"This bee can do anything an ordinary bee can do except pollinate flowers. And I wouldn't doubt for a minute it could perform that function, as well."
"Dr. Roache, what you have told me must remain classified until you have been cleared to release it to the public."
"I assume I will be allowed to author a paper on my discovery," Roache said huffily.
"You will. Assuming you find a safe and secure place to hide. Several people have already died so that the secret you have uncovered does not leak out to the world."
"Who would want to kill me?" Roache asked indignantly.
"The genius who devised that insidious little creature."
"It's a machine, actually. Not a creature."
"It has killed and will kill again," Smith warned.
"Oh," said Dr. B. Eugene Roache. "I think I'd better be going now."
"You do that," said Harold Smith. No sooner had he hung up than the phone rang again. He brought it back to his face.
"Yes, Remo?"
"We hit the jackpot. Our man's here. He's in town attending a comic-book convention."
"Ridiculous!" snapped Smith.
"No argument there," agreed Remo. "But listen before you jump to the wrong conclusion."
Smith waited. Remo explained everything that happened from the daylight murder of Death Yellow jacket to their breaking into the hotel room rented to a Peter Pym.
Then Remo said, "We found a case filled with those death's-head bumblebees, and guess what?"
"They are mechanical," said Smith.
Remo's voice lost its note of satisfied triumph. "Yeah. How'd you guess?"
"I didn't. I have just heard from the USDA Honey Bee Center. The dissection showed the sample bee to be a nanobee."
"A what?"
"A nanobee."
Chiun's voice floated over the wire. "Emperor Smith is trying to tell you it is a not-bee, as I have said all along."
"What's a nanobee?"
"An ingenious form of nanomachine."
"Okay," said Remo. "I'll bite. What's a nanomachine?"
"A miniature device engineered on the microscopic level. It is a new branch of engineering. Already, there are microscopic machines capable of performing simple tasks. As the state of the art advances, more-complex devices are expected to come into existence that will allow doctors to perform microsurgery by introducing miniature robots into a patient's body. Or, like an enzyme attacking a biological structure, nanomachines like those that are tearing through America's standing crops might safety demolish obsolete skyscrapers without high explosives."
"The little one-eyed bugs are machines, too?" Remo blurted.
"Obviously. The bees are a cruder form of nanomachine, not as miniaturized but certainly as lethal, not to mention useful for spying."
Remo's voice grew thoughtful. "I guess that explains how all those bees were able to follow us and talk, too. They're robots."
"No doubt controlled by this Bee-Master through radio signals," added Smith. "One assumes the country has been seeded with them."
"Well, I guess that explains that. Now we just have to mop this guy up without getting ourselves chewed alive."
"That will not be easy, Remo," Smith warned.
"You're telling me. Know anything that can jam his frequency?"
"Not without knowing much more about his equipment."
"I was afraid you were going to say that." Remo's voice was distant as he asked, "Any ideas, Little Father?"
"Ask Emperor Smith what an EpiPen is," came Chiun's squeaky voice.
"Chiun wants to know what an EpiPen is. He just found a big clear plastic pen in a drawer and it says EpiPen on the side."
Smith input the question into his ever-ready system. The answer came up instantly.
"An EpiPen is a syringe, not a pen," Smith said. "It is used to deliver epinephrine, an adrenaline."
Smith paused. When he spoke again, his voice was low and urgent.
"Remo, listen, EpiPens are carried by people who are highly allergic to bee stings. In the event of a stinging, they inject themselves in order to counteract the systemic symptoms of anaphylactic shock."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Remo said.
"That our Bee-Master is allergic to bee stings. Yes."
"Nice going, Little Father," Remo called to Chiun.
"It is nothing," returned the Master of Sinanju. "Any genius would have accomplished the same brilliant result."
"Remo, I think this affair can be resolved safely with no danger to Master Chiun or yourself."
"I'm thinking that, too," said Remo.
"Here is what I suggest you do ...."
Chapter 47
It was his hour of triumph.
It had been a long time coming, but at last it was here.
Peter Pym basked in the applause of the ballroom full of people as he accepted the pewter trophy giving him first prize in the twelfth-anniversary New York Comic Book Spectacular costume parade. And he deserved it. For his Bee-Master regalia wasn't only a faithful reproduction to the most minute detail, but it was fully functional, as well, from the suction-cup vacuum boots to the cybernetic helmet.
It was true that as Bee-Master he couldn't commune with actual living bees. But he had improved on the genius of the original Bee-Master concept. He created his own bees, more powerful, more formidable than any strain known to man or nature.
Now, walking offstage, clutching his trophy, he moved confidently through the crowd of his fellow comic-book fans to the glass elevator and his room.
It was nearly time to do the remote interview with Tamara Terrill of Fox Network News and announce to the world his demands. Demands that had been rudely ignored by the late publisher of the Sacramento Bee.
But Bee-Master would be ignored no more.
Pym ignored the rude stares of the common herd as he roved the hotel corridors. Let lesser mortals gawk as they would. In time, they would be forced to relinquish their dominance over the planet that rightfully belonged to its ultimate inheritors, the insect kingdom. A planet whose dominion would be returned to its proper lords, the crickets and the grasshoppers. The bees and the hornets.
And allied with them until the end of time, their true lord, Bee-Master.
It was a dream come true. A lifelong fantasy made flesh. And it had taken thirty grueling years to bring to fruit ever since that glorious spring day in 1962 when he had picked up his first issue of Tales to Amaze You and was enthralled by the cataclysmic exploits of the one and only Bee-Master.
Coming to his door, he inserted the plastic magnetic pass card, extracted it and twisted the knob when the red light turned green.
He closed the door after him.
Immediately, he sensed something was amiss.
His every insectoid sense went to red alert. His antennae quivered atop his helmet.
His new comic books were out of order. Perhaps it had been the hotel housekeeper.
Then Pym saw his box of death's-head bees lying open and strewed about the floor.
"Someone will pay for this," he said, dropping to one knee on the rug.
Every bee was destroyed. Each exquisite gem of miniaturized technology, pulped as if they were nothing more than winged raisins.
Slowly, fists clenched, he climbed to his feet, standing tall and proud in his Bee-Master uniform.
"I swear," he said, lifting a shaking black fist before his helmeted face, "to wreak my awesome vengeance on all who oppose me."
Then he smiled under his cybernetic helmet. He had always wanted to give that speech in real life. It was from Bizarre Bee-Master #3. The Crimson Cockroach issue.
From the closet, he detected a buzz. Low, curious, it sounded like one of his bumblebees had survived the heartless massacre.
Striding to the door, he laid one black-gloved hand on the doorknob. As he pulled the door open, he narrowed his eyes behind his scarlet eye lenses. If one of his bees was still alive, he should be able to receive its visual-telemetry signal and see exactly what the bee saw.