Dying Space td-47 Read online

  The desk officer looked up at him cursorily. "The methadone clinic's on the other side of La Ciénega," he said.

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  "Hey, my best friend just got skinned. You're the cops. You got to do something about it."

  "Skinned? You mean he got mugged? Beat out of some bread? Couldn't collect off the numbers? See, you can talk to me, kid, I grew up on the streets." He turned to the other officers in the room, smiling condescendingly. "Like I'm hip, know what I mean?"

  "I don't know nothing you mean," Gonzalez said. "I'm saying my friend got skinned—"

  "That's enough, Chico. Talk straight."

  Gonzalez's nostrils flared. "One second there, Mr. Cop. Don't you Chico me."

  "You looking for trouble, punk?"

  With every ounce of his reserve patience, Gonzalez restrained himself from jumping the officer. "I am telling you, man, my partner at work just got himself murdered."

  The expression in the officer's eyes changed. "You serious, kid?"

  Gonzalez nodded, relieved. The officer pulled out a form and began to write. "Name?"

  "Marco Juan San Miguel de Ruiz Gonzalez."

  The policeman took down the information. "Where did the incident occur?"

  "The Hollywood Disposal Center. Off Fifty-one-"

  "Oh, yeah. The Garbage of the Stars."

  "That's it. About a half-hour ago."

  "Can you describe the perpetrator?"

  "The what?"

  "The guy who attacked your friend."

  "Oh, yeah. He was a robot or something. Made

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  of metal. About six feet tall. His name was Gordon."

  The officer put down his pencil. "Ah, Mr. Gonzalez. Can you tell me what this—person—used to assault your partner with?"

  "You bet I can. I'll never forget it as long as I live. First he swung Lew around in the air by his feet. Then he held up his hand and broke Lew's neck. Then he skinned him—"

  "Skinned?"

  "Yeah, skinned!" Gonzalez shouted. "I been saying he got skinned ever since I come in here."

  "Well, what did he skin him with, if I'm not being too nosy—a Bowie knife?"

  "No, man." Gonzalez exhaled a puff of air. "His thumb. He skinned him with his thumb." He demonstrated in the air, whistling as his thumb tore through an imaginary cadaver.

  The police officer was tapping the eraser end of his pencil on the desk blotter. "And just what does a six-foot-tall metal man say when he's skinning somebody in the Garbage of the Stars?"

  Gonzalez thought for a moment. Then he remembered in a rush of clarity. "Hello is all right!" he yelled.

  "That's it," the officer said. "Get this nut out of here."

  "You got to believe me," Gonzalez cried. "Just send somebody to check it out. The robot might still be there doing the job on Verbanic. You can catch him."

  The officer inhaled deeply.

  "Podebensky and Needham are up around

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  there now," another policeman said. "They could drive by."

  The officer squinted at Gonzalez. "All right. But this better be on the level, or I'm going to turn you and every one of your relatives over to the immigration authorities. Understand?"

  Gonzalez nodded his assent.

  "Sit over there." The officer poked his pencil toward a row of folding metal chairs along one wall. Gonzalez sat down as the dispatcher called the report into a roving police car.

  "Some law officers," Gonzalez muttered.

  The report from the car came in after a few minutes. Amid the squawks of the radio, Gonzalez could make it out from where he sat.

  "There's a body here, all right," the voice over the radio said. "Worst damn thing I ever seen. Better get the coroner over fast. And an ambulance for Needham. He passed out."

  The officer at the desk looked over to Gonzalez, his face deadly serious. "Read him his rights," the policeman said quietly.

  The police, ambulance, and reporters left the Hollywood Disposal Service grounds just as the first rays of dawn appeared over the hills. When all trace of them was gone, a figure emerged from the belly of the abandoned garbage truck and a new man, complete with uniform and a name tag identifying him as Lewis J. Verbanic, walked into the sunlight.

  Mr. Gordons didn't know where he was, but on his person was a clue as to who could help him

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  find out. It was on the sole of his foot—the message:

  PERSONAL PROPERTY OF DR. FRANCES PAYTON-HOLMES, UCLA

  On the highway he saw a sign bearing the same last four letters.

