"I want to talk to you," said Remo, picking Pulse up bodily and depositing him off to one side. like a barbershop pole.
"You can't," Bulla insisted. "He's a hired consultant. Answerable only to BioBubble Inc."
"What are you getting an hour?" Remo asked Pulse.
"One-fifty."
"Not bad. I pay five hundred. Up front."
"Sold."
They left Amos Bulla sputtering.
"What's your take?" asked Remo, drawing the man closer to the BioBubble remnant.
"You got me. It's not lightning. It's not a meteor impact or any of that stuff. Something up there turned a ray or force of something very, very hot on the BioBubble complex."
"How hot?"
"Somewhere between 1400 to 1600 degrees centigrade."
"Where do you get that figure?" Remo wondered aloud.
"Steel melts at between 1400 and 1500 centigrade. To turn raw sand to glass like this, you're talking anywhere in the 1400 to 1600 range. Those are the BioBubble structural components with the highest melting points. Of course, it could be higher."
Remo looked around the site, frowning.
"What's EPA's stake in this?" Pulse wondered aloud.
"The BioThing was full of different environments, right?"
"Yes, but-"
"EPA watchdogs the environment. Something like sixteen pocket environments just went the way of the dodo. This is exactly what the taxpayers pay us to investigate."
"It is?"
"Today it is. Tomorrow we may be giving mouthto-mouth to the spiny dogfish or doing other important rescues."
The US Geological Survey expert looked Remo up and down, taking in his white-light-deflecting T-shirt and freakishly thick wrists and was about to remark that Remo wasn't exactly dressed for the Arizona heat, when an even more unlikely apparition came fluttering around from the other side of the BioBubble. An ancient Asian with a face like a reanimated mummy's.
"Uh-oh," Pulse muttered. "Looks like the advance man for the harmonic-convergence crowd. I was wondering when the Dodona loonies would start showing up."
"That's Chiun," said Remo.
"You know him?"
"Consultant."
"What's his specialty?"
"Figuring out stuff I can't," said Remo, walking up to the tiny Asian.
If Remo was dressed for one season, Chiun was attired for another. His brocaded kimono was heavy and swayed thickly as he moved. Neither man sweated, which was amazing.
"Find anything?" asked Remo.
"Yes. Melted glass and steel."
"Funny. Besides that, I mean."
Chiun looked around with eyelids slowly compressing until only black pupils showed. "A terrible force did this, Remo."
"No argument there."
"One not of this earth."
Interest flickered across Remo's high-cheekboned face. "Yeah..."
"It can be but one thing."
"What's that?" asked Remo.
"A sun dragon."
"Sun dragon?"
"Yes, unquestionably a sun dragon wreaked this terrible havoc."
"I know what a dragon is, but I don't think I've heard of a sun dragon."
"They are rare, but they appear in the heavens in difficult times, presaging calamity. I myself have seen several in my lifetime. One famous sun dragon twice, at the beginning of my life and again more recently."
"You saw a dragon?"
"A sun dragon, which is different from a landcrawling dragon."
Tom Pulse listened to this as if they were making perfect sense.
"Back up," said Remo. "What's a sun dragon?"
"There is a Western word for this. Stolen from the Greek, of course."
"Yeah?"
"The word is 'comet.'"