"Why?" asked Remo. He threw a kick, which Chiun easily blocked.
"Because she has been trying to set me against you, you against me."
"I think she's had the bacteria all the while," Remo said.
Chiun nodded and came at Remo with a multiple knife attack of the hands, in which the hands and forearms, held stiff, chopped at an opponent like the multiple blades of a knife, chopping vegetables. Remo blocked sixteen blows with the outsides of his wrists. Chiun threw a seventeenth, and when it was not blocked, he pulled it short and just flicked a fingernail at Remo's right earlobe.
"Dammit, that hurts," Remo said. "It is supposed to, idiot. If somebody else got through your defense so easily, he would not just tweak your ear."
"Chiun, there is nobody in the world besides you and me who can even throw those blows. There is no somebody else."
"That's what you say now," Chiun said. "At any rate, don't embarrass me. Try to make this look like a fight. The woman has had the anaerobic, but she did not produce it until today. I think her instructions were to set us against each other so that one would die, and then to kill the survivor. Or to bring the survivor to her master."
"Why don't I just twist it out of her?" Remo said. He launched into the pile-driver foot stroke, delivering nine rapid kicks. Chiun rolled down before them, and Remo's energy was spent splintering the wood of another tree.
"Because I have talked to the sheik," Chiun said. "She represents a friend of the sheik's, but a strange friend whom he has never met. She knows no more
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about him. I think she does not know who she is working for, so applying force to her will do nothing."
"I think her boss might be the guy back on the island who tried to get you to work for him. Remember? On the telephone?"
"Yes," said Chiun. He rushed at Remo, and they locked arms. In silhouette against the fading sky, they looked like two giant elks, tugging and pulling at each other. "And I think she got her instructions through that whatchamacallit," Chiun said, "while I was talking on the telephone."
"Computer terminal," Remo said.
"Yes. That," Chiun said. "I think you must find and kill her master, or forever we will face all manner of enemy."
"But why are we going through with this charade?" asked Remo, who rolled away from Chain's grasp, flipped, and landed lightly facing Chiun, who was again on him. He windmilled his arms meaninglessly over Remo's head. It looked ferocious, but all it did was fan Remo's face.
"I think if she believes me dead, she may be prepared to take you to her master. That is what you want," Chiun said.
"There's one thing I don't understand."
"That is a vast improvement over your usual amount of ignorance," Chiun said.
"If you are committed to being on the sheik's side, why are you on my side?"
"You are an idiot."
"Please stop calling me an idiot and explain things to me," Remo said.
"I don't know why I bother," Chiun said. "It is true I had an obligation to the sheik. But I checked that contract in the sheik's trunk. My obligation was to save his life and to afford him victory over his enemies. I did those things today. Nowhere in there does it say anything about my having to help him destroy oil with anaerobic. Nowhere in there, Remo. Oil is very important, Remo."
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Remo, suddenly suspicious, asked, "Why?"
"Because oil is used to make plastic. Plastic is used to make television sets. To make tapes to show pictures on those television sets. There are many things oil is good for." He tossed Remo through the air. Remo's body headed directly for the thick trunk of a tree, with force that would shatter his skull if it hit the unyielding wood. But in the air, Remo rolled his body over, and when he hit the tree, it was with his feet. He allowed his knees to bend, to cushion the shock of the impact, then pressed back with his legs and launched himself back through the air in the other direction. Chiun stood still and let Remo wrap an arm around him and bring him to the sand. He hissed into Remo's ear. "Quick, now, slash a blow into the sand alongside my head." Remo did.
"And again," Chiun said.
Remo did again.
"Then you will let them know that I am dead and that you are Master. And then tonight you will claim that woman, and she will tell you all you need to know. Use the short program."
"What will I do with you?" Remo asked.