  UCLA

  NEXT EXIT

  He would find her. His creator was gone, but whoever developed the software he had incorporated into his mechanism at the dump knew science. Just the flood of new information pouring into his memory banks told him that.

  His components were operative. He had the skin he needed to look human. NoV he only required one other item, something so elusive and ephemeral that most humans didn't even possess it. For this, he would need a new creator. He would find Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes.

  He needed her.

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  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Have you ever heard of Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes?" Smith asked.

  "No," said Remo.

  "Yes," said Chiun.

  "Yes?" said Remo.

  "Yes?" said Smith.

  "Yes," said Chiun. "He was the companion of a detective named Shylock Watson. I read about this recently. They were very famous. They had somebody good writing about them."

  Smith cleared his throat. "Yes," he said. "Well, this is a different Dr. Holmes. Frances Payton-Holmes is a woman, an astrophysicist."

  Chiun said, "I do not like women doctors."

  "She is a doctor of astrophysics," Smith said.

  "I do not like chemicals to insure one's regularity. A person should control his body without drugs."

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  Smith looked at Remo, helpless, for an explanation.

  "Astrophysics," Remo said. "Chiun thinks that's something like Ex-lax. So do I, for that matter."

  "Astrophysics is the study of physics as it applies to outer space," Smith said. "It is the basic science of the space program."

  "Of course," Chiun said. "And you want us to dispose of this pretentious woman who masquerades as a real doctor, tampering with people's innards."

  "No. No, no, no," said Smith. "She must be protected. She is very important to America."

  Chiun looked away, suddenly bored. "Remo," he said, "be sure to pay careful attention to what the emperor tells you."

  "All right, Smitty," said Remo. "Who's Dr. Holmes?"

  "Payton-Holmes," Smith said. "She's won two Nobel prizes. When she was twenty-eight, she formulated the graphs which outlined the space route of Explorer One. It led the satellite into a an unknown band of radioactive material. The Van Allen belt."

  "Why didn't they call it the Payton-Holmes belt?" Remo asked.

  "They might have," Smith said. "But when they announced it, she didn't show up. She was in the laboratory using NASA equipment to make a liquor out of coffee. She drinks." "She still drink?" Remo asked. "Yes. Constantly."

  "Good. It's nice to know someone is having fun," Remo said.

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  "Periodically, she disappears. We're always afraid that the Russians have her, but she always turns up in a jail cell somewhere, sleeping off a hangover. The last time, they found her in the dormitory of a visiting Italian soccer team."

  "What has she done now?"

  "For the last few years, she's been working on a special project at UCLA. You see, we got wind of a special Russian project called Volga. We don't know much about it except that it's some kind of space plan involving satellites that they think will give them control of space."

  "She's defected?" Remo said.

  "No," said Smith.

  "Dammit, Smitty, then get to the point."

  "She designed a computer—it's called LC-111—which can take over cont
rol of any satellite or spacecraft. In other words, the Russians could launch a satellite and with LC-111, we could make it ignore the Russians and do whatever we tell it to do."

  "Good for her," Remo said.

  "The LC-lll's missing," Smith said. "And we don't know where it went. We want you to find it."

  Chiun came back to life. "Is there a reward?" he asked.

  "The thanks of a grateful people," Smith said.

  Chiun sniffed and turned away again.

  "This Payton-Place-Holmes doesn't know where it went?" Remo said. "Or you think she sold out to the Russians?"

  "I don't think so," Smith said. "I have to warn you, Remo, she's very difficult."

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  "How?"

  "She'll go to any lengths to get a drink. She apparently also has some strong ... er, biological desires. She is very difficult."

  "I'm used to dealing with difficult people," Remo said, looking at Chiun.

  "So am I, Emperor," said Chiun.

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  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes was sobbing. She had been sobbing for an hour and a half, from the moment she had walked in the door to the software lab and found the gaping hole in the row of computer terminals, their lifelines to the absent LC-111 cut and poking out uselessly.

