"Oh," said Anna Chutesov as the black leather strips slapped the windshield and nozzles on either side began spouting water. "He reminded me of the fat military males of my country. He would look more at home with a weapon in his hands."
"Hush," commanded the Master of Sinanju imperiously. "I wish to enjoy this uniquely American experience in peace."
Anna Chutesov lapsed into silence. She too was interested in the mechanical features of the car wash. But most of all she was interested in having a talk with the owner in the booth once they reached the other end-the man who had named his establishment after a Soviet people's hero but who hired Russian-hating staff.
The automatic track dragged the car through the first series of water jets. Then came the kelplike leather strips that danced before the windshield and dragged against the hood and sides.
"Wheee!" squealed Chiun. "It's like being underwater."
"It is like being eaten by a whale," said Anna Chutesov, who despite her sophistication felt her skin tighten with an almost supernatural fear. She was not afraid of machines, ordinarily. But this was an incomprehensible machine, and she was a Russian in a foreign land. Never having seen the inside of a car wash before, she did not know what to expect. It made her uneasy.
The Master of Sinanju was anything but uneasy. He was out of his seat, trying to see in all directions at once.
"Look!" he cried, pointing ahead. "Giant sponges." There were not sponges. They were buffers, composed of bright red and blue plastic bristles. They attacked the car body like whirling dervishes, making the metal hood and fenders hum with their assault.
Chiun reached for the window switch. Anna placed her hand on his, but she could not move it.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
"I want to touch it," said Chiun.
"Why?"
"Perhaps I can obtain a bristle, a single solitary bristle, as a souvenir."
"But what if there is more water?"
Chiun sank back in his seat. His pleasant face wrinkled in unhappiness. "I am too late. They are gone, and it is your fault I will have no souvenirs of my first American car-wash ride. This is a golden hour, to be savored and passed on to grandchildren, and you have turned it to dross."
"I have also saved you from being soaped in the face," said Anna Chutesov as the liquid soap squirted from all sides.
"Now I cannot see. I can see nothing," Chiun wailed. he bounced about in his seat. But it was no use. Every window--front, sides, and rear-was covered with soapy bubbles.
A second wave of red and blue buffers attacked the car next, cleaning the windshield and calming the Master of Sinanju. When the windows on Anna's side cleared, she caught a glimpse of the wall beyond the machines. There were letters on the wall, huge and red and turned on their side. Anna tilted her head to read them better.
The letters were C and P.
"I wonder what C.P. stands for," Anna wondered aloud.
"Communist propaganda," answered Chiun.
"That is not funny," said Anna, who noticed that the C seemed to curl up onto the white-tiled ceiling.
"C.P.!" she shouted suddenly, rolling down her window.
She poked her head out, craning her neck to see the ceiling. Above was a tangle of latticework, but through the struts, before the ceiling passed from sight, she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of the remaining letters her heart told her would be there. But it was impossible to say for certain.
Anna Chutesov felt her blood run cold. She said nothing. She settled into the cushions of the seat like a frightened child, her blue eyes staring ahead, glassy and dazed.
"Ahhh!" she screamed. A black thing came at her face.
But then she realized it was some kind of machine, a hot-air blower with a single guiding wheel underneath. It coasted along the hood, climbed the windshield, and bumped along the car roof.
The single tire left a water track that reminded Anna of the burn marks that had led them to the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash-which she now knew with near total certainly had belonged to the vanished Soviet space machine Yuri Gagarin.
After the blowers, there was more of the kelp. This time there were two swishing circles of it, dry and the color of ocher. They slapped the hood clean of water like blind unreasoning marine life.
"Ooohh," said Chiun unhappily.
"What!" Anna asked nervously.
"I think we are done."
"I am sure of it," said Anna Chutesov. "For I do not feel well."
"Carsickness," pronounced Chiun. "A well-known American malady. Put your head between your knees and it will pass like a summer cloud."
"I am afraid to do any such thing."
"Then do not do it," said the Master of Sinanju disinterestedly.
When the car broke through the final bank of leather strips into the daylight at the end of the car wash, Anna felt relief at seeing the open sky.
But then she saw the booth to one side. It was dirty and the glass filmed, unlike the rest of the place, which was very clean. Behind the smeared glass, she could see the upper half of a man who worked switches at an unseen console.
Anna screamed at him.
"Murderer! Where is the crew? Have you slaughtered them?"
A voice within the booth sounded tinnily.
"Please remain in your car. You have not been processed yet."
And then Anna saw the silvery globe hanging from the ceiling. It hung suspended like an aluminum sun. The bottom hemisphere dropped open like a mechanical shovel, exposing a dish-shaped antenna lined with many toothlike focusing elements. They buzzed.
And Anna Chutesov knew that she was looking directly at the most fearsome weapon of the Soviet arsenal, the Sword of Damocles satellite. She felt suddenly feverish.
"Quick! Drive!" she cried. "It is pointing at us."
But in the driver's seat, the Master of Sinanju did not answer. He sat limp behind the wheel, his face dull and lifeless. As Anna watched, his facial hair seemed to darken. She realized almost immediately that the phenomenon was an illusion.
For the hair of the Master of Sinanju was not growing darker. His face was turning whiter. Pale white. Corpse white.
"Damn!" said Anna Chutesov, scrambling to pull his inert figure out from behind the wheel.
Desperately she clambered over him, got behind the wheel, and wrenched the engine to life.