Chapter 10

  The BioBubble event was the best thing to happen to astronomer Cosmo Pagan since he'd married his third wife. Or the Galileo flyby. Or maybe Shoemaker-Levy colliding with Jupiter. It was hard to say, on a cosmic scale. All were pretty spectacular events in the Big Bang that was his terrestrial sojourn.

  Every time the heavens burst forth with a new wonder, or Cosmo Pagan fell in love, his career went up like a happy rocket. It was amazing. It was life affirming. It was exhilarating.

  And it all started around the time the Viking 1 probe landed on the red sands of Mars and began transmitting pictures of the dead planet's arid surface.

  Cosmo Pagan was an untenured astronomy professor in those days back at the University of Arizona. There, he met Stella, tawny, tenured and on the fast track, career-wise.

  "So how does a guy get tenure in a place like this?" Cosmo asked on their first date at the Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill outside Flagstaff, where they took turns looking up at red Mars through the same refractor Percival Lowell had used to study the canals of the Red Planet a century ago.

  "You earn it. Usually by publishing."

  Cosmo swallowed. "That sounds like work. I'm a people person. I do better in front of a class than on the printed page."

  "There isn't a back door to enter, you know," Stella reminded him.

  But Cosmo Pagan found one. First he married Stella Redstone, then after two years of marital stargazing, he popped the real question. "Why don't we collaborate on your next book?"

  "Why?"

  "Because you have tenure and I need it."

  Stella thought about it. She thought about it hard. She had a growing academic reputation to protect.

  "We'll give it a shot," she said guardedly. "But you have to pull your own weight."

  "Deal," said Cosmo, shaking hands with his wife of two years-three tops, if things worked out. He was already shtupping the occasional undergrad.

  They started with a strict division of labor, just as they did with the household dishes. Stella did the research, Cosmo the first draft and she the polish.

  But typing was not Cosmo Pagan's strong suit, and no one could read the smeary Sanskrit that passed for his penmanship.

  So they tried alternating chapters. Cosmo kept getting sick when his turn rolled around. Or he made Stella redo her chapter before he tackled his. The project fell further and further behind schedule.

  Then in exasperation, Stella pulled out of the project. "You write your damn book. I'll write mine."

  That's when Cosmo Pagan filed suit for divorce and his half of the book, as yet untitled.

  It took three months of protracted litigation, arguments over commas, theories and metaphors until Stella threw in the towel.

  "Look, just give me my freedom from that lazy leech," she told her lawyer. "He can have the book, the house, everything."

  When Universe was published, it sold better than anyone ever dreamed, earning Cosmo Pagan full tenure and a cool quarter-million dollars, an unheard-of sum for a popular-science textbook at that time.

  While the book was climbing the bestseller lists, Pagan received a telegram from his ex wife: "You turned my elegantly written prose into popular junk."

  Cosmo fired back an equally succinct reply. On a postcard. "Popular junk is the future of this country."

  When PBS approached Cosmo to adapt Universe for a twelve-part science special, Cosmo Pagan saw an opportunity undreamed of by tenured professors of astronomy.

  "I have to write it. And host it," he insisted to his agent.

  The PBS executive producer turned him down cold.

  "How can he do this?" Pagan asked his agent.

  "She. Her name's Venus. And she calls the shots over there."

  "Did you say Venus?"

  "Yeah. Venus Brown."

  "I never slept-I mean met a woman named after a planet," Cosmo said wonderingly. "Especially one as interesting as Venus. It's my second-favorite planet after Mars."

  So Cosmo Pagan asked her out. On the third date, he asked Venus Brown to marry him. She turned him down flat. It took two more tries until she succumbed to his boyish charm, but finally they were married in a brisk outdoor ceremony with the planets Mars and Venus hurtling through the evening sky overhead.

  On the honeymoon, after visiting multiple cataclysmic orgasms on his new bride, Cosmo Pagan popped the question again: "Let me write and host the show."

  "Why should I do that?" the newly named Venus Pagan asked.

  "Because I'm your husband and you want me to succeed in life," Cosmo answered with his usual boyish directness.