  "My baby," she moaned again and again, rocking wildly on the floor, curled up into a miserable, white-coated ball. "My precious baby."

  "It'll be all right, Professor," Ralph Dickey said, patting her uncertainly on the shoulder. "The police have already been here. We've all talked to them. I've called NASA, too. The President of the United States is supposed to be sending a special investigator here to—"

  She whacked his arm away. "You! You're supposed to see that things like this don't happen. Ten years of work and love, the finest distillation

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  of my genius. Gone in one night, you cretinous pansy!" she screamed.

  "Now, Professor," Dickey began, his lips pursing. "Everything was shut up like a drum when I left."

  "You shut up like a drum, do you hear me?" She pummeled him with her fists. Dickey tried to shield himself from her blows as two other technicians pulled her off him. "Get away from me," she screamed. "Get back to your cages, all of you. In fact, go home. I don't want to see any of you here today. Scram."

  The technicians backed off and silently exited the lab. The professor pulled herself off the floor, dusting herself off. "Shitheel Commie," she muttered loud enough so that Dickey, checking the circuitry on the three remaining terminals, could hear.

  "I am not a Communist," Dickey said with dignity. "And I've told you a dozen times that I'm not responsible for this."

  "Yeah? Well, how come you needed somebody to let you in today. What happened to your magnetic passcard?"

  "I misplaced it," Dickey said.

  "Yeah. Probably right in the hands of some Russian, you Communist fairy."

  "You were here when I left last night, lady," Dickey said. "Whoever took it probably walked right by you in your drunken stupor and, hell, dear, you probably helped him carry it to his car."

  The professor sank down slowly in a chair, her face ashen. Dickey looked at her, sitting Eke a

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  lump, defeated and frightened, and felt suddenly sorry for her. "It'll be all right, Doctor. The man from Washington will find whoever it was."

  "It won't be all right," she said listlessly. "Nothing will ever be all right again."

  "Of course it will."

  The professor looked up at her mousy, pockmarked, but tanned assistant. "Maybe I've misjudged you, Dickey," she said softly.

  "I'd like to think that, Professor," he said.

  "You've really been loyal to me, haven't you?"

  "I'll always be loyal to you, Professor."

  "If I needed something—really needed it ... Do you know what I mean by really needing something?"

  He patted her on the shoulder. "I think so," he said, smiling gently.

  "Well, if I really needed something, ycfu'd come through in the end, wouldn't you, Dickey?"

  "You could count on me, Doctor."

  "Good. Get me a drink."

  Dickey's face snapped shut, his little pig eyes pinched. "Oh, no you don't," he said.

  She stalked him around the lab until she had him by the lapels of his lab coat. "You promised me you'd come through if I needed anything. Now goddammit, Dickey, my LC-lll's missing and my heart's broken and I need a goddam drink, do you hear me?"

  "Professor—"

  "Find me a drink before I beat your face into cube steak, Dickey."

  "Calm down, Professor. Everything'11 be all right-"

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  "Will you stop saying that, you algae-brained imbecile?" she roared. "What's all right? Huh? Just what in the hell in all this mess is all right?"

  There was a click at the door and a tall, thin man wearing a green uniform with the name "Lewis J. Verbanie" embroidered in red over "Hollywood Disposal Service" entered.

  "Hello is all right," the man said cheerfully.

  "Who are you?" the professor snapped. "How did you get in here?"

  "I adjusted the locks."

  Ralph Dickey muttered, "I'll call the police."

  "I've cut the lines," the garbageman said.

  Dickey began to whimper.

  "Jesus, another Communist," the professor said disgustedly.

  "I beg your pardon, but Jesus was not a Communist, according to my information. The Communist Party was not conceived until well after the beginning of the present century—"

  "Who is this jerk?" the professor asked.

  "Are you the person in charge here?" the garbageman asked. "Are you Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes?"

  "That's me," the professor said crisply. "What do you want?"