"I certainly don't want to be in your tent when you are doing whatever disgusting thing it is you do with women to make them like you. You can put me back in my own tent. Tell them it is tradition that my body must be left alone, untouched, until my spirit soars to heaven. Tell them any nonsense. They're Arabs; they believe in fairy tales. And then tomorrow, we'll get out of this stupid place. Now, please, another hand blow. I don't want to die too easily."
Remo reared back, high, poised for a longer time than was necessary just to make sure that the spectators watching him through the trees could see his move. Then he plunged downward and jabbed his fingers deep into the sand alongside Chiun's head. He knew that in silhouette, it would look as if he had applied the finishing stroke to Chiun's head.
He paused there for a moment, as if exhausted, then
stood and raised his arms over his head in the prize fighter's signal of victory.
"Don't get carried away, Remo," said Chiun softly.
"The Master is dead," Remo shouted. "I am the Master."
And Chiun hissed, "You wish."
Remo carried Chiun away from the oasis in his arms. Once he whispered, "You're getting fat, Little Father."
"Seven stones," Chiun whispered. "I never change. I will always be sweet, lovable, and small."
"Fat," Remo said.
"Silence. We are drawing near."
Remo stood in front of Sheik Fareem in the early evening darkness and said, "The Master is dead."
In the light of a campfire, Remo could see tears in Fareem's eyes.
"I would carve you in half," he told Remo bitterly. "But the Master himself made me pledge that neither I nor any of my people would lift a hand against you."
"I am pleased with that," Remo said, "as would be my father. He will lie in his tent tonight. No one may visit him because his soul must be undisturbed until it is accepted into eternity by his ancestors. It is our way."
"It shall be as you wish," Fareem said.
The only trouble with Chiun's impersonation of a corpse, Remo decided, was that dead men didn't generally snore. Not that Chiun's snore, as he slept in state in his tent, was the occasional full-throated goose honk that ruined Remo's sleep and occasionally startled Chiun from his own bed with a quizzical look on his face as he glanced around, wondering what flight of migrating birds had had the temerity to pass through his sleeping chamber.
No, this was not Chiun's full snore, but a tinny, hissing sip of air that Remo knew could not be heard by anyone but him.
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The village now was silent, and Remo could hear the faint puffs of breeze rustling the fronds of the palm trees. He heard steps coming toward his tent.
Remo feigned sleep, and Reva Bleem slipped into bis teat and crossed the saad floor toward him. She was tryiag to be säent, but her skidding steps filled Remo's ears and drowned out the faint hiss of Chiun sleeping. Reva wore a heavy, musky perfume that overpowered Remo's delicate senses and made him wonder how a bee could stand being a bee with its nose stuck hito flowers all day. Didn't bees ever want to throw up?
"Remo?" Reva whispered.
"Ummmm," he answered, as if still asleep and responding to a sound that had somehow flickered into his consciousness.
"Don't wake up, Remo," she said. "I'm going to take care of you while you're sleeping."
He felt Reva slip onto the sleeping mat beside him and felt her hand rest lightly on his naked stomach.
As if moving in his sleep, he reached over with his left hand and brushed the inside of her left wrist. Among the things Chiun had taught Remo iñ their interminable training
were the methods for transporting women to sexual ecstasy. Remo had learned three separate techniques. One took twenty-seven steps, another took thirty-seven, and the third took fifty-two, but Chiun had warned him never to use that technique on a normal woman because it would make her insane.
"Then why bother learning it," Remo had said, "if I'm not allowed to use it on a woman? I'm sure as dick not going to use it on a man."
"Must you always be disgusting?" Chiun had said. "You learn it because it is necessary to learn it."
"That's no answer. Why learn something that has no value?"
"Have you never heard of knowledge for knowledge's sake? Learn this, Remo, and maybe someday you can write a book and tell your secrets and make much money."
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r
"I have all the money I need," Remo had said.
"That's right. Think only of yourself," Chiun had said, hinting at some possible dire need for money that Chiun might face someday, ignoring the fact that his house in the village of Sinanju was filled with jars of diamonds and emeralds and gold.
