slowly along the wall until he was on the opposite side from the open control room door.
"How will you destroy me when you have not creativity?" said Chiun. "I am armed with a weapon. Remo, the door."
Remo turned and pulled himself up, through the open door, dragging himself heavily onto the control room floor. As soon as he was inside, Smith slammed the door shut. Remo hobbled to the panel to watch the battle.
"It's terrible," Dr. Carlton said softly, to herself. "Like watching my father."
"I am creative," came Mr. Gordons's voice.
"I will attack you with this blade," said Chiun.
"Negative. Negative. You will simulate an attack with the weapon and then attack me with your open hand. It is a creative way. I understand creative ways."
He stood his ground, only eight feet from Chiun, looking at him.
"But I have thought of that," said Chiun. "I knew you would think that. And so, because you think the attack by blade will be false, I will truly carry it out. And the blade will destroy you."
"Negative, negative," Mr. Gordons shouted, his voice rising in angry desperation. "I know now your plan. I will guard against the attack by blade."
"I have thought of that too," said Chiun. "And because of that the true attack will come by my hand."
"Negative, negative, negative, negative, negative," shrieked Mr. Gordons. "Nobody is that creative. I am creative. Nobody can deceive me."
"I deceive you," said Chiun.
"And I destroy you," Mr. Gordons shouted, and made the fatal mistake he was programmed never to make. He attacked first. His left knife blade swung before him. His eyes watched the blade in Chiun's right hand and, then darted to Chiun's open left hand, then back, again and again. And when he was almost upon Chiun, Chiun moved his open left hand away from his body and when Mr. Gordons's eye turned to follow it, Chiun hurled the knife blade forward from his right hand. It hit between Mr. Gordons's eyes and buried itself four inches deep. There was a shower of sparks as the metal cut through circuits inside Mr. Gordons's head and he screamed, "My eyes, my eyes, I cannot see."
And Chiun was over his fallen body, and he withdrew the knife from between Mr. Gordons's eyes, and then plunged it again into his chest. It sizzled and sparks flew as it cut even more wires and Mr. Gordons thrashed about spastically on the floor of the rocket chute, and Chiun looked up to the window where the three persons watched, and motioned for them to press the launch button.
Remo shook his head but Smith reached out and hit the red button marked "launch." The rocket tube was immediately filled with a roar like thunder. Flames belched from the bottom of the rocket, red, orange, yellow, and blue flames that poured down onto the stone floor of the tube and rebounded upward in droplets of fire. And under their blast lay Mr. Gordons and as they watched, they could see the clothing burn off him, then the pink plastic flesh melt, and then the mass of wire, tubes, transistors, and metallic linkages begin to glow red and flash into flame.
Chiun was not to be seen, but then with a blast of heat that seemed to come from the gates of hell itself, the control room door opened and Chiun leaped through, pushing the door shut behind him. He moved quickly to the window, arriving just in time to see the rocket quiver on its launch pad, then slowly lift itself up a few inches. It hovered there, motionless, and then began rising, lifting off with ever-increasing speed, its powerful thrusters screaming in the narrow confines of the launching tube, its flames brightening the shadowed area underneath itself, and then the shaft was sunlighted as the rocket cleared the tube and moved skyward.
At the bottom the tube lay a small pile of electronic rubble, still simmering and smoking.
Remo looked toward Chiun.
"You were right," Chiun said. "He moved funny."
With a sob, Dr. Carlton turned from the control panel and ran from the room.
"How's your leg?" Smith asked Remo who sat on the control panel.
"It's coming back. The muscles were just stunned, I guess."
"Good, because there are still some things we have to do."