Unpopular Science

He sat down, thanked her for the plate of hot food and began eating it, thinking about the young woman. He ate the entire meal without knowing what he was eating; when the meal was done, he was startled to read on the box label in front of him: Archibald Slate.

She had seated him directly in front of the box he was seeking, and it only took him fifteen minutes to figure it out.

Chapter 22

After dinner they met around the fire in the circular great room whose cornerless walls were covered with old framed photos, daguerreotypes and tintypes of dead Slates. It was the four of them. The housekeeper, Mrs. Sanderson, had departed with tears in her eyes when Remo and Chiun refused to eat her roast.

“It’s the first big meal she’s had the opportunity to prepare in months,” Sarah Slate chastised Remo. “Would it have killed you to at least try it?”

“Sorry,” Remo said “We don’t swing that way.”

“So, where do I start?” Sarah asked when they were all seated in the vast but somehow cozy great room— all except Chiun, who popped up from the floor time and again to examine one of the ancient pictures. ‘What do you know about Archibald Slate already?”

“All we know is the public record.” Mark Howard took out a steno pad and flipped it open. “Born in 1849 in Rhode Island in this house. Earned a reputation as an eccentric engineering genius while attending Brown University, right here in Providence. His reputation was enhanced when he left the university and was granted a multitude of mechanical patents, but he became a celebrity in 1899. That’s when Ironhand was unveiled for the first time.” Mark looked up and smiled warmly. Sarah smiled warmly in return. “How am I doing so far?”

“Wonderfully.”

“Fickle,” Remo said.

“Huh?” Howard asked.

“Go on,” Remo added impatiently.

“Uh, let’s see. Archibald Slate stages a series of Ironhand exhibitions. He writes engineering papers but they’re turned down by the more prestigious journals of the time. Archibald becomes a laughingstock in some circles and promises a dramatic series of exhibitions to prove Ironhand’s capabilities.

“That’s the same year he and Ironhand trek two thousand miles across the Canadian-Alaskan tundra, including making a dangerous passage through the Canadian Rockies. In 1903, Slate and Ironhand spend several months in the Four Corners region of the Southwest, rounding up a slew of wanted men. They head next into South America and explore many hundreds of miles of the Amazon during the dry season.

“All these events were highly publicized, but they never achieved the goal of legitimizing Ironhand. Every eyewitness account, every photo, was derided as fakery. To his detractors, Slate went from being a pitiful source of amusement to being a symbol of every profit-mongerer eager to make a buck off the public fascination with the new world of technological marvels.”

Mark looked up suddenly. ‘Tm sorry to be so blunt, Ms. Slate. This is what my research shows. I don’t mean to insult your ancestor.”

Sarah smiled openly. “Not at all. I’ve heard much worse, Mr. Howard.”

“I’m Mark, please.”

“I’m Sarah.”

“I’m impatient,” Remo added.

“You’re also rude. And illiterate,” Chiun piped up. “And disrespectful. And careless and lazy and impertinent and a poor dresser and physically repulsive and scandalously uncultured.”

“I’m not a poor dresser.”

“You wear undergarments in public.”

“T-shirts are practical. Keep reading, Mr. Howard.”

Sarah Slate watched the pair of Masters with ill-concealed amazement before turning her attention back to Mark.

“In 1904, Archibald Slate was said to be despondent over his inability to convince the world that Ironhand was the singular representation of several mechanical and electrical breakthroughs, so he paid handsomely to sponsor his own exhibition at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. This, he promised, would be a scientific exhibition in which Ironhand’s secrets would be revealed. The exhibition was a flop with the scientific community, but it was a big hit with the public, and within a few months the first Ironhand novel came out. Ironhand and the Cherokee Marauders. Supposedly based on Ironhand’s true adventures in the West in 1903. This was followed up by The Machine Man on the Dark Continent. The series was published for years, culminating with Ironhand #136, The Amazing Electro-Mechanical Man Conquers the Orient and#137, The Robot Probes under the Earth.

“Who in their right mind would want to read a hundred and thirty-seven books about the same guy?” Remo demanded.