  "One of my components identifies this location as part of my origin," Mr. Gordons said, "and I discerned from the high-frequency sounds issuing from this building that someone might be able to assist me in some type of global orientation."

  "Components?" Dickey said. "Global orientation?" He got an idea. "Listen, guy, I'm going to step out and come back with some folks who'll

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  orient you all day long, okay?" He was smiling and moving quickly toward the door.

  "Please do not attempt to leave," Mr. Gordons said. "If you leave, there is a high probability factor of your notifying others of my presence. Such an action may render my survival hazardous."

  "What are you talking about?" Dickey said.

  "I am saying that I will kill you unless you cease all motion immediately."

  Dickey froze. "He threatened me," he whined.

  "Shut up," the professor said. "Go ahead, Mr.—er, Ver . . . Ver . . ." She squinted at the name tag.

  "Gordons. Thank you. You see, I am very nearly complete, with the exception of certain peripheral informational input, which was destroyed in the relatively recent past. Consequently, my recall of some, but not all, persons and events has been reduced dramatically, as well as my perception of present place and time."

  "In other words, your memory's shot."

  Mr. Gordons smiled. "Exactly. I knew you would be perceptive."

  "I wish the man from Washington would get here," Dickey muttered under his breath.

  The professor was interested. "What do you mean by your 'components,' young man?"

  "I'll show you." He unlaced one of his ankle-high boots and took off his sock.

  "Oh, for God's sake," Dickey moaned. "A foot fetishist, yet. Of all the days he could have picked to diddle his toes."

  Mr. Gordons hobbled over to a desk, picked up a bottle of ink and, as the professor and her as-

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  sistant looked on in wonder, proceeded to pour the ink over the sole of his foot.

  "Now, see here," Dickey said, jumping out of his corner. "This is really going too far."

  Mr. Gordons tossed the empty bottle at Dickey, hitting him squarely in the midriff. Dickey sl
id to the floor with a whoof. "I warned you not to move," Gordons said. "The next time, I'll have to kill you."

  "Forget him," the professor said impatiently. "Go on with what you're doing. And this had better be worth my while."

  "It is, I assure you." Then he took a piece of blank white paper and stepped on it. He took the paper with the imprint of his foot on it and handed it to the doctor.

  She stared at it in disbelief. In the instep of the footprint, in mirror image, read the legend:

  PERSONAL PROPERTY OF DR. FRANCES PAYTON-HOLMES, UCLA

  "Can you help, identify me?" Mr. Gordons asked.

  But the professor didn't hear him. She had crumpled the paper into a ball and fainted.

  Remo knocked at the sliding doors to the software lab. At his touch, the doors opened effortlessly. He walked through, feeling for the tracking that should have held the doors closed and locked. They had been torn off the frame. Something of tremendous power had been used to enter the building.

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  The scene in the lab was odd: a blonde woman was lying in a dead faint on the floor beside a man in a uniform from the Hollywood Disposal Service whose one bare foot was stained navy blue. At the other end of the room, a young man wearing a white lab coat and clear nail polish stood immobile and trembling.

  "Are you the man from Washington?" the man in white asked.

  "Guess so," Remo said.

  "Arrest this person," Dickey shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at the unshod garbageman.

  'What for?"

  "He tried to kill me with this ink bottle," Dickey said, holding up the evidence.

  Remo stared at the man with the ink bottle, then at the unconscious woman on the floor and the garbageman beside her. "Maybe we'd better start over," he said. "Who's Dr. Payton-Holmes?"

  "She is," Dickey said, gesturing toward the woman.

  "What's she doing on the floor?"

  "How would I know?" Dickey snapped. "That man barged in here, threatened my life, stepped on a piece of paper, and the next thing, the professor passed out."

  "Maybe you ought to keep your shoes on, buddy," Remo said to the garbageman. He walked toward the professor as she was coming to, and clutching frantically at the garbageman's trouser leg.

  "What's going on here?" Remo asked.

  The professor's hand slipped over the crumpled

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  wad of paper bearing the garbageman's footprint and held it closely. "Nothing," she squeaked.