"Dr. St. Clair," Amanda said. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm late, aren't I?"
Although Remo had never met him before, there was something familiar about the man at the door.
The turtleneck, the jacket with the elbow patches, the bizarre lump of combed-over hair.
"I got worried when you didn't show up at the greenhouse," Hubert St. Clair said. He was eyeing Remo and Chiun. "Hello."
"What's that on your head?" Remo asked.
Amanda shot to her feet. "These are private bodyguards," she explained quickly. "My father hired them to protect me."
"Ah," St. Clair said. His eyes twitched back and forth between the two Sinanju Masters. "This has to do with your theory. It's groundless, I'm sure. We've just had a string of bad luck here at the CCS. Nothing sinister here at all."
"I wish I could be so sure," Amanda said.
"Tell you what," St. Clair said. "I've got something I need to show you in the greenhouse. You can try to convince me something's wrong on the way there. Your friends are welcome to come along."
Remo shot the Master of Sinanju a glance. The old man, too, had detected the anxious undertone in Hubert St. Clair's voice.
"What the hell," Remo said. "I'd like to see the thing that's going to kill us all."
Amanda gave him a silencing glare.
The four of them left the office together. Amanda and St. Clair led the way, she insisting that something nefarious was going on at the CCS. Remo and Chiun followed.
The main CCS complex fed into an ultramodern corridor that looked like an oversize version of the plastic tubes hamsters run through. The clear hallway led to a blockish structure that was attached to the side of the greenhouse.
Hubert St. Clair had wrapped a handkerchief tight around his finger by the time they reached the doors. As he led them through both sets of doors, both Remo and Chiun noticed his agitation-level rising. It seemed to have more to do with their high-tech environment than anything else.
When the second set of doors slid open, revealing the vast interior of the greenhouse, Amanda Lifton let out a shocked gasp.
"The trees!" she cried.
In the center of the huge room were the remains of the only existing C. dioxas. The trees had been chainsawed. The trunks sat in a tangled pile of limbs on the floor. Soft blue leaves revealed pale undersides, drooping in withering clumps. Naked stumps spotted otherwise bare planting beds.
There was still a sharp taste of ammonia in the air. Amanda ran inside the greenhouse.
"I'm sorry, Amanda," St. Clair said as the rest of them crossed over to the remains of the C. dioxas. "I had to have them destroyed. While I don't think there's anything sinister going on, with all the terrible coincidences that have hit your team, there wasn't anyone left to see to it that the proper safeguards were maintained. It was too dangerous to allow them to live."
"I'm still here," Amanda insisted.
"Yes, you are," St. Clair said vaguely. "Would you excuse me for a moment? I have to make an important call."
With a tight smile plastered unnaturally across his face, he headed for the door.
Chiun's eyes trailed him suspiciously.
Amanda dropped to her knees next to the pile of blue wood. "Six years of my life, gone," she moaned.
With slender fingers she caressed a wilted blue leave.
"Yeah, that's rough," Remo said, unconcerned. Hands on his hips, he was looking around the big chamber. "What kind of greenhouse is this? It isn't even hot in here."
The skylights were rolled open, revealing a blue patch of clear Swiss sky. Glass pipes affixed with hundreds of nozzles latticed the vaulted ceiling.
"This is a natural climate as much as possible," Amanda replied sadly. She didn't look up at him as she spoke. "We keep it open to the elements when we can."
"So what's all that junk?" He waved a finger at the elaborate networks built into the ceiling.
"We can shut off the outside world and create any of dozens of microclimates of our own choosing in here," she explained. "All that is used to simulate the various environments. Mostly we just use it for watering the plants. Or used it," she corrected bitterly. "The C. dioxa cannot yet extract enough water to survive from the air. That would have come in future generations. Those nozzles provide seeding for the clouds."
"Get outta town," Remo said. "You grow actual clouds in here?"
Amanda didn't answer him. "I can't believe this is happening," she said to herself.
When Remo looked down he found her still crouching next to the trees. The panicked daddy's girl had fled, replaced for a moment with a coolly professional young woman.
Remo squatted beside her, taking a withered C. dioxa leaf between his fingers. It felt warm to the touch.
"It's hot," he said. He rubbed his fingertips together. They tingled.
"A chemical reaction," Amanda said absently. Her mind was somewhere else. "Actually, most people shouldn't be able to feel it. Where's Dr. St. Clair?" she asked, standing abruptly. "Maybe we can still salvage this somehow."
"That little twitchy guy?" Remo asked. "He just went out there to try to kill us or something. Hey, you ought to try touching one of these leaves, Little Father. It's pretty weird."
"What do you mean 'kill us'?" Amanda asked. Chiun was standing imperiously next to them, his eyes directed on the greenhouse control room. "My pale son is correct," the old Korean said. "That one means you harm."
"Are you two nuts?" Amanda said. "You're talking about Hubert St. Clair, the head of the Congress of Concerned Scientists. Oh, this is it. I'm calling Daddy. He probably got someone else to hire you for him. He has no idea he's throwing away perfectly good, potential trust-fund money on two flimflam-"
She was interrupted by a sudden loud clanking sound. It rattled throughout the greenhouse. When she looked up, she saw that the skylights were rumbling shut.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"First guess would be your boss trying not to kill you," Remo said blandly.
Amanda spun toward the greenhouse doors. Like the skylights, they were sliding shut. They closed, followed by the hiss of the hermetic seal inflating. Through the special plastic panel next to the closed doors, Amanda saw Hubert St. Clair sitting uncomfortably at the control panel. He held an interoffice phone gingerly to his ear.
Feeling the first thrill of worry, she hurried over to the door, Remo and Chiun in her wake.
"Hubert," she said into the speaker next to the door, "could you please open the doors? I'd like to get out now."
On the other side of the glass, St. Clair hung up the phone. He unwrapped the handkerchief from his hand.
"You've been a big help, Amanda," the CCS head said over the speaker. "The pristine world of the future will thank you for your contribution."
"Hubert?" she asked, worry changing to panic.
"Hubert!" she yelled when he got up and walked from the room.
The second set of doors slid shut, sealing the airtight outer chamber.
Eyes wide, Amanda wheeled on Remo and Chiun. "Told you he wanted to kill us," Remo said. Amanda couldn't believe what was happening.
"This is insane," she gasped. "Dr. Schumar died in here, but he was asphyxiated by the C. dioxas. The trees are all dead. They've stopped producing carbon dioxide or ammonia. What does he think he's doing?"
As if in response, a new mechanical sound echoed throughout the greenhouse. When they looked up, they saw the massive fans that were positioned high up on the walls chugging to life. At the same time, thick mist began pouring from a network of twisted cones.
"Mind telling me what that's all about?" Remo asked.
"I told you. It's for the clouds," Amanda explained. "They're part of the artificial-environment program."
Propelled by the fans, the mist was swirling into the center of the ceiling. The sky beyond the glass faded as the cloud cover thickened.