Smith grabbed the telephone.
BY THE TIME they reached the laundry room, the door was hanging open, and two workers in starched whites were outside, looking rattled.
"You see a floating sword by any chance?" Remo demanded.
"You tell us. Did we?"
"Not if you value your jobs," said Remo, going in.
Inside they looked up at the ceiling. It was unbroken. But that was to be expected. They looked down at the floor. No sign of any blade. There was nothing in the big industrial-size washing machines except hospital laundry.
"The basement!" said Chiun.
Exiting, they warned the laundry-room staff to stay out of the room until told otherwise. They looked more than happy to comply.
They bumped into Harold Smith as he stepped out of the elevator.
"We think it's in the basement," said Remo. Smith nodded.
They took the stairs. At the foot of the creaky wood-plank steps, Smith flicked on the lights.
He didn't get much in the way of illumination.
"You know, you might have sprung for light bulbs brighter than twenty-five watts," Remo said.
"This is not a work area," said Smith.
They searched the basement and found nothing.
"It has dropped into the very earth itself," Chiun intoned. "Never to be seen again."
"What's directly under the laundry room?" Remo asked Smith.
Smith blinked up at the pipework radiating from the big boilers and furnaces that supplied Folcroft with heat and steam. He seemed to be reading them like a map.
"The computers!" Smith gasped. Hastily he took a key ring from his vest and strode to a concrete wall broken by a wooden door.
Unlocking the door, he opened it. A steady industrial humming became audible. Reaching in, Smith tugged at a drop cord, and a dangling naked light bulb came on-another twenty-five-watter.
They entered.
The room was a small space crammed with mainframe computers and short jukeboxlike optical WORM drive slave units. They were the source of the low humming-and the heart of CURE's information-gathering network.
In the center of the floor, looking as solid as the concrete on which it lay, sat the katana blade.
Gingerly they surrounded it.
"Looks solid to me," Remo said.
"Looks can be deceiving," Chiun warned.
Smith bent down and touched it. Feeling substance, he picked it up.
"Solid one minute and then the next not," he murmured.
Remo nodded. "Just like in Nebraska."
"Pressing the button caused it to dematerialize," said Smith.
"What caused it to undematerialize?" asked Remo.
"Sorcery," said Chiun.
"There is a logical, scientific explanation for this phenomenon," Smith insisted, "and I intend to discover it."
BACK IN SMITH'S OFFICE, the two katana swords lay on the black-glass-topped desk.
"Matter obeys fixed laws," said Smith.
"Sorcery obeys others," suggested Chiun.
He was ignored.
Leaving the second katana blade, Smith picked up the first. He pressed the button. Nothing happened.
"A button suggests what, Remo?"
"Turning something on or off, I guess."
"And that suggests. . ."
"Electricity."
"Exactly." Smith held up the end of the hilt, examining it carefully. He squeezed. He pushed. He pulled. But he obtained no result.
"You're not looking for batteries, are you?" asked Remo.
Chiun said, "The white mind is like a runaway train. It always follows the same track. Emperor, this is beyond your plodding white science. Do not attempt to fathom what you cannot comprehend."
"Let me try;" suggested Remo.
Smith handed over the katana.
Remo looked over the blade hilt.
"Feels pretty solid to me," said Remo, hefting it.
Chiun bustled up, saying, "Therefore, it is not."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That I am correct and you are not."
"Who lost the ronin in the cornfield?"
And while they were arguing, Remo squeezed the hilt and the end popped open like a flashlight.
Instinct caused Remo to release the hilt. Both he and Chiun flew to opposite sides of the room before the blade struck the floor. It bounced, and out from the open hilt spilled a train of short yellow cylinders.
Smith was coming around from behind his desk as Remo and Chiun approached the fallen blade with caution.
Smith picked up one of the cylinders. "A battery," he said.
"What make?"
Smith blinked. "I cannot read it."
Chiun took it from Smith hands. "Japanese! I was right! Look, Smith, it is Japanese."
"What is the brand name?"
"Who cares? It is Japanese. That is all that matters."
"I would like to know the brand name, please."
Chiun read the label.
"Gomi."
Returning to his desk, Smith got his computer up and running.
"What are you doing?"
"Researching the Gomi brand name."
"What good will that do?" asked Remo.
"The power required to enable that blade to defy scientific law is not likely to be something one purchases off the shelf. These batteries are specially made."
"For katanas?"
Smith nodded. "For katanas."
A minute later Smith said, "Gomi is the industrial brand name for Gomi products, and the brands Gomi and Hideo are connected to Nishitsu."
"Hideo was the name of the dozing yellow bull of Mystic," Chiun crowed.
"He means the bulldozer that was parked on the tracks at Mystic," explained Remo.
"Remo," Smith said slowly. "Has it occurred to you that everything we have seen so far can be explained by the technology we know to have been pioneered by the Nishitsu Industrial Electrical Corporation?"
"Yeah, it has. But this guy isn't the Krahseevah."
"Do not speak that hateful name," said Chiun.
"We have twice before dealt with a foreign spy who was sent to this country to pilfer industrial and military secrets."
"Tell me about it. But that was a Russian kleptomaniac, tricked out in an electronic suit that gave him the power to walk through walls. He was a thief, but he never hurt anyone. Besides, he's dead as far as we know."
"What we know is very little. But the electronic garment he wore was designed by Nishitsu Osaka. And if they built one, they could duplicate it."
"The only time the Nishitsu name has come up in this was when the Southern Pacific train hit a Nishitsu Ninja," Remo pointed out.
Chiun smiled broadly. "It all now makes supreme sense."
"It does?" Remo and Smith said together.
"Yes. Emperor, your rails are under attack by the scheming Japanese. It is obviously part of a plot to humble your mighty nation."
Remo looked at Chiun with a vague, incredulous expression. "What happened to the finger-flicking ghost ronin?" he blurted.
Chiun composed his face into bland lines. "Do not be absurd, Remo. Whoever heard of a ghost whose sword required batteries?"
"I'll let that pass because I like clinging to my sanity. So answer me this-how does wrecking our railroads bring the U.S. to its knees?" Remo wanted to know.
"That is so obvious I will not deign to answer it," Chiun sniffed, presenting his back to Remo.
Remo and Smith exchanged glances.
"Actually it's as good a theory as we have right now," Remo admitted.
Chiun beamed. They were learning wisdom. It was almost enough to take his mind off his missing fingernail.
Smith was opening the first katana when his computer beeped.
He went to it. Remo came around when he saw the color of Smith's face go from light gray to ghost white.
"Another derailment?"
"Yes. A Conrail freight and an Amtrak passenger train. In Maryland."
"Anyone hurt?"
"Unknown at this time. Strange. This is very strange."