Unpopular Science

The next photo was of a man on a mountain, his beard ice-encrusted. “In 1954 Orville Slate Successfully Scaled Mount Everest, Dying Whilst Descending.”

“Are all these pictures of your family?” Remo asked.

“Of course,” said Sarah.

“I knew of a Slate,” Chiun said in a singsong of realization. “Randolph Slate was known among the royalty of the British.”

“Yes,” Sarah nodded. “He was an uncle.”

“He claimed to have many famous exploring siblings and ancestors,” Chiun recalled.

“Yes. A lot of good it got them,” Sarah said. “There were thirty Slates a century ago. Now the line is all but wiped out because of their foolishness. I’m all there is.”

Remo looked around the room with fresh eyes. “All these people?”

“Almost all of them died on some ridiculous venture or another. Airships, mountain climbing, polar exploration, deep-sea exploration. But I don’t understand— don’t you know this? If you have not come, to write about my family, what have you come for?”

“We’re not reporters. We came to talk about Archibald Slate,” Remo said. “Your great-grandfather.”

Sarah Slate smiled again, looking sadder. “You came to find Ironhand.”

“Well, yeah. Is he home?”

“Of course not. Are you from the government?”

“Yes, but the government hasn’t been keeping really good records, believe it or not,” Remo said. “Fact is, some of us aren’t sure if Ironhand ever existed. I mean, if he ever existed as a real walking, talking robot. We know only that Archibald Slate was employed by Army as an engineer.”

“He was enslaved. He was imprisoned. It was despicable what America did to that man.”

“Why’d they want him so bad?”

“You know why.”

“No.”

She sat back in her chair and looked at Remo as the housekeeper came in with a tea set, pouring three cups. Remo took his. Chiun, who had never bothered to sit down, left through a back door.

“Very insecure around women. He is habitually rude to those he finds attractive,” Remo explained to Mrs. Sanderson, who blushed crimson and hurried out.

“What agency?” Sarah Slate demanded. “DOE? FBI?”

“MYOB.”

“Washington has got to have records on my great-grandfather Archibald.”

“Just name, rank and serial number. If they ever had anything in-depth it must have been misplaced. One of our people is trying to unearth it.”

“Why?”

“Well, it might be, just might be, that Ironhand is being used again. He might have been used to kill somebody. Normally the federal government couldn’t care less, you understand, but this time, he killed somebody after he stole military secrets.” He looked at her. She smiled. “You already knew that.”

“Read it in the paper. Tell your person in Washington to not bother. I’ve got all of Archibald’s notes. Right here. In the house. Including his notes on Ironhand. Drink your tea.”

Chapter 21

Mark Howard was surprised when Remo Williams answered the door of the big brick house in Providence.

“Hey, Junior, have I got something to show you.”

They went downstairs immediately, seeing no one else, and Mark was assaulted with the mildew smell of an ancient cellar. When Remo flipped the switch, thirty-five bare light bulbs set in the ceiling illuminated over seven rows of shelves crammed with boxes of paper memorabilia.

“It’s a museum!” Mark exclaimed.

“Sarah calls it a morgue,” Remo said. “Supposedly, this is all the documentation of a whole dynasty of suicidal dimwits named Slate. Half these boxes haven’t been opened since the family got mostly killed off in the 1930s. They’ve been sort of on the decline ever since. Sarah’s the last of them. Anyway,” Remo said, shrugging, “have at it.”

Mark Howard spent fifteen minutes wandering up and down the rows in a stupor, looking at more intriguing names and trinkets than he could process. Then he started at the beginning, looking for the thread of the organizational system that had obviously eluded him the first time.

“What a mess.”

“Yes, it is.”

Mark Howard spun.

“Sorry. I’m Sarah. You’re Howie Wyrd?”

“Yes,” Mark said, shaking her hand but looking as if he were biting something bitter.

“Don’t worry, I know the name’s fake. There is no organizational system down here, by the way. All this stuff used to be stored in the house. On the day my trustee turned over control of the estate, I had most of it shoved in crates and brought down here, out of sight.”

“You honestly don’t know what’s in here?”

“I know the nature of it,” she said, as if it was sad to think about. “These are the documented ravings of glory-hunters, irresponsible thrill-seekers and irrepressible egoists. The cellar is all they deserve. Dinner’s almost ready.”

Mark was wandering the rows again when she returned and informed him he had ignored the call to the evening meal.

“I have to find Archibald in all this,” Mark insisted. Sarah sent down a plate and a glass of iced tea.

“Sit. Eat.”

“I need to keep looking.”

“Howie.”

“Please, call me Mark.”

“Sit down, Mark.”

She touched him, on the shoulder. Mark Howard had barely been paying attention to her until that moment. When she guided him to the folding chair, he couldn’t begin to resist.