Scorched Earth

Remo said nothing. His face was a frown with cheekbones.

"The P is definitely lowercase," Harold Smith acknowledged.

"Big deal," said Remo. "Chiun found a typo. What does that prove?"

"Please stand by," said Smith.

"We are instructed to stand by," Chiun told Remo. Remo pretended to be interested in the low-hanging planet Mars.

AT FOLCROFT, Harold Smith purged his mind of all assumptions. He'd learned a long time ago that a fresh view could sometimes solve an otherwise intractable problem.

Three letters. Capitals M, N and lowercase p. Two of them seemed straightforward. That was an assumption, he realized. He frowned. What if the Cyrillic N was not what it seemed? What if it was exactly what it first appeared to be-a backward N?

Smith was looking at a digitized image of the photos the missing Travis Rust had taken seconds before the Reliant was destroyed. He had programs for everything. He initiated one that flopped the digitized image.

Instead of the Cyrillic letters meaning "peace," he got three ordinary English initials: "qNM"

It looked for all the word like a chemical formula. He wondered why the q would be lowercased like that.

Recalling that he had an open line to Remo and Chiun, Smith said, "I have flopped the image."

"Is that good or bad?" Remo wanted to know.

"It comes out qNM, but the q is lowercased."

"Makes sense. If it was a lowercase p before, it's a lowercase q now."

"I do not know what qNM could mean," said Smith. "It makes even less sense than 'Mir.'"

"You got me."

"But not me," said Chiun, taking the phone from his pupil's hand so swiftly Remo could still feel it even though it was no longer there.

"Emperor, before Pagan was liquidated, we carried to his ears a message from his wife."

"Yes?"

"An entity called QNM had called to increase his fee."

"QNM? Did she say what it was?"

"No, only that QNM had been calling incessantly."

Remo added, "She said it was over a consulting fee."

"Consulting! That means either media or a commercial firm," Smith said tensely. "One moment."

He was not silent very long.

"Remo."

"I am here," said Chiun, turning so Remo could not seize the phone.

"Listen," said Smith. "I have pulled up several QNMs. None are media outlets. But among the corporate names there is a company called Quantum Neutrino Mechanics. Their company logo is unusual. It features a lowercase q. "

"Why would it do that?" Remo asked.

"Trademark-registration concerns," Smith said flatly.

"Bingo!"

"qNM headquarters is in Seattle, Washington. Go there. Now. Remain in touch by telephone. I will dig deeper."

"On our way," said Remo, hanging up so hard the receiver cracked like an ice sculpture.

"Looks like we're back in the game," he told Chiun.

"That is not enough. We must be ahead of the game."

"Right now I just want to stay one step ahead of the next flock of stewardesses I meet," said Remo.

Chapter 43

It was a long way from sunny Massachusetts to rainy Seattle.

For Reemer Murgatroyd Bolt, of Quantum Neutrino Mechanics, it was almost exactly eleven years, three thousand miles and four career changes ago.

It had almost come to a crashing halt back at Chemical Concepts of Massachusetts on Route 128, the symbol of the Massachusetts Miracle. The Massachusetts Miracle had gone south somewhere around the time of the 1988 presidential elections, taking a certain Greek governor, the Bay State and America's Technology Highway with it, as Route 128 was known back then.

The DataGen and GenData and General Data Systems that had dotted 128 back in the booming eighties were gone now. As was Chemical Concepts of Massachusetts. As was Director of Marketing Reemer Bolt, who got out before the sky fell and it all came crashing down.

For a while, the entire world almost ended. And now history seemed to be repeating itself.

In his office, with the eternal rain pattering at the Thermopane windows that kept out the winter chill, Reemer Bolt shuddered as his mind went careening back to those heady days in which the planet Earth came perilously close to being incinerated. All because Reemer Bolt had charge of a product whose utility at first eluded even a marketing genius like himself.

It was called the Fluorocarbon Gun. It shot fluorocarbons, chemicals that had been banned by most industrialized nations because they ate away at the ozone shield high in the atmosphere. Holes in the ozone allowed dangerous solar radiation to penetrate. One hole accidentally knocked out a Russian missile battery, precipitating an international incident that almost ended the world-and Reemer Bolt's promising corporate career.

It was a huge marketing debacle. The biggest since the Edsel. ChemCon was forced into strategic bankruptcy.

Through it all, Bolt remained unscathed. In fact, his corporate future improved. On the strength of a new resume that showed he had been in charge of a fifty-million-dollar project with global ramifications; Bolt moved from director of marketing of ChemCon to president of Web Tech. He knew nothing about Web Tech and, when he left to become COO of Quantum Neutrino Mechanics three years later, he knew even less about Web Tech. It didn't matter. No one ever got fired or laid off or punished for screwing up a billion-dollar corporation. They were handed golden parachutes, stock options and golden handshakes and wished well by anxious stockholders delighted to be rid of them.

It was middle managers and workers who invariably ate failure in corporate America. Not the Reemer Bolts. No matter how high the tides rose, their necks always stretched farther and their chins always lifted over the lung-quenching flood.

It was true that the corporate-downsizing mania threatened even the Reemer Bolts of the world. Somehow he got himself involved in the military-industrial complex. He didn't realize it for several weeks until he walked in on a Web Tech management research-and-development conference and saw the scale-model tank.

"Who brought that toy in here? This is a place of business," he snarled, knowing that no one ever snapped back at a snarling executive, never mind questioned him. They were petrified for their jobs.

"It's our next project," he was told by a more than brave technician.

"Scrap it," Bolt told him.

"Why? The Pentagon has accepted it."

Bolt froze inwardly. This was in 1991. He knew that if there was one thing an executive never did, it was reverse a decision. No matter how disastrous. He had been caught. He could not retreat. To retreat showed weakness. Worse, it showed a complete and unforgivable ignorance of the product line. That simply would not do. Not in corporate America, where smiling, two-legged sharks circled the office water cooler hoping to take a bite out of an unwary coworker's ass.

"It has Failure written all over it," said Reemer Bolt. "Scrap it."

No one questioned the decision. It saved Reemer Bolt's high-six-figure salary and perks for three years, while Web Tech, six million dollars in development costs and a fat government contract down the drain, stumbled aimlessly until Reemer Bolt could smell the stench of decay seeping into his air-conditioned office and hired a head-hunting agency to find him a safer hole.

At first, the interview with Quantum Neutrino Mechanics didn't go well. Then the interviewer noticed the blank spot in the resume.

