"Come in," he called, clearing the gravelly sleep from his throat.
The wide face of Eileen Mikulka, Harold Smith's secretary, peeked into the small room. "Good evening, Mr. Howard," she said cheerily. "I was just passing by on my way home and I thought I'd remind you about your meeting with Dr. Smith."
Mark smiled. "I know. Thanks, Mrs. M."
She warmed to the familiarity. Assistant Director Howard was such a nice young man. Not that her employer, Dr. Smith, didn't have his good qualities. It was just that it was nice to have such a pleasant young fellow at Folcroft.
"He's a stickler for punctuality," she said. "Which isn't a bad thing. It's just the way he is. Anyway, I wouldn't want you to get in trouble."
"You're a little late for that," Mark said quietly, sitting up. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Standing in the doorway, Smith's secretary smiled.
"You'll do fine here," Mrs. Mikulka promised. She cast a glance at Howard's desk. "It seems funny to see that again after all these years," she commented. "That was Dr. Smith's desk for such a long time. I was surprised when he had me send workers to bring it up from the cellar for you. I didn't know he'd kept it. It isn't like Dr. Smith to be sentimental over something like a dirty old desk. I guess it just shows that you can never know everything there is to know about a person. Good night, Mr. Howard." She backed from the small office and shut the door. After she was gone, Mark Howard nodded silent agreement.
"Not if you want to live to tell about it," he said softly.
Shaking the cobwebs from his brain, Mark got to his feet, struggling around the desk that was far too big for the cramped room.
THE SUN HAD SET over Folcroft. Outside the sanitarium windows it was almost dark as Mark made his way through the administrative wing of the building. He met only one other employee, an elderly janitor with a bucket and a mop.
As far as staff was concerned, night wasn't much different than day. Dr. Smith limited the staff in this wing of the facility to a skeleton crew. The fewer eyes to see what was going on, the better.
The way Smith told it, either he or his secretary could handle Folcroft's affairs virtually alone. When he had mentioned this fact to Howard, it was the only time Mark had seen the old man express real pride in his work.
So while the doctors and nurses and orderlies worked in the medical wing, Mark Howard generally walked alone through the empty second-floor hallways.
This night, the emptiness was unnerving.
As he made his way up the hall, he tried to soften his own footfalls in an attempt to keep from reminding himself of his disturbing recurring dream. He was grateful for the muffling effect of Smith's drab reception-room carpeting.
On his way to the office door, Mark glanced at his wristwatch.
"Uh-oh," he said when he saw that it was four minutes after six.
Expecting to be chewed out for his tardiness, he rapped a gentle knuckle on the door even as he pushed it open.
As usual Smith sat behind his broad desk. Through the one-way picture window behind the CURE director, the thinning black trees of Folcroft's back lawn surrendered their burden of dark leaves to dusk. Beyond the trees the choppy waves of Long Island Sound were gray and cold. At the same time in a few short days, the end of daylight savings time would bring nightfall an hour sooner.
Smith's face was stern.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Mark said as he clicked the door shut. "It won't happen again."
He was surprised when Smith did not so much as raise a disapproving eyebrow. His hard expression never wavering, the CURE director beckoned the young man forward.
"Is something wrong?" Mark asked as he slipped into his usual straight-backed chair.
"The report you got this afternoon on the metal fragment Remo found in Florida," Smith said, not answering the question. "The results were conclusive?"
It was an odd question. They had discussed the lab report only an hour before. Afterward Smith had said that he was going to do some research. By the sounds of it, he had found something that was not to his liking.
"Yes," Mark replied. "It was a special alloy created to be virtually impervious to intense heat and chemical abrasion." He shook his head, confused. "Is everything all right, Dr. Smith? I sent it by courier to one of your approved labs. If you want it retested, I can send it to one of the others."
"The lab is not the problem," Smith said darkly. He sank back in his chair, a dim shadow in his gloomy office.