So Remo had mastered the three separate techniques. But in learning how, it had taken all the fun out of sex for hún. He found himself an orgasm counter, playing elaborate mental games, keeping track of how long it took this time, as opposed to the last time.
He decided on the twenty-seven step technique. It was quicker and more primitive' than the others, but Chiun had assured hún that white women would never know the difference. Remo couldn't tell; he couldn't remember anyone ever lasting beyond step thirteen.*
The left wrist was the starting point for all three methods. It required Remo's locating with his middle finger the woman's faint pulse and then gently keeping tune with the pulse; once he had the rhythm, he had to press his finger down on the wrist in increasingly faster taps, spurring that pulse and the heart to beat faster than it had been beating. If done correctly—and he always did it correctly—he could, by doing nothing more than touching the inside of a woman's left wrist, get her heartbeat up to 130 beats a minute.
Remo's problem was that he sometimes got bored and wanted to hurry along, skipping steps, getting it over with as soon as possible. But he couldn't do that tonight. He wanted to jellify Reva Bleem, and he wanted to make sure that she would take him to her leader. Reva purred and leaned over Remo and let the
* authors' note: Many people have expressed interest in the precise nature of the steps used by Remo to bring women to a state of erotic fulfillment The authors have decided not to reveal these techniques, however, because they have no interest in seeing half the world's population reduced to quivering, happy, mindless sex slaves. The knowledge of the techniques must remain safely with Chiun, Remo, and the authors. Sorry.
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tips of her breasts touch his chest, but she was careful not to move her wrist away from his hand. He could feel her heartbeat beginning to race. He went through steps two and three slowly, still feigning sleep, then went to step four with the small of Reva's back.
Step five was the inside of the left knee. Or was it the right knee? Remo thought about it for a moment, as Reva's fingertips traced along his body, up and down his belly, up and down his legs. No, he was sure. It was the inside of the left knee. All the techniques were symmetrical. One knee, then the other knee. One armpit and then the other armpit. One ankle, then the other ankle. But they all started on the left side, the heart's side of the body. That allowed women to be lifted erotically and then, by switching to the right side, allowed them down gently until Remo moved into the next pair of steps. It treated a woman like a yo-yo, and that was one of the things Remo resented about it. He didn't like treating women like yo-yos. He had liked sex more when he wasn't so good at it, when the outcome was sometimes in doubt, when he could await an honest answer to the question: "Was it good for you too?" Now it was always good for them, and that had made it no good for Remo. Maybe he would give up sex, he thought, as he let his supposedly sleeping fingers walk around to the back of Reva's left knee. Celibacy. It might be the wave of the future. Until the future ran out because there were no more children to bring about the future.
Remo threw his left arm over Reva and brought his face close to hers and said softly, "Ohhh, Reva." The woman was shuddering in response to Remo's touches, but she said to him, "Just lie still. I'll take care of everything."
"It's been such a day," he whined. Women liked whiners in bed.
"I know. It must have been terrible for you, having to do that to your own friend."
"Awful." Remo wondered if Chiun was listening. He could not hear the faint snores from the next tent.
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Probably Chiun was listening. The old voyeur. It would serve him right. "Of course, he deserved to die," Remo said. "He was nasty and narrow-minded. He was never nice to me, and he ignored everything I had done for him. He carped. He was so old and decrepit that I had to help him around some. Without me, he would have been nothing."
Remo heard a faint gasp in the next tent. Good. That would teach Chiun to eavesdrop.
"I knew when I saw you that only you would be able to do away with, him. Ohhhh, yes, do that," Reva said.
"I am doing that," Remo said.
"But if you're so strong, what can do away with you?"
"Nothing, I guess," said Remo. He added brightly, "Except love and respect. I've never had much of either. I'm an orphan, you know." That was a good touch, he thought. Women always rationalized making love to a man if he had had a troubled youth. It brought out the motherly side in them, and it also made them feel as if they weren't making love just out of horniness but out of compassion and concern.