"The years 1984 to 1987 are blank."

"Yes," Reemer Bolt said, knowing that he could not deny the obvious.

"Were you employed at that time?"

"Yes."

"In what position?"

"I cannot answer that," Bolt said in his most firm and sincere tone.

The interviewer blinked. "Say again, Mr. Bolt?"

Bolt cleared his throat and made it deeper. Much deeper. "I am contractually forbidden from, and cannot answer, that question."

The man blinked again. This was unusual. Even in corporate America.

"Was this government work?"

"I cannot confirm that," Bolt said truthfully.

"Did it-can you at least whisper something, Mr. Bolt? A blank spot does not look good"

Bolt shook his head. Here was the difficult part. He knew that some resume blank spots reflected alcohol or cocaine addictions. If they jumped to either conclusion, he was dead.

The interviewer looked around furtively. "Did this position by chance have anything to do with national security?" he breathed.

It was a wild guess, and Reemer Bolt answered, not entirely untruthfully, "I can neither confirm nor deny that assertion."

The interviewer relaxed. He leaned back in his chair. His entire face softened. "Mr. Bolt, I think I can say you've moved to the top of the list. Quantum Neutrino Mechanics is looking for a man like you."

Bolt smiled. He was the kind of man who had progressed in life from his mother's breast to one easy teat after another. He knew the scent of fresh milk. He was smelling it now.

The trouble was, the milk was running out for the defense industry, and since Quantum Neutrino Mechanics was courting Reemer Bolt, he never bothered to look into their product line. Only his personal package.

"Congress is backing away from Star Wars," Reemer was told one day a year or two after the Berlin Wall fell and he had been with qNM long enough to feel he could bluff his way through any meeting on any level of the company. He had all the latest buzzwords down. This year synergy and outsourcing were in vogue.

"I have no problem with that," said Bolt in a brusque, take-no-prisoners-and-suffer-no-fools voice.

The managers seated around the boat-shaped fumed-oak conference table hesitated. One finally gathered the strength to speak up. "It leaves us out in the cold."

"Build a fire," Bolt said.

"With what?"

"Rub two sticks together. Or try a magnifying glass."

Reemer Bolt forgot that last comment as soon as the meeting was adjourned. It was only an aphorism. Now known as R. M. Bolt because he thought the initials commanded more respect than being called Mr. Bolt, he was into managing by aphorism. He had good, imaginative people working under him. All they needed was the right kind of push.

He remembered telling them to build a fire but forgot about the magnifying glass until R d him with the scale model.

"Who left this disco ball in here?" Bolt snarled, pointing at the blackish gray ball sitting under the high-intensity lamps.

"It's our future."

"Disco is dead," Bolt said.

"If you'd indulge us, R.M.," R ineer Bartholomew Meech said.

Bolt went with the flow. Some days you pushed. Others you pulled. He was in a pulling mood that day. So he nodded.

The presentation involved overhead slides, an animated videotape that had Walt Disney Corporation fingerprints all over the production values, while six different white-smocked technicians pointed out features with their red laser pointers. All spiced with impressive-sounding technical terms like aluminized mylar and photovoltaic panels.

In the end, R. M. Bolt understood none of it. He found himself glowering at the disco ball to keep the dull lack of comprehension off his face.

"Take it again from the top," he instructed. "So my grandmother would understand it."

And they did.

"It's solar-powered."

"Orbiting continuously above the earth."

"Where it will do the job America needs done."

Reemer frowned. He wasn't getting it yet. Then someone said the word that touched his marketer's heart.

"And it will promote the heck out of qNM," said Bartholomew Meech.

"I like it," Bolt said.

Smiles all around. Grins. Beaming ones.

"One question," Bolt asked after the second impenetrable presentation.

"R.M.?"

"Will this have any effect on the ozone layer?"

"Not unless we want it to." "I definitely do not want it to," Bolt declared with precise enunciation so that everyone understood.

"Then it won't."

"See that it goes right into production," said R. M. Bolt, leaving the room without understanding anything except that Quantum Neutrino Mechanics was still in business because now he had something to tell the stockholders.

The memos coming back from R ouraging.

Production was on schedule.

Project was ahead of schedule.

Ahead of schedule and under budget.

Magic words, all of them. Each memo added an extra quarter to the period of Reemer Bolt's tenure at qNM.

Finally Meech came and said proudly, "We're ready to launch it."

"Go ahead," said Bolt, thinking of a marketing launch, not the other kind.

Meech and his engineers looked momentarily confused. "We don't have a launch vehicle."

"Find one," said Bolt, his marketer's instincts thinking that with television channels exploding exponentially, how hard could it be to secure advertising time?

They came back with a six-page report-a marvel of business writing because they could have added a ream to the page count and increased their employment contracts by a solid year-outlining launch plans. That told Bolt one of two things: either they were fools or they were extremely enthusiastic about the project.

That also told R. M. Bolt he should start exercising his stock options-qNM was here to stay. At least through the turn of the millennium-or whatever they were going to call it.

The gist of the report was given to Bolt orally, relieving him of the tiresome responsibility of reading it.

"The Chinese have the best price," Meech said enthusiastically. "The Japanese are too expensive. The French are impossible to deal with. And the Americans, of course, are out."

"Of course," Bolt said, having no clue as to what the conversation was about. But he had given the staff affirmation, and the affirmation was coming back in the form of approving nods.

"That leaves the Russians," finished Meech.

"Doesn't it always?" said Reemer Bolt.

Another nod. A short one. Bolt decided not to push his luck any more and just listen.

"Their reusable launch vehicle is for rent. In fact, we could buy if it we wanted to sink a billion into it."

"Why buy when you can rent?" said Bolt, quoting a local TV ad for a company that rented furniture to people with bad credit.

"Exactly," Meech said as if having his view of reality reaffirmed.

"The Russians are so hard up for cash we think we can negotiate them down," another engineer chimed in.

"Do we have a budget for this?" Bolt asked calmly.

"It's not in the current budget."

"I'll authorize it."

Everyone beamed. It was so infectious, R. M. Bolt beamed back. It was like love. There was no understanding it, no analyzing it and no denying it. But when it was happening, it was best to just accept it and return it, because it always came back with interest.

Then came the catch.

Bolt asked an obvious question. "What is our market?"

They looked at him with dull, blank expressions.

"R.M?"

"Market," Bolt snapped. "Who can we sell this to?"

Meech adjusted his taped-together glasses and shuffled his sneakered feet. "We explained all that."