  She wrapped him up in a warm hug and said, "You already succeeded. Wildly. And repeatedly."

  "I need to succeed bigger. And better."

  "Let me sleep on it. Okay?"

  "I haven't given you the galactic orgasm yet."

  "Galactic orgasm?"

  "It's the one after you scream you can't handle another one," Cosmo explained. "The perturbations are marvelous."

  "Oh, really?"

  Three orgasms later, she said "Yes! Yes! Yes!" to the heavens, and Cosmo Pagan took that as his green light. And no morning-after protestations of temporary nuptial insanity were accepted.

  It was a wonderful marriage. It led to fame, wealth, a Tucson, Arizona, suburban home with its own private astronomical observatory where the seeing was best and more groupies than even a studiously handsome astronomy professor in the space age could ever wish for.

  It might have gone on forever and ever if Cosmo Pagan hadn't gotten caught in flagrante delicto.

  "We're done," Venus Pagan snapped after slapping Cosmo's face in both directions while the future unnamed third party in the divorce suit yanked on her panties.

  "You can't divorce me," Cosmo blurted.

  "Why not?"

  "Think of how our careers are intertwined."

  "What careers? You're famous. I'm a behind-the-scenes producer. You get all the glory. Hell, you hog it. I'm Mrs. Cosmo Pagan who gets thanked on the dedication page in small print."

  "Look," Pagan said, getting down on bended knee, "we have a lifetime of split royalties ahead of us. Don't tear that apart over one eager-beaver blonde."

  "You must be thinking of a prior beaver," Venus said tartly. "That was a brunette who just scampered away."

  Cosmo made his voice as serious as nature would allow. "I won't give up the house."

  "The Mars observatory, you mean. I'm sick of it. Don't think I don't know you point that kaleidoscope of yours at the neighbors' windows."

  "It's called a telescope. And what about the children?"

  "What children?"

  "The two asteroids orbiting the sun named after us. They're our celestial offspring. They'll be together long after we're gone."

  "Maybe they'll break up, too," Venus said thinly.

  And the door slammed.

  It might have been a career wrecker, except neat cosmic stuff kept happening. Comet Kohoutek.

  Comet Halley's return. The Challenger disaster. Shoemaker-Levy. Every time the cosmos hiccuped, Dr. Pagan was invited on news programs and talk shows to interpret the burp.

  When comet fragments struck Jupiter, Pagan was on the phone trying to convince the planetary society to strike the name Asteroid Venus until further notice.

  "We've never had a precedent for renaming an asteroid," he was told.

  "I can't orbit the solar system with my ex-wife for all eternity," Pagan lamented. "Think of how bad it looks. Besides, I'll probably remarry. Just leave the name blank until then. I guarantee my next new wife will be worthy of celestial immortality."

  The response was disappointing: "No. Sorry. Not even for you."

  Hanging up, Dr. Pagan silently vowed to get around the galactic red tape somehow.

  He found it while flipping through interview requests from news organizations interested in interviewing him on the Jupiter-impact event.

  A name both familiar and unfamiliar leaped out at him.

  "Who's this Venus Mango?" he asked his secretary.

  "CNN reporter."

  "Is she cute?"

  "Depends on your taste."

  "Is she up and coming?"

  "Yes."

  "Tell her we're on."

  Venus Mango was in fact what Pagan liked to call a heavenly body. And she was science editor for CNN.

  She knew the Crab Nebula from the Trifid, and recognized over fifty other Messier objects. That made them compatible in Cosmo Pagan's eyes.

  Dr. Pagan invited her to dinner after the interview. Of course, she accepted. Who wouldn't say yes to the famous boyish face, the erudite manner and easily tousled hair?

  "Marry me," Cosmo asked in the middle of dessert, a red Jell-O dome with black-licorice decorations that Cosmo called Martian Moon Jelly.

  "What!"

  "I love you, Venus."

  "You say 'Venus' as if you've been saying it all your life."

  "Marry me and I promise to have an asteroid named after you," Cosmo promised.