"Are you happy he's gone?" Remo asked as he began to work the insides of her thighs. Reva's body was trembling.
"Yes," she said. "Yes."
"And the bacterium's destroyed?"
"Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, yes, yes."
"But there's more of it, isn't there?" Remo asked.
"Yes. A lot more. A lot more. All on St. Maar-ten's."
"Who developed it?" Remo asked.
"My friend. Oh, dear. My friend. I never . . . ohhhh..."
"What's your friend's name?" Remo asked. He was working the inside of the thigh now. He thought it was step eight. But it might be nine. He hoped he hadn't lost count. He didn't want to start all over again. .
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"I don't know. I never met him. He's just my friend. Can't this wait? Please? Do what you're doing."
"If you don't talk to me now, I'll stop what I'm doing," Remo said. The woman was shivering uncontrollably, as if she were soaking wet, naked, in the middle of an ice storm.
"No, no, no, no."
" 'Cause if I stop, there'll be no more of this ... or this." That was nine and ten. Or was it ten and eleven?
"Oh, no, don't stop. I don't know. I only talk to him on the phone. He helped me build my companies. He gave us the formula for Polypussides and for the rapid-breeder bacteria."
"And he really wanted the world's oil supply destroyed?" Remo said.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes."
"Why?"
"He said there's a big profit in it."
"Why didn't you just give the bacteria to the sheik?"
"He wanted me to wait until you and the old man either killed each other or came to work for him," she said. Her breath was was coming quickly now.
"Why?"
"He said there might be more profit in you two," she said.
Reva grabbed Remo's body now and pulled him to her, and Remo coupled with her even as she was spasming, and she turned her face from him and chewed on her lips and threw the back of her hand across her mouth to stifle a small scream.
And Remo heard Chiun, finally, grumbling under his breath, but so softly that no one could hear it but Remo. "Disgusting," Chiun said. "Like dogs in the street."
And because he thought it might annoy Chiun, who deserved all the annoyance he could get, Remo joined with Reva, tried to join her happily, in open g
ladness, and tried to revel in making love to her body, the old-fashioned way, the way he did before he had been
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trained, and he whispered in her ear, "You're going to introduce me to your friend."
And Reva said, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."
And later, while they rested, she said, "You really have no weaknesses, have you?"
"Nothing like if you cut my hair ot, I get weak or anything Hke that," Remo said.
**I want you to meet my friend," she said.
And Remo said, "I'm looking forward to it."
Sheik Fareem was sleeping. The death of the little Master had grieved him and so had his promise to the Master, before he was killed, not to take vengeance on the young American.
But his sleep was troubled. It was troubled with visions of the old Master and the young American battling. He dreamed that he saw the people of his tribe drowning in pools of oil, and the oil seemed to be not merely a liquid but a living, growing pool of evil that swallowed up all that it encountered.
In his sleep, he heard a voice. It spoke softly into his ear as if it were very close to him.
It said, "You are a good and wise ruler, but you are wrong."
Fareem groaned lightly in his sleep.
"Oil is not your enemy. Time is. Oil is not changing your people, but the onward march of time is. You can either teach your people to live with the oil, with the changes that time is bringing to their lives, or you can flee with them farther into the desert, to try to escape change. But there, you must know, that when you leave this world, there will be no one to teach them to Uve."
The sheik groaned again.
"You must use your wisdom to make your people wise," the voice said. "It is all a father can do, and you are the father of your people. You cannot give them of your wisdom; you must lead them to the edges of their own. For the world is changing and we ... you and I •. .'we must understand those changes."
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The sheik slowly felt himself lifting out of sleep, but from a distance, as if it did not belong to him, he heard a voice, his own voice, say, "Who are you?"
He tried to open his eyes, but it felt as if delicate fingertips were on them, holding them closed.
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