"Refresh my memory," Bolt ordered.

"The Pentagon's not underwriting SDI R we launch a working prototype, we have their attention in a way never before seen. It's viable, and a PR coup that will put qNM in the forefront of planetary defense, which we feel will be the cutting edge for the new century, technological-application-wise."

Bolt stared blankly.

"And best of all, the energy is free!" Meech added.

Reemer Bolt's scowl broke like the sun breaking through thunderheads.

"You spoke the magic words." Then his voice darkened again. "Just make damn sure the Pentagon will buy it."

"Oh, they'll buy it," Meech promised.

"Make certain. It's our jobs."

"I guess we can program it for planetary interventions. Not just defense."

Some of the engineers went pale at that. Bolt ignored the not very subtle warning sign. "Do it."

"No problem, R.M. We're on it."

They started to return to their labs when Bolt stopped them. "Wait!"

They hesitated.

"Aren't you forgetting something? It needs a name."

"We're calling it the Paraguay Project because that's where we assembled the components. It was cheap and offered the best security, patent-wise," said Meech.

Bolt shook his head firmly. "'The Paraguay Project' won't cut it."

"How about the Solar Harnesser?"

"Sounds horsey."

"The Sun Tamer, then?"

"Reminds me of a cheap Western."

"I know," offered a nameless engineer. "We can call it the ParaSol 2001."

"What does that mean?" demanded Bolt.

"Nothing, really. But people respect numbers. Especially big ones attached to futuristic-sounding words. I think it has something to do with math anxiety."

Reemer Bolt's close-shaved face wavered between a scowl and a mere frown. Eventually realizing they were running into lunch, he said, "Makes sense to me. Go with it."

And with that, Reemer Bolt turned his back on the project.

It was many months later that he finally pieced together the bits of data that explained what the ParaSol 2001 actually was. He did this by pink-slipping an engineer and debriefing him while the man blubbered behind closed doors. That way, no one was the wiser.

Bolt had to explain it to the board of directors; otherwise, he would never have bothered.

"The ParaSol 2001 is designed to repel planet-threatening threats," Reemer Bolt said proudly as he stood before a wall chart that showed threat quantities and their H-bomb equivalents. It was a very frightening display. It even scared him.

The board, as usual, cut right to the heart of the thing.

"Who in their right mind is going to pay to defend the planet against external threats?" CEO Ralph Gaunt asked.

"They'll pay if we're the only game in orbit."

"Knowing the Pentagon generals, they'll appeal to our patriotism and expect us to do the job gratis to save our own butts," Gaunt scoffed. "No profit in saving the world, Bolt."

"Already thought of that. It can be directed earthward to zap any military target on earth. No other Earth-based weapon has that feature."

The board stared stonily. Bolt sweated.

"And best of all," he added quickly, "it's the most gigantic advertising billboard in human history."

With that, Bolt pressed a remote switch, and the scale-model ParaSol 2001 opened up like a dark, unfolding flower to reveal the qNM logo in neat black letters right down to the lowercase q which had been the first-year suggestion that earned Reemer Bolt his initial salary hike. He was very proud of it.

"Our logo. Twice as big as the moon in the evening sky. The PR value will be stunning."

This won over the board. They had just one question.

"Will it hurt the ozone layer?"

"Don't worry. I already thought of that," said Reemer Bolt, who felt an old, cold fear trickle down the gully of his back. After all, he was directly responsible for the 1987 Montreal Protocol Treaty, which called for reducing fluorocarbon emissions by the year 2000. Even if he couldn't exactly put in on his resume.

Now, many months later, that sweat was back and it was very very hot. The board was screaming. They didn't care anymore about planetary defense or the global marketing footprint or Pentagon generals. They wanted Reemer Bolt. And they wanted answers. Was that thing up there ours or Russia's?

Working his desktop system, Bolt checked his e-mail.

To: RM@qnm.com From: RalphGaunt@qnm.com Subject: Where are you? Am in Cancun. Hotel says you checked out. Urgent we meet. Where are you?

Bolt typed out a reply:

To: RalphGaunt@qnm.com From: RM@qnm.com Subject: Whereabouts Sorry. Did not receive sent message. Had to fly to Paraguay to debug ParaSol 2001. Will return to States in forty-eight hours. All will be explained.

The reply came back almost instantaneously: "Remain in Paraguay. En route."

"Perfect," Bolt said, "I didn't get that message, either."

Then he settled down to do the final damage control. It was pretty bad out there. The press was full of Martian fever and war-scare talk with Russia. As long as the Martian fever stayed hot, maybe the Russians would remain cool. But he couldn't trust to fate. He had to take action-smart executive action. If Reemer Bolt could save the planet, it might be possible to salvage his career.

As he started pounding out a message to Meech down in R ered, "This is almost as bad as that ozone mess back in '85. Why does this crap keep happening to me?"

Chapter 44

Seattle was wreathed in an early-morning fog when the jetliner descended toward the airport. A steady winter drizzle drummed on the fuselage as their landing wheels whined out of their wells.

In coach, the Master of Sinanju stared out of the window, unable to see the wingtips in the fog.

Then, in the near distance, a great saucer of steel and glass became visible, floating above the fog.

"We are too late, Remo," he squeaked.

"What?" asked Remo, returning to his seat after having just locked a hysterical stewardess in the rear rest room.

"The star chariots of the Martian invader have landed. Behold the certain sign of their arrival on earth."

Ducking his head, Remo looked past the Master of Sinanju's concerned face. "Oh, that." He sat down.

"Do not dismiss the evidence of your eyes. It is a flying saucer."

"It's the freaking Space Needle, Chiun."

"And a more fearful spectacle I have never seen. See how it hovers over the vanquished city? Note its chilly grandeur, its utter fearlessness from attack. Tell the pilot to turn around. We will not land in occupied Seattle, lest we, too, fall into Martian hands."

"The Space Needle is a building. You just can't see the part that's holding up the saucer in all this fog."

"It is a trick," said Chiun.

"No trick. Now settle down. We have to hit the ground running."

"Never fear. Our foe is doomed."

"That's the problem," said Remo. "We still don't know who we're supposed to doom."

"We will leave no one standing."

"That could take all day, and there's no telling what that thing up there could hit next."

HAROLD SMITH HAD breached the firewalls protecting the computer links for Quantum Neutrino Mechanics. The difficulty was, there was nothing on the qNM local-area network that referenced the thing in orbit, or ParaSol.

Smith refused to accept defeat. There had already been too many dead ends in this situation.