  The future Venus Pagan said yes in the second hour of their first date. They were married by the weekend, and Cosmo Pagan proudly showed her the documentation on their honeymoon at China's Purple Mountain Observatory by the light of a nifty lunar eclipse.

  "Why is this dated ten years ago?" Venus asked.

  "I had a premonition."

  Venus Pagan wept openly. "This is the most amazing thing any man has ever done for me."

  "Wait'll you experience the galactic orgasm."

  Venus Pagan in truth didn't so much advance Cosmo Pagan's career as she maintained it. Cosmo decided to settle for that. He wasn't a spring chicken anymore. There was an actual worry line seaming his high forehead now. Fortunately on-camera makeup shielded his adoring public from the unnerving sight.

  Besides, how high could an astronomer go?

  For the first time in his life, Cosmo Pagan was content to settle down for the easy ride.

  This year was turning out to be a comet year. Hayakute II. Then Hale-Bopp. The public lapped it up, and Dr. Pagan was only too happy to feed their curiosity.

  So when the BioBubble burst, it was just another cosmic event engineered to further that career, and a break from explaining the Oort Cloud for the gazillionth time.

  The phone began ringing off the hook immediately. Of course, the first call he returned was Venus's. Cosmo was no fool. Where was he going to find another earthbound Venus who could do anything for his career?

  By the next morning, he was quoted in virtually every newspaper and TV news program in the nation and beyond.

  This time he discovered they played it for laughs.

  " 'Someone up there doesn't like us'?" he sputtered, reading back his own quote. "Everyone used that comment! It was a throwaway. I gave a detailed, reasoned, poetic analysis, and they print a side-of-the-mouth attempt at levity?"

  "You gave a windy speech to a TV camera," Venus returned. "You know better. All TV wants is soundbites."

  "I'm used to having a forum," Cosmo lamented. "And editorial control."

  "Not this time, honey. Get over it."

  But Dr. Cosmo Pagan wasn't about to get over it. Twenty-five years of popularizing astronomy and the heavens had made him famous from Anchorage to Asia, but one last honor still eluded him.

  Respect from his fellow astronomers. They hated him to a man.

  "I have to do something about this," he fumed.

  "Why bother? The story has a half life of maybe three days."

  "I'm going to the BioBubble."

  "I won't recommend being tied to this one. The BioBubble is a joke. You said so yourself."

  "That was when it first started. I've since changed my mind," he growled.

  "Suit yourself."

  And Dr. Pagan did. He drove his Mars red Saturn with the license plate that read BARSOOM-1 to the Martian-like landscape of Dodona, Arizona, and stole the spotlight out from under the BioBubble people.

  By the time he had returned home, the ink was drying on the print-media story.

  " 'Dr. Pagan says Martians crushed BioBubble!'" he screamed. "I never said that!"

  "I saw it on CNN," Venus said. "You came darn close."

  "I said visitors from outer space. I was being poetic. By 'visitor,' I meant an asteroid or meteor. Not little green men!"

  "Nobody says 'little green men' anymore. They say 'grays' now."

  "I don't believe in that UFO conspiracy crap."

  "You don't believe in the current shuttle program, either."

  "Listen, there's an entire cosmos out there I'll never get to explore at the current technological rate. We went to the moon. It was a dusty rock. Big deal. The next logical step is Mars. But do we take it? No. We just send these stupid space trucks into low Earth orbit and bring them back. I'd rather see deep-space probes, sending back images that I can see in this lifetime. Screw the shuttle. They won't get to Mars until after they sprinkle my ashes in Tunguska."

  "You said visitors. They took you literally. Relax. By the time Hale-Bopp comes back, this will all be forgotten."

  Dr. Cosmo Pagan screamed like a cow in distress. "I'm going to be pilloried by every astronomy society on the planet. And beyond."

  "Poor baby," Venus II said, hugging him tightly. "Look at it this way-at least you still have me. And we'll orbit the sun until the end of time."

  "I need some face time."

  "I need some suck-face time," his wife returned, pinching his boyish cheek.

  Cosmo considered this. "Trade?"

  "Throw in a galactic orgasm. I haven't had one in moons."

