"Sure."
"Tell him they doubled the consulting fee again."
"Sure thing," said Remo.
The observatory looked even more like the planet Mars as they walked toward it. Its scarlet hue glowed under the light of the moon. The top was a bluish white, like a polar icecap.
"This guy worships Mars like the ancient Greeks," said Remo.
"The Greek did not call it Mars, but Ares," Chiun said.
"What did the Koreans call it again?"
"Hwa-Song. The Fire Planet."
"Good name."
"It is also considered an ill omen when in the sky."
"I'll keep that in mind," Remo muttered as they picked their way through a stand of cottonwoods.
The shuttered slit was open in the great red dome, and they could see the black end of the big telescope peering up at the night sky.
"Looks like Pagan is Mars gazing. I say we just walk in."
"You may walk in. I will enter another way," said Chiun.
"Be my guest."
With that, Chiun was absorbed by the surrounding murk.
The door, Remo discovered, was not locked. It gave at his touch.
Carefully Remo eased into the cool, dark dome, all his senses alert. He sensed only one presence. That made it simple.
Letting his eyes adjust to the dim interior, Remo saw the long telescope tube resolve itself first. Then the man seated on a tall stool at the narrow end of the telescope.
Remo was approaching when, without warning, Dr. Pagan suddenly recoiled from the eyepiece of his telescope.
The stool upset. Remo moved in, caught man and stool, righting them while Dr. Cosmo Pagan flailed his corduroy-clad arms wildly.
"Easy," said Remo.
Pagan grabbed his chest and pumped air into his lungs. "I just saw-saw-"
"What?"
A squeaky voice from above said, "Me."
Remo looked up. "What are you doing way up there, Chiun?"
"Looking down."
And the Master of Sinanju leaped from the open aperture and slid down the telescope tube on both feet to alight with the ease and grace of a settling black moth.
"I thought a space alien was looking back at me," Cosmo Pagan muttered as he dusted off his arms. "Who are you two?"
"FBI," said Remo.
"What does the FBI want with me?" Pagan said, frowning.
Remo peered through the eyepiece. "I don't see Mars."
"I don't always look at the Red Planet, you know. And you're both trespassing. Please leave. I don't do autographs. It's beneath me."
Taking his eyes from the scope, Remo looked Pagan dead in the eye and said, "We know you're Ruber Mavors."
Pagan swallowed hard and said, "That's Latin for 'Red Planet.'"
"It's the name you go by when you're pumping money into the BioBubble. We need to know why."
"I don't have to tell you anything."
"Wrong answer," said Remo. And the Master of Sinanju reached up to take Pagan by the back of his neck. Chiun constricted his bony, long-nailed fingers.
Cosmo Pagan sank to his knees before Remo, his face contorting and turning red as a beet. "I'm a world-renowned astronomer and exobiologist," he gasped.
"Right now," Remo said, "you're doing a pretty good impersonation of a Martian."
Pagan's features turned rubbery. "You can't do this to me."
"Why not?"
"It's un-American. I'm a cultural icon. I have tenure."
"Why'd you take over the BioBubble? Let's start there."
"Someone had to. They were jettisoning the Mars-colony phase of the project. It was the only thing keeping Mars before the public eye. I had to save it."
"The Mars-colony idea went south when the Russian space program cratered," Remo countered.
"You're thinking in human terms. In geologic time, a Mars landing is just around the corner. It's just that we twentieth-century molecule machines won't live to see it.
"Speak for yourself, white," said Chiun, relenting enough that Pagan returned to a pinkish complexion.
"I got behind it to keep the dream alive. No matter what it took."