Downloading the entire qNM file system from hard drives to the magnetic-tape records, he initiated a massive unerase program.

It would take time to process. There was no guessing what it might or might not uncover. But if a corporate cover-up was already under way, this was the only way to unlock it.

THE 747 TOUCHED DOWN. Once they reached the terminal, Remo checked in with Harold Smith by pay phone. By mistake, he fed it a kopeck and had to move on to the next booth when it refused U.S. coin.

Smith's voice was urgent. "Remo. I have uncovered e-mail files that explain much. The man you want goes by the initials R.M. That is all I have. He signs his e-mail 'RM,' but I find no one owning those initials in the qNM personnel files."

"So how do I find him?"

"He interfaces with R uld be 'Research and Development.' Start there."

"Sounds like we're cooking."

Hanging up, Remo told a waiting Chiun, "We're looking for someone, initialed 'R. M.'"

"Ruber Mavors. "

"Coincidence. I hope."

"We shall see," said the Master of Sinanju.

They ran for a taxi and were soon being whisked through the eternal Seattle rain.

BARTHOLOMEW MEECH WAS sweating bullets. It had been three days of no rest, no sleep and too many paper cups of Starbucks coffee.

On the research-and-development floor of Quantum Neutrino Mechanics, he moved from console to console, monitor to monitor, tracking the ParaSol 2001. It was approaching the South Pole now. He wished it would just crash there.

A beep yanked his thin face to the interoffice computer system.

"You have mail!" the system flashed.

And deep inside, Bartholomew Meech groaned.

Accessing the file, he brought up another communication from his immediate superior:

To: R From: RM@qnm.com Subject: Project termination. CNN is reporting Pagan fried. Now is the prudent time to shut down the project before Gaunt gets back from Paraguay.

Here are your instructions:

Target French, Chinese and Japanese space centers, then shut down the project.

Furiously Meech pecked out a reply.

To: RM@qnm.com From: R Subject: Are you insane? We're getting in deeper. More people are going to die. When does this stop?

To: R From: RM@qnm.com Subject: Shut up! It stops after you've programmed in the next target string. Then destroy the controller array and get your resume in order, just as I'm doing with mine. There are greener pastures out there. And once Gaunt parachutes in, you're dead at qNM anyway.

Remember-the corporate shield protects us. If anyone lands on the corporation, it won't be for months. We'll be elsewhere. New guys will take the heat.

Bartholomew Meech stared at the screen. "God damn," he muttered. He hated the way this was turning out. There was no way he could score a benefits package as generous as qNM's ever again. He hit the key that erased the email message and turned to do his corporate duty.

Meech felt the cold shadow on his back before he actually faced the two silent presences.

One was a tall thin man with wrists like I-beams. The other was a short Asian in native costume and very old. Both looked as if they were having a bad day and looking for someone to blame.

The tall one asked, "Who's R.M.?"

"Don't know what you're talking about. Where are your access badges?" asked Meech, pushing his glasses back on his nose.

"Lobby guards wouldn't give me one," said the tall man.

"Why not?"

"Because," answered the short Asian, "they did not want us to enter this place."

"So how did you get past them?"

"We went over their heads," said the tall one.

"Those we did not break over our knees," added the other.

There was something in the cold eyes of the duo that made Bartholomew Meech feel creepily cold in the brightly lit R Quantum Neutrino Mechanics world headquarters.

"So where do we find R.M.?" asked the tall one, flashing FBI ID. When Meech hesitated, he shoved it in his face, saying, "Hurry up. We have a lot of bones to splinter."

"I want immunity," Meech blurted.

"Earn it."

"R.M. is two floors up on eleven."

"Then why is he talking to you by computer?" asked the tall thin one.

"Deniability."

The Asian slipped behind him and asked, "What is your role in this matter?"

"I'm technical project manager of the solar mirror."

"I was right. It was solar."

The old Asian nodded with grim satisfaction. "Yes. A sun dragon."

"We call it a Soletta. It's a gigantic mirror of aluminized mylar. It collects solar energy, focusing and beaming it out as a superconcentrated ray of heat."

"To kill people," said the tall one.

"No! That wasn't it at all. It was for the good of mankind we built it. And for the publicity."

"How does frying patches of the planet translate to 'for the good of mankind'?" asked the tall thin one.

"It's not supposed to fry terra firma. It's designed to hit rogue asteroids threatening Earth."

"Huh?"

"It's true. The planet stands stark naked against an incoming asteroid. Look at what happened to Jupiter. Or the dinosaurs. The ParaSol 2001 was designed to lock on to an incoming asteroid and zap it. Small impactors would be vaporized to nothing. Big extinctors we figured could be deflected from Earth-harming trajectory by vaporizing parts of them. The jets of escaping gases and metal would act like propulsion rockets, redirecting their path."

"Sounds like a giant magnifying glass."

"Exactly."

And the tall one gave the short one a see-I-told-you-so smile that the short Asian pointedly ignored.

"It would have worked except we got tripped up by feature creep. We wanted it to point to Earth in case the Pentagon needed to rent it as a weapon in some future war. Some idiot vendor sold us a defective computer chip, and it was installed in the guidance system, screwing up the orbital orientation. It ended up pointing Earthward, not spaceward. Useless for the original mission. And to make things worse, the company logo was displayed backward."

"So why hit the BioBubble?"

"We didn't know it was pointed backward. We just test-fired blindly, figuring we wouldn't hit anything important up there."

"What about the Reliant and Baikonur?"

"The shuttle was melted to feed Pagan's Martian theory. Then, by some fluke, the qNM logo came out spelling 'Mir' in Russian, and we hit Baikonur so the U.S. wouldn't attack the Russians by mistake and the Russians who launched the ParaSol wouldn't give us up to Washington."

Meech wiped his perspiring brow and licked his sweaty palm clean. He closed his eyes like a man in pain. "After that, it was all we could do to cover our asses between corporate and the media and that damn Cosmo Pagan."

"You hit him to shut him up?"

"Yeah. I mean, no. That was R.M. Everything was him. He gave the orders. I only executed them."

"Like a good little corporate Nazi."

"That's not fair. I never shoved anyone into an oven."

"No. You just fried them where they stood," said Remo.

And suddenly Bartholomew Meech felt a sharp pain in his back. "Did I just get stabbed in the back?" he asked, afraid to turn around.

"Why does that surprise you?" asked the squeaky voice of the little Asian. "Have you not betrayed your own country?"