  "That's going to take all night, knowing you."

  "What will a few hours' delay cost you?" Venus said, giving his hair a muss and starting to pop his shirt buttons with her strong white teeth.

  Chapter 11

  On a beach in Cancun, a pale man in a Speedo bathing suit lounged on a candy-cane folding beach chair as turquoise waves creamed against the pristine sands. Unfolding his laptop, he booted up his system and began typing. To: R From: RM@qnm.com Subject: Current project status. Update, please. The reply took twenty minutes, even by e-mail. In that time, his skin began to burn. And remembering how fragile the ozone shield had gotten in the past eleven years, he applied supersunblock to every exposed area. He smeared his forearms as he read.

  To: RM@qnm.com From: R Subject: Update No feedback from corporate. Media currently ascribing event to space aliens. Specifically Martians determined to nip planned NASA Mars colony in the bud.

  The fingers, greasy with sunblock, pecked out a response.

  To: R From: RM@qnm.com Subject: Update Sounds good. Go with it.

  The reply came back almost instantly through the miracle of orbiting communications satellites: "What do you mean, go with it?"

  Greasy fingers went to work: "Encourage media's thinking."

  The reply: "How?"

  To which, the greasy fingers typed: "That's your job. If you can't do it, I'll find someone who can."

  A long time-by information-age standards-passed before the next e-mail appeared on the laptop screen. Actually it was only twelve minutes.

  To: RM@qnm.com From: R Subject: Directive What about legal ramifications?

  The man on the beach snapped out an impatient response:

  To: R From: RM@qnm.com Subject: Re: Directive You're protected by the corporate shield. Do what's best for the corporation.

  There was no response to that, and the pale hands powered down the laptop, folded it up and went back to enjoying vacation.

  After a while, the pale man on the beach threw on a gaudy Hawaiian shirt. With all that UV radiation pouring down from the sky, there was no sense in taking chances. Basal-cell skin-cancer rates over the last decade had skyrocketed higher than the stock market.

  Chapter 12

  Somewhere over the Ozarks, Remo Williams leafed through a newspaper.

  "It says here that Hale-Bopp was last seen three thousand years ago."

  "How do they know this?" demanded Chiun.

  "Search me. It orbits the sun, and once every three thousand years or so, it comes within sight of the earth." Remo frowned. "Who was Master three thousand years ago?"

  "If you were a true Master of Sinanju, you would not need to ask such a question." "I know the lineage of the Masters. I can recite almost every Master's name, but I can't reconcile them with Western dating."

  Chiun puckered up his facial wrinkles. "Yes. Of course."

  "What do you mean, of course?"

  "You were raised to worship the crucified carpenter. To those of your doubtful creed, the universe began only two thousand years ago."

  "That's not true-" Remo started to protest.

  "Before the carpenter, there was nothing. All was darkness, without form, without light, without substance," Chiun said bitterly.

  "That's not how it works. There was a time before Jesus. We just count the years backward from that point. Three B. C. is three years Before Christ."

  "We count forward from Tangun, who created the first Korean. That was five thousand years ago. Before then, no one was."

  "According to modern science, man has been around for about three million years or so."

  "Your hairy-ape ancestors, perhaps. But not Koreans. We came along to rectify the wrongs done to this world by your simian forebears."

  Remo started to protest, but decided it wasn't worth it. They had had this argument before. Instead, he changed the subject. "How's the nail?" he asked.

  Chiun winced painfully.

  For several months, he had been wearing the hornlike jade nail protector to guard his maimed right index fingernail, which had been sliced off by a foe wielding a supersword. It was unheard-of for a modern Master of Sinanju to be bested in close combat. Chiun was still sensitive about it.

  "It grows apace," he said aridly.

  "Good."

  "But it lacks its full length yet. Thus, I am forced to wear this."

  "It goes with the kimono."

  "That is the problem. I am forced to wear only kimonos whose colors harmonize with jade. I have not worn my royal purple kimono in months. The black lies folded in darkness, wondering if it has been abandoned forever. The cinnabar wilts from disuse. The pink-"