"Forgot to phone Smith."
"Emperor Smith may wait. It will gladden his heart that we have returned to safeguard his beleaguered shores."
"Hope he dug up something useful, or we went a long way for nothing."
"Smith's oracles are almost infallible."
"Speaking of failure, Colonel Rushenko should be worm food about now."
"If you struck the Blow of Delayed Peace correctly . . ."
"Right between the shoulder blades. He'll never know what snuffed him."
"It serves him right for ordering my death," Chiun sniffed. "It was inconsiderate, not to mention foolhardy."
"Wake me up when we're on the ground." And Remo dropped off to catch some much-needed rest.
Somewhere over the dark Atlantic, he awoke to find the Master of Sinanju looking out into the night sky.
"Star gazing?" he asked.
"I am watching for the sun dragon."
"Feel free."
"Sun dragons and arrow stars are harbingers of disaster, Remo."
"Show me a time when there weren't disasters. Comets don't affect events on earth. That's as squirrelly as astrology."
"Spoken like a true Virgo," sniffed Chiun. His nose was to the glass, his hazel eyes questing.
A thin line of light against the night caused his eyes to open up. Then they subsided.
"What was that?" asked Remo.
"Only a dung star."
"A what?"
"You would call it a meteor."
"Why is it called a dung star?"
"Because it is known to Koreans that so-called meteors are but the falling dung of true stars. And not to be confused with sun dragons."
"Korean astronomy sounds as screwy as astrology-"
"You will speak differently should you confront the sun dragon."
"Never happen."
Chiun's eyes became reflective. "Remo, you asked me if there were any legends attending the reign of Master Salbyol. There was one."
"I'm listening."
"It was prophesied that when the sun dragon next returned, the Master at that time would ascend into the Void to do battle with the awesome beast."
"Reigning Master or just Master?" asked Remo.
"The prophecy omitted that stipulation. But obviously Salbyol had to have meant Reigning Master. For he is the more important of the two."
"So you figure you're going to climb into the Void to fight a comet?" said Remo.
"Sun dragon. But that is not what worries me. For those who enter the Void, as you know, do not return to the living." Chiun's voice was hollow. "Remo, I am not yet prepared to die."
"How did Salbyol come up with this prediction?"
"How else? By consulting the stars."
Remo snorted. "If Korean astrology is anything like Korean astronomy, you don't have a thing to worry about."
Chiun grew deep of voice. "You are wrong. For I have felt the hot breath of the sun dragon, and you have felt it, too," said the Master of Sinanju, padding off the the rear of the cabin to be alone with his unspoken thoughts.
Remo let him be. He figured they'd both cross that bridge when it presented itself to them.
Chapter 36
At the SPACETRACK nerve center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, all eyes, electronic or otherwise, were on Object 617, which was just sweeping down from the North Pole on its periodic polar path.
This time its orbit would take it over western Europe. Its last two orbits had covered the flat heart of the Asian republics on Russia's eastern flank, where SPACETRACK had no ground cameras and NATO had no eyes.
It was while Object 617 was approaching France that its radar signature abruptly shifted.
"Major, it's moving," a radar technician said.
Any eye that wasn't on Object 617 now shifted to track it on the giant projection screen with its Mercator projection of Earth's orbital envelope. Over eight thousand objects, ranging from one yard in size to space junk as small as a pea, each tagged by a green ID number, were displayed and accounted for. Object 617 had been designated a highest priority, and its radar blip was flashing red.
Amid the sea of phosphor green objects, it stood out like a bloodshot eye.
Object 617 was changing position. Its path was taking it toward the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.
"That thing is maneuverable," the major growled.
"It's also coming into GEODES acquisition range, sir."
GEODSS was the ground-camera backup to SPACETRACK's radar net. Grabbing a dedicated line, the major put in a call to his counterpart at GEODES.
"See if you can grab it," the SPACTRACK major told the GEODSS major.
"Will do, Major."
At GEODSS headquarters, secure international phone lines were worked until the word came back.
"Finland has it, Major. The picture is coming in now."
GEODSS had its own giant screen, and the feed displayed the mysterious orbital object as it shifted over the Atlantic.
"Will it pass over the continental U.S.?" the GEODES major barked.
A technician shook his head. "Not this orbit. But on the next, for sure."
"How long?"
"Give it ninety minutes."
"I gotta tell the President," said the GEODES major, grabbing another dedicated line whose plastic contours felt slick under his perspiring palm.
THE CALL FROM GEODSS did not go directly to the White House. It had to go through channels. After twenty minutes, an Air Force general at the Pentagon told the secretary of the air force, who called the secretary of defense, who took the intelligence to the President personally. Getting through District of Columbia traffic ate another twenty precious minutes.
The President sat heavily in his chair in the Oval Office at the end of the defense secretary's grim recitation.
"Will it pass over Washington?" he croaked.
"It can."
"Do we know what it is yet?"
"No. It's just a dark ball. But in its present orbital orientation, we can see only the Earth-facing side of it."
"We're going to have to shoot it down," said the President. "We can't wait for it to strike again. We have to shoot it down."
"We can't," snapped the secretary of defense.
"What do you mean, can't?"
"Not without starting a war with the Russians."
"If it's a Russian satellite, the war has already started."
"We don't know that."
"If it's not Russian, then why should they care?"
The secretary of defense wore the face of a man who has discovered himself trapped in an inescapable box.
"The technology exists. We have an antisatellite missile that can be rigged up for launching from a high-flying F-15. Or maybe it's an F-16. We just have to attach a special launch rack. But deployment of weapons in space is specifically prohibited by the START treaty. "
"It is?"
"Absolutely. The Russians are cosignatories on that treaty. If we violate it, all of space may be militarized. And given the shifting geopolitical sands over there, don't think there aren't a pack of Kremlin hard-liners only too happy to start a new arms race in space."
"Maybe that's it," the President breathed.
"Sir?"
"Maybe they want to provoke us into attacking this doomsday satellite. To get us to violate START so they can militarize space."
"It's a theory ...."
The President took his graying head in his hands and hung it in agony. "All we have is theories. And the doomsday clock is ticking. What if they're out to attack Washington?"
"If they are, we're sitting ducks here. There's no defense except a preemptive strike." The secretary of defense paused and in a voice made thick by controlled emotion, asked, "Mr. President, are you ordering such a strike at this time?"
The President of the United States stared at his own dazed reflection in the desk surface a very long time before he opened his mouth to answer.
IN Moscow, Major-General Iyona Stankevitch of the FSK put down his third glass of vodka and buzzed his secretary.