"I just did what the corporation said."

"And now you get to die for it," said Remo.

"I don't feel like I'm dying. . . "

"It'll catch up. I have a final question."

"What?" Meech asked dazedly. He weaved on his sneakered feet.

"Which of these things shuts the mirror down?"

"I have to do it myself."

"You don't have time."

"Whatever you do, don't-" And eyes rolling up to show white, Bartholomew Meech fell over dead. Schlump!

"Damn," said Remo.

Chiun fluttered fingernails about the room. "It does not matter. We will destroy the good machines with the bad."

"He said there was something we shouldn't do," Remo said worriedly, gazing around the instrument-packed confines.

"And whatever it is, we will not do it. We will merely break everything in sight."

Remo considered this, shrugged and said, "Can't cause any more trouble than we already have."

And they went to town. Their hands and feet flashed from console to mainframe to devices they didn't even recognize. Metal and plastic fractured and caved in. Wires came sputtering out like aroused vipers, hissing blue-green sparks.

With a grim ferocity, they transformed the big room into a litter of glass and transistors and circuit boards and shattered, inert machines.

"That's done," Remo said firmly. "Next Stop. The eleventh floor."

ON THE ELEVENTH FLOOR, Reemer Murgatroyd Bolt was told by his secretary, "Two men to see you, Mr. Bolt."

"What men?"

"I don't recognize them. They asked for R.M., as if they know you. Mr. Bolt, they're not wearing qNM employee badges."

"Ask them what they want," said Reemer Bolt as he was clearing out his desk.

"They said you're the last loose end."

"Loose end of what?"

"They refuse to say, Mr. Bolt."

"Tell them to make an appointment, Evelyn."

"Yes, Sir."

A moment later, Evelyn's screaming came through the door, then the door came off its hinges to impress itself into the opposite wall, knocking assorted framed Maxfield Parrish prints off their hooks.

Reemer Bolt came out from behind his desk, paling. "Who are you?" he blurted.

"Exterminators," a man with unusually thick wrists said.

"Exter-"

"We do maggots, silverfish and cockroaches."

"This office is clean."

The tall one looked to the old Asian and asked, "This guy look roachy to you?"

The Asian shook his head. "No, he is a maggot."

Reemer Bolt got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Exactly the same feeling had come over him the last time he was terminated.

"I can't imagine what this is about," he said lamely. A pair of glasses landed on his desk. Bolt looked at them quickly. They looked exactly like Meech's glasses, down to the broken bridge repaired by white tape.

"He told us everything."

"The mindless nerd. I explained how the corporate shield protects him."

"Not against us."

"Nonsense. Everything that happened was an accident. A combination of product failure, feature creep and defective chips supplied by outside vendors. In fact, I've memoed the board that we sue the chip supplier. This is all their fault. It's not the firm's. I will testify to this in court."

"The e-mail's been unerased. We have the whole story."

"You do?"

The tall one nodded. "We do."

"In that case, you will have to take the matter up with legal. They are on the thirteenth floor. This is their department. I'm only management."

"Sorry. We work outside the law."

Reemer Bolt was surrounded now. There were only two of them, but he felt exactly as though he were surrounded by twenty-two.

"You are forgetting the corporate shield. It protects men like me."

"Show us this shield," asked the ancient Asian.

"Show? It's not a tangible shield. It's a-a . . ."

"A what?"

Bolt snapped his fingers. "A concept."

The tall one with the dead-looking eyes shook his head in a very final way. "Too bad. We work with our hands. You want to hide behind a shield, it's gotta be real."

"It is real. Ask legal. They will fill you in. I'll call them up right now."

Reemer Bolt reached for the desk telephone, and the one with the wrists reached out ahead of him.

He said, "Uh-uh." It was a very serious uh-uh. Dead serious.

And the one with the nails inserted Bolt's forearm into a desk drawer he had been in the process of clearing out.

A natural question occurred to Reemer Bolt. "Am I being terminated?"

"Bingo!"

"I'll go quietly," Bolt said hastily. "I just have to finish collecting my personal effects."

"That's nice of you, but you won't need them," the tall one said in a very reasonable tone of voice.

What happened next was so bizarre, so incredible, and happened so fast that Reemer Bolt found himself watching it with a sick fascination that gave way to a growing concern much too late to reverse the procedure.

The one with the wrists shoved Reemer's arm all the way into the open drawer. Of course, it wouldn't fit. It was too long. So he folded it at the elbow joint. Unfortunately he folded it the wrong way.

Crunch. Then he hammered Bolt's shoulder into the drawer. It didn't fit, either, so the other one laid two hands on the shoulder while Bolt vainly tried to keep his face from smushing into the desk's very hard edge.

The shoulder collapsed into suet under kneading fingers.

Then they took hold of his legs and bent them around so viciously he could feel a splintery cracking in the vicinity of his pelvis.

Reemer Bolt found himself staring out the window as the pair systematically pulverized his lean musculature and healthy bone into pockets of flesh-covered bonemeal and hamburger.

In the reflection of his office window, Bolt could see what was happening to him.

It was if he were a master contortionist and were fitting himself into a space too small for an ordinary human. Except that Reemer Bolt had absolutely nothing to do with what was happening to him. It was like having an out-of-body experience. Only it was more of a body-into-drawer experience.

He saw his torso, accompanied by the grinding of shattering ribs, slide in and then he was looking at his head sticking out of the drawer with its stunned-face reflection just as the one with the wrists laid a cold hand on his hair and began forcing it into the drawer.

That was about the time Bolt snapped out of his fascinated daze and mustered the presence of mind to scream.

The trouble was his lungs were the consistency of dead liver and there was nothing to scream with.

His eyes saw their own reflection, then they were swallowed by the desk drawer and the drawer was slammed shut with a finality that failed to register on Reemer Murgatroyd Bolt's dead, squashed brain.

REMO LOCKED THE DRAWER and told Chiun, "Assignment done. Time to call Smith."

Harold Smith sounded relieved. "You are positive the device is inoperative?"

"We got R.M., his technician and everything that looked electronic."

"I have finished reading the e-mail files. This is a rogue operation. qNM is not corporately responsible. Exit quietly."

"Will do," said Remo.

Then Smith's voice turned sharp. "One moment." Smith's voice became raw. "Remo, I am looking at a real-time-feed visual of the device. It is opening again."

"So? Maybe that means it's dying. Don't animals relax when they die?"

"This is a machine. It was in shutdown mode. Now it is unfolding again."