Howard detected something in the older man's tone he had never heard before. It was deep concern. Bordering on fear.
"I have been doing some digging," Smith said somberly. "There are few applications for such an alloy. Since one is space exploration, proximity obviously dictated that I should start with NASA. I have concluded that this is indeed the likeliest source."
"Remo said they couldn't identify it," Howard frowned.
Smith was not dissuaded. "That is unlikely," he said. "Look at this." He pulled his chair in tight to his desk. The old man looked down over his monitor like a modern sorcerer searching for augers in the realm of cyberspace.
Curious, Mark circled around the desk.
On the monitor was a picture Smith had found at a science magazine's Web site.
The subject of the photograph was a giant robotic spider. Underneath the picture a caption identified it as the Virgil probe, part of a new generation of NASA space-exploration technology. Technical data filled the screen all around the picture. Small images of Neptune and Venus had been plugged in around Virgil, red arrows detailing atmospheric and climatic information.
Knuckles leaning on the lip of the desk, Howard glanced down at Smith.
"I don't think that's what we're after, Dr. Smith," Mark cautioned slowly.
"You are correct," Smith said gravely. "Our adversary is far more dangerous than any of us realized." He glanced up at Howard. "You have analyzed some of CURE's operations database. Have you reached the section on Mr. Gordons?"
Mark shook his head. "I don't think so," he admitted. "What's his first name?" he asked, hoping to jog his memory.
"He-or rather, it-doesn't have one," Smith explained. "Gordons is an artificially created entity built by the space program. He has the form of a man, but he is not human. He was meant to be utilized for interstellar exploration, but he escaped from his lab years ago and has been at large ever since. CURE has encountered him on numerous occasions over the course of the last two and a half decades."
As he stood beside Smith, Mark Howard's face was perfectly flat. Moving only his eyes, he looked from the picture of the Virgil probe to the CURE director's serious face.
"I'm not sure what to make of this, Dr. Smith," he ventured cautiously.
"I know it sounds absurd," Smith agreed, "but you need only review the material we have collected on Gordons to see that it is true. In point of fact, science has nearly caught up with his design in the years since his creation. There have been great advances in robotics, computer science, artificial intelligence and miniaturization. At the time of his creation he might have seemed like science fiction, but science fact is rapidly catching up with him."
Mark already knew from experience that CURE dealt with things that seemed somewhat out of the ordinary. And the truth was Mark Howard himself somewhat fit the mold of extranormal phenomena.
"All right," he offered. "I'll review the Gordons data. But if what you're saying is true, he'd technically be an android. A machine in human form. What does he have to do with this?" He nodded to the image on the computer.
"Gordons is more than just a simple android," Smith said, exhaling. "He was programmed to survive. It is a command that supersedes all others. In his quest to survive, he is able to assimilate all materials from his environment necessary to fulfill that function. During Remo and Chiun's last encounter with him six years ago, they disposed of Gordons's brain housing in a Mexican volcano. At the time I had hoped that his metallic components would melt in the magma. If not, it would not matter so much, for he was finally isolated. Left in a place where there was no hope of assimilating the material, he would need to remake himself."
In a flash Howard had a moment of intuitive clarity.
"The Virgil probe," the young man announced. "It's supposed to be used on hostile planets. They would have had to simulate an alien environment to see if it worked. NASA must have brought it to that volcano for testing." He nodded to himself, not waiting for a response. "They sent it down there and it found something it didn't expect. Whatever was left of your Mr. Gordons must have assimilated the probe."
"It appears that is the case," Smith agreed. "I have reviewed NASA's internal data. They brought Virgil to the Popocatepetl volcano late last week. It was only a few days after it was brought back to the United States that the first spider sighting took place in Florida. I am almost certain we are dealing with Gordons." He glanced up at Howard. "However, Remo and Chiun are unaware it is him."
The assistant CURE director's brow creased. "But they'll be safe, right?" he asked, his voice troubled. "I mean, they've beaten this thing before."