"Wonderful," Pagan breathed.
"What?"
"Mars. It seems to be looking back at me. The north polar icecap looks like the cool wink of a painted concubine. No canals, though. Lowell saw canals. I'd love to see the canals he saw, even if that turned out to be just lichen patterns."
"So you think the Martians theory has credence?"
"I think," said Dr. Cosmo Pagan, "the universe loves me."
"Say again?"
"Every time I have a lull in my lecture itinerary or I'm between specials, the universe conjures up an event to perpetuate my name."
The AP man grew tense of voice. "Dr. Pagan, I'd like a comment on the shuttle disaster."
"I regret the loss of our brave astronauts' lives."
"No astronauts died. It was a prelaunch accident."
"Then perhaps it was for the best."
"Sir?"
"Do you know how much vile carcinogens one of those thundering monsters puts out? The noise pollution alone is enough to deafen the manatees in the Straits of Florida. Migratory birds are driven away from their natural flight paths. And that doesn't even take into account the damage to the ozone layer. Do you know that at the rate we're depleting the biomass, our polar icecaps are going to start melting, raising the ocean level everywhere? Spaceship Earth could go the way of dead Mars. For all we know, we earthlings are repeating history. Martian history."
"I thought you were pro-space flight, Dr. Pagan."
"I am pro-peaceful exploration of space. One missile. One probe. The shuttles require a main external fuel tank and two boosters. That's three times the noise, three times the pollution and for what? We're only filling the near heavens with junk that falls to earth and might hit somebody. They go 125 miles up. Hell, Chris Columbus went farther than that in a wooden sailing ship. The human tribe needs to look beyond our Earth-moon ghetto to Mars, then the better neighborhood of the Jovian planets, and ultimately Alpha Centauri and beyond. That's using space to our advantage."
"One last question."
"Go ahead."
"Do you think the shuttle was destroyed by the same power that melted the BioBubble, and if so, why?"
"Perhaps," Dr. Pagan said thoughtfully, "it has something to do with our thinning ozone layer. The way those shuttles tear through the ozone shield, it's a miracle we all don't have basal-cell scalp sarcoma."
"Thanks, Dr. Pagan. That's just what I needed."
"I'll send you a bill," Dr. Cosmo Pagan said smoothly. Hanging up, he exulted, "The universe loves me. It truly, truly does." Taking a last, wistful peek into the eyepiece, he sighed. "But I have eyes for only you, my scarlet hussy."
IN CELEBRATION, FLORIDA, an always-running Compaq computer beeped twice, signaling an incoming e-mail message.
Kinga Zongar heard it even in the early sleep of the sultry Florida night with the cold moonlight coming through her bedroom screens like cool fingers of silver and steel.
Throwing off a scarlet satin cover, she strode nude to the system, whose color monitor splashed varicolored light against the sitting-room walls. Her long russet hair, brushed back from her high brow, fell back in a ponytail that swished with her every step.
Accessing her e-mail file, she read the message in the Cyrillic language:
To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Assignment Greetings from the Motherland. Consider yourself activated this date. Go now to Cape Canaveral, where an unknown force has reduced an American space shuttle to worthless, bubbling materials. This appears to be the same phenomenon which, as you may have read, similarly destroyed the BioBubble. Learn what you can. Report everything.
Kinga erased the message from her system. She didn't know who Uncle Vanya was, other than the commissar of Shield-or whatever they were calling it this year. Neither mattered. Only her sacred duty to the Motherland.
She dressed with brisk care, a demure maroon dress that bespoke casual professionalism. A notebook and press card completed her cover ensemble.
It was amazing, Kinga thought as she claimed her blood-red Maxima GTE and sent it spinning out into the evening, how America allowed just anyone to obtain journalist credentials. Were journalists not de facto spies without portfolio? Yet this was how it was done in America.
And since this was how it was done, this was how Kinga Zongar would do it.
If it became necessary to resort to "wet measures," well, there were other slots in other newspapers for an expatriate Hungarian reporter, if Kinga the Bitch was forced to revert to type.
Secretly she hoped it would come to that. It had been a long time since she had killed a man in the line of duty.
Far too long, she thought, licking her very scarlet lips.
Chapter 17
Getting past the gate to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral was the easy part.
The area was a crush of reporters doing stand-ups, supported by white satellite trucks and floodlights.
Behind the gate, an eerie whitish exhalation arose from the spot where the shuttle Reliant had melted down like an ice-cream cone under withering sunlight.
Remo and Chiun moved through the media throng as if they were two molecules slipping through a placer miner's pan.
At the gate, there were two white-faced Air Force guards at a guard box.
Remo presented himself and his ID. "Remo Cupper, NTSB. This is my assistant, Chiun."
Chiun started to bow, then remembering his Western garments, nodded instead.
"NTSB? What are you guys doing here?"
"It was a transportation accident, right?" said Remo.
"Technically."
"Nobody can say NTSB isn't on the job, no matter where the trouble is," explained Remo.
The two airmen exchanged dubious glances.
"Let me kick this upstairs," said one. "Our orders are firm-keep all non-NASA personnel out."
"Can't let you do that," said Remo, taking the telephone from his hand.
The man stared at his empty hand as if doubting the evidence of his own eyes. His hand was still in clutch mode. It held only air and the vague memory of plastic contours. Yet he had gripped the handset tightly. He was sure it would be impossible to remove the handset without disturbing his grip. But there it was.