Remo said to Chiun, "Uh-oh."

"What is that?" asked Smith.

"Nothing," said Remo.

Then Smith said, "It is deploying."

Silence made the line hum.

Then Harold Smith said hoarsely, "Remo, it just emitted another burst of concentrated heat. Stand by."

It was the longest twenty minutes of Remo's life.

Smith came back on the line. "Remo, it has struck Baldar Mountain in the Asgard Range."

Remo groaned. "There goes Norway."

"No. Antarctica. We were fortunate. It is uninhabited. Thousands of pounds of ice are now steam. That is all. But the ParaSol 2001 is not folding up. It's still tracking. It may strike again."

"Probably a last gasp," Remo said hopefully.

But it wasn't.

"Another burst!" groaned Smith. "It is out of control."

"Well, just shoot it down."

"That is the problem. We cannot fire missiles into space."

"Well, you can't just let it run amok."

"I must contact the President at once."

Chiun spoke up. "There is another way."

"What's that?" asked Remo and Smith at the same tine.

"A Master of Sinanju must ascend into the Void to deal with this scourge that is a sun dragon. So Salbyol foresaw."

"You volunteering?" asked Remo.

"Yes!" cried Chiun. "I will be the first Korean in space."

"You're on," said Remo.

Chapter 45

Commander Dirk McSweeny couldn't believe his ears.

"Launch? Today!"

"The Atlantis is on the pad. The countdown's started. You go up in an hour," said the NASA flight controller in a breathless tone. He looked serious. And sane. But he couldn't be either. Space shuttles were not launched on short notice.

"What about the mission? The package isn't ready."

"Scrubbed. You have a new mission and a new payload."

"What is it?"

"Classified. You take the orbiter up. And deploy the payload."

"You know it doesn't work that way. We have to train for a new payload."

"Not this time. This time you're flying a glorified delivery truck."

"What about payload-deployment procedures?"

"Don't worry about them. It's self-deploying."

"Self-"

"You heard me."

Within an hour, Commander McSweeny was being suited up, along with his mission specialists and what he saw was a severely reduced crew of five. That meant a military mission.

"What the hell is going on here?" he yelled as they dropped his helmet over his confused face.

"Just relax. It's a short mission. Up and back down the same day."

As they were being escorted to the vehicle, lugging their portable oxygen tanks, McSweeny asked his flight controller, "Can you at least tell me what the payload is?"

"Sorry. This run you're just a stick jockey."

IN Moscow, FSK Major-General Stankevitch sat with the Cosmic Secret file sitting on his desk like a time bomb, his stomach burning with half a bottle of vodka. Upon his shoulders rested the fate of the world.

"Get me the Kremlin," he told his secretary, and reached for the bottle. Very soon there would be no more vodka, no more air, no more water. For anyone.

THE MASTER of SINANJU was beside himself with rage.

"Never!"

"You gotta," pleaded Remo.

They were in an all-white ready room at the Kennedy Space Center.

"Never! I will not shear off my nails. It is bad enough that I am bereft of one. But to willingly abandon the others! My ancestors would be ashamed of me. They would shun me in the Void when my time came."

And he inserted one hand into a white gauntlet. The long nails popped through like daggers.

"Tough," said Remo. "You volunteered. You can't go up without a space suit, and they don't come with extralong fingers."

Chiun folded his arms. "Have them sewn. I will wait."

"That mirror just zapped a piece of the South Atlantic. Nobody got hurt, but it's all ready to power up for another burst. It's only a matter of time before it hits a populated place."

"I cannot." Chiun looked up at Remo with imploring eyes. "Remo, you must go in my stead."

"Me?"

"It has been prophesied that a Master of Sinanju would battle the returning sun dragon. I can see now that it is not destined to be me. Therefore, it must be you."

"I didn't volunteer."

"I have volunteered the House. Since I am constrained by circumstances beyond my power to alter, you must go and uphold the honor of the House. Not to mention save precious humanity from this scourge."

"Look, the countdown's starting. One of you has to go!" the flight controller implored.

"One of us will," Chiun said. And he pointed his jade nail protector at Remo. "You. You will go."

"I'll do it," said Remo angrily. "But you owe me, Chiun."

Support personnel helped Remo into an atmosphere suit.

"We need to brief you on how to go to the bathroom in space," the flight controller said anxiously.

Remo shook his head. "No time. I'll hold it."

"How to eat."

"Give me a fistful of cold rice, and I'll be fine."

"Emergency procedures."

"That's up to the crew. I'm cargo."

"At least try to understand MMU operations for your EVA."

"If I can't understand what you just said," Remo shot back, "how can I understand what I'm supposed to understand? Just suit me up. I'll wing it."

Support personnel blinked dazedly.

"Just get him in the suit," the flight controller said resignedly.

Remo eyed the Master of Sinanju. "Did Master Salbyol say how this would turn out?"

"No," admitted Chiun.

"Figures," said Remo as the gloves were snapped on.

The last thing to go on was the helmet. The visor was blacked out so that Remo could see out but no one could see his face.

Then he was being led to the huge white transport van.

"This is a proud day. My son, the star voyager," said Chiun.

"It's 'astronaut,'" grumbled Remo.

"What do you think the word means, ignorant one?"

"I just hope someone checked the O-rings on this thing," Remo muttered hollowly.

Commander McSweeny was still cursing under his breath when the countdown reached zero and the thunder of the shuttle's multiple engines slammed at his tense spine and the sensation of leaving his stomach behind overtook everything. He had a big bird to fly. And if that was all NASA wanted this trip, they were going to get the best shuttle pilot who ever flew.

MAJOR-GENERAL STANKEVITCH received the news with a weird mixture of anger and relief.

"All lines to the Kremlin are tied up," his secretary reported.

"These damn phones!" he exploded.

"It is not the phone system. All lines are in use. There is something up."

"Keep trying. The Motherland depends upon us. I will keep drinking."

ONCE IN SPACE, Commander McSweeny was fed his instructions by ground control.

"You are to locate and overtake solar mirror approximately a sixteenth of a mile in diameter."

"That won't be hard to miss," McSweeny grunted.

Maneuvering the orbiter, he found it.

"Is that a qNM logo?" he muttered.

"It is. They make great avionics."

"Okay, what do we do now?" McSweeny asked Houston.

"Pace it."

The Atlantis fell in beside the slowly turning mirror.

"Houston, Atlantis is flying right next to it." "Okay, Atlantis. Open payload bay doors."

"Opening doors." A minute later it was, "Doors open."

