Unpopular Science

“Yes. By the time Archibald took Ironhand to Canada in 1902 he had added directional control using a compass and a gyroscopic self-balancing system. After being blackmailed into serving the U.S. government, he was forced to steal technologies developed by others. In 1917 he was one of the first to use Ernst Alexanderson’s selective tuner for radio receivers. In the field, Archibald himself operated Ironhand. Nobody else was capable of learning the immensely sophisticated control patterns needed to make Ironhand actually work. In France, Archibald perched in a low-altitude balloon and monitored Ironhand through binoculars. He directed Ironhand across a field of small-arms fire that killed seven men. There was a premature explosion, killing Ironhand’s guard detail. Ironhand vanished and was called a loss.

“That night, Archibald returned to the battlefield alone, and against orders. Archibald desperately tried to get a radio signal to Ironhand, hoping it was laying out of sight in a ditch or some weeds. He ordered Ironhand to stand up.”

Sarah Slate swallowed and sipped her lemonade, as if remembering an event from her own experience.

“He saw nothing. For minutes he saw nothing. Then the earth moved. At first he was terrified that it was one of the battlefield victims who had been declared dead and hastily buried. But what he saw was a hand of steel that shot up from the ground.

“Someone else saw it, too. A German officer was hiding under cover nearby, and when he saw the metal hand emerging from the earth he ran onto the field of battle, scanning the night with his own telescope. He got a fix on Archibald Slate and began firing his rifle. Archibald was forced to retreat.”

“Just so I’m clear on this,” Remo said, “when the German guy runs out, he’s not shooting at the robot hand that suddenly popped out of the ground?”

“Correct, Remo,” Sarah said in her formal manner. “That German probably was the one who buried Ironhand, then stood watch over the area in case the Americans dared come back and try to take it. And that was the end of Ironhand, for Archibald Slate.”

“But it wasn’t the end at all,” Remo said. “That German got him. And put him in the basement for ninety years and brought him out again.”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “But who?”

Chapter 23

Chiun lay in the darkness and felt the past all around him—the memories of the house and the memories of a long-lived Master of Sinanju.

These Americans, he was convinced, allowed their old homes to acquire the patina of age because they possessed so litde that was truly old, so little with the reverent nature of real history. But why did age have to be a dreary thing to these befuddled Americans?

This house was filled with ghosts and regret. He, Chiun, was not that kind of aged creature. Of course he had regrets, but he did not allow the sorrows to fester. This house seemed to breathe and creak and moan every moment of the dark night, as if in eternal mourning.

Chiun slept on his mat on the hardwood floor. Remo’s breathing across the room was boisterous and annoying, but Chiun had learned to live with it.

Then he awoke. Little time had gone by.

“Chiun? You awake?” Remo asked.

“A specter tapped me on the shoulder, Remo.”

“I felt it, too. But it wasn’t a spirit.”

“It was what then?”

“Wait.”

Then it came, a flutter. Remo was on his feet. “It’s the same thing we felt in Barcelona,” Remo declared.

“Yes. But this time it moves toward us. It has tracked us down.”

“Don’t think so. It’s coming to find the same thing we’re looking for.”

Remo raced down the hall and pounded on the bedroom door of Sarah Slate, then floated to the main floor and into the cellar, where he knew Mark Howard would still be awake and at work. He found Mark standing in a sea of paper, row after row of it. He was in the midst of some large-scale organizational effort.

“Heads up, Junior, company’s on the way.”

“What? Who?”

“Who knows? Call Smitty and tell him to have reinforcements waiting.”

“Reinforcements?”

“Hey, do you remember what happened in Spain? We got the shit kicked out of us. Whatever is coming closer to this house has got the same sort of energysucking beams pointed at us.”

Sarah was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. “Get in the car and get out of here,” Remo ordered.

“No, thank you. I want to see it.”

“I can’t keep you safe.”

“I wouldn’t assume you could.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s your funeral.”

Sarah sighed, “That would be a fitting end.”

“Oh, jeez, lady, get over it!”

They stood in the darkness of the large side yard, waiting for something to happen, while Sarah and Mark Howard played cribbage on a table in the large living room, the interior lights blazing in the night.

The feel of the bizarre, energy-robbing phenomena had ebbed and flowed menacingly but distantly, never quite growing to a painful level. Then it had stopped, and there was nothing for a while except the sounds of Providence.