"Stand by, Atlantis. Your cargo is self-deploying."

"What the hell kind of cargo is self-?"

Then an astronaut who was not a member of the Atlantis crew came floating out on an EVA line. He carried no MMU thrust-pack. Only on a flexible tether, but somehow he gravitated toward the big solar mirror as if he were swimming through space. That, of course, was impossible. No one could swim through space. Not unless he could somehow glide along on the solar winds.

As McSweeny and his crew watched with utter fascination, the astronaut with the blackout visor moved unerringly toward the solar mirror that dwarfed them all into insignificance.

In space, it should have been impossible.

But there it was.

WHEN HIS SECRETARY Came back with the word that the Kremlin was still incommunicado, Major-General Stankevitch grabbed up the fateful file and announced, "I will take the file to them personally."

On the way out, he grabbed a fresh bottle of vodka, too.

REMO WILLIAMS HAD NO EYES for the beauty of the blue earth 120 miles below him. The stark starlight held no fascination, either. His dark eyes were fixed on the gigantic ParaSol 2001 slowly spinning before him.

He felt like a fly trying to catch a spiderweb.

The moment the great shuttle cargo doors had split open, Remo launched himself with a two-footed kick. He was amazed at his own lightness in zero gravity. But he had no time to enjoy the sensations of weightlessness.

The looming ParaSol was filling his field of vision. It gleamed like a plate made of soft aluminum foil, except for the gigantic black areas that spelled out three letters that had reignited the Cold War: "MNp."

And in his helmet earphone, a familiar lemony voice intruded.

"Destroyer."

"Here," said Remo, acknowledging Smith's use of his rarely spoken code name.

"You are looking at a disk of aluminized Mylar on a folding-strut frame. Do you see the focusing lens?"

"Yeah."

"That is your target. According to my estimates, it has been collecting solar radiation from its rear collectors and discharging energy every twenty-eight minutes. It is due to fire again in four minutes, twenty-eight seconds."

"What's the situation on the ground?" asked Remo.

"A mile-wide circular section of the Sahara has been turned to glass. No known casualties."

"Our luck can't hold."

"The President is on the hot line to Moscow, explaining the situation. The Russian leadership is wary but willing to listen. They are tracking the ParaSol, too. They expect results."

"I'm floating as fast as I can."

"Listen carefully. Its present orbit will take it over Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. You must disable it before any of those nations are struck."

"Almost there," said Remo as the great disk all but enveloped him in its shadow. It billowed and rippled like silvery Saran Wrap.

"I am watching you in real time through my GEODSS link."

As the tumbling mirror came within reach, Remo lifted his white-gloved hands to catch it. They grazed Mylar. Remo made two fists and began tearing the tough metallic fabric.

It refused to tear. And momentum took Remo into the rippling fabric itself.

He bounced back, reached out a hand and grabbed a handy strut. Using it for leverage, he swung his sluggish body around.

This time he popped through the fabric. He kept going. The obverse side came into view, showing the qNM corporate logo.

Reaching back, Remo grabbed his tether, hauling himself back with both hands.

"Be careful!" Smith said sharply.

"I'm not exactly trained for this kind of work," Remo shot back as he regained the mirror.

And Remo started in on the Mylar envelope. With an open tear to work with, it was easy to make the rip wider. Silver Mylar fragments began floating away. Remo used the support strut as a kick point and launched himself toward the center, where the big lens sat like the spider in the mylar web. It was pointing down at the North Pole. Soon they would be over Siberia.

"Estimated burn in two minutes, twelve seconds," Harold Smith was saying.

Remo ripped methodically as he made his way along. All he was accomplishing was to inhibit the ParaSol from collecting future solar energy. The only way to disable it was to nail the lens.

"One minute, three seconds," Smith said, his voice tinny in the space-suit helmet.

Remo tried to shake a strut loose, but he had no leverage. His strength worked against him. The mirror orbited on.

"Twenty-two seconds..."

The lens began to flash.

Smith's voice became raw. "Target confirmed as industrial city of Magnitogorsk. You must not fail."

"Damn," said Remo. Gathering up coils of loose tether, he pulled in two directions. The cable snapped silently. And Remo whipped it around.

The broken end snaked around like a tentacle. It moved with agonizing slowness, while Harold Smith, useful as a Greek chorus, counted down the seconds to nuclear Armageddon.

"Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven..."

The lens shattered at four seconds to doomsday. There was no sound, of course, only glassy fragments tumbling in all directions. Some pierced the mylar web. Others spun toward Remo, catching starlight, reflecting it brilliantly.

"Good news and bad news," Remo said thinly.

"Yes?"

"ParaSol is dead. But I'm adrift."

"The shuttle will retrieve you."

"Glad to hear it."

Without warning, the ParaSol detonated.

Again there was no sound. Other than Remo's surprised curse.

"What is it?" Smith asked anxiously.

"It blew up! I gotta get out of here."

Reflexes kicked in. Remo tried to swim but he was in space. There was nothing to push against. The explosive wave radiated toward him like a metallic dandelion coming apart under a giant's breath.

Eerily tumbling shards of glass and metal and mylar foil billowed outward in all directions of space. As they came at Remo in a dense cloud of space-age shrapnel, he had only one cold thought: I'm dead.

Then Harold Smith was saying, "Remo, I am watching you. The debris will spread and expand outward the farther it gets from the point of detonation. Your primary survival tactic is simple. Dodge all debris. First, curl yourself in a ball."

Remo oriented himself toward the explosion.

Pieces of material arrowed at him. Very quickly, they were only inches from his vulnerable space suit.

In a way, it was easier than dodging bullets. He had six directions to dodge in. But nothing to work against.

The mylar he ignored. It was the metal struts that had the ability to pierce his space suit and expose him to the hostile environment of space.

But the metal was another thing. Remo moved his arms and lifted his legs to avoid tumbling shards. A chunk of strut came within reach. Remo grabbed it. It pulled him along, actually carrying him ahead of the oncoming storm. By redirecting its trajectory, he used it to bat away other threats like a ball player suspended on a string.

After a while, the last of the widening storm of shrapnel had passed by. Remo floated in a harmless sea of shining mylar.

When he was in the clear, Remo looked around and blurted, "Where's the shuttle?"

"Retreated to a lower orbit," Smith supplied.

"What about me?"

"There are no rescue procedures for an astronaut adrift amid so much dangerous space junk," Harold Smith said with a tinny flatness. "The Atlantis could be imperiled."

"That's it? No procedures? So end of story?" Remo asked incredulously.

"You knew you were expendable from the day you joined CURE."

A cold sensation settled in Remo's stomach.

"Smitty, you aren't going to leave me up here to die ...."

"I have no choice."

"Think of what Chiun will say."

Smith was silent.

"Think of what he'll do," Remo added.

"I am thinking .. . ."

"Think fast," warned Remo. "It's not getting any closer."

Then Smith said, "Can you see the Atlantis?"

"Yeah."

"Listen carefully. The mylar is composed of the same material that is used for solar sails. They catch the solar winds. One day man may be able to pilot spacecraft with gigantic solar sails as auxiliary propulsion. Can you reach a larger section?"

"I can try. There's a ton of it around here."

Actually it was more of a matter of waiting until a large enough piece floated to within grabbing range. Remo grasped and released two before he caught one that looked big enough.

Taking one end in both hands, he lifted it over his helmet. His feet found a rip on the lower end and dug in. By stretching, Remo made the fabric taut.

"Point yourself toward the sun," Smith instructed.

Remo did. Not that it was easy. He felt like a moth riding a leaf.

"Now what?"

"Wait. You will not feel the push. But I can direct the shuttle to orient itself with its payload bay ready to catch you."

"I can't see where I'm going."

"Trust the shuttle commander."

An eternity seemed to pass. Remo saw only the fabric before his face and occasional glimpses of stars. He had no sensation of movement. No sensation of time. He was using almost no energy, so he cut his air intake to six careful sips a minute. Enough to sustain life in this state.

In the air-conditioned suit, he began to perspire.

Remo knew he was safe when a dark shadow enveloped him.

"I'm in!" he cried.

"Incredible!" said Smith.

"Hey," Remo said in a suddenly cocky voice. "We're all pros up here."

"No," returned Smith. "You should have run out of oxygen seven minutes ago."

Grabbing at the folded remote manipulator arm of the shuttle, Remo found an oxygen-supply port and plugged his suit in. Air began to flow into his suit.

"Tell them to close the payload doors and light this thing up," he shouted down to Harold Smith. "And tell Chiun I'm coming home."

A relieved Harold Smith said, "Roger," and the com link was terminated as the darkness created by the closing clamshell doors swallowed Remo Williams.

A thought struck him for the first time.

"Hey! I'm an astronaut now. How about that?"

WHEN MAJOR-GENERAL Iyona Stankevitch presented himself, the Cosmic Secret KGB file and his bottle of vodka to the defense minister of Russia, the general took both, started to read one and sampled the other as he read.

When he was done, he looked up from his desk with glowering eyes.

"You are to be congratulated, Stankevitch."

"Thank you. But this is no time for such pleasantries. I have performed my duty, and now you must perform yours."

Nodding, the defense minister buzzed his guards, who appeared instantly.

"Take this dolt out and have him shot."

Through a bleary haze, Stankevitch heard the harsh words and actually comprehended them.

"What? Why?" he sputtered.

"Had you brought this to me earlier, we would all be dead now. It is fortunate that it lands upon my desk after the crisis has passed, and not before."

"But-but Zemyatin gave clear instructions if this superweapon was ever deployed again ...."

"The crisis is over. And so is your life."

As he was dragged out of the Kremlin office, the defense minister's mocking words followed Iyona Stankevitch. "And thank you for the vodka. It was very thoughtful."

Stankevitch realized in that cold moment that the old Red Russia still lived. In a curious way, it pleased him to know this just before the people's bullets punished his vital organs ... .

Chapter 46

It was a week later, and the Master of Sinanju was seated in the bell tower of Castle Sinanju, goose quill poised over a parchment scroll weighted to the floor with four jade buttons.

"Describe the beast's eyes, my son. Were they fearsome?"

"It didn't have eyes. It looked like a giant aluminum umbrella."

"ParaSol. We know this. But future generations will be ignorant of the mundanity of the menace. Salbyol prophesied a sun dragon. I must describe a sun dragon for the edification of future Masters."

"It didn't have eyes or a tail. And I'm sick of talking about it."

"Then I will employ my awesome imagination to full effect," said Chiun, touching quill to parchment.

"You do that," said Remo.

The taboret phone rang. Remo ignored it.

"It is Smith," said Chiun, redipping his quill.

"I'm not talking to him. He hung me out to dry."

"He is still your emperor. You must speak with him."

"He can kiss my asteroid"

Finally, after 378 consecutive rings, Remo relented.

"If you're selling something, or are named Smith, cross your legs or risk the family jewels."

"Remo, I have discovered something interesting."

"Lose it."

"I have completed my deep background search on Reemer Bolt."

"So what?"

"Eleven years ago, Bolt was employed by Chemical Concepts of Massachusetts, the company that developed the fluorocarbon gun that nearly brought the planet to the brink last time."

"You're kidding!"

"My information is that he was marketing director. When I dealt with the ChemCon employees responsible for the ozone crisis of 1985, I overlooked him. It would appear that history repeated itself."

"So he really was a loose end?"

"No longer," said Smith.

Remo grunted. "Anything else?"

"There are reports out of Russia of a shadowy group of disgrunted ex-KGB operatives attempting to consolidate power."

"Shield?"

"They are being called Felix by ITAR-TASS. The name derives from Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret-police apparatus."

"More loose ends," Remo groaned.

"We will watch them closely."

"Before you go, and you are going," said Remo, "whatever happened to that photographer who was dragged off by men in black on TV?"

"Travis Rust has been released unharmed."

"Who had him?"

"FORTEC."

"Why'd they snatch him?" asked Remo.

"Recall that Chiun slew one of their investigators at the BioBubble site. When the body was discovered, FORTEC thought they had a serious alien threat on their hands."

"They did. They just didn't know it. So long, Smith."

And Remo hung up. "How's it coming?" he asked Chiun, who was busily scratching out slashing characters on his scroll.

"I have decided the sun dragon possesses smooth silver skin, and not scales."

"It was silver."

"And three thousand years from now, it will trouble the House no more because the Reigning Master of Sinanju slew it without mercy," added Chiun.

"Wait a minute! I was the guy who risked his neck up there."

Chiun smiled thinly. "And I am the Master who is inscribing the truth for the Master who will carry on three thousand years hence."

With that, the Master of Sinanju signed the scroll with his name and sat back, his face serene with the knowledge that he would one day be remembered as the first Master to venture into the Void and return alive. As well as the first Korean in space.

All rumors